Anastas617

Day 7 eats:

Day 7 (at sea): For the first time I had breakfast at Waves instead of the buffet. I got the eggs benedict with sauteed potatoes and pork sausage. Also grabbed a chocolate muffin when they came around with the basket. Muffin was just okay. The eggs benedict was perfectly cooked and tasted very good with a slight issue; I was going to be charitable and say they were barely lukewarm, but in reality they were cold. Didn’t really care for the sauteed potatoes. Last day to lay out and enjoy my book(s). I’ve long been a staunch supporter of having a paper book in my hands, but I’ve finally relented and started using my kindle more and I have to admit that it has been much nicer traveling and not using up space for 2-3 books when packing or bringing 2 books to the pool because you are almost finished one. There was decent cloud coverage today, but I also brought an extra rash guard with me to wrap around my burned shin. I need to keep that in mind for the future. It may look dumb, but I’m already wearing a dopey hat for head protection. My second lunch at Hola! and I went AYCE again because I knew I was getting enchiladas which are $11.99; if I wasn’t getting enchiladas or a burrito ($10.79) I would probably have just ordered a la carte. I switched up the enchiladas to beef today and got my favorite chili con carne tacos. I also grabbed two other tacos (al pastor, barbacoa), the El Chapo and a last second decision of a beef tostada. I tried to stress that I wanted to start with the El Chapo, but like the Queso Fundido it arrived halfway through the meal. Everything was very good. In future visits I probably would not order the tostada or the al pastor; not because they were bad, just that I liked the other items so much better. I skipped dessert the other day, but I got the Dulce de Leche today and it was, hands down, the best dessert of the trip. Yum 😊. After lunch, I saw they now had a display of watches for 60% off in the shops area. This was a fairly small selection compared to the 35% discount on most of the other watches, but I still saw a decently priced “dressy” one I liked and bought. Mentally noted that even though this was a relatively small selection, I should probably wait until near the end of the cruise to shop. I returned to my room to find a note from the casino letting me know they had a gift for me. I went down there, and they handed me a bag with a bottle of cologne in it (Paco?). It was a nice of them, but colognes/perfumes give me a headache and I’ll have to give it to somebody else. I pack up most of my stuff and head to the 4pm cast variety show. Had no idea what to expect, but it was actually a pretty good show with some dancing, singing and comedy. This was the most crowded I had seen the theatre all week. Back to my room and finish packing and put my suitcase out in the hall at 6:30pm, as I probably wouldn’t get another chance before 10pm deadline. Italian night in the MDR. I do a better job stressing that I would like to be done in time to get to the 8:30 show and my waiter, Alit, is all over it. I have the Arancini, Osso Buco and Tiramisu. Overall, this was the best meal of the cruise; every dish was excellent and I couldn’t even nitpick anything. Alit had me out of the dining room at 8:05pm. Theatre show was “Journey” and the theme was music and dancing from different regions. This was probably my favorite show from a dancing perspective, but I was not enamored with the songs. It wasn’t that they mostly weren’t in English, I just found myself bored with them. Carousel theatre show was “Houdini”. As with last night, the show was limited in what they would be performing. Again, hard to really judge due to missing elements, but I think I preferred this to Rock Circus by a slim margin. The cast is the same and there is a bit of overlap in parts of the act, but I still am glad I bought tickets to these. I’ve already booked the two (different) carousel shows on my next cruise. Sadly, I head back to my room for the last time of the cruise.

In my haste at dinner, I forgot to take dinner photos. Here is lunch and snack (and pub menu):

Day 6/Part 2: Tonight was a rather tight schedule as I had booked the Broadway Theatre show “Born to Rock” at 8:30pm, as well as the Carousel Lounge show “Rock Circus” at 10pm. I was seated for dinner right at 7:30pm and I knew I was skipping a starter to cut down on dining room time. I ordered the broiled swordfish and apple strudel. The swordfish was good and cooked nicely, but the spice rub was a tad bit too salty. The apple strudel was also good (again, with raisins added for some reason). I didn’t stress enough to my waiter that I wanted to be out quickly, so it was 8:20pm when I left the dining room headed to the theatre…only to arrive and find tonight’s performances had been cancelled. I was kinda bummed since that was the show I most wanted to see. Occupied my time at Brass Anchor until Rock Circus. I genuinely love this bar, but in my final thoughts I’ll comment on the other bars and why I did not spend much time at them. I can’t remember if I already mentioned, but I was refunded for both of the carousel lounge shows and didn’t know why. I went to reception and they told me the shows would be going on as planned, but the aerial components and moving parts of the stage would not be used so they refunded the ticket cost. The free drinks for the show did not appeal to me, so I skipped them. I enjoyed the Rock Circus show, but it was obvious there were portions that were lacking elements. Based on what I saw, I think it would have been an excellent show if seen as it’s meant to be. Honestly, I see a lot of surprise and complaints that they have paid shows, but they have free shows in the theatre every night of the cruise and the pre-boarding cost of $12 for these extra shows seemed like good value to me. I had a couple of post-show drinks and ended the night.

