Monarch Review w/Pics from 1/31 sailing

[travelgrl1278]

Part 1

 

We flew down to MCO from DTW the night before. We got a great deal at the Hilton Garden Inn Airport in Orlando. The package included round-trip transfers for 2 people to the port. My three frustrations with this is 1. We booked (and paid a little extra for) a king room and upon check in got 2 queens, this was quickly fixed. 2. The hotel is doing some renovations and being woken up at 8am by workers walking on the room and doing who knows what outside wasn’t the best. 3. We didn’t get to pick our departure time from the hotel to the port, so we didn’t get to the port until about 12:45. But on the up side we were able to go straight to our room and drop off stuff then go eat lunch in the Windjammer.

We booked an interior room #3601 to be exact. We later regretted that decision. We knew from deck plans we were under Guest Relations & behind the Photo viewing area. Didn’t think this would be a huge deal…we were WRONG! There seemed to be CONSTANT running from around 8am until 11:30 at night. I asked our room steward Stephen what it could be (you know if it were truly “running”), he said that the noise probably was from Guest Relations area, and that there were also some crew stairs around there so that might be it to. I would NEVER book this part of the ship on deck 3 again. Definitely would go back to deck 2 (where I was on Majesty in 2007).

So off to lunch we went. I swear I know it will never change but seriously people act like they have never eaten and will never eat again in the Windjammer. My only advise is be prepared for crowds & others’ lack of manners and then you won’t be shocked. The food was good. I tried the Honey Stung Chicken and I have to be VERY honest…I didn’t see the fabulousness in this that many other here seem to, but that’s the wonderful thing about the Windjammer…there’s something for everyone! I loved the paella and the salad bar. And even on day one that staff was so helpful!

After lunch we wandered the ship, showed my boyfriend where to find different things. Actually saw part of Monarch that I never even took the time to consider seeking out on my 2007 Majesty cruise. We realized that it was getting close to Muster so we quickly made our way back to our room to gather our books, and then off to muster then sail away. But not before meeting out FABULOUS stateroom attendant Stephen. My boyfriend is a smoker and wanted a little more quiet so we headed off to deck 7 scored a couple of chairs and did what my boyfriend was looking forward to for our vacation…reading. Then we wandered around deck 7 and saw a beautiful sunset!

 

Off to dinner where we enjoyed a good meal with great service. We had late seating and couldn’t have been happier. Our waiter Don & asst waiter Joseph were wonderful. We both had scallop risotto which was decent, a little bland, and then the Lamb Shank. I loved the lamb, my boyfriend was disappointed in the sauce that garnished the plate, he thought it tasted to much like a packaged “Beef” gravy. And we each had the Tiramisu for dessert (although boyfriend is arguing he had some kind of "banana" dessert, I don't know I swear he had the same as me).

We walked around the ship a lot. Visited the Viking Crown and had a drink, walked around more...went and unpacked and hit the casino for a little bit.

[travelgrl1278]

if it's slow at work today I'm hoping to get the rest of the review up. If not it will be completed this evening!

[lcyccruiser]

Love your review so far....we have sailed on the Monarch several times and always enjoy reading other traveler's reviews of her.....! She is our favorite RCCL ship.

 

Chris

[saved_92]

Thanks for the info. Going on our first cruise in September. Monarch is our ship. Thanks again.

[Lynne95]

Looking forward to more info. We are sailing out on the 28th, so it's fun to read your impressions.

 

Thanks for doing so. Did you get copies of the Daily Compass?

[LBumb]

great start

[Mary Ellen]

Thank you for sharing your experience with us.

[Purplehaze21]

Can't wait to read more. This will be my daughters 1st cruise and she reads everything she can on this ship LOL I am so excited and can't wait!

[mrs.coach]

Love reading your review so far. We are getting on the Monarch this Friday!!!!! Yay. Still can't decide what to pack...... decisions, decisions.

[BillOh]

Part 1

 

I tried the Honey Stung Chicken and I have to be VERY honest…I didn’t see the fabulousness in this that many other here seem to,

 

Here is where you have to act like you have never eaten and will never eat again! ;) Grab 3 pieces, one of them is bound to be excellent. :D

[travelgrl1278]

Day 2 - CocoCay

 

We ordered room service to deliver coffee & fruit at 7:30am. They called about 5 minutes before, just enough time to pull myself together a little. We did this in hopes that we would get moving early enough in the day as my boyfriend wanted to workout a little before going on to CocoCay…well we each sat in bed with a cup of coffee and ended up falling back to sleep. I woke up at 10 and went up to the Windjammer for breakfast, it was good, there weren’t too many people left there and I got a great seat with a wonderful view of the island and people parasailing.

