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DAY TWO: OCEAN CAY MARINE RESERVE (part one) I woke up early, ugh. Threw on my beach attire and headed up to the Marketplace Buffet. It was around 7:45 AM and it seemed everyone else on the ship had slept in. Based on the noise around my room, I'm not surprised.😆 Again, while it's not busy, I still take myself to the back where it's even less crowded. I grab an omelette, hash brown, bacon, biscuit/gravy, and some fruit. There is nothing to write home about. It was fine, not great...juust average. I swear all the cruise lines use the same vendor for breakfast buffets items. The biscuits...hard as a rock each time I tried them. After breakfast, I head down to deck 6 to get a latte from Jean-Philippe Chocolat Cafe. I grab my latte and decide to walk up to Deck 16 because I can see we are pulling into Ocean Cay. Let me tell you...if you can get up, it's worth seeing the sunrise as you pull in. Everyone I show this picture to believe it's fake. The island is absolutely beautiful. This is my fifth private island visit and is now one of my favorites. It's a marine reserve...there are no water slides, balloons, pools, etc. It's just a beautiful place to relax on the beach (or lagoon) for the day. I get off the ship and start to explore....more to come tomorrow.

DINNER NIGHT ONE: I had made reservations for 8PM at Butcher's Cut for night one. We were seating promptly and the bread basket was delivered. The bread was fresh and came with two spreads: one paprika and one with maple. They both were delicious. Note: don't fill up on the bread. 🤣 Now, unlike other cruise lines dining packages, on MSC your options are limited to the Dining Experience section of the menu(menu linked). At Butcher's Cut, you choose from (1) Appetizer, Soup or (1) Entree w/ one side then one dessert. If you really don't see anything you like, you can order off the menu at 50% the listed price. I chose, the chopped salad, Sirloin with Mac-n-Cheese, (added onion rings) then cheescake for dessert. Salad: delicious. They said it's honey mustard dressing but I got more of a citrus vinaigrette flavor. Steak: I got it medium and frankly a butter knife would have cut it. They give the table for sauces to try: FOREST MUSHROOM, PEPPERCORN, CHIMICHURRI, BÉARNAISE. (sorry, no photo). My friends also got the sirloin and the lamb chops which he said were the best he's ever had. Sides: I find myself being a little mac-n-cheese connoisseur and this dish was fantastic. No, kraft here. LOL. Onion rings were also good. My friends got the roasted cauliflower and loaded baked potato that they enjoyed as well. Dessert: Cheesecake...yes, yes, and yes. We all struggled to even make it to dessert as we were completely stuffed. The cheesecake has a perfect consistency, not overly sweet with a thin graham cracker crust. I'd highly recommend. Overall: I'd give Butcher's Cut a 9/10. The friends I travelled with had recently eating at the Carnival steakhouse and said Butcher's Cut was far and away a better tasting experience. By this time, it was pushing 11PM and I had been up early after sleeping 5 hours the night before so we wandered around a bit more then I headed for bed. I'll share more about onboard activities in another post.

Thanks. I think you'll have a great time. I always go into something managing my expectations. After all the negative reviews, this cruise exceeded it.

CABIN REVIEW: I make my way down to Deck 8 to check out my stateroom. When I entered my hallway, there was a strange and very strong smell of smoke. I didn't think too much of it but it was there all weekend, very strong and I even heard other people complaining to their cabin steward about it. I was on the other end from casino so I don't know where it was coming from but it was distinct. The cabin felt a lot larger than cabins on my other cruises. It was clean and a very modern look and feel. I felt like it was adequate closet space especially for my three day trip. Now, if there were two people for a 7/day cruise, maybe I could see an issue but I really try not to overpack. The bathroom was clean and the "bank tube" shower definitely was larger than that on Royal. I really hate the curtain on Carnival because water gets everywhere...not here. My balcony looked and felt like the cove balcony on Carnival. It had two chairs and a small stool. The TV for those that want to know had CNN, ESPN, HGTV, Food Network, Turner Classic Movies, Discover, Cartoon Network, normal ship channels, and maybe a few more. Overall, I was extremely happy with my room. It was very continent to everything on Deck 6/7. I'll go ahead and insert the odd muster drill here. Our ship didn't push off until 6 PM so at 4:30 PM, everyone goes back to stateroom and watches a quick video all together. You then dial the number on your screen to record that you watched it. After that, you head to your assembly station to get your card scanned. Boom, you're finished. The elevators were not working during this so please keep that in mind. I might have to stop for this evening and continue tomorrow with my first "real" meal at Butcher's Cut.