Yes! I got the El Chapo during my second lunch at Hola! and I definitely preferred it.

Thanks!

Day 6/Part 1 (at sea): Usual morning routine. Up a bit later this morning and my usual deck chair was taken, but I needed more shade today anyways. My left shin for some reason is a focal point for the sun and no matter how much sunblock I use and how often I reapply, I always get a burn on that one particular spot. I had heard that people can “swell up” on cruises, particularly in the ankles and that is exactly what has happened to me this cruise, It didn’t happen on my previous cruise and I’m led to believe that it is because I ordered a bunch of bottled water for my cabin on Princess and did not drink as much of the desalinated water (?). I wish this was a service MSC offered because I gladly would have paid that small fee to have a stocked water supply in my cabin. By 11am I could no longer shield myself from direct sun, so I got refreshed for lunch. I came up with a fix for that on the last day, but I wish I thought of it earlier. Somehow the menu I downloaded was not today's lunch menu at Waves even though it said Day 6, so there were a couple of items I would have considered that I did not know about. I should note that I did not “scan” the code for the menu, I refreshed the previous days site and downloaded the menu. Since it said Day 6, I thought it was fine. The dinner menu did download the correct option. As an aside, PCL made it very easy to see the daily menus on their app so I could decide if I wanted to skip the MDR for lunch or dinner. Refreshing the page was the only option I could find for MSC and obviously that was not dependable. Maybe there is a better way, but having to wait until the MDR opens to scan the code is not optimal. Anyways, I got the green pea soup, signature burger and I repeated the cheesecake w/butterscotch. The pea soup was excellent. Aside from the French onion, I thought they did a really great job with soups overall. The burger was adequate and I appreciated that there was only a modest amount of BBQ sauce and it wasn’t smothered; I didn’t appreciate that it was missing the advertised caramelized onions, but had unadvertised tomato! I know you can remove it, but I just hate raw tomato 😊. Cheesecake was a repeat and no complaints. Ok. So, off to the casino for the most frustrating and then exhilarating afternoon I could imagine. Having had a bad couple of sessions the previous day, I was in full chase mode trying to recoup losses which is never a good idea. Frustration set in as I got no bonuses for an interminable amount of time. Things started to turn and bonuses started to come, though not anything to be overly excited about. Then it happened! Playing Ultimate Fire Link Explosion I got the three chests bonus and as the wheel is scrolling down it slows and lands on the Mega jackpot. It took a few seconds for it to register and I spent the next 15 minutes shaking going through the handpay process. I had never hit a handpay before and to hit one of this magnitude was a shocker. After stashing most of my winnings in my safe, I returned to the casino only because I was fairly close to 5k points and a free cruise. I eventually hit the points and I was done gambling for the trip (I thought). As far as the free cruise goes, I did get the offer three days after the cruise and I was less than impressed; it was for USA sailings up to 5 nights in a Bella interior. I don’t even think MSC has 5 day sailings in US, so it’s essentially for a 3 or 4 night. The offer also said book and sail by 07/22/23 which was obviously a mistake since I received the offer 7/26 and I was still on the cruise on 7/22. I contacted them and they said they will send an updated offer that I haven’t received yet. For comparison purposes, I gambled much less on PCL and received a far better offer; though I did hear that PCL is the best for casino comps. Long story short, I would never pay attention to my point accumulation on MSC again. I had been wanting to check out the pub food at Brass Anchor. They were out of buffalo wings, which was my first choice and I settled for some fried pickles. They were okay, but I much prefer the pickles slices to thick spear-type pieces in this situation. The dipping sauce was good. Part 2 of day 6 to follow…

Based on the coffee and alcohol I consume, the Plus still works as a no-brainer for me. My only PCL cruise so far was on Caribbean Princess and they didn't have an Alfredo's/GiGi's, but I would think two visits would be fine with me on cruises that have this option. I have 5 cruises booked over the next 18 months and I am pretty sure I will get Plus on 4 of them. The one I am not sure about is a 12-night British Isles cruise that my brother is joining me on (I usually travel solo). I imagine I will be off the ship more often and for longer periods at those ports and my brother is less of a drinker than I am, so it is something we will figure out together.

