Anastas617

Looking forward to following along @JamieLogical. I have three Princess sailings coming up in 2024 on Discovery, Emerald and Sun. I appreciate your MSC reports, so I'm definitely interested to hear your takes on Princess. My first cruise was on CB last April and I quite enjoyed it, but it seems like forever that I have been waiting to go back on Princess since these next two have been booked since last summer. I'll also check out your Emerald report since I'm taking that out of Boston in July. I've been looking forward to actually sailing out of my home port.

Even if you are logged in, you still need to manually add your Voyager's number. Are you doing that?

I've only done MSC, Princess and HAL. Many of the HAL ships have a "Rolling Stone Rock Room" with a live rock band performing most nights (5 out of 7 on my recent cruise). That being said, I did not think the band on the Rotterdam was all that good which was disappointing because I love live rock music.

Not really. There is a band called "something or other Soul Band" that may have some light rock in their repertoire, but I wouldn't call them a Rock Band. They mainly play in the Meraviglia Lounge or whatever the name of the bar close to the main theatre is, but also played one of the night parties in the promenade and one night at the lido pool. There is also a South African gent (I think his name was Mark?) and a Brazilian fellow (forgot his name) that play guitar and have some classic rock songs in their playlist. Mostly seen them playing in Brass Anchor or the atrium. Mark (hopefully not messing up his name) also plays prior to some of the shows in the carousel theatre.

I've only gone from Barcelona and it was very convenient. I had direct R/T flights from Boston, so I would expect the NYC area would be even easier to find good flights (?). Only regret is I didn't have the free time to book a couple of extra days in Bareclona.

This is just not true. I have seen "Americano" in almost every coffee shop I have gone to in Europe and Southeast Asia. Starbucks didn't invent it, nor is the only shop selling it.

Replying to myself because I guess I waited too long to edit. I wanted to add that no free movies in your cabin and very limited TV options was another trade-off for the low price. Doesn't affect me much but might be important for some folks.

I booked the week prior (disembarked on Easter) and I know never to do that again! It was a ship full of little Forrest Gumps...if there was somewhere to go they were ruuunnniiinnng. Halls, stairs, buffet; it didn't matter. 😂

For me, "you get what you pay for" boils down to no complimentary dining outside the MDR/Buffet and maybe a little less in the way of options at the buffet. I've only been on MSC, Princess and HAL. HAL was far and away better for food in the MDR/Buffet based on my one cruise with them, but I don't really think I'd say there was much of a difference between Princess and MSC in the MDR. In fact, while some items are hit or miss, Princess is the only cruise where I actually hated something I ordered (2x). I thoroughly enjoy the paid Carousel shows ($12 pre-cruise) and am very happy with Hola! as a paid restaurant ($18 or less depending on how you eat) and when I consider the usual cruise price, I find these add-ons perfectly reasonable. I don't pay for specialty dining otherwise. I have never noticed a difference with cleanliness of my room or pleasantness of staff*. Then again, I always try to be pleasant myself and do not have demands or expectations that I would consider unreasonable. Based on the way some of these reviews or complaints come across, they lead me to assume that some of these folks are just difficult or unpleasant people. I could be wrong, but that is the impression I get based on the walls of complaints. *just adding that I did find that staff in general seemed a bit less personable on my MSC Mediterranean cruise, but I chalk that up to perhaps cultural and, from what my international friends say, probably preferred.

Current show times on Meraviglia are 19:00, 20:30 and 22:00. When I was seated at a full table in the MDR this past cruise, it was 50/50 if I would have made the 20:30 show when seated for 19:00 dinner. My previous cruise I was seated by myself and told the waiter I'd like to make the show and never had a problem being finished with plenty of time to get there. So, in my experience, 90 minutes can be a tight window, but asking the waiter to help "move things along" is beneficial depending on seating arrangements.

I just got off yesterday and Floyd was the host I was dealing with during my cruise. There was also Alessio who I spoke with to a lesser extent.

As you are new to MSC, I thought I would mention that they have several theme nights each cruise and have "parties" for them. Their signature party is for 'White Night" and A LOT of cruisers will come prepared to dress in all white that evening. It is the one party with a huge amount of people dressed to the theme. My last cruise they also had a tropical party, carnaval party, space party and a retro party (not sure if that was the actual name, but it was 70s-80s inspired). These are held (usually 10:45pm on sailings from NYC) either in the promenade or on Deck 15 near the pool (weather permitting) and are pretty fun with the music and dancing.

I just got off my second cruise on Meraviglia (and I think I will take my third in September, I really like this ship and the convenience of driving to the port from Massachusetts). I arrived between 10-1030 and embarkation had started already, though some debarkation groups aren't scheduled until close to that time (I know I saw 9:45am as one of the later group times on the disembarkation schedule and a note that stated you needed to be off by 10am) so start time will depend on how quickly the ship clears...I was Group 3 and we were about 20 minutes ahead of schedule. Also, while the cruise time showed as 3pm on the app and paperwork, sailaway was listed as 4pm when I got on the ship and was after that when we actually sailed away. The muster video followed by visiting the muster station started at 3pm. (This can be quite hectic and I much prefer the "watch video and visit muster station by X time" to be much smoother).

I've found that MSC does not seem to have nearly the activity or interest in roll calls on this site as other major lines. I took two MSC cruises last year, one had a roll call with minimal interaction and the other never had a roll call created.

I got multiple starters several times on the Rotterdam last month, no problem at all to do that. I also got two mains once, which didn't work out great because the portions were not as small as I expected.