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Meraviglia 11/13-11/19 Bermuda YC Review Live

burdcats

By burdcats,
in MSC Cruises

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burdcats "Live from...." Rare

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Hey everyone! I wanted to post a live review for our first MSC cruise on the Meraviglia leaving out of Brooklyn on the 13th. I will post the complete review summarized here so you don't have to browse all the comments once we are done with our cruise, but for now this will be an ongoing thread. My husband @BurdineGooberwill also be posting his updates and food pics along with menu pics. We have 3 people in our party with Celiac. We booked 2 luxury suites in the Yacht Club, and also paid for the 2 carousel shows. The goal for our cruise is to read books, relax and spend time with our family. Nothing much more expected than that. We have been on 4 cruises together. 2 of them were Royal Caribbean and 2 on Disney. 

Royal Caribbean 1st cruise: Extremely good. We had a lot of fun. That was an interior cabin, and I got gluten 1 time on the first night... which made me pretty sick for the rest of the cruise, but the rest of the cruise was fun.

Royal Caribbean 2nd cruise: Moderate. This wasn't the cruise lines fault though. There was super bad weather to the point we had swells that were 14-15ft and more. We were all ordered to return to our cabins for a full day. One of the workers also committed suicide by jumping overboard. It was awful.

Disney 1st cruise: MAGICAL. Worth every penny even though it was a small fortune to book. Star Wars day at sea was LOVELY. I can't say enough good things about the food, the entertainment, the cleanliness. We did however, catch COVID (this was the first round before they even knew what it was) and didn't know what it was. This was right before the shut down in February. We are pretty sure it was COVID because I lost my sense of smell and oxygen was dangerously low etc.

Disney 2nd cruise: this was post COVID, but same ship. It was awful. The food was terrible, service was awful. I got gluten multiple times and was very sick most of the cruise. 

 

We thought we weren't cruisers after that last Disney cruise, but come to find out others have had similar experiences post-COVID including their platinum cruisers etc. So we are going to give MSC Yacht Club a try. We figure if we don't like it, we just aren't cruise people. If we do, we will probably stick with MSC YC for a while. I'll be excited to see if we are able to eat a lot of the food, and if it is safe and good. I think my biggest worry is the food experience. I'm an instant reactor. They make up about 30% of Celiacs. My face gets puffy and red and I get sick almost immediately. Then I'm sick for a few days after. It causes a lot of inflammation too which makes a lot of others parts of my body not feel well. So being safe and not having cross contamination is important. This is very possible, but it depends on the carefulness of the chefs. So I'll be posting about that as well. I do have our cruise checklist that I can post, and a few other things that I like that I will share out. We usually do a big purchase from Amazon before sailing, for things like clothes and extra needs, but this year we have had such a rough time with Amazon we have decided to spread out our shopping to other vendors. Things like used items frequently (pay attention to your items and you will notice that as well!) Items not showing up as returned even though we did, really cheap quality items for most things now. It's like they are sourcing everything from sweatshops in China 😞 Which is not what I want. And that is not how Amazon used to be. I have also been on the Subreddit for Amazon and it looks like they are now saying that people who did big $1k+ purchases that were returned did not return them and keeping their money and saying the item didn't arrive even with tracking showing it did. So that makes me a bit more nervous to shop there. So anyway, I digress. We did a lot of shopping in other stores.

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burdcats "Live from...." Rare

burdcats

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19 minutes ago, Brighton Line said:

We are in YC as well please contact my agent for my hourly rate if you want me to be included in your live broadcast. 

Oh your still doing hourly rates? I’m well past that. (Lol)

 

my husband was trying to think of sassy things to say (as he usually does) and told me not to post it…. But it was too funny. “You’re not an “interior” yacht club are you?”

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Brighton Line

Brighton Line

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17 minutes ago, burdcats said:

Oh your still doing hourly rates? I’m well past that. (Lol)

 

my husband was trying to think of sassy things to say (as he usually does) and told me not to post it…. But it was too funny. “You’re not an “interior” yacht club are you?”

Heavens no, my bulter is called to close the curtains every evening of course. 

