Celebrity Retreat vs MSC Yacht Club

[Eaglestrike]

On 2/17/2024 at 3:58 PM, RichYak said:

No, I'm saying that at each port stop, a number of passengers will be ending their cruise and new passengers will be embarking. That's my understanding of how MSC sells cruises in Europe. I just have no sense if that is at all disruptive to those continuing on.

Hi friend, 

 

My wife and I just finished our 8th Yacht Club cruise just a few days ago on the MSC Euribia-7 day cruise Northern Europe. 

You do not at all feel the embarkation/disembarkation at all. 

 

Happy Sailing!

[zitsky]

On 2/17/2024 at 5:42 PM, CruisematicVA said:

I don't particularly want to spend my time with a lot of the people in the suite areas either.

 

"My" people are the ones who have done well for themselves but are humble and hard working.

 

But between a group of uncouth drinkers and arrogant snobs, I'm not sure which would drive me to poke my eyes out faster 😳

 

@CruisematicVA I am right there with you.  I guess I've found my people on MSC. I'm surprised this site allows a term like "trailer trash" to be used.  It's a pretty offensive, elitist term.  Some of the people next to you in the Retreat are trailer trash and not ashamed of it.

 

Folks recently told me how egalitarian Regent is and how elitist Celebrity cruisers are.  I argued they were wrong, but that was before I read this thread.

[FamilyAtSea.travel]

5 minutes ago, zitsky said:

 

@CruisematicVA I am right there with you.  I guess I've found my people on MSC. I'm surprised this site allows a term like "trailer trash" to be used.  It's a pretty offensive, elitist term.  Some of the people next to you in the Retreat are trailer trash and not ashamed of it.

 

Folks recently told me how egalitarian Regent is and how elitist Celebrity cruisers are.  I argued they were wrong, but that was before I read this thread.

Really makes you wonder, doesn't it?

 

Fortunately I know the folks in forums like this often do not accurately represent the actual population.

[zitsky]

13 minutes ago, CruisematicVA said:

Really makes you wonder, doesn't it?

 

Fortunately I know the folks in forums like this often do not accurately represent the actual population.

I’ve suggested to Celebrity that they raise their standards so they don’t allow “those people” into the Retreat.

 

[DaKahuna]

 We took our first MSC cruise last month in the YC on MSC Divina and I thoroughly enjoyed the experience.  My DW was not enamored by the food but other wise had a great time as well.  The standouts for us were:

 

  Service - on par or better with what we have experienced in the Retreat on Celerity. I cannot ever recall the Retreat Manager coming through Luminae and seeing how their guest were doing whereas this was almost a nightly occurrence with the YC Director on Divina.  the Maitre'd also came by out table at least once or more every meal to make sure everything was going well.

  YC Lounge - much larger and more  comfortable than the lounged on the Revolutionized S and M class ships.   Bar service in the lounge was quick and efficient.  The fact that there was live entertainment every night was a big plus for us  Did  not have to sit in the Ensemble Lounge like we usually do on S-Class ships to enjoy live entertainment. 

 Room - The YC1 on Divina was smaller than the Sky Suites we have had on Celebrity but the fact that the  Mini-bar was free and in addition to the welcome bottle of Prosecco there was an included 750ml bottle of vodka, gin, or whiskey.  

  Food -  I liked the food on MSC and found the menu a refreshing change from Celebrity.  Full disclosure, we have not sailed on Celebrity since the "new menu's" rolled out at the end of last year/beginning of this year.  My DW is a much pickier eater than i am and has a hard time eating in most place outside the house.  She was not a fan of the food but never had anything, other than a dish that was shown on the menu as Udon but definitely was not made with udon noodles, that was bad. 

 

p.s.  A link to my live review is in my signature.

 

Edited March 13 by DaKahuna

[RichYak]

3 hours ago, DaKahuna said:

I cannot ever recall the Retreat Manager coming through...

I cannot ever recall even meeting a Retreat Manager. That said, I've had great Retreat Concierges, so never had any need to elevate any concerns.

 

My first MSC YC experience begins on Sunday. I'm pretty pumped to try something new. I'll probably use this thread to post occasional comparisons. I don't expect to be posting a "Live from..." thread.

[Happy Cruiser 6143]

On 2/17/2024 at 5:18 PM, Jim_Iain said:

That is the one reason we struck them off the list of potential replacement for Celebrity.  

That's an interesting observation from someone who, I believe, never goes to the shows.  On my two YC cruises, I was perfectly happy to remain in the civilized atmosphere of the YC.  Only ventured out into the Gen Pop when they were all off the ship.  YC has wonderful live entertainment in their lounge.  And their pool deck is far superior to Celebrity's retreat offering.  Only problem is the food & service in YC is not up to Celebrity standards.

