optimusprime82

Thank you. I try to remain respectful when photographing anyone that appears housing challenged. With that said, it’s also a part of life that I don’t think we should pretend isn’t happening around us, especially when we’re visiting places that are often beautiful on the surface near the tourist hotspots. Over the years I’ve taken a few other similar shots that I’ve tried to frame in a similar way. Below are examples from Martinique and Chicago.

Thank you. Good hear certainly helps but a lot of what I showed here was shot with a very good, fixed focal length (28mm) point and shoot camera (Ricoh GRIII). I've only been "seriously" shooting since 2016. You can learn a lot on YouTube. My best advice, learn some of the basic rules of photography so you can break them and find things to photograph that interest you, not where all the tourists go. With that said, there's nothing wrong with touristy photo spots but it's hard to make something standout when you're fighting for time and positioning. Good luck in the future don't be afraid to experiment.

It was at the donkey sanctuary in Aruba, I don't recall if it was near a beach. We usually have our cab stop at a grocery so we can cut carrots, they love those too.

Photos from our sailing onboard the Emerald Princess from 02/23/24 through 03/06/24 leaving from Fort Lauderdale with stops in Basseterre, St. Kitts, Pointe-A-Pitre, Guadeloupe, Castries, St. Lucia, Kingstown, St. Vincent, Scarborough, Tobago, St. George's, Grenada, Willemstad, Curacao, and Oranjestad, Aruba.

Night two dinner photos.

Not that there’s too much interest but I’ll keep posting for the few that are interesting. Below are a few of dinner menus and photos of what we had. I think the MSC food is a lot better than many people’s photos make it out to be. I think we forgot to take photos of dessert on night one.

Photos from exploring Newport, ME. We walked around, had lunch with my parents who were also visiting Newport when we docked, and then took a lobster boat tour.

I didn't actually. At the time I didn't know what kind of bug it was. Then, throughout the trip, we saw people stomping bugs constantly. I don't think during our last trip to NYC in 2019, they city was grappling with them. We just assumed the bug stomping was par for the course, sort of like seeing someone using the street as their bathroom - just something we see at least once every trip to New York lol. Thank you!

The dispute was cancelled in August, the same day we became aware of it. MSC has acknowledged that the dispute has been cancelled, they keep saying they’ll refund the money, they just haven’t done it. I appreciate the perspective, I don’t have any other experience quite like this.

The clock just struck midnight, it’s been three months since my last post about this topic. This may come as a shock but we’re still waiting for the $500 to be returned/refunded. Two “billing cycles” was in early October and we’ve now doubled that time frame. It’s really frustrating and is one of the reasons we didn’t book with MSC while on board. We love the onboard experience but the customer service from shore has been less than helpful. Any suggestions? Would contacting the Better Business Bureau grease the gears a bit?

Some pre-cruise photos and one post-cruise photo from New York City. Some assorted subway shots, exploring the flower district near our hotel, graffiti in Soho, and the Statue of Liberty when we returned to Brooklyn.

Thanks! That’s very cool. We just stumbled across it, possibly on our way to Cheers lol. I’ll partake in some fruit, but nothing like what I saw on this cruise.

I meant to provide a lot more photos from the voyage. Between coming home sick, and having to immediately jump back into work and school, I haven’t been able to share much more about what we saw off the ship. Hopefully this display in the right orientation. From Boston.

Well, we’re finally on the road to recovery. Both my wife and I have been fighting the flu (tested negative for Covid) since we returned home and have been pretty sedentary aside from working (we both work from home). Overall, we had a very good time but we did not book another cruise with MSC while onboard like we had originally planned. Some of the service was exemplary, some was just okay. We never met our original cabin steward, on the fifth day a new steward stopped by with our Aurea room diffuser, some slippers, a box of tissues and said that some robes would arrive later. The robes never arrived and that was the second to last time we saw him for the rest of the cruise aside from when our laundry was delivered. Our head waiter was friendly but quiet and never outgoing. The assist waiter was wonderful, as was the hostess, they were the dining room highlights as far as the staff goes. We were always happy with the food aside from one Caprese salad that had a half inch of water in the bottom - otherwise we were very happy at dinner in the MDR. Breakfast and lunch in the MDR was a lot more hit or miss. Rarely could we get a table by ourselves, which was never an issue at dinner, and the service was chaotic at best. One day at lunch it took seventy minutes for us to get a lunch that consisted of nothing but two Caesar salads and one bowl of ice cream. At another lunch during the last sea day we had to leave prior to our dessert being served because of our wine tasting was starting soon in an adjacent dining room. The buffet was like the Wild West without gunfights. I don’t know if it’s a change with me or a change with cruisers but it’s gotten pretty cutthroat. We went up to the buffet for lunch on prior to sailing away in NYC and an older lady was already giving one of the dining room managers an earful about the staffing. That set the tone for the buffet for the rest of the cruise. In terms of food, we always thought the buffet food was decent. It wasn’t terribly noteworthy, buffets typically aren’t, but it was perfectly fine if you could tolerate the behavior of the other guests around you and find a table. We managed to see all the stage shows, including both shows of the The Conjurers (who sat next to us at dinner twice). The Conjurers were lovely and put on an entertaining show. The rest of the stage shows were a bit of a disappointment mostly because the music was geared towards such an older crowd. Two nights in a row we heard the same song, “The Lady is a Tramp” from two different performers. Then a few nights later we heard “September” from Earth, Wind, and Fire in two different shows. I counted eight total songs that were sung in the theater during the entire cruise that were released since my birth in 1982. The entertainment felt like it was almost exclusively geared towards retirees, more so than we were expecting versus our previous MSC cruises. The only major issue we had, which is a design flaw of the Meraviglia that we knew about from our last sailing, is the location of the Guest Services and its proximity to live music. I don’t understand how MSC reps, many of which are bilingual, are meant to effectively communicate with so many international guests who can barely hear them and vice versa. If the music played there was more background piano music it would probably be okay, but it’s not, for much of the cruise it was reggae. It’s frustrating trying to communicate a billing issue with someone when reggae music loudly plays from behind you. Like I said in the beginning, we had a good time but we feel that the MSC experience has changed. They don’t feel like the same company we fell in love with in 2017. If we sail with MSC again it will likely be from Europe so the US influence is less pronounced.

Departure dinner menu with a few photos. I can't seem to get the photos to rotate the right direction and we forgot to take photos of the desserts.