Bryan's RCCL Monarch Of The Seas 4 Night Baja Mexico Cruise, Aug 04

This was my family's first cruise. The travelers consisted of myself, my wife, and our 5.75 year old daughter. We've traveled what I'd consider a reasonable amount--I've set foot on four of the six continents as an adult.

Check-in: I drove our Enterprise rental car to the dock and dumped the luggage and passengers while I went to drop off the car. By the time I got back, our luggage was gone and we were ready to go to check-in. The check-in line was long but moved relatively quickly. It all seemed pretty much a waste of time beyond the passport check and the obligatory credit card swiping. We then got a wrist-band for our daughter so the staff would know where to take her in case of an emergency, cleared a confusingly-laid out security line, and headed toward the gang-plank. We were the forced to have our picture taken "for security reasons"--yeah, right, the FBI wants to see a picture of me in front of a picture of a boat, and behind a life preserver. Especially when they took my picture with the sea-pass reader-machine 1 minute before. Time from the point I got back from dropping the car to being in our stateroom was probably an hour. Tolerable, compared with what would come later.

Our cabin was a porthole ocean view window, and the small 120 sq ft size cabins predominant on this ship. We were able to find a place to jam our possessions (from a week of previous vacationing). We had about a four foot shelf between one bed and the port hole, which was nice for storage but lousy for seeing out the window. Good thing there wasn't a big price premium for the window. Our stuff had mostly arrived before us, so we unpacked and headed to lunch. Note that for families of three, this type of room yields three separate bunks-two lowers in an L shape and one upper.

Lunch at the Windjammer buffet was very tasty. Each day seemed to have a general theme--asian, mexican (when we were in Mexico), etc. Some of the buffet items were downright spicy and flavorful--a welcome surprise. Plenty of choices for all as well--pasta, meat, various side dishes and salads, and the obligatory hamburger and fries for the unadventerous.

We then went off to our first muster. Nothing like 2,600 passengers all trying to make their way up or down a staircase with life preservers on.

After that the boat finally left port to less fanfare than I remember from the Love Boat. But kinda cool to be on top of something that's backing out of a port that is several hundred feet long and not back it into the barge behind us.

Then we went off to dinner in the formal dining room. We had the early (5:30 seating) because our daughter, while willing to stay up late each night, couldn't have made it until the 8:00 seating. The food in the dining room was also very good--generally more of a continental/american cuisine kind of spin. Four courses every night--you get to choose your appetizer and entree from a list of about five each (so you can imagine--a fish, beef, chicken, vegetarian, and something else entree each night). Service was very good--I think they mostly work for tips so they are very diligent since you see them every night. We didn't end up partnered with similar folks for dinner--we shared our table for six with an older couple, so our daughter tended to get bored until the waiters did some entertaining. We also bought the 4-nights of wine package for about $80. The only hard part about that beyond the cost was the fact that it was hard to tell what wines were actually available. You could get a one page mimeographed wine listing with some blurry labels and an indication that about half of them were not available.

Our daughter went to the kid's club a couple of times a day and they did organized stuff-ran around the boat acting like pirates--put on a skit in the bingo/auditorium place--etc. She really loved it and screamed every night at 10 when we'd pick her up and take her back to bed. That left the evenings free for Mom & Dad after the early dinner. There were a variety of activities on the boat in the evenings--not sure how much they'd interest you guys--one night we went to see the live band in the Disco playing 70s & 80s music (turned out to be a Rick James retrospective since he'd just died) for the short while we listened. Two nights we went to see the big "production" type shows in the main theatre--one was a woman singing covers of various stuff--she had a very good voice and put on a pretty good show. The other show was singing & dancing to various movie themes (again, aimed at a little older crowd than you--"Footloose", "Flashdance", "Dirty Dancing", etc.). Not quite as good a show, but something different to do.

There was also a casino on board that was open when the boat was sailing (in international waters)--we didn't spend any money there. They had bingo which seemed to attract a crowd. They had some other activities during the afternoons also that were kinda silly but fun--belly flop contest in the pool; guys sexy-legs contest, etc. There was also ping-pong table, basketball hoop, and shuffleboard (the quintessential cruise activity). And pools with bars.

