Royal Caribbean International
Monarch of the Seas Cruise Review
Baja Mexico

Peggy Otter
Age: 25
Occupation: National Account Manager - Telecomm Services
Number of Cruises: 2
Sailing Date: March 17th, 2006

First I want to say this was not my first cruise. I sailed the western caribbean less than a year ago with Celebrity and found that experience to be fantastic. I was so excited about cruising I convinced my sisters to take the 3 day cruise from Ensenada with me on Royal Caribbean.

Unfortunately I found this experience way below my expectations. It started from the moment we arrived with long lines during embarkation. Once onboard, the ship had quite a bit of disrepair and is desperately in need of a complete revamping. Our cabin had mold, rust, and carpet coming up. My sisters had never cruised before and wanted to see the ship leave the dock. This is when we found out almost everything runs behind schedule. We were supposed to leave at 5:30, but didn't start moving until almost an hour later. With such a full ship (almost all partiers and families with young children) seating on the pool deck was hard to come by. This situation only improved after 10pm, by the way.

Dinner was late, but decent. Our waitress was apparently tired of her job and would disappear for 15 - 30 minutes at a time, occasionally mocking us for our orders or getting frustrated when we asked for anything on the side. (what? you want a scoop of ice cream on the side of your cake?! ugh)

Ensenada really was fantastic. I would love to go back there immediately. We took the La Bufadora tour offered by the shuttle operators. They promised us we'd be back by 2:30, but we almost missed getting back on the ship at 4:30, they were so far behind. I still recommend this excursion (only $15.00 and leave whenever you want - the cruise line charged 2x's this amount and on their schedule) but make sure you leave EARLY in the day. We left at noon and it was not enough time. There was a market at La Boufadora that was great for haggling and souvenirs. We all had great fun shopping there.

Once back on the ship the waves got very bad, and everyone in my party except me was sea sick. Many many other folks on board were sick as well, as evidenced from the horrible vomit smell in the buffet area. It never improved for the duration of our trip, and we decided we'd rather not get any drinks with our buffet meals then have to walk through this area.

Our room steward was very nice when we met him, but after Saturday he never came back to clean the room or turn down. Sunday we had to go to guest services ourselves to get our disembarkation paperwork as it was never dropped off at our room.

Sunday we had planned to enjoy some pool time but with the mobs of drunks and uncontrolled children and the ongoing sea sickness we spent much of the day in bed.

As I said earlier, I cruised before, a 7 day, and I never was sick at all. This cruise was 3 days and we were all miserable for much of it. While I would definitely cruise again as I love to get away from it all and enjoy the sea, I don't think I'll ever cruise Royal Caribbean again.

A few other things to note - the desserts were unpleasantly warm (warm cheesecake anyone?) and the singers were clearly just trying to outsing each other.

High points included dressing up for formal night, the magician on the last night, and the airbrush tattoos. While we still had fun because we are fun girls, the cruise line left MUCH to be desired. Celebrity was like vacationing at the Hilton, Royal Caribbean was like vacationing at motel six.

One final note - there is an adults only game show Sunday night that was great fun if you are open to that sort of thing. IF you are the kind of person who gets offended DO NOT GO, but if you are up for a good laugh and maybe some shocks, its a good time.

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