Hello! I'm fresh off the short 3/day Meraviglia sailing on March 30. Since I loved reading the reviews prior to my sailing, I thought I'd create one of my own. I will go ahead and say that after reading many of the reviews, this avid cruise (20+), was a little nervous about what to expect. I'll probably have to break this down for post length, plus I have an almost two-year-old that requires constant attention. 🙂 Before I begin, I'll give you a little background: First sailing on MSC Matched Diamond status (thank you Hilton Honors) Bella Balcony, Deck 8 Purchased the three dining package ($71) Solo traveler with a co-worker and her husband No drink package Unless there's real interest, I'm skipping the trip down from NC. It was uneventful and I spent the night in Savannah airport area hotel then finished my trip the next morning. EMBARKATION: My boarding time was 1:30 PM but I wanted to make sure I got the reservations we wanted for dining so I took my chances and arrived to Port Canaveral at 11:15 AM. This was my first worry about reading some of the horror stories on here. I walked right in and after a quick security check-in, I was separated into the Diamond line, checked in and started walking to the ship...less than 15 minutes. Even the line for non-Diamond wasn't long and moving rather quickly. EXPLORING THE SHIP AND LUNCH: You board right on to Deck 6 and WOW, the ship is absolutely stunning. The LED galleria lighting is very impressive. I enjoyed the nightly light shows...short but fun to watch nonetheless. I carried on my one suitcase but didn't want to haul it around while waiting for rooms to be ready, so I took my bag to the luggage drop-off area next to the Broadway theatre. After glancing around a bit, I made a bee line for Ocean Cay Restaurant on Deck 6 where you can make reservations for specialty dining. No problem making reservations we wanted. Here's what we reserved and yes, food reviews to come: Night One: Butcher's Cut, Night Two: Teppanyanki, Day 3: Lunch - Hola's, Dinner - Butcher's Cut. The Butcher's Cut on Day 3 was my free Diamond meal. I start exploring the ship and decided to head up to the pool area and check out the Marketplace Buffet. Apparently, no one reads the reviews like I do BUT like others have said, ignore the front area and go straight to the back...same food and no one there. There's even a nice outdoor to enjoy your meals. There were three pools (Main, Bamboo w/retractable roof, and the Horizon - adults only). Yes, there's one for Yacht Club but no photos of it obviously. Were there people at the pool on embarkation and Day 3 when we left Ocean Cay? Yes. Could you find a chair somewhere? Yes. Back to exploring...I visited the Aquapark and ropes course area. I'm going to assume it was all working but both times I was back there, there was no water running in the splash pad area, no one on slides, and no one on the ropes course. In any event, it looked like it would be a lot of fun when it was operating. The area with the Formula 1 simulator, bowling alley, full court basketball always seemed to have people having fun. There is a bar in there but it looked like the don't ever open it. The multi-tiered Horizon adults only pool area was nice and had one of the smoker's area. I'm not a smoker but saw the ashtrays. The bar here always seemed to be packed. Yes, drink service can sometimes be very slow. However, I always found getting a bar service person walking to take my order, the wait time was cut in half. As many have said, this is an area MSC needs to improve. My first drink was a mango trooper and it was absolutely delicious. After quite a bit of walking around, taking photos and waiting on my friend and her husband to arrive, it was time to head to the cabin to check out my room. Room review in my next post. If you have any questions, let me know.