[Stem to Stern]

2 hours ago, RichYak said:

I cannot ever recall even meeting a Retreat Manager.

Ha ha.  I can.  On Day 1 when she escorted us on board from the terminal.  And again on Day 9 when she escorted us to our suite for close contact quarantine.  We never met the Yacht Club Director on board our recent MSC sailing.

Edited March 14 by Stem to Stern

[BookBikeBeyond123]

Thanks for surfacing this up! I had made a duplicate topic on this… one quick question: the retreat guest don’t get priority tendering over Premium Access guest? That will be a bummer!

[RichYak]

26 minutes ago, Stem to Stern said:

close contact quarantine

So glad we are past this ridiculous time in our lives.

[PTC DAWG]

I’ve sailed both, y’all stay on Celebrity, please. 

[RichYak]

2 minutes ago, PTC DAWG said:

I’ve sailed both, y’all stay on Celebrity, please. 

[Jim_Iain]

2 hours ago, Happy Cruiser 6143 said:

That's an interesting observation from someone who, I believe, never goes to the shows.  On my two YC cruises, I was perfectly happy to remain in the civilized atmosphere of the YC.  Only ventured out into the Gen Pop when they were all off the ship.  YC has wonderful live entertainment in their lounge.  And their pool deck is far superior to Celebrity's retreat offering.  Only problem is the food & service in YC is not up to Celebrity standards.

 

Linda -   There are many reason we decided against YC.    We are also not pool people.   Just the shear size of the ship is a turn off.   I think we area also done with Celebrity E-Class.  While Charla seemed to enjoy I was thinking of her tales being escorted across the ship  by her butler.    On Celebrity we enjoy much of our day outside of the Retreat and have never used the Retreat Sundeck for sunbathing or pool/spa.    I don't mean it as a thumbs down but we each enjoy a cruise in a different way. 

 

I can only say we will see how it goes on our first Oceania Cruise.    We may find they don't fit our future cruise either.   

[Kteacher]

We were in YC on the Meraviglia last June and I did a comparison:

 

[Happy Cruiser 6143]

11 hours ago, Jim_Iain said:

 

Linda -   There are many reason we decided against YC.    We are also not pool people.   Just the shear size of the ship is a turn off.   I think we area also done with Celebrity E-Class.  While Charla seemed to enjoy I was thinking of her tales being escorted across the ship  by her butler.    On Celebrity we enjoy much of our day outside of the Retreat and have never used the Retreat Sundeck for sunbathing or pool/spa.    I don't mean it as a thumbs down but we each enjoy a cruise in a different way. 

 

I can only say we will see how it goes on our first Oceania Cruise.    We may find they don't fit our future cruise either.   

I'm not a pool person either since I have one in my back yard.  But the pool deck on YC is huge and never crowded and even has some shaded areas where one can sit and read the newspaper (you get a daily newspaper of your choice) in peace and quiet.  There's also a food area and clever bartenders who came up with some interesting nonalcoholic drinks for me.  I agree--the size of the ship is offputting.  Luckily they have a separate gangway for YC, so it's possible to get back on the ship without standing in long lines.  My biggest problem with them is they sail out of Miami--the drive there is the pits.  And their itineraries are same old, same old 7-nights.  And your status expires if you don't sail with them every three years.  Given all that, I'm probably done with YC.

I will be interested to hear how Oceania goes for you.  Cheers!

[At Sea At Peace]

We've sailed Celebrity recently, Silhouette and Ascent (Aqua), neither Retreat.  We've sailed MSC YC many, many times all B2B with another upcoming the 1st two weeks of April.  I keep looking at the $ comparison.  I'm not if using the Aqua Class Sky suite (Retreat privileges) is even a fair comparison to average Retreat suite.

 

 

 

[FamilyAtSea.travel]

3 minutes ago, At Sea At Peace said:

We've sailed Celebrity recently, Silhouette and Ascent (Aqua), neither Retreat.  We've sailed MSC YC many, many times all B2B with another upcoming the 1st two weeks of April.  I keep looking at the $ comparison.  I'm not if using the Aqua Class Sky suite (Retreat privileges) is even a fair comparison to average Retreat suite.

 

 

 

It's hard to justify 2x the price when most consider YC to be the superior experience.

 

We have two YC cruises later this month + one in the Retreat (Equinox) in June so I'll have a much clearer idea following those, but it seems like a no-brainer for most of us.

[At Sea At Peace]

19 minutes ago, CruisematicVA said:

It's hard to justify 2x the price when most consider YC to be the superior experience.

