Best Cat Mom

Just now, DaKahuna said:

Are the online menu’s from a website only accessible on the ship’s WiFi?

Yes. There are QR codes displayed in various places on Divina for different menus, including bars and restaurants. There may be more outside of YC, but we've only used the ones within YC for Le Muse and TSL.

From what country do you depart? There are vastly different procedures depending on the country's laws.

Nope. There are neither cabanas nor pergolas on Divina's One Pool Deck, 😞

But Divina does now have cushioned loungers and chairs there, similar to what I've had on Seaside. The current YC Director on Divina (Guiseppe Terminiello, aka Pepe) just added the cushions on our transatlantic sailing that boarded 28 November 2023 in Barcelona, Spain.

Day 11 Dinner menu (from online, not what we had in Le Muse):

Day 11 Lunch menu (from Le Muse, not what was online):

Day 11 Lunch menu (from online, not what we had in Le Muse):

Day 11…

Another gorgeous morning. The ocean looked like glass today. We never expected to see such calm waters during a crossing.

We had Baileys and coffee in the room and then headed to Le Muse. We arrived for breakfast at ~8:45am and were the only people there. We figured One Deck must be busy.

BCD ordered MSC Express and French toast with maple syrup. I had an egg white omelet with bacon and cheese. We both had mimosas and I had a cappuccino.

We walked back to YC, stopping at a bunch of bars to try to procure supplies, then headed to TSL to begin the days' work.

At lunchtime, we walked back to Le Muse. We discovered that the lunch menu was different from the one online. Now we started to think maybe yesterday's was also different and the prawns might not have been on the menu -- and might make an appearance in a future lunch. It was not a big deal since we loved our BC lunch yesterday. If the prawns do appear again in a future lunch, the good news is we still have 1 BC meal left to avoid them.

For our starters, BCD ordered Caesar salad with chicken and I ordered the baby shrimp. I offered BCD a taste of my shrimp because they were a new menu item for us and I thought it was a great dish. He tried them and agreed. He agreed so much that we asked for a second order to share and savor. We now have another new "don't miss" dish. 🙂

For entrées, BCD had a burger and I had Caesar salad with chicken (no croutons, of course, to make it GF). BCD had 2 Heinekens and I had 2 glasses of sauvignon blanc.

We returned to TSL to resume work. We saw that the bar has new glasses for the US sailings, with striations, and some are slightly larger in size. There is also a glass with a Tiki-type carving for tropical frozen drinks, with thicker glass for insulation apparently. The crew is also getting training on how US guests differ from Europeans as far as service is concerned, including how Americans tend to chat more with servers, want to talk about their day or how their excursions went, how they will maybe sit at the bar instead of at a table, etc. Given that Divina was in Europe for so many months, I guess there is crew that have never been to the US and/or Caribbean before. Great idea to give them some idea what to expect.

During the afternoon, the sailing became less smooth. There were not any white caps, but the waves were visibly bigger and the sway of the ship made walking a bit more of a challenge. This is sort of what we expected the whole crossing, so we were surprised that it began when we were nearly to the Caribbean. I don't think anyone who is sensitive to the motion would be bothered, just that we all look like we just had 5 rounds of sidecars and old fashioneds as we're walking around the ship. LOL

Around 6:30pm in TSL, the live music had just begun and BCD was off chasing scarce supplies when I heard the happy sound of a champagne cork popping. I've always considering that sound a happy one -- one that perks my ears up, like a cat's ears go up when they hear a can opener. And not 2 minutes later a butler brought me a fresh glass of champagne. 🙂 Love TSL!

(And a few minutes later the bartender came over with the bottle remnants for BCD.)

We went back to the cabin, changed for dinner and arrived at Le Muse around 8:45pm. Tonight was white night so I wore white jeans and a tropical-ish top while BCD wore a white shirt with light colored pants. The restaurant was quite deserted but got busy shortly after we arrived. I guess a lot of people went to the show before dinner. I did not realize that I missed having a livelier crowd at dinner until now. People seemed to be enjoying Le Muse as much as we were tonight.

