Best Cat Mom

Day 1 Dinner Menu:

Day 1 conclusion…

MSC posts the menus for each day online, allowing scanning of a QR code to view each meal for that day. Subsequent days can be viewed by simply refreshing the page. Unfortunately, we missed grabbing a screen capture of the first night's dinner menu so I'll add images from the YC display stand instead. We'll try to use the online images for the rest of the cruise -- they're so much easier to read without shadows, fingers, etc.

BCD had the Burgundy Snails as a starter for our first night's dinner. When we were on Seaside in September, we saw that Burgundy Snails had been added to the Always Available section of the YC dinner menu. On this cruise, the snails are not listed there so BCD made sure to order them when he saw them. We had really liked having them available every night on Seaside -- I think we ordered them 4 or more times over the 11-nights -- but this may be dependent on cruise location. We'll see if they appear as Always Available on our next Divina cruise, which is in the Caribbean in April. We hope so!

I chose the Steamed octopus carpaccio as my starter. I love the octopus on MSC! I haven't seen the octopus soup yet at lunch which is also one of my favorites, but I'm so looking forward to having it again. Sadly, we don't stop at Ocean Cay this sailing, so I won't be able to enjoy the octopus salad. Perhaps some version of it will show up in Le Muse? Fingers crossed!

We had champagne while perusing the menus and then Sauvignon Blanc with our starters.

For our entrees, we both ordered the Angus beef fillet Oscar-style. I have a severe gluten allergy (not fully celiac, but I am extremely bothered by gluten) so my Oscar-style was crab meat on the side and no hollandaise sauce. The beef was cooked perfectly and we both ate too much of our entrees. 🙂

We enjoyed a chianti with our entrees and continued with it over desert. BCD had the Crêpe Suzette and I indulged in some coffee ice cream with a shot of Kahlua on top. The crepes are a special presentation prepared by the maître d' in the restaurant dining room. We don't normally order deserts as we tend to prefer nuts and cheese after dinner if anything. But being our first night on the ship and having had only pizza for lunch, we indulged.

Overall, we had a great first dinner. We never felt rushed, and were among the last to leave the restaurant at nearly 10pm.

We headed back to the TS lounge for some after dinner drinks and live music. Unfortunately, the piano and saxophone duo that we'd enjoyed from before dinner had already departed. This was the first time we've had a saxophonist in the TS lounge. I hope that they repeat in our lounge a few more times this cruise.

Day 2 next…

Continuing our Day 1...

We returned to our cabin and by 3:45pm, 3 of our 4 bags had been delivered to our cabin. We had already ordered an MSC pizza by room service, anticipating that we'd need some sustenance to help with the unloading. We grabbed two glasses of chianti from the Top Sail Lounge and unpacked. The last bag still had not arrived when we finished so we went to the TS Lounge for drinks.

Around 7ish, I went back to the cabin to change for dinner. Still no sign of our fourth bag. Given that bag had all of our toiletries, I was starting to get quite worried. MSC doesn't usually have a big selection of that type of everyday items on board so if the bag was truly lost, we might be waiting over a week to get to Puerto Rico which is the most likely place we could do a like-for-like replacement of items. In addition, this was the only bag that did not have an Apple Air Tag on it so we could not determine its location. We still hadn't sailed away but knowing it was somewhere on the ship and not still in the terminal (or in the ocean!) would have given us some peace. Waiting for the bag but knowing it was coming is a big difference from having no idea if we'd ever see that bag again.

While I was getting ready for dinner, I had a thought: maybe something in our toiletries was flagged by security? That would be a plausible explanation for the delay and would mean that our stuff was not lost. I decided that was the likely reason and as Best Cat Dad came back to the room, I shared that thought with him when he was barely in the door. And the YC Head Butler was just outside our room at that same moment and told us that indeed our bag was in Security. He walked BCD down to Security to retrieve the bag. Pepe, our YC Director, happened to be in the Security room at that time as well. He proceeded to give a stern lecture to the staff there, stressing that YC passengers should never have to wait so long to be notified of questions with their bags.

Bag was retrieved by BCD and they both returned to our cabin. (A Leatherman tool was the issue and BCD will get it back at the end of our cruise.) We proceeded to dinner at Le Muse, which is at the back (aft) of the ship on Divina and other Fantasia-class MSC ships. We've been on Divina for two previous sailings so we knew exactly how we wanted to walk to Le Muse. I recommend that others in YC for the first time on Divina have a butler escort them on the first night so they don't get lost in the maze of a new ship.