 

I returned to our room and my boyfriend was up and dressed for the gym. I changed clothes then headed up there with him. There were a few others in the gym but not many. I got on an elliptical and the screen wouldn’t work…ok moved over to a treadmill, got an error message within 2 seconds. Getting frustrating and starting to feel like its my fault I made my boyfriend pick a random machine and see what happens…he got on a treadmill and sure enough within 5 seconds an error message and it wouldn’t work. An older lady walking a few machines down said she had been having problems and the staff had been notified. Ok fine, moved on to a bike, rode about 5 miles then did some light weights while my boyfriend finished up. We went to the pool and sat & read for a little bit. We were watching tenders and seeing that many were going out full still so we decided to wait a little bit. We went and had a little lunch in the Windjammer then we went back to our room and changed for CocoCay and packed up our beach bag. We got over to the island around 1:30. We walked around for a bit, this was my 2nd time on the island so my boyfriend wanted to explore some. We walked over to the beach between the waverunners and the water park area along out walk we found this cute little crab.

 

 

We went on to find some chairs down the way and sprayed on some SPF 15 and stayed there napping and reading until about 3:45 (the last tender was at 4:30). It was a beautiful day a little windy, but that wind made me more comfortable (I actually don’t like hot & humid). The unfortunate part of the day was when we got back to the ship and realized that I had missed a strip down the back of my ghost white skin…HELLO SUNBURN, and that I somehow forgot to put anything on my face. I’m used to wearing makeup that has SPF in it so I don’t have to think about it at all…well hello going to the beach I decided not to put any on, ugh!

 

It was formal night, I wore a black cocktail dress and the boy wore dress pants and a dress shirt (he didn’t want to dress up at all and I did so I was happy with his compromise and decided not to force the Jacket/tie issue). That night we each had the Lobster Bisque, Filet of Beef and I had strawberry cheesecake while he had SF coconut cake. I didn’t care for the soup very much, I remember it being different on my first cruise. But everything else was great. We changed clothes and went to the show Signed Sealed Delivered which was fairly good, my boyfriend actually enjoyed himself which I did not expect.

 

 

We spent more time up in the Viking Crown, then by the pool just chatting and having coffee, a slice of pizza then a walk around deck 7 and a quick $25 in the casino capped off a great day.

[Radio]

Wow. . . It sounds like you two had alot of fun !:)

 

 

Thanks for posting ! It is great to see a review w/pics !

 

 

 

 

Radio

;);)

 

 

 

.

[travelgrl1278]

Day 3 – Nassau

We voted against ordering coffee for the room this morning and instead forced ourselves out of bed at a decent time. We went and had breakfast in the Windjammer and sat forward looking out at the bay toward Arawak Cay. There were a total of 3 ships in port (us, Carnival & NCL) and saw a 4th heading in (Regent). We got our stuff together, “Sunscreen’d up”, and headed off the ship into town. We decided to just wander around, my boyfriend did not like the crowds at all. His dislike for the crowds only grew when we went to the straw market. Now normally I would have just skipped this based on my going there on my first cruise, but my boyfriend insisted on going as he wanted to look for souvenirs for his family & staff. We were able to pick up almost all of our gifts for everyone for under $40, which really was a savings. After that we ended going to the Pirate Museum. It wasn’t phenomenal, but it was informative and shaded as it was indoors (my face and arm was very burnt from the day before) which was a blessing at that moment. From there we disagreed for about 20 minutes on whether or not to go to Arawak Cay and if so how were we getting there. I wanted to jump on the #10, and my boyfriend wanted to talk. I told him I would walk there but then we had to take a taxi from there all the way over to Atlantis. So that’s what we did. Along our walk we looked back at the port and saw that there were now 5 ships, Majesty had joined the port.

 

We went and had Conch Fritters at Goldies. It was our first time trying Conch. I’d eat it again, however I have a feeling that the restaurant owners realized over time that the tourists come to the restaurants I think their prices are severely inflated. But I like to look at it as an experience. Our waitress was nice, the place was clean, the food was filling & the beer was cold…oh and they had A/C (remember that sunburn I had!), couldn’t really ask for more at that moment.

We started to walk back toward downtown and someone asked if we’d like a taxi (I immediately said yes), the guy who asked us was not the guy who ended up driving us and boy was I glad. The first guy offered my boyfriend “some smoke”, my boyfriend declined, and the guy started harassing him asking if he only said no because his girly was with him. I don’t know what made him think my boyfriend did this type of thing as he doesn’t, and it wasn’t like he had a shirt with a pot leaf on it. Anyhow “YellowMan” as he called himself took us over to. We had to walk through the casino the shops (I’m sure he could have lived without that). We really had wanted to do “The Dig”, but when we went to get tickets we were told they were already closed for the day. It was only around 3/3:30 so I was a little annoyed, as that was what my boyfriend was looking forward to the most at Atlantis; but really it was our fault for not going there first. We grabbed a taxi back downtown, walked around a little more and decided to just head back to the ship and hang out there for the evening/night as it seemed around 5/6pm most of the city shut down.

