BrianL2

I went on the three day cruise on the Monarch of the Seas August 29, 2003. I was very impressed how nice the ship was for it's age. I heard that the Monarch was just in for improvements and it shows. It looks brand new! Show rooms were very nice and dinning room was nice along with the rest of the ship. The Windjammer buffet was well made well, spread out and had lots of seats to sit. It never felt crowded in the Windjammer. The food in the Windjammer for breakfast was ok, for lunch was pretty good. You could have a hamburger all the time for lunch. We did eat in the Windjammer deck once for dinner and that was ok. Also, in the Windjammer buffet their is a pizza place that's open all day. The dining room food was kind of bad. It was probably the worst food I ever had on a cruise. I have been on 18 cruises so I had a lots of dinners. The dinners were just yucky no tastes and meat tough. You did not even get a basket of rolls on your table. The bus boy would bring you one. The service was great. Another bad thing about this ship was on the life boat deck. They did not have many chairs only 8 for each side. It was all up on top in the sun. And the worst was the Sea Day. The Caption just stopped the boat. We sat off the coast of Catalonia Island all day and night. I was on the Viking Serenade three times and we would only go 5 knots but at least were moving. This is a good cruise just to get away for the weekend and don't expect too much. Ok food, nice ship, a good get away. Nice just to relax. For this cruise for what you pay just save your money and go on a three day transition cruise on Holland America.

This was my 12th cruise and my sixth with RCI. This was my best cruise with RCI. The Vision of the Seas is a true masterpiece. The art, the decor of the public rooms, the elevators, dining room, spas, lounges, everything is beautiful, well designed and thought out. The huge glass windows is what I always like. The Vision was a much cleaner ship than its sister ship, the Rhapsody. The cabins were clean and all public areas were clean. The only dirty spots were on the top deck. The running track needs to be redone as it was very dirty and all the deck chairs were very dirty and should be replaced. This was the same thing I found with the Rhapsody when I took it in 1999. Because this was a 15-day cruise, everything was geared for older people. I like having older people around rather than a younger crowd, but this was more than I expected. Many people were in wheelchairs and there were several walkers -- very hard to get around them. You needed to have lots of patience on this cruise. Food was a lot better on this ship. The dining room food has improved since I last sailed on a RCI ship in 1999. There were just more items to pick from. Our waiter always gave us extra dinners even if we did not ask for it. He gave me three lobsters one day. The desserts still are just so so. The Lido deck buffet lunch was the same as usual. It was not that good. Princess lunch buffet is much better. RCI needs to improve on selections for the buffet. You can get pizza and hamburgers in the pool area. This is open many times of the day. The pizza was awesome. Everyone raves about Princess' pizza which I think is awful, but the Vision pizza was 10 times better than Princess. Also, between 3:30 and 4:30 on the Lido deck, there is a buffet with sandwiches, cookies and ice cream. If you don't like the buffet, the dining room lunch was pretty good. They had some good food at times. Of course, if you are still hungry, just head to the buffet or the pool area and receive more food. Let's just say, I got my money's worth. Room service was just ok: sandwiches and hamburgers. The best room service is on Holland America. The entertainment was just ok. Like I said before, it was geared toward the older crowd. They did have two comedians. Usually RCI has some awesome entertainment, but it was just too much singing. The older crowd loved the entertainment. Some of the entertainers we had included the Coasters, singer Dolores Park, comedian Jason Chase, singer Hal Frazier, piano player Craig Dahn and comedian, Marty Allen. The ones I liked were Los Diablos Gauchos and comedian Yacov Noy. All this entertainment was for the older crowd. Also, everyone got to the theater 40 minutes ahead of time. This was the first cruise where I had to get to the theater 30 minutes ahead of time to get a seat. The cruise director, Tim Seivert, and all the Bingo helpers, worked well together. They all were very funny. I think they were better entertainers than those in the shows. I had Tim on three ships, Viking Serenade, (rest in peace), the Rhapsody and now, the Vision. He is one of the best cruise directors I have ever had.