Capricruiser

Depends on the specific itinerary. Usually 20.30 or 21.00. You can ask the maitre to change you once you're on board.

We used to do two or three (or more) long cruises a year but now that we've discovered Yacht Club we do at most two. But OMG, Yacht Club is wonderful!!!

We cancelled our Meraviglia cruise for October. With 18 MSC cruises I think from reading all the opinions that we'll stick with the older ships - especially YC on the Fantasia class it the itinerary suits us. Otherwise the Aurea suites on the smaller ships are just fine.

Go down the steps, passing through the concierge area and into the Top Sail on deck 15 (Fantasia class ships).

MSC Italy lists a neat cruise on the Orchestra from Hamburg to Iceland and to Greenland 10-31 August 2019.

I've always given extra tips to the people who served us directly - the butler, steward, restaurant waiter and assistant, and smaller amounts to certain individuals who served us well in the lounge or pool deck.

The Yacht Club size on the four Fantasia class ships is perfect in my opinion. Approximately 70 cabins means 140 guests - the right number for the YC facilities. Service is wonderful and the butlers and stewards only have to contend with ten or so cabins. For this reason I don't see myself booking the Meraviglia or Seaside/view.

We were on the 2015 crossing also and I can confirm all said above. We were in Yacht Club so everything was even easier. Now in March we'll be on her again for the crossing back to Genoa.

Normally a dark suit will be just fine in the YC restaurants. There's a tendancy I believe to be less formal in YC since we are in a little cocoon out of sight of the main ship guests,

I'm told that the current Le Muse maitre is Antonino Missure. The Italian waiters are usually the best but I don't have any names yet. We'll be on board for the 8 March transatlantic.

You were asking about shorts in Le Muse. Shorts are not allowed in the evenings in Le Muse or the Yacht Club restaurants on all MSC ships.

On the fantasia transatlantic in November for 14 nts they had the same female pianist every night who sang and just pounded the same notes on the piano, Did not recognise any of the music it all sounded the same and eventually became enough to drive you out of the lounge.

Her name was Ivana. We suffered through two Fantasia cruises with her pounding the piano on a Persian Gulf cruise in March 2017 and then again for the repositiioning Dubai-Civitavecchia. Then we joined the Fantasia again on 25 November and we had the unpleasant surprise to find her again in the Top Sail Lounge. Even the staff of butlers complained that the music(?) was irritating. Finally toward the end of the cruise my wife complained to the cruise director and the next day she was moved and we had a great pianist/singer (Augusto I think his name was).

On our YC cruises there has always been at least a pianist playing in the evenings in the Top Sail Lounge.

I'll believe it if and when it happens.

When you're invited to a party and the host is serving everyone the same beverage I think it would be poor taste to ask him to go get you something else. The Black Card parties on all MSC ships have always the same beverages served.

One major "enhancement" is the name MSC Splendida on the bow is now spelled also in Chinese.

And before the Divina it was the Poesia that got most of the posts.

What ship are we talking about here?

I've had 17 cruises with MSC on all of their ships but four. Don't recall ever having any serious issues with anything. Beautiful ships, interesting itineraries, and truly lovely crew members. Cruise number 18 about to start.

Disembarkation times depend obviously when the ship arrives in port, is tied up to the dock, baggage offloaded into the terminal, and immigration formalities are complete. Yacht Club guests then usually have more flexibility and can determine themselves when they want to disembark.

From my MSC experience which is substantial, if the ship is scheduled to dock at 8.00, the meeting point times (usually in the theatre) for the morning excursions will be 8.00 or 8.30. The buses will already be lined up and ready to go. If the ship will be in port all day, there may be afternoon excursions as well.

To be fair with MSC, it's usually the local tour operators that establish excursion start times based on their knowledge of how long it takes to adequately conduct individual excursions considering known traffic patterns, site opening times, etc.

The show times for the day's excursions you won't get until the daily bulletin is distributed the evening before.

The rerouting of the large cruise ships to the new terminal in Mestre Marghera is still a couple years off. The ban gives a date but it's in 2020 or later.

Our ship's excursion scheduled for 8 December is quite expensive (€132 a person) but at the end of the train ride they'll take us on a catamaran back to the ship instead of a bus. Don't know how much of a "deal" we'll be getting.

We'll be on the MSC Fantasia's port call on 7 December. Hopefully everything will be up and running.