As with lunch, the menus we were handed did not match the online ones. Unfortunately, I only have the online ones for this meal. I'll do my best to describe our menu choices, but we cannot seem to recall anything other than what we ordered. Mi dispiace! I'm sorry!

We looked over the menus while sipping our champagne and this was when we made the happy discovery of the different menu. We both chose foie gras for our starters, and Glenn offered to give us double portions when we told him how much we liked it. Entrées were lamb shank with chianti wine sauce for me, surf and turf for BCD, and truffle risotto to share. Great menu all around, very yummy!!

Ryan knew that we'd be switching to a red wine. We were discussing whether we'd want a cabernet sauvignon when he suggested a Syrah. We jumped at that option since we'd not had a Syrah yet on this sailing. It was an Italian Syrah, hearty and not as fruit forward as the Australian ones we usually drink. We had no problem drinking 3 glasses of it each.

Ryan has the makings of a great "gold tie" server (that is, the lead server and not the assistant, who wears a black tie). We're hoping that he gets promoted by the time we sail on Divina again in April. So what if we have to choose between Glenn and Ryan? They are both great in Le Muse and will also be good mentors to whoever they have as their next assistants.

For dessert, BCD chose the cherries jubilee and I ordered vanilla ice cream with a shot of Kahlua, knowing that BCD would enjoy it after he finished his cherries.

We headed back to TSL for music and 3 rounds of sidecars and old fashioneds and then to bed.

Day 12 tomorrow…

13 hours ago, skivoodoo said:

Be warned that the wine selections by the glass in the Yacht Club restaurant are rotated and there isn’t any information or menu about that nights choices. So you may want to grab a glass from the Top Sail before dinner from their menu. 

If there is a specific grape you know you'll want with something you saw would be on the dinner menu, try asking your dinner server for it when at an earlier meal. It'll give them time to get it at a less busy time for them, and have it ready when you get there. 

6 hours ago, gotta cruise again said:

Appears you can read not only newspapers (this is the service used to print newspapers for YC) but also magazines.

We like press reader too. It's great having access to all their publications. Many of the better land-based hotels/resorts we frequent offer it as well.

1 hour ago, ConnieTact said:

One waiter stood out for us and gave us personal and friendly attention whenever he spotted us. He was Onet from Philippines, and had strong previous training working for a world renowned chef in Saudi. MSC are fortunate to have him and he would be extremely suitable for the role of head waiter, so I hope he will be given the chance in the near future.

Do you mean Onel? We had him as our server on Divina in January and we heard that he is currently on Euribia. He was excellent! So glad that you got to spend the week with him. 🙂

I saw in another thread that someone wanted to know how much a Divina model cost in the Divina logo shop. We checked yesterday on this model is 46.90 Euro:

If anyone else saw that question, could you let me know where so I can post in their thread too? Thanks!

Here is the last page of the program -- the first two items listed for Breakfast and Lunch are YC exclusive and the first one for dinner is:

Just now, DaKahuna said:

is the daily schedule they leave in your cabin the same for YC as it is for the rest of the ship?

It is marked for YC as a four-page folded program, plus there is a one-page double-sided insert also with the YC logo -- for a total of 6 pages. We've only stayed in YC so I don't know what exactly is different. The hours for the YC areas and entertainment for YC is shown on the last page. I'll try to post it separately when I can.

Day 10 Dinner menu (from Le Muse, not what was online):

Day 10 Dinner menu (from online, not what we had in Le Muse):

Butcher's Cut menu:

Day 10 Lunch menu (we skipped this meal in Le Muse):

Just now, DaKahuna said:

Out of curiosity what was it that you and BCD did not like about the grilled shrimp meal?

Different answer for me and BCD. The prawns were the typical Italian preparation, with all the body parts (head, tails, antennae, etc.), and BCD does not care for that. For me, it was the taste just wasn't all that. Both of us prefer more of a hearty garlic shrimp flavor -- we make a great scampi at home -- but these were a more bland preparation, maybe because the spices did not quite absorb through all the outside body. Not a big deal, as there are other menu choices that we know not to order because we don't like them. For instance, we do not eat Indian or Thai food. I do not eat any spicy food at all. This is just one of those menu items that I know better than to order now.

