Hutcha

My 3/9 Icon is down to $31 The drink package is still insane though. $1350 with tip for two people.

Is the $20 limit per day, or per day / per restaurant? IOW, can I have lunch at JRs and then go to Playmakers later?

Has anyone used it yet? We have it on our Mar 9th Icon sailing.

Shuttles are good if it's just 2 or 3 people. Anymore than that, and it's best to look at alternatives. Uber, rental car, private van.

Definitely book 6 and 2. Get the other 2 UBP and having any drinks anywhere on the ship will be covered. Including having the genie deliver drinks to the room. Without the UBP, the genie can still deliver drinks to the room, but they'll be out of luck around the ship. Do not consider getting drinks at a bar for free and passing them onto your friends. That's a no no. When the genie contacts you, they will probably tell you to have the other 2 board with you. Get specialty dining to cover all nights for the other 2. The genie will be able to handle reservations for the whole party that way. You don't want to eat MD when you're Star class. Consider putting the other 2 in a sky class suite. You say you don't care about CK, but it's the best place for breakfast, and their dinners are good too. The genie will pamper you and take care of all of your needs. They will decorate your cabin, plan in cabin dining, plan an in cabin party, have drinks and treats delivered multiple times a day, have a standing order for Starbuck to be delivered every morning, reserve the best seat for shows, and so many other things.

I think they are trying to avoid people stocking up on the packaged snacks and taking them home with them.

I'd say 30-40 mins, in the beginning, because that is the "tour" part. On the way back it's three 7-10 min rides to the different stops.

It is indeed Med. I liked it. I thought the bottled products were better than the dispensers they had mounted in the shower.

It's not a long bus ride, and it's a nice air conditioned coach. I think the excursion you're referring to also involves the same type of bus, and it just takes you to the dune buggies and then the falls.

I don't remember if they had them in Ocho Rios. I'm sure they must have.

A note on the elevators. They are frustrating. Wait times have been fairly long, but never more than 5 mins or so. My keycard and wristband never worked for priority, and I didn't want to go through the hassle of having them reprogramed. Carly's would occasionally work. When scanned the display would read "VIP - Select floor". Once selected, it would tell you what elevator to get on. We never noticed any "priority" with this service. Even when being escorted off of the ship by a butler, the elevator still stopped at all of the floors, on the way down. As @morpheusofthesea noted in a review, by the end of the cruise, frustrations showed. There were several busted call pads that I noticed on the last couple of days.

Assorted Dumplings. Very good and flavorful 5/5 Herbed Gravlax Salmon. Loved it. 5/5 On the first night, Arthur the Maître D ask if we had any special request. I asked if it was possible to get beef wellington one night. He gave me a side eye and smirk and said "I think I saw someone mention that on FB." I'm pretty sure that's where I got the idea. He said he would check with the chef, and the next night he said to let him know which day we would like it. All three of us had it tonight. I was a little worried how the chef would pull it off, not knowing exactly what time we'd come in. He ended up cooking the puff pastry and mushroom separately and then wrapping a perfectly cooked filet with it. It was really good.

Today is Ocho Rios. We have breakfast up at the pool deck and kill a little time until our excursion meeting time. Today, we are doing the Dunn's river fall tour that has sightseeing and lunch attached to it. There was a lot of standing around before getting on the bus, but the tour was definitely worth it, though the sightseeing was a little lame. The climb up the falls was longer than I remembered (I was 30 years younger), but it was not strenuous at all. A photographer follows your group up, and takes video and individual pics along the way. You can pay $40 at the end, and they will email you the edited video of the group and your personal pictures. It was well worth the $40. On the way back, you stop at a beachside resort for lunch. It was a very good meal. On the way back to the ship there is a short stop for shopping. We didn't get off of the bus. I don't know what it is about Ocho Rios, but I've seen pics of long lines to get back onboard before. The lines were definitely real. There was a long line, leading up to a choke point on the pier, before you could break loose from the crowd and find a YC rep. It took us about 30 mins to get back on the ship, and it would have been longer if we couldn't bypass the last part of the line. I think a part of the problem is that they only have one crew member per screening station. This person runs the x-ray, metal detector, and searches bags that they want to pull aside.