Snow is highly unlikely in October in Boston, although we did have a freak snowstorm in late October 2020. We also rarely get directly hit with hurricanes (last was in 1990s, I believe) but we do often get residual effects of wind and rain. October is one of the rainiest months of the year in Boston, but also one of my favorite months here.

Day 5 dinner:

Day 5 (Ocean Cay): despite my best efforts, I was awake at 6:40am. Quick breakfast and intended to go to Horizon Pool for a bit, but we were already docked and I decided to just wait to get off the ship. We debarked right at 9am and I made my way to Lighthouse Beach. I chose one of the Adirondack chairs to hang out for the morning. I grabbed my snorkel mask and took a dip in the water. There were a couple of large rocks in the water and they blended in with the sand, so I didn’t love that. I didn’t really see anything while snorkeling, but it was nice to swim and cool off anyways. After swimming, I went to the Lighthouse Bar and I grabbed a pina colada. It was so bad that I’m pretty sure the mix they used had gone bad. I immediately handed it back and asked for a Miller Lite instead. I was pretty exhausted and the day was heating up (possibly the hottest day of the week?), so I didn’t explore the island figuring that surely I would be back and could explore another beach next time. Line at food truck was long enough that I went back to the ship and grabbed a couple slices of pizza and a lime panna cotta from the buffet. The pizza was good, but the panna cotta was nasty. Maybe something was going on with my taste buds today or maybe I just don’t like panna cotta (it was my first time having it). So, I think I have had the pizza enough to weigh-in on it. I think the taste is very good and having a number of different slices available is nice. What it comes down to for me is the crust. The crust is good, I just found it a little bit too doughy. If it was just a bit crisper, I would have liked it more. I think it was pretty much comparable with Princess (from Slice, not room service) with Princess crust just being a bit more to my liking. After a losing session in the casino and a much-needed nap, I headed to dinner. I opted to forego a starter for two entrees again. I had Spaghetti aglio e olio, lamb curry and key lime pie. The spaghetti was not what I expected as the description was spaghetti with garlic and oil, but what I got also had quite a bit of red pepper flakes and it had a good amount of heat. It was good, but I would rather have had it without the heat level. The lamb curry was very good, no complaints. Key lime pie was good, but not as good as the other desserts this week. Theatre show tonight was “Magic and Mind Reading with The Conjurers”. I loved this show. I watched intensely trying to see if I could catch how they did their tricks, but I didn’t discover any secrets. Highly recommend this show unless you just really hate magic. As I’m leaving the theatre I discover some (unkind word) had put gum on the seat and it was now on my shirt. It only took about 5 minutes in the bathroom to get it removed, but I was beyond irritated. I tell myself I’m not going to casino because I had a bad session in the afternoon and didn’t want to compound it. Instead listen to the musician at Brass Anchor for a good while. Then I ignore my earlier promise to myself and head back to casino where I have a full fledged tilt session to end the night. Sigh.

Day 4 food:

