First time MSC...a few quick questions...

[CruiserDoc]

We will be on the 1/26th sailing of the Meraviglia. We've never cruised with MSC before, but have been many times on Celebrity and like it a lot. We are springing for the MSC Yacht Club to experience the "ship within  a ship" concept. A few questions....

1) I know the Yacht Club has it's own pool and deck area, but as far as the enclosed Solarium area with the Bamboo pool, is that adults only? (the pictures I've seen show a very crowded pool and hot tubs with I think children present).

2) Is the food in the Yacht Club restaurant better than either the main dining or specialty restaurants; ie, do most people staying in the Yacht Club stay in their restaurant or venture out to the other dining options.

 

Any specific comparisons to Celebrity would be welcome!

 

Thanks!

[George C]

We really liked food in YC , on seaside you could eat breakfast and lunch by the pool or in main dinning room service and food was really good. We did have one dinner in steak restaurant which is a specialty and did have some pizza which is excellent in main buffet. We had done celebrity earlier this year in a suite which was also excellent, prefer entertainment in MSC over celebrity. Really great perks with YC like free premium drink package, there butler does more for you than celebrity. 

[Coochuck]

Going on our 3rd cruise in the Yacht Club.  Have found the service and food in the Yacht Club to be excellent.  Have done the Steak House, and Seafood specialty restaurants outside of the Yacht Club and was greatly disappointed.  We did the buffet once for snacks and it was fine, and the Pizza Restaurant was great...in the Yacht Club you can order a pizza and  your Butler will deliver it to your room.

[CruiserDoc]

Hey Coochuck, thanks for the comments. How do you think MSC compares with Celebrity?

 

[grandgeezer]

We’ve done the Yacht Club, on the Seaside, twice. As far as the restaurant, I think the beef, in Luminae (suite restaurant on Celebrity) is a little better but the boss feels the chicken and pasta is much better on MSC. We went to Butcher’s Cut (steak house on Seaside), it similar to the Tuscan Grille on Celebrity and Chops on RCL, and it was nothing special. We got it free but it is about $13 p.p. cheaper, depending what you order, we had the rib eye.

[dexddd]

Bamboo is open to all.

[sptrout]

You mentioned MSC YC vs. Celebrity. We have now done (as of last week) two MSC' YC cruises and many Celebrity cruises and the last three that were in Sky Suites. IMO, the outside YC1 cabins are almost identical to SS in size and amenities. The big difference is that SS have bathtubs where the YC cabins have large and very nice showers. Otherwise, I would be hard pressed to tell the difference if I just suddenly woke up in one and had to say which one I was in.

 

The main difference is that the YC is a contained area that is really, really nice. We loved all aspects of the YC experience including the food in all YC venues (main YC MDR and outside grill). I am currently on a "Keto" diet (bummer to have to do on a cruise) so many of my dinner meals where meat centric (steaks and lamb chops). The steaks were all very good and they actually cook them to your preferred taste (in other words, rare is really rare!). The lamb chops were outstanding. This was my wife's first time trying lamb and she was stunned on how much she liked them. I told her not to expect that level of quality anywhere else. We had all of our dinners in the YC even though we had a free meal available at Butcher's Cut since we are both "Diamond" (formerly "Black") level. Did not see a reason to change even for one meal. Outstanding service in the YC and we had the same waiter and assistant waither every night.

 

The "ship within a ship" concept is so nice that it is hard to move back to Celebrity. But, someone "has to do it" LOL. We have a 10-day Celebrity cruise booked for next December only because it is for 10 nights, and I grabbed an aft corner SS1 cabin; our favorite location. The only MSC winter cruise that I could find was for 14 nights (2-7 night B2B) and the price was out of our range. We really would have preferred another MSC YC cruise.