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

[JamieLogical]

Oops! I forgot the picture of my spanks and 2 swimsuit bottoms! Those were also in the bundle.

 

Edited April 8, 2023 by JamieLogical

[JamieLogical]

Sitting on the plane now, ready to take off. Just a three hour flight and we will be in Orlando.

[JamieLogical]

Landed safely in Orlando. Now to retrieve our luggage!

[JamieLogical]

Got our bags without much incident other than a bit of a long wait for any of the luggage to show up from our flight. Lyft to the hotel was quick and easy. Very happy to see MCO doesn't make you walk 8 miles it takes a bus to get to the rideshare pickup area. We literally got picked up right outside the door by our baggage claim. Grateful for not having to hike, since it's 90 degrees here!

[ESCARGO]

5 hours ago, JamieLogical said:

Got our bags without much incident other than a bit of a long wait for any of the luggage to show up from our flight. Lyft to the hotel was quick and easy. Very happy to see MCO doesn't make you walk 8 miles it takes a bus to get to the rideshare pickup area. We literally got picked up right outside the door by our baggage claim. Grateful for not having to hike, since it's 90 degrees here!

Jamie, I'm so glad you made it to Orlando!  Go out, have a few drinks and a nice dinner! Tomorrow you board one of my favorite ships!  🛳🧳🥰🍹🥰🍷I'll see you in 2 weeks! 🤗

Ted

[JamieLogical]

It's cruise day!!!! Last night we went the The Florida Mall to get some walking in, to get some food in, and to search for swim bottoms.

 

Both my husband and I stupidly packed out swim shorts into our bundles, which as I have discussed before, aren't really tailored to unpacking until you are unpacking for real. Our bundles are in the larger bags we plan to check with the porters at the cruise terminal, so we won't have access to them until whenever they get delivered to our room. Meanwhile, we paid a whole lot of extra money for a room with a hot tub on the balcony. So we definitely want to be able to take advantage of that sooner than later.

 

So we both bought some swim shorts at the mall so we can keep them in our carry-on backpacks and use our hot tub as soon as we get access to our room.

 

Will post photos from ship once we are onboard!

[nycfa]

Yay! Bon voyage can’t wait to hear more. 

[vacation44]

Have a wonderful cruise!

[amygutman]

2 hours ago, JamieLogical said:

It's cruise day!!!! Last night we went the The Florida Mall to get some walking in, to get some food in, and to search for swim bottoms.

 

Both my husband and I stupidly packed out swim shorts into our bundles, which as I have discussed before, aren't really tailored to unpacking until you are unpacking for real. Our bundles are in the larger bags we plan to check with the porters at the cruise terminal, so we won't have access to them until whenever they get delivered to our room. Meanwhile, we paid a whole lot of extra money for a room with a hot tub on the balcony. So we definitely want to be able to take advantage of that sooner than later.

 

So we both bought some swim shorts at the mall so we can keep them in our carry-on backpacks and use our hot tub as soon as we get access to our room.

 

Will post photos from ship once we are onboard!

We were silly and spent the whole first day waiting to use the hot tub because we didn't know we could turn it on / fill it ourselves. 

There will be a spigot - flip it backwards and "voila" - literally the easiest thing to do. So - if not filled, turn on the spigot immediately as it takes a while to get to "start those bubbles" level!!!

Have a wonderful cruise - will be following you here and on the NCL Boards for the B2B!

Warmest, Amy

[CruizinSusan70]

Best of luck.  Will be on the Meraviglia out of Brooklyn in July.  Want to see your perspective.

YouTubers Parodeejay just did a 4/3 B2B.  On the 4 they stayed in a Bella balcony and on the 3 they were in an inside in the Yacht Club.  Of course the experience was at opposite ends of the spectrum.

[JamieLogical]

We are on the ship! Got to the terminal around 10:45. There seemed to be a lot of people still coming off the ship and boarding busses and shuttles to leave, so it was kind of a mix of embarking and disembarking passengers outside. No line outside. No line to speak of for security. Check-out had a line, despite us being Aurea. And right as we were literally the next ones in ones in line, they stopped checking people in, because the seating area was completely full.

 

We didn't have to wait too long though, maybe 8-10 more minutes because they started boarding people and the seating started clearing out. We got checked in and we're boarding group 15.

 

We sat down at 11:20 and then stepped into the ship at 11:47. So just about exactly an hour to board.

 

Once onboard, we checked one of the onboard credit terminals and verified my credit card was linked up. Then we went to Ocean Cay and made out specialty dining reservations. Then it was off to the buffet for lunch.

[DGP1111]

8 hours ago, JamieLogical said:

We are on the ship! 

 

Bon Voyage!!  I hope you'll have the same overall wonderful onboard experience that I recently did (debarked last Sunday). 

