My first experience with Monkey Island came relatively late. I got my first PC in 1993 when I was 12 years old. My dad somehow got his hands on a few illegally copied floppy disks that introduced me to the first Larry game, the first Space Quest, Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis (the non-talkie version on five floppies), etc.
I still don't know how he got them in a time when we were one of the first of all our friends and family with a PC, years before we had any access to the internet.
I immediately fell in love with the adventure genre. In part because of the first Larry game (I was twelve, pubescent and horny), but most of all because of Fate of Atlantis. I took a liking to those LucasArts-style adventure games, and that love boomed in 1995 when I got my first CD-ROM player.
The second I had that CD-ROM player I bought some games for it, most notably a box set with Sam & Max Hit the Road, Full Throttle, Day of the Tentacle, Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis (talkie version) and an X-Wing/TIE fighter Star Wars game that didn't interest me in the slightest (*). I also got my hands on a demo for The Dig, which became a "day one" purchase upon its release.
By 1996 a lot of my friends had a PC as well, and adventure games were highly popular among us all. Lots of games got lended out and traded along. It's how I got to play the first two Simon games, The 7th Guest, King's Quest VII: The Princeless Bride, Zork Nemesis, Phantasmagoria and others.
One of my classmates had the first two Monkey Island games as well, and he had planned on lending them to me (like he did with the Simon-games), but he wanted to finish them himself first, and there was another classmate that had asked them first, so I was to await my turn. At the end of that school year I switched schools, however, and partly lost contact with those former classmates. Because of that, I didn't get to play those Monkey Island games after all, and it took until 1999 before I
finally got to 'experience' them.
Meanwhile, for some reason, I had completely missed the release of Curse of Monkey Island in 1997 despite remaining an avid adventure gamer. I hadn't missed Grim Fandango's release, though. That was another "day one" purchase.
Anyway, in 1999 I met another adventure gamer who quickly lent me his copies of all three Monkey Island games as well as Loom. This stunned me, because I was only aware of TWO Monkey Island games back then.
When I finally got around to playing them, they quickly joined the ranks of my favourite adventure games - I really was (and still am) a LucasArts-aficionado. The blind lookout in The Secret of Monkey Island made sure that I'd immediately like the game, and the "deadly piranha poodles", their disclaimer, and Guybrush's "silent" break-in of the governor's mansion cemented it as one of the funniest experiences of my life.
The second Monkey Island was "more of the same", which was awesome, and the third became my favourite game of all time. I still often quote the game, occasionally sing the "A Pirate I Was Meant to Be" song, and I still have very fond memories of Murray!
After having finally played the Monkey Island games, (and in the meantime getting access to the internet and thus remaining up-to-date on new releases) it's needless to say that Escape from Monkey Island was another "day one" purchase... And it didn't disappoint. While not of the same quality as the first three installments, EfMI was still a great and funny game.
I haven't played the Tales of Monkey Island yet, but I have purchased them, and they're on my list of games to play. They're not too far on that list either, so in a few months time I'll finally get around to them...
(*) Edit: I just recognised the box for those LucasArts games as being "The LucasArts Archives vol. I" (and that Star Wars game was apparently Rebel Assault). That box didn't include Full Throttle, so that must have been a separate purchase. Yeah, my memory is a bit fuzzy about that, apparently. Buying at the same time does not equal buying in the same box set...
Yikes, I wrote another long piece of text...
For the ADD-people among you, I'll give the tl;dr-version:
"Got into adventure gaming in 1993; learned about the Monkey Island games in 1996; finally got to play them in 1999."