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burdcats "Live from...." Rare

burdcats

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So we are just a couple days until we leave for the cruise. We are driving to Red Hook terminal Monday morning. Since the time changed, we decided to maintain our previous schedule. So instead of sleeping in an hour earlier, we have maintained our wake up time which gets us up at 5:15 am instead of 6:15am. And then in bed by 10pm instead of 11pm so we can leave our house by 6am and the drive is 2.5 hours even in the worst traffic. There’s a cute little gluten free bakery near the port we might hit up if we get there too early. (Which we most likely will) our arrival time said 10:30 am. We got our packing lists printed out and printed our cruise documents. I was packing up my hang up clothes and realized I only have 2 dresses since I generally don’t wear them anymore since the pandemic and moving into a corporate IT role. So I ordered a couple more. Should be here soon. We got gluten free chocolate and desserts for fun that we will pack since I’ve read you can’t get them on board besides a cake. (Vanilla only) and yes, chocolate often has gluten in it. They use it as a stabilizer and also malt for flavor which is made out of barley. Realized we had 3 hang up bags from our Disney cruises…. We dressed in costume every day on Disney. Yes we are those people. 

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Best Cat Mom "Live from...." Rare

Best Cat Mom

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9 hours ago, burdcats said:

We got gluten free chocolate and desserts for fun that we will pack since I’ve read you can’t get them on board besides a cake.

I am highly gluten sensitive and have always been very pleased with the dessert offerings in YC. Full disclosure: I hardly ever order a traditional dessert and usually follow the Italian tradition of a cheese plate whether at home or on holiday. There are other dessert choices on the menu that contain no gluten, such as a flourless torte or a crème brûlée. The staff will tell you which are safe for you or can be altered to be safe for you. And don't be shy about asking for those same gluten free desserts with subsequent YC meals. I'm happy to say that I've never been glutened by a dessert in MSC YC. Enjoy! 🙂

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burdcats "Live from...." Rare

burdcats

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19 minutes ago, Best Cat Mom said:

I am highly gluten sensitive and have always been very pleased with the dessert offerings in YC. Full disclosure: I hardly ever order a traditional dessert and usually follow the Italian tradition of a cheese plate whether at home or on holiday. There are other dessert choices on the menu that contain no gluten, such as a flourless torte or a crème brûlée. The staff will tell you which are safe for you or can be altered to be safe for you. And don't be shy about asking for those same gluten free desserts with subsequent YC meals. I'm happy to say that I've never been glutened by a dessert in MSC YC. Enjoy! 🙂

This is amazing news! Sounds like i can just eat all the desserts I bought tomorrow. We got mini pies and rugalechs from Katz bakery in New York. Yummmm 

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burdcats "Live from...." Rare

burdcats

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First update! We made it aboard the Maraviglia. It took us maybe 15 minutes to get on board once we got through the parking debacle. We actually got lost on our way to the cruise port and ended up having to go through the tunnel twice. With the cost of tolls I am pretty sure that was a $20 tunnel ride, however the children are excited to say they got lost in New York now. We already had lunch in the topsail lounge. Lunch was absolutely delicious. They handled the gluten allergy with ease and were able to accommodate everybody in our party. The kids enjoyed their meal at a separate table, because our party was too large for all of us to sit together, unless we had a reserve table. So we are going to be doing an early dinner!  I had something beef it was delicious and came with truffled, potatoes and carrots and green beans. For a starter I had the asparagus Panna cotta, which was divine. This food so far has been absolutely fantastic. The service already has been top notch and feels remarkable. They were so attentive to us and made sure we had everything we needed. They even brought out some packaged desserts for the kids since they didn’t have any cake. We had a note in our room, indicating that they had received our special accommodation request and would be meeting our needs. They walked through the gluten free accommodations, including cooking all of the food in a dedicated galley. We are very excited. We haven’t met her butler, yet, but I’m sure we will soon. The room is lovely and very clean. I love the colors, very subdued and calming. we have been on Disney and royal Caribbean and carnival before, and the colors were overstimulating. But here they are very nice and relaxed. Everyone has been very pleasant and very kind so far. 

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tomthefool

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Had an amazing lunch and dinner so far. The attentiveness of the staff is so far above anything we’ve ever experienced, even better than pre-Covid Disney.


Important note for US cruisers. There’s been a ton of negative posts about the food being bland. It has very subtle flavoring.I found that he flavors to be great. I had a portion of steak for lunch with some carrots and potatoes and it was great. I could taste the carrots and the sight hint of truffle oil on the potatoes. 

 

If you’re the typical American that needs a ton of MSG in your food, just bring a family size bag of Doritos in your luggage and crush a handful of them on every meal. Or just go on carnival and get Mac and cheese for every meal. This is an Italian line and they don’t bend over backwards for American tastes. It’s not better or worse, it may just not be your cruise line. 

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