MandyMooToo

Well, every good thing must come to an end at some point I guess. We are having breakfast in the YC restaurant, looking out over the water. It’s dark but beautiful! We have had such an amazing time on this cruise. There is definitely another MSC cruise in our future. I will do a short wrap up here of pros and cons and end my live review. Cons first as there aren’t many: internet isn’t as good as other lines; hot tubs close early; not allowed to order pizza and bring it into the Top Sail lounge (several of us wanted to just hang out last night and snack on a pizza for our last night but the crew said it wasn’t allowed to being pizza into Top Sail—odd since they have snacks out basically all day there but, oh well). Pros: amazing crew (I don’t think any of them sleep more than 4 or 5 hours a night, they are everywhere all the time); food was terrific; ship is beautiful; cabins are beautiful; so clean everywhere; Yacht Club itself is just an exceptional experience; never any crowds or lines on the ship; embarking/disembarking super smooth (even though we had a bit of a wait to get on the ship); great ship layout and easy to get around. I am sure I am leaving things out but we are overall very pleased with our first cruise on MSC. Thank you for reading my live review and I hope you all have an amazing next cruise!

In Nassau today, or last port. Cloudy and rainy all day. Our group took a taxi to John Watling’s and did a tour. We walked back to town where some went back to the ship and some remained in town. We did some shopping and had lunch at the Bearded Clam. Headed back to the ship to take advantage of our spa access and used the sauna, thelasso pool and the salt therapy room. So nice and relaxing. It would nice though, if people would maybe keep their voices down a bit so everyone could have a nice, chill break but it is what it is I guess, (pics of the salt therapy room added). Due to the nasty rain we will head to the Top Sail lounge and hang out for a while before getting ready for our last dinner in YC. I admit that we are having feels of regret about the cruise we have scheduled later in the year on another line now. We shall see how it plays out I guess!

So yesterday we spent most of the day at the YC pool. Lunch at the pool buffet and just lounge’s in the pool with friends and has cocktails until time to get ready for dinner. The lunch buffet this far has been really good. Lots of grilled fish, cold salads, meats and cheeses (with the always available burger and hot dog option). The bar service was slow for a little while and some people started getting pissy and rude. They had only two bar tenders to cover everyone at the YC pool area and it was during lunch too so the bar was packed. I’m not sure why they would have so many servers walking around taking drink orders when they didn’t have enough bar tenders to serve the ones sitting at the bar. But whatever! It wasn’t as though any of us had to be anywhere so waiting for a little bit was fine🤣 We wound up meeting friends in the Top Sail for drinks and snacks before dinner and then ate on the YC restaurant again. None of us were super exited about the menu offering so most of the table went with the filet again. A couple of the men ordered two entrees (no up charge) and said they were both good (scallops and butter chicken were the additional choices they made). Back to the Top Sail for an after dinner drink and then on to the illusionist show. The show was cute but if I’m being honest, it wasn’t amazing or magical or anything. He did a few tricks that were interesting but mostly used people from the audience for light comedy along with his tricks. We left when it was over and made our way back to our cabins to sleep before our last port of the cruise, Nassau. We normally plan to stay onboard for Nassau as we have been there so many times but it has been a while since we’ve been there and we haven’t seen the new port area so we will get off and have a go at it!

I hate that your experience was poor. We have had a great time so far. I know there have been many complaints about the food but we have been pleasantly surprised at the offerings. I’m sure some of it is due to being in YC and because of that I don’t think we would want to try MSC without being in the YC.

I did post pics of my cabin already, they are on the first page of posts. We are pretty chill travelers, good food and drinks, clean facilities and polite crew are all we really care about. Cruising for us is relaxing so we try not to get worked up about anything and we no longer attempt to go on every excursion or see every show, etc. There will always be things we may not like (internet issues) but it would have to be pretty darn serious for us to truly complain.

Breakfast at YC buffet at the pool. Nice little variety, including made to order eggs and omelets. Short day in the port so we are grabbing a quick bite and going back to Ocean Cay for a little while. Not very hungry since we ordered pizza late, lol. It was good but (as many others have said) they didn’t send the right pizza. But it was good and hot and took less than 30 minutes to be delivered to our cabin so that’s a win! Also, I reported last night that the light show was canceled. They made an announcement saying the engineers had been working on it for hours but they couldn’t get it going. This morning when we got up other stated that they got it going at about midnight so I guess we missed it in the end. I’m sure there are plenty of YouTube videos of it though, lol.

