Katherine L

Age: 13
Occupation: Student
Number of Cruises: 3
Cruise Line: RCCL
Ship: Monarch of the Sea
Sailing Date: July 9th, 2004
Itinerary: Mexico

This is my 3rd cruise, but my 1st with RCCL. We went as a group of two adults, two seniors, an infant, and me. This cruise was a three-day cruise to Ensenada, Mexico. Since I’m only 13, this review may be very helpful to give some teens an idea, and maybe it’ll also help out with adults. I’ll rate each topic on a scale of 1-10, 10 the highest, and 1 as the lowest.

Stateroom (5)
On this cruise, my family booked three interior cabins; each with two beds, since they had ran out of four people cabins. Compared to my last cruises, these staterooms were really small. There was hardly any walking space, and the closets were absolutely tiny, with no shelves for me to put my clothes, and not to mention my luggage. There was barely any room in the bathroom, and the showers were pathetically small. Don’t be fooled by all the pictures on the Internet.

Although the designs of the rooms were very poor, the service was okay. Room service on the other two ships I was on, the Star Princess and Zenith, took over ten minutes. In this time, I could have run out my stateroom, taken the stairs to the top deck, and have gotten food from the buffet. Although the room service on this ship said it would take ten minutes, the food arrived within three minutes.
There’s not much for me, as a teenager, to say about the housekeeping, although they didn’t leave any chocolate on the pillows at night, which made me very disappointed. That was ok though, because I just took the ones from my parent’s room. RCCL has a really stupid policy for their pool towels they leave in you room though. They give you two towels, and tell you that if you lose the towels, you have to pay $20 each for them. You can exchange dirty towels for clean ones on the deck, but you have to have your dirty one with you.
Overall, the staterooms were pretty sad, yet livable.

Food (8)
Food has to be my most favorite thing on a cruise. I’ll start with breakfast. The breakfast buffet on the Monarch of the Sea is what I would call mediocre. It’s decent enough to keep you full until lunch, but some things really gross me out. I usually just ate the fruit, bacon, waffles, pancakes, and potatoes. I hate eggs. I seriously hate eggs. They had two different kinds of scrambled eggs, one plain, and one with salmon. My parent and grandparents, well, they’re adults, so they loved the eggs, but that’s just an opinion. Our family never tried the sit-down breakfast, but my mom’s friends told us it was pretty good. They had omelets (eww), pancakes, basically everything they had upstairs, but it was “presented” nicer.

Lunch wasn’t bad though. This ship didn’t have any sit-down lunches (not that I care), but they had a pizza stall with the best pizza. I’m not kidding. It was seriously good pizza. The pizza bar also had hotdogs. They looked pretty good, but I never got to try one. Their buffet had basically the same food as other buffets, but somehow, it tasted better. There’s actually not much to say about lunch though.

Snacks were foods like sandwiches, pizza, hotdogs, and small desserts. Not much to say about snacks either.

Dinner was pretty good though. Here’s a hint; the waiters usually let you order more than one serving, so a lot of the time, my parents would order two desserts, or two appetizers. Their dinning rooms aren’t as sophisticated, but the service is really fast. It was so much faster than all the other cruises I went on. Once you finished a meal, the second one was there waiting.

In conclusion, the ships food is pretty good.

Children’s Program
The children’s program seemed pretty ok, although I didn’t join it. Teenagers 12-17 have their own lounge, called the Fuel. I stepped inside to take a look one time, and it seemed pretty fun. There are even two arcades for kids. RCCL’s children program is supposed to let kids feel freer than other program. I didn’t really participate in the teen program, but they had some really interesting activities, like a pizza eating contest and scavenger hunts. I can’t really judge the children’s program because I didn’t really participate in it.

Activities (7)
This ship’s activities are just okay compared to other ships I’ve been on. Besides the rock climbing, everything else isn’t that great. The rock wall is definitely something you should try. If you don’t go, you really don’t get your money worth.

Unfortunately, the rock wall doesn’t take reservations. It’s first come, first climb. Even if you can’t make it to the top on your first try, come back the next time it’s open.

Although the ship has says they have two pools, their pool is so small that it’s impossible to swim. Even the water’s a bit murky. If you bring your bathing suit, the only time you’ll ever wear it is to get a tan, or maybe just to look cool.

The ship also has a spa and fitness center. You have to reserve your name for this because there is limited space. Unfortunately, I did not get to experience their spa and fitness center because my parents wouldn’t let me.

There’s also mini games shows and contests, things like the Mr. Sexy Leg Contest, and the Ping-pong tournament. Some of which, I must say, were pretty nasty for a kid like me to watch.

There’s actually a lot more you can do on the ship, but it would take forever to name them all.

Entertainment (6)
I personally think that the quality of this ship’s entertainment was very mediocre. The shows in the theatre were only okay. On the first night, they had a welcome show. This included two comedies, one of which was a silent juggling comedy, and a pretty long talk about the ship’s activities. Don’t get me wrong, but I usually would love to know about the ship’s activities, just ones I can attend, being under 18 and all.

On the second night, the show was absolutely fantastic. It was a one of those bead, feathers, and sequins type of shows called “Star Struck.” It was absolutely fantastic.

On the third night though, it was just some singer singing songs. It wasn’t very entertaining for a teen like me.

What I’m trying to say is that RCCL doesn’t provide many fancy pancy-dancing shows. Although you can’t really blame them because it was a three-day cruise.


This trip is definitely the perfect weekend getaway, but I wouldn’t recommend it to people who have to travel a long way to get to the ports.

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