JamieLogical's Live from the MSC Meraviglia 9/24

[JamieLogical]

4 minutes ago, ReneeFLL said:

@JamieLogical Does MSC use the wide luggage tags or the narrow ones? We already have the narrow ones.

 

Wide. At least the ones included in the PDF with your eTicket are wide. I am not sure if MSC sends printed luggage tags via mail to YC guests like NCL does for Haven guests.

 

Edited September 12, 2023 by JamieLogical

[ReneeFLL]

Just now, JamieLogical said:

 

Wide. At least the ones included in the PDF with your eTicket are wide. I am not sure if MSC sends printed luggage tags via mail to YC guests like NCL does for Haven guests.

 

Thanks for the info.

[Ottawa_Cruiser]

I'm looking forward to following along with you again! 

[Georgia_Peaches]

This itinerary is on my bucket list!  Looking forward to your review from the lovey Meraviglia. 

[DaKahuna]

@JamieLogical Looking forward to following along.

 

Just booked our first MSC cruise for February of next year.  Looking forward to a new experience. 

 

[JamieLogical]

19 minutes ago, DaKahuna said:

@JamieLogical Looking forward to following along.

 

Just booked our first MSC cruise for February of next year.  Looking forward to a new experience. 

 

 

Which sailing did you book for February?

[DaKahuna]

17 minutes ago, JamieLogical said:

 

Which sailing did you book for February?

 

February 11, MSC Divina 11 Day out of Miami. 

 

 

[JamieLogical]

6 minutes ago, DaKahuna said:

 

February 11, MSC Divina 11 Day out of Miami. 

 

 

 

We are on that sailing as well!!!

[DaKahuna]

1 minute ago, JamieLogical said:

 

We are on that sailing as well!!!

 

Great.  Saw that when I just signed into the Roll Call. 

 

 We will be in a YC1 on Deck 15 but do plan to get around the ship to see what the rest of the ship is like. 

 

 

[JamieLogical]

9 minutes ago, DaKahuna said:

 

Great.  Saw that when I just signed into the Roll Call. 

 

 We will be in a YC1 on Deck 15 but do plan to get around the ship to see what the rest of the ship is like. 

 

 

 

We are booked in a Fantastica angled balcony on deck 10 right now. Might put in an upgrade bid when the time comes, but the angled balcony allows for a lot of space, so I am sure we will enjoy it if we don't win an upgrade.

[DaKahuna]

57 minutes ago, JamieLogical said:

 

We are booked in a Fantastica angled balcony on deck 10 right now. Might put in an upgrade bid when the time comes, but the angled balcony allows for a lot of space, so I am sure we will enjoy it if we don't win an upgrade.

 

 I am sure you will have a great time either way.  

 We are kind of excited and apprehensive at the same time.  This will be our first time on MSC and so many questions are running through my mind.  I'll start doing more research and try and get as many answers as I can before I start being a nuisance and asking a lot of questions on here. 

 

[JamieLogical]

29 minutes ago, DaKahuna said:

 

 I am sure you will have a great time either way.  

 We are kind of excited and apprehensive at the same time.  This will be our first time on MSC and so many questions are running through my mind.  I'll start doing more research and try and get as many answers as I can before I start being a nuisance and asking a lot of questions on here. 

 

 

I am happy to answer any questions, but I am afraid all of my knowledge of the YC is second-hand from my brother and other pastors on these forums.

[BoundForSea]

10 hours ago, JamieLogical said:

 

You can link your reservations when you do your online check-in (you will need her booking number and cabin number), which should get you assigned to the same dining time/table.

 

I liked both Butcher's Cut and Ocean Cay and found their tastings menus to be more than adequate for me. I know a lot of people complain that the dining package only covers the tastings menus. From what I understand, you do have the option to "trade" a tastings menu item for something off the a la carte menu for 50% off.

 

I was less impressed by the Teppanyaki. The menu choices were limited. It was a $10 upcharge for most of the menus and I think a $30 upcharge for the surf-and-turf menu. I will say, you get a TON of food, so if you can really pack it away, you might get your money's worth.

