3-day cruise to Ensenada on Monarchy of Sea

[private92656]

We just got back from a 3 day weekend cruise to Ensenada on Monarchy of Sea. Had a wonderful time on the ship. Since I have learned so much from you guys here, I feel like it's my duty to report my cruise experience so others

can benefit from it.

 

First just a little background info. I went with DW, and 2 DD's (3 and 8). We were with another family of 4 at same age group. The kids were best friends since pre-school days. Each family booked an inside cabin on deck 6. Our families have been cruising together for couple of years now. This is our 12th cruise, 4th with RCI, and 5th on this itenary ( we went with Carnival's Holiday and Ecstacy

several times). We are in our mid 30's. We booked the trip couple of weeks before the sailing date online, got a pretty good price. Have been to Ensenada many many times before. We were just looking for a relexing get-away from the work kind of weekend.

 

I will do the review now, please keep in mind that this is my personal experience. Each sailing is different due to change in demographic, whether, cruise director, entertainers, chefs, etc. I will just report as I saw it.

 

Overall we had a fantastic time. The ship was clean and well maintained. The service was generally excellent with one exception. Staffs were friendly and generous with

smile. Food in DR is decent and we certainly gained a little weight.

 

Now on each topic I shall cover:

 

1) Embarkation: we got there around 2:40pm, easily found a porter to take our luggage. The line was pretty short at the check in desk. We waited about 5-6 minutes before we were issued our seapass cards. Didn't take long to walk through the gangway. They had a separate area for boarding photo now, instead of blocking the entire lines. This reduce the wait to a minimum. They also have a new policy that you are not allowed to take pictures while you walk from terminal to gangway. Don't know why, and the guy at the photo booth simply said "it's the policy now" without providing any reason.

 

Rating: A

 

2) Ship: It's beautiful ship and the staffs have done a excellent job of keeping the ship clean. No odd smells. I'm not going to describe the layout of the ship. You can easily find it from this website via the official review of this particular ship.

 

Rating: A

 

3) Room: we have an inside room on tween deck. It's small, especiall for 4 of us. But we know what we were getting beforehand. So no surprise there. The TV in our room was broken, and it was not fixed by the time we disembark. We did call for repair once, but since we didn't spent much time in the room, so it wasn't a big deal for us. AC worked perfectly.

 

Rating: A-

 

4) Room service: we have Rojan as our room attendant. He introduced himself right after we got into our room. Very friendly and nice fellow, though sometimes hard to understand his English. He kept our clean, did the towel animal thing, and was very quick to our request for couple of extra towels.

 

Rating: A

 

5) DR food: the food can be described as good banquet food. No surprise there, considering how many people they have to serve simultaneously. My steak was prepared to my order. The kids enjoyed pasta with meat sauce.

 

Rating: B

 

6) DR service: we have Ahmet from Turkey, he is very friendly and provided great service. Though his English was also hard to understand, I had to ask him to slow down couple of times, so I could get what he was trying to communicate. My water glass was never empty and food

was served hot. The bar service guy was always availabe and quick with our orders. The waiters did the singing and dance too.

 

Rating: A

 

7) Entertaiment: Our CD was Marc Walker, a very funny and energetic guy. First night, it was the welcome onboard show with a very talented comedy impressionist. You are in luck if you catch this guy. Sorry I just could recall the name now. Second night was the main production show call "Fast forward". It's your typical LV style mix of singing and dancing. I had to say some of the show girls had spent a little too much time at the buffet line. Then there was the have-to-have-on-a-cruise love and marriage show. On third night, they featured a couple called "Los Diablos Gauchos" with some very unique skill. A comedian who was billed as "top comedian in LA" also did his trick. His name is Don Barnhart. He also did the mid-night adult comedy show. Very medicore, one of passenger yielded "you sucks" towards the end of teh show. I think that was the highlight of the show. Enough said.

 

Rating: B+

 

8) Activities: they have all the common stuff: sexiest leg, hairest chest, bellyflop competitions. Cooking demo, wine tasting, bingo too. All of the people in our group did the rock climbing.