Back on ship we dropped our stuff in the room, grabbed an ice cream at ben & jerry’s and then went to deck 7 for a little reading & boyfriend smoking. After that we moved up to the pool deck, grabbed a couple of chairs and read for a bit. Soon it was dinner time. My boyfriend had made the request of skipping the dining room that night, and even though I really didn’t want to I went along with it. He later said that while the food was good, he wished we would have eaten in the dining room. He said he missed the service there and that the food was a little better. We went back to the pool area for a bit then went and changed clothes and decided to go see the Juggler/Comedian who was very entertaining, then even though he didn’t want to stay we ended up staying for the Love & Marriage show, HILARIOUS!

We decided to head to the casino for a few minutes, then wanted to go watch us leave Nassau, now I have to admit this is only my 2nd cruise, however when we were leaving I was really shocked at how close the pilot boat got to the ship. I missed the picture but at one point it was so close that when looking down from deck 7 you couldn’t see the entire pilot boat. The PB at Port Canaveral did not get that close at all. The pic below was after he started pulling away from our ship.

After that we had a nightcap in the Viking Crown and headed to bed for the night.

[travelgrl1278]

Day 4 – At Sea

We got up and made it to the Windjammer about 10:15…almost time for breakfast to be done but there was plenty of food and we made sure to get what we needed and get out of the way. After we ate we went back to deck 7, grabbed a couple of chairs read for an hour or more and decided to go to our room for a little nap, what can I say I’m on vacation and I love to sleep and an interior stateroom with no windows is a perfect napping room!

We woke up and had lunch. We headed out to the pool area after that and though I’m not an idiot I knew that the ship would be full as we were at sea, I could not believe the number of people up there AND the number of chair hoggers! Unbelievable! We could not find 2 loungers together, so we gave up went back into the Windjammer area and decided to play some card games that I had brought along. After we got bored with that we went to the shops picked up a couple of things, stopped by the casino and actually won a little, not a lot but something is something. We went back to deck 7, managed to get 2 chairs next to each other and proceeded to read & chat for quite a long time.

 

We went up to deck 12 and got some ice cream (the free stuff), and then wandered around the ship wasting time. It was getting close to early seating dinner so we were able to get a couple of loungers where we decided not to attend the final show, and stayed around the pool until almost 7:30pm. This afforded us BEAUTIFUL sunset pictures!

We went back and got cleaned up for our dinner at 8:30. That night my boyfriend had Shrimp Cocktail and I had Spinach Dip as our starters. For entrée’s boyfriend had the Shrimp & Mahi Mahi Tempura, and I enjoyed a NY Strip Steak. Both were awesome. We each had the Brownie Cookie sandwich with a side scoop of vanilla ice cream…YUMMY!!!! At dinner our waiters put on a little dance for everyone and then we all had to dance. It really was a lot of fun. We said goodbye to our wonderful waiters gave them their gratuity envelopes and went back to our room to pack our bags to have them out before midnight.

Around 11:30 we went to use the internet and checked in online for our flight home and printed our boarding passes. We were on 8 minutes and it cost almost $6, but saved us at least an hour at the airport. I hadn’t spent all my gambling money yet so we went back to the casino. I had about $100 left in my gambling stash that I was willing to lose, but decided to only spend $50 of it. Well on my very last pull on a 2 cent slot I won a progressive jackpot and ended up winning almost $150 so between my winning that and my winning at Atlantis (won about $25 there). I made about $10, lol…oh well it was fun. We went and got a slice of pizza, took one last evening stroll around the ship and headed in for the night. Going to bed that night was so bitter sweet!

Leaving the ship-

We got up early, took showers, did our last minute packing and headed out. We got to the Windjammer and looked out the window to see nothing but crazy thick fog. This then got us worried, wondering if it was the same at the Orlando airport. So since we knew we wouldn’t be getting home until 7pm, as our flight didn’t leave MCO until 2 we had a large breakfast in the Windjammer, then headed off to our designated area, as we were Green 12 set to leave at 8:30am. Now when I sailed Majesty in 2007 they made announcements throughout the ship all morning for the different groups to debark, however at this point it was close to 8:45and we had yet to hear any announcements. We were supposed to go to the Sound of Music Theater…we got there about 8:20 and I swear that’s were 99% of the ship was waiting. After standing around waiting for almost 30 minutes, the husband of the couple sitting next to us went to find out as they were Green 13. He emerged a few minutes later with the information that they had already “called” up to Green 14 and we could leave at anytime. Now I was sad to leave, but also knew we needed to catch our shuttle back to the airport. We did hear one announcement as we were walking to get in line about those carrying off their own bags were still welcome to depart the ship at anytime. A few minutes of line waiting later we were standing in front of a CBP officer and off to get our luggage. We ended up waiting about 15 minutes for our shuttle to get there which worked out great because I was able to move all my “morning” stuff back into my suitcase while we waited. Here’s a picture of that mornings fog.

