JamieLogical's Live from the MSC Meraviglia 4/9 (semi-B2B)

[JamieLogical]

Hi everyone! I am very excited to soon be doing my first live blog from an MSC ship, the Meraviglia. I am doing a semi-B2B and plan to post about both sailings on this thread. The first sailing is the 4/9-4/20 repositioning sailing out of Port Canaveral, going to Aruba and Curacao, and ending in Brooklyn, NY.  I will be doing that sailing with my husband in an Aurea Balcony Suite with a hot tub on the balcony! The ship is then porting in NYC for two days, presumably to take on new crew and provisions and maybe do some press tours before its new homeport inaugural sailing. We will be spending those two days with some friends who live in Brooklyn (those who followed my Emerald Princess live blog in December know @megaphone84 and her husband from that cruise). I will then be sailing solo in a Fantastica Balcony cabin on the 4/22-4/29 round trip cruise to the Bahamas. The solo sailing is a bit of a "reunion" with several solo sailors I met on my October NCL Breakaway cruise, including @ESCARGO and @reeinaz.

 

This past weekend I did an inventory of everything on my packing list to make sure I stocked up on anything I needed. A $300 grocery bill and a $200 Amazon bill later and I think we have everything! It's tough packing for 12 days (we are flying down to Orlando a day early) with no intention of doing laundry onboard. I have heard some horror stories about MSC's laundry service. In addition to it being expensive, it seems they are prone to damaging/shrinking clothes. So I am going to try to do the whole first sailing without doing any laundry and then hopefully be able to do laundry at my friends' place in between cruises.

 

We are flying Frontier down to Orlando on 4/8. It is our first (and probably last) time flying Frontier. We initially booked it because it was a direct flight. Direct flights are rare from our home airport of Rochester, NY. Almost every destination requires a layover for us unless it is a major hub we are flying into. Frontier was one of two airlines in Rochester that flies some direct flights to airports in Florida, because we have a lot of snowbirds here. It also appeared to be pretty cheap, but we learned quickly that looks can be deceiving. By the time we paid extra to select our seats and bring bags (carry-ons aren't even included), we paid as much or more as we would have for a Delta flight. But it did still have the advantage of being direct. The reason I say this will likely be our last Frontier flight is that the airline announced it is leaving the Rochester market in May.

 

We are staying at the Avid Hotel in Orlando and taking a GO Port shuttle to the cruise port the next day. I will definitely be posting to let you guys know how that all goes.

 

My husband will be flying home from JFK on Delta on 4/22 after staying those two extra days with me in Brooklyn. I will be taking the exact same flight a week later when my solo cruise disembarks.

 

I will post here about my pre-cruise preparations over the next 12 days and then the real fun will begin!

 

[Sugar Magnolia]

Thank you for doing another live review. Hoping you will have a positive experience on MSC as a viable alternative to NCL, though I did enjoy our Halloween cruise on the Breakaway. It was the largest solo group I had ever encountered on a ship.

[nhtravels]

I will be following along!  I'm curious to hear your thoughts on MSC.  We are a little tempted to give it a try, as we have been offered a few comped cruises, but have yet to pull the plug.

[smokeykat]

Will be following! Going on the Meraviglia May 21st. to the 28th 🙂

I would really appreciate it if you can post the daily schedules for the 2nd half of your B2B Caribbean cruise. That's the one we are doing. I am so curious about everything MSC!

[NYcruzzer]

Hi Jamie. We sailed on same cruise with you on NCL. Pretty sure it was the Breakaway to Bermuda after cruising "lockdown" ended. We have a few MSC cruises booked out of NY. Now that MSC and Carnival Venezia are sailing year round from NYC we are taking a much needed break from NCL. 

 

Will be following your VLOGs as we are going on the 5/21 cruise and are hungry for information.

