Live from MSC World Europa. NYE Cruise, December 29, 2023 out of Barcelona.

[maehara]

Don’t suppose you snapped a copy of the Speakeasy drink menu?

[Stockjock]

37 minutes ago, maehara said:

Don’t suppose you snapped a copy of the Speakeasy drink menu?

We did not but most of the prices were from €14 to 16 €. The drink I had was the only one that I think was made with tequila and I enjoyed it a lot and I think it went for €14 each.

[ConnieTact]

Happy New Year @Stockjock 

[Stockjock]

2 hours ago, ConnieTact said:

Happy New Year @Stockjock 

Thank you, to you as well!

[Stockjock]

Here are a few photos of our afternoon spent in “Rome“. The tour we did was called Baroque Rome, or something like that, and I thought it was good. It hit many of the highlights of Rome, briefly, including the Vatican, Coliseum, Trevi Fountain, etc. you know all the famous places,  It was also nice to meet Dominic from Spain, who is a lurker here on Cruise Critic, lol. He seemed like a nice fellow. 
 

Tonight we will visit a specialty restaurant, but I do have a little bit of a gripe about that. So I bought the Trio dining package, and then I got one additional specialty dining for being a diamond member, and the specialty restaurant host told me that my only options were Hola Tacos, which my girlfriend hated, Butcher’s Cut restaurant, and the Kaito sushi restaurant. The MSC and Me app made it appear as if La Pescaderia seafood restaurant was included but when I called, they said it wasn’t, but they told me that the Garden Kitchen Restaurant is included,  But when I asked before, they said that it was not included.  So there seems to be some confusion about what is or is not included in the specialty dining package, and what is and is not included in the free diamond dinner, which again, is a little bit annoying, particularly since I would’ve probably skipped the Hola taco place if I had correct information. If anyone knows the actual answer, I would like to know,  since I can’t apparently get a straight answer from the employees here on the ship.

In any event, we switched our reservation to the Garden Kitchen, so we’ll try that tonight at nine, and then we’ll see the Diva show with Christina Ellinas.  We saw her on MSC last New Year’s Eve, and we thought she was very good.

Edited January 1 by Stockjock

[Stockjock]

I think I cleared up some of the confusion over what is or is not included with the dining specialty dining packages, as well as with the MSC diamond level free dinner.
 

Now this does vary from ship to ship, which makes it even more confusing, but here on World Europa, apparently, the dining package is good for the Butcher’s Cut restaurant, the sushi restaurant, Hola tacos, and the Chef’s Garden Kitchen. But the diamond free dinner is only good for butchers cut, the sushi restaurant, and Hola tacos.  Once again, this may vary from ship to ship.

 

Tonight, we went to the Chef Garden kitchen, which was interesting. It’s certainly a lot different than butchers cut, and they are using more unique or creative ingredients, and the garnishes are grown in the restaurant, for what that’s worth. We did enjoy it, but I still enjoy the traditional butchers cut more. I mentioned previously, I’m not a big fan of the Hola tacos joint, but I’m a bit of a Mexican food snob, since I live just north of the Mexican border.  The waiter admitted that their food was “inspired by” actual Mexican food, and I think that’s a good way to put it.

 

I’ve got some pictures of the food and menus from tonight’s Chef’s Garden kitchen dinner. The service was very good and the staff was eager to please. I also thought the presentation was generally pretty good, although they did add some sprouts as garnish on the desserts and I thought that was a little bit odd.
 

I’m starting to see some things I don’t love about this ship. Without a doubt, there is a lot to do and it’s a huge ship, but I really miss the nice casual, mellow chill out lounges that we find on many other classes of MSC ships. I think it’s the sky lounge that I’m thinking of, where you can just chill out looking out over the pool area and they will have a band with maybe a piano or a singer or a guitar player or something like that. I can’t find this on World Europa, unless I’m just looking in the wrong places. 
 

The shows in the main theater are pretty good and are the same basically as on any other MSC ship. There is a carousel lounge at the rear of the ship that seems to have a lot of interactive themed dance-along and silent disco type of activities which really doesn’t appeal that much to me, but maybe it will appeal to many other passengers.