More to come…

7 minutes ago, Mark_T said:

I know he will take great care of you, once he is over his jet-lag

He already is! We were amazed at how great he was on no sleep. Can't wait to find out how he is at full speed. 😉

On 11/29/2023 at 2:50 PM, DaKahuna said:

I am use to StarLink Internet on Celebrity so your experience with Internet on Divina is of interest.

We have free WiFi in YC, but it is only at the "browse" level. So far it has met our expectations from past cruises and needs on this one.

22 hours ago, Mark_T said:

Do you know how full the ship and YC are for this cruise?

...

If the Butler Elvin & his assistant Ari are still on board I hope you will be fortunate enough to have them assigned to you.

Elvin is indeed our Butler. He just boarded with us in Barcelona to start a new contract after a few months at home. He is still getting over the jetlag and told us that he barely slept last night -- but he was still very attentive. 🙂 Our Junior Butler is Jewell, though I'm not sure if Elvin and Jewell are paired for all of Elvin's cabins.

Elvin told us that the whole ship is only at about 50-60% capacity right now. We have a few stops before the crossing but he didn't think that they'd be many more people embarking.

If the ship docks at noon or later, maybe not. Our ship arrived in Barcelona at 1pm and the first YC group boarded around 2:30pm. Le Muse was already finished with lunch so we ordered a room service pizza while we unpacked. 🙂

1 hour ago, Mark_T said:

Do you know how full the ship and YC are for this cruise?

We've heard from the Maître d' of Le Muse that YC only has 78 guests for this sailing, which is nearly half of full capacity. (Divina has 69 staterooms; at double capacity that is 138 guests.)

Divina YC Director currently is Giuseppe Terminiello, commonly known as Pepe. He was on Seaside in 2018 as Maitre d' of the YC Restaurant. I also think he was an MDR restaurant manager more recently.

We boarded yesterday in Barcelona. The ship was due into port at 1pm so we decided to arrive at noon in case the ship was early. This was our first time using the Port of Barcelona so we were not sure what to expect. There were no signs indicating which ship was in which terminal (no electronic board like in Miami), but we quickly found that Divina would be using Terminal A (at least for this time, not sure if MSC always uses A in Barcelona).

There was not a marked area for YC at the bag check. There were only a few passengers there and 4 desks to check in just outside the terminal entrance doors. I asked about YC check in and they indicated that we could check in at any of the desks. They checked our embarkation forms, collected our health questionnaires, gave us a Priority card (presumably to indicate YC)  and our bags were tagged with YC labels. We proceeded inside directly to the security screening. I think I recall 4 security lines, only one of which was open. There was no line and we passed through quickly. Our 2 bottles of water and bags of snacks were not confiscated. We saw a dozen or so people seated in the terminal. After we showed the Priority card, we were brought to another area near the baggage claim where about 15 people where already seated.

We watched the ship maneuver into the port and dock at nearly exactly 1pm. We saw our priority area gain more people, close to about 50. At just before 2pm, someone came over to gather the YC passengers to take us to the "VIP area." We expected all of the folks seated with us to be YC, but there were only 10 of us that were moving. I guess the others were Aurea or Diamond? I believe that those passengers also receive some type of priority boarding, though I'm not sure because we've only traveled in YC on MSC.

The VIP area held a total of ~25 comfortably. Within 15 minutes, we were checked in and by 2:35pm the other 6 people were completely checked in with photos taken, cruise cards issued and newspaper selections confirmed. The other 2 people were "ejected" from the lounge. We heard them say that their cabin was 9010. I had thought that perhaps they had one of the duplex suites that are considered YC even though they were out of the YC enclave. Apparently not. Perhaps there was a language barrier and they thought that Voyagers Club was being called instead of Yacht Club?

Our cruise cards did not have our Voyager Club status listed. They stated that they did not have access to that info in the port, but our cards could be updated once onboard. They told this to everyone as it seemed that all of us had some type of upper VC status that was not displayed.