Day 4 (Nassau): Up at 8am regretting the previous late night of alcohol and gambling. Was not going to leave the ship today, so I had usual morning of buffet, horizon pool, enjoying my book. I had my first Miami Vice of the trip and it was probably the best of the frozen drinks I had for the week. Went to the future cruise desk to see what it was all about. I was told that the “Price Drop Guarantee” is only for the 30 days after you disembark. I don’t want to say it’s useless, but when planning probably 12+ months in the future I would rather wait until a good deal is out there. The double voyager points are nice, but for a non-refundable deposit I’d rather wait until the 2025 Europe itineraries are released since 2024 is pretty booked up for me (thank you Mohegan Sun and Princess casino comps). I stopped off at the shops and ended up buying a watch. I know the “original” price is probably inflated a bit, but after the discount it was still a decent deal based on my internet sleuthing. Headache really starting to kick in, but I had a 1230 reservation at Hola! Went with the AYCE option because I couldn’t decide and didn’t want to think too much. I got the Queso Fundido, 2x chili co carne tacos, 1x ancho tinga taco, 1x chipotle carnitas and the chicken enchiladas. Everything was very good with the standouts being the chili co carne tacos and the enchiladas. Only thing I disliked is that the queso fundido came out in the middle of my meal where I expected that to be the starter. Actually, the queso fundido was probably my least favorite thing; it was good, but cheese to chorizo ratio was heavily slanted towards cheese and it was very thick and hard to scoop with the chips. Taste-wise it was good, but I would probably not order again. Napped until 5pm and took a couple of Excedrin before heading to Brass Anchor pre-dinner. Dinner: None of the starters spoke to me, but many of the mains did. I went with the Buccatini alla Carbonara, barramundi and coconut cake. The bucatini was very good, but perhaps it was too heavy with the bacon. They actually used both pancetta and American-style bacon that was probably leftover from breakfast. I think just the pancetta would have sufficed (despite that it was one of my favorite dishes on the trip). I've never had barramundi before and the taste was good, but seemed a bit overcooked. The coconut cake was another good dessert. I’m usually not a dessert eater, but I have been very pleased with the desserts. Tonight was white night. I knew this was an MSC thing, so I actually brought a white outfit. Grabbed pre-theatre drinks at BA and watched the white night pre-event stuff in the promenade (it was only like 5 minutes, though the program read 30 minutes.) The show “Top Hits” was decent. Like the other shows it was a bit underwhelming, but entertaining enough. My preferred female singer of the three was noticeably missing from this show. One more drink from my favorite bartenders and up top to the White Party. It was a pretty good time, even for a solo like me that was just swaying to the music on the periphery. It blew me away that almost everyone up there was in white and it just looked really cool. I didn't really spend a lot of evening time on the outside decks this trip, but I probably should have. Ended the night at the casino again for longer than I should have. I won tonight, but not nearly what I should have if I had the sense to walk away. I need to learn to be a good winner! 🤣

I agree that The Conjurers were the best show. I was bummed that Born to Rock was canceled because that was the one I most wanted to see. I skipped the comedian, so I'm glad to hear he may not have been very good. Edit: I almost forgot about the staff variety show. I didn't know what to expect, but I thoroughly enjoyed it.

My abbreviated day 3 food (see what I mean about the Corned beef hash being liquidy?):

