The Monarch of The Seas has been in service since November 17, 1991, she has a sister ship called Majesty of The Seas. She is 14 decks tall, is 880 feet long, gross tonnage is 73,941, she holds 2,354 passengers, and has a crew of 827. The Monarch sails a Southern Caribbean itinerary. This was our first cruise that was an early anniversary present to ourselves. We opted to book through a local travel agent since we were unfamiliar with cruising, although we found tons of very helpful information on the rec.travel.cruises newsgroup and by reading other cruise reviews. We chose an inside "M" category cabin with an option to upgrade to the best available closer to the time of sailing, thus we didn't know our cabin until our cruise documents arrived. When they did arrive we had been upgraded to category "L", still an inside cabin. We also added on a pre-cruise package at the El San Juan Hotel & Casino in San Juan, Puerto Rico.
 

Pre-Cruise:

        Arrived in San Juan at 5:00pm Friday, May 10. We found the RCCL representative waiting for us at the baggage claim, we claimed our bags and climbed onto a bus with another couple that was on the same flight. The El San Juan is quite close to the airport and we arrived at our hotel soon after arriving in San Juan. The desk clerk was very helpful and she was able to get us a room with a beautiful view of the beach and ocean. As soon as our bags were brought up to our room, we took a walking tour of the hotel and the beach. We then went back to our room and changed for dinner, we decided to have dinner at the hotel that evening since we were warned about going out to "Old San Juan" after dark.

        The next morning we were up early and went to the beach and laid around for the most of the morning. After showering we took the T1 bus from the hotel to the bus station that is right across the pier (my parents had previously stayed at the same hotel and advised us to do this). We walked and shopped around at Old San Juan and visited El Morro, we had lunch at the Hard Rock Café. The trip back was a little scary as we weren't sure when the last bus returned to the Isla Verde area, and several buses came and went, finally the T1 bus came and back we went. We got off the bus a short distance from the hotel so we could walk around and shop there too. Again we changed for dinner and walked to a nice restaurant a little ways down the street that had been recommended to us. After dinner we spent some time at the casino and we hung out at the club next door that was having some sort of outdoor celebration. The next morning it was time to get ready and head for the dock.
 

Embarkation:

        Sunday we boarded a shuttle at the hotel which took us to the port, our luggage went separately about an hour before. We arrived at the pier about 1:00, we were amazed when we got our first glimpse of the ship. We stood in line for about half an hour and they checked our forms while we were in line. We checked in and then received our boarding pass/super charge card. Our picture was taken as we boarded and then we walked into the ship. We passed through the beautiful Centrum area as we were escorted to our cabin, which was on the main deck, room 4007. The cabin was quite small but that didn't bother us, we had been advised that we wouldn't spend much time in our cabin with this busy itinerary (which we found to be true). We immediately filled out our shore excursion form as we had been advised to do, we had already chosen our excursions from the pamphlet that came with our cruise documents. John, our cabin steward came by as we were leaving to explore the ship, he introduced himself and told us he would arrange the twin beds into a queen size.

        We dropped off our excursion form and our first stop was the Windjammer Cafe for lunch, the buffet was ready and waiting. The food was fine and the lines went by quickly. We then walked all around the ship in awe, we explored every floor and tried to get familiar with the layout. We visited the Ship Shape Center and picked up an aerobics schedule. Since we weren't scheduled to sail until 10:00 pm we decided to head into town and buy some liquor to make our own drinks, we had learned that this was the best thing to do since the drinks were costly and added up. We didn't have to go far, right inside the boarding warehouse was a liquor store that had great prices and sold only to cruise passengers, we were happy that we weren't going to have to try and sneak it on. We re-boarded and found that our luggage had arrived. By then it was getting close to dinner time, we had the late seating at 8:30pm. We unpacked right away and then got ready for our first dinner in the Brigadoon Dining Room.

