wirral36

36 minutes ago, Nikita4 said:

In YC is both possible. Sometimes we leave it at the terminal and sometimes on the ship. No Problem.

That’s great news as some of the flights seem to leave at 930pm in summer. Do you know if there are any hotels at the airport at Barcelona that do day rates ? I’ve tried so many and none do. 

On 12/19/2023 at 7:46 PM, Nikita4 said:

In Europe you can stay until the afternoon on the ship, there is no count zero like in the US. Sometimes we stay until 3 pm oder so on the ship in Europe. You have to ask the staff and in the YC its easier dann in the other categories.

Hi, what happens to your luggage if you don’t leave until 3pm? Does it stay on its own in the terminal ? Or can you keep it on the ship ? This is much better if you have a late flight. 

On 1/3/2024 at 10:58 PM, Cruiseswithfamilyornot said:

Sorry as I put in my post of 9/8 I did not take pics of the room.    No one slept on the sofa bed so can't advise about mattress or how comfortable the bed was.

Hi, silly question but was the decor cream and green ? I’ve just seen a video online but the interior is blue with exactly the same layout, whereas the deck 16 was always blue with a different lay out. 

On 9/9/2023 at 2:59 AM, Cruiseswithfamilyornot said:

I was on the MSC World Europa cruise for one week roundtrip from Barcelona on 9/1 through 9/8.   We travelled in the Yacht Club(all) and were a group of 16 people spread out over 9 rooms including singles.    I have been on well over 50 cruises, but this was my first time on MSC.

 

I found alot of the other reviews on MSC World Europa to be spot on.   While there has been some time to refine/improve in some areas, some things are what they are.

 

Overall, I would say we enjoyed our cruise and the itinerary and found the Yacht Club to be very much worth it, despite some snafus.   Would be go on MSC again?  Really that depends on who you ask and what's more important to them as my more detailed review will show below.  In a nut shell, if you prefer the American way of cruising including more trivias, game shows and the like, then this is not the cruise for you.  But if being able to have that ship within a ship experience at  reasonable price is the most important thing to you, this is the ship for you.  I'm going to be blunt and honest here, but as I've said above, overall it was a very enjoyable experience but there were some things that were not.

 

Embarkation in Barcelona.   10/10.   We were in Yacht Club so separate line, we were on the ship in no time and received an overview and off to our room

 

Pre-boarding items:  In a word, poor.   You can book a massage and specialty restaurants, but you cannot set dates and times until you are on the ship.  That was crazy.   Likewise, cannot book shows in advance.  They also send you a questionnaire a few days before sailing with your choice of pillows, what you want the minibar stocked with, and which daily newspaper you want.  Then you get the EXACT SAME questionnaire when you board.   Then none of it is in your room anyway and you speak to your butler(which is fine btw) and things get done.  The newspaper never came till the last 2 days(which is fine honestly).  Major area of improvement.

 

Yacht Club amenities.  Some GREAT ones honestly.   #1 on the list for me, is each person in a room has two free internet sign ins on different devices.  My last 3 cruises were all luxury cruise lines and premium +(Oceania) and none of them gave you that.   I work full time as did some others so this was big.  Drinks covered up to 14 euros each, very nice.  There was a separate location to disembark the ship for yacht club guests and we never had a line one day, our butler insisted on walking us out.   Great lounge with entertainment every  night, never crowded.   They opened a place called La Brasserie as a second venue for the yacht club located in the buffet on deck 19.   The buffet is closed for just yacht club guests, and you require a reservation.  Food there was shockingly very good, though not the healthiest of fare.   The desserts, especially the warm chocolate chip cookie, were insanely good.  One of the biggies is the ability to use your card to have the elevator come privately for you(ones used exclusively by you).   There are many others honestly.   Yacht Club was as advertised to me.

 

Biggest Positives:  Ship is BEAUTIFUL(except for the casino).   Really much nicer than other main stream cruise lines.   Most servers have a smile.  The chocolate shop and the gelato in particular was great.   Panorama Lounge, although a rip off of 270 on Royal, was a great room with great shows.  Great use of elevators where you push a button for your floor and they tell you which elevator to go to.   Elevators much more efficient.  Our butler, Sandor, was fantastic.  Shows were really better than expected, and some of the best on mainstream lines.  The speak easy room was a HUGE hit, and I can't recommend it enough.  Won't spoil all the details here.  The other big positives were all a part of the yacht club as itemized above.

