kelleherdl

Just got our check-in email for Sept 23 Explora 2 cruise from Tarragona. Completed the check-in and got the e-ticket/luggage tag email. So that looks pretty solid for the 16 Sept initial sailing.

As proper Southerner as well I found the grits surprisingly satisfactory. But aren’t grits more of an individual taste than wine? 😀

Nothing in my opinion. It’s my favorite. Honestly it’s the soaking Helios pool. It sloshes back and forth underway. Impossible to use really in any sea state other than calm. Supposedly they installed some sort of baffles. Otherwise it’s my favorite Sunning area and bar.

My understanding is that the 16 Sept cruise is now the ‘shakedown’ cruise with press and the like. The formal ‘inaugural cruise’ is 23 Sept as its sailing from Tarragona during their local festival. I guess it really doesn’t make that much difference. We are boarding in Tarragona for 3 legs.

Sorry, can’t help on that. I think the original build time for both garages was 18 months. That was 8 months ago I think. But those of us who sail from 10 often have seen things pretty quickly once they got above ground level.

Yep, it’s plus and minuses. We’re keeping our 23 day Med grand cruise on EJ 2 this September (18 novel ports for us), also keeping our World America and Virtuosa cruises. Different objectives and selection of ports. Overall we may be tapering off our cruises in the next couple of years as we run out of itineraries that interest us. I agree the evening entertainment on EJ seems to still be wanting.

If you are not OFF the ship by 9:30 (assuming normal ship arrival) you are delaying ship clearance by CBP to process the back-to-backs and embark new guests. As Morpheusofthesea mentioned this is the most frustrating time on turnaround day for ship crew, shore staff, and CPB.

We were hugely lucky on our Seashore visit to Grand Cayman last month. We were the only ship in port so we had all the Grand Cayman tenders working for us. Yes, it takes longer to fill those tenders going ashore, but getting back to the ship was very easy.

The new garages at Terminal 10 and Terminal 6 are going up much faster than the original announced plans. Just hope we don’t get any severe tropical storms early season that will slow Terminal 10 work. There’s a small disturbance off the coast now with stiff breezes. All the construction is craned positioning of prefab sections, so that can be problematic. The new garages will at least double capacity at both terminals. The newly announced Terminal 8 will also have a huge garage.

We had a long chat with our Butler on our last Seashore cruise. He personally had ZERO interest in moving over to EJ. He very much likes the overall work environment of the YC. We agreed with him on the differing roles of ‘hosts’ on EJ. He believes this is the general feeling among the Butlers in YC. We love both EJ and YC. They both have their distinct appeal to us. We have only sailed OT’s on Explora 1, so we have no experience with Residence Hosts on EJ.

Today we booked a third segment to our original late September Med cruise on Explora 2. Originally we had Rome>BCN>BCN. We added the 7-day from Tarragona>Rome in front. The additional cruise was booked as a ‘new booking’ not an addition to the previous booking. The deal was as noted above, 30% off the already posted summer promotional fare. Make sure your TA or EJ Ambassador notes your prior MSC Yacht Club guest status. The MSC Yacht Club discount is a separate line item in the final fare calculation on our confirmation. For some reason our MSC YC sailings were missing from our EJ profile even though we used the 2023 promotion.

Don’t know if it’s completely true, but any agent said they are instructed to only take new photos if the one already there doesn’t meet spec. Something about reducing the amount of data that goes over the Wi-Fi and connection to the ship’s computer. Personally, they took a new one for my wife when she asked. Not a problem.

EJ announced today a special promotion for MSC Yacht Club previous guests. 30% off for new bookings for Summer 2024 Med bookings.

It might be because only the DD214 is a verification document that does not expire. Both a military ID and Commander letter can be a single use verification based on expiration. I find it reasonable that we are required to submit each time. I know not all use a TA, but this is another advantage of using one. I just have my DD214 with her.

Another benefit of the military discount is that it can be applied to other cabins in your group if linked to your booking. I think it’s up to 8 bookings per qualified military. This is where it may be valuable to have a TA or MSC Concierge representative handle the bookings. I’ve done the group military booking several times. Dennis

I guess some folks missed the news. Captain Di Palma posted yesterday, June 8, on another well known social media page that Explora II achieved her milestone of completed sea trials.

That’s okay. We get enough of you on this board. 😀

Our first MSC Cruise in 2019, we had Vishnu and Arthur and of course the ever Italian host Pepe! Together they hooked us on MSC Yacht Club. Arthur and Pepe have certainly advanced quite nicely within MSC. I keep in touch with both Pepe and Arthur. I always check in with them to see if they are on contract for our upcoming cruises. I still follow Vishnu on Facebook, and love seeing what’s going on in Mauritius.

Okay, this whole Cyrano think just hit me with a little Deja vu. Two nights ago I was thinking about how I came to be a reasonably accomplished public speaker 😀. (I was rehearsing my Mass readings for my son’s upcoming wedding.) Cyrano’s soliloquy was one of my grade school attempts at thespian immortality. Of course, my recollection was that I was outstanding. I also was just at The American Adventure at Disney World yesterday and Mark Twain’s humility almost matched mine.

I can assure you it does happen that zero count is held up looking for regular passenger disembarks AND back to backs that go ashore where the badging out is not recorded perfectly. Yes, there is an also a double check at CPB, but it is helpful to ship and shore staff to have an accurate accountability of back to backs who are going ashore in advance.

If you choose to go ashore for the day just let the officer at the gathering point for ‘back to back’ passengers know that you are going ashore for the day. They do that to account for folks going ashore so that they don’t have to search the ship to find you to ‘zero’ the count. You may disembark with the leaving passengers. Just make sure you have your passport (or birth certificates) with you.

You can sail Explora Journeys for roughly the same per person per day as MSC Yacht Club. Which is considerably cheaper than either NCL Haven or Celebrity Retreat for the same size cabin. EJ uses Starlink WiFi, so streaming is definitely an option for most of the Earth that EJ sails. BTW, MSC is moving over to Starlink as well. I’ve seen some comments on taking along your Firestick, or similar device, if you have one. Personally, I have no experience with streaming. The stateroom TV’s are very large.

The cruises in the Lesser Antilles, Barbados/Point a Pitre/Fort d’France, are done the same as Europe. Barbados is far easier to get to from the US, but the YC suites for Barbados embarkation seem to be ‘reserved’ for UK package bookings.

Divina and Preziosa are pretty much identical. dennis

The MSC version is better in my opinion to the other cruise lines I’ve done. The two day tour may seem strange, but it was really great. More time was able to be spent at each of the areas. More time in engineering and bridge were really nice, with plenty of time for questions. The officers were far more relaxed and interactive.