[ESCARGO]

6 hours ago, JamieLogical said:

Hi everyone! I am very excited to soon be doing my first live blog from an MSC ship, the Meraviglia. I am doing a semi-B2B and plan to post about both sailings on this thread. The first sailing is the 4/9-4/20 repositioning sailing out of Port Canaveral, going to Aruba and Curacao, and ending in Brooklyn, NY.  I will be doing that sailing with my husband in an Aurea Balcony Suite with a hot tub on the balcony! The ship is then porting in NYC for two days, presumably to take on new crew and provisions and maybe do some press tours before its new homeport inaugural sailing. We will be spending those two days with some friends who live in Brooklyn (those who followed my Emerald Princess live blog in December know @megaphone84 and her husband from that cruise). I will then be sailing solo in a Fantastica Balcony cabin on the 4/22-4/29 round trip cruise to the Bahamas. The solo sailing is a bit of a "reunion" with several solo sailors I met on my October NCL Breakaway cruise, including @ESCARGO and @reeinaz.

 

This past weekend I did an inventory of everything on my packing list to make sure I stocked up on anything I needed. A $300 grocery bill and a $200 Amazon bill later and I think we have everything! It's tough packing for 12 days (we are flying down to Orlando a day early) with no intention of doing laundry onboard. I have heard some horror stories about MSC's laundry service. In addition to it being expensive, it seems they are prone to damaging/shrinking clothes. So I am going to try to do the whole first sailing without doing any laundry and then hopefully be able to do laundry at my friends' place in between cruises.

 

We are flying Frontier down to Orlando on 4/8. It is our first (and probably last) time flying Frontier. We initially booked it because it was a direct flight. Direct flights are rare from our home airport of Rochester, NY. Almost every destination requires a layover for us unless it is a major hub we are flying into. Frontier was one of two airlines in Rochester that flies some direct flights to airports in Florida, because we have a lot of snowbirds here. It also appeared to be pretty cheap, but we learned quickly that looks can be deceiving. By the time we paid extra to select our seats and bring bags (carry-ons aren't even included), we paid as much or more as we would have for a Delta flight. But it did still have the advantage of being direct. The reason I say this will likely be our last Frontier flight is that the airline announced it is leaving the Rochester market in May.

 

We are staying at the Avid Hotel in Orlando and taking a GO Port shuttle to the cruise port the next day. I will definitely be posting to let you guys know how that all goes.

 

My husband will be flying home from JFK on Delta on 4/22 after staying those two extra days with me in Brooklyn. I will be taking the exact same flight a week later when my solo cruise disembarks.

 

I will post here about my pre-cruise preparations over the next 12 days and then the real fun will begin!

 

Jamie! I am looking forward to your posts on your first MSC meraviglia cruise! 🛳

I am starting to get ready on my packing list! Did some laundry but most will be done by next week. 

Happy Birthday! 🎂🍹🍻🍹🎂

I hope you had a great day with a delicious dinner and good drinks to celebrate your day! 🥳🍻🥳

Ted

[JamieLogical]

15 minutes ago, ESCARGO said:

Jamie! I am looking forward to your posts on your first MSC meraviglia cruise! 🛳

I am starting to get ready on my packing list! Did some laundry but most will be done by next week. 

Happy Birthday! 🎂🍹🍻🍹🎂

I hope you had a great day with a delicious dinner and good drinks to celebrate your day! 🥳🍻🥳

Ted

 

Aw, thanks! I had my usual Tuesday trivia tonight at our local pub. We did not win, but I got a free beer and a free chocolate torte, so that was a win!

[Aldeya]

Thank you so much for doing this vlog! Never tried MSC so your input is much appreciated. The more details the better, I'd love to see the dailies... but first of all enjoy your cruise! 

Edited March 29, 2023 by Aldeya

[pirate4me2]

I will be following along! I pulled the trigger last week and booked my first sailing aboard MSC, I’m excited to try something new in August. Thank you for doing this review. 

[Ottawa_Cruiser]

@JamieLogical Looking forward to your live blog. I've always enjoyed your posts/reviews of NCL ships and much like you, we are taking our first MSC cruise in April.

[jcpc]

@JamieLogical I'm very much looking forward to following your posts.  I've followed all your "Live From" postings on Celebrity board.  I am a long time Celebrity cruiser who will be taking her first MSC

cruise in September (Meraviglia from NY).  I cannot wait to hear your take on MSC.  Have fun!