The daytime activities were less because you were supposed to generally be ashore doing something. Our first stop was in San Diego where we just had spent a week on vacation. So my wife and daughter stayed on board and went to the pool. I walked off and walked over to an aircraft carrier (USS Midway) parked nearby that had been converted to a museum. We'd missed it in our week of San Diego, and they didn't care about it anyway.

On Catalina island, we got off and rented a golf cart on our own and went on the "golf cart approved driving tour" of the little area around the island. And we went on a semi-submersible boat thingy to look at fish (mostly for child entertainment). One could do more advanced stuff if one wanted--scuba, snorkeling, etc.

In Ensenada, well--there wasn't much to do. We took the bus tour of town (just ok) and saw the "folklore fiesta" thingy they put on for those buying the various tours (it was pretty good and entertaining). The more interesting thing might have been the bus tour of a winery and movie studio, but it took many hours and I think our daughter would have gotten even more bored. We bailed on the shopping portion of our tour and walked back to the ship for a late lunch to avoid any intestinal issues. My daugher and I then came back and did the scavenger hunt with the kids' club and came in second. Hint: horde the papers they leave in your cabin, and try to know where the cruise director is located!

The last day when we got back to LA was a mess. We had to be all cleaned out of our cabin by 8 or so, but we didn't get off the boat until about 11, stuck sitting on the floor of the theater with our carry-on bags with very little entertainment. Then, once off the ship, it took another hour to clear customs due a huge line, and we got to be in the shorter line because we actually had US Passports. If one only had a birth certificate, etc., it was an even longer wait. Very inefficient and unpleasant. It seemed like it was worse than the RCCL folks normally expected. I don't know who to blame this one on--the feds, RCCL, or both. As a result, we were still sitting at the dock in a bus destined for LAX about 2 hours before our flight, so things were getting a little antsy for all concerned, but we made our flight home. Others on our bus were not so lucky. But five or six hours to get from the cabin to the airport 20 miles away is bad.

So what's the summary:

*Service and food were excellent. We were sleeping in, so we were having a breakfast buffet, a lunch buffet, and a four course dinner every day between about 9 am and 7 pm. Quite full.

*There are a bunch of people all doing the same thing you are doing--so there's some standing in line, a certain sleezy tourist element when you get off the boat, etc. I was worried a little about this because we generally rent a car and do our own thing. But it wasn't as bad as I imagined.

*The boat itself seemed to be in very good shape. While our cabin was small, we were generally able to get by with the three of us inside it, and slept quite well except for hearing the neighbor in the next cabin snoring away one night. Other facilities seemed to be in excellent shape (theater, dining rooms, etc.). I wouldn't have picked a white carpet for the main staircase, but that's just me.

*We're hooked. There's something nice about knowing when and where to get food throughout the trip, having diverse entertainment on the ship for the family, and seeing different things without packing up and moving each night.

Other tips:

*Enterprise is the only car rental outfit at the San Pedro docks (affects RCCL, not Carnival). Rates are rock bottom, but there's a $40 drop charge and you have to call them on the phone to book a one-way rental (no web reservations in this case). As car rental places go, check-out and return are slower than what I expect from most places.

*Just expect the extra costs. The $26 for four days of diet coke package was bizarrely expensive. Tips were pricey, but I expected that.

*Food was good but definitely continental/classic. There's not a lot of ethnic stuff at dinner, but more in the Windjammer at lunch. We skipped the extra cost sushi restaurant.

*If I were going again, I'm not sure I'd bother with a window. The storage was nice (don't know what the inside cabins are like that way), but the window was pretty limited. The weather in southern CA is always nice, so it isn't like you need it to figure out what to wear for the day.

*Skip buying the excusions in Catalina--everything worth doing is pretty much within a half-mile of where the launch dumps you. In Ensenada, things are further away but walkable. There's no way to do the show without some tour, however.