kelleherdl

Was Anthology fully booked last evening? Just wondering if the experience is being well received. We opted not to do it on Reykjavik to NYC. We’ll board again next week and still considering.

Used it on our last cruise with my tighter than welcome dress shoes. Welcome provision.

Find the video on the MSC Seaside. It takes you through a whole cruise with a lot of time on ‘turnaround’ day. Patricia, the MSC Port Operations Manager in Miami, is a gem and star of that show.

Anyone who read the description of benefits by suite level would know that butlers were only in the Residence level. It was all over EJ’s literature.

Yacht Club included, no streaming. Verizon unlimited, US/Canada/Mexico on iPhone.

Yes, if your phone plan works for Wi-Fi calling in that country. We had no problem at sea. Texting was never a problem as I recall.

My thoughts exactly on the inability to put together a nice Aegean/Adriatic itinerary for E2 with the ‘new’ schedule. If they had done something like the inaugural Caribbean E1 Miami to San Juan to Miami 2x7 we would have booked that. We wanted to keep our E2 cancellation deal so we went with a Rome to Barcelona to Barcelona 16-day extended journey. Several new ports for us and makes sense for the flights from US.

This is a good point about the bartenders on EJ1. They are not bashful at all about challenging the guests with new drinks and variations on traditional favorites. They are not bothered at all if you let them make you something ‘new’, and you say you don’t care for it. It is a fantastic banter. It’s like there is no real restriction on their use of the liquor to ‘entertain’ the guests. They come with varied backgrounds from very sophisticated resorts from all over the world. The Lobby Bar is the centerpiece, but each will appear at other bars throughout the day, including the pool bars.

Quite the contrary. English is the primary, well only, language on Explora. At least on Explora 1 so far.

Crema closes at 6PM. All restaurants and bars can serve coffees.

I agree. Every elevator entrance had the deck plan. Your floor is highlighted. You enter any passageway off the elevator and very good signage directed you. I found signage on the ship to be excellent. I still miss the HAL elevator day of week carpets though. I may know where I’m at on the ship, but I don’t know what day of the week it is.😀

They need to turn the heat up on the pancake griddle. It takes entirely too long to make my fresh blueberry pancakes. 😀. The young lady cook has never been to a Waffle House. 😀. She does do a wonderful job, and they are delicious. When she would see me coming each morning she would immediately start a couple. Their training is so rigorous she even temperature checks them to ensure doneness. Which to my thinking is over the top, but I can wait.

Agree with you on Daniella and Sakura. Our first evening at Sakura was very much less than satisfactory. Food was great, but service was slow and confused. I really think our experience that night was an unfortunate confusion over some of the orders. Daniella was right on it when we voiced our concern. She graciously requested we come back and she assured us our next experience would be top notch. She even saw us at breakfast at the Emporium and repeated her commitment to us having a superior dinner at Sakura. We dined at Sakura two more nights. Both evenings were outstanding. edited after seeing the recent posts. All four in our party were very much paying passengers.

We only booked one bus tour thru EJ. I’ve wanted to see the Bay of Fundy for literally 60 years. Every Canada trip I took before skipped the Bay of Fundy. The tour description was totally undersold, both in tour scope and inclusions. An example. We were told the tour would conclude with a cup of chowder at a famous Bay restaurant. The stop included a BOWL of seafood chowder, a whole lobster roll, a homemade cookie and a canned drink. All at 4pm before dinner. 😀. Almost spoiled Sakura that night.

My personal opinion was that they intended this space to be a very Spanish-style Tapas Bar. We were fond of Vivek, the bartender in MedYacht. When we asked if we could dine from the regular menu at the bar we were told by the ‘whatever they want to call the head host’ only tapas would be served at the bar. I guess that included the lounge seating. So again a very European twist that we would need to adapt to. We were then seated at a very nice table in the main dining area. A table number I will keep to myself for future use. 😀. But as you said, No One used that space at all. Maybe if they had adapted to us there would have been others who have have used it.

I would attend as well. one other thing. We got to be the first cruise to enter New York Harbor and pass the Statue of Liberty, which I really valued. One thing I had hoped to see, but did not was the fire boat salute. When you departed port, did Explora I get any sort of salute?

Every dining venue has window views of the ocean. NO public space, other than the Journeys Lounge is devoid of an ocean view. Wonderful. Even the shops have great windows.

Depending on how many of the cabin mini fridges were stocked in NYC before you boarded there is likely plenty of Diet (Zero) Coke on board. We had four in our fridge that we shared with friends. We also had two Fever Frees in the fridge as a stockpile once the bars ran out. 😀. There was never a shortage of Moët .

I did the pasta class on the last cruise. Chef David is great. He was very clear that classes will be cancelled when sea conditions make knife work by amateurs a risk. We did do our own ingredient chopping. We made a ravioli and a tortellini. I took the course to minimize my reluctance to make my own pasta at home. Chef David was very much into helping us to do these recipes at home. He even commented that we need no more than the KitchenAide pasta attachment to make great pasta, as it’s what he uses in his own home kitchen.

I believe this is not completely true. The new style of onboard items like napkins and wooden swizzle sticks is the EJ lotus with MSC logo in the center. These were brand new on the previous cruise. It is very clear from the MSC logo on the bow, the earlier thoughts about no co-branding are not true going forward.

I’d like to the demographics of the Half-full versus Half-empty based on actual current or prior Explora I passengers versus planned or never passengers. I posit that the ‘actual’ passengers will skew towards the Half-full. Personally, I’m in the 8 out of 10 range.

Apples and oranges from New York. Explora I is being certified for US ports in New York, not Miami. CG and CDC/PHS will be in New York.

I’m looking forward to the EJ inaugural Caribbean, which does include Ocean Cay. I’m anxious to be using the better beach without the ‘gen pop’. Also curious how the menu will be modified at the on-shore ‘self-order’ buffet.

Actually pretty nice. Think night club acts not Broadway. The ship’s show band is very good. They back up the invited vocal artists at the Journey Lounge and can be seen at the smaller lounges, either as a quintet or trio. The main lounge evenings are themed vocals. Last night was ‘broadly’ speaking an evening of modern Scandinavian pop music. The ABBA medley was a huge hit last night and very well done. These shows will be regionally themed. This is really the main dancing venue. The smaller lounges, Astern and Explora have either piano or vocals. I don’t think either are permanent ship musicians, but brought on for cruise segments. Nice music to accompany lounge conversations.

No. Actually, very little retail. At least where I am willing to buy anything. You’ve of course heard of the very high end shops. Crema cafe does have some nice chocolate bark available afternoon.