[JamieLogical]

11 days to go! Today all of our Amazon packages arrived. Unfortunately the shoes I bought to wear with my fancy dress on one of the formal nights are way too big. Not sure I will be able to get another pair in time. I was already a little on the fence about bringing a "gown" for one of the formal nights, so I think this will decide it. I will bring a couple more casual dresses that more than meet the formal night requirements and my husband can dress fancier than me if he wants to.

 

I checked out the MSC for Me app again today and it reminded me that I should definitely make a post about my booking experience, using the MSC web site, and the app. So I will try to put my thoughts/experiences about all of those things together in a post tomorrow.

[KLM3164]

Look forward to reading about your experience on MSC. We normally sail on Princess but just booked our first MSC cruise this week. Our MSC sailing will be in February.

[Megp]

Hi @JamieLogical! Sad I couldn’t join you all on this adventure! Excited to follow along virtually your adventures with MSC! Safe travels and prepping 

[Anastas617]

Looking forward to the report. I'm doing the r/t Brooklyn to Bahamas cruise as a solo in July. 

[JamieLogical]

5 hours ago, Megp said:

Hi @JamieLogical! Sad I couldn’t join you all on this adventure! Excited to follow along virtually your adventures with MSC! Safe travels and prepping 

 

Would have been great if you could have! But with MSC sailing out of NYC now, I am sure we will cross paths on another sailing in the future.

[EllieinNJ]

Hi Jamie.  We also were with you on the Sept. 2021 Breakaway to Bermuda.  Since then we have taken two cruises on Royal Caribbean, one on Carnival, one on Princess and two on NCL.  I think we will also take a break from NCL.  our last cruise with them in February to Bermuda turned out to be a cruise to nowhere with 4500 passengers mostly indoors.  It was very disappointing.

 

We are booked on Meraviglia for October, 2023 and look forward to reading about your adventures.

[JamieLogical]

Okay, I promised a post about my pre-cruise experience(s) with MSC, so here goes!

 

First, a little history. Way back in early 2019, my husband and I decided we would try to book an MSC cruise. The first thing I did was try to get a status match for Voyager's Club. At that time I believe I was Silver with NCL. I was EXTREMELY frustrated and disappointed that my status matched to Classic (lowest level) and I had exactly ONE whole point with MSC. Not sure what the tiers were back then, but right now it takes 2200 points to go from Classic to the next level, Silver, so you can see how I would be disappointed that my (at that time) 5 sailings-worth of points on NCL had matched to one point on MSC.

 

I tried to argue with them. I tried to withdraw my status match application, since you allegedly only get one lifetime match and it seemed like a shame to waste it on one whole point. But they said there was nothing they could do, so that was the start of my battles with MSC customer service.

 

Next up, the actual booking itself. I had nothing but problems. We were trying to book the Seascape for September (this was now March 2019). When I booked, I was supposed to have two discounts applied: 5% for my Classic status and 10% for a promo code I had received by participating in the Bellissima pre-launch activities online. I initially did the booking myself and all went fine. I got a booking confirmation that showed both discounts applied and the correct total. However, later that same night, out of the blue, I got another booking confirmation and that one did not have my 10% promo discount, so the total price was much higher.

 

I spent over a month going back and forth with customer service on the phone multiple times and responding to several email chains and eventually just got fed up and canceled the booking. We were pretty determined never to sail MSC after that whole experience.

 

Fast forward to this past October. I met @ESCARGO on my NCL Breakaway sailing and learned that the Meraviglia was going to soon be homeporting in NYC. He had had great experiences on the Meraviglia before and told me all about them. We had a fantastic time together with the other solo cruisers we met on that cruise. So, when he told me he had booked the first sailing on the Meraviglia out of NYC in April, I looked into pricing and the prospect of joining him.

 

I decided to try to re-submit my status match application. By this time I was Platinum with NCL and I figured the worst that could happen was that they would reject it. But, it got approved and I was matched to Gold with 4300 points. A significant improvement over my one point from before. MSC was definitely looking better in my book.