As we made our way back to Orlando the fog lifted slightly but was still very thick. By the time we decided to go through security (about 45 mins after we arrived at the airport – waited to do this as we got there almost 3 hours early there weren’t long lines by our gate area and as I mentioned boyfriend is a smoker and once we were through he wouldn’t be able to go back out). Our flight was completely full and they were offering to check carryon bags for free as there wouldn’t be enough overhead room. Finally they boarded the plane. We got on our Delta flight for Detroit, only to find out we had no pilots, their flight was delayed coming in so we had to sit there waiting for them for almost 30 minutes. It got warm and boring sitting there but we actually ended up getting into Detroit about 5 minutes early (have no clue on how you leave almost 40 minutes late and arrive 5 minutes early). While we were gone our area in Michigan was predicted to get 12-18 inches of snow that Wednesday. We were dreading the idea of having to shovel our driveway the second we pulled up. We were happy to learn that while my mom was over checking on our cats/house Thursday she did our driveway for us (but I can’t ever tell my dad because she won’t do theirs at home, lol). We didn’t get hit with the full 12-18, but we did get a good 8-10. Then it proceeded to drop another 9 over the weekend when we returned. That really made me miss the ship so much!

All in all it was a great vacation. I really thought I would have enjoyed the sea day more then I did. I wish we could have gone to The Dig, & I wish the cruise was longer…but there’s always next time!

[travelgrl1278]

Looking forward to more info. We are sailing out on the 28th, so it's fun to read your impressions.

 

Thanks for doing so. Did you get copies of the Daily Compass?

 

I'm sorry I didn't keep my Daily Compass'. I wish I would have though!

[travelgrl1278]

Love reading your review so far. We are getting on the Monarch this Friday!!!!! Yay. Still can't decide what to pack...... decisions, decisions.

 

We live in Michigan so we had to wear cold weather clothes when leaving as it was only 17F outside. I packed 1 long sleeve tshirt, 1 light spring-ish sweater, 1 pair of jeans and wore a light sweatshirt/hoodie & workout type long pants going down to FL. I was VERY happy that I had my longer sleeves & pants as at night the first 2 nights it was quite windy and a little cool if you wanted to walk around the outside decks at night. During the day we wore shorts & tshirts. Hope that helps!

[crzjnke]

Enjoyed your review! Thanks!

[SpeedGeek]

We decided to head to the casino for a few minutes, then wanted to go watch us leave Nassau, now I have to admit this is only my 2nd cruise, however when we were leaving I was really shocked at how close the pilot boat got to the ship. I missed the picture but at one point it was so close that when looking down from deck 7 you couldn’t see the entire pilot boat. The PB at Port Canaveral did not get that close at all. The pic below was after he started pulling away from our ship.

 

Oh yeah, they get that close. The pilot from the pilot boat has to come on board to navigate the ship through the harbor and then get back off the ship and onto the PB, so they'll run right up alongside the ship.

 

Here's a photo of our October cruise after we left Port Canaveral and the pilot was returning to his boat and giving us a wave. (I was holding my cell phone very carefully over the railing on deck 7 :D )

 

[travelgrl1278]

Oh yeah, they get that close. The pilot from the pilot boat has to come on board to navigate the ship through the harbor and then get back off the ship and onto the PB, so they'll run right up alongside the ship.

 

Here's a photo of our October cruise after we left Port Canaveral and the pilot was returning to his boat and giving us a wave. (I was holding my cell phone very carefully over the railing on deck 7 :D )

 

 

I swear we watched the pilot boat while leaving port canaveral and never saw them that close...wow...guess I was too distracted with the surroundings! LOL!

[Yvonne]

I enjoyed reading your review, and seeing your photos. :) My husband and I were on the 1/24 4-night sailing of the Monarch. I will be doing a trip report as soon as I get my pictures put on a CD. You flew into Detroit, we did too, but 2 days later than we planned because our flight home was supposed to be 2/1 and it was cancelled due to the big snow storm so we got 2 extra days in sunny Florida. :) Power went out at home, but we have a generator on the farm so our son and his family and our daughter and her family all came down to stay at our house while we were gone so they could stay warm. I was ready to come home, but glad we missed out on the bad storm.