kelleherdl

Be warned that parking at Port Canaveral Terminal 10 is markedly degraded over the last two months with construction of a new second garage. The construction may take as long as 18 months. In a few weeks it may be okay as Terminal 10 will return to only two ships. In either case bag drop has shifted and even the crosswalks on the street out front have been shifted. MSC needs to consider building its own dedicated terminal at Port Canaveral. Hopefully after Port Miami terminal is open and Galveston is done, PC will get one.

I checked Cruise Mapper. Disney Fantasy overnighted in Port Canaveral. Yes, all the other scheduled cruise ship departures happened last night, but MSC is not the only cruise line to think safety and comfort of passengers first.

No. It’s a soaking pool.

The Helios Pool was my preferred sunning spot. With the pool design issues it’s very quiet up there. Besides Daryl runs the best bar on the ship IMO.

It really can’t be that quick. It may take awhile for even a seasoned Producer to rework the venue schedules, entertainer bookings (sorry, I might use ‘host’, but not ‘artiste’) and administrative issues like promotional blurbs. 😀

Tough to beat. Maybe TA’s can score better discounted fares for themselves, but ~ $450 p/p/d for entry level suites is outstanding. I looked at comps on Seabourn for their Black Friday deals, and EJ beats them majorly. Having done two journeys so far, the OT-1’s are fine for us. Even without the ‘butler’ attention of MSC Yacht Club or EJ Residence level we found the ‘hosts’ on EJ to be great. We did book the San Juan to San Juan 14-day in February 2025 on Explora II. EJ only did similar cruises on Explora I out of Barbados. For us Florida cruisers San Juan is an ideal departure port.

Terminal 10 at Port Canaveral is all messed up right now for luggage drop off. The front surface parking lot is under construction for an additional parking garage. Baggage drop has been moved to the front lower level of the main terminal building. Even the crosswalk at the entry drive has been moved for the construction. You will need to park first and bring your luggage to the drop area. Make sure you look for the Yacht Club drop area. Ask the porters to be sure. This may be the time to use off-site parking even though I hate that idea. The White Tent is still at the bottom of the escalator into the terminal.

The EJ booking website clearly shows which cruises are included in the Exclusive Savings Event (at least the US site does). Each search listing shows the discounted fare with the discount %, where applicable. The % discounts apply to all suite categories from OT-1 and up.

No. We got the Extended Journey discount and the 25% FCC, which came to our final price. Our ‘new’ cost was before the Black Friday Sale. I doubt we would have gotten both.

We snagged the 16-day Rome to Barcelona to Barcelona with the Wave 3 cancellation bonus. That came in at $430 per person per pay. But that was the extra discount due to the multiple itinerary cancellations. That itinerary and the new Caribbean itinerary were the ONLY ones that grabbed us. i agree wholeheartedly on the marketing. I do get a lot of generic emails, but were it not for my TA I think we would be missing out on specific good deals. I am sure we would have missed out on this current set of Black Friday discounts.

I did see the nice ‘new’ longer San Juan to San Juan ABC Islands to French Antilles 14-day. I had wanted to repeat an MSC French Antilles 14-day we took several years ago, but don’t like the air fares to Barbados or Martinique. This itinerary gets us cheaper flights to San Juan and adds ABC Islands. I did get an option booked for an OT-1. With that 30% discount we’re looking at the ~$450 per person per day, which is my sweet spot.

New ‘booking’ not new ‘customer.’

We were introduced to Drew, the EJ Entertainment Director from Geneva on the last cruise. He was very hopeful that folks will provide feedback on the Explora entertainment offerings. Personally, I am a big fan of their current model with some tweaks. One significant improvement can be more detailed descriptions in the daily plan of the program for each venue that evening, things like the scheduled Artiste and the program/genre/style, that sort of thing. I will send a lengthy review based on my preferences.

The only child on our recent 3-17Nov cruise was Captain Michelozzi’s son. He was so cute. Every day at lunch the Captain carried him through the Emporium line. He ALWAYS stopped and got several slices of focaccia. I never saw him get pizza. The kid loved his focaccia. 😀

When the latest round of itineraries cancellations occurred we were very disappointed. We had a very nice Aegean/Adriatic on Explora 2 booked. Which had replaced a cancelled Dubai to Mumbai. We put a Rome to Barcelona to Barcelona together. That was the only cruise that would have kept us from taking the deposit back and moving. 12 months can only come soon enough. We are still happy to be on Explora and we are convinced they are a giant killer. And we are not the ‘target’ demographic. But they definitely are starting to be on board. They are moving over from Ritz Carlton and others.

I had no problem getting our preferred reservations for both segments of the Miami to Miami the afternoon of embarkation. Our two segments are an ‘extended journey’ under the same booking code if that could impact anything.

The pizza hullabaloo has been solved. One can now get pizza with salami, artichokes, olives and other stuff. The pizza cooks are excited as well. They must have known that the limited choices from before was not accepted well. But alas pizza is not Atkins compliant, along with my beloved blueberry pancakes. I told both stations I’ll visit them at least once during the 14 days.

Our lowly OT2 is right next to a section bulkhead, so I was concerned. Absolutely nothing.

After gaining 12 pounds on the 16 days from Reykjavik to NYC I’m doing this 14 days back on strict Atkins. That is actually easier than you might think. The protein and fats are good to go, but there are virtually no dessert options. I’ll just have fill my belly with MEAT!

Trust me this was better than using just the ship’s management to do checkin. Miami was far superior to Reykjavik in my opinion. EJ did not use the regular port operations company that MSC uses so their experience with the iPad app for MSC may have played a little role. But you are right the shore operations people were not trained for EJ suite class differences.

And thank you for leaving her is such beautiful shape. According to Sonja we only have 452 on board now. Very manageable.

Dinner at Med Yacht Club?

Myself, I’m not too optimistic about that. There does seem to be quite a few ‘repeaters’ on board for the Caribbean Inaugural from the other social media. If I do see too much ‘group activity’ I will mention it. Your sentiment is correct, we should be beyond the initial marketing phase, but we’ll see. We didn’t notice too much disruption on Reykjavik to New York. Regular paying customers, like ourselves, were treated very well and had lots of opportunity to interact with senior officers/staff.

Cabanas are available for booking at South Beach and the lagoon with same level of service (or so the Experience states) for non Residence guests. I’m really looking forward to seeing the lunch menu for non Residence. I would imagine, or should I say hope, it will be well above the hamburger/hotdogs/grilled chicken of normal Ocean Cay port calls.

Not according to the request form from suite host. The only rum that Louis Vuitton owns is Eminente. I recall seeing it at the Lobby Bar, but I doubt they are giving that away.