 

I would never waste a specialty dining credit on Hola! Their a la carte prices are so cheap, I can eat there for under $7. Even if you want to gorge yourself, they have an all-you-can-eat option for $18.

 

Not sure of the length of your cruise, but if you already get a free specialty from being Diamond, I would definitely only get the 3-night dining package. As it is, I won't be Diamond until my next cruise in October, but my husband and I have decided not to do a dining package this time. We will be content to spend our OBC at Hola! and Kaito, if we want to do specialty dining, but will likely do most of our dinners in the MDR, as we also found the MDR food to be good.

Thanks Jamie. As always that was super helpful. So I can’t eat much, ever since an elective procedure I had in April, so tasting menu is perfect. I think I have a new plan based on your recommendations. I’m gonna sock away some OBC for Hola, and use the dining credits for Ocean Cay, BCut, and then we like Kaito and the rest will be dining room or those buffet nights where you just don’t want to deal with all the things, and just grab and go. 
 

We will be back on Getaway on a TransA in October, first time in a long time so looking forward to that a lot. This 7ni in December is a nice somewhat inexpensive little chance to get away (mom deserves it since my dad passed a couple years back). We will most likely get off in OCay and thats it. 
 

Thanks Jamie and your husband for your help!!

[BoundForSea]

8 minutes ago, JamieLogical said:

 

I am happy to answer any questions, but I am afraid all of my knowledge of the YC is second-hand from my brother and other pastors on these forums.

I’d be happy to answer any YC questions. Been on quite a few times. 

[Mark_T]

5 hours ago, JamieLogical said:

I am not sure if MSC sends printed luggage tags via mail to YC guests like NCL does for Haven guests.

No, just the same wide versions in the PDF.

[Mark_T]

2 hours ago, DaKahuna said:

 

Great.  Saw that when I just signed into the Roll Call. 

 

 We will be in a YC1 on Deck 15 but do plan to get around the ship to see what the rest of the ship is like.

We'll be there for that cruise as well, and yes, plenty of reasons to spend some time around the rest of the ship.

 

Happy to help out with any YC / Divina questions as we were there in June in YC.

[DaKahuna]

@JamieLogical @BoundForSea & @Mark_T

 

Thank you.  If I come across anything that I am unable to find answered somewhere on CC or the internet I will be sure and reach out.   We just decided today to take a cruise on MSC so I am behind the power curve in knowledge about MSC. 
 

 I applied for the Status Match earlier today and have already received our Voyager Club numbers and Gold status. So that is one item I can check off the list. 
 

[jimbri]

Looking forward to your review!

[EllieinNJ]

Hi Jamie.  We are on with you on the October 25th cruise but always like to read a good review by a great review teller like you.  Ellie.

[JamieLogical]

24 minutes ago, EllieinNJ said:

Hi Jamie.  We are on with you on the October 25th cruise but always like to read a good review by a great review teller like you.  Ellie.

 

With the two sailings so close together, I think I will get a lot of clues as to what our October sailing will be like.

[RichYak]

14 hours ago, DaKahuna said:

We just decided today to take a cruise on MSC so I am behind the power curve in knowledge about MSC. 

My first MSC YC experience will be a month after yours. As a fellow Celebrity Retreat refugee, I'll be watching for your review and comments. 

[DaKahuna]

6 hours ago, RichYak said:

My first MSC YC experience will be a month after yours. As a fellow Celebrity Retreat refugee, I'll be watching for your review and comments. 

 Well with both @JamieLogical and I both aboard, I am sure there will be a lot of comments and hopefully pictures.  We will be in their Yacht Club and I’ll be comparing with our previous Retreat sailing experiences.  

[ms sjsky]

Hi Jamie, Always enjoyed reading your reviews from NCL and now MSC.  Super excited that I will get to go along for the ride with you before our NE/Canada cruise in October.  I've been on the Meraviglia out of Miami, but have never sailed NE/Canada so will be interested in what you are doing in those ports.  Have you pre-booked any excursions?

 

Nancy

[rikitikitavii]

On 9/11/2023 at 10:40 AM, JamieLogical said:

 

I know it's a little early for me to be starting this thread, but I am just so excited to be cruising again soon that I couldn't help but post. I can't wait to be back on the Meraviglia in 13 days. Depending on how Hurricane Lee goes, my husband and I are supposed to be doing a 10-day sailing out of Brooklyn to Canada & New England. This will be my third CA & NE cruise and my husband's second. Newport, Sydney, and Charlottetown will all be new port stops for us.

 

Initially, we had booked a flight to fly in the day of the cruise. Not something we usually risk and it turned out that I still wasn't willing to risk it. I decided to go ahead and change our flight to the night before. We are now scheduled to arrive at JFK around 9:00pm on the 23rd. The change in flight meant booking a hotel and for reasons I don't understand, hotels in NYC for that specific night are insanely expensive. We had a whole saga of booking a Fairfield Inn near JFK for over $400 for the night! Then we wanted to find something better or cheaper or both. So we tried to book the Even Hotel in Brooklyn for a deal that looked too good to be true. Turns out it was. I booked it through some online booking site I had never even heard of. Called the hotel directly the next day to confirm that I actually had a reservation. I did not. So I am not sure if that was a scam or a glitch or what. I canceled through the booking site and I do see the credit back to my credit card "pending" on my account, so hopefully that will actually go through and I won't have to dispute the charge. Finally, I booked the Baltic Hotel directly through their own website yesterday for a somewhat reasonable rate. I am already booked in the Baltic Hotel for the night before my solo cruise in October, so I had already done some research on it. That seemed to go fine, but this morning, I realized there is no actual charge on my credit card for it, so I have an email in to them to confirm that reservation. I will try to call them later today if I haven't heard back.

 

Cruise prep is underway, but I still feel like it has snuck up on me. I *think* I have all of my pre-cruise shopping done. I still need to take an inventory of a few supplies to make sure I have enough to last through the cruise (vitamins, Liquid IV, cash...), but I should have time to buy any last-minute items. I still have to do all of my laundry of my cruise clothes. I have an appointment on the 21st to get my hair done. I will post pictures of whatever crazy color I end up with this time. I am leaning towards a peach/coral? I ordered new nail polish to paint my toenails. I never paint my toenails except when I am about to go on a cruise, because that's the only time I ever wear sandals. Hopefully my fellow passengers appreciate my attempts to not have them vomit at the sight of my feet.

 

We are booked in a Fantastica Balcony on the bump-out on Deck 8. It's directly opposit the one I was in on my solo sailing on 4/22. We have bids in for an upgrade to a YC Interior (still not convinced that's an actual upgrade) and a Whirlpool Balcony Suite like we had on our 4/8 sailing. I will keep you posted on whether either offer is accepted.

 

I will post here with more thoughts and progress as the cruise approaches. Feel free to post any questions and I will do my best to answer them.

Looking forward to your review, as we are on the October 4th cruise on Meraviglia.

As for YC interior, the upgrade would be it is in YC. The cabin is small, limited closet space and the bathroom / shower is relatively small. We were in the YC inter in January out of Cape Canaveral, and it is doable for us, as we don’t tend to stay in the cabin a lot. Also, interior is great for a nap!

Enjoy your cruise!!!

[JamieLogical]

2 hours ago, rikitikitavii said:

Looking forward to your review, as we are on the October 4th cruise on Meraviglia.

As for YC interior, the upgrade would be it is in YC. The cabin is small, limited closet space and the bathroom / shower is relatively small. We were in the YC inter in January out of Cape Canaveral, and it is doable for us, as we don’t tend to stay in the cabin a lot. Also, interior is great for a nap!

Enjoy your cruise!!!

 

I think I am going to cancel our upgrade offer for the YC Interior. We discussed it quite a bit last night and I am really worried about the lack of storage space, lack of a couch, and lack of natural light. I just don't think we can get enough value out of the YC amenities to justify the downgrade in cabin space PLUS an extra $500/person. If we could keep our same Balcony Cabin and pay $500 per person, I am sure the YC amenities would be worth it. Unfortunately, the minimum bid to upgrade to a YC Balcony is over $1500/person.