Stockjock

This video shows the entertainment on NYE from the speakeasy...

I suggested the GF not wear heels, but she's 5'1" or 155 cm, so there was no way that was going to happen.

I'm half Greek, so I have to say that the Greek officers are also quite good. But the captain of World Europa seemed like a good guy. I got the feeling that he really enjoyed interacting with the passengers.

As mentioned, we spent NYE in the Speakeasy on World Europa and I did a video on at least part of the process. They said don't give the secret away, so I won't do that...

I am the author of the somewhat infamous, MSC Comedy of Errors thread, where I detailed so many problems with MSC, mostly customer service issues, over the years. While I didn’t really interact with customer service this time, and some may know my MSC golden rule, i.e., once you get your reservation more or less the way you want it, do not call MSC customer service for any reason unless it’s beyond a critical problem, as there’s a fairly good chance that customer service will screw it up, and it will take an Act of God to fix it, as well as shortening your lifespan by several years, due to the frustration involved. But I’m glad to say that I’ve seen a lot of improvement in terms of the onboard experience, and we really didn’t have any onboard issues, except for a little bit of a mixup with our sail passes, initially. I think they’re really doing a good job, and we see huge improvements in the quality of the staff on board. They were just super friendly and super efficient. And the supervisors were on it. They really run a tight ship, both literally, and figuratively. When I read so many reviews on Cruise Critic, with one and two star ratings, I just don’t get it, and I don’t see that at all. And I hear about the terrible food, and I couldn’t disagree more. For what you’re paying, it’s pretty decent. if you want a more premium dining experience, then pay up for the Yacht Club or a specialty restaurant. On this trip, we ate in specialty restaurants four out of the seven nights and we paid $100 each. I don’t know of any other cruise line that can touch that pricing. Three of the specialty dining visits were the result of purchasing a specialty dining package, and the fourth was due to being a diamond status customer. I’ve mentioned before that I see other cruise lines that are in decline in some ways, especially food-wise (Celebrity Cruises comes to mind) and I think MSC’s food has at least held steady, and I see major improvements in terms the onboard staff. We were really treated very politely and pleasantly the entire trip. We didn’t ask for anything where our request was not promptly complied with. if you pushed me to choose between the two cruise lines we sail on most often, which are Celebrity Cruises, and MSC, my girlfriend prefers MSC by a wide margin. I would still go with Celebrity, but they are just so much more expensive and you get a lot more value for your money on MSC, in my opinion. If you take the suite that I got for example, which was awesome and large, I don’t think I could touch that on Celebrity for three times the money. And again, Celebrity’s food has really taken a turn for the worse, although we will be sailing on their new ship, Ascent, this summer.

It sounds very nice, and I do appreciate the information, but given the fact that we’re both somewhat tired, and she’s really beat and a little under the weather, I think we will just hang out here in the hotel, and we have to get to sleep very early to make our 4:30 AM shuttle.

So we’ve got a day to kill in the Barcelona area, and we will have to get up at three in the morning to make a very early morning flight to the US by way of Lisbon and San Francisco. So I booked an airport hotel that is really very nice. The Hotel Ciutat del Prat was only €156, and that includes dinner, wine at dinner, a bottle of champagne (Cava) in the room, and chocolate dipped strawberries (the dinner, wine, and strawberries were add-ons on the hotel’s website, but are included in the price I mentioned). I haven’t repriced the hotel, so it may have gone up in price since I booked it. And it’s a nice hotel too. Very clean and modern. it’s not in the central part of Barcelona, so if you were hanging out in the city, this wouldn’t be a good choice. But if you just need something near the airport for a night, I don’t know how you can beat what I paid for this hotel. Plus, they do have a free airport shuttle. You may see the girlfriend is taking a nap and she’s not feeling 100%. I feel fine right now, but if she’s not feeling great, you know how that goes, eventually.

My recommendation is to check with the customer service desk, and I did ask and was told noon. But I can’t guarantee that they have the same policy on every ship at every port. I think we ended up getting off the ship about 9:30 AM or 10:00 AM, although, as mentioned, we could’ve stayed a little longer on board if we wanted to.