Day 3 (Port Canaveral): woke up early again and followed yesterday’s routine. I don’t think I mentioned, but I definitely enjoyed their coffee in the buffet. I’m not a coffee snob and regularly drink gas station coffee, but the buffet coffee on Caribbean Princess was pretty poor. The other thing of note from this morning’s breakfast in the buffet was that I noticed a giant bowl of potato salad in the line. I found this odd because I didn’t realize anyone would ever associate potato salad with breakfast. Upon further inspection, it was potato and chicken salad. This sounded awful enough that I needed to try some. Turns out that chicken is apparently a synonym for sliced hot dog or Vienna sausages or something, I’m not sure, it was just a weird concoction. That being said, the potato salad on its own was surprisingly good. Set-up in my usual spot on the Horizon Pool deck, I suddenly realize my alarm was set for later in the morning because I didn’t expect to be up so early. Oops. Ran back to my room and returned, grabbing a bloody mary on the way. I think only one bartender (I think it was at the Edge Bar) actually seasoned the rim of the glass when I ordered a bloody mary the entire cruise. Back to room to freshen up for 11:30 lunch. I have an excursion booked in Port Canaveral, so I need to dine early. On my way to lunch I stopped at Guest Services to inquire about transfer services to LaGuardia airport. I was told that they had them, but only for flights after 3pm. I was a bit confused and told them I didn’t want the excursion in NYC + transfer, just asking if they had a direct shuttle to the airport. Well apparently, her first answer was for the direct shuttle. I thought that made no sense because I would expect folks with earlier flights would want their transport arranged and I told her that. She got into something about possible immigration hold-ups and I just said ok and left. (My flight was 2:15pm and I knew I’d get there plenty early anyways, just figured the transfer might save a few bucks) Today’s lunch at Waves was quite enjoyable. Some sort of bean soup that was excellent, mozzarella sticks – enough said 😊 , philly cheesesteak sandwich I’ll get into detail below and cheesecake w/butterscotch sauce that was very good. The philly cheesesteak was good in taste. My only complaint was too much cheese, not enough meat and too much bread for the amount of meat. Like I said, taste-wise I had no complaints. As I was eating lunch I noticed the sky was getting increasingly dark and the rain came crashing down as I was finishing up. Lightning soon followed and since my excursion was the pontoon lagoon tour, I was starting to think I may not be leaving the ship after all. Waiting in the theater, we were Group 2. Groups 1,3,4,5 were all called for their excursion. Groups 6 and 7 start filing into the theater and my section starts grumbling because nobody has said anything to us. About 5 minutes later, we are told our excursion has been delayed but we will still get the full tour. 10 minutes after that we are told it is cancelled and we will be refunded. I was disappointed because I was hoping to see manatees and/or alligators, but c’est la vie. I now had no excursions for the crtuise because I did not intend to get off the boat in Nassau. All along I had considered this cruise as more for the ship anyways, since I really only was interested in Ocean Cay as a location. Spent some time touring the ship and grabbing a beer (ok, 2 beers) at Brass Anchor. I was surprised that the only store with MSC products was tiny, only had a couple of female (no male) shirt options and no hats. I forgot my ball cap, so I wanted something aside from my dopey looking beach hat that I only used when laying out. Also, continue to be surprised by duty free prices. Liquor is almost always more expensive that I can buy at home in a state that loves to tax vices, but cigarettes are exceedingly cheap ($31 or $53 a carton depending on brand) since a carton would be $100-$130 in Massachusetts. My batteries are running low and I decide to nap. This was the only night I didn’t go to the MDR and went to the buffet for dinner instead. I was probably still half asleep because I didn’t take many notes on the dinner buffet and no pictures. My notes were that the selection seemed fairly small, but what I did grab was good. I only went up once figuring I would probably grab pizza later (I didn't for alcohol and casino reasons). I do know I grabbed some roast at the carver’s station and thought it was better than my night 1 prime rib. One thing I had felt since I got on board was that the bartender’s did a much better job recognizing the order to serve people at the bars than on CP. This was until I went to the atmosphere bar after dinner and waited about 15 minutes to get a beer. I’m now thinking it may be more of a universal thing with the outdoor bars being a bit more hectic and disorganized. Eventually headed to my favorite stomping grounds. Good crowd in the pub tonight. Chris(?) was playing guitar/singing and there was a group of about 10 folks that were doing a pub crawl that were quite lively. Was conversing with one of them and there was a mixture of Boston and NY people in the group, so I can only imagine the dynamic as the drink count increases 🤣. After my drink count increased, I ended up back in the casino. This was the first and only night that I went a bit overboard with drinking and I would regret it in the morning. I would also regret it in the evening because I was having such a good time I spent way too long in the casino and donated more than I would have liked to the slot gods. In bed and fast asleep at 4am (sounds terrible, but in my defense my usual bedtime is 9am). Onto day 4…(probably not until tomorrow night)

When uploading my food photos from Day 2, I saw I had a photo of the bloody mary I had while spending time by the Horizon Pool. It seemed like this was a good time to discuss drinks. Beer is most often my drink of choice, but on a cruise or any tropical vacation I find myself having pina coladas, daiquiris or similar once a day. I also like to have a bloody mary in the mid-morning. I don't know if it is the brand that supplies their drink mix, but all of the drinks I had were underwhelming. Drinkable enough (with one exception I'll get to later in the week) that I continued to order them, but not very good. When I paid attention I saw them use Bacardi for the rum and Absolut for the vodka, so it wasn't using subpar alcohol. Princess was far and away better in this rather specific category.

Day 2 food:

Day 2: I woke up way too early at 5:25am and made my way to the buffet at 6am. The hot food doesn’t open until 6:30, but I was happy just to get a few cops of coffee and a chocolate croissant in the meantime. I don’t know why I wake up so early on vacation, but there are a number of pluses to this and the buffet being nearly empty is one of them. The buffet itself for breakfast is, for the most part, what you would expect in any breakfast buffet in America. It didn’t have some of the niceties you might want, like eggs benedict or a custom omelette station (they had ham/cheese and veggie omelettes), but it had all the standards and more. My two observations of note on Day 1 was that the corned beef hash was more “liquidy” than I had ever seen (though the taste was good) and the pancakes were better than any other buffet pancakes I’ve had, since I usually find buffet pancakes to be completely dry and lacking taste. Perhaps it is because they were so fresh at 6:30 and hadn’t been sitting around awhile? Benefit #2 of waking up early is getting to pick any spot on the deck to lay out. My typical routine is to spend a few hours on a lounger with a book in the morning and then I’m done with the direct sun for the rest of the day. So, I went to the Horizon pool area because ‘adults only” is one of my favorite phrases and camped out. I eventually went back to my room and freshened up to go to the welcome reception for solo cruisers in the Sky Lounge at 10am. Only like three people showed up and it was a big dud. The staff said it was really hit or miss and some cruises the turnout is good. I also learned that there were 1600 under-18s on this fully booked cruise. I headed over to Hola! to make reservations for lunch and for my paid Carousel Theatre shows. It would never be a consideration for me to pay extra for specialty dining in most cases, but because this place was fairly cheap, I didn’t pay a lot for the cruise, and because @JamieLogical raved about it in her trip report I decided to book two lunches there. The whole process was maddeningly slow. I was the third person in line waiting and it took 35 minutes. I can’t blame people in front of me just being difficult/complicated because I sat down and said “I want lunch for 1 person at Hola! on Wed/Fri and Rock Circus for Friday, Houdini for Saturday both at 10pm.”. Plainly laid out and it still took way too long for what seems like a straightforward request. (Friday only had 1:30 available for lunch, so I switched to Saturday at 12:30) Had a quick losing session in the casino and decided to head to trivia. This situation I will definitely compare to Caribbean Princess. In my opinion, the Meraviglia Lounge is a terrible location to host trivia; there isn’t a lot of seating, you have people there for the bar/lounge having conversations and the lounge is wide open to the promenade so you have all that noise filtering in. The Explorer’s Lounge on CP was a much better, if not perfect, location for this type of thing. I had lunch at Waves: Lentil soup, Fish & Chips and Boston Crème Pie. I really enjoyed the soup. The fish had two pieces that tasted completely different, one mild and one fishy. The cake was good. Not a home run, but an overall satisfactory meal. At this point, adjusting my schedule was taking a toll on me and I had to take a nap (I work nights). Problem is I am terrible at napping, so my two-hour nap turned into 4hrs of sleep. At least I won’t be nodding off during the evening’s show. Neither of my pants I had packed were completely dry yet, but it was gala night and I had to go to work with the hair dryer to dry a pair out. I hit Brass Anchor for a couple of pre-dinner beers and listened to the band (I think it was the Soul Band?) playing down below in the lounge. Gala Dinner: I had beef tartare, Caesar salad, surf and turf and baked Alaska. I was a bit nervous to try beef tartare as the idea of eating raw meat doesn’t sit well, but one of the things I was looking forward to with cruising was trying foods I never would have otherwise. I enjoyed the tartare, though the texture took a bit getting used to. I certainly found it better than sushi. The salad was perfectly fine, not really anything else to say. The S&T was very good; lobster was cooked well and the filet, while not as good as a fine steakhouse, was very good for included dining. I had never tried Baked Alaska before, and this was sooo good. I have nothing to compare it to but enjoyed it thoroughly. Last night was lackluster, but tonight was a solid thumbs up. Another stop at Brass Anchor (can you tell I like this place?) and on to tonight’s show “One Day More”. Les Miserables is my favorite theatre production, so I’m looking forward to this and whatever else may be part of the show. I didn’t particularly enjoy the West Side Story stuff they started with, but the show got increasingly better as it progressed and ended with snippets from Les Mis. Enjoyed this show much more than Cool. So, here are a couple of things that stood out to me during this show and throughout the week. There were three male and three female singers (though some shows were missing certain singers). One of the male singers lacked any sort of stage presence which resulted in anything he performed to be rather boring. One of the female singers was a very gifted vocalist, but she also seemed to be an opera-trained singer. She was fine when solo, but whenever she had to mesh with the others it just didn’t sound right. I hate critiquing people that are much more talented to me, but that’s what I came away with. Tonight was silent disco night and it looked like so much fun. It had started during the theater show however and I didn’t take part. This was the downside to my shows being at 10pm. It often interfered with other things I’d be interested in or that started right when the show ended. Headed to you-know-where for another beer and enjoyed the guitarist/singer. I think his name was Chris(?) and he was from South Africa. The bartenders know me by this point which is always nice. Headed off to a spur of the moment casino session which turned out well and erased my previous losses. In fact, I was a tiny bit up now. Ended the night up at the pizza buffet, which was quite crowded. Grabbed a cheese* slice and a slice of onion/white pizza. They were both very good. I was a bit tipsy at this point, so I’ll hold off on any sort of rating. *they refer to this as margherita pizza. Where I live and grew up, this was just cheese pizza. Margherita pizza is pizza with sauce, tomatoes, dollops of fresh mozzarella and basil. Some places would also have a more traditional, albeit lesser amount, of pizza cheese on top of the sauce along with the other ingredients. Anyways, it makes me think of the episode of the Office where Andy Bernard buys margherita pizza and opens the box to find a plain cheese pizza. I make way to bed at 1:15am, ending a very good day at sea.