We were onboard and in the Top Sail Lounge by 2:45pm. Pepe, the YC Director, was making his rounds to greet each couple of our YC boarding group. We thought we recognized him and later confirmed this. Pepe, whose full name is Guiseppe Terminiello, was the YC maitre d' on our very first MSC cruise which was on Seaside back in 2018. It was wonderful to be greeted by someone who remembered us. 🙂

Then on our way out of Top Sail to our cabin, we saw that the YC bartender was Hubert, who was the One Deck bartender on our October 2022 Divina sailing. He greeted us with a big smile and we again felt the hospitality of YC. Seeing those familiar faces is always a great thing. 🙂

More to come…

We are currently on the Divina in a Yacht Club Deluxe Suite (YC1) on Deck 15 on the Port side (which is the odd room numbers). We departed from Barcelona yesterday, Tuesday, 28 November, for a 16-night transatlantic crossing. Here is our itinerary:

I will try to share our experiences on this cruise on a day-to-day basis, though the internet is expected to be challenging during some days of the crossing. Feel free to ask any questions, and I'll do my best to answer.

Welcome home, Morph. Thanks for sharing your trip with us. Next one is your Explorer "journey,"  yes?  Will you be writing about that here or on the EJ board?

12 minutes ago, morpheusofthesea said:

Tonight being Thanksgiving dinner ought to be eventful, showtime for this group is 6pm

MSC now has Dinner Theatre? Tell us what you think of this new offering. 😉

25 minutes ago, go.without.you said:

There isn't a sommelier on this ship

That is quite disappointing. We usually will ask for a particular grape that we prefer (based on food ordered). Try asking for a grape that is not so common. A shiraz/syrah to go with a burger or a fume blanc to go with seafood and see if that gets you some better choices than Mondavi. At least your server will realize that they have to up their wine game for you. 🙂

22 minutes ago, New2Cruise76 said:

TA is giving ~10% in OBC, they're just also charging me ~10% more

Have you asked the TA why their price is higher? They might not be quoting the exact same thing as you are choosing in the MSC website. The differences may or may not matter, but you should be aware of them.

Apoarently, Iancu is the current YC Director and Raul is the YC Restaurant maitre d. Hope this helps!

We use a TA because we get anywhere from 10% to 20% of the cruise price in OBC from our TA. For YC, this can be $1K or more, depending on the length of our cruise.

@morpheusofthesea Wishing you a wonderful week on the ocean. We've found so many variables in the behavior of kids in YC and hope that you discover only the best behaved ones have joined you. 🙂

Current YC Director on Seascape is Taylan Tanadalan.

Current YC Director on Euribia is Murat Göksel Şengul.

If anyone knows when they are leaving, please tell us. 🙂

1 hour ago, tomthefool said:

Normally we bring safe snacks just in case but at this point, we’ll need an additional suitcase to get home.

I still have one more bag of GF cookies to finish from our September cruise. 🙂

8 hours ago, burdcats said:

We have not needed the snacks we brought with us for the Celiac people in our group. They have been lavishing us with muffins, cookies and treats.

I am so glad that you're having a similar experience to me. 🙂

We are big fans of their risotto - gluten free and yummy. Did you try the Steamed Octopus Carpaccio? Another winner -- and gluten free.

9 hours ago, burdcats said:

We got gluten free chocolate and desserts for fun that we will pack since I’ve read you can’t get them on board besides a cake.

I am highly gluten sensitive and have always been very pleased with the dessert offerings in YC. Full disclosure: I hardly ever order a traditional dessert and usually follow the Italian tradition of a cheese plate whether at home or on holiday. There are other dessert choices on the menu that contain no gluten, such as a flourless torte or a crème brûlée. The staff will tell you which are safe for you or can be altered to be safe for you. And don't be shy about asking for those same gluten free desserts with subsequent YC meals. I'm happy to say that I've never been glutened by a dessert in MSC YC. Enjoy! 🙂

We had water and (Delta) snacks in our carry on luggage. As we put our items on the security conveyor belt, I took them out -- like I'd do for any TSA screening. Security told me that there was no problem with the items, and they allowed us to bring them on board. I put my Miss Vickie's potato chips in the safe just in case, and had them one afternoon on our balcony. 🙂

We've always had it in our turndown service in YC. Also had a bunch of it for special occasions when our butlers decorated our rooms in the evening.

Here's an example from real life: we went to dinner at Morton's The Steakhouse last night. Our bill was just over $450 for our dinner. We go there every 3 or 4 weeks, not that often. If we regularly saw anyone wearing a tank top and flip flops, we would not be dining there again. We expect the same in MSC YC.