Best Cat Mom

Our fridge was plenty cold enough. I believe that there were mini cartons of milk in there when we first boarded -- or maybe that was on NCL in the fridge there. Now I am not quite sure... sorry. Even if they don't have the cartons, they can put glasses of milk in the fridge so they are in the cabin waiting for when you want them. Or, you can walk to the lounge and get a fresh glass yourself. Depending on where your cabin is, you can probably get one in just a few minutes.

We met our butler, Harison (he spelled it that way), within a few minutes of first arriving in our stateroom. He showed us the amenities in the room and asked what we wanted as far as coffee and the minibar. We told him that we did not like decaf and to only give us regular espresso coffee capsules. We also told him that we did not want beer in the fridge, though we'd be happy with some Baileys for the coffee. We also told him we'd like Chivas and soda water. Every day, we had exactly that -- fully replenished. We ran out of coffee first morning because the capsule tray only had so many. After that, he began bringing us sleeves of the capsule we preferred. He also had to bring the Baileys in glasses because they don't have the mini-sized Baileys. He would put 2 double shots in the fridge each day. We never disappointed him -- we drank all the Baileys every day. 🙂

We did order room service pizzas one evening. We had already brought the wine in from the lounge ourselves, though, so that was pretty easy for him. He brought the pizza very quickly and it was still perfectly hot. (That was the only time we ordered room service food.)

If we ever saw Harison up at the pool grill or in the lounge, he always stopped to chat with us. One time, he was in the middle of getting something for another guest but stopped quickly to say 'hi' and then apologized that he couldn't chat longer. We got the impression that they want the butlers to talk up the guests as much as possible. We saw many of the butlers at the pool or in the lounge at all times of day. We had the impression that they all circulate in the YC venues when they are not tending to guests in the cabins.

I celebrated my birthday on this cruise and Harison made sure that there was a Venchi chocolate cake for me in Butcher's Cut for our dessert that evening. He knew I was gluten-free so it was one of those decadent, flourless cakes. YUM!

Overall, we were pleased with our butler, though we did not think we were overly demanding compared to some stories I've read.

Great list, 2cruiseluvrs! But you forgot the most important item:

THE LOUNGE

🙂

Made my husband watch the entire movie Clue just for that line! :D

We had a butler in a suite on the non-Haven Spirit. Teo was great at refilling the coffee with exactly the type we wanted, making sure that the afternoon treats were ones we liked (we asked for M&Ms instead of cheese/crackers or anything savory more than once), asking us what time we'd be back in the afternoon so the treats were timed perfectly, etc. He even brought us a special after-dinner treat for my husband's birthday, with no request from me.

On the Jade (has a mini-Haven), in addition to restocking the coffee to our likes, our butler, Rizaldi, also made sure that we had the "right" 3 bottles of liquor in our DOS and when he would stop by to refill the coffee mid-morning every day, he'd check if we needed anything special that day. For my husband's birthday on that cruise, he decorated the entire room with balloons and streamers and left us tons of goodies and a full new bottle of champagne.

One thing we've yet to have -- or ask for -- is unpacking or packing. In fact, we've never had a butler ask if we wanted either yet. On our last cruise, I was ready to say "yes" if asked, just to see what it was like to have everything unpacked and put away for me. I wondered if I would find everything, would it be done the same way I would have done it, etc. Alas, he did not ask and I did not ask either. I think I am afraid that I'll like it too much. :)

The Jacuzzi in the Thermal Spa is salt water. Not sure about any others.

We ordered the pizza via YC room service. Hot and delicious! I am gluten free so I ate the toppngs off of my husband's pizza and never had any adverse reaction, either. I had heard it was good and took the chance -- no regrets at all. :)

These boards are awesome. We had our first MSC cruise last week and the boards were invaluable in helping us to choose our cruise and then prepare for it. We learned so much about what to expect during boarding, saw sample menus, gained an understanding about the ship in general, heard about excursions and even read a lot of opinions aabout tipping. I tried to search the boards instead of asking questions that might have already been answered. I never came across posts that mentioned the beds. I only brought it up now for the next person. Every little bit of info helps! :)

That's a bit harsh. We're a healthy couple in our late 50s. I have a tough time believing that no one else would feel the same way.

The benefits of the Yacht Club go well beyond just the suite, as I'm sure you're aware. Beds aside, I highly recommend the Yacht Club for the complete package. Access to the Top Sail Lounge almost makes it worth the price all by itself; and when you factor in everything else included in the price, it really can't be beat.

