Royal Diamond tries MSC Preziosa Yacht Club Very Positive Experience

Greetings one and all, and a very merry and blessed Christmas. It is almost 10pm here in Singapore, on Christmas Day, the 25th of Dec 2015. Yet another year has gone by and we give thanks to our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ for salvation and His eternal goodness.

Earlier this month, my family had the privilege to sail for the first time on the MSC Preziosa, out of Genoa Italy, on a 7N cruise to the western Mediterranean. We thoroughly enjoyed the cruise, probably because we were sailing in the Royal Suite Cabin 16008 of the Yacht Club. Frankly, the prices that MSC offers are very competitive, but I shall not talk about pricing in this post. Rather, I just wanted to invite anybody interested to join the ongoing review, which is being done in the MSC boards of cruise critic. Here is the link for your convenience - http://boards.cruisecritic.com/showthread.php?t=2288693

Here are some overall comments.

Yacht Club

In a nutshell, the MSC Yacht Club is a ship within a ship concept, representing the most luxurious product of the MSC cruise line. We loved the exclusivity of it and we pretty much wined and dined all the time in the Top Sail Lounge, Suite restaurant and One Pool.

Top Sail Lounge, including drinks list included in Yacht Club package.

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Top Sail Lounge Light Bites after lunch

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Suite restaurant first night dinner

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Royal Suite 16008

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I have put many more pictures and videos on the review in the MSC section of these boards.

Of course, there are noticeable differences. The MSC Preziosa, at 140,000GT, is a Voyager class type of size. However, I think MSC packs substantially more passengers on board the same size of vessel, resulting in fewer public areas. The size of the centrum on MSC Preziosa is probably no larger than that of a Vision class vessel, like the Legend of the Seas.

If you love open places like Royal Promenade, or the Ice-skating ring, you are not going to find them on the Preziosa. In fact, we found the ship a bit hard to navigate because the rooms were squeezed into many corners.

The buffet spread looked to be adequate for breakfast and lunch, though I think for dinner the buffet didn't really offer very much by way of choice. But being an Italian line, there was always pizza and pasta. This is a video I made of the buffet lunch on our embarkation day.

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The entertainment was so-so at best. The main production show (if you can call it), featured some acrobatic and artistic acts, some of which were pretty good but nothing truly spetacular. The other nights where they have singing, it was not to our liking. English is definitely not the main language for the singers. They sound better singing Italian songs. There will always be an Italian night where they sing the best of songs from Italy. That was not bad.

Other types of entertainment were also quite absent, if your benchmark is Royal Caribbean. For example, I don't think they even had any event in the pool. This illustrates my point. Take note that the MSC Preziosa had embarkation/disembarkation for passengers at every port of call during this cruise, though the majority came onboard in Genoa. I think the next highest was Barcelona.

Because of the sheer number of pax on the ship, getting off and getting back on board was often a challenge. Waiting times could be long, especially to get onboard as they had to do the X-ray checks.

The Preziosa has an onboard water slide called the vertigo, which is touted to be the longest single-rider body water slide at sea. (394 feet long). I had a go at it, and you can hear my screaming here.

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Anyway, the above is just a glimpse of our cruise. The main review is in the MSC section of the cruise critic board and please do check it out if you are interested.

http://boards.cruisecritic.com/showthread.php?t=2288693

Once again, have a blessed Christmas. I hope 2016 is a fruitful and happy year for everybody.

More food videos.

This was breakfast in the buffet on board MSC Preziosa

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This was the dinner buffet.

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For dinner, I think the buffet spread on the MSC Preziosa wasn't as good as Royal. Not as good as NCL either.

Appreciate your review. I've been curious about MSC for a while.

Appreciate your review. I've been curious about MSC for a while.

Thanks for your comment. I think their Yacht Club product is quite good, given the way they price it. As for the rest of the ship, I think overall more crowded than Royal and NCL for sure.

Another major difference would be language and entertainment. On the MSC Preziosa, most of the live music singing was in Italian. Check this out.

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Thank you! Since everyone has been talking about the loyalty match, I too had a sparked interest in them. As for the Yacht club-this seems really nice.

I did a suite comparison review as I just returned from the Haven on NCLs Breakaway and really loved it.

http://boards.cruisecritic.com/showthread.php?t=2291655

I think between both of these lines, for people looking for really nice suite accommodations and amenities, Royal really has some stepping up to do. By just adding a new suite program to only the newer builds/certain ship class does not compare at all to what NCL and MSC seems to offer.

Thank you! Since everyone has been talking about the loyalty match, I too had a sparked interest in them. As for the Yacht club-this seems really nice.

 

I did a suite comparison review as I just returned from the Haven on NCLs Breakaway and really loved it.

http://boards.cruisecritic.com/showthread.php?t=2291655

 

I think between both of these lines, for people looking for really nice suite accommodations and amenities, Royal really has some stepping up to do. By just adding a new suite program to only the newer builds/certain ship class does not compare at all to what NCL and MSC seems to offer.

Indeed, the suite experience on NCL was great. We weren't even in the Haven for NCL Jade and we really liked the experience.

I have to add, I love that so many of your posts are backed up with a video!!:D