World Europa - Additional Restaurant for Yacht Club

[Captain-John]

Spotted this on Facebook but can't find any mention on these boards or online so thought I would flag.

 

The comments seem to indicate a 'family style' form of dining. I think the menu looks great!

 

It's not entirely clear to me where this is located, the post says 'extension of the YC restaurant' but the comments make reference to it being on Deck 19 so presumably a section of the existing La Brasserie buffet?

 

 

 

Edited July 22, 2023 by Captain-John

[Até]

I think buffet overflow happens when you put that many YC cabins on the ship and don't accordingly increase the size of the YC public areas.  I have no plans to sail on these ships, I still remember the 2017 responses from the CC M&M attendees when officers were touting this class of ship.

[sverigecruiser]

 

We embarked the MSC World Europa yesterday.

 

Early during the cruise our butler told us that they should open a new restaurant for Yacht Club guests, I don't remember his exact words. He wasn't sure what day it should be when he told us about it and he never came back to us about it.

[lcpagejr]

Perhaps ....its more of a light dinner option. Menu items look more "gastro" type food. Lets face it ...they feed you pretty good at the One Pool until late afternoon if you decide to participate!...and I on several occassions was not really hungry or interested in sitting thru a formal dinner. Also Europeans are much more family oriented and group together...Perhaps they are trying it out??

Edited July 22, 2023 by lcpagejr

[sverigecruiser]

They probably feel that the Yacht Club restaurant is crowded. 

[sverigecruiser]

38 minutes ago, lcpagejr said:

they feed you pretty good at the One Pool until late afternoon

 

Not really "late", the "Yacht Club sundeck grill and bar" closed att 5 pm on our cruise.

[lcpagejr]

10 minutes ago, sverigecruiser said:

 

Not really "late", the "Yacht Club sundeck grill and bar" closed att 5 pm on our cruise.

Yes...but when your enjoying cocktails most of the day and have a "heavy" late afternoon snack.... the desire to get cleaned up and sit thru a long dinner becomes a little less of a priority ...lol

[sverigecruiser]

6 hours ago, sverigecruiser said:

 

Not really "late", the "Yacht Club sundeck grill and bar" closed att 5 pm on our cruise.

 

My mistake, it should be 3 pm.

[MrJulius]

Very interested to see any updates on this.

Thanks.

[surfrider34]

I can confirm this by information a friend provided, who currently is on the ship. The place used to be the "la brasserie" buffet restaurant on deck 19. So it is on the other side of the ship of the top sail lounge. 

The reason is not to try out new or more casual ways of presenting dinner. It is simply because too many people complained about the waiting time at the yacht club restaurant. And the waiting time apparently is due to the bad design of the ship. There are way more guests in the yacht club than on older ships and at the same time the YC restaurant does not hold significantly more people.

[jame_g]

Has anyone heard if they plan to do this, or something similar, on the World America too?

[MrJulius]

2 hours ago, surfrider34 said:

I can confirm this by information a friend provided, who currently is on the ship. The place used to be the "la brasserie" buffet restaurant on deck 19. So it is on the other side of the ship of the top sail lounge. 

The reason is not to try out new or more casual ways of presenting dinner. It is simply because too many people complained about the waiting time at the yacht club restaurant. And the waiting time apparently is due to the bad design of the ship. There are way more guests in the yacht club than on older ships and at the same time the YC restaurant does not hold significantly more people.

 

Thank you.  That seems to be a logical explanation for this.  We usually eat early (6-6:30PM).  If Europeans tend to eat later, then I am hoping for a less crowded dinner.  Otherwise, I will have to get on the list prior to when I actually want to eat.

[surfrider34]

1 hour ago, jame_g said:

Has anyone heard if they plan to do this, or something similar, on the World America too?

I‘d guess they would beed to make larger changes than that. Ideally they would increase the capacity of the yacht club restaurant. I have the feeling it might be already too late to make such large changes to the design at this point in time.

[kelleherdl]

How is access to the YC ‘buffet’ controlled if it’s just a section on Deck 19 that used to be available to everybody?

[surfrider34]

5 hours ago, kelleherdl said:

How is access to the YC ‘buffet’ controlled if it’s just a section on Deck 19 that used to be available to everybody?

There is a host at the entrance.

[Até]

I'd think they only took a section of the 628 seat deck 19 La Brasserie buffet area for YC use, otherwise it leaves only the 843 seat Il Mercato buffet on deck 18 for all other passengers.  But even that portion is going to cause more buffet congestion for the 6500+ non YC guests.

Edited August 11, 2023 by Até

[Nunagoras]

3 hours ago, Até said:

I'd think they only took a section of the 628 seat deck 19 La Brasserie buffet area for YC use, otherwise it leaves only the 843 seat Il Mercato buffet on deck 18 for all other passengers.  But even that portion is going to cause more buffet congestion for the 6500+ non YC guests.

Dear Até: As far as the dailies I have read about Europa, it seems that they only open deck 19 for regular guests for a small fraction of the time for breakfast/lunch, so "steerage" guests are already cramped!... Either way; this ship seems to have some design flaws. I believe better for them to transform the "secret bar" on another restaurant for YC than this solution that won't satisfy anybody else. Am I wondering where this ship will end up in a few years? Perhaps doing secondary markets on South America or Asia, if they have any ports ready for it. Hope there is time to correct something for world America. They should to know they can't continue to fail on that market...

[Até]

4 hours ago, Nunagoras said:

As far as the dailies I have read about Europa, it seems that they only open deck 19 for regular guests for a small fraction of the time for breakfast/lunch, so "steerage" guests are already cramped!

Interesting.  I can't see how Europa could only be using the 843 seat buffet on deck 18 for that many people.  Meraviglia+ ships have a 1336 seat buffet for about 5900 non YC passengers.  Perhaps not many people are utilizing the buffets for dinner on Med sailings?

 

Seems similar to how Seaside was using part of the deck 8 buffet as a Bella dining room when it was first sailing.  Now they just squeeze in more shorter length seatings when needed. 

 

MSC has yet to figure out how to get YC passengers to clear out of the YC restaurant after finishing their meal to make space for others. 

 

Just for fun I calculated a comparison of YC guests to YC dining room seating.  WE rated almost 1.5 guests per seats (304 at double occupancy with 208 seats), interestingly MV, MV+ and Seaside+ were all about the same as WE.  Seaside class was better at 1.3 and Fantasia class best at 1.25.  While these numbers seem close I will say that my experience is it made a large difference in how crowded the YC restaurants felt and when I've had to wait for a YC table.

[Nunagoras]

10 hours ago, Até said:

Interesting.  I can't see how Europa could only be using the 843 seat buffet on deck 18 for that many people.  Meraviglia+ ships have a 1336 seat buffet for about 5900 non YC passengers.  Perhaps not many people are utilizing the buffets for dinner on Med sailings? - By default continental EU people used to wish sit down table served dinners. Very few would use the buffet for dinner. Maybe; those ones on 2nd seating would use the buffet for a little tidbit on the early hours, but nothing else special. On the older ships they used to use only half of the buffet for dinner anyways here in the med. If people found no place to seat, they used to let people use seats on the other half, no problem, but at my experience, never needed already.

 

Seems similar to how Seaside was using part of the deck 8 buffet as a Bella dining room when it was first sailing.  Now they just squeeze in more shorter length seatings when needed. - Yep!

 

MSC has yet to figure out how to get YC passengers to clear out of the YC restaurant after finishing their meal to make space for others. - Quite likely. For example: If there is a huge German contingent, chances are they'll occupy their tables from starting to finish opening time... It's cultural of them to do so...

 

Just for fun I calculated a comparison of YC guests to YC dining room seating.  WE rated almost 1.5 guests per seats (304 at double occupancy with 208 seats), interestingly MV, MV+ and Seaside+ were all about the same as WE.  Seaside class was better at 1.3 and Fantasia class best at 1.25.  While these numbers seem close I will say that my experience is it made a large difference in how crowded the YC restaurants felt and when I've had to wait for a YC table. - Interesting. One should as well to consider the actual sailing's demographics. I believe for the US market that should work better. They trend to enjoy early dinners, with the 50% European crowd enjoying 2nd seating, things might not be that problematic.