Ziggy7
December 19th, 2004, 02:37 PM
Ok everyone,
Please keep in mind; this was a “Ladies Only” Monarch of the Seas 4 day party cruise and “only my very own opinion” on my first experience with RCL. I know others will have totally different experiences; I am just giving you mine. I’m sorry if this review offends anyone, I want to help others who might want to try this cruise and to anyone who wants a comparison to RCL 4 day cruise.
FLYING DAY:
We didn’t have to fly as we live about 30 minutes drive away from Port Of Los Angeles (San Pedro).
Traffic was light and we arrived a lot earlier than we wanted, approx. 10:30am, we were able to check in (which took all of 5 minutes) but they did not start boarding till 12:00pm. As we were the second group of 15 to board, it only took 15 minutes to get on the ship. Although I was told on the RCL board that they start boarding the ship at 11am, we had a good time laughing during the 1 1/2 hour wait in between checking in and boarding. After all this is where I learned that you could not take pictures anywhere inside the port, I almost got my video camera taken away! And for some reason my group thought this was funny hehehe.
Our cabin was a Jr. Suite #1584, about the same size as our B cat. on the Zuiderdam, a tad smaller though.
We no sooner arrived to our cabin and a birthday cake for me arrived from our TA. It needed to be kept cold. The cabin was not very clean, the fridge did not work and had spilled food in it and running out of it onto the carpet, but it was restocked full with sodas and waters! The girls had it decorated for my birthday, so that was neat. We called to have the cabin cleaned properly and we then headed to the Windjammer buffet to get some lunch.
Lunch food was good but nothing really different than a regular buffet. Great presentation and seemed very clean. You serve yourself, carry your food to your table and a steward would get you your drink. They had 3 areas to serve the buffet from, but most days they only had one open and it was very crowded. One day they has 2 sections open and it was busy but enjoyable and went a lot faster, I hate long lines J and never experienced this on HAL. Lunch in the windjammer was good, breakfast was terrible and we never ate dinner in there. Good deserts, juices were ok and pizza was yucky!
The lifeboat drill, was very casual and it didn’t seem to matter if people showed up or not, they never took names so had no way of knowing who showed up or not. We went because I want to be prepared incase I need to be, but there were a lot of pax missing during this event. The funny part was they didn’t even have women and children in the front, they didn’t put you in any order, so I was in the back and since I am very short, my group couldn’t see me unless I jumped up and down while my life vest was bumping into others around me, so I didn’t want to spoil their vacation soooooooo I just stood there buried in the life vests! Boy was I glad when the drill was over! Hehehe
Back to our cabin only to find our cabin was still not cleaned and it was time to get ready for dinner. Fridge still not working either. And still no suit cases. We called about the cabin and non-working fridge and was assured it would be done right after we left for our 5:30 seating dinner.
DINNING ROOM
We has the 5:30 seating, table #132 for 6, by a window on the port side. There we met our servers Peter and Wayan. They were right on top of things, they even remembered what we liked in our coffee or to drink. We were able to order as much as we wanted, and the servings were larger than on HAL, which was a problem because there was a lot of waste after dinner and I’m not liking a lot of waste J. The food was really well prepared, presented and tasted great! Some dishes were better than others but even then they were good! We tried a lot of new dishes, some we liked and some we didn’t, but it was not because it was cooked poorly, we just didn’t like the taste. The food in the dinning room was very good during dinner meals, good for breakfast and we never ate in there for lunch. I would say the food in the dinning room is very comparable to HALs, but their buffet food was not even close to HALs.
We only saw one after dinner show and it was good, the cast did a seventies disco theme show. The rest of the nights we were in the Jacuzzi, casino, or on our balcony having a good time (not giving details).
We all at some point left our deposit at the casino, the nickel machines were not paying at all. Very tight machines is what pax were grumbling about. My youngest daughter did ok at the BJ tables.
Please keep in mind; this was a “Ladies Only” Monarch of the Seas 4 day party cruise and “only my very own opinion” on my first experience with RCL. I know others will have totally different experiences; I am just giving you mine. I’m sorry if this review offends anyone, I want to help others who might want to try this cruise and to anyone who wants a comparison to RCL 4 day cruise.
FLYING DAY:
We didn’t have to fly as we live about 30 minutes drive away from Port Of Los Angeles (San Pedro).
Traffic was light and we arrived a lot earlier than we wanted, approx. 10:30am, we were able to check in (which took all of 5 minutes) but they did not start boarding till 12:00pm. As we were the second group of 15 to board, it only took 15 minutes to get on the ship. Although I was told on the RCL board that they start boarding the ship at 11am, we had a good time laughing during the 1 1/2 hour wait in between checking in and boarding. After all this is where I learned that you could not take pictures anywhere inside the port, I almost got my video camera taken away! And for some reason my group thought this was funny hehehe.
Our cabin was a Jr. Suite #1584, about the same size as our B cat. on the Zuiderdam, a tad smaller though.
We no sooner arrived to our cabin and a birthday cake for me arrived from our TA. It needed to be kept cold. The cabin was not very clean, the fridge did not work and had spilled food in it and running out of it onto the carpet, but it was restocked full with sodas and waters! The girls had it decorated for my birthday, so that was neat. We called to have the cabin cleaned properly and we then headed to the Windjammer buffet to get some lunch.
Lunch food was good but nothing really different than a regular buffet. Great presentation and seemed very clean. You serve yourself, carry your food to your table and a steward would get you your drink. They had 3 areas to serve the buffet from, but most days they only had one open and it was very crowded. One day they has 2 sections open and it was busy but enjoyable and went a lot faster, I hate long lines J and never experienced this on HAL. Lunch in the windjammer was good, breakfast was terrible and we never ate dinner in there. Good deserts, juices were ok and pizza was yucky!
The lifeboat drill, was very casual and it didn’t seem to matter if people showed up or not, they never took names so had no way of knowing who showed up or not. We went because I want to be prepared incase I need to be, but there were a lot of pax missing during this event. The funny part was they didn’t even have women and children in the front, they didn’t put you in any order, so I was in the back and since I am very short, my group couldn’t see me unless I jumped up and down while my life vest was bumping into others around me, so I didn’t want to spoil their vacation soooooooo I just stood there buried in the life vests! Boy was I glad when the drill was over! Hehehe
Back to our cabin only to find our cabin was still not cleaned and it was time to get ready for dinner. Fridge still not working either. And still no suit cases. We called about the cabin and non-working fridge and was assured it would be done right after we left for our 5:30 seating dinner.
DINNING ROOM
We has the 5:30 seating, table #132 for 6, by a window on the port side. There we met our servers Peter and Wayan. They were right on top of things, they even remembered what we liked in our coffee or to drink. We were able to order as much as we wanted, and the servings were larger than on HAL, which was a problem because there was a lot of waste after dinner and I’m not liking a lot of waste J. The food was really well prepared, presented and tasted great! Some dishes were better than others but even then they were good! We tried a lot of new dishes, some we liked and some we didn’t, but it was not because it was cooked poorly, we just didn’t like the taste. The food in the dinning room was very good during dinner meals, good for breakfast and we never ate in there for lunch. I would say the food in the dinning room is very comparable to HALs, but their buffet food was not even close to HALs.
We only saw one after dinner show and it was good, the cast did a seventies disco theme show. The rest of the nights we were in the Jacuzzi, casino, or on our balcony having a good time (not giving details).
We all at some point left our deposit at the casino, the nickel machines were not paying at all. Very tight machines is what pax were grumbling about. My youngest daughter did ok at the BJ tables.