Last morning on the ship. I usually do the MSC express breakfast, with salmon on the side. We preferred doing a sit down final breakfast, as opposed to fighting everyone and their luggage in the buffet.

Remember that if you are a diamond Voyagers club member, you get a free print for each person who is a diamond member, and you can also purchase additional prints, either digital or printed, at 40% off. So we bought a few. Just remember that the free print had to be actually printed, the freebie cannot be a digital version, but the others can be either. Also, this has nothing to do with the photos, but one thing I didn’t realize is that you have until noon to actually leave the ship if you want to get off late. So we have to clear the room at 8 AM, our bags are scheduled to be delivered downstairs at 8:40 AM, but they said that if we wanted to just hang out for a while, since we can’t check into our hotel too early, noon is the absolute positive last time that we can depart. I also like the fact that they let us put our bags outside till 1 AM, which is a little more flexible than some other cruise lines.

Last night on the ship. Filet mignon, dinner, in one of the specialty restaurants (Butcher’s Cut). We have to pack soon, which is sad. we were going to do the sushi restaurant, but we didn’t realize that it only covers the sushi bar only, so I used my diamond benefit for a second night at Butcher’s Cut.

That’s how I feel about it. It’s nothing I would go out of my way to purchase, but given that it’s included in easy plus, it’s actually respectable. Certainly better than any other red. I’m aware of that they’re offering for nine euro or less.

The only drink packages that we have had are easy or easy plus. Easy is extremely limited but doable. Easy plus does offer a wider selection, and you get to choose wines of a bit higher quality, although not amazing wines. A red wine that is covered by easy plus that I think is pretty good actually is the Bel Aur, which is a Bordeaux.I won’t say it’s amazing but I think it’s quite drinkable. I found it more challenging to find a white wine that was to my liking, but spending an extra few euros to upgrade is really not a huge deal. There was a sparkling rosé that I thought was very good and I think it was covered by the easy plus package but it might’ve been a euro over or something. I’m not sure I will see the name before we get off the ship, but if I do, I will share it. I haven’t had the easy package recently, but what we used to do is use it to get a shot of a simple alcohol like a whiskey, or rum, or vodka or gin, and then, at least, at that time, the more exotic drinks without alcohol were included in easy. And then I would simply add the shot. so that time, for example, Mojito was not included, but you could order a virgin Mojito, and a shot of rum and mix them, and that would work. I’m not sure if things have changed since then. The wines on the easy package are tolerable, but not much more. Easy plus, again there are some options that are reasonable, or within reach of an extra euro or two. That said, I think the sparkling wines on easy are actually pretty good, but that’s about it.

Here are a few photos from the diamond status get together. I thought it was fun. They had some salsa dancing. They had a good musician, singing and playing guitar, the same guy we like from the Masters of the Sea bar. The senior officers all showed up and you had an opportunity to take a picture with the captain. It was enjoyable. I showed the captain my prior post on on Cruise Critic about him being able to drive the ship and kick your butt simultaneously, and he laughed, and said, “I love that“. I’m sure he is Italian, but his English is actually pretty strong.

The Captain of World Europa looks like he can drive the ship and kick your butt at the same time.

This is for the person that wanted the photos of the chocolate shop.

Of course, you don’t have to spend money, but they structure things in such a way to try to extract more money out of you. As an example, in the new coffee roasters venue, or whatever it’s called, none of the drinks are included, unless you have premium package. Just a lot of little nickel and diming going on, but it’s obvious that you don’t have to spend that, but you might not be able to avail yourself to certain things.

Thank you and the same to you and yours!