 

Biggest Negatives:  MASSIVE crowds sometimes on the ship.  Not in Yacht Club but main part of ship.  It was shocking though you learned what times to stay away.  Inconsistency of food and service.  The first night 7 people in our party said they had the worst dinner in the yacht club restaurant they've ever had on a cruise ship.  Most nights it was very good.   Just very inconsistent, sometimes the same dish from one day to the next.   Service also suffered often, especially when busy.   Usually, it was good.  But sometimes they just forget anything asked for and took a long a time to serve.   The third big one was the lack of trivias/game shows and what they had, was terribly overcrowded to the point you couldn't get in.   They need a large room for these activites---and they have the rooms on the ship already in existence.    The ship also had some funky designs that you never got fully used to.  Teppanyaki was the only specialty we went to as we usually love it, it was good, but better on both Royal and Norwegian.  

 

I was in Room 18001, which is one of the Owner Suites.  Great room.   Comfortable bed, plenty of storage, walk in closet, and our butler Sandor deserves medals he was that good.   Negatives were shower was shockingly small and tight(smaller and tighter than a regular yacht club deluxe suite), and the 2/3 of the balcony was in easy viewing distance from the outside area of the Top Sail Lounge, which was not great.

 

Due to weather we had to miss our last stop in Malta, but they rescheduled us to Palermo immediately.   Very good communication and well handled.

 

So overall, nice itinerary, beautiful ship, but if you are at all crowd adverse you won't be happy if not in yacht club and somethings to get used to as a european line vs america.

Hi, please can you post pictures of 18001 as there are no pictures of the room, balcony or bathroom anywhere of this cabin. Please can you tell me if the sofabed was comfortable or was the mattress very thin ? Many thanks 

4 hours ago, misztercruizer said:

wirral36

  This is a great suite. Super Ship.

   We never opened the sofa bed, you may be seeing the sofa cushions. 

It has two sofas they are very nice suede. 

We sailed on May 12-19, 2023 Barcelona to Barcelona

Our suite was 16002 it is one deck down, we took this suite as the inside cabin is much larger.18001 has a much nicer deck area.

  Check out you tube: 

 

 

Hi, thank you for your reply. 18001 has a white sofa bed that looks half the thickness or less of your blue sofabed in 16002. I can see videos and photos of your suite but there are none at all of 18001. I wonder if there’s a reason. Do you have any photos of your balcony at all ? Many thanks

Hi, does anyone have any pictures or videos of owners suite 18001 ? I’m stressing over the sofabed. 16002 looks like it’s a much thicker mattress on that sofabed. I need clarification but there are no pics of the sofabed as a bed and no videos at all. If anyone can help I’d be so grateful. 

It’s the owners suite sofa but it looks like a white leather sofa cabin 18001. I can’t find any reviews from anyone on this particular cabin, apart from 1 on here without pics, but it doesn’t say anything about the sofabed. Reviews on the other one 16002 but the sofa is totally different in there. 

Hi, please can someone confirm if the sofa beds are comfortable or do you feel all the springs and metal parts. Virtuosa had the thinnest mattresses and you felt the bars and metal parts. 

17 minutes ago, no1talks said:

 

If we share some "yes" examples, you share some of your "no" examples. I'll start.

 

One of the requests on our butler list is to have balcony chairs replaced with chaise-style deck chairs. (Sometimes, there's only room for one swap, though.)

 

Another list item is afternoon tea. We take tea every day, since we skip lunch. The butler meets us in Topsail with the traditional three-tiered assortment of nibbles and tea accouterments. (Unfortunately, the loose tea is only available for the Yacht Clubs "official" tea party, but that's not the butler's fault.)

We asked if we could have food from the restaurant brought to our room and it was a polite no. We asked if we could please have our bottle of champagne swapped for something else and couldn’t. We asked if we could please have 2 choc ships as we have 2 kids, not possible. Unfortunately it was also a case that once you left yc, the butler was ignored by the rest of the ship. Not sure if it’s like this on all ships or maybe we were unlucky. We also asked for ice cream, but that was a no too.  
 

We didnt see any afternoon tea either. 
 

im interested to see what others have had so that I know what I can ask for on the next one. 

Hi, I never know what we can and can’t ask concierge/butler for. I’m sure we must be missing out on a few nice things. Please can you advise what things you have asked for ? This will be our 2nd Msc cruise so we’re somewhat new to the brand. We did quickly realise the butler isn’t the same as a genie on rci and tbh the things we did ask for were met with a polite sorry we can’t do that. So I’m just wondering what you can and can’t do/have/experience on the ship ?

Hi, please may I ask if you are able to post pictures of 18001 inside and outside ? I can’t seem to find any videos of it and no pics of the balcony. Also does it have the round lounge chair ?

18001 balcony looks smaller than 16002 but it says the opposite on the website. Who knows. 

Is this pic Europa ? Looking at the picture the top of the 2 owners suites 18001 has a smaller balcony ? I thought 18001 was supposed to have the bigger balcony ?

Hi, thank you for posting this info. Please can you post some pictures of the room you were in and the balcony. If possible I’d like to see where it’s overlooked by the lounge ? 
 

the other thing I’m looking for info on is the ages of the kids clubs and if the kids 10 plus can go into the around the kids club at night ? If anyone is able to advise I’d be very grateful as I can’t find this info anywhere. 