Day 10…

Woke up to another beautiful sunrise this morning, again before the alarm, making a great start to our day. An extra hour of sleep last night was also a contributory factor to our happy morning.

While we were enjoying our Baileys and coffee, we noticed that it was raining. Not sure when it started, but it stopped just before we headed out to breakfast at Le Muse around 8:30am.

We opted for the outside walk on Deck 15 since the rain had stopped. It was quite wet outside, with lots of standing water between the wet loungers around the pool. The rain must have surprised the crew after the loungers were set up. The wet loungers did not stop people from enjoying the now shining sun. Looks like it will be a nice sea day after all. The glare off all the wet surfaces was pretty intense so we opted for an inside walk on Deck 7 back to YC.

We had checked lunch and dinner menus for Le Muse and noticed that today's lunch has the one entrée that neither of us like -- grilled king prawns. This was an entrée we had tried on two previous occasions on two different ships and agreed that it was not for us. Before this cruise, we had said that the day this was on the lunch menu would be the day we would use our Diamond specialty meal at BC.

Unfortunately, we had dinner reservations at BC and could only have brunch during the sea days. This would have been a great day for lunch instead.

We stopped at the casino, but remembered that we never registered our credit card. This time we had not gotten a reminder either. I think in the past we would find a card on our bed with the other assorted papers given during turndown service.

Wandered around that middle atrium area of this ship for a bit. We walked up the Swarovski stairs at one point and were amazed at how small they were, both in depth of each step and the width of the staircase. The stairs in YC are much bigger. We were really surprised since any images we've seen of the stairs in the atrium always looked the same as YC.

As we wandered around, we marveled at few people we saw. We thought perhaps everyone was now at the pools?

We encountered a BC representative at a display to sell specialty dining. Knowing we still had another meal to use at BC, we stopped to ask if lunch would be available later in the cruise, after all the sea days of the crossing. He told us that not every sea day was a brunch; on some days lunch was offered. And today was a lunch!

We headed back to our cabin to grab a credit card to register at the kiosk by the YC concierge desk and to ask the concierge to verify that BC did have lunch today instead of brunch. We checked the schedule in the room first, and BC had lunch hours of 10am to 2pm for today -- which sounded more like brunch. We tried to remain optimistic as we asked Simone to check with BC for us. He also was doubtful because of the hours listed but a bit hopeful, given that a BC representative had told us. You would think this was a life-or-death matter with us holding our breath while he called the venue. And then we had a big sigh of relief to find out that today was indeed a lunch day! So our holiday was saved as we now had lunch reservations for 1pm today at BC and wouldn't have to eat prawns. LOL

We went to TSL to celebrate. BCD resumed his line work and I oversaw manufacturing operations until lunch time. BCD also checked in at the One Pool Deck to see if the bar could contribute some more supplies to the cause.

When the time came for lunch, we headed down to BC and were surprised to see only 3 other tables occupied. We thought perhaps the brunch vs. lunch "fiasco" <sarcasm> was the root cause. Regardless, we had a great meal, eating way too much and enjoying it all immensely.

BCD loves the bread basket there and the two types of flavored butter. As usual, the bread was warm and the butter was just the right temperature to be easily spreadable. They had GF bread for me as well with regular butter. I had the roll with my meal and saved the chocolate croissant for dessert. BCD ordered the foie deviled eggs -- he absolutely loves them -- and I had the house chop salad. Then an 8 ounce filet for BCD with Brussel sprouts and double lamb chops with roasted cauliflower for me for our entrées. BCD had lava cake for dessert while I had the previously delivered GF chocolate croissant. We each had 4 glasses Malbec with our meals. We left pleasantly full.

One thing to note about free or purchased "Dining Experience" meals at BC -- we've never received a check at the end to sign since the meal is already covered/prepaid. If you choose something not on the Dining Experience portion of the menu, you'll likely have a check to sign. We never have any cash, so if we don't get a check and yet feel that we had excellent service (as we have every single time in BC), we'll tip on the last day using an envelope from the YC concierge. And they will even look up the name of your server for you if you can't recall it or are not sure of the spelling.