 

We visited Elixer craft bar recently, and it was pretty quiet, and while we enjoyed the drinks, we didn’t necessarily feel that they justified the additional cost, since nothing is covered in that bar by the drink package. We walked through the gin experience or whatever it’s called a few times, and it seemed OK, but I’m really not that much into gin, and again, I’m not looking to usually spend a lot of money on drinks over and above the drink package I’ve bought unless the drinks are really amazing. So obviously, they want to upsell you, and you know, that’s fine, but it seems like they dedicate a lot of space to upselling.

 

The closest thing I could find to kind of a chill, low-key bar was Lanai, but there’s two things that aren’t great about it in my opinion. One it’s at the back of the ship, where you have to go outdoors, and get somewhat cold, especially during the winter months, but then the biggie to me is that it’s basically a smoking bar. So I really wish they would’ve created something like Lanai, put it up higher with a view, and ditched the cigars and cigarettes.

 

I wouldn’t discourage anyone from trying the world-class ships on MSC, but there are certainly a number of changes versus the rest of their fleet. Some will find these to be changes for the better, and others may appreciate some of the benefits of the older MSC ships.

 

 

Edited January 1 by Stockjock

[ConnieTact]

Great photos @Stockjock I’m enjoying your review. Shame about Diamond meal. I was hoping for a Garden Cafe meal but guess we’ll have to make do with Butchers Cut….again! 
is there a Masters if the Sea punk onboard and if so, who is entertaining there? 
it’s one of our favourite haunts on other ships! 

[Stockjock]

1 hour ago, ConnieTact said:

Great photos @Stockjock I’m enjoying your review. Shame about Diamond meal. I was hoping for a Garden Cafe meal but guess we’ll have to make do with Butchers Cut….again! 
is there a Masters if the Sea punk onboard and if so, who is entertaining there? 
it’s one of our favourite haunts on other ships! 

We only walked through masters of the Sea, but maybe we’ll have a drink or two there.

[ConnieTact]

22 minutes ago, Stockjock said:

We only walked through masters of the Sea, but maybe we’ll have a drink or two there.

If you can check on the Daily Sheet to see who is entertaining in there, that would be great! have a champagne for me! 😂

[maehara]

11 hours ago, Stockjock said:

but I really miss the nice casual, mellow chill out lounges that we find on many other classes of MSC ships. I think it’s the sky lounge that I’m thinking of, where you can just chill out looking out over the pool area and they will have a band with maybe a piano or a singer or a guitar player or something like that. I can’t find this on World Europa, unless I’m just looking in the wrong places. 

Yeah, this is something we've noticed doing our reading up in advance of our sailing.  We really enjoyed both Sky Lounge and L'Atelier du Voyageurs on Euribia, and as you say, can't see any equivalents on Europa. 

 

Raj Tea House is something my other half is looking forward to trying & that isn't available elsewhere and appears to be quite relaxed, but that I assume will be fully-chargeable so hardly an alternative for an included venue.

[Stockjock]

Apologies in advance for any misspellings because I am doing this via voice dictation while getting ready for Malta. So I don’t have a lot of time this morning.
 

Yesterday, we visited Palermo. My girlfriend decided to stay on the ship and relax, so I took a tour that went to several cathedrals, including one in Mondrale.  I would describe it as not bad. Something to do, basically. The cathedrals are nice, but after a while, they almost all start looking pretty similar, so I understand why my girlfriend gets burnt out on cathedrals. They did stop at a street market, but it was ridiculously overcrowded and I couldn’t really get in to get anything to eat, and it took an act of God to find a bathroom. so I wasn’t completely thrilled with that part of it, but again it was a worthwhile thing to do for a few hours, and my opinion, just not amazing or memorable. 
 