Only once did I find it smoky, but that was sitting near a smoker. In general, it seemed fine and I didn't really see many smokers.

That looks great and much more how I remembered them as a kid! Day 1 dinner pics attached.

Day 1/Part 2: Very noticeable difference in passenger makeup from my Princess cruise. More diverse, more international, more kids, more “groups” of people and more loudness. EDIT: by "groups" I mean 8-12 (or more) people traveling together It’s a good time to mention my cabin which was a studio interior cabin (10254). I was interested in how I would feel about an interior since my first cruise was in a balcony, but I generally do not spend much time in my room and the balcony received minimal usage. I’ll say the virtual window helped to give a bit of a glow into the room, although disappointing that it doesn’t have a “real” video display of the outside like the ones I have seen in videos for NCL studio rooms. I was 100% fine with the room itself and I thought it was perfect for my needs (I would not hesitate to stay in a studio room again unless there were especially good deals on better rooms). Not a lot of space in the room, but again, I don’t spend much time there. The bathroom was more than sufficient, imo. It was bigger than the one in my hotel in London last month and I “think” it was slightly bigger than the bathroom I had on Caribbean Princess. The big elephant in the room is the “couch bed”. I very much prefer a firmer mattress and I had no idea what I was going to get here. I found the bed to be satisfactory for my needs and was a bit bigger than expected (maybe a twin and a quarter wide?) Back to where I left off... So, after a few more drinks at Brass Anchor I went to check out the casino that was now open. The casino had a good collection of slot machines and they were mostly newer. I didn’t check out the table games much as I only like to play blackjack and the only table open was $25/hand and that’s too rich for my blood. I lost my daily casino allotment and headed off to dinner. Comparing this casino to CP, I found it much better: better slot selection, more room to walk around, better bar set-up. Dread may be too harsh a word, but I was a bit uneasy heading to the MDR . Not so much the food, but I thought I was going to be forced to sit at a big table with a bunch of strangers which is out of my comfort zone. To my delight I was alone at a two-top table and, even better, the table next to me was unoccupied the entire cruise. This was a big win 😊. I’m not anti-social, I just find that setting to be awkward. For dinner I had French Onion Soup, Chicken Croquettes, Prime Rib and warm apple crumble. The soup was okay. I didn’t hate it, but it seemed abnormally sweet to me. The croquettes were good (and tiny). It made me wonder whatever happened to chicken croquettes as a thing in the US? When I was a kid in the late 70s/early 80s they were one of the staple items in the frozen food section of the supermarket, but they seem to have all but disappeared except on cruises 🤷‍♂️. Back to the food; The prime rib had an okay flavor, but I will be blunt, quality-wise it seemed like what you get at an off-Strip budget Vegas buffet. Lastly the warm apple crumble with vanilla ice cream was the best thing I ate on Day 1 which isn’t saying much. I feel like I (silently) judged a lot of people reviewing MSC as having their expectations too high or just going along with the mob. I thought “it can’t be as bad as what these people say’. I didn’t hate the food on Day 1, but I did feel it was average to subpar overall and maybe everyone was right. Thankfully, I can say that this was the worst day for dining and not reflective of my opinion when the week was over. Broadway Theater Show: Cool (Disco Theme) this show was fair, but I would probably skip if I went on Meraviglia again. I’m not much of a disco fan and the costumes were ridiculous. I liked the other shows better, for the most part. In fairness, I was completely exhausted and had to fight falling asleep during the show. I went back to my cabin and was asleep in no time. I apologize with how long this was. Hopefully the following days are more concise. Unless I get shamed into not posting the rest of my week 🤣.

