Royal Caribbean International
Monarch of the Seas Cruise Review
Ensenada

Richard Park

This is our second cruise; Our first was with Celebrity to Alaska. I calculated that our per/night stay difference between the two cruises to be about $160/night with Royal, and $260/night with Celebrity... so we definitely noticed the difference in quality.

The Staterooms:
They are a lot smaller. We had a baby with us, and our room held the playpen plus the bed. We had two suitcases, and that left us with zero walking room. To access the playpen, we had to climb onto the bed, making it very difficult to pick-up and lower our child. If you bring a stroller, it had better fold up and be able to put into the closet. The stateroom was clean, though it was noticeable that the room was wearing down.

The Food:
Was good, but not high quality. It was also a bit too salty overall. There was very little seafood and the cuts of beef were lower quality and tough. There seemed to be a lot of mashed potatoes each night. (Just something I noticed). The few fish dishes they offered were deep-fried. Sorrento's pizza was very good though. The chocolate buffet had surprisingly few chocolates. You had to pay for the Sushi restaurant and the Ben and Jerry's ice-cream, so we never went.

The Ports of Call:
San Diego was nice, as was Catalina Island. San Diego has good public transportation, and if you are willing to walk 20-30 minutes, could even make it to Balboa Park/San Diego Zoo. Catalina Island is your typical small touristy island place. Beach was not that nice. There wasn't much at Ensenada, and after one hour downtown, we headed back to the ship. We did not book any excursions.

The Shows:
They were not good. In general, these are shows I wouldn't want to go see again or recommend them to people, though I suppose if you're already on the ship, you'd probably sit through them to pre-occupy your time.

The Service: The stateroom attendants, staff, and waiters were very good.

Other Stuff: They had a nice gym. The foyer and central areas are nicely decorated and spacious. They had a large casino with many slot machines.

Comparison with Celebrity:
Each meal at Celebrity had such high quality food that, for example, I would value their dinner's at $100... i.e. I that's how much I would have to pay for something similar on land. The meals on Royal, while good, could be had for $30. Likewise for the shows...

Royal had a much younger crowd, and the shows tended to be more boisterous. There were a lot more people on the pools and decks too.

Overall: I'm not a huge fan of cruises. We went on this one because many of our family was going on it. If you go as a group, then your enjoyment will be based primarily among friends/family. However, if it is just two people, you'd get much better value on a higher-end ship.