It was my first-ever MSC experience, despite being a very frequent cruiser. The few onboard 'bumps' were easily overshadowed by other things of extreme excellence.

The atrium Infinity Bar was always a quality experience, and less busy than I'd expected, but I found the best, and most attentive, service at the Casino Bar.  Always felt welcome ... once I got past walking over that bizarre floor with the strange light effect. 

If you have the opportunity/time, I highly encourage catching the atrium stage performance(s) by the Italian jazz trio (vocal, piano, bass) who are simply magnificent. 

Enjoy!!

[JamieLogical]

Well, yesterday was overall a great cruise experience! The only downer was that my husband wasn't feeling great. He has a migraine and ended up feeling pretty nauseous between that and the rough seas once we got underway.

 

We had lunch in the buffet. I felt like the selection was more than adequate and pretty much the same as I have experienced on other lines. Nothing was glaringly missing for me. I had a slice of pizza, some cheese, some chorizo, and some beef stir fry. I would say the stir fry was my favorite of those choices. Not surprising. I have always found the Asian and Indian foods on the buffet to be among the best options in terms of flavor and quality.

 

We followed the tips of many bloggers and vloggers before us and went straight to the back. It was definitely less crowded and the outdoor seating was practically empty. So we had a nice, quiet space to avoid the madness.

 

After lunch we headed to the Edge bar for our first drinks of the cruise. We sat at the bar next to a solo traveler who was on her second cruise. She had been dragged onto a Virgin Voyages cruise by a friend and caught the cruising bug, so I hope she really enjoys this one.

 

Bar service was decent. Certainly not any worse than I would expect to see on embarkation afternoon on any cruise. Especially since the Edge bar has a lot of seating and is one of the first spaces you encounter upon boarding. I am sure we could have found even better service had we explored and gone to a more remote location. We managed to drink three drinks each there, so certainly not bad!

 

Also, for anyone curious about drink pricing and the packages, we have the Easy Plus package and were not charged extra for any of the $10 drinks listed. The prices *were* updated on the PDF versions of the menu we downloaded with the QR codes at the bar.

 

That reminds me, I was able to get on the wifi without much incident. Guess I was lucky because every time we walked by the internet desk there was a long line.

 

After some drinks, rooms were ready, so we went to finally drop off our carry-ons and take some pictures/video of our room. The hot tub on the balcony had been filled, but it was not up to temperature yet. Being only about 69 degrees outside, it did not seem appealing to jump bright in. We decided to let it keep warming up.

 

We met our room steward, Dewa, and he was fantastic. I had left him a note about needing extra towels and hangers, as well as unlocking and emptying the mini fridge so we could store water in there. He came right back with a little bag on a cart to empty the fridge into and then right after that he came back with hangers and towels.

 

After checking out the room and dropping off our stuff, we checked out another bar. The Meraviglia Lounge. The bar service there was great. It even came with a show! Our 12 year old bartender did all sorts of tricks while mixing our drinks. Certainly rivaled the performances at the Martini bar on Celebrity.

 

I met another solo traveler while sitting at this lounge. She had been on MANY cruises.

 

By this time, my husband wasn't feeling great, so he decided to go lay down until muster drill, which was supposed to begin at 4:30. Muster definitely works a little differently on MSC than other lines I've been on post COVID. Everyone needs to go back to their staterooms and tune to Channel 5 on their TVs. You pick a language. There is an announcement over the PA and then you watch a video on the TV. At the end of the video, there is a number on the screen that you need to dial from your stateroom phone. Then, they call people deck by deck to go down to their muster stations to have their cards scanned.

 

My husband slept through all the pre-muster announcement and the video, but I dragged him out of bed to get his card scanned when our deck was called. For the duration of the drill, the elevator are locked out, so I was very glad out room is only on deck 9 and our muster station was the theatre on deck 6. Only had to climb three flights to get back to our room.

 

After muster, we decided to check out the hot tub, which was now at least up to "warm bath" temperature. It was great! It was a bit overfull, so water and foam splashed all over our balcony, but it was still really really nice and I can't wait to get back in there!

 

We did eventually get out and get dressed for dinner. I remembered reading that there is no real bar service in the MDRs and only wine is available. So we stopped back by the Meraviglia Lounge for drinks on our way to dinner. There was live band in there by that point and they sounded really great, playing some classic rock.

 

We brought our drinks with us to the Panorama dining room, which is the assigned MDR for Aurea. We got a table for two right up against the window, right at the exact rear of the ship, which was awesome for sailaway, which was scheduled for 7:00. It was about 6:40 when we were seated.

 

Our waiter, Siva, was awesome and he told us he would save this table for us every night and just to let him know ahead of time when we were going to be using our specialty dining.