Hi, I can help with some of your queries but not all unfortunately. The special sun deck has a hot tub and sun beds. It gets quite windy up there but is nice to get away from the masses. Children are allowed up there and in that hot tub. 
 

kids club is 1 hr for each child twice a day max. There are 3 sessions a day to choose from. You have to queue up to get in and the queues can get big quickly. You may have to go back in 30 mins once a child has left.  
 

the arcades are open some days 2pm-12pm, 6pm-12pm, 4pm-12pm. 1 of the bowling lanes is broken, 1 of the F1 cars is broken, some of the arcade machines are broken. The prize machine that you are meant to put tickets into doesn’t have any prizes so just be mindful before trying to earn tickets. Also be mindful that some of the arcade machines will take the money off the card but won’t work, the arcade isn’t manned out of the limited hours but if you tell customer services they will help. 
 

as soon as you get on the ship, book bowling because the way it’s set up is you queue for a long time to get a time slot and date for bowling, F1 and VR. Some times you will have a 2 day wait before you can play. Just keep it in mind and book as much as you can when you get there as you can’t prebook anything apart from some spa. If slots are booked you will have to queue again the next day on the off chance.  The VR keeps breaking down and going blank so make sure you tell the man if it happens to you. The bowling is timed so if you don’t have all your goes in 30 mins nothing can be done. You don’t need bowling shoes. 
 

how old are your children ? The reports are true, daytime is all about swimming. They have some family quizzes and games round the main pool. But other than swimming there’s not much else in the day especially if you’re in port. Shops won’t open until late either in port.  
 

the shops are open limited hours and any medication is ridiculously expensive. Rennies for heart burn were £18. 
 

if anyone gets seasick, the crew are great. The shop sells wrist bands for £11 and the crew will hand out seasickness tablets if you ask.  Get some from boots before you go if you have a preferred brand. 

take your own hand sanatiser as the ship has lots of machines but you may prefer your own brand. 
 

the ship had 3800 passengers when I was on board but it felt a lot more. We didnt have any unruly passengers but as daytime is limited on things to do, the indoor pool especially gets packed and it is a booze cruise in places. 
 

if you want to do the Himalayan bridge or water park, do it as soon as possible. It’s open times are limited in the day and will close again in bad weather also. The numbers allowed in are limited but you get a wristband and sign a waiver by the waterslides. 
 

The sportsplex isn’t open unless it’s for Covid testing or a kids club event then it closes straight after. They won’t allow anyone to go in there otherwise. 
 

the buffet is back to self service but is only half open. There are lots of places to sit though and if you walk round there will be whole sections empty. 
 

they have bingo twice a week and children can go. It’s £40 for 4 cards. 
children can also go to all shows and I saw children in the gym. 

The casino is open limited hours like everything else. As soon as you get on board, just make yourself aware of the timings of everything otherwise it’s hard to make sure you can do the things you want to do without missing out. 
 

Children have to wear masks in kids club from age 4 I believe and everyone not double vaccinated has 2 Covid lateral flow tests done, 1 before the cruise and 1 half way through. 

On 7/29/2021 at 5:47 PM, Stuffthis123 said:

We're in the Royal Suite 😊. It is easily the best room we have every stayed in. A few minor issues but all resolved promptly.

 

I am pretty sure there is no allocated space for YC in the speciality restaurants as concierge couldn't get us in! I'd recommend booking in advance. We did manage to get a lunch reservation at Hola! & would recommend eating there for a change of scenery. Not that keen on the look of the sushi place as the seating is open to a fairly busy corridor. Indochine is also open to quite a noisy bar but round to the right hand side are tables that look pretty nice so would have liked to have tried that. The capacity of the speciality restaurants seems v low.

 

The only way we have of contacting concierge is by swinging by their desk I think. I'd contact MSC direct to try to make special requests in advance.

Hi,  I’m in the royal suite right now and you have been very helpful prior to sailing. Is there a way I can contact you privately ? I’d just like to ask a couple of questions but I don’t want to add them on here. Many thanks. 

11 hours ago, kernow said:

The YC concierge will do that for you, no hour plus queue in YC to see the concierge and even if there was the butler can not take you to the front of it as everyone else there is in YC too. There were usually 2 staff members at the concierge desk when it was busy and if anyone else was waiting the YC director would usually appear out of nowhere. 

We never used the main guest services once on the ship, YC concierge can do everything they do and more.

We’re on board now and unfortunately that’s not the case. The butler says we have to queue up as yc don’t have anything to do with the activities. There’s no yc treatment as soon as u walk out of yc. The staff are lovely everywhere but it’s very true that the bar staff are very slow and most don’t seem to know what they’re doing. I’m assuming their new. 

