gizfish

MSC cruises out of NY are less formal than their European cruises. Dress code is a suggestion. We wore shorts every night except on the one elegant night. That night DH wore jeans and I wore capris with a fancy tee shirt. Our cruise announcements were in English first, than italian, and lastly due to a large amount of Asian passengers, in Chinese. I haven't cruised NCL post covid, but my personal experience last month on Meraviglia was that it felt like a pre covid cruise. Of course there are some cutbacks but nothing like what's written about NCL post covid. The most obvious cutback was the MDR menu states second or more entrees incur a $5 fee. We never needed to order second entrees as despite what some say, the portions were more than adequate (and to be honest one of the reasons we like cruising is the food.) Also, you can order the pasta or risotto dish each evening as a starter in addition to your main, and it will come as a full size. If your son is like most teens, he will probably appreciate that MSC has food available all day and most of the night. Do keep in mind when making your decision that WiFi on MSC is much more expensive. So if that's not part of what you booked, it may be an issue. Personally I would never book an interior. But that's because I spend the whole cruise on the balcony, and ports are not an issue for me. Also keep in mind that the spa on Meraviglia is smallish.

We traveled a month ago, no survey. And we did consent to emails.

I don't know if the menu order changes. On our 8 night Meraviglia cruise, the last night's menu was the same as the first. Also, we were able to see the menus for the whole week in the app once we boarded.

One month ago on Meraviglia our experience was it was only on embarkation day. It was $10 off EVERY $50, and was taken off the bill, not given back as OBC. We happened to spend $100 in one store and the cashier rang it up as two purchases. I don't know what would happen if you spent $50 distributed over more than one store though. I also don't know if it was different because we were in the USA, and I don't remember the specific American terms. I do know only my husband's key card was used for both purchases.

That jacket unfortunately won't work for the dog. Fur kid arms are not in the same place as human kid arms. If only Ralph Lauren would have realized this before I spent more on a dog polo than I spend on my own clothes. (Thankfully they got it right eventually.)

Maybe that was a Freudian slip...Not gonna lie, but when we first saw that the room stewardess uniform was the proverbial French maid outfit including the frilly white apron, I did wonder if someone had pranked us and sent DH a stripper.

You can tell your phone not to change time zones. You can then manually change your phone ahead or back as needed. They always remind you in the dailies about upcoming time changes.

Thx. That's the one I was thinking of. Shame they still don't have BBQ. I called about that many months ago, and they made it seem like it would only be a few weeks till they did.

In addition to the MDR you are assigned to and the buffet which always has something available for like 19 hours of the day, included soft serve ice cream is available near the pool (dispensed by staff, not self serve). I think the hours were from 4:00-7:00 on most days. There is also "grab and go" by the pool with burgers, hot dogs and pizza.

I second that. Our room stewardess on meraviglia put an extra mattress pad and two duvets on our bed, and it was still terribly uncomfortable. We only asked for an extra pad and she added the other stuff, so I'm guessing the mattresses are a common complaint. I wonder if the yacht club has better mistresses. BTW if you are thinking of a cruise on Princess be sure to ask about their beds. We sailed many years ago. But, I will not forget that the bed was so hard, I had bruises on the sides of my knees.

Sorry to go off topic, but what is the name of that hot pot place please?

Any upgrade will give you the amenities of the upgraded room. So if you got upgraded to a spa room, you would get access to the thermal area. If you upgraded to the haven you would get the haven restaurant, butler, etc. What you don't get in an upgrade are any perks that are different than what you booked with. For instance, if your original booking did not include an airfare perk but now the haven bookings are offering that, an upgrade to the haven will not include an airfare perk. Only you know how much a larger bathroom and the amenities of the club balcony room is worth to you.

We found the MDR food more than adequate and would not consider purchasing a specialty dining plan. We did pay to eat at Hola, which was very reasonably priced and delicious. Keep in mind that the dining plan menus are restricted, as that may influence your decision to purchase. We had the browse and stream WiFi and had few if any problems with the service. The price is much higher than other lines especially considering you pay per device. Show reservations were easy to make using the app. But, we had to do it throughout the cruise as they only appeared two days in advance. If you choose to see the Carousel Lounge shows, book that before the cruise online as it will be cheaper.

I know in the past all towels, Haven and regular rooms, were from the Baltic Linen company. The hand towels were specifically from the pyramid collection. I bought them on Amazon ten years ago (my most previous cruise the week before the pandemic featured the same brand) and they are still soft, absorbent and in good shape. I also bought the bath sheets which were from the RSVP collection. I think I may have gotten them directly from Baltic, which ironically was located in Long Island, NY. Don't know where they are now, but if you don't get a better more recent answer here, try searching for the brands I mentioned. They are the only ones I would consider if I needed to purchase towels again. But like I mentioned, it's been ten years and they are still perfect, if not as white as they were originally.

I am enjoying your review. But, please edit out the reference to a person's nationality as that is not at all important to note.

There is a built in to the counter liquid soap dispenser by the sink. The liquid soap, the shower gel and the shampoo are all in MSC's signature scent, Med for MSC.

This offer is also different from what was available to us just three weeks ago. The dining packages we could purchase were the pick what you want with the Butchers Cut one time limit and the $10 upcharge for Teppanki. It's also odd that this package and the other package that says what specific restaurants it is for has the UK spellings for certain words when I am assuming you would be accessing the USA site. I highly doubt any substitutions would be allowed when the plans are so specific. Also, before you buy, make sure you look at the dining experience menus for each restaurant as they are quite restrictive.

We drove from Long Island to the terminal for the 9/10 cruise. Our assigned time (after all the random changes MSC made between booking and sailing) was 9:30. I don't do mornings so we left around elevenish. We had some traffic due to torrential rain, but got to the terminal a bit after noon. There was no traffic entering, and we got a good parking spot relatively close to the terminal. MSC said sail away was 3:00, but they lie about that and it was scheduled for more like 4:00. The security line was very short and by the time we were on the check in line, security line was practically empty. The check in line snaked around quite a bit but moved pretty fast. So all in all I would stick to my arriving later and standing on lines that move rather than dealing with rush hour traffic, traffic from previous cruisers leaving and long lines of people who want to be early that then result in hour or longer waits of sitting around waiting to board. I know Red Hook is different, but we have done things this way with every NY cruise we have taken with similar results.

We were on Meraviglia 2 weeks ago, and sad to say I am in agreement with what you experienced. Everything was wet. It was kind of gross to have to sit in a puddle to get in and out of the hot tub and spa. One of the heated benches by the thalassotherapy pool was out of service, and considering there are only four, that's an issue. I cannot understand why they wasted two nice sized rooms to fill them with regular lounge chairs and spa music, especially since they were both cold and uncomfortable. The whole thermal area is just too small and poorly appropriated for that size ship with that many people having access. I'm glad we didn't pay for spa access and were just using the hour perk we got as being gold voyager status.

Just a suggestion if you haven't already, I think your should also pose this question on the Carnival board so you can see what Carnival fans think about NCL.

Keep an eye out for packaged smoked salmon "pieces" or lox ends. Same taste but not as pretty, and about half the price.

My DH was never able to find any at the buffet couple of weeks ago on the Bahamas Florida cruise.

You can ignore the per person plans and focus on the number of devices you will be using. For example DH and I would be using a total of three devices. So we would book a one person three device plan. Search WiFi and you will see what others have tried to get around the per device issue like setting up hotspots etc.

Just to clarify, a US citizen cannot bring medications back into the US that require a prescription here even if the meds were purchased OTC in the other country. Also some foreign countries have strict limits on OTC meds. For instance, your Sudafed is a huge no no in Japan. The way you have your meds stored on the ship is not an issue. Port security doesn't care if you use a pill organizer. But, airport security may be an issue. Closed loop American cruises should pose no problems with using a pill organizer. Even if you fly in from another state, TSA doesn't care. It's still a good idea to keep narcotics in their original bottles. Also a good idea in general, not just for travel, is to have photos on your phone of all your prescription med bottles.

The Broadway song show is in the Broadway theater. Carousel lounge alternates between the rock show and the Houdini show. Since all the evenings shows (Broadway and carousel) are at the same times, you will have to see more than one show in a night if you want to see them all. I cannot help you with the specific days as I did the eight day, and don't have the schedules for that anymore anyway. I do know that the carousel lounge did not offer a show every night. There is a TV screen outside that venue that shows the whole schedule for your cruise. We found the first two days of broadway theatre shows in the app on day one. They seemed to add one more day each day allowing reservations.