These comments are going to be more detailed, because I’m covering many different topics, as we sail towards the end of our cruise, both literally and figuratively. After I return, I will do a formal review, but it will be much shorter. apologies in advance for misspellings and such because I am verbally dictating this while. I’m getting ready to go out for lunch. The photos show what we did after dinner, and that included a MSC crew talent show, and it was hit and miss, but worth attending, in my opinion. Much to my chagrin, it morphed into a 1990s dance party. The dance party was extremely well attended, but it was an absolute sea of humanity, and as I mention below, way too many children dancing around, mixed in with much larger adults, in my opinion. This was right up my girlfriend’s alley, because she loves to dance. I really don’t love to dance, so I barely danced a couple of songs, and then got the hell out of there, and I think she was a little disappointed, but what can I say, it’s just not my thing, especially with so many people jam-packed in that carousel lounge at the back of the ship. Today is our last full day on World Europa, which is a sea day, and we disembark in Barcelona tomorrow at 8 AM. We will spend one night in Barcelona near the airport, and I found a cheaper hotel that had an option to add dinner, sparkling wine, and chocolate dipped strawberries for a pretty low add on price. The only reason that we are staying an extra night is because it was a lot cheaper to fly out the next morning. If you can imagine, I found a flight on TAP Air Portugal from Barcelona to San Francisco for only $230 per passenger. I spent a little bit of money to upgrade those seats, and then we will take a short flight to Southern California. Those prices are no longer available, by the way. We spent three nights in Barcelona before the cruise, which I recommend. So at this point, we really don’t care about going out on the town, we just need a decent place to sleep, and have some dinner and a few drinks, before our early morning flight. Speaking of Barcelona, I see that there was some discussion of Barcelona transportation options. To add to some of the earlier comments, we just take a taxi. It’s really not that expensive, it’s very convenient, and we are not light travelers, so for us, this is the most convenient option. If you are a very light traveler, or even more frugal than I am, maybe you want to try something else. When there’s a great distance involved, we usually take a train, and I have a YouTube video from my trip last year New Year’s Eve, where I describe how to get from Paris to the port in Le Havre, France by train. Overall, the cruise has been pretty good. I think the ship is beautiful, but as I mentioned before, some of the venues are hit and miss. There are a few of them that I’m not sure will, or should survive. And the layout is a little bit odd, especially in terms of the back of the ship because there’s such a wide open area. So like us, if you’re on, let’s say the 11th deck, at the back of the ship, which we are at the last cabin and in a cabin on the back of the ship, it is a really really long walk from the elevator. I mean, we’re not that young, but we’re both in reasonably decent shape and it is a super long walk all the way down that hallway. if you look at the design of the back of the ship with the open area, there are no bridges that connect one side to the other, so if you have any sort of a mobility challenge, I would probably avoid these cabins, even though I was really happy with our cabin overall. There also can be a lot of noise at certain times of the day or night, particularly on the inward facing cabins, when they’re blasting the disco, but right now it is early afternoon and it’s not bad because they’re not playing music. In terms of the back of the ship, I feel like there’s too much open space on the ship because there are a few outdoor venues such as the Omega store, and the fish specialty restaurant la pest, La Pescaderia, that are outdoors, and on these winter sailings, it’s just cold and windy out there. From what I could tell, their fish specialty restaurants seem to be pretty dead, so maybe they need to find a way to get more people in there by including it in the dining package or something. Maybe the Caribbean is different because it’s warmer, but it doesn’t make sense to have these venues where they are. I think maybe in their future design they could cover more of that outdoor deck area maybe leave a lesser space open to the elements. Obviously I’m talking about a major ship design feature, and that’s not going to change real soon, because they’re in the process of building several more world-class ships. I know I am harping on this, but we really miss the adults only Sky Lounge. They don’t have anything like it on this ship, and that sucks. I also miss the sparkly staircases with Swarovski crystals. It added a touch of class and elegance that we just don’t see on the ship, which is not to say that it’s not nice in its own way, but that is perhaps *the* MSC signature feature, and they need to bring that back in my opinion. I saw the photographers on Gala night taking photos on the staircases, and without the sparkling crystals, it’s not remotely the same look. So MSC, I doubt you’re reading this, but if you are, bring back the crystal staircases. I asked my girlfriend for her opinion on what could be changed or improved, or what she really liked, and one thing we both agree on is there is a tremendous number of children on this ship. And it’s probably the youngest overall demographic that I’ve seen on any MSC cruise I’ve been on, and I think I’ve been on five or six now. It’s nice that families can get out and enjoy cruising, and we have no issue with that, but these kids are *everywhere*, in the bars and on dance floors that are really crowded with a lot of adults, at all hours of the day and night, and they’re running around and they’re jumping around and I think it’s a situation we’re not only is it kind of annoying for the adults, but I really think that the children are being placed in a position where they could become injured. So I would like to see some of the bars and clubs off-limits to children, and I would also like to see at least some of the adult dance nights, if not all of them, off-limits to kids. They do have a club for young children they do have a club for tweets, obviously, we don’t want to make it so restrictive that families with children cannot have fun and enjoy themselves and take their children, but I do think there are certain places that maybe it’s not really appropriate for the kids to be, and not just a matter of apropos, but an issue of the safety of the children. The food has been pretty standard for