Seashore Oct ‘21 - a review, perhaps?

[hamrag]

8 minutes ago, Beamafar said:

Whoops - we weren’t watching YC last night.  I meant ‘TV’.  

We weren't sure whether it was the Champagne, or a heart desire to actually be in YC.....having been on Virtuosa in September, non-YC, then I could certainly relate to that feeling! 

[Beamafar]

It’s very wet in Messina here today.  I expect the ship will be a zoo with everyone confined to indoors.  We have a walking tour booked for this afternoon which will at least get us off for a while. Hopefully the weather will have improved a bit by then. 
 

[sidari]

10 hours ago, CruisingFox27 said:

I think it was the fellow passengers Bea met up with who were YC that hadn't received the drinks. 

Which is what I said in my post.

[sidari]

Bea ... Watch out for the Dolphins when you are leaving Messina, usually see them around and beyond the Lighthouse at the port entrance.

[Beamafar]

On 10/23/2021 at 5:45 PM, CruiseIreland said:

Bon Voyage, Bea! Looking forward to your review. Ken

Cheers, Ken.  Can finally respond to you. 😁

 

Cruise is going great.  Cannot say enough about how fantastic the crew are.  We’re enjoying the entertainment even if they’re butchering a lot of the songs - especially the performers in the atrium area, which we can enjoy from one of our favourite hangouts - Champagne Bar.  But what they’re doing to Beatles songs is nothing less than criminal!  😱

 

(See what I did, there, Ken - I edited your post. 😁😁😉)

Edited October 26, 2021 by Beamafar

[Beamafar]

3 minutes ago, sidari said:

Bea ... Watch out for the Dolphins when you are leaving Messina, usually see them around and beyond the Lighthouse at the port entrance.

Unfortunately we’ll be at dinner, Dave. 

[Beamafar]

Came back from lunch to find this fella sitting on our bed.

 

[Beamafar]

We’ve just been to lunch in the MDR. Mr B spotted someone there that we knew from previous cruises.  Last time we’d seen him he was a Capitaine (he was a waiter the first time we were ever in YC back in 2012).  He is now an asst m’D.   Well, we have just had the most fabulous fun with him.

 

My nickname for him is ‘smile a while’ because he rarely smiled when we first encountered him.  His friend was our waiter in YC and we had a great rapport with him, so ‘smile a while’ tried, on occasion, to mooch in on the action, but I wasn’t having any of it because he had appeared to be a bit grumpy at the outset of the cruise.   We used to have such a laugh at all the antics.

 

Both himself and his friend were on a TA on Divina in 2015 and we had a great time with them then, too.  They were both head waiters at the time. (Both Italian, from Salerno). 
 

So, today, after we got talking to him at the table, he went off and came back with a couple of glasses of bubbly.  I asked if it was Prosecco.  When he said it was, me, being a cheeky pup, said “Geez, we’re drinking VC on this cruise and you bring us this?!”   In fairness, he took it in the spirit in which it was intended. (In other words, I was only having a laugh 🤣🤣). 
 

 

[Beamafar]

Geez, our balcony door isn’t half hard to open!   There are 2 locks - the handle and another on the side panel. 
 

 

Turns out I’m not pushing the handle up enough to release the catch.  You need to continue the force towards the left after turning it upwards. 
 

Anyway, I was going out to the balcony to take a photo of the improved weather conditions.  We now have some patches of blue sky.  I’ll settle for that for our afternoon walking tour, considering how bad it looked this morning. 
 

[perakcruiser]

On 10/22/2021 at 11:13 PM, Beamafar said:

Thanks. Also great to read from you again. Good timing to come back

Better switch to here before someone complains... 😊

 

Yeah, I was not in mood for cruise talk during the pandemic with no cruise in sight and then only cruise with rules hard to take. 

 

But as we can visit the EXPO now and MSC put some ships over there we are back in business. 

 

Right in time for this thread.

 

We always said that some day we’d do the cheapest cruise we could find on an alternative cruise line to MSC to experience, compare and contrast it.

 

Same with us, but it is so difficult! We cruised with TUI Cruises and Celebrity before, but that is a while ago. And now always when we want to try another line, MSC is coming around the corner with a similar route saying "I have an offer for you that you will not be able to reject. And by the way, it is not the Opera, in is our brand new Virtuosa". 

 

Certainly true, so here we are again. Don´t know anything about NCL, looking forward to read your thoughts. MSCs competitors for the EXPO cruise were mainly the two big Germans, AIDA and TUI Cruises. Prices were OK there also, but well, they are German. The companies, not talking about the guests, that is fine everywhere. But we with our infamous "Malaysia boleh" mentality not really suit to these German and US company style while MSCs lack of professionalism and Italian attitude makes us feel comfortable. Having said that I have to admit that I was close to throw the notebook out of the window during the booking process 😄 

 

 

 

 

[Beamafar]

Just got back to our cabin to find the following:

 

 

 

[Beamafar]

On 10/22/2021 at 6:32 PM, Two Wheels Only said:

Pringles?

??   G - I don’t get the funny. 🤷‍♀️

[Beamafar]

On 10/23/2021 at 12:55 AM, CruisingFox27 said:

After so much uncertainty, delighted you're on board and away. Especially delighted that you've the choco nuts to accompany you on your trip 😆

Hi Foxy.  How’s the team doing?  Can’t ask Mr B - it’ll start him off (again) about the Hammers.  Still listening to him going on about the win over Spurs. 🙄

[Beamafar]

At breakfast and lunch there are crew members at the entrances to the buffet and MDR with temperature check gadgets.  Sometimes they scan your cruisecard, other times they don’t.  Yesterday I expected the guy to point the thing at my head to get a read.  When he didn’t I asked was he not going to. He said “If you wish, madam, I will take your temperature “.  So he did, and then showed me the reading as though he thought I wanted to know what it was, when it should have been that he should want to know!