 

We have two YC cruises later this month + one in the Retreat (Equinox) in June so I'll have a much clearer idea following those, but it seems like a no-brainer for most of us.

 

Yep.

 

When we were looking at our 3/30-4/13/2024 B2B options and really limiting our preference to Celebrity Retreat Suite or MSC Yacht Club Deluxe, it was $24K versus $10K+- respectively.

 

Although, after sailing Ascent, we LOVE the outside of the Retreat Ascent (the rest of the ship)  versus outside of the Yacht Club (which is OK), just couldn't justify the difference.

 

In our early days on MSC pre-pandemic, we were doing 3 B2B's a year for $6,800!

[FamilyAtSea.travel]

6 minutes ago, At Sea At Peace said:

 

Yep.

 

When we were looking at our 3/30-4/13/2024 B2B options and really limiting our preference to Celebrity Retreat Suite or MSC Yacht Club Deluxe, it was $24K versus $10K+- respectively.

 

Although, after sailing Ascent, we LOVE the outside of the Retreat Ascent (the rest of the ship)  versus outside of the Yacht Club (which is OK), just couldn't justify the difference.

 

In our early days on MSC pre-pandemic, we were doing 3 B2B's a year for $6,800!

Wow, that's incredible... Wish it was still that cheap!

 

I was looking at booking a YC for March 2025 last week and it was $9k, so the prices are steadily climbing... We better enjoy it while we can.

[At Sea At Peace]

50 minutes ago, CruisematicVA said:

Wow, that's incredible... Wish it was still that cheap!

 

I was looking at booking a YC for March 2025 last week and it was $9k, so the prices are steadily climbing... We better enjoy it while we can.

 

We truly 'lucked out' and had a great run of years.  Original was Divina B2B.  Forward sales invited us to champagne to talk.  We were given the option to book the new ships that were open for booking, in the Yacht Club, at a matched price!

 

We booked, and booked....  😄

 

To be honest, despite how good the Yacht Club continues to be, it was OVER-THE-TOP in the first couple of years.  I won't elaborate, as such much encourage others to chime in and say 'MSC has cheapened it."  But it was very special for a sea ship and we were also doing the NCL Haven the same amount of time per year and "it wasn't even close!"  🤫  But we enjoyed other aspects of the NCL ships outside of the Haven for such bookings.

 

 

[DaKahuna]

19 hours ago, RichYak said:

I cannot ever recall even meeting a Retreat Manager. That said, I've had great Retreat Concierges, so never had any need to elevate any concerns.

 

My first MSC YC experience begins on Sunday. I'm pretty pumped to try something new. I'll probably use this thread to post occasional comparisons. I don't expect to be posting a "Live from..." thread.

 

 I have met a few of them, usually when entering the lounge and one would just happen to be talking with the concierge.  And of course at the occasional Senior Officer's gathering in the Lounge.  

 

 I look forward to reading your comments about your experience.  Which MSC ship will you be on?  Divina is one of the 'smaller' and older ships and has a passenger capacity of around 3500 with only 71 Yacht Club Suites. 

[RichYak]

34 minutes ago, DaKahuna said:

I look forward to reading your comments about your experience.  Which MSC ship will you be on?  Divina is one of the 'smaller' and older ships and has a passenger capacity of around 3500 with only 71 Yacht Club Suites. 

I'll be on Meraviglia out of Brooklyn. There are just under 100 YC cabins and as I write this, there are still 26 available 3 days before sailing. It would be nice if it stayed that way but I'm not holding my breath.

[DaKahuna]

3 minutes ago, RichYak said:

I'll be on Meraviglia out of Brooklyn. There are just under 100 YC cabins and as I write this, there are still 26 available 3 days before sailing. It would be nice if it stayed that way but I'm not holding my breath.

 

 I doubt that it would make that much of a difference to your YC experience.  Besides chances are that they will be filled by guest through MSC's equivalent to Celebrity's Move Up.  
 

[FamilyAtSea.travel]

3 minutes ago, DaKahuna said:

 

 I doubt that it would make that much of a difference to your YC experience.  Besides chances are that they will be filled by guest through MSC's equivalent to Celebrity's Move Up.  
 

This.

 

Nearly zero chance they're not filled, but with that said, even in a completely full YC, the staff:passenger ratio is 1.25:1 (vs 3.5:1 in gen pop), so there's plenty of space and staff to handle a full YC.

[Lena11033]

I did Virtuosa last year and YC was full and it was still good service, we couldn't even use the outside area because it was Northern Europe in Spring and the North Sea is not very forgiving.

 

Basically spent my time in the lounge, when not reading I started talking to another guy who was sailing solo so we started hanging out. He practiced English and I practiced French and ended up spending dinners together which they were ok with because we agreed to do that.