Juan has done a good job. He was also a server at Ocean House yesterday so we have spent some time with him. Our cabin is 16039. Great layout and it feels really big compared to interiors on RCCL.

I am 5’ 5” and the shower is fine. Bending to have your legs is slightly tricky but as I said before, most cruise ship showers aren’t massive! My husband is 6’ 2” and manages just fine too. No complaints. Yes, I agree that the food complaints are likely from those not in YC. We are loving it but I hate to think the difference between the classes is so much that people feel they are eating subpar meals.

Tonight was tropical night, my husband and our friend dressed in cute tropical shirts. We surprised them with matching shirts, us wives likely found it more amusing than they did, ha ha. Dinner was YC dining room again tonight. Crab cake appetizer was excellent, French salad, not so much. The filet was cooked perfectly and the Caribbean rum cake with coconut ice cream was on point and very good. Unfortunately, the light show was canceled tonight (no idea why but I didn’t really ask) so we wandered around and did some onboard shopping and then headed back to the cabin to unwind and relax. Maybe a pizza later if we stay awake long enough!

Don’t be anxious! It has been lovely. Any issue we’ve had has been minor and if I was not doing a live review here I probably wouldn’t have mentioned them to anyone.

I do not but I will try to remember to ask tonight at dinner.

I don’t remember for sure but I think it was around 8:30am or 9am.

We didn’t have issue walking the stairs but it seemed that many were unhappy and did the drill today.

On Ocean Cay, beautiful facilities and great weather. Lunch at Ocean House was lobster rolls and crème caramel. Drinks are…okay but lunch was very good. Shuttle stops running at 3:30 but we can remain on the island until about 11:30pm.

I think it was deck 6.

Docked at Ocean Cay today. Weather looks promising so far, hot and partly cloudy. We are having coffee and a small snack before meeting our butler to get off the ship and explore the island. Lots of little choices for breakfast or snacks. The YC dining room is open for a full breakfast or Top Sail lounge for the small snacks and excellent lattes.

The shower has a rain fall shower head, it is a good size too, and a hand sprayer. It is, like most cruise ship showers, still on the small side but the shape is good. I haven’t tried to shave my legs in it yet so don’t know how well that will go over, lol, but I can report back!

To pick up where I left off, we headed to the YC pool area and took a look around. It was raining so we didn’t stay out very long but the whole area looks nice and well maintained. The hot tub has warm water, not super hot but not cool/luke warm at all and the buffet looks great. Due to the nasty weather we made our way back to the Top Sail lounge and commenced to drinking and chatting. Made some friends there and had dinner together before going to the casino for a bit (our friends enjoy the casino, we may spend $20 or so there and then we’re out). Watched some people play at the table for a little while and then we headed to our cabin to unwind before bed. So as I said in a reply earlier, not much to complain about so far. We met our butler, Juan Carlos, shortly before the muster drill and he was very nice. The guest services staff in the YC have been hard at work and were also quite friendly. Many, many people lining up with questions, complaints and or requests. We asked about the internet and upgrading and went ahead and paid the fee ($40 for both phones for the whole cruise) but it didn’t really help. Guest Services said we could stream and upload pics and such with the upgrade but I’m finding it isn’t much better than what we had. Pictures don’t send at all and we have yet to be able to download pics that the other couple in our group sent while exploring the ship themselves. Not a huge issue but still disappointing as other lines have much better internet. We also have not been able to cast to our TV, though we were allegedly supposed to be able to. The butler said we needed an HDMI cable, lol. We like to watch TV before bed to unwind and sometimes when we get ready for dinner so this is a bummer, but again, not a major issue. As for the request form we filled out ahead of time, it was useless, just as most people posted here, ha ha. We had a bottle of red wine in our cabin, I don’t like any reds except a sweet Merlot, so I asked that it be traded out. Juan Carlos said that’s what we asked for and I said no, we asked for the bottle of vodka. He said we could trade the red for white if he could get it so we said fine and he was able to swap them out. Not getting the vodka is whatever but really, why have us fill out a form if no one uses it? Pillows weren’t as requested either but the bedding is nice and comfortable regardless. A couple of things about the food. I read so many complaints about how terrible the food is on this ship but we have had a great dining experience so far. Lunch entree was very good, appetizer was not to my liking, and the dessert was good too. At dinner we all had excellent meals and though the staff sometimes gets drink orders wrong, they did a terrific job of keep the six of us refilled and happy. The snack on Top Sail were also really, really good. I don’t know if a complaint on the food at dinner aside from the chocolate cake, it was very dry, you almost had to take a drink with every bite. But the rest was delicious. One more thought before I retire for the rest of the night, butler service seems to have been hit or miss in the comments here and on social media but so far so good for us. Juan Carlos came to our cabin and went over lots of small details and asked if there was anything else we needed. He left his card and suggested we pick a time to disembark at the first port stop so he could escort us off the ship. We did so and I will report back as to how it went. A few photos of our YC interior cabin as someone in another thread asked what the layout was.