Was that a forward facing accessible penthouse? Don't know if that's an apples to apples comparison to to the base YC balconies. The YC deluxe balcony was a really good size. It was about 50% wider and longer than a normal balcony. The bathroom was smaller than some Haven bathrooms (I had and Aft facing with a great bathroom), but it is still pretty big. The shower had a bench and plenty of room.

I rarely saw a butler on the pool deck during the day. There was the occasional butler that was on bar waiter duty, but really no one attending to their guests personally. There were pool attendants and multiple bar waiters to take care of you. FCFS worked really well and there was usually at least one open cabana. Being able to reserve is a nice benefit, but I can see it being frustrating to look at multiple empty cabanas, because the people that reserved them decided to not show up or only show for a brief visit.

Wow! I did not realize that it's been almost a week since my last post. My apologies. Today's Dailies... Tonight was Gala night. After a long nap, which I assure you was not alcohol induced, we got ready for dinner. The dress at the restaurant was definitely improved from the previous nights. No one overly formal and the worst I saw was a polo and jeans. Great snails. Very buttery and a good amount of garlic. 5/5 Williams salad. We took most chances to get some greens in us. 5/5 Blue Cheese Souffle. You have to like the flavor of blue cheese, but I agree with the previous reviews that I've seen. Light, fluffy and flavorful. 5/5 Surf and turf. I did not have a bad steak all week. I'll give a 4.5/5 due to the Caribbean lobster tail. It just doesn't stand up to a main lobster tail. Crepe Suzette. A very nice, light desert. 5/5 Petits Fours. I'm glad we got this one. A very nice selection. 5/5 We had a late dinner (see previous nap comment), so we did not do much afterwards. We got a few nightcaps, and caught up on some of the shows we were missing from our back home routine. A note on the internet. I was pretty impressed with it. We upgraded to the surf and stream internet. If you do it on day 1, it's $70 for your 2 devices, for the week. It you do it on later days, they prorate it. We had very little problem streaming shows. I'd give the internet a 5/5.

The only cabanas that had reserved signs on them were the 4 immediately around the pool. I confirmed with the pool attendant that the others were FCFS.

Thanks for the input. We were in sight of it, and did go back to occasionally to drop off or pick up something. The rationale I used was, if one were in the pool for an hour, they wouldn't be expected to vacate.

I was waiting until I was onboard last week to book YC for June 2024. Three weeks ago, the price was $5,300. Last week, it went up to $6,400. I didn't book 😔

The first sea day Sea days are probably my favorite. The clocks went back an hour last night, so I'm up early. Carly is sleeping in. I go up to the pool deck to take a look around and find a cabana to use. It's 7:30, and there are only a few people up here. I check out all four corners of the pool deck, looking for the perfect cabana. They're all empty. Out of the 14 cabanas, the 4 immediately around the pool are reserved for the owner's and royal suites. The rest are first come, first served. We were at the pool until about 1:30-2:00. I don't think all of the cabanas were taken at any given point. I definitely did not see anyone dropping their things, to claim a cabana, and then disappearing for hours. We felt bad about the 60-90 mins we sat at the buffet, by the pool, for lunch. The YC pool deck is a big part of the reason I will sail on MSC again. Below are some pics for comparison to the rest of the ship. The first set were taken at 9:00, and the second set at 1:30. We sailed with all of the rooms on the ship filled. Total passengers onboard were 4,800. The YC pool at 9:00 The Jungle pool The main pool The YC pool at 1:30 The Jungle pool The Main pool Top 19 Kids area I'll say that I did not notice one interloper the entire cruise. Maybe it had something to do with the ship having a lower percentage of Americans. I'm not sure. I did confirm that the seafood extravaganza is gone, and they did not hint at it's return. I'll save my comparison to Royal and NCL (mostly NCL here) until I get around to doing a comparison thread (hopefully), but I will say that the number of servers, and their attentiveness, around the pool deck was impressive. You rarely had to look for them, and often a 2nd and 3rd would come by, while the 1st was off getting your drink.

