Jorhammer

Got my points and bump to gold. Issue was with my last name being hyphenated. They fixed it on their end.

I took a cruise in December and my points have not updated. My wife points did. Sent them an email Monday and still waiting to hear back.

When I was on our trip in December I was shown the ship build schedule for MSC…. No more Seaships being built, about 3-4 World class left to build. Explora class with 1 ship delivered each year. About 5-6 left to build. The intriguing one was the new Wind powered class coming out in 4-5 years. It showed about 4 of those.

Any one has an idea when MSC might release their Caribbean itinerary for Nov/dec 2025?

Puerto Plata

Ah… Taino Bay has the lazy river that is free to access. They have some restaurants and bars that are what I would call decent prices. 

All ports are the same, just different locations on the map….

9 hours ago, morpheusofthesea said:

Having thought about this you are on the right track. One gets so much the same in MSC Yacht Clubs for a lot less.

That’s good to hear. I am planning on taking DW for our 20th on the Explora. But that’s 5 years from now. YC will do for now. Thanks for the response and merry Xmas.

Curious to see how what’s the difference between having a butler or not, aside from the $10k

Probably the 80+ extra kids that are on board the YC this week. We talked with our butler and he said to expect delays in service because of the amount of 4 tabletops they have to have on the restaurant to accommodate the families with children. Last week there were 16 kids. Week before 6. Service was excellent unless it was embarkation day or Gala night. 
 

I wish the YC was adults only…

In our 2 weeks the only congestion we found was on embarkation day. Where I would have been probably kicked out by punching a dumbass Italian that ran into my wife and didn’t even look to see if he had hurt anyone, But, vacation right… Other than that we moved around easily. At night after the shows we had no issues with elevators, no bumping on to other people. 
 

Cabaret is always empty and has seats everywhere. Went to some of the Atrium shows at night and it was “crowded” but I could find a spot on any of the 3 floors and a place to either dance or watch people. 
 

Still trying to figure out what people want out of a cruise that has 5k people in it… 

11 hours ago, momofmab said:

 

We were in 19005 and had very minor deck noise on one morning only.

 

OP- I agree 100% with the rudeness in theatre.  It's like nothing I've ever experienced at sea or on land!  People talking loudly and carrying on normal conversation as if they were in a sports bar instead of a performance.  Whole rows of people getting up in the middle and leaving (sit in the back if you think you might leave mid-show), parents letting kids run amok. It was hard to enjoy any performance with all the activity going on off-stage.  

MSC should have a cut off for entry to shows and not allow late arrivals. 
 

another thing is moving the YC seats to one of the side seats instead of the last 3 rows in the middle. Reduce the amount of seats to like 40 and don’t remove the ropes when the show starts. 

On the Seascape is the same group that performs the musical shows. Of the 4 singers the only good one is the brunette. Dancers are good and the acrobats are good. 
 

From our view, this is not a Vegas production. It’s more local theater, and since we don’t have to pay extra, it was entertaining and it filled some time before dinner. 
 

The 3 comedians we saw were funny, but it was all the same cruise toilet jokes, or the why my race is better than your race jokes, which gets old after a while. 

On the Cabaret, now that’s a gamble of who can be worse than the other. TK, the host is brutal to listen to. Bella, the resident singer does the same bland and tone deaf routine every time she comes out. We saw Cosmic Riot, cheerleaders trying to get Europeans hyped up, didn’t work. They had the acrobats from the theater show and that was good. Kasia the violinist was the best. 
 

all subjective since we all like different things.

in the end it was entertainment and we found ways to entertain ourselves by being very judgy lol

Ah… marketing skills were good on the one I talked to. What I’ve been finding interesting is that people treat MSC like they are a Carnival type of cheap. After spending 2 weeks, it’s more NCL to me. Yes, gen pop can have cheap fares but YC is not a cheap experience. Between fare and tips for 2 weeks we paid a bit over 12k. That’s not counting airfare and ground transportation. Wife and I travel quite a bit, usually we do 3 vacations a year. What we experience and saw was not a cheap cruise. MSC moves all its cargo, moves the goods and that’s how we get cheap fares. we had very high expectations and they were met easily.

Room pics… sorry I thought the wife had taken one inside the closet. We are booked a year from now on 19013.

42 minutes ago, Two Wheels Only said:

 

Would you happen to have a photo of the stateroom and the walk-in closet? I'm working on cataloging all of the Grand Deluxe suites on Seashore/Seascape. I have 19032 directly across but I want to put together pictures/video of every one of them exactly as they are on the ship. Not all of the Grands have a walk-in closet so I'm noting the ones that do and the ones that don't. 