So far it has been great! A few minor things that we haven’t been pleased with but overall, not much to complain about. Our group of four is contemplating booking a 7 night if service and such continues to be top notch!

For muster drill we had to be in our cabins at 3:45pm and were then instructed to watch the video. After the video an announcement was made to call a number and then take out cards to the designated muster station. We are able bodied so no big deal but there was a lot of complaining about having to take the stairs and go to a MS so far down. Our cabin is on deck 16 and our muster station was in the casino on deck 7. But it was fairly quick to get there and get scanned.

Lined up outside their terminal at blue YC tent to drop off luggage and checkin. Waited a decent amount of time but there was a group of 15 checking in together so that probably added to the wait. After dropping luggage we were directed to the security line and then to the YC checkin area. We checked in with docs at a podium and then signed in at the YC waiting area. After another ten or 15 minutes we were called up to do the real checkin and get wristbands, etc. Our pictures were taken again and we had to turn in the health forms and show our passports again. Afterward we waited to board. There was not a lot of direction so many people were coming into the waiting area and not signing in so their check ins were pushed back even further. After a good 20-30 minutes we saw several people leaving the waiting area and boarding. No one had said anything so I got up and asked and was told we could get in line to board (we had been told someone would call us up when it was time to board). Boarding was fairly quick and we made it YC where we were greeted with drinks and snacks. A crew member came around and went over the YC benefits and told us we could go to lunch (YC dining room or pool deck buffet). We chose the dining room and had a terrific lunch. I failed to take pics of the food but the filet was perfect! Our cabins were ready at 1:30 so we dropped off our stuff and all our luggage was waiting for us there. We are off to the YC pool area! More to come!

Waiting on the shuttle to the port now. Reading reports from B2Bs that there are still “hundreds of people in the buffet waiting to get off” so it may be a bit before anyone boards. No worries here, we aren’t in the predicted snow storm at home so we are good!

Hi! Yes, AirTags helped quite a bit this time. We were directed to a long line at the baggage service office but right beside it was the actual baggage claim area. All of the bags were just piled up in the middle of the room. Not in an office, as Delta said. So we went searching with the air tags and found both bags (they were in different piles in different places). It was fine, just slightly stressful. It we made it!

Finally on the second leg of our flight to Orlando (out of ATL this leg). Slight delay as the planes are backed up. Of course they are 😑 I am not a good flyer, ha ha. Bundle of nerves! Especially since I got the notification that our bags were sent ahead of us hours ago. I only fly a couple of times a year so this was not something I am familiar with, and was somewhat concerning, but the Delta gate agent assures me this is a common practice and our bags will be waiting in the baggage office when we arrive. Cross your fingers for me…😳

Based on the responses from my prior post, it seems there is interest in a live review of Seashore. I have the YC included internet package, but may upgrade when we get onboard, so we shall see how well this works! Some basic info about us and this cruise: Travel group of 4, myself, husband and another couple that we have cruised with for years. We are all in our 40s-50s and typically cruise with RCCL (though we have all tried Carnival once or twice). We booked this cruise on a whim due to the price and being curious about MSC. My husband and I are in a YC interior cabin (we prefer interiors for the darkness and because they are usually easy to get low and midship for motion sickness avoidance). Obviously this is our first MSC cruise and we are exited to try something new. We fly out this morning as we always try to go down at least one day ahead, just in case. Ask any questions and I will try to answer them as we go along and I will post our experiences. Thanks for reading 😊