MSC, which is to say, generally pretty good. I think it’s probably average to slightly above in the main dining rooms. The temperature has been pretty good in terms of most of our meals, but last night the beef tenderloin, which was extremely tasty, ended up only lukewarm if that. So again, the taste was excellent, but it would be nice if they could figure out a way to make the food hot all the time. But I would say that for the most part, the temperature of the food was pretty decent. I think that they oversalt their food, but I’m sure that’s pretty common in many restaurants on other cruise lines as well. The service has been on point for the most part, but I have noted in some of the clubs employees who are very friendly, but they were just standing around, and they’re not really mingling or walking amongst the crowd to see if people have a need, or want a cocktail. Some just stand there, maybe bobbing their head to the music, and in my opinion, that’s not why they were hired. Get away from the bar, stop dancing to the music, and go see if your passengers need a drink or some food. The cleanliness and maintenance of the ship seems top-notch. I haven’t really seen much of anything that seems to be damaged. There are a few long neon-looking lights that are in operative, on the back of the display on the outdoors inner rear of the ship, but other than that, the ship is really in great condition, and of course, it’s newer, but our room has been pretty much immaculate, and while we have not asked for much, we’ve gotten everything we’ve asked for promptly. There was one night where they didn’t deliver our excursion tickets, but they got it pretty promptly resolved. I also did a few pieces of laundry, and I thought the prices were very reasonable, much cheaper than the hotel that we stayed in in Barcelona, and I think as a diamond member I got another 15% off. So if you have some laundry you want done, let’s say a few pieces, just put them in the bag and fill the laundry form out, and leave them on your bed before noon, and they will be returned to your cabin, cleaned pressed and folded, before your next dinner. Switching back to the restaurants, again, the food was mostly good. I prefer it to some of the other cruise lines, and I know people criticize MSC for their food. I think in the main dining room, it’s always going to be a little bit hit and miss, but I think MSC has been pretty consistent in terms of their main dining room, offerings, where other cruise lines, like Celebrity, which we cruise on quite a bit, has declined markedly in quality. so just in the Standard main dining room, I don’t think you’re going to get an amazing dinner, but you might get a pretty good dinner, and on the Gala night they were probably better than pretty good. As I mentioned, we dined in Les Dunes, which is for the Aurea suites, that’s something we don’t normally do. I thought the restaurant was nicer than the standard dining rooms, and it was a more attractive and more intimate layout. We were seated quickly every time, so I had no nasty long wait, like I had on Celebrity a couple times recently. And again the service was quite good. I also noticed that the headwaiters were very attentive and they, and I think the maître D, would come around quite a bit to the tables to make sure everything was OK, but not only that, but they really seemed to help with things like clearing of the tables more than I’ve seen on other ships. So, my girlfriend called it teamwork, and I feel like there’s a lot of teamwork on the ship in the restaurants. There is a big emphasis on scanning for the wine list and scanning for your menu choices, so they may have paper menus, but they really don’t like handing those out and it takes some leg pulling to get one. I guess it’s OK. It’s certainly more hygienic and quicker perhaps, but you do need to scan the entire menu to make sure that you don’t miss some choices at the bottom, i.e. things that are always available that might be hidden, or easier to miss, when you are using the scanned menus on your smart phone. I also think this could be an issue for perhaps older cruisers, who are less technologically inclined. Touching very briefly on new venues, I think pizza burger is a hit. What I like about it is that it’s open some hours when you might just want to grab a snack, and it’s pretty easy to get in and out of there without bumping into a ton of people, so if some of the changes they made, some of which were good, and some of them were maybe not as good, I think the pizza burger addition was a smart choice. I mentioned that we got into the Speakeasy, and had a very limited capacity. We definitely enjoyed it and I think it was really unique and creative of MSC to put something like this on the ship. I don’t know if there’s a way to expand it, or if it’s better to just leave it quite small, intimate, and hidden. We spent our New Year’s Eve there, and I think my girlfriend might’ve liked something that was a little more lively. I am a little more of a dud, so to me, it was not bad. I’m not as much into dancing and yelling with thousands of strangers, but that’s just me. And along the lines of dancing and drinking, and partying, one thing I like about MSC is, the passengers are usually very well-behaved. I can’t think of a single example where I saw people, yelling, or fighting, or really acting badly. I used to sail more often on Carnival at one time, and it was very common to see drunken and rowdy passengers. I do think that Europeans handle their alcohol better than my fellow Americans, so maybe that also has something to do with it, since the passengers are largely European. But even taking that into account, I get the feeling that MSC has a very low tolerance for nonsense, which, in my view, is a good thing. I also feel like the MSC employees, in general, seem happy, and when I first started cruising with them in 2015 or 2016, they didn’t seem happy at all. I asked one guy from Indonesia, how he likes working for MSC and he smiled and he said that he thought he was very well treated and well paid, and he worked on Norwegian before, and he much preferred MSC. So I’m glad that they are apparently treating their employees better, and I think the in final product, that does show. We also really miss not having a grand atrium as they do in other MSC ships, and I think I know why they did it, just because there are so many passengers on this thing that they probably don’t want to have so many congregating in one area. But those grand atriums coupled with the Swarovski crystal staircases, gave the ship an elegance that this ship doesn’t have, even though the design is very nice in many ways. OK kind of long, but obviously we’re wrapping things up. Let me know if you have any further questions.