I do not mean to minimize all of the wonderful benefits of the YC -- we truly thought the service went well beyond NCL's Haven.

However, on a holiday the bed is -- frankly put -- used many times a day and I don't mean for sleeping. Navigating the dip in the middle over the frames or perching on one of the smaller-than-twin-sized edges made "non-sleeping" a challenge. Not sure about other people, but it was a BIG deal for us.

Our cruise last week was in the Caribbean. Maybe the sommelier is not in the YC for Caribbean cruises?

We interacted with our waiter and assistant waiter all the time -- but never saw a sommelier. I wonder if that is because we always knew what wine we wanted? Maybe if they had seen us struggle to choose, they would have sent the sommelier over to us?

By the way, our waiter Andre and his assistant Bene were excellent! We sat on the Port side by the windows in a table for two every day. Guiseppe was always very accommodating when we entered and made sure that we could pick which table we wanted. Andre was fantastic! We never even noticed the (famous) Arthur. I wondered if Arthur had the middle section which seemed to have the larger tables for big groups.

You mean 18008? We never met the people in that cabin, though we know it was occupied since we saw towels on the chairs on their balcony. We also never heard them.

Our cabin fit 5 and that cabin seemed like it would be the same. We had the main bed for 2, a sleep sofa and a bed that drops down from the ceiling. We only used the main bed since there were only 2 of us.

(I will digress here and mention that the bed was a disappointment for us. We constantly felt the divisor where the single beds were combined. Rodelyn and my husband tried each day to put towels and other padding over the middle to make it more comfortable, but we always felt the frame in the middle and could see the dip. Not great if two people want to sleep together in the middle of the bed. It was better by the third day but will be a consideration that offsets the many great reasons to cruise again with MSC. We don't think of it as a showstopper, but it is more than just a nuisance for us.)

They had the same room attendant as us (Rodelyn) and I would say that is definitely a good thing.

They are only one cabin further to use the glass door out to the YC corridor. They are one cabin closer to a "hidden" door that opens from the very front into the hallway just in front of the YC restaurant entrance. I'm calling that a hidden door because it is not glass (it has the same paneling as the corridor walls) and there is not a sign on it that says where it goes. At first, we were not sure that we should use it; we thought it might be an emergency exit. But we tried it one day and found that it is just another way to get to the restaurant quickly.

Hope this helps...

Butler $100, asst butler $80, waiter $100, asst waiter $80, maitre d $40, bartender $50 each, four butlers working lounge $20 each, concierges $20 each.

Who is "asst butler?" Is that the person who cleans the cabin? You did not mention sommelier -- yet some others did. We never met anyone who called themselves a sommelier. Could that be the same as "asst waiter?"

We just cruised MSC Seaside last week. Wish I'd seen this thread then...

For our cruise last week on the MSC Seaside, our muster was at 3:45pm in the Casino. We sat at the bar and listened (no drinks were served but we brought our own) and they spoke for about 20 minutes or so. Staff were positioned in various spots around the Casino to demonstrate the use of the life jackets.

We just cruised on MSC Seaside last week. We had cabin 18010 and loved it. We were only a few cabins away from the door to the hallway of the Yacht Club and could be in the restaurant in less than a minute or up the stairs to the lounge in 2 minutes. There was no noise that we noticed from being close to the door either.

Some people cautioned about choosing cabins on deck 18 since the YC pool is right above on deck 19. I am not a light sleeper so it did not bother me. I read other posts where people have said that the early morning activity at the pool (especially dragging chairs around) has woken them up too early. I only mention it so you are aware. It did not stop us from booking this cabin and did not bother us at all.

On a related note, I don't know if the butler and room attendant are assigned to the same cabins for each cruise so this may not matter. Our room attendant Rodelyn was excellent. Our cabin butler Harison (that's the way it was spelled on his card and his name tag -- though not the typical spelling) was just okay. However, we did not require much attention from Harison so it was not a huge deal for us. I'm not sure if Harison's contract is close to ending or at the beginning. Rodelyn had only been on the ship for ~1 month so she'll still be around. This is her first contract and she came to MSC from Regent. She is quite good at her job. If you get her as your room attendant, you should be very satisfied.