        We were seated at table number 130 where we met our table mates. They comprised of a honeymoon couple about our age (30) from Ohio named Duane & Lisa, a couple in about their 50's from Maryland named Jerry & Kristy, and a mother and daughter (both nurses) from Michigan named Gwyn and I forget the daughters name. We introduced ourselves and had a good time getting acquainted with one another, we were all first time cruisers. We had been a little wary about who we would be assigned to sit with during the entire cruise, but we were pleasantly surprised! Our Italian waiter was named Roberto, he was 20ish and very charming and funny. Dinner gave us a choice of about 5 entrees including a vegetarian entree and a ShipShape (healthy) entree. It was very good and we got quite stuffed as we aren't used to eating such large meals, the Key Lime pie was delicious. We finished close to 10:00 and quickly headed to the pool deck where a Caribbean Sailaway party was going on.

        At the bon voyage party there was dance contests going on in the pool area. We stayed up on top so we could watch as we sailed off. It was a beautiful sight to watch as we slowly pulled away from the sights and lights of San Juan. After San Juan was no longer in sight it was off to the Centrum shops and Casino Royale to explore some more. We are not gamblers so we just walked around and played a few slot machines and visited the shops.
 

Monday:

        Monday was our first and only full day at sea, which we planned to spend by the pool. We got up fairly early so we could attend the morning stretch and walk class. We went to both and then went to an aerobics session at the Ship Shape center. We had breakfast at the Windjammer and just when we were getting ready to go to the pool, it was time for the mandatory muster session. When that was finally finished it was pool time. It seems that several people had already gone to the deck and placed their belongings or towels on the lounges to save their spot. We found a spot on the deck right above the pool and promptly ordered a drink in a souvenir glass. It was a clear sunny day just as we had hoped and we spent the better part of the afternoon at the pool, we took a sun break and had lunch at the Windjammer. The pool area gets quite crowded and some pushy people that were lounging next to us invited their friends to sit by them. They squeezed in right next to us and pretty soon this guys foot was practically in my face. After awhile we decided to head back to the room as we felt we had probably had enough sun anyhow. We were surprised to find a bottle of champagne and chocolate covered strawberries, courtesy of our travel agent.

        This was the first of our formal nights so we decided to get ready early to get our pictures taken. Before dinner we went to the Captains Welcome Aboard Cocktail Party and had our picture taken meeting Captain Tore Nervik. There was champagne and a brief introduction the crew. Dinner was a French menu and again delicious.
 

Tuesday:

        Martinique was the first island we would visit, we docked in Fort-de-France. Many people had advised that this would be a good place to just stay on the ship and relax but we wanted to walk around town and see for ourselves. After having breakfast in our cabin from the Windjammer we walked into town. We soon found how horrible people drive in that island, in fact one person from our ship was hit by a car. We shopped around a market area and found that prices here were high. We walked around and saw a pretty church and took a few pictures. We headed back to the ship early as we were sailing at 3:00pm today. This gave us time to eat lunch at the Windjammer and attend another aerobics session at the Ship Shape center. Tonight's dinner had an American theme and the waiters sang patriotic songs as they came in. Duane and Lisa shared a bottle of wine with the table, they won it at the Honeymooner's Party.
 

Wednesday:

        Bridgetown, Barbados was our second stop. We were up early so we could have some time to shop before our excursion on the Jolly Roger Pirate Cruise. Again we had breakfast in our cabin from the Windjammer and walked into town. We found some good shopping here in the streets off the main shopping street. After shopping we headed back to ship for lunch at the Windjammer. We boarded the Jolly Roger right at noon. The rum punch flowed freely and we had a couple of glasses while enjoying the scenery along the coast. This was fun as the crew played music like "Hot, Hot, Hot" and other calypso songs and had everyone dancing. We spent an hour at Holetown Bay while others that chose to go snorkeling went to another location. On the way back things got crazy. Everyone was dancing and you could tell that the rum punch was pretty potent. We made some friends and made plans to see them at the Disco night that evening.