After dinner, we sat in the Topsail for a little and listened to one of my favorite performers of the week. I didn't get his name, but he plays guitar and has a great voice. I know you have to consider the setting, but overall, the music in the topsail was very somber (for lack of a better word). Very mellow and soothing. A mix of something just a little more upbeat would be nice. The best part of the Topsail at night would be when the other performers, from around the ship, would would finish their set and come to the Topsail. There was a great female singer from Australia and the male half of the dueling pianos that showed up a couple of nights. They'd take turns, singing duets and performing off the cuff. I loved this seating area outside of the Topsail. After sitting for a min, Nate (the newly 21 yr old mind you) decided to go to bed. Carly and I explored the ship a little more and wound up in Le Cabaret Rouge. We caught the end of the "variety show". The contortionist duo were pretty good, and the host/singer was just ok. After that, Carly turned in, and I decided to donate some money to MSC on the blackjack table. It was nice to see that MSC pays 3:2 for blackjack on all of their BJ tables. I was on Royal in June, and 3:2 was only on their $25 and up tables. Caesars (all properties) in Vegas only has 3:2 in the high rollers area. After my all to brief stop in the casino, I looked around the ship some more, and ended up back in Le Cabaret Rouge, where the DJ was now playing. All three levels were packed with people dancing and having a good time. I was quite impressed with the turnout. The only place I saw more people was at the Marketplace Buffet. The Casino Bar 20230912_010708.mp4

Do not let the threat of interlopers deter you. If it's the loss of a balcony, that's one thing, but you will not be able to "enhance" your bella balcony to get anywhere close to the level of YC. I just got off of the Seascape, and the YC area felt like it was booked to 50%, even though it was at 100%. The rest of the ship, not so much.

I just can't believe that they would be able to hide some kind of criminal activity from the public. It seems like you hear about every incident aboard a cruise ship.

That is the YC buffet. It is available everyday for breakfast and lunch. The food was unbelievably good for a buffet. It was our go to for breakfast, but great for lunch also. We only had lunch in the dining room on the first day and breakfast on the last.

We really enjoyed Ocean Cay. I'd like to do an itinerary that overnights there. The landscape was beautiful, and the beaches were very nice. I wish we would have explored it more, but that was how I felt about the whole week. We're pretty chill and not the go-go-go type. A B2B would have been great. It would give the chance to do things the 2nd week that you could not the first. Reboarding the ship was smooth and quick. There was no need to be escorted by one of the waiting butlers. Back onboard, we took another look around the ship and then back to the room for a nap 🥱 The ship is really beautiful. There is an abundance of lounges and out of the way places to stop and have a drink or relax. Off to dinner. Arthur and Cazy are an amazing team in the dining room. They always make you feel welcomed and bend over backwards to get you seated at a table of your preference. The dining room was usually crowded, but we barely had to wait for a table all week. There were a few times that I saw Arthur go down to the Topsail to retrieve guest, so I guess there was a slight wait at times. Caribbean Fish Soup. Pretty good. I thought that the flavors would pop a little more. A solid 4/5 Broiled Amberjack. Carly is not a fishy fish lover, if that makes sense. I thought it was good, but there are other items I'd prefer. 4/5 Chicken Kiev. A little bland. I was hoping that it was "stuffed" with a little more flavor 3/5. Paccheri pasta. Very good and worth ordering as your main entre. 5/5 Tiramisu. I wish they would have had the tiramisu from the embarkation lunch. This was mostly a creamy custard with a little bit of lady finger at the bottom. 3/5 Overall, this was our least favorite night in the YC dining room. That being said, I'm sure it beats any night in main dining. If you are planning on doing a specialty restaurant on your cruise, this might be a good night to do it. Please don't take that to mean I did not enjoy the YC restaurant. They can't hit it out of the park for everyone, every night.