Andrew72681

27 minutes ago, jkgourmet said:

I was hoping this thread would actually be about the Meraviglia.  😕

 

I hope the OP had a great cruise!

We did. After starting it just devolved into a normal cruise critic response of people bitching about things so I just let it die. It’s a shame this community is so negative. It’s a cruising version of Reddit. 

For anyone checking in on the liveblog. Was hoping to keep it current throughout each day, but the WiFi has been late 1990s terrible through the week so far. I most definitely miss the voom service from Harmony of the seas where I’d get 8mb down. Being that the Meraviglia is actually younger than Harmony I would have expected better. 

21 minutes ago, copper6606 said:

Thanks so much for all your info/photos on the Train! How great is that!! I will definitely go that route rather than an Uber. How long did the ride take? Did you get a ca/Uber from the train station to the Cruise Port in Miami once you arrived? Cost?

Thanks in advance for all the answers to my petty questions LOL

We took an Uber from the station, which was about ten bucks. The train ride itself was about thirty minutes. 

The Brightline was a great idea. It’s a simple Uber ride up from the airport and once you walk inside the station you instantly notice you are not in Amtrak country anymore. 


Access is controlled to the terminal by scanners.

The select lounge is also gate controlled. We noticed on several occasions people trying to “tailgate” in with other people walking in  

There was ample seating along both sides of the window. Wifi was also available for free in the terminal and was plenty fsst

When we first arrived they were between more substantial snack times. There were fruit,chips, and Clif LUNA bars available. About halfway through our stay they brought our Charcuterie which was quite good. 

 

a few minutes before our departure an announcement was made, we Went down to the track and were welcomed aboard the front car  

seats in the select car are in a 2-1 configuration. Some of the seats are setup around tables, but just know that if you are looking to sit across from someone it means one of you will be riding backwards. After we departed Fort Lauderdale we were greeted by a very friendly car attendant named Kae who was available to make mixed drinks, sodas, and also had snacks  

When we arrived at the Miami station we were greeted by a beautiful new station right in the middle of downtown, claimed our luggage, and were on our way. 

As we always fly Southwest on vacation (companion pass and BWI Based its an easy choice) we have to fly in Fort Lauderdale as our gateway to south Florida. This time we’re arriving today around 1 so we’ve got some time to kill. 

Today’s travel day. So excited to finally be on the way there. Yesterday was a great Pre-travel day consolation though as we got to hang out with the Washington capitals at a Hockey Fights Cancer event. 
 

Just now, jdvmd said:

Excellent!

It was a great suite last time. Tons of space and a huge bathroom. Just be sure no to confuse the JW Marriott (35k points) and JW Marriott Marquis (50k points) 

21 minutes ago, jdvmd said:

Marriott Bonvoy titanium elite here with SNA to use too. Did your award clear for the JWMarriott?

 

Yes. Cleared to an Executive corner bay view suite. It’s a great use of the Marriott Brilliants annual up to 50K cert. 

6 minutes ago, principessalia said:

I'm curious to see how things run onboard the ship.

My husband & I are Diamond Members on Royal Caribbean & we were able to get the "matching status" of Gold on MSC; it's our 1st time, so we'll see...

I’ll be sure to note the boarding procedures. I was able to match to Black which became diamond by way of my hotel statuses. 

3 minutes ago, principessalia said:

I agree; how hard is it to paste & clip the "original" cruise itinerary?!?

 

Also, it would be nice if they changed the to the "new" cruise itinerary on our Booking Documents; right?!?

They can’t even get it corrected in the app, which seems crazy. 

They officially moved our itinerary all around today. While we thought they would add Cozumel on day 6, we didn’t think they’d also move around Costa maya to go with it. Working through moving excursions now to reflect the new itinerary, and officially cancelled my cabana at Ocean cay since there’s no longer any hope of it being open. 
ignore the left side as they messed up the original itinerary (I’m not even sure how that happened because all they had to do was pull it up online to put it in the email)

2 hours ago, djfunk said:

Hi Andrew, looks like we have the same plans to head down a day early (from Toronto, Canada) as the only flights on sunday landed at 1:30 in Miami.

 

Like you, my party was on HotS last year early December, its a phenomenal vessel with customer service above and beyond.  This'll be our 5th cruise and first on MSC (done one on each Princess, Carnival, RC, and NCL).  This was actually the longest time out we had booked, just over 90 days.  Are you checking out the Cirque shows?

We have both Cirque shows booked, just the cocktail and show as the YouTube videos of the Cirque dinners left a lot to be desired. So you’re on this sailing as well?

7 hours ago, SteelCruisin said:

Looking forward to following your review, great attitude going into your first MSC cruise with an open mind. Our family has also sailed on all the major lines....CCL,RCCL,NCL,HAL, Princess and X and will be taking our 3rd MSC cruise in December of this year aboard the Seaside... Enjoy your time, I am sure we will!

Enjoy Seaside, seems like a great ship aside from the pool problems. 

13 hours ago, bdandoy said:

We are also scheduled for cave tubing in Belize. Will lbs interested in your experience since we are using the same company. We are doing The option to add zip line and ATV.

Will do. We looked at adding the ATV but are still unsure about doing that with a child. You’ll have to let me know how the zip lining is when you get back. We got spoiled doing it in the rainforest of Costa Rica so have avoided the touristy ones. 

As we’re now officially a week out, it seemed like a great time to start with my precruise thoughts and background for our first MSC cruise on Meraviglia. 
Cruise History- this will be cruise number 11 for us and number 9 for our 9 year old daughter. We started out with Carnival, then onto Norwegian and Roysl Caribbean. It’ll be hard to compare to the week long cruise we had in Harmony of the seas this time last year. That was a great cruise on a great ship with great service. 

Background- to sound a little bit like an opening credit narration of an 80’s movie, we weren’t ever supposed to be on this cruise. We had booked the third sailing of Norwegian Encore for 12/1, however a change in my wife’s work schedule facilitated a change back in August for a cruise we had booked over 600 days out. Luckily we had booked a refundable deposit and were able to get that cancelled without penalty. We’ll definitely be looking to try out Encore sometime in the future, especially since the deposit I had was a NextCruise credit that needs to be used up by 12/05/2021.

After cancelling that found us in a tailspin on what is very short notice for me (we booked a cruise for next November that was 650 days out on booking) and while there were many options most of them took a big jump up in price because of thanksgiving week. We nearly pulled the trigger on a Disney repositioning cruise from New York to San Juan. Then almost booked a Mexican riviera cruise on Norwegian Joy (flights were crazy from the East coast), and almost booked Oasis of the Seas first cruise back from Dry Dock (it would be three times what we ended up paying for Meraviglia.) 

For anyone who is with the military or government one thing to remember is that MSC does offer a government discount, it’s 5-10%  depending on the room type booked. We ended up saving about 200 dollars, and it was combinable with the discounts being offered that week. 

Traveling Party- It’ll be myself (Andrew), my wife (Nikki), and our daughter Addison in our room. My mom and a friend will be in another room on the other side of the ship.

Rooms- we seemingly lucked out and one of the balcony rooms on the aft which is normally part of the family rooms opened up a few weeks ago so we moved to that room. We’ll be on the aft of deck 9, with a balcony room featuring bunk beds. Addison always loves the Pullman beds on other lines and as it opens up a space to sit during the day, I’m always for it. We hoped a Yacht