We had heard of Monterey and that it's a nice coastal town. I am European so I guess I am somewhat spoilt when I hear "nice coastal town". I had a completely different image in mind.
They have a restaurant pier (fishermans wharf) with seafood restaurants which is kinda nice, but not worth a detour.
There's also a restaurant neighborhood near shore and close to the aquarium which is said to be worth a visit (Munras Avenue) but we were really disappointed. It totally lacked charm.
I can't tell you anything about the aquarium. I heard it's great, but we prefer scuba diving to aquariums so we didn't do that.
Anyway, I was pretty happy to move on after 2 days in Monterey.
The upside: Monterey is a good starting point for doing the famous 17 mile drive and visit Big Sur. It's only +/- 15 minutes driving.
We were there at the end of August amd we had super dense fog all day long, except after 4PM. I heard it's quite common during the summer months.