Quick background: I am a primarily solo traveler very new to cruising. This was only my 2nd cruise ever (first was on Caribbean Princess in April of this year). So my thoughts are from someone with very fresh eyes to cruising and also from someone that tends to be pretty easy to please. So, I won’t lament that in years past everything was better. I also think the Princess Plus package and the MSC bundled Easy Plus/WFI package were great values. I’ll try not to do too many direct comparisons to CP because an older, smaller ship being compared to a newer, larger ship is not really apples to apples. Day 1/Part 1: My original intention was to drive and park at the port, but then I read about the parking fees going up (from $30/day to $45/day) and it was no longer a financial no-brainer. Instead, I booked the dreaded “morning of” flight because I hadn’t taken Saturday off from work and how risky is it really from BOS-NYC? Well, Mother Nature reminded me she can make things difficult even in the summer and my lesson has certainly been learned. I got a notification that there was potential for weather to affect flights in the northeast. I decided to cancel and drive, but my cancellation was not working in the app or the website and I had to contact JetBlue directly. Phone wait time was 6 hours and Live Chat wait time was over 2 hours and that ultimately made the decision for me to risk the flight because I wasn’t going to eat the ticket because I couldn't get a live agent. (I am honestly unsure if they would credit to my travel bank or I would forfeit the cost if I didn’t show up). Sure enough, 10 minutes before boarding we are informed the flight is delayed for an unknown length of time. Good thing I have travel insurance for the cruise. Delay ends up being just shy of two hours and I land at LaGuardia at 10:45am instead of 9:15am. After grabbing luggage, I requested Uber about 11:10am and I am dropped off at the port around 11:45am (Uber was immediate pick up, seems like they have a bunch of cars in the garage just waiting for requests to come in). The drop-off was a bit of a mess, but I hand my suitcase to someone in a bright green shirt and hope it’s an official port employee. I get into the line and this is where things grind to a halt. Tired, hot and with a pain in my leg from standing so long, I finally get through security and check-in to the area where you wait to board at 1:15pm; then am told they ran out of numbers for boarding groups and have "general boarding" and to just wait. They never gave any other instruction and after Group 50 it became a free for all and since I was directed to a section as far from the line as possible I didn’t get on the ship until around 2pm. My cabin card had “unassigned” on it for dining, so I had to go to the maitre’d and get that fixed. The only dining options he offered were 5:30pm and 7:30pm, so I took the latter and figured I’d have to go to 10pm shows in the theatre. My MDR was Panorama. I booked my shows (except the Carousel Theatre) for the week, which was pretty simple. I took a peek in the buffet and knew I was too tired and aggravated to deal with it right now, so I was going to my room only to find there were burgers, fries, hot dogs and pizza on the Lido Deck. I grabbed a burger and a hot dog and inhaled them (pizza had a bit of a wait). Neither were anything more than barely average, but I had something in my stomach and now I could go watch my safety video and check out my room until I got called to my muster station which was at the casino. While watching the video my suitcase arrived and everything in it was damp due to the terrible weather. I hung everything up, called the muster phone number and went to the muster station. The muster check-in was very quick and now I could start my cruise. Now I wanted a drink badly, but some folks are apparently very nonchalant about finishing their muster stuff as the announcements were sounding increasingly urgent. There was a whole lot of us in Brass Anchor patiently waiting until they were allowed to serve. Eventually I had my beer and headed up to watch sailaway party with the cruise staff in outfits they stole from Donald Duck’s closet. It started raining again and I only stayed long enough to go past the Statue of Liberty. Went back to Brass Anchor for another beer (this becomes a recurring theme) and see if, by chance, anyone actually showed up for the solo meet-up. I don’t think anyone did or they are even quieter and faded into the background than I am. Making a Part 2 as this is getting long.

I sailed as a solo on Caribbean Princess in April (my first ever cruise). I know there were a couple of meet-ups on the schedule for solos, but I didn't go to any of them. There was one in the Wheelhouse Bar that seemed to have 12-15 people gathered when I grabbed a few drinks at the bar. As for the dining in the MDR, I was always asked if I wanted to sit alone or share. I sat alone because sitting at a table with strangers is a bit out of my comfort zone. (although I am about to get on an MSC cruise and I think I'm going to need to get over that discomfort 🙂) I wasn't actively looking for solo "events", so I apologize if there was more stuff I just didn't know about.

I'll be cruising this month for first time on MSC and I was strongly considering booking a future cruise on board, but do any of you veterans know when the 2025 itineraries are typically released? I am considering a World America (I think that's the name, right?) in fall of 2025, but am not strongly committed to that and would prefer to look at some European options.