mica178

Good morning! We arrived late (my husband is the worst at last minute procrastinator when it comes to packing!), but we whisked through check in, but the kids and I ended up stuck at the YC preloading lounge waiting for my husband to park the car. FYI: at Port Canaveral, the onsite port parking has no EV chargers, but the nearest off-site does. When my husband arrived, there was a classic FL afternoon deluge, and it knocked out the port wifi, do we had to wait for it to restore for him to check in (maybe 45 minutes?). We met our butler Alexis down there. He happily plied the kids with juice and fancy nuts, and made sure I was kept in sparkling wine. Despite being delayed in boarding, the vacation definitely started right away! We finally embarked just as the muster drill started, so we didn't get the Talk at TSL as expected. But that was fine as Alexis came to our room before dinner. I thought the system for the muster drill was fine, although the walk to check in at our station made me feel claustrophobic. I'm glad my kids are old enough to walk on their own and keep their eyes on me because the herding crowd as like a Lightning playoff game! Despite the truncated first day, we managed to let the kids have fun at the arcade, sign up for bowling the next day, get the kids registered at kids club (and let them have 45 minutes to run around there while we checked out the variety show), and have pre-dinner cocktails at TSL. We also had a nice dinner at the YC restaurant. I thought the food was solid, certainly better than i received on Carnival back in the days, and probably better than we had on HAL. Better than most similarly priced AI resorts, but not as good as a high end landside restaurant (of course, for the price, i cannot complain!). The tiramisu was excellent. The service was wonderful with at least 4 waiters heaping attention on our table and offering up extra servings when they found out my son was mad for the housemade pastina soup. All in all, a lovely first day, and I'm excited to see Ocean Cay today.

No need to apologize! I'm happy to receive advice! And your point about wine is well taken. At AIs, it is either beer or cocktails because the wine is undrinkable. I'm hoping an Italian cruise line can serve up an okay glass. I'm not asking for Caymus, but something not guaranteed to give me a hangover would be appreciated.

Hello all! Some background: my first cruise was a 2 week Mediterranean cruise on the Grand Princess in 1999. My most recent cruise was a HAL cruise in 2012, where my husband and I were the youngest adults by at least a couple decades. I've been on 3 Princess cruises (generally solid experiences, although I wasn't a fan of the food), 2 Carnival cruises (sorry, both awful experiences all around other than very nice cabin staff), one HAL cruise, one Chinese cruise (down the Yangtze! A very interesting experience), and a small island hopping cruise in Fiji with only 30 passengers. Generally, we are not cruisers, preferring to spend more time at any destination than a port day. But, after we had kids, we started looking at cruising as an easier way to vacation. Also, my 7 year old son has been obsessed with the Titanic and similar great passenger ships, so we figured we should take him on a cruise (although on one that WON'T bump into an iceberg!). I've been watching CC, reading all the live reviews, and I'm feeling a little apprehensive. I belong to the FB group for the 7/20-7/23 and 7/23-7/30 Seaside cruisers, and the 7/20 cruisers are giving pretty mixed reviews. Granted, 3 day cruises seem to be rougher (and I've been on a couple 3 day cruises, and I agree with that assessment). I'm hoping that those people were negative Nellies, and that we have fun! We have done all inclusive resorts in Mexico, so I'm guessing this experience will be somewhat similar, only with more destinations and smaller rooms! Originally, we had planned on doing RCCL or NCL, but when I read about MSC, I couldn't resist. I prefer Italian food to most "standard American" food. And being able to do YC for a fraction of the price of a Haven suite or RCCL suite obviously appealed as well. I hope this gamble was correct. Anyway, I will try to report back daily, although I might be doing it from my phone, so that might limit things. I'm GenX and still prefer to write up reviews on my computer. But I also want time away from my computer, so I'm traveling with small devices only.

Is there any YC benefit for people booking non-MSC excursions? (Do we get escorted off the boat? Or just leave at-will?)

I had a similar laughable upgrade bid offer (we also will be in a YC suite, and the minimum bid for the Royal Suite was $2600/pp). If I recall, that was the same price as paying for that suite outright at the time of booking. Not a deal.

Costa Maya http://catchafish.net/

I remember a few years ago, it came out that Uber and Lyft were using the tips to offset what the companies' paid the drivers. So if they said drivers would make a minimum of $10, the company would actually use some of the tips to meet that $10 and only pay minimum wage. So the driver would have to make tips in excess of $3 per hour to actually receive anything more than the contracted minimum hourly rate. A lawsuit occurred, and now Uber and Lyft drivers do actually receive their whole tips, and the companies must pay whatever advertised rate, and all of us pay a higher amount to use these services. I wish that these cruise workers would get their whole salary from the cruise company. The DSC should be split between the service workers for doing a good job (to encourage better service, since we know certain cruisers will reduce their DSC), not used to reduce the financial obligations of the company. However, as so many cruise workers come from developing countries, I think whatever they are paid is a decent amount, and they have little interest in organizing. I usually tip on top of the DSC so that I know the people that directly serve me get a little extra. Because I'm going to cruise in YC, I think the DSC doesn't actually cover the tips I'd be paying if I was at a normal resort and eating at similar restaurants. In the other parts of the ship, if one eats mostly at the buffet and main dining room for dinner and does not pay for many drinks, $14.50 pdpp might be more than they'd be paying in tips on a non-cruise ship vacation, so it's reasonable to not tip on top of the DSC.

A long time ago, I discovered a fly fishing excursion in Costa Maya. We had a great time with the owner, Nick, doing ocean fly fishing. We plan on visiting Nick again when we are in Costa Maya off the Seaside next month. http://catchafish.net/

Not a frequent cruiser, but I have very vivid memories of being on the Grand Princess in 1999, and they played Time to Say Goodbye when we departed from Venice. I'd imagine the song would be a popular choice for most cruise lines as the music is pretty mainstream and is topical. As an American, all I have to say is

Hi, Did you end up purchasing this? I'm looking at it too. But it also says it doesn't include private studio photos, so I'm not sure where the photographer takes pictures.

Did any of you pre-purchase the photo package? We'll be in the YC. Do the photographers go up there to take pictures? Can we book a MSC photographer and use the photo package to pay for the photo session pictures?