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When the opportunity came up to take a two day cruise on Monarch of the Seas I jumped right on it since the price was right. This was Monarch’s second ever two day cruise and it left from Port Canaveral on Jan 2 and returned on Jan 4.
Embarkation: I arrived at Port Canaveral at 11:00 and was directed to the Carnival pier. Apparently the Carnival Dream takes Monarch’s normal spot on Saturdays. I was checked and ready to board by 11:15 and then had to wait until 11:30 for boarding to start. I’m only Gold so I had to wait for D+/D and P to board, but I was still on board and enjoying lunch by 11:50.
Cabin: I was in a category G oceanview on deck 3. This is a usual, small, Monarch cabin with a small porthole. It’s perfectly fine for short cruises. Contrary to other reports I did not notice any objectionable odors on deck 3. My cabin was always clean and tidy, I have absolutely no complaints with the cabin attendant.
Windjammer: Service seemed to be below standard here. Out of two meals here on Sunday I never had a single wait-staff come by and take a drink order. The food is the usual windjammer food.
Main Dining Room: Again, the service seemed to be below standard here. For my first meal the assistant waiter didn’t come by for my drink order until well after my appetizer. And I never saw the head waiter until it was time to collect tips. On the other hand, my main waiter was superb. The food wasn’t bad, but it was definitely better on my three day cruise on Monarch back in November.
Coco Cay: I’m now 0-2 for getting to Coco Cay. High winds kept us from tendering at Coco Cay so we had an improvised sea day. The crew and cruise director staff made the best of it, but it was still somewhat disappointing. Drew, btw, might be the BEST cruise director ever. He is definitely high energy and I swear he was everywhere at once. Unfortunately he was unable to host the Quest because he had lost his voice.
Debarkation: I did self-debark at 7:45, along with everyone else on ship, I think. I ended up lining up outside of Claude’s near guest services and by the time debarkation started the line was up the stairs and up to deck 7. It took me about 20 minutes to debark and there was no customs check, even though they made us fill out the forms. My guess is that it was decided customs was unnecessary since we never made land-fall anywhere. Once outside the building we had to wait for a bus to take us back to our parking lot since we were now on the other side of the Port. Temperatures were in the low 30’s and even though I had a coat it was still not a fun wait.
This two day cruise was fun and I would probably do a two-day on Monarch again, if the price was right.
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