Lou2204

Thanks Bea, wow we're so impressed, you really do have a lot of MSC experience!! Have you tried other cruise lines as well?

What a coincidence. We sailed YC this year and just booked a NON YC on the Sinfonia. We want to sail in Europe and from Venice there simply is no YC. So I am having a bit of a concern, will I enjoy MSC as much without our butler ....

:p:p

We are taking the plunge regardless. I did say to my husband, that as much as I loved YC, I also thought that the Top Sail lounge at times was a bit TOO quiet for my taste ... my eldest daughter and I quite enjoyed mingling in the decks below where it was more lively. So we'll see. I'm very glad to read these positive experiences from other people!!

Nice review, am getting homesick again.. my thoughts are with the Divina people and crew, I hear they are waiting the storm out in Cozumel.

We were very lucky with the weather. We are following all news about Irma very closely - hope and pray that everyone is safe!!

thanks for your advice, I think we'll try NCL this time around. As we want to depart from Venice, there is no Yacht Club available (only on the larger ships, or so we understood today) - not sure we'll survive, but we'll give it a go ;-)))))

What a fabulous cabin you had!! I'm getting very homesick for the cruise, being back at work at the grindstone ... :(

But, on the bright side, we are looking to book another cruise in the Med for august 2018 - nothing better to cure the post holiday blues than ... booking a new one ;-)

Have you been on a cruise in the Med? Any good tips ...?

Good to hear Robkat, I'm exactly like you, like to know what I'm up against rather earlier than later, so it's good that you do your proper research. That's what makes these boards so useful! When you splurge on cruises, you want to make the most of it!! Have fun!!

Sounds like fun!! I was at the art auction and bought a painting for $30 which included a facial! I thought that was an excellent deal, but the facial was a bit of a joke. :D Still, the print is a good souvenir. We also played bingo. I missed the announcement of the sale, I guess.

Beer drinking contest sounds like something my husband would have enjoyed :')

Yes the heat is phenomenal, for us now, but also in the ports. I must say this is something we grossly underestimated. Being from Holland we thought we'd be grateful for any little bit of warmth and sunshine, but even for us it was a bit too hot on some occasions. I can see at least that it's off season for these destinations. Didn't t stop us enjoying ourselves!!

And yes, we're very much enjoying Florida!! A few fun days in Key West, and now we are spending our last days of the vacation in Miami. It's really great, we're loving it. But we do miss Manoj, we have sighed many times to each other that we wished he was here. :-)))

Hope you all settled back in ok!

What was that table sale you,posted up there?? Looks like we missed something :-))

I know they had all the brands of sweetener, but I'm not sure if that is what you mean? I'm sorry, don't drink iced coffee myself,,,

Ah yes, no I did know who the family was, I knew it wasn't us, I was only joking, trying to find a reason why they were apparently less flexible with us than with others. I know it wasn't anything personal.

;-)

How do I,post a picture here?

I also didn't know about these, the only ones that looked larger on the plans were the Handicapped ones on the corner. We booked this one, 16006, and it was really quite a bit larger than the other ones (we stole a peek into the other cabins when we walked past). I'll try to find a picture of the inside of the cabin. It was really big, but I think we sacrified the walk in closet. We didn't mind, there were four of us, so we were happy with the extra room.

Good to hear everybody's experience was different from ours. Don't let our apparently isolated one spoil yours! I'm sure you'll have a great time and you come prepared and can organize your dinner times following Proseccos advice by phoning ahead.

And next time I guess we should be a bit more assertive, we didn't think of checking the "conditions ".

Have fun!!

Oh, I'm sorry you didn't get to dine with your friends, but I'm almost glad you did experience the same response, I'm starting to think it was something personal that we couldn't, lol!

Sure, we had our children with us but they are well behaved, and usually don't throw bread. Well, not on a daily basis , lol!

Good to hear that you liked Le Muse better.

Just choose a time and it's yours.

