MSC Fantasia Western Med NOW

[plucasana]

,,so we are finally ready to board, sittinh here in dus airport waiting for our flight to genoa. spent the night in the sheraton dus, ok experience although room was freezing cold. will try ti post updates if my @package and/or schedule allows it [emoji3]

 

eurowings experience upto here great. free late night checkin with no waiting time. free luggage (23 kg pp). seems to nbe a bus gate. I have not much experience as far as flying is concerned so this is always excitinh for me.

 

I am travelling wirh my daughter and we snatched one of the very last yc cabins. Heard that the fantasia. yc is not as comfortable as the dicin one because of the much smaller tsl, primise to feport back on that,!

 

so long wishvus luck. (a little scared of flying after the latest in icidents

 

i am sorry for the typos those smartphone keys are surdly made for much smaller fingers...

[plucasana]

gate

[Beamafar]

Hi Plucasana ............... looking forward to your review of Fantasia YC as it's the only one I haven't experienced and it's on my radar for next year.

 

The Top Sail Lounge, I imagine, is similar to that of Splendida, which is different in layout to Divina, but if it's smaller, it's not noticably so. The buffet is in the middle of the area near the bar, rather than being tucked away, which makes the lounge look a little more cramped. But the seating area, once you've passed the buffet is just as roomy and comfortable. Let us know what you think of it. Also, IIRC, the dining room is a little different in layout, but not much.

 

Have a great cruise! :)

Edited August 7, 2016 by Beamafar

[champagne123]

Safe travels. Looking forward to more!! :)

[plucasana]

hi again. made it to genoa safely. there are three very nice ladies who flew in from gatwick where ghe break of the conveyors belt (sp,?) consulted in them not having their luggage ((at least 2 out of three of them). ghat is a real desaster for them. the yc checkin was the smoothest ,I have ever experienced. from airport to cabin in less than 1,5h. did not get to meet our butler yet but have to go eat sth now (has been more than an hour [emoji849]) so check back later.

[plucasana]

[plucasana]

Today's menu in étoile

[plucasana]

Better quality needed

[plucasana]

definetely more room for clothes un the yc1 than in the yc3 on divina.

[plucasana]

you have the wardrobe plus another small one on the other side.

[plucasana]

wenare sitting innthe one pool bar watching the beautiful cannes "skyline"(can you say that?).

 

yesterday we triedntonget rid of our travel fatigue. the suitvases arrived promptly one hour afger us.

strangely enough we didnt get to meet our butler until dinner time.

 

he es orted us to etoile. there we were greeted by our servers for the week but strabgely again no maitre d presented himself.

that is a pity because we really enjoyed guiseppe on the divina.

 

our cabin has a leaking bathtub and some other wear and tear. nothing really terrble but still nothing you should expectbin a suite if you are demanding

 

another thing:

i pur hased two internet pckges on my name.

you actually vannot use but one and they only activate the cheaper one. i triedntonsolve this yesterday but they were closed yesterday night. we will see if it getsvsolved today.

[plucasana]

breakfast was great. fruit salad made to order omelettes great croissants (still warm) boiled eggs, pan cakes waffels, good cappucchino, freshly squeezed oj. and this wonderful panorama. tendering startes promptly at 8. we eill gonashore in about an hour. they left a note yesterday to come to the conciergerie whenever we wanted to be es orted off the ship but ,,I think we will manage alone.

[Courier95]

Enjoying your review. As a matter of interest, did the 2 ladies loose their luggage at Gatwick or Genoa?

[plucasana]

As far as I understood, the ladies’ luggage was lost in gatwick.

 

Today we were in Cannes. The weather is absolutely beautiful, Cannes is breath-taking: Very clean, very safe, very posh, soooo nice. We went to the town beach. It is not very big but has sand and the water was nice.

 

Right at the office de tourisme, you find the hands of famous (mostly French) actors (like in San Francisco). The Tourist office hands out free plans where you find a diy walking tour.

We did this one and went up to the Cathedral and enjoyed the view on Cannes.

It was really nice. In port you find all kinds of offers: Taxi tours, helicopter tours (for 45 €!)

Tours to Ile de St. Margherite.

A really great port if you ask me!

 

So far - here in Europe, the advantages of the YC seem much more evident:

The embarkation process was so different: there were extremely long queues because we arrived with busloads of people from the airport.

We used a different entrance and told the MSC-lady that we wanted to use the YC checkin, she got a little hectic and called “YC YC” so a nice butlerette came to take us to the YC-room. There they offered Prosecco, juice and Petit Fours and took care of our paperwork, then another butler escorted us on the ship. We were led past the waiting crowds (not amused!!!)

 

The photo was taken after entering the ship. Then we waited a little in the conciergerie and were taken to our rooms by another butler.

 

When it comes to using the tender it is a different experience than in the Caribbean:

Coming back, there is a butlerteam to greet you, who will lead you directly to the boat (past the crowds again… I can assure you that we didn’t make many friends the last days…)

 

Dear @beamafar, you are right, the TSL is lovely. There seems to be as much room as in the Divina’s TSL. The buffet is muuuuch smaller though!

 

The waiters are all very attentive and nice.

 

The reception took care of my internet problems. Today I tried to check with the Internet-Café (I was naïve enough to assume, that there had to be one, as they provide Internet-Service, they should have someone who helps you whenever you have problems…)

Well to cut a long story short: They don’t. Reception (concierge) has to call someone in some office, who will or will not take care of your problem.

 

My problem with the two packages got resolved: I had to buy another package on another account and they will (hopefully ) cancel the cost for this one then.

 

What I don’t understand is, why they don’t tell you on their shopping-Page, that you are only able to use one package. (Maybe everyone else would know that, but I did not –why do they let you buy two packages when you won’t be able to use but one!!!???) It resulted in a lot of work for the concierge and the internet-guy on the phone… okay, rant is over!

 

Tonight, is gala night.

Don’t you just love nights? People dress up, the menu is always much nicer, I enjoy it very much…

 

For the rest of the afternoon, I plan on enjoying my balcony and drinking myself through the minibar. I still have the welcome-Prosecco and pan on mixing it with the different kinds of juices.

 

We have such a nice view on Cannes from our balcony, no need for us to head up to the one pool. But maybe we will even try the pool. I was told that the water is freezing cold, have to check on that.

Will be back later.

[Beamafar]

Sounds like you're having a wonderful time. I'm soooo jealous ............. I have to wait 'til early summer next year before being in YC again. :(

 

But I still have 3 more cruises to enjoy before then so I'm not complaining. :p

 

Really interesting that your Med cruise experience is different to the one on Divina. Also, glad to hear that the internet package issue is being sorted. Once the Concierge is dealing with it you can be sure it'll be resolved. They give amazing service when there's a problem!

Edited August 8, 2016 by Beamafar

[plucasana]

you are so right. they are amazing!!!

has this been postednalreaey? if yes sorry.

I found out that you an connect your macbook to the tv.

there is an hdmi input on the left side of the tv. on the richt side you can chose a source (hdmi2) and you will see your screen mirrored.

did not try the ipad because i forcot the adapter but should work aswell.

[plucasana]

omg the typos...

 

before my cruse I bought the gopro claws so I can shoot a little "lea ing the port" time lapse video. it works very good with the railing. unfortunately I forgot tonnuy some sort of security cord, ,,hope it does not fall down [emoji848][emoji45]

[plucasana]

[vino123]

Thank you so much for your continuing YC review. Its nice to read more info about the Fantasia on these boards as so many reviews refer to the Divina.

We will be in the Yacht Club on the Fantasia out of Dubai at Christmas and are so excited to try this experience.

My one concern is that I read they allow smoking in part of the Top Sail lounge. Does this impact on other parts of the lounge?

 

Enjoy the rest of your cruise!

[plucasana]

hello vino123, thank you for your nice comment and your question. in fact we never saw anyone smoking in the top sail lounge until now. but I will check back with you on that question. I had read that the casino is a smoker zone in the med, but I saw a sign yesterday that smoking was not allowed?

 

 

 

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[plucasana]

hello vino123, thank you for your nice comment and your question. in fact we never saw anyone smoking in the top sail lounge until now. but I will check back with you on that question. I had read that the casino is a smoker zone in the med, but I saw a sign yesterday that smoking was not allowed?

 

 

Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

[plucasana]

galanightdinner was really good. I had the scallops,the beef rossini and crêpes suzette. after that, we had a photographer in the yc conciergerie. my daughter really hated me for making her pose with me but I think we will probably love the memories evoked by the pictures in a couple of years or so.

(if they are any good, will tell you tomorrow).

 

tonight there actually was a smoker in the tsl but you couldn't smell anything. they obviously have some sort of ventillation system or something.

 

we also had a piano player that sang live. very nice and really good!

 

 

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[plucasana]

 

First Gala Night.

 

everyone was dressed nicely. no gowns but a lot of dresses and suits.

even the kids played along.

 

 

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[riclop]

Enjoy your cruise.

[thepandabar]

Thank you, plucasana for this review! I'm also booked for Fantasia next summer. Although, I didn't book YC, I am learning quite a bit from your review here. I'll keep checking back here to hopefully learn more from you :)