Then we headed back to TSL so BCD could get back to work. The lounge was completely empty so we sat at the bar. Many of the staff stopped by to admire and comment and BCD quickly used up all of his available supplies. Completion of the third car would have to wait for another production day.

As we sat there, we realized just how big of a lunch we had. As dinnertime approached, we weren't even hungry. We thought that would change eventually so we went back to the room to relax until dinner.

Around 8:15pm, we finally arrived at Le Muse for dinner, both thinking we'd eat light. We were surprised that the dinner menus differed from what was online. (I'll post both though.)

Another surprise was that our regular server Glenn was "off" this evening. At first we were concerned since we've never seen anyone "off" before but his assistant Ryan said that he himself had been "off" for breakfast and Glenn was off for dinner. We later wondered if maybe on these long cruises they give people time off even if there is no port for them to visit. If so, I guess that is great for the crew, but I doubt they have the nice types of areas like we do to relax at sea for the time off. 😞

After 10 consecutive dinners of our regular server team, it was interesting to see the interaction between these two new partners. We could see that there was not as smooth of a handoff between them during service, making me think that it could seem that way with any new team. Then we thought that maybe this is what leads to some guests not having optimal dining experiences, the breaking-in period of a new server/assistant server team. And maybe some guests don't notice that new team awkwardness on the first night of a cruise because they are newly embarked? Maybe that's why there is a big discrepancy in reviews -- who notices and who does not and which of them are posting here?

(And is this type of musing too deep? Am I just pondering these questions because this is my fifth of six sea days and I have nothing better to do?? My mind must be going back to management in my pre-retirement business life. I know -- another drink pronto to get back into holiday mode!)

Since Ryan was very familiar with my GF-ness, he took the lead in making sure that I was still accommodated in the same safe manner. He even took my starter back and got me a completely new one when there was a component with gluten on the dish -- even though he could have simply removed that from the plate. For all of those reading who have allergies, you know how comforting it is to know that someone cares. There is a lot of stress in worrying every time you have meal made by others instead of making it yourself.

We had champagne and then as starters BCD had dumplings and I had the sea scallops. (The sea scallops were the dish that Ryan corrected for me. When originally served, the papadum crisps listed on the menu were also on the plate. Instead of simply removing them from the plate, he brought me a new dish that never had the crisps on at all.) For entrées, BCD had prime rib, I had tuna, and we shared a risotto.

As the food came, we realized that we were overstuffed just from the starters. We barely touched our entrées and our servers both noticed, asking if the protein was overdone or the risotto not al dente. We assured them it was us not them (LOL they did not know that phrase, thank goodness). We escaped after pushing our entrées around on our plates for 45 minutes or so. We did finish our wine, however. 😉

We stopped in TSL for a digestivo -- I had a limoncello and BCD had Jägermeister. When the musician finished his next set, we retreated to the cabin, finished our drinks and headed to bed quite early and still quite full.

Day 11 tomorrow…

Just now, bjahil47 said:

Why pay for Yacht Club if I have to eat MDR food.

You definitely do not have to eat MDR food if you are GF on MSC YC. I'm on a transatlantic crossing with MSC right now. My server regularly checks with the YC chef to determine what menu items are GF and how other ones can be altered to be GF. If there are times when the YC items don't "excite" me, they will give me the MDR GF menu -- if I want it. I usually prefer YC items since the quality is so much better. (According to the YC staff, the food supplies they use in YC are not the same as MDR, so that makes a difference in the final product.)

Hubert will still be here in February. In fact, he'll still be here when we come back in April. I have told him to prepare for you.  😉

I think he made the Zacapa a double, since he makes BCD doubles all the time.  (Maybe I'm miscounting the drinks each night then?)

I had a Zacapa 23 yesterday afternoon. It was not for the faint-hearted.

Woodford is in the old fashioneds.

Hennessey is indeed in the sidecars,  sometimes Martelli.

Hubert is your guy in TSL. I just told him you are asking. :)]

Just now, Essiesmom said:

Apparently the hotel has a resident kitty

Aha! You picked an excellent hotel then. Kitties are very particular

Or they have a rodent problem. And that is a well-fed kitty.

But I'm betting it's the former in this case. 🙂

Day 9 Dinner menu: