kelleherdl

Our lowly OT2 is right next to a section bulkhead, so I was concerned. Absolutely nothing.

After gaining 12 pounds on the 16 days from Reykjavik to NYC I’m doing this 14 days back on strict Atkins. That is actually easier than you might think. The protein and fats are good to go, but there are virtually no dessert options. I’ll just have fill my belly with MEAT!

Trust me this was better than using just the ship’s management to do checkin. Miami was far superior to Reykjavik in my opinion. EJ did not use the regular port operations company that MSC uses so their experience with the iPad app for MSC may have played a little role. But you are right the shore operations people were not trained for EJ suite class differences.

And thank you for leaving her is such beautiful shape. According to Sonja we only have 452 on board now. Very manageable.

Dinner at Med Yacht Club?

Myself, I’m not too optimistic about that. There does seem to be quite a few ‘repeaters’ on board for the Caribbean Inaugural from the other social media. If I do see too much ‘group activity’ I will mention it. Your sentiment is correct, we should be beyond the initial marketing phase, but we’ll see. We didn’t notice too much disruption on Reykjavik to New York. Regular paying customers, like ourselves, were treated very well and had lots of opportunity to interact with senior officers/staff.

Cabanas are available for booking at South Beach and the lagoon with same level of service (or so the Experience states) for non Residence guests. I’m really looking forward to seeing the lunch menu for non Residence. I would imagine, or should I say hope, it will be well above the hamburger/hotdogs/grilled chicken of normal Ocean Cay port calls.

Not according to the request form from suite host. The only rum that Louis Vuitton owns is Eminente. I recall seeing it at the Lobby Bar, but I doubt they are giving that away.

Was Anthology fully booked last evening? Just wondering if the experience is being well received. We opted not to do it on Reykjavik to NYC. We’ll board again next week and still considering.

Used it on our last cruise with my tighter than welcome dress shoes. Welcome provision.

Find the video on the MSC Seaside. It takes you through a whole cruise with a lot of time on ‘turnaround’ day. Patricia, the MSC Port Operations Manager in Miami, is a gem and star of that show.

Anyone who read the description of benefits by suite level would know that butlers were only in the Residence level. It was all over EJ’s literature.

Yacht Club included, no streaming. Verizon unlimited, US/Canada/Mexico on iPhone.

Yes, if your phone plan works for Wi-Fi calling in that country. We had no problem at sea. Texting was never a problem as I recall.

My thoughts exactly on the inability to put together a nice Aegean/Adriatic itinerary for E2 with the ‘new’ schedule. If they had done something like the inaugural Caribbean E1 Miami to San Juan to Miami 2x7 we would have booked that. We wanted to keep our E2 cancellation deal so we went with a Rome to Barcelona to Barcelona 16-day extended journey. Several new ports for us and makes sense for the flights from US.

This is a good point about the bartenders on EJ1. They are not bashful at all about challenging the guests with new drinks and variations on traditional favorites. They are not bothered at all if you let them make you something ‘new’, and you say you don’t care for it. It is a fantastic banter. It’s like there is no real restriction on their use of the liquor to ‘entertain’ the guests. They come with varied backgrounds from very sophisticated resorts from all over the world. The Lobby Bar is the centerpiece, but each will appear at other bars throughout the day, including the pool bars.

Quite the contrary. English is the primary, well only, language on Explora. At least on Explora 1 so far.

Crema closes at 6PM. All restaurants and bars can serve coffees.

I agree. Every elevator entrance had the deck plan. Your floor is highlighted. You enter any passageway off the elevator and very good signage directed you. I found signage on the ship to be excellent. I still miss the HAL elevator day of week carpets though. I may know where I’m at on the ship, but I don’t know what day of the week it is.😀

They need to turn the heat up on the pancake griddle. It takes entirely too long to make my fresh blueberry pancakes. 😀. The young lady cook has never been to a Waffle House. 😀. She does do a wonderful job, and they are delicious. When she would see me coming each morning she would immediately start a couple. Their training is so rigorous she even temperature checks them to ensure doneness. Which to my thinking is over the top, but I can wait.

Agree with you on Daniella and Sakura. Our first evening at Sakura was very much less than satisfactory. Food was great, but service was slow and confused. I really think our experience that night was an unfortunate confusion over some of the orders. Daniella was right on it when we voiced our concern. She graciously requested we come back and she assured us our next experience would be top notch. She even saw us at breakfast at the Emporium and repeated her commitment to us having a superior dinner at Sakura. We dined at Sakura two more nights. Both evenings were outstanding. edited after seeing the recent posts. All four in our party were very much paying passengers.

We only booked one bus tour thru EJ. I’ve wanted to see the Bay of Fundy for literally 60 years. Every Canada trip I took before skipped the Bay of Fundy. The tour description was totally undersold, both in tour scope and inclusions. An example. We were told the tour would conclude with a cup of chowder at a famous Bay restaurant. The stop included a BOWL of seafood chowder, a whole lobster roll, a homemade cookie and a canned drink. All at 4pm before dinner. 😀. Almost spoiled Sakura that night.

My personal opinion was that they intended this space to be a very Spanish-style Tapas Bar. We were fond of Vivek, the bartender in MedYacht. When we asked if we could dine from the regular menu at the bar we were told by the ‘whatever they want to call the head host’ only tapas would be served at the bar. I guess that included the lounge seating. So again a very European twist that we would need to adapt to. We were then seated at a very nice table in the main dining area. A table number I will keep to myself for future use. 😀. But as you said, No One used that space at all. Maybe if they had adapted to us there would have been others who have have used it.

I would attend as well. one other thing. We got to be the first cruise to enter New York Harbor and pass the Statue of Liberty, which I really valued. One thing I had hoped to see, but did not was the fire boat salute. When you departed port, did Explora I get any sort of salute?

Every dining venue has window views of the ocean. NO public space, other than the Journeys Lounge is devoid of an ocean view. Wonderful. Even the shops have great windows.