We did go to Raj’s Tea House, and it was OK. I suppose it is a decent atmosphere.  The service was friendly, but very slow, and the quality of the product seemed pretty good. It’s one of the few places where if you have a drink package, with some of the specialty items, you will have to pay full price for them. in other words, for us, we had easy plus, which takes nine euro off normally, but with my girlfriend’s cocktail I had to pay the whole €15 for the cocktail + seven euro for a slice of pie, that was her idea not mine.  Interestingly, the tea-based liquors are included, if you have the drink package, as are most of the teas, which are very good.  My girlfriend thinks I’m cheap sometimes, but what I would probably do is get the tea that’s included in the drink package, and there are a lot of tea varieties, so then, order the tea liquor on the side and mix my own drink, and there would be no charge for that, under most circumstances.  Just be aware that their tea-infused liquors started at about 37% alcohol, and go up to 70% plus alcohol, and I’m not talking proof, I’m talking the percentage of alcohol in it. So they are extremely strong. If you drink too many of those, you’re going to get hammered. They had a woman playing the piano later in the day, and that was enjoyable, but as I mentioned before, I really miss Sky Lounge tremendously. They do have some ok options, but they don’t have anything that replaces it, so to us, that was a big letdown.  I’m not sure if the teahouse will be a success. Maybe. I guess I could say the same about the Gin experiment or whatever it is.  I asked my girlfriend if she prefers the new world-class ship or the older ships and she said she prefers the older ships. I think I would agree, although I would not dissuade anyone from trying this ship, because it is nice and many ways, and they are doing some things differently. You may find those changes to your liking, and you may find that you missed some of the old venues.

 

We spent most of the evening in Masters of the Sea, and they had a guy on the guitar who was outstanding in terms of his guitar work, and his voice was not bad.

 

Gor dinner, we went to the main dining room at Le Dunes, and we found the service to be very good there. This was the first meal we had that was not in a specialty restaurant, or on a gala night, and the starters were pretty good, my girlfriend had Trout that was maybe the worst presentation I can remember at any restaurant in recent memory. She didn’t like it, I tasted it and thought it was OK but I’m not a big Trout fan.  I also had a veal that I thought was at least average.  In fact, her Trout presentation was so bad, I didn’t even take a picture of it. We both commented that it looked like somebody vomited the trout dinner onto the plate, and I don’t mean to gross you out, but that’s what it looked like.  

 

We visit Malta today and we’re doing a tour that is a wine tasting on a boat, so I’m hoping that will be fun.

 

By the way, if you ever check into this ship on Facebook, I’m the guy that created the check in because there was none, for what little that’s worth.

 

 

 

Edited January 3 by Stockjock

[ConnieTact]

Thanks for all the detail in your report. It’s really interesting. (You know, I am intrigued about the trout vomit delicacy now! Wish you had taken a photo! 😂)

I was imagining that nothing would be included in the tea place so it’s good news to hear we can have a cuppa in there included in our drinks package. 
Is this true of the champagne bar too? We have Premium extra package (up to €14) so hope we can get a glass in there or just pay the difference if not. 
glad you enjoyed Masters of the Sea pub. I think it’ll be where we enjoy the ship entertainment the most, although we love shows too.

Enjoy Malta! It’s so beautiful there.

 

[alserrod]

On 12/27/2023 at 6:27 PM, Stockjock said:

Last year we did a New Year’s Eve cruise on Virtuosa out of Paris/Le Havre and this year we are doing a NYE cruise on World Europa out of Barcelona, so I will have some photographs and comments along the way.
 

Let me know if you have any questions. Right now we are staying in Barcelona and the cruise will leave on December 29.

 

We are staying at the NH Collection Grand Hotel Calderon, in Barcelona, which we like a lot. It’s located on Las Ramblas, which is right on the main drag.

 

Tonight, we are going to do a walking tour that includes stops at several bars with some tapas and drinks.

 

Last night, we had amazing t We had amazing tapas at Ciutat Comtal, and if you are in Barcelona, I highly recommend this place. We weren’t sure what to get, because there was such an extensive menu, so they have a special for two that includes some of the tapas that you see, including, salmon, beef, a mix, seafood, some artichoke dried things, Iberian ham. It was delicious! And we had a really nice Spanish Chardonnay. That was only about €18 for the whole bottle, I’m used to paying that for one glass. so out the door, it was about €77, plus a little bit of a tip, which I thought was extremely reasonable. If you eat here there will be a line, believe me, it’s worth the wait. 

 

 

 

 

Hello:

I hope you are enjoying the cruise very much. I will travel on another MSC ship in the coming months also leaving from Barcelona. Since there are many common things on MSC ships, I wanted to ask you if you could take a photo of the menu, or whatever, of the Venchi chocolate shop on the ship.
And also if you can download the cruise's beauty and spa services and prices.

