Marion Pellicano Ambrose
There’s only one word to describe a cruise to the Bahamas – luxurious, sumptuous, opulent! Oops! That was three words! Well, it can’t be helped because it truly was all those things!
We started out from Port Canaveral on a Monday at noon. When I drove up A1A and rounded the bend right before the Port, the ship suddenly came into view. Amazing! The Monarch of the Seas is the smallest ship in Royal Caribbean’s fleet but it looked tremendous to me! What an awesome sight to behold! It seemed to glisten in the sun and my tummy had that excited flutter as we drove closer.Checking in was a breeze and we went right up to the “Windjammer” to meet two other friends for the fabulous lunch buffet. There was so much food: hamburgers, hot dogs, salads, cold cuts, hot entrees, a festival of fruits and an exquisite exhibit of desserts! I gained a pound just looking at it!
After enjoying the buffet, we went in search of our cabins. I had booked both rooms and explained to the travel agent that we wanted to be together both in location and in the dining room. Well, we had a problem! (Not Royal Caribbean’s fault at all!) My friend and I were on the 6th floor in the absolute bow of the ship. Our other friends were on the 4th floor center ship. I’m handicapped and since all 4 handicapped rooms were booked before I booked ours, I hoped to be at least near the elevator. The travel agent assured me that the room would be set up to accommodate me and my scooter and that all would be well. We wound up in the ONLY room whose doorway stuck out halfway into the hall because it was so far up in the bow. Needless to say, the scooter couldn’t get at an angle to get in the room. When we opened the door, there was one double bed made up and the room, while very nice, was miniscule to say the least! We also found that the 6th floor is the most inaccessible deck on the ship. To get to certain places we had to go down or up a deck, across the ship to another elevator and down or up even further. 
