Got back to Southampton on 10/10 from 2 weeks sailing around the Mediterranean on Monster of the seas. It is the largest ship in the world so you would expect it to be amazing and in many ways the ship is great . However ,in our opinion they have gone to far and tried to get too many people on one ship , this has a detrimental affect on service , facilities and the restaurants. We were at a table of 8 in the Romeo & Juliet dining room for dinner at 8.30. Our co dinners were great company and will remain friends . First impression of the dining room was that it lacked sparkle, it just did not have the same feel to it as dining rooms on other ships we have travelled on. The tables are fairly close together to fit everyone in and the lighting is not impressive. The main problem with the dining room however is the quality and warmth of the food.With the exception of the 3 formal nights where the food was distinctly better overall , the cuts of meat were poor and there were some strange miss matches with some of the vegetables . Our waiter had to look after 3 tables and seemed to always be under pressure.To help fill us up ,he brought us cheese and biscuits each day ( but only after we had asked for it) ,extra chips, mash and extra jacket potatoes. He swapped quite a few meals when things were tasteless or not as they seemed. On the 3 formal nights there was a distinctly better menu and distinctly better cut of meat. The meals on the formal night were the minimum we would expect every night. Our waiter tried hard and was very pleasant but we think he knew we were not impressed with the cuisine. The head waiter was a miserable long streak of missery with as mutch charisma as a dunlop tyre. A massive personality bypass and a huge disappointment. There were no wine waiters , wine order were take by our assistant waiter and therefore no wine recommendations. This is the worst dinner dining experience we have had at sea, there were often empty tables ,particularly on the last few nights. Second sitting was our chosen time as we like to take in the show afterwards before retiring to the casino . This didn't work either. On the 14 night cruise 2 of the nights entertainment were movies!( not my idea of entertainment on board) and of the other 12 we had 5 pre dinner shows starting at 7pm.I don't know why RCI did this but it was not what many late diners wanted or expected. Chaos in the Jade & Windjammer cafe, this is the main buffet restaurant where most people have breakfast and lunch and is also open for casual (buffet)dining in the evening.This place is not big enough for the number of cruisers, sometimes it was a complete bun fight to get to the counters and you could not always get a seat. I have never witnessed jostling on a cruise liner before but it certainly went on here . However on a more positive note ,it did have great dining views from deck 11 at the aft of the ship and the food was considerably hotter and tastier than the main dining room. Breakfast offered a good selection and the food was off a decent quality. Lunch was again pretty good . Dinner always included a carved dish including beef ,lamb ,ham,chicken and turkey. The cuts of meat were not the best but were OK for a buffet. Great selection of variable dishes from lamb curies to cottage pie ,soups were decent and the deserts quite tasty. The Windjammer got busier in the evenings as the cruise went as more people lost faith in the main dining room. Orange juice at breakfast and lemonade ,water and tea and coffee were included for free at the Windjammer. Jade is a section of the buffet diner next to the Windjammer and serves oriental buffet food. The quality of the wine in the main restaurant was not particularly great and well over priced. The cheapest wines were $27 per bottle and the mid $30 dollar bottles lacked quality. Sorrentos is a pizza place on the Royal Promenade ,quality is OK and rarely too busy. We also tried Johnny Rockets it is a burger bar with an extra cover charge. Food is good but it is pretty noisy ,the kids will love it. All 8 of us at our dinner table went to Chops Grille one evening. Including wine ,water and the extra $25 dining fee it works out at $50 plus extra per head. The food in here was 10 times better than the main dining room ,the staff were professionally trained and the ambiance very pleasant. It was worth the extra charge although the service,atmosphere and food served is what we expected in the main restaurant. There is no midnight buffet (except for on 1 night).If you want a late night munchie ,it's pizza or pizza. Smoking on board is restricted to the port side of the open decks 4, 11 and 12 , to guest balconies and the upper floor of The Labyrinth night club(that was open most of the day for the smokers). 2 main issues here ; The Labyrinth stinks ,you cannot enter it unless you are a smoker ,although it is only smoking upstairs ,it does not work ,we entered once and left immediately,it's disgusting.we had 3 smokers at our dinner table who spent half their time in there so you can imagine how bad it was. We also had inconsiderate heavy smokers on the balcony next to ours and one down from that we had captain pug wash lighting up his cigars from 7.30 am until late.This ruined our enjoyment of our balcony. Even when our balcony door was shut we could smell smoke in our room from the couple next door. RCI need to address this ,all balconies should be non smoking or at least a separate smoking section. Drinks prices on board were extortionate.while I fully expect a mark up this was over the top. A pint of beer was $6.50 ,a measure of spirits(draught mixer included) $6.50 and a house wine $5.50 . Spirit measures were not from optics ,some seemed quite strong ,some were positively weak and non existant.There was a good selection of cocktails from $8 plus . The Dog and Badger pub on the Promenade was good and the staff very friendly. The Champagne