 

Next up, I booked the 4/22 solo sailing out of NYC and it was only $1007 total with drinks and wifi in a Fantastica Balcony. Hard to beat that pricing! My husband and I started looking at the 4/9 repositioning sailing and pulled the trigger on the Balcony Suite with the hot tub on the balcony. The first cruise I ever took with my husband, we had docked next to an MSC ship (might even have been the Meraviglia?) and my husband saw the hot tubs on some of the balconies and got pretty obsessed with booking a room like that someday. During the COVID shut-down, we learned to not take anything for granted and decided to do some of our "bucket list" stuff sooner than later, like our Alaska cruise in September, our Panama Canal cruise in December, and now this cruise with a hot tub on our balcony.

 

So far, I have to saw the whole process of status match and booking has been much better than it was back in 2019. Fortunately, we haven't had to deal with customer service much at all. I did call them earlier this week to cancel our Sept. 24 sailing and that went smoothly. We decided we wanted to switch to a different room on that sailing and since pricing was similar to what we already had, we thought it would just be way easier to cancel and rebook rather than try to go through customer service to switch rooms. Way too much potential for something to get messed up.

 

Let's talk a little about the website. Booking through the website wasn't too bad at all. It's a little slow and clunky, but so are most cruise line websites. After booking, managing your cruise is definitely NOT a great experience. It's hard to switch between multiple cruises, because of how slow everything is and right away I was having to do that, since I booked two cruises at pretty much the same time.

 

The web check-in was buggy and I had a very hard time getting my security photo uploaded, because photos from my phone were too large. The file size limit is prohibitively tiny. I also had a horrible time getting it to accept my credit card for my onboard payment method. It worked for one of my two sailings, but not the other? It was so weird.

 

There is no way to pre-pay your daily service charge online, which is annoying. I really like to have everything pre-paid so I don't have to worry about it onboard. And I am terrified to call customer service about anything, for fear of them touching my booking and messing something up. So I guess I will just pay that with my onboard balance at the end of the cruise(s).

 

I find it DEEPLY annoying that there are no times listed for excursions. Duration is listed, but not the actual times. I don't feel comfortable booking any of the excursions online because I don't know if they are going to leave at something crazy like 7:00am, run through lunch, run into dinner time, etc. We are planning to meet up with a friend for lunch in Aruba and I am afraid to sign up for any excursions there online, because I don't know if they will interfere with lunch time.

 

The Beverages link at the top was a bit confusing at first, as it was showing the full price of packages even though we have the Easy Plus package included. It did eventually give us an option for just an upgrade to the Premium.

 

Up until a couple of weeks ago, the Specialty Restaurants link at the top for both of my sailings just so "No Items Found". Finally, the specialty dining packages and Carousel shows showed up. I feel like that may have had something to do specifically with the Meraviglia.

 

Also, like NCL, but unlike Celebrity, it does not seem that you can pre-purchase anything with your onboard credit. We have $200 of OBC for our first sailing and I have $100 of OBC for my solo sailing. I guess that will all just get applied to our DSC.

 

I downloaded the app and that leaves a LOT to be desired. You can't log in with your website username/password. You have to log in with your booking number instead, which means having to look that up. Despite what it says, you don't seem to be able to manage your check-in through the app at all. Even once Specialty Dining was showing up (like the website it did not show up until recently), there doesn't seem to be a way to actually make reservations.

 

I am hoping that, like some of the other cruise lines, the app becomes much more useful once actually onboard.

 

 

[Nikita4]

@JamieLogical Is this your first MSC Cruise? You don't need do upload a foto before boarding. They will take a new foto on board, also if you are uploaded one before.

The app is for use on board, and times for excursions are clear the day before. Sometimes are more than one departure time.

 

Status match is only once, that's not normal that yo can match twice per person. Until you are diamond there are no really good perks with MSC.
 

[JamieLogical]

14 minutes ago, Nikita4 said:

@JamieLogical Is this your first MSC Cruise? You don't need do upload a foto before boarding. They will take a new foto on board, also if you are uploaded one before.

The app is for use on board, and times for excursions are clear the day before. Sometimes are more than one departure time.

 

Status match is only once, that's not normal that yo can match twice per person. Until you are diamond there are no really good perks with MSC.
 