        When we got back to the ship we were very tired from the rum punch and the sun so we decided to take a nap. I guess the rum affected me more than I thought because we never received our wake up call, I must have done it wrong. We woke up halfway through dinner and were not very happy as this was Caribbean night featuring lobster! We were pretty hungry so we just ordered room service. Off to the Disco Inferno at the Ain't Misbehavin' Lounge we went. We never saw our friends, we later found out that they too slept through dinner and didn't even make it out that night.
 
 

Thursday:

        St. Johns, Antigua was our third stop. We docked right next to the main shopping area so it wasn't a far walk today, breakfast was in our cabin again. We shopped for awhile, had lunch at the Windjammer and then took a taxi to the Halcyon Cove. We had a brief rainstorm and enjoyed another afternoon in the sun even though we were still recovering from the sunburn we got our first day at sea.   When we returned to the ship we watched the Grand Monarch Derby horse race by the pool. Tonight was Italian night at dinner, mmmm our favorite, the waiters sang O' Solo Mio. We celebrated our anniversary tonight with a cake that our travel agent had arranged for us.
 

Friday:

        Our next stop was Phillipsburg, St. Maarten. This was the only port where it was necessary to tender. While waiting for the excursions to take the first tendors we actually ate breakfast in the Windjammer. This was a great place for shopping and we spent the better part of the day doing just that along Front Street. We also had lunch in the Brigadoon dining room today, it was served buffet style.

        We found time to visit the Ship Shape center again and had a workout. Afterwards we redeemed our t-shirt and fanny pack from the Ship Shape dollars we had earned. Tonight was the Captain's Gala dinner, our final formal night, again we took a formal photo. After dinner we attended a show featuring the Fifth Dimension, we met some people there that had been having problems with seasickness the whole time. This was the only night we went to the midnight buffet as it was the Gala Buffet. We went early to take pictures and then back to eat all the wonderful hors d'oeuvre's that were served.
 

Saturday:

        Charlotte Amalie, St. Thomas would be our last stop. We were up early again to shop before the St. John Beach Tour excursion we had signed up for. We had the obligatory breakfast in the room and headed out. We took a cab into town and shopped, we had heard how this would be the best port for shopping. This was true for some items, although we had seen some prices better in St. Maarten. We purchased a camcorder here, too bad this wasn't our first port!!! After a quick lunch at the Windjammer we were off to St. John, this was our favorite island.

        We were ferried over to St. John and then were transported on an open air safari bus to Trunk Bay. This was a beautiful beach that I would love to visit again. Upon our return we found all the envelopes for tips and instructions for disembarkation. We tipped our cabin steward before dinner and both our head and assistant waiter after dinner, tonights theme was International, the waiters sang "It's A Small World". We said our goodbyes and headed back to our cabin to pack, we had been instructed to set our bags outside with color coded tags before midnight. Once that was done we went up to the Viking Crown Lounge on the 14th deck. We turned in early since the following day would be a long one.
 

Disembarkation:

        Our flight was at 10:00am so we would be one of the first to disembark. We had a quick breakfast, attended mass in the theater and proceeded to our assigned waiting area and waited for our flight to be called. Once we disembarked we had to pick out our luggage from the same large room where it all began, this proved to be chaotic and after much confusion we finally tracked down all our bags. Once we collected our bags we had to place them on the truck that had our flight number on it, this was also chaotic as there were hundreds of bags being shuffled about. Once this was done things calmed down for awhile and we caught a shuttle to the airport.

        This would end up being a very long day, first our flight was delayed by two hours because of hydraulic problems. That caused us to miss our connecting flight in Dallas by a matter of minutes. The next flight out would be three hours later, we were fortunate to meet up with a couple we had met that were in the same predicament, we had dinner at the airport together. Just when I thought the day was almost over it would prove to be even longer, because of the missed flight all our luggage didn't make it back with us. We were told that it would probably arrive on the next flight coming from Dallas which would arrive in an hour and a half. We finally left the airport about 10:00pm with no luggage, it arrived two days later.

        Other than our trip home, the entire vacation was absolutely wonderful. In fact we are already booked on the Enchantment of The Seas, this time we will be joined by my parents and sister.

Photos