I'm glad for you that his was your experience, but it was either 6 or 8pm for us!

Mafig ... that's really interesting!

So, on the first day, they asked you to give them a time for the first evening's meal, but didn't indicate that they were putting you down for that time for the rest of the cruise?

 

And did you go at different times, on different nights? Was there ever any problem getting seated? They never tried to pin you down to a specific time? Hmmmm.

That IS interesting that Mafig had a different experience, I do understand that last week the boat was really full, so maybe that was the cause of the inflexibility? That when it's less busy you can choose more?

Hi all,

I was the one telling about the fixed times, and I was just as unpleasantly surprised as the person starting this thread! It wasn't for just the first night that we needed to set our times, it was for the entire week! And we boarded the ship at 1pm, I thought we'd be quite early, but the good times (in our view, around 7pm) were all gone, and it was either 6 or 8. For the whole week.

Again, maybe if we had put more effort into changing it on a daily basis, that would have worked. But one evening we ran into a group of 4, asking to be let in earlier than their set time, and they were turned away. That discouraged us a bit to try it later on, but it may have worked if we had called ahead by phone. It seems some passengers had more luck with that.

At any rate, in my opinion, this isn't "free choice of dinner time" but it probably is still a lot better than unchangeable settings given on other cruise lines.

I hope this info helps. I can't stress enough that we loved our cruise and MSC and the whole YC experience, this was literally the only more negative thing. Don't want to be sounding like a spoilt brat, although if truth be told, I now am, thanks to YC

OP, do you mind me asking, who were you working with when you were given the choice of 6:00 or 8:00? We found one person in Le Muse who seemed fixated on early or late seating, while everyone else worked with us when we "flexed" our dining time.

I'm not sure I'm OP, but I'll answer regardless :). We talked indeed to the maitre d' (the big man, I think it is Robert?), that was on embarkation. But later we asked Manoj, and the concierge for other times and places and they both advised against it. Being a party of 4 might have had something to do with it.

We didn't actively tried to change the starting time in Le Muse, that worked out quite well, but I would have liked to try another place.

Oh did I confuse the buffet with the MDR? I thought they were the same!! Sorry!!

I started a new thread for part 2, hope that's ok! Thanks for your feedback.

We were also onboard last week and varied our dining time in Le Muse every single night - because of show times, excursions, very loud children the first night, etc...they had no problem with it at all. I'm surprised you weren't able to vary yours. They were extremely accommodating to us.[/quote

 

Hi Prosecco, i also noted that other guests weren't in le muse every night, so I also suspected that other guests did manage to make other arrangements, but we couldn't. I thought it was our inexperience at the whole thing...

 

So did you decide

On the day what time you wanted to eat? We really had to tell them

Upfront for the whole week.

Havin said and read all that, there are not many sockets or outlets in the room and we were very happy that we brought our power strip so that all devices could be charged. And yes I also used the hairdryer in the room.

What a great review you wrote, and I agree with all of your observations!! Not being very experienced cruisers ourselves, I seriously wonder if we could ever cruise again NOT cruising Yacht Club. I fear we have been spoilt for life now. ;)

Thanks again, many useful tips and good observations.

And in general: HAVE FUN!! ours was the third time on a cruise, also very inexperienced compared to some cruisers here, I also practically lived on these boards prior to leaving. I got so many useful tips and advice!

I just read about prepurchasing a photo package, you may want to look into that. We didn't, and it looks really interesting.

Definitely enlist for the roll call, and do go to the meet and mingle, you get to chat to the nice captain Marco Massi, and more cake!! And champagne at 10.30 am. Not a bad way to start a sea day! (Forget about using that gym outfit after that ;);))

I posted a lengthy review about the Divina, we literally got back 2 days ago, and it was a fabulous experience. The best part is leaving a port. Make sure you have a cocktail in your hand and enjoy sliding away and seeing the landscape change. Magical moments!!

Enjoy!