11 minutes ago, morpheusofthesea said:

Never knew I needed anything until the butler suggested I needed it and asked if he could get it for me. The best butlers come up with the best suggestions. For example, I walked out of my cabin to go to guest services (not knowing that the concierge could straighten things out) and the butler asked where I was going. I said to guest services, he said there may be a long line, let me escort you to the head of the line. Or we wanted a front row seat in the theatre and the children are faster at running to save all these seats. The butler gets in before the doors open and saves our seats for us. If one starts off on the 'wrong foot' just a word to the 'head butler' gets one a better result.

Can a butler reserve bowling and other activities to save you waiting an hour plus in a queue just to get a reservation ?

2 minutes ago, ziggyuk said:

 

One of the TripAdvisor reviews includes this, sounds like an exciting cruise 😱

 

"If you are going to book this cruise I would wait until its out of British waters. The police escorted passengers off in Greenock, Belfast and Liverpool."

At least they got the passengers off I suppose. 😢 

21 hours ago, Teampayne2 said:

We’re a family of 4 recently back from our 31/07 cruise on the Virtuosa , we’ve previously sailed on Royal and Carnival but never MSC, so I thought I’d share my thoughts…

 

Embarkation

We had our 13.40 boarding time changed the day before to 12.00 which was a nice surprise, after reading on here about it being busy we decided to arrive early and prepared to queue at 11.00 which I’m glad we did as it was already quite busy, we were onboard by 13.00 which given how busy it was we didn’t feel was too bad.

 

food

We always eat in the buffet for breakfast and lunch and the dining room for dinner, the buffet was nice with a good variety of dishes at both breakfast and lunch, although very busy with a few guests unfortunately leaving their manners at the door on entry, we found it at its busiest at about 9 to 9.30 so avoided this time after the first morning. I’d heard mixed reviews about the food but we had no complaints at all, the quality and variety was good.

The dining room was lovely and fairly quiet, we had some of the best service we have ever had  on a cruise from Vishal and Raymond, they were spot on and got everything just right and really couldn’t do enough for us.

 

The Ship

Virtuosa is a beautiful ship which we found to be spotlessly clean, we spent most of our time in the day at the main pool on deck 15 which could be busy at times, we were told the ship was sailing with 2500 guests onboard but it did seem like more, with some areas quite crowded at times. We enjoyed the shows in an evening which were very good, we found it a little difficult to get served on a few occasions at the bars and several times we’d be told they were closing, only to move to another bar to find the same thing.

My girls enjoyed the climbing and the water park. I do think the system for accessing these should be a little more publicised as it was only from talking to another guest that we found out the process. You have to go to the water park with all parties wanting to use it, sign a waiver and then receive a ticket to come back as certain time for your turn, you also receive a band to wear to show you’ve signed the waiver and can use the climbing and water park.

 

I also feel I have to comment about some of the behavior of other guests, particularly towards the staff, it was evident that there were not enough staff to cope with the amount of guests which yes is frustrating however all the staff we encountered were so hardworking and pleasant and really did not deserve the verbal abuse and rudeness they received. We saw this first hand on more than one occasion and found it upsetting and completely uncalled for.

 

Final thoughts 

We enjoyed our cruise especially after not being able to cruise for so long, will definitely cruise with MSC again and are to book a Med cruise for next year.

 

 

 

Unfortunately this is the behaviour I’ve found on every cruise from U.K.  never had it from any other country. 

Hi all, just wondering whether they give a pcr test or a lateral flow test at the port ? Are both taken in exactly the same way ? My kids are scared the person may hurt them so I was thinking I may ask to do their tests myself. Has anyone else done their own test there ? 

17 hours ago, Cruiseforever11 said:

Hi you are best using ABParking as it is right opposite the terminal and its secure. I parked there both times. Here is a discount code to use online when booking which I was given and used both times - WELCOMEBACK21 

Hope this helps 🙂

We’ve used ab parking numerous times. Always been very helpful and safe

8 minutes ago, kernow said:

I agree they do not have as many organised daytime activities as RCL or other cruise lines. On the one day that we had poor weather we did find ourselves at a bit of a loose end. We normally love trivia but they did not seem to have this in the daytime. 

The YC concierge did book the bowling for us, now that the ship is busier this may be more difficult though.

I’ve bought 2 fun passes for 4 of us but now I’m wondering if we will get to use them both 

Hi all, I’ve heard one of the bowling lanes has broken and is closed. I’ve also heard there are ridiculous queues for every activity and you have to queue 20-30 mins before just to book a future time. 
 

is this the same in yc ? Can the concierge or butler book these?

People are moaning online that there’s not much to do in the day. Just wondered if this is true ?

Wonderful, thank u. Just worrying about the tests now 😳