 

There’s no salt and pepper on the tables, but they will bring you the mills if you ask.  Last night we dined in 5th Avenue for the first time (our assigned MDR is Central Park).  I asked for salt & pepper and the waiter brought them over to me. But, instead of putting them on the table, he proceeded to apply salt to my food.  I said thank you, I’ll do it myself. He said no m’am I’ll do it.  I said no I’ll do it.  He said no, I’ll do it!   I said no you won’t.  Now, this is not a policy in this dining room as I had seen another table have salt and pepper brought to them and placed down. 
 

Speaking of MDRs.  Central Park is the MDR for breakfast and lunch so we’d only experienced that one up til yesterday.  I was curious to see the other 2 - 5th Avenue and Tribeca.  As I’ve said, we got a chance to try 5th Avenue.  It’s so much nicer and smaller than CP.  If I had a choice, it’s the one I would go for.  (We’ve been offered the chance to dine there for the remainder of the cruise but we’re going to BC tonight and want to say goodbye to our regular waiter and his asst on our last night).

 

After dinner we headed to Tribeca to check it out while it was open.  Well, all I can say is thank heavens we weren’t assigned to it.  I wouldn’t know where to start to try and describe it.  All I can say is that it doesn’t belong on an MSC ship. It’s big, noisy and horrendous atmosphere.  If it weren’t for the tablecloths on the table, it would be no better than a canteen.  All, of course, IMHO. 

 

 

This is only one small section of it seen from the entrance (though we got a walk around with the asst m’D). 
 

Here’s 5th Avenue 

 

Edited October 27, 2021 by Beamafar

[Beamafar]

No sign of our bottle of bubbly yet.  Such a shame they stopped the practice of having it sitting in the cabin on arrival.  No VC gifts, either. I asked the CC earlier in the cruise what it was and she couldn’t tell me because they hadn’t been brought onboard yet.  Apparently they would be loaded on in Genoa.  Looks like we’ll be getting what’s on offer for the US sailings, so.

[Beamafar]

Missed out on a tin of choc nuts last night.  I hadn’t signed the minibar order form so the steward couldn’t do a refill.  He’s told me to sign several forms and he’ll fill them in so I don’t miss out again 🤣

[Beamafar]

Wouldn’t like to be up on the pool deck this morning.  I’m on the balcony on deck 10 and it’s too loud here!  The whole of Palermo must be able to hear it!

 

 

[Beamafar]

We went to the Cabaret Rouge lounge very late last night.  It’s a terrific venue and it was hopping.   Perfect nightclub venue. 

[ready2cruzagain]

40 minutes ago, Beamafar said:

We went to the Cabaret Rouge lounge very late last night.  It’s a terrific venue and it was hopping.   Perfect nightclub venue. 

So I take it dancing is allowed?  I see on some cruise lines it is not allowed.  I am trying to figure out if we are going to keep our Feb. cruise booked or not. I am not wanting to go on a cruise and sit in a mask the whole time.

[Beamafar]

17 minutes ago, ready2cruzagain said:

So I take it dancing is allowed?  I see on some cruise lines it is not allowed.  I am trying to figure out if we are going to keep our Feb. cruise booked or not. I am not wanting to go on a cruise and sit in a mask the whole time.

The floor was packed!

 

You only have to wear a mask walking around.  TBH it’s not too much of a bother. 
 

They’re removing quite a few of the crew from the ship before she goes Stateside due to how few passengers will be onboard on the Miami sailings.  Bookings from Europe are probably way down due to the ban on travel to the US.  Now that it’s being lifted this may change.   

Edited October 27, 2021 by Beamafar

[sidari]

Bea ... Had heard it was going across empty of passengers.

[Beamafar]

1 hour ago, sidari said:

Bea ... Had heard it was going across empty of passengers.

It is. They need less crew when it gets Stateside as there are so few bookings for Miami sailings because of the US ban.  The first few weeks, for certain, won’t have many from Europe as they won’t book so closely to the early sailing dates.

 

Demand for flights to the US is high  - so are prices.  And getting higher by the day.  We booked ours and the TA told us he’s seeing them soaring.  People won’t pay them to cruise from the US if this trend continues.  Apart from demand driving the higher prices, there’s also the exorbitant hike in fuel prices.  

[sidari]

2 hours ago, Beamafar said:

It is. They need less crew when it gets Stateside as there are so few bookings for Miami sailings because of the US ban.  The first few weeks, for certain, won’t have many from Europe as they won’t book so closely to the early sailing dates.

 

Demand for flights to the US is high  - so are prices.  And getting higher by the day.  We booked ours and the TA told us he’s seeing them soaring.  People won’t pay them to cruise from the US if this trend continues.  Apart from demand driving the higher prices, there’s also the exorbitant hike in fuel prices.  

Bea ... The late decision and expected increase in flight costs was why we cancelled our November Seashore  sailing from Miami along with the uncertainty over the changes on a daily basis of the health protocols.

[CruisingFox27]

14 hours ago, Beamafar said:

Hi Foxy.  How’s the team doing?  Can’t ask Mr B - it’ll start him off (again) about the Hammers.  Still listening to him going on about the win over Spurs. 🙄

 

Poor start due to injuries (terrible early defeat to the Hammers 🙄) but things are improving. I don't think it'll be another title win this season, I'm still going on about that too 🤣

Mr B will be delighted with tonight's win... I'm sure he'll tell you about it if you ask nicely 😉 

 

Thoroughly enjoying your review. 

[sidari]

Bea ... Hope you had a safe journey home, looking forward to hearing more about your trip.