Monarch of the Seas - April 18 booze cruise review (long)

[Rivercat]

 

This photo pretty much sums up my cruise this past weekend on the Monarch :)

 

I was one of a group of 7 celebrating my friend's 49th birthday. They booked through an online cruise specialist agency. While the agent was lovely and handled all my details perfectly, one of the other couples never received their cruise documents and we ended up explaining how to print out their Set Sail passes the night before we sailed. Our group ranged in age from 39-70.

 

We boarded at about 2pm on Friday. Check in was smooth and painless. I had an inside cabin on Deck 5 and the others were down on Deck 2 in adjacent oceanview cabins. I'm glad the 8th person I was going to share with wasn't able to make it, 'cuz my cabin was tiny! For 3 nights by myself it was fine, but any longer would have been claustrophobic. I'd also packed in a hurry and forgotten my alarm clock, which is a problem in an inside cabin--it's very disorienting to wake up in the middle of the night and not know whether it's 3am or 7am. I met my cabin steward Ian and then found my bag in the pile in the elevator lobby and unpacked.

 

The staff on Monarch is fabulous! Having just sailed on Vision where the crew was often stone-faced and silent, it was great to encounter such a welcoming and friendly group on Monarch. I don't think I passed a single crew member who did not at least smile and say hello or good morning. It seems quite genuine, too, not just like an order handed down by management. A clerk in the gift shop said it's nice to be on a smaller ship like Monarch because the crew really is like a big family and enjoys working together. Many of them seem excited about transitioning to Florida.

 

The party was already well underway by muster drill. Several people couldn't even stand up, much less make it up the stairs for the drill, and it took ages to get over with. On my last cruise I'd been vaguely aware that buckets of beer were available at the bars, but on this cruise they were the de rigueur accessory: people just wandered around with a bottle in one hand and the bucket tucked up under the other arm! My group can certainly knock back a few (and we did), but some of these people were out of control. It was a pretty happy bunch, though, and I never saw any fights or belligerent behavior. I heard we left at least 3 people behind in Ensenada.

 

For sailway we scored a spot in the Viking Crown lounge right at the front overlooking the pool deck and just watched the show down below. I have to say I've never seen so many tattoos before, and I don't lead a sheltered life by any means :) Because this Viking Crown cantilevers out over the deck, there's a lot of vibration in the front when the engines are going, enough to make my friend pretty motion sick, so after a while we headed back downstairs.

 

In general we had a very smooth sailing. The only rockiness was Saturday night and Sunday morning when we were anchored out at sea. There were quite a few hungover people who were pretty green around the gills that day.

 

There was a little mix up at dinner with our table. The travel agent had arranged a table for 8 for our group, but when we arrived, we were at a table set for 12, sharing with a group of 5 girls. We wouldn't have minded sharing so much, except the settings were so crammed together we wouldn't have been able to eat. They split us up, moving the girls to the "Captain's table" in the center of the room which was right next to us. The following 2 nights, we sat at the Captain's table (minus the Captain) and the girls were moved to a smaller table. Even though the travel agent had also arranged for a birthday cake, it never showed and my friends were too ambivalent about it to follow up.

 

The dining room food (Vincent's, second seating) overall was great. I'd been a little disappointed with the food on Vision, but on the Monarch everything except the desserts was very good. They're using a new brown plastic folder for the menus, and it looks like they've been tinkering with the selections. I had an outstanding white truffled mushroom alfredo pasta one night, and others said the duck, the filet, and the risottos were great. Only the Caesar salad and the pasta shells were a bust. The desserts were also pretty lackluster, except on the final evening when the banana nut thing and the key lime pie were a hit.

 

I was also pretty impressed with the Windjammer. On Vision it's like a disorganized school cafeteria--and about as charming--but on Monarch it's well organized and attractive, more like a real restaurant. Most of the food was pretty tasty, and we especially enjoyed the Asian offerings at breakfast and lunch. The service was excellent. We never got a chance to eat at Sorrentos or Jade.

 

People really dressed up in the evenings too. Even though it was a younger party crowd for the most part, cocktail dresses definitely predominated on both the one formal night and the next night as well, though most of the men were not quite as dressed up. We had 2 men in our group who absolutely did not want to dress up, but our waiter said not to let that stop us from coming to the dining room.

 

Despite the cool weather, we spent a lot of time out by the pool. It was sunny but windy, so I kept my fleece pullover on the whole time since I mostly stayed out of direct sunlight. We stayed on the boat in Ensenada and the pool area was fairly low-key until later when people started coming back on board. Most of us went below to nap at that point. The second day at sea it was a lot more loud and raucous, with tons of people hanging out drinking, dancing, sunbathing, and playing the pool games. All the lounge chairs and tables were occupied. At that point I really missed the comparative quiet of the Solarium on Vision, especially when the bartender competition started up and the music got really loud. I ended up heading downstairs to read in the library and listen to Johnny G's concert in the Centrum (great stuff... don't miss it). Being a smaller ship, the Monarch lacks many quieter nooks and crannies to curl up with a book. There were a couple of groups on board, including a bunch of ukulele enthusiasts(!), so many of the lounges were in use during the day.

 

I felt bad for the crew on this sailing since cleaning up after the party-hearty types must be a constant effort. I was lucky to miss out, but my friends encountered vomit in the elevators, stairways and on deck. It was taken care of immediately, however, and I never smelled anything bad in the public areas. For an older ship, the Monarch is very well maintained and spotless, though definitely showing some wear and tear in the cabins. My bathroom was clean but smelled pretty rank most of the time. My friends had been on Carnival Paradise in January (which sails the same route) and said the Monarch is a much nicer ship.

 

Overall, we had a really nice time and it was definitely good value for the price. I will try to get the Compasses scanned and posted in a day or two. Let me know if you have any questions, and I'll do my best to answer.

 

Kate

[Rivercat]

There was no early departure on my sailing because INS pulled a surprise inspection when we got back into San Pedro (from what I understand, they had notified the ship on Sunday that this would happen), so the entire crew had to come off in small groups and go through immigration with the passengers. We were lucky and got off with the first group at about 7.45, but one couple stayed behind and their group still had not been called by noon :eek:

 

Since I had a 10am flight out of LAX, guest services told me to grab an extra purple tag so my luggage would come off in the first group. They were telling people they would not be allowed to carry their own luggage off the ship, but plenty of people did anyway.

 

Kate