In most venues, you will just pay the difference. But you should ask because there are some exceptions. For example, in Raj’s polo teahouse, if it’s one of the tea-based cocktails, you have to pay for the whole thing. But let’s say you go to Elixir and you want a premium craft cocktail, you will just pay the difference. The same situation with most of the restaurants and lounges. It’s a little bit confusing, and I wish they would standardize this, because it’s something that I think should be simple and easy to understand. I feel the same way about the differences and restaurants between the free dinner for the diamond members and the free dinner for let’s say the two or three specialty dining packages. There are differences and it would be nice if they were standardized. I touched on this earlier, but in terms of Raj, I think you can make your own cocktail pretty much by just ordering one of the super strong tea infused liquors that are included in the package (37% to over 70% alcohol, so I’m not kidding about how strong they are) and then order a tea that is included in the package and mix the two together with some ice. There are also some non- alcoholic tea drinks that I think are included in the package, but I’m not 100% sure that they are. If so, you could order those, since they have several ingredients in them already, but not alcohol, and then, on the side, order the tea-infused alcohol and make a little little bit more complicated cocktail that they wouldn’t likely charge you for. But the short of it is when you are in doubt make sure you ask.

We disembark tomorrow morning and I’m pretty sure that it is an option. If I find out something different, I’ll let you know, but I can’t remember being on a cruise where they didn’t have an early self disembarkation option.

Here is tonight‘s gala dinner. We thought it was pretty good, although the temperature of the beef was not as warm as I would like, but the flavor was actually excellent. We started with an escargot in a puff pastry, which I didn’t like, and I do like escargot. The problem I thought was that the snails didn’t have a lot of flavor to them and the puff pastry really kind of overwhelmed it. I also tried the seafood bisque that was average I would say, but I ate it. Again, the beef tenderloin was quite good. It was very tender and it was cooked perfectly. I had baked Alaska, and my girlfriend had some kind of a mint and chocolate dessert and both of them were very good. It’s our next to the last night dinner on the ship. Back to the real world shortly. The service in the Les Dunes restaurant for Aurea suite guests has been excellent.

All of our excursions are booked directly through MSC. That’s usually what we do, because we find the pricing pretty good, and I also like the fact that if there’s a problem, the ship is going to wait for you. I know others don’t feel the same way, and that’s fine. But I think the pricing on MSC is better than most of the competition, based on my experience.

I did make copies of the menu from Raj Polo teahouse. If you go, be sure to ask what your drink package covers and what it doesn’t cover, because it’s not obvious and it’s a bit confusing.