Trip Review “Monarch of the Seas” July 3-6, 2009 — Day 3

Monarch of the Seas anchored off of Coco Cay, Bahamas

Destination Coco Cay, Bahamas. 55 miles NNW of Nassau.

Our cabin sat in the front of the ship, so about 7 am we were awoke by the chains of the anchor falling into the sea, the first sign that we arrived in Coco Cay.  The shipped anchored about a mile from the actual island.  Coco Cay is a unmanned island until the ship crew gets into port, so they had to load tender boats up with food, drinks, etc, and carry them over to the island before they would let us off.

After getting motivated and lathered up with sun screen we made out way to the windjammer cafe on deck 11 to grab a light breakfast with our dinner table mates. We all decided the night before that we were going to give para-sailing a shot.

After breakfast, we went down to deck one and boarded the tender boat to take us to the island. The markets on the island only take cash, no credit cards. The bars on the island only take your sea pass card so bring your fanny pack!

We arrived on the island about 10:15 am and signed up for the 11:00 am para-sailing. The cost to para-sail was 84 dollars a person and you rode tandem with 4 other pairs that were doing it. The cost wasn’t bad for the time in the boat you got to spend and going up 400′  above sea level was amazing! It was cool cause you got a birds eye view of the ship too.  After the para-sailing adventure it was lunch time at the island. There was a typical BBQ on the island with chicken, burgers, dogs, salads, etc.  The crew decided to stay on the island, me being a fare skinned wimp choose to take the tender boat back to the ship and well, nap!  The sun exhausts me, what can i say! Woke up at 5 and had a few drinks under the sun on deck 11 while the ship pulled up anchor and made its way home.  After a couple of drinks, headed back down to the room to get ready for our last dinner. I only dressed up for formal night at dinner, the other nights was jeans and a polo. Comfortable and presentable. Before leaving the room I did place the envelope out to extend gratuities to our room steward.  Standard for the steward is 3.50 per day per person.

Dinner the last night was italian night. Very good selections on the menu, lamb, eggplant parm, etc… I went with the old standby… steak!   We stayed and socialized for a while after dinner to tell our table mates good bye. We extended our gratuities the last night to our head waiter .75 per day, waiter 3.50 per day, and asst. waiter 2.00 per day, all who were awesome and amazing!

The last night of the cruise, they have this crazy game show done in the circuit lounge, which is the ships night club, its called “Quest.” I wont go into details about this game with the exception that is a adult game and basically a scavenger hunt where anything goes. We teamed up with this great family from Sarasota, Florida and came close to winning, in fact, I believe there should have been a recount! With day three in the books and planning on doing an express departure we went back to our room and packed. Lights out. 1:30 am.  ETA at Port Canaveral 6:00 am.

To be continued….