bar is a let down. A bog standard Moet is $69 ,again that is OTT but the bar lacked class .It is next to a busy walk way across from guest relations, there was no special feeling about it. Drink prices are the same in all bars.The Viking Crown lounge is by far the nicest of the bars. Captain Remo was about as visible around the ship as Captain Nemo. The entire senior crew were rarely seen around the ship. Far too many people did not bother getting dressed properly on the formal nights. Dress code was laxed and this meant the ship loosing any class it tried to create on the formal nights. There were numerous instances of jeans being seen in the dining rooms on casual nights. This would not have been permitted on other ships we have travelled on and was a good example of RCI allowing standards to slip on this cruise. We had a category D1 balcony cabin. It was nice and the bed was very comfy . There was some grime on our toilet seat where people had obviously been putting their sweaty feet. It took until day 12 for us to get a second bar of soap and our sheets changed.There are no extra toiletries apart from shampoo in the shower. When we moved our suitcases on the last night from under our bed we dragged out 2 Irish coins,clearly the underside of the bed had not seen a hoover for a while! Again on smoking ,despite all cabins being non smoking we had a cigi burn on our suite and another on the curtain. Some yobs just wont play to the rules! Surprisingly there was no alcohol in our fridge. This was a disappointment as was the cost of water at $4.50 per bottle and you will go through a lot of it.You can get free cold drinking water in Sorrentos. Despite nearly 4,000 cruisers the main swimming pools are tiny , don't expect to be able to stretch out and do a few lengths ,it is not worth it. Kids however will have fun in the H2O Zone and the flow rider. The walking track is good but you can't see it at peak sunbathing times. On a few positive notes apart from our comfy bed: The evening entertainment was either good or very good (apart from the movie nights which I find unacceptable). The in house shows were good and the headline acts worth seeing. The casino is the largest we have seen at sea ,has a variety of games and over 300 slots. Some of the croupiers are a bit miserable and avoid the single deck black jack ,it only pays $6 to $5 for blacjack or $7 to $6 etc. There is another black jack table with multi decks that gives you a better chance. There are a good variety of slots and lots of poker machines. As annual visitors to Vegas we felt quite at home. Casino was shut most nights by 2am which we felt was a little early. The Royal Promenade is good and it is nice to sit and watch the world go by with a beer outside the Dog and Badger. There was a good variety of very good musicians on board including a decent rock band, Rock the Boat. They were on most nights in the Pyramid lounge until 1am. The port itinerary was good although why they stopped at Vigo is beyond us, we would have much preferred a longer stay in Gibraltar or an extra night in Rome. The Port and shopping show on the first Sunday is a waste of time.Very little inside track and way to much emphasis on the presenters favourite shops. On our day in Lisbon we were advised we had to take a shuttle bus into town at a cost of $11 each . In town we then walked several blocks to pick up the sightseeing bus. To our amazement the sightseeing bus on route stopped right outside the ship.The shuttle bus transfer was recommended at the talk on the Sunday ,this was most annoying. There was also a shuttle bus charge at one other port. we have never had to pay for a shuttle bus before on any other cruise we have been on. The tender service to shore in Cannes was excellent. Beware of the £70 regional airfare deal . When we booked the cruise we had not at that time decided how to travel to Southampton. When we decided we would fly we contacted RCI to book the £70 flights to be told the cost was actually £110. This made us rethink but we did not want to drive so phoned back to book our flights . At this point we were told by RCI that the plane was full and we could not book seats. We checked the internet and were able to book seats ourselves without any problem. The plane was not full , RCI were talking rubbish. We booked the seats and I called RCI to complain. RCI advised me that what had actually happened was that all the RCI allocated seats were taken. They should not have advised us that the plane was full. Their erroneous advice caused a couple of hours of unnecessary panic. We had just moved house and moved our broadband from BT to Sky.We did not have the new connection installed and had to get our son to book the tickets from his office. Panic over but RCI seemed far from caring . The biggest problem we had with the cruise was the sheer number of people . RCI have run a sustained TV advertising campaign and this has resulted in many first time cruisers coming on board.While that is great we must say that this is the first cruise we have been on where we have seen so many football tops and tattoos. The vast majority on the ship were English and we are ashamed to say that it was a small English minority that lacked decorum .You can't choose who you cruise with and we met loads of really nice people but it is the first cruise we have taken where we thought we are glad we are not sitting next to those people at dinner. Cruising has always been a special time for us and we will take many more, we will not however, cruise again on such a huge ship. There are just too many people crammed into one space which results in behaviour you would not normally see on a cruise ship and cruise standards slipping.We still enjoyed our cruise but it could have been an awful lot better .We hope RCI get this right as the ship itself is great but we do not think the future of cruising is making ships bigger and bigger.