 

They had a special Easter dinner menu, see pics below. I ordered the scallops and the poppyseed puff pastry for appetizers. My husband ordered the cream of asparagus soup. For our entrees, I had the ravioli and he had the lamb. We shared the Grandma's chocolate cake for dessert. For me, the appetizers and dessert were excellent. The ravioli was just okay. The cheese and spinach filling was very dense and dry. My husband loved his lamb.

 

We sailed away during dinner, but it wasn't very pretty. It was a dreary, cold day in Port Canaveral and the port is pretty ugly, so not too great a sail away, but still happy to have the table we did!

 

My husband was really feeling poorly by the end of dinner, which did take a little longer than we would have liked, but was still WAY faster than any of our MDR meals on Princess. I stayed for my coffee, but he headed back to the room.

 

After dinner I went to the casino for a while and paid my tithes to the Sun God. Was very happy to see they do have my Sun God machine onboard and it's even in the non-smoking section!

 

That was it for the night. I will post photos below.

 

Day's Drinks: Mojito, Mimosa Blossom, Bailey's Alexander, Moscow Mule, Mojito X2

[JamieLogical]

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited April 10, 2023 by JamieLogical

[L1211]

On 4/3/2023 at 12:14 PM, JamieLogical said:

 

I understand how the dining packages work. I have seen the separate menus for them with the limited items. As I understand it, if we do want any of the a la carte menus, we only pay 50% of the price for those with the package.

Interested in your experience.  Was just in the Mera last month and learned that only a replacement item was 50% off, not additional items.  Interesting  clarification we leaned while aboard.  Not that it really mattered, three courses were all we could eat and then some! Loved BC - easily comparable to Cagney’s or Chops Grille. Enjoy!!

[L1211]

Hey Jamie, thanks for sharing your cruise!  I’m curious how you got water in your hot tub immediately.  Took me two days to get my daughter’s filled.  I won’t relive the grief - ridiculous!  But worth it- she has her friend absolutely loved it.  Best cruise experience yet according to DD! And the light from them that balcony was amazing!  Enjoy!!! 

[Steff79]

30 minutes ago, JamieLogical said:

 

 

is the blue box the MSC Perfume or what is that? ( or the room Perfume, don´t know the exact english word for ) did you get that for free and why?

 

Have a great cruise.

 

 

 

 

 

 

30 minutes ago, JamieLogical said:

 

Edited April 10, 2023 by Steff79

[JamieLogical]

44 minutes ago, L1211 said:

Hey Jamie, thanks for sharing your cruise!  I’m curious how you got water in your hot tub immediately.  Took me two days to get my daughter’s filled.  I won’t relive the grief - ridiculous!  But worth it- she has her friend absolutely loved it.  Best cruise experience yet according to DD! And the light from them that balcony was amazing!  Enjoy!!! 

 

I assume the room steward filled it for us? It does have a faucet, so I had just intended to fill it myself, if it weren't filled already.

[JamieLogical]

31 minutes ago, Steff79 said:

 

is the blue box the MSC Perfume or what is that? ( or the room Perfume, don´t know the exact english word for ) did you get that for free and why?

 

Have a great cruise.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

It is a scent diffuser and I think it was included with the Aurea experience. It smells nice. We put it in our living room area.

[Ottawa_Cruiser]

Sounds great so far! I hope your hubby is feeling better today! I know migraines well and they are awful.

[JamieLogical]

1 minute ago, Ottawa_Cruiser said:

Sounds great so far! I hope your hubby is feeling better today! I know migraines well and they are awful.

 

He is doing MUCH better today we slept in until our room service breakfast was delivered just before 7:00, which is crazy late for him. Really hoping the extra sleep will help for today.

 

So far the cruise has been great. I keep looking for all the things people complain about on MSC and haven't found them yet. It's the exact opposite of my Princess sailing in December when I kept looking for all the things people love about Princess and couldn't find one.

 

 

[Ottawa_Cruiser]

@JamieLogical so glad to hear he's doing much better today. Enjoy! I'll be keeping a close watch on this thread for your live review. 

[insidecabin]

2 hours ago, L1211 said:

Interested in your experience.  Was just in the Mera last month and learned that only a replacement item was 50% off, not additional items.  Interesting  clarification we leaned while aboard.  Not that it really mattered, three courses were all we could eat and then some! Loved BC - easily comparable to Cagney’s or Chops Grille. Enjoy!!

That's how it works on Virtuosa , swap out for a 50%, additional full price.

Should do most people as many main swaps are bigger than on the dining experience choices.

[garrymorere]

Glad to hear you are enjoying!  My mother and I had a wonderful week 3 weeks back on the Meraviglia and agreed, couldn't find a majority of the issues that have been expressed!  Not to say they didn't happen, but minus sporadic small hiccups here and there, had a fantastic week.  Enjoy the rest! 

[JamieLogical]

Had two mimosas and a mimosa blossom before I remembered I have a job interview at 1:30. I am cut off for the rest of the morning!