Royal Diamon tries MSC Yacht Club on MSC Preziosa and loved it

[Iluvcruising2]

Your New Year's celebrations look wonderful. Thank you for sharing. Happy New Year to you and your family:)

 

Thanks! Best wishes to you too.

[Iluvcruising2]

Can I ask a dumb question? What is "Royal Diamon"?

 

Good question! It was a typo on my part, should be 'Royal Diamond', i.e. missing the 'd'.

 

I was referring to the Crown & Anchor (Royal Caribbean) loyalty programme where I have reached Diamond status.

 

This is my first cruise on the MSC.

 

On second thoughts, I should have chosen a better title for this thread on the MSC boards. The title I used is more appropriate for the Royal boards.

[drewlin]

Really enjoying reading you review so much so that we have upgraded our balcony on Preziosa to a YC1 in Yacht Club and can't wait to experience it for ourselves. Thank you.

[Iluvcruising2]

Really enjoying reading you review so much so that we have upgraded our balcony on Preziosa to a YC1 in Yacht Club and can't wait to experience it for ourselves. Thank you.

 

Oh wow! Thanks for letting me know. Yes, the Yacht Club is a wonderful product relative to its price point. Definitely worth a try. Over time, if the demand is strong, I am sure MSC will raise the price of this product, so better try it while it is still relatively unknown!

 

Are you sailing out of Genoa too?

[drewlin]

Yes we are sailing out of Genoa, our first time there too. Flying to Genoa the day before sailing so we'll have the day to have a look around before we board the next day.

[Iluvcruising2]

Yes we are sailing out of Genoa, our first time there too. Flying to Genoa the day before sailing so we'll have the day to have a look around before we board the next day.

 

Cool. So we did something similar - flew to Genoa from London Stanstead. I guess the difference was that we had to fly all the way from Singapore to London first! :):)

[drewlin]

Cool. So we did something similar - flew to Genoa from London Stanstead. I guess the difference was that we had to fly all the way from Singapore to London first! :):)

 

We're flying from Gatwick and only have to travel down (by train) from Manchester:) We're hoping to do an Asia cruise in 2018 as would love to see Singapore so might be experiencing that long flight in the future!

[Iluvcruising2]

We're flying from Gatwick and only have to travel down (by train) from Manchester:) We're hoping to do an Asia cruise in 2018 as would love to see Singapore so might be experiencing that long flight in the future!

 

Nice. From Gatwick, that would be via British Airways? We flew back from Genoa to Gatwick on BA. The plane was full of passengers of the cruise.

 

Yes, please do visit Asia and come to Singapore! :):)

[Iluvcruising2]

This afternoon, sea day, was the private party in the Top Sail lounge for Yacht Club guests. The place was rather full when we got there. While waiting, the butlers were serving drinks.

 

Can't remember what this drink was, but it was most certainly alcoholic!

 

I made several videos of the party, as follows. In this first video, we arrive at the Top Sail lounge and found a place to sit. Many other YC guests had already arrived. Butlers were serving drinks and canapes. As we waited, the Cruise Director appeared and announced that there would first be a soprano performance.

[YOUTUBE]ZFDcadBEhM0 [/YOUTUBE]

 

In this second video, the Captain and the Hotel Director arrives. They go around from table to table, having a brief chat with guests. When they arrived at our table, the Captain told us that he had sailed to Singapore many times in the past (with different cruise lines) and he enjoyed Singapore very much. We thanked him for his kind words and complimented him on the wonderful time we were having on the MSC Preziosa! Our kids took a photo with the Captain too.

[YOUTUBE]Asul3w4eM1k[/YOUTUBE]

 

Some more pictures. This was the tray of canapes. I tried a few.

 

A closer look. Rather exquisite. Just pop the whole thing into my mouth. Chomp.

 

The Captain and Hotel Director speaking with other guests.

[Iluvcruising2]

We left the party shortly after speaking with the Captain, but not before stopping to admire some music from the violinist and pianist! They were cool. See this video.

[YOUTUBE]jQVLuwfzlVU[/YOUTUBE]

 

Here is a picture of the duo. The violin is a beautiful instrument and the piano provides perfect accompaniment.

 

For some reason, before dinner that evening, I went to check out the food in the buffet area. Can't remember why I did so, maybe we were too early for dinner. The YC restaurant opens at 6:30pm and we usually eat around that time. Well, I managed to get these pictures. The chef was preparing the pizza.

 

More pizza preparation.

 

Freshly baked pizza!!

 

Bar seating area in the buffet.

[Iluvcruising2]

Let's move on to dinner. It was Italian night and the waiters were appropriately dressed!

 

The menu, in a different colour this evening.

 

Here is the video I made of the dinner experience. Very nice dinner, as usual!

[YOUTUBE]1NqHiNAVIdQ[/YOUTUBE]

 

This was the menu.

 

The house white for this evening.

 

This was the main course - beef. This was well done.

 

This was my portion, which I asked for medium.