Regarding Chadornnay wines, if you buy them in a store or supermarket in Spain, almost, almost, almost all of them cost less than 10 euros (and much less). So, if you want to take some back, you can take advantage. At customs they will let you import up to five bottles of whatever you want (up to 4 liters = 5.3 0.75 cl bottles).
You can always buy it at the duty free shop at Barcelona airport. However, if you are going to stay one more night after the cruise, tell me which hotel is and I will look for specialized stores nearby.

Greetings and have a great time

[perakcruiser]

On 1/2/2024 at 12:52 AM, Stockjock said:

I think I cleared up some of the confusion over what is or is not included with the dining specialty dining packages, as well as with the MSC diamond level free dinner.
 

Now this does vary from ship to ship, which makes it even more confusing, but here on World Europa, apparently, the dining package is good for the Butcher’s Cut restaurant, the sushi restaurant, Hola tacos, and the Chef’s Garden Kitchen. But the diamond free dinner is only good for butchers cut, the sushi restaurant, and Hola tacos.  

Not happy. 

[perakcruiser]

3 hours ago, alserrod said:

Regarding Chadornnay wines, if you buy them in a store or supermarket in Spain, almost, almost, almost all of them cost less than 10 euros (and much less).

We bought the wines for our Celebrity cruise that started yesterday in Barcelona at Alcampo next to our hotel. They had a huge selection, but - as usual in Spain - 95 percent Spanish wines (which I am not familiar with). And the selection of wines with no cork was much more limited than in other countries, the Spanish winemakers seem to be more traditional 🙂

 

As a Sauvignon Blanc drinker, I hope this will not disappoint:  https://blume.com.es/en/blume-sauvignon-blanc-wine/

 

 

[alserrod]

18 minutes ago, perakcruiser said:

We bought the wines for our Celebrity cruise that started yesterday in Barcelona at Alcampo next to our hotel. They had a huge selection, but - as usual in Spain - 95 percent Spanish wines (which I am not familiar with). And the selection of wines with no cork was much more limited than in other countries, the Spanish winemakers seem to be more traditional 🙂

 

As a Sauvignon Blanc drinker, I hope this will not disappoint:  https://blume.com.es/en/blume-sauvignon-blanc-wine/

 

 

 

 

It's a magnificent idea.
I don't usually recommend going to these types of stores for cruise travelers unless they specifically ask, but, of course, unless you want a very specific wine, it is best to go to a supermarket (Alcampo, Eroski, Mercadona, etc...) and choose wine from the shelves.
You will have to pay taxes. At the airport you save, but supermarkets are much cheaper for these things.

 

Regarding wine selection, in Spain there is a strong tendency to offer very local products. I'm not referring to Spanish products themselves but around the area where you buy them.
For this reason, a high percentage of the wines on the shelves would not only be Spanish but from the vicinity of Barcelona.
If you change cities, the variety of wines would change a lot.

It is possible to find wines from almost anywhere in specialized stores. However, he thinks that Alcampo is an establishment designed for those who do their daily shopping, not a gourmet store.

Wines... I always say that there are good wines in all the Mediterranean countries and that it is a matter of trying new and unknown ones.

I hope you got it right!!!

[alserrod]

And please, can you spot Venchi Chocolate bar in the cruise (and welness and beaty area) and paste the pictures here?

 

Thx in advance

[Stockjock]

5 hours ago, ConnieTact said:

Thanks for all the detail in your report. It’s really interesting. (You know, I am intrigued about the trout vomit delicacy now! Wish you had taken a photo! 😂)

I was imagining that nothing would be included in the tea place so it’s good news to hear we can have a cuppa in there included in our drinks package. 
Is this true of the champagne bar too? We have Premium extra package (up to €14) so hope we can get a glass in there or just pay the difference if not. 
glad you enjoyed Masters of the Sea pub. I think it’ll be where we enjoy the ship entertainment the most, although we love shows too.

Enjoy Malta! It’s so beautiful there.

 

I suspect that you just pay the difference in price over your drink package maximum, but I’m not sure since we just walked through Champaign bar and didn’t actually stop there for a drink.