Can send you some once I download them. As far as I know, All Grands have a walking closet on the seascape. That’s what makes them Grand over the Deluxe. At least that’s what I was told by the MSC future cruise rep. 

YW!
 

Room 19029 

Ram was the butler and Ketut the Jr.

My wife and I decided to give the YC a try after several trips with NCL. It was our anniversary, Xmas trip and it was wonderful.

Embarkation and Disembarkation- Quick and easy on both fronts.

Room- Grand Deluxe Suite. Fantastic room, only thing is the pool deck noise with kids running all day and the usual 6am lounger setup. Kids running bother us more since that is a whole day thing. 
 

Food- it varies from good to outstanding. I requested a special dish for our anniversary and it turned out better than you could ever imagine. They made us beef Wellington and it was better than what we had a Gordon Ramsay’s restaurant. 
 

Drinks- zero complaints, mixed drinks were always consistent between our 2 bartenders in the lounge. They never ran out of Macallan, and I tried hard to make them run out….

Butler and Jr. Butler- Amazing, exceptional, outstanding, great. Can’t say enough about the 2 guys that took care of us. 
 

Bar, restaurant and Lounge staff- read above cause these people were more like hanging out with friends that would take care of the needs we had. We spent most of our time getting to know them and them getting to know us. They learned our names, likes and dislikes, I know that’s their job, but these people went way beyond of what I was expecting. My philosophy going in was that I would treat the staff as if they were my friends and we were lucky that they reciprocated and treated us the same.

Entertainment- was from bad to great. Typical cruise line singers and dancers. The theater shows were decent and entertaining. The comedians were good, but the last one was great. Ken Boyd was his name and his “joke” about how rude Europeans are was spot on. The acts on the Cabaret were meh, except for one. Kasia on the violin was the best show on the ship. On our missed Ocean Cay day she had a 2pm concert on the theater that she got like 4 standing ovations and people were chanting her name at the end. She should be the main act with dancers at least 3 days a week. 
 

Ship- beautiful

Elevators- learn to use them. Out of the YC on 16 express will not work. Go to 18-19 and call the elevator for there. When you badge to call it make sure the screen reads VIP7 if it does tap your desired floor, go to that elevator and wait. Might take a minute but doors will open without warning or dings. We used them everyday and had 0 issues. Also, if other YC people are on the same bank and have called the vip, it will not work. Either jump with them on their ride or go to the other bank of elevators and call yours. 
 

Fellow cruisers- There was a common theme with 99% of the Europeans, they are rude AF. Seriously, I’m from the Caribbean and I’ve never seen so many rude people in one place. We only left the YC to go to the theater and cabaret. They show up late to shows, talk all the time. We had to tell a couple to shut the f up cause both were video chatting on their phones while sitting on the stairs of the theater while the show was going. Our Italian neighbor to the left decided it was a good idea to light up a cigar in his balcony and we had to go to the concierge desk to complain. They called him and told him that he needed to stop or get fined. He knew I snitched on him lol. Just one example of many… At least the American, Latinos were good and fun to hang with. 

Might be missing some stuff cause to be honest, Europeans aside, the trip was magnificent. YC was worth every cent and we are booked for next year. 
 

We had a couple that brought 2 cases of wine this past 2 weeks on the seascape. No issues for them

I had this issue before this trip and found out that the date for my wife’s passport was missing. I had to reenter all dates on the check in area and then I was able to print.

12 hours ago, jean87510 said:

Are there usually ship excursions for b2b?  We have one in a couple of weeks.

There are some. Book via the ship cause you never know when you will be told to disembark and it might be longer than expected

Currently on our second leg of our b2b. We meet at lounge, get escorted out, go through customs and back on the ship. No muster drill.

You won’t be shamed, but you will be required to wear a collard shirt, long pants and closed shoes for dinner. They are now enforcing the dress code

Once you board you can book excursions to GC. In the Seascape we were given a booklet with all the available excursions to pick from. Probably another issue with the website. 

On 12/2/2023 at 3:17 PM, morpheusofthesea said:

Ho,Ho,Ho !!!  Start tipping early and frequently. Tis the season. Have never heard a bad review from a good tipper.

I’m on the YC right now and I have not had to grease any hands to get the same treatment you rave about. We are being treated as great as the next passenger. I guess we are definitely getting by with personality and looks… jk. From my view there is no need to show appreciation until the end of the cruise, which our butler and jr. butler have earned since the moment we met them.