We cruised last week on MSC Seaside in the Yacht Club. The night that we saw the most people who followed the recommendations for attire was on White Night. We did not dress for White Night because the Daily Planner stated that those festivities began at 10:30pm and we'd just be finishing dinner then and remaining in the Yacht Club the rest of the evening. We did see one couple in the YC lounge in tux and evening gown for the first Elegant night. We ate in YC that night and did not notice anyone else in formal wear. We opted out that night and instead dressed for the following evening in our formal wear since it was my birthday. My husband wore a suit and tie and I wore a dress. We dined at a specialty restaurant that night and were the only people that we noticed dressed so formally. I was surprised by that because I thought more people would dress up for the specialty restaurants. To be clear, I was not disappointed that no one else was "dressed up" since we did it for our own reasons. We repeated the formal attire on the second formal night, which was Lobster night in the YC restaurant. We did not notice anyone else in suits or tuxedos that night. We did get some comments from the YC concierges and YC director about how nice it was to see people "dressed up" -- but none of the staff seemed concerned at all about people not dressing to follow the recommendations for the different nights. I think that you are safe to dress as you feel comfortable as long as you don't break any of the "real rules."

When we booked our cruise, it asked for my name as it appeared on our passport. I have a first name, a middle name and a last name. But, for some reason, it took my first name AND middle name and came up with that as just my first name. I tried to sign in for hours using my first name and it never worked. Took me that long to see they had my first name as 2 names. OK so I maneuvered around that, but for the life of me, I can't figure out how to change that to reflect just my first name. Nothing major, just a pain.

I called them direct to book our first cruise and they wanted our middle names since our passports have middle names included. They said that since they did not have a field for middle name, we'd always use our first and middle names in the field they call 'first name.' Guess their IT can't figure out how to add a middle name field (or maybe they don't consider it a priority to make that change). Similarly, my husband's suffix -- he's a "III" -- is part of his 'last name' field. Once we signed into everything -- MSC website, MSC for Me app, etc. -- for the first time, we allowed our logins to be memorized and then it was not as much of an issue. It did confuse us a few times in the beginning as well. :(

We used only our passports to board the Jade in April in Miami. They did make sure that we knew our cabin number before they let us up to the security lines, however.

Thanks Huntingdon and KPRH -- what a relief that the spa is still there. When they do the drydock, maybe they'll add a small Haven area too. We liked the intimacy of the Haven on the Jade.

 

There's no spa, if that's important to you.

 

We sailed on the Spirit in April of 2016 and had an absolutely wonderful couples massage in the spa.

(They end it by putting your hands together and ringing a little bell. When they did that this past April at the end of our massage on the Jade, we laughed remembering it from the last time.)

Did they close the spa since we were on the Spirit in 2016? I've been looking at Mediterranean cruises on the Spirit for next year but will look at a different ship if they no longer have a spa. :(

Hi Gate Guardian,

I saw that you are also Marriott Platinum and Hilton Diamond. I am Hilton Diamond too -- but not lifetime, at least not yet. :) Did you think that the SPG Gold might match differently to Marriott? I know that they were not as precise in their descriptions as I would have liked. After all, isn't this automated and not a human's opinion of how it should match?

This thread has been so helpful for me. We are relatively new to cruising and never considered that the cruise line would need to cancel except for weather issues. When I was initially booking our next cruise which departs out of NYC, I was considering using an airline credit that I have on file from a previously cancelled flight. Once I found out from all of you that NCL does not cover all charges associated with a cancelled flight (I know that I erred by not reading all the T&Cs), I knew that I only wanted to use points since (for me) they are fully refundable up to 72 hours in advance of my flight. Thank you so much to everyone who contributed to this thread. This advice has been invaluable to us !!!!

You can also use your loyalty programs with hotels -- that will be better if your hotel status is higher than your cruise line status. I did not realize that MSC matched with hotel status until the rep with MSC mentioned it when I was on the phone with them. Go with whatever you have that is highest. I used my Marriott Lifetime Platinum and received MSC Black.

Marriott is the source. I'm Lifetime Platinum with Marriott and am an Amex Platinum account holder. Marriott informed me of the program changes coming after August 1st when the Marriott Rewards program merges with SPG. After August 1st, SPG Gold will only "translate" to Marriott Silver. My husband is an additional cardholder on my Amex Platinum account today and that grants him SPG Gold status. I requested and received a SPG/Starwood Gold account for my husband based on his Amex Platinum card as that is one of the benefits of Amex Platinum. Then I requested Marriott to grant him reciprocal status in Marriott Rewards. Marriott Rewards granted him Gold status. Then I requested MSC to Status Match him to Marriott Rewards Gold. MSC give him Gold status. If I had only asked MSC to Status Match him to SPG Gold, based on the boards here, he would have only received MSC Silver. After August 1st, Marriott Rewards will translate SPG Gold to Marriott Silver when the programs merge.

I'm trying to help others achieve Gold instead of Silver on MSC if they meet the same criteria.