LIVE from 9/13 Bellissima and 9/21 Seaview - 7nt Med cruises - Yacht Club

[perakcruiser]

18 minutes ago, WonderMan3 said:

 

Is the pizza the one they serve at the main buffet? If so, I have to say it looked absolutely disgusting. 

 

Yes, that is a great pizza for us like a pizza should be. Called the best pizza on sea with a reason, noone comes even close. 

 

The thing they serve on Celebrity with this name I would not call a pizza. As I would not call the thing MSC has on the breakfast menu "Egg Benedict".

Edited October 5, 2019 by perakcruiser

[mimmy52]

Just wondering what would have happened if when you saw all the cushions were put away, you moved a couple over from the cabana for rental.

[glittergal1]

5 hours ago, perakcruiser said:

 

Not for me ☺️

 

I could criticse many things both on MSC and Celebrity, but I like them both and would never turn down a cruise with them. Obviously Celebrity has the better meat and MSC the better pizza and pasta, both deliver a great product, thankfully not the same. 

 

I am  very thank full that MSC are not like other cruise lines .  And as a Vegetarian Ive found that MSC food has been the best with the most variety and more accommodating staff for  offering even alternatives to what is on the menu.  Ive never tried Celebrity their prices compared to MSC have been ridiculously high. 

[Nymich]

26 minutes ago, glittergal1 said:

 

 Ive never tried Celebrity their prices compared to MSC have been ridiculously high. 

Having done all 3 suite classes Celebrity, NCL Haven and YC it is only fair to note that YC is by FAR the least expensive of the 3.

I am not sure how that figures in to a comparison overall but it is important to note.

[2013cruiser2013]

5 hours ago, WonderMan3 said:

 

Is the pizza the one they serve at the main buffet? If so, I have to say it looked absolutely disgusting. Mike is obsessed with pizza and didn’t even want to go near it. The pizza on Celebrity is quite tasty (sometimes they might have an off batch) and MSC’s didn’t look anywhere near as good. 

We ordered pizza to our room a couple times on both our Meraviglia and Seaview YC and the pizza was always hot and fresh. 

[WonderMan3]

Continuing on with Friday the 27th...

 

Our final day of our Seaview cruise started out at sea as we didn’t arrive at Palma de Mallorca until 12:30pm. We had decided to spend another day on the ship as we had been to Palma a couple years ago and found it a bit boring. Also, it was nice to enjoy another relaxing day without touring. We knew we had the cabana waiting for us up on the YC pool deck so we figured we’d just spend most of the day up there. We were up there a bit before 10 in order to have breakfast at the grill. When we got up there I ran into Kamil who wanted to make sure I knew about the cabana. I said yes and thanked him. Mike showed me where the cabana was which was right next to the smoking area. Very convenient for him but not the ideal place for me since I don’t smoke. Breakfast was okay. Nice to get fresh omelettes made, but the bacon was fatty and the waffles were lukewarm and rubbery. The breakfasts had been an average experience on both ships either in the dining room or at the grill up until then so

not really a surprise. It was pretty windy up on deck while we were at sea, so much so that we had to move to a more sheltered table at one point. After breakfast we went to hang out in the cabana which was nice and shaded at the time. They set up the cabana with a cooler full of drinks similar to what you find in the mini bar (water, beer, juice, soda) and there was a breakfast plate set up with pastries. Nonnat stopped by shortly after we entered the cabana. We mentioned that we had just eaten breakfast so he offered to take away the pastry tray, but we told him to leave it in case we wanted to munch. 

 

I was annoyed when while I was setting up my stuff in the cabana, a woman suddenly came in to the cabana space and went to the far side near a partition and started lighting a cigarette. I said “Excuse me” but she just waved me away as she continued to try and light it (apparently she was trying to get away from the wind). She lit up and stood there starting to smoke. I spoke to her again telling her to please leave that this was a private area. She turned towards me and started motioning at me angrily and spouting off in Spanish. I motioned at her to leave and she finally did. I can’t believe the nerve of some people. Of course she and her companions then chose to sit at the table right next to our cabana, all smoking with smoke drifting in to

our space when the wind calmed down. Mike didn’t care but I was a little annoyed. I had to go back down to the cabin for a little bit as we got closer to arriving on port. When I came back up the ship was entering the port and the position of the sun relative to the ship had changed with more and more sun coming into the cabana. When finally docked the cabana was full on in the sun. We had to clumsily hang towels along the front to try and get some shade. The sun was still very hot though and after about 15-20 minutes I had to get up and decided to just go eat lunch at that point at a shady table. I was surprised to see that they again had the roasted chicken as a carving item as they had it the day before as well as the day we boarded; maybe it’s a daily item? Lunch was fine and definitely a great benefit of this YC pool deck. After lunch we decided to spend some time in the pool. It’s a saltwater pool and I’m not sure if they heat it as it was on the cooler side but felt great on a hot and sunny day. After our pool time we went back to the cabana. It was around 2pm by this time. The sun was still beating down on the cabana and it was just too hot for us so we decided to bail at that point and headed back down to the cabin to relax for the rest of the afternoon. There are supposed to be afternoon snacks delivered to the cabana like sushi and nachos but we never saw those. I wasn’t expecting them since we didn’t pay for the cabana. Not sure if we would’ve received them if we had stayed. The cabanas are kind of much ado about nothing. Not worth the cost really especially as they do a poor job of keeping the sun out if it’s aimed right at you. But again, I was only ever seeking a cushion not a cabana in the first place.

[WonderMan3]

We spent the balance of the afternoon in our cabin relaxing. Mike went out at one point to check out the dinner menu at the dining room but we didn’t like the choices so he went to the concierge desk and made a reservation at Butcher’s Cut for our final dinner onboard. We arrived at 7 and was met by the hostess at her station. She verified our reservation and she’d us if we were using a Black Card meal. We said we had already used it earlier in the cruise and she was noting that in her system. The restaurant manager (he managed all the specialty restaurants), an angry looking man, was hanging nearby listening and suddenly was by her side looking over her shoulder while she made her updates. He kept saying things to her which we couldn’t hear and she began to seem agitated. He started speaking to her more forcefully and tapped her on the side and had her come with him across the hallway to another computer where he was again speaking aggressively towards her and having her do something in the computer system. All this time we were just standing there wondering what was happening. It went on for about 3 minutes before a server from the restaurant came out to try an assist us. The other two were totally ignoring us. The server was friendly and was ready to bring us to a table but we weren’t clear on whether we were all set with the hostess. She never actually came back to us but went back to her station seeming rattled and then the manager came over and shooed the server away while acting suddenly like our best friend and guiding us into the restaurant. He seemed like an arrogant jerk. We watched him throughout our meal moving around the restaurant and speaking brusquely to the staff and making them all very uneasy. I saw him again pat another staff member on the side at one point to get them to move out of the way so he could adjust the chairs at another table by a tenth of an inch because apparently he wasn’t satisfied with how the server had placed them. It was really uncomfortable to watch and we felt bad for the staff. I bring all this up because it impacted our service. Our server, Roman, was our server on our previous visit earlier in the week. He had been great that night but on this night he seemed really off. We had to repeat items we ordered multiple times, the drink order was a major chore, he would forget things like bringing a straw for a drink for only one of us and the service overall was really slow. There may have been a kitchen issue contributing to this. I did see a table near us have to send their steak back because it wasn’t cooked properly. It was not like this at all on our prior visit. On that visit though the manager had not been much of a presence though. He was all over the restaurant this night though. Getting in the business of all the servers and the kitchen staff. I really think they were all unnerved by this and it was throwing off the service. The food was fine though. Mike got the tomato soup again which he said was still great. I tried the Kobe sliders which were mediocre. We both had the filet mignon for the entree. The steaks were excellent as were the mashed potatoes. I had ordered the crab Oscar as an extra topping topping. I had gotten this on Bellissima and it was a nice chunk of lump

crab meat with a hollandaise. This was prepared totally different with crab chopped up and mixed into some sort of sauce (not hollandaise) almost like a crabmeat salad. It was gross. I took a bite or two and had to leave it to the side. For dessert Mike had some sorbet but I was full so I passed.

 

After dinner we went back to the cabin to pack and had our bags out by 11:30pm. He was hoping to run into Solange, our room attendant, and Nonnat, our butler to give them tips but we didn’t see them that evening. An interesting story about Solange. We were enjoying her friendly presence the first day or two on the ship, especially in contrast to our first butler who we had to switch off from. She was always smiling and saying hello or making chit chat and I had even given her praise to Kamil. She disappeared from our corridor for about 3 days in the middle of the cruise. I thought maybe her contract had ended and then on the second to last evening I saw her again. She was coughing a bit and seemed very tired. She explained that she had been in the hospital for 3 days with a serious bronchial cold. She looked and sounded horrible and I felt bad for her that she was being rushed back to work before fully healthy. She blamed the air conditioning for her illness. I wasn’t clear what she meant but I will say that Mike and I did find the air not so great. Even though my cold moved through me quickly in the first half of the Bellissima cruise the aftermath lingered on all the way to the end of the second cruise. Mike was the same. Once off the ship for a couple days in Spain we saw our sinuses and lungs improve greatly. There was another day when I was out on the balcony and heard the occupant of the cabin two doors down out on his balcony complaining to his butler about the air quality in his cabin and how it made him sick. Perhaps these were all coincidences but it seemed like something was up with the HVAC, at least on Seaview anyway.

 

Another interesting point with Solange was during that same conversation about her cold, we were winding down our chat and I was ready to walk to my cabin when our old butler appeared down the hall and loudly stated “Solange!” and she apologized like she was bothering me and moved down the hall towards him. It was really weird, almost like he was bothered that she was being friendly to me. I have to say that I’ve never seen so many strange dynamics on a cruise between managers with staff and lead staff with assistants. It didn’t feel like the staff operated as a team in certain areas of the ship.

[WonderMan3]

As with our disembarkation from Bellissima, our exit from Seaview was a breeze on the morning of Saturday the 28th. We exited our cabin by 8am as requested and headed up to the YC Grill for a final breakfast. Nonnat looked for us up there and said he would escort us off the ship. We asked him to come back up at 8:30 and we would be ready to go. He helped carry some of our bags as he escorted us off. There was no line to exit the ship so we didn’t have to bypass anyone. Nonnat walked us all the way down to the baggage area so we could retrieve them and the escorted us out the taxi stand where we said goodbye and gave him a tip. He wasn’t the best butler (we suspected he may have been in training) but he really tried and genuinely wanted to assist us in anyway he could and that was appreciated. The whole debark process was less than 15 minutes. Very efficient and stress-free.

 

So that concludes the chronicles of my first MSC adventures. I will try to lay out a review and comparison to NCL and Celebrity Suite experiences soon. Feel free to ask any questions you might have.

 

Just as a point of information. We already have another MSC cruise booked. We are going on a 7day Caribbean on Seaside in May. We booked that right before going on these cruises after we got another offer from a local casino. We did have a number of issues with these two cruises but I would like to see how the Seaside plays out since people here have described it as being a bit more Americanized. Also, we’ll be traveling with a third person on that cruise so I’m hoping we get to try more of the activities on board with him like the aqua park or bowling. (Mike can be a struggle to get to do anything beyond eating, casino or napping in the cabin.)

[calicakes]

The blob on top of the asparagus does NOT look appealing. 

[Jim_Iain]

Adam -  Thanks for a wonderful trip blog.    I learned a lot from you but has left me mixed as to whether we will give MCS a try.   So many of the issues raised were very good to hear in advance so we would know what to expect.  

 

I'm not really concerned about American "Standards" as opposed to European.    Iain is a Scot and we lived in Europe for 3 years so have a good idea of the pros and con's of each.  While living in both Ireland and the Continent I can say some things were different but never experienced many of the things you described.     I have to temper this with the fact we have never taken a "European" Cruiseline.

[Nashna]

I have enjoyed reading about your experiences in YC on two different MSC ships.   We have sailed on both Celebrity and NCL as well as most major cruise lines  We are looking forward to our first MSC cruise in January.    Our main reason for booking YC on the Divina in January was to have a secluded area to sit, watch the world go by and read without dealing with crowds and chair hogs.  We travel in January to avoid the nasty weather in the DMV by soaking up some warm rays in the Caribbean.  We do enjoy being pampered and hope that our first experience on MSC meets our expectations.  We do not expect MSC to reach the experiences we had on our Seabourn or Regent cruises.  We are excited to try a new cruise option and look forward to reporting back to the CC audience.  

 

[CruiseIreland]

Thank you so much for your thorough and honest review of your cruises. I have travelled both weeks with you. MSC seems to need to address some issues, even I the YC. By the way, we did Western Caribbean on Seaside in February and really enjoyed the ship, food and ports, though we were in Aurea. Our most recent trip, on Meraviglia, was the best for food in the MDR. Ken

[TommyD3]

I just noticed that MSC provides their "Black" loyalty level a free specialty restaurant visit.

That is VERY generous !!!  Is that once per cruise no matter the cruise duration?

Celebrity does not do that even at the Zenith level (Zenith get a 25% discount).

Earlier this year Celebrity deleted the free specialty visit for the top cruisers!

 

[Europeantraveler1]

Thank you for your detailed account of your cruise on MSC.  Our 50th wedding anniversary will be next year so we’ve booked a short, seven-day Mediterranean cruise on the new Grandiosa for next June with our family of seven-all in the YC!

 I was a bit more excited about this very special celebration prior to reading your reviews concerning, especially, the quality of food in the YC restaurant/deck.  I have read so many favorable reviews of those who had cruised on MSC ships in the YC section and who had been impressed by the service; ambiance; and food!  I remember one particular passenger that raved about the unending supply of lobster that was being served at poolside! 

It seems to be that the emergence of the YC was, at the onset, the 

creme de la creme!  And as word spread, more and more people booked into YC for this fabulous, very affordable luxury cruising. Unfortunately, it seems that the luster and once unbelievable luxury of the YC is beginning to fade (?).   :0(

 

[CruisingFox27]

7 hours ago, Europeantraveler1 said:

Thank you for your detailed account of your cruise on MSC.  Our 50th wedding anniversary will be next year so we’ve booked a short, seven-day Mediterranean cruise on the new Grandiosa for next June with our family of seven-all in the YC!

 I was a bit more excited about this very special celebration prior to reading your reviews concerning, especially, the quality of food in the YC restaurant/deck.  I have read so many favorable reviews of those who had cruised on MSC ships in the YC section and who had been impressed by the service; ambiance; and food!  I remember one particular passenger that raved about the unending supply of lobster that was being served at poolside! 

It seems to be that the emergence of the YC was, at the onset, the 

creme de la creme!  And as word spread, more and more people booked into YC for this fabulous, very affordable luxury cruising. Unfortunately, it seems that the luster and once unbelievable luxury of the YC is beginning to fade (?).   :0(

 

I wouldn't be unduly concerned, our YC experiences have always been fabulous and it hasn't diminished. We've never had issues with food quality or service. Both of these are subjective and personal obviously. The OP wasn't tempted by the pizza yet we and many other consider it excellent. I'm following a review of passenger currently on Meraviglia on her TA, in YC and they are reporting an excellent experience. It's a different experience to a UK or USA centric cruise line as it's Italian. Look forward to your cruise and have a fabulous anniversary.

[ipeeinthepool]

5 minutes ago, CruisingFox27 said:

... It's a different experience to a UK or USA centric cruise line as it's Italian. ...

 

I think this suns it up.   I love going to Italy, we always have a great time, but in our experience it's a country that almost works.  Nothing ever seem to be  a 100%  experience in Italy.   There's always something that isn't quite right and someone making excuses for it.   Your right, this is an Italian experience.  Do you want someone always making excuses for everything on your cruise vacation because it isn't exactly as it should have been?  Call it a level of American expectation if you wish, but based on the OP's reviews it sure seems like MSC frequently fell short of expectations.  These expectations go well beyond the subjective quality of food.  For me, I think I'll stay away from MSC.  If you like the experience, great, enjoy your cruise.  Maybe the MSC approach works in Europe, but unless MSC makes some drastic changes I think it will fail in the market in the United State when they sail in the Caribbean.  

 

Once again, I thank Wonderman for a thorough and unbiased review.

 

[CruisingFox27]

We've never had excuses made because it been excellent, the current review I'm following is from an American traveller and it's certainly exceeding their expectations. It's personal and your nationality doesn't always mean you'll love or hate something. Many reviews from US passengers sailing have been very positive.

 

It didn't meet the expectations of the OP and their review is appreciated.

[cinnamon]

32 minutes ago, ipeeinthepool said:

 

I think this suns it up.   I love going to Italy, we always have a great time, but in our experience it's a country that almost works.  Nothing ever seem to be  a 100%  experience in Italy.   There's always something that isn't quite right and someone making excuses for it.   Your right, this is an Italian experience.  Do you want someone always making excuses for everything on your cruise vacation because it isn't exactly as it should have been?  Call it a level of American expectation if you wish, but based on the OP's reviews it sure seems like MSC frequently fell short of expectations.  These expectations go well beyond the subjective quality of food.  For me, I think I'll stay away from MSC.  If you like the experience, great, enjoy your cruise.  Maybe the MSC approach works in Europe, but unless MSC makes some drastic changes I think it will fail in the market in the United State when they sail in the Caribbean.  

 

Once again, I thank Wonderman for a thorough and unbiased review.

 

MSC is a Swiss company though, not Italian. 

[ipeeinthepool]

3 minutes ago, cinnamon said:

MSC is a Swiss company though, not Italian. 

 

Correct and Celebrity ships are registered in Malta.  MSC cruises was founded in Italy and the cruising experiencing apparently maintains it's Italian heritage.

[cinnamon]

1 minute ago, ipeeinthepool said:

 

Correct and Celebrity ships are registered in Malta.  MSC cruises was founded in Italy and the cruising experiencing apparently maintains it's Italian heritage.

I wasn’t referring to where the ship’s are registered, just where the offices and company are based. Royal Caribbean International based in Miami. 

[CruisingFox27]

9 minutes ago, ipeeinthepool said:

 

Correct and Celebrity ships are registered in Malta.  MSC cruises was founded in Italy and the cruising experiencing apparently maintains it's Italian heritage.

Correct. The family are Italian, presumably the Swiss company registration is for economic purposes...

[perakcruiser]

19 hours ago, glittergal1 said:

I am  very thank full that MSC are not like other cruise lines .  And as a Vegetarian Ive found that MSC food has been the best with the most variety and more accommodating staff for  offering even alternatives to what is on the menu.  Ive never tried Celebrity their prices compared to MSC have been ridiculously high. 

Of cause, as a Vegetarian it would be crazy to pay the extra charge for Celebrity as the top reason to book them is the higher quality of dead animals 

 

 

[perakcruiser]

13 minutes ago, cinnamon said:

I wasn’t referring to where the ship’s are registered, just where the offices and company are based.

The office that handles the worldwide cruise business is in Naples, Italy. 

[ipeeinthepool]

1 hour ago, perakcruiser said:

Of cause, as a Vegetarian it would be crazy to pay the extra charge for Celebrity as the top reason to book them is the higher quality of dead animals 

 

 

 

I'd be willing to pay a little more and get better dead animals 😉

[Georgia_Peaches]

2 hours ago, CruisingFox27 said:

We've never had excuses made because it been excellent, the current review I'm following is from an American traveller and it's certainly exceeding their expectations. It's personal and your nationality doesn't always mean you'll love or hate something. Many reviews from US passengers sailing have been very positive.

 

It didn't meet the expectations of the OP and their review is appreciated.

Do you mind posting a link to the review you are following?