 

Yes, I probably should’ve taken a picture of the Trout presentation, but it was just atrocious. It was all scrambled up with some kind of a red sauce, and it just really looked vile.

[Stockjock]

23 minutes ago, alserrod said:

And please, can you spot Venchi Chocolate bar in the cruise (and welness and beaty area) and paste the pictures here?

 

Thx in advance

We’ve left our last port and are approaching the tail end of the crew so I don’t know if we will have an opportunity to do that but I’ll try. Are you asking for a photograph of the venue itself? I also tried to check the spa prices in the app and unless I’m missing something, I didn’t see them.

[Stockjock]

So we did the boat ride and winetasting tour out of Malta, and I thought it was very good. They pick you up on the bus and drive you to the other side of town or the island or whatever, and then you take a boat for a fairly lengthy ride all around Malta.  It gets a little bit on the cold side, but it was worth it, and there were a lot of opportunities.  Just bring a jacket for sure because it can get breezy out on the water.
 

Next, you get back on the bus and you head back to the port area, right next to the ship, for a wine tasting. They give you a glass of a red and a glass of white, full pours, which I thought were both pretty good. They also serve you some little snacks that were kind of tasty.  After it ended, we stuck around a little longer and chatted with a couple of nice ladies from Australia. We also ordered some calamari, which I recommend, and another glass of wine. But I felt like it was a good tour and a good value.  The restaurant where you do the wine tasting is fairly nice, and not a dive, so it is worth considering ordering some food there, but of course you do have the ship right next to you if you want to just wait until you get on the ship.

 

Here are a few pictures from our boat ride, and a few shots of “Big Mama”, which is my nickname for World Europa.

 

 

Edited January 3 by Stockjock

[Stockjock]

I did make copies of the menu from Raj Polo teahouse. If you go, be sure to ask what your drink package covers and what it doesn’t cover, because it’s not obvious and it’s a bit confusing.

 

 

[perakcruiser]

1 hour ago, alserrod said:

Wines... I always say that there are good wines in all the Mediterranean countries and that it is a matter of trying new and unknown ones.

 

Certainly there are! But unfortunately there are some red wines I don´t like. Chianti, Barolo in Italy, Rioja, Tempranillo in Spain for example. Usually not a problem with any white (or rose) wine, except maybe this Beringer White Zinfandel I nipped today at the Celebrity Captains Club party and declared undrinkable😄 

 

You are absolutely right, the duty free prices do not beat the supermarket prices with tax. Just have seen this yesterday in the port duty free with some wines I saw at Alcampo a few hours before. But in this case not need to carry the wine to the ship is also some kind of value.

 

@Stockjock You are really choosing good excursions, your girlfriend should praise you for this 🙂

[nanatutu]

Thank you very much for your review. Enjoyed it very much. My husband and I have booked “Big Mama” for December 2024 out of Rome. We have never sailed on an MSC ship, only RCCL and Princess. I hope we won’t be disappointed. There seem to be a lot of add on costs.

 The shore excursions you booked seemed quite interesting. Rome has been on my bucket list for a long time. I’m  particularly interested who you booked your Rome excursion through.

 

Happy sailing and hope you have a safe trip home.

 

 

[perakcruiser]

26 minutes ago, nanatutu said:

There seem to be a lot of add on costs.

Actually less than the US companies, but more than some (Northern) European rivals. Still no reason to worry about add on costs on MSC. 

[alserrod]

2 hours ago, perakcruiser said:

Certainly there are! But unfortunately there are some red wines I don´t like. Chianti, Barolo in Italy, Rioja, Tempranillo in Spain for example. Usually not a problem with any white (or rose) wine, except maybe this Beringer White Zinfandel I nipped today at the Celebrity Captains Club party and declared undrinkable😄 

 

You are absolutely right, the duty free prices do not beat the supermarket prices with tax. Just have seen this yesterday in the port duty free with some wines I saw at Alcampo a few hours before. But in this case not need to carry the wine to the ship is also some kind of value.

 

@Stockjock You are really choosing good excursions, your girlfriend should praise you for this 🙂

 

 

 

About coming back from Barcelona, I bet you will deal with the city but just in case, I wrote this post