[CruiserTom10]

Thanks for the review.

I' m interested of activitis on sea day. Do you have the "Daily" for the sea day?

Edited February 10, 2016 by CruiserTom10

[SenatorsFan]

Happy New Year to you and your family. I'm still enjoying your review.

Heather

[Iluvcruising2]

Thanks for the review.

I' m interested of activitis on sea day. Do you have the "Daily" for the sea day?

 

I should have it somewhere, but I need to look for it. Will post here if I can find it!

[Iluvcruising2]

Happy New Year to you and your family. I'm still enjoying your review.

Heather

 

Thank you and thanks for following along this review.

[Iluvcruising2]

Thanks for the review.

I' m interested of activitis on sea day. Do you have the "Daily" for the sea day?

 

I found it! Hope this is useful.

 

As requested, some photos of the MSC Daily for this sea day. Main theatre tonight was a night of Italian songs.

 

Here are the activities for the day. Top half of the page.

 

Activities - bottom half of the page.

[stealthy]

What an excellent review, we love the YC experience (we did YC on the Divina 2015).

I'm loving the photos and video, makes me hungry and I love seeing the lay out again as its identical to the Divina, makes me home sick.... ;)

Cant wait for our next cruise.

 

Keep up the good work.

[CruiserTom10]

Thank you for the photos of the MSC Daily. This is exactly what I have been looking for.

[Iluvcruising2]

What an excellent review, we love the YC experience (we did YC on the Divina 2015).

I'm loving the photos and video, makes me hungry and I love seeing the lay out again as its identical to the Divina, makes me home sick.... ;)

Cant wait for our next cruise.

 

Keep up the good work.

 

Thanks for your comment. Happy cruising!

[Iluvcruising2]

Thank you for the photos of the MSC Daily. This is exactly what I have been looking for.

 

Glad to be of assistance. Happy cruising! :)

[Iluvcruising2]

Later that evening of the sea day, after dinner, we went around exploring the ship again. This was the cafeteria italiano.

 

This looked delicious. The prices were reasonable, I thought. But we didn't buy any since we already had too much to eat.

 

And we came to this bag shop, which somehow we hadn't really explored before!

 

Plenty of bags on display sale today.

 

Decided to make a video and show you some of the prices of the bags on board. I am not expert in such bags so I have no idea whether the prices were good. You tell me.

[YOUTUBE]TfqfewFJqAk[/YOUTUBE]

Edited February 12, 2016 by Iluvcruising2

[Iluvcruising2]

The main centrum - atmosphere was pretty good. Everybody seemed relaxed and having a good time.

 

I am pretty sure these were the same instrumentalists who performed beautifully at the private party for Yacht Club guests earlier. A violinist and pianist duo.

 

Walked into a shop that sold nutella. Cute.

 

I stopped by at the American Sports Bar to check out the place. This place sold food like burgers too. Here is a video I made of the Sports Bar (which was showing Italian football that evening) as well as the menu of this eatery. You have to pay for the food. However, the prices looked ok for a cruise ship. E.g. Club Sandwich, 3.5Euro. Chicken wrap 4 Euros. Check out the menu!

[YOUTUBE]G-9tNi5Oq5g[/YOUTUBE]

 

Here is a photo. Sorry i can't get it to stand upright.

 

An MSC Preziosa jersey? Cool eh.

[Iluvcruising2]

Later that evening, we went to the theatre to catch the show, which was a night of Italian songs. This was the later show. Overall, we found that the theatre was often not very full. Not too difficult to find a seat, even if you went late.

 

We preferred to sit on the upper level, and not the main level. From here, you could look down at all the other passengers.

 

I managed to take this video of the "time to say goodbye" performance. Well, because the ship takes on pax at every port, there is no way they can ensure that the goodbye show is the correct one for all passengers! hah.

[YOUTUBE]jf7HKyi1ksg[/YOUTUBE]

 

All right, this wraps up our only sea day on this 7N sailing. Tomorrow, we arrive in Barcelona!

[Iluvcruising2]

Today, the ship will dock in Barcelona and we will spend some time to view the Sagrada Familia and La Rambla. As I was going through my videos and pictures for the trip report, I came across this video footage which I had forgotten about. This was taken as we walked along La Rambla, in the direction of the cruise port. Suddenly, these illegal hawkers packed up their wares and disappeared into the side alleys.

 

Why? I figured that a police patrol or some law enforcement was approach. They obviously had a good early warning system. Which makes you wonder - in this day and age, shouldn't there be video cameras along such a busy and touristy street to assist law enforcement? Anyway, here is the short clip.

[YOUTUBE]0Uhf_SHVE0Y[/YOUTUBE]

[Capricruiser]

Andrea Bocelli's "Con Te Partiro" (English version: Time to Say Goodbye) has been the MSC theme song for years and was generally played on the loud speakers when the ship sailed from a port. They do it less now but it's always a hit in the ship's theatre on Italian night.