 

Rating: A-

 

9) Poolside: we spent condierable amount of time around the pool, including the kids. You got your expected chair hogs. Surprisingly, RCI is doing something about this,

however may went a little too far. Now you can only have 1 towel per person. I had a hard time trying to get 2 for my 2 kids. I found a second-row chair around the deck, then need to get a drink from the windjammer for the kids. By the time I got back, the towel was gone, though the chair was not occupied. I asked the guy next to me, and was told that the poolside attendant has taken it. I was only gone for about 5-6 minutes.

 

Now for the only time where I think RCI has dropped the ball in service. I went to the "towel attendant" and ask for 2 extra towels again. I knew he was going to give me a hard time, but this is what happened:

 

He: "you cannot have more towels".

Me: "Someone took my towel"

He: "Did you talk to our staff there, they should find out who took it"

Me: "You must be kidding, can I talk to the supervisor?"

He: "I don't know where he is. But I will let you have 1 towel this time."

Me: "I got 2 kids in the pool, I need 2"

He: "You really have 2 kids?"

Me: "Where is your supervisor?"

He: "All right, here is your 2 towels."

 

So he grab couple of towels, and kind of throw them at me. I was ready to ask for his supervisor again, then I heard my kids calling for me. So I kind of let it go. But that was not what I expected from a RCI staff.

 

Rating: C

 

8) Disembarkation: very smooth. They provide all the info you need in writing on the last day. You can now disembark immediately after the ship is cleared by our government if you have passport and carry your own luggage. Since we

lived 40 minutes away from the pier, so we decide to take it easy and waited for our turn as they called the colors. Since we have the passports, so we were able to be in the parking lot about 45 minutes after our color was called.

 

9) Personal pet peevee:

 

Can they spent a little more money on the speakers in dinning room? It's awful. You can get much better one for less than $50 at local Fry's.

[Dorothy]

I was just on Monarch about a week or so ago. I was at the pool and never saw a towel attendant. They had the fresh towels and the bin for "used" out in the open for anyone to take. That's totally bizarre what happened to you.

 

I also experienced a very quick disembarkment, but that was because we had passports just as yourselves. On my cruise, those without passports took hours to get through immigration.

 

I'm glad you had a good time other than the towel man giving you a hard time. Monarch is good for a quick weekend getaway, but that's about it for me.

[DEERINH2O]

Thank you for the review. I am going on the Monarch on the 25th. It was a last minute quick getaway type of thing. My DH and myself have been on the Ecstasy and Holiday with and without kids. I do like RCI and am excited to try a four day. I plan to use these four days to lay by the pool and use the spa. We sent in for our Passports for our upcoming Mariner cruise, but for this one we will only have our birth certificates, not really worried about waiting to get off, we only live 30 mins as well and not in a hurry to go home.

Thanks again for the great reveiw. look forward to having fun.

 

Kathy

[private92656]

I was puzzled by this too. They usually have bins at 2 corners. One for clean ones and the other for used ones. In my case, those bins were empty. However RCI has setup a "towel station" next to the bar, and they do have someone there to make sure that you only take one towel at a time. My guess is that it's a sea day, and they are running low on clean towel supply. I have no problem with one towel per person, except the rough time I had with the staff there. It's like they are guarding some precious jewels. It's kind of funny when I think about it now.

[private92656]

Thank you for the review. I am going on the Monarch on the 25th. It was a last minute quick getaway type of thing. My DH and myself have been on the Ecstasy and Holiday with and without kids. I do like RCI and am excited to try a four day. I plan to use these four days to lay by the pool and use the spa. We sent in for our Passports for our upcoming Mariner cruise, but for this one we will only have our birth certificates, not really worried about waiting to get off, we only live 30 mins as well and not in a hurry to go home.

Thanks again for the great reveiw. look forward to having fun.

 

Kathy

 

 

I'm sure you will have lots of fun on MOS. Isn't that great that we can book a last minute deal and don't have to worry about flight delays, or overnight stays. I only wish that we have more choices in terms of destination.

 

I have done the same cruise on MOS a little over a year ago, noticed couple of changes RCI made:

 

1) less offering during breakfast and lunch at Jade on Asian themed dishes.

 

2) the minimum bet at blackjack table has been increased from $5 to $10.

 

3) when you try their automatic tip system, you will receive a voucher for each person to tip. then you simply put the voucher in an envelop and give it to the server. I really like this system. I was able to put the tip on my credit card, but also put in some extra for the waiter for his outstanding service, and deliver it in person. I think all cruise line should adopt this system.