 

Yes, this will be my first MSC cruise, which is why I decided to review the pre-cruise experience in my blog as well, since it's different from what I have experienced with other cruise lines. I definitely felt lucky they re-did my status match eventually, since the first status match experience was so disappointing. Now, at least, I have a chance of making it to Diamond someday.

[Nikita4]

It's not totally different from other cruises. MSC is a european cruise line, not american like Norwegian oder X.
We like MSC but also Princess or Carnival. But with MSC to have a good experience we always sail in the YC, the other experiences are not good in my opinion.

[JamieLogical]

Got my hair dyed last night, so that is one more item off my pre-cruise check list! It's a big change from before. Some light, spring colors, just in time for our Easter sailaway.

 

Before:

 

After:

 

My husband started a little bit of packing last night and I put in the request for our mail hold. Still many many items on the to do list for the next week. Only NINE days to go!

[JamieLogical]

This weekend we got the whole house cleaned and took care of some other chores and errands, so we are a bit closer to being ready for the cruise. I still haven't started any packing. I probably won't do laundry until Wednesday or Thursday and then I will start my packing after that. We have social commitments for the next three nights.

 

Only 7 days to go!

[gmbhardy]

On 3/28/2023 at 3:25 PM, JamieLogical said:

Hi everyone! I am very excited to soon be doing my first live blog from an MSC ship, the Meraviglia. I am doing a semi-B2B and plan to post about both sailings on this thread. The first sailing is the 4/9-4/20 repositioning sailing out of Port Canaveral, going to Aruba and Curacao, and ending in Brooklyn, NY.  I will be doing that sailing with my husband in an Aurea Balcony Suite with a hot tub on the balcony! The ship is then porting in NYC for two days, presumably to take on new crew and provisions and maybe do some press tours before its new homeport inaugural sailing. We will be spending those two days with some friends who live in Brooklyn (those who followed my Emerald Princess live blog in December know @megaphone84 and her husband from that cruise). I will then be sailing solo in a Fantastica Balcony cabin on the 4/22-4/29 round trip cruise to the Bahamas. The solo sailing is a bit of a "reunion" with several solo sailors I met on my October NCL Breakaway cruise, including @ESCARGO and @reeinaz.

 

This past weekend I did an inventory of everything on my packing list to make sure I stocked up on anything I needed. A $300 grocery bill and a $200 Amazon bill later and I think we have everything! It's tough packing for 12 days (we are flying down to Orlando a day early) with no intention of doing laundry onboard. I have heard some horror stories about MSC's laundry service. In addition to it being expensive, it seems they are prone to damaging/shrinking clothes. So I am going to try to do the whole first sailing without doing any laundry and then hopefully be able to do laundry at my friends' place in between cruises.

 

We are flying Frontier down to Orlando on 4/8. It is our first (and probably last) time flying Frontier. We initially booked it because it was a direct flight. Direct flights are rare from our home airport of Rochester, NY. Almost every destination requires a layover for us unless it is a major hub we are flying into. Frontier was one of two airlines in Rochester that flies some direct flights to airports in Florida, because we have a lot of snowbirds here. It also appeared to be pretty cheap, but we learned quickly that looks can be deceiving. By the time we paid extra to select our seats and bring bags (carry-ons aren't even included), we paid as much or more as we would have for a Delta flight. But it did still have the advantage of being direct. The reason I say this will likely be our last Frontier flight is that the airline announced it is leaving the Rochester market in May.

 

We are staying at the Avid Hotel in Orlando and taking a GO Port shuttle to the cruise port the next day. I will definitely be posting to let you guys know how that all goes.

 

My husband will be flying home from JFK on Delta on 4/22 after staying those two extra days with me in Brooklyn. I will be taking the exact same flight a week later when my solo cruise disembarks.

 

I will post here about my pre-cruise preparations over the next 12 days and then the real fun will begin!

 

Why don’t you fly out of Buffalo?

[JamieLogical]

3 hours ago, gmbhardy said:

Why don’t you fly out of Buffalo?

 

Buffalo doesn't really have any more direct flights than Rochester does, plus we'd have to pay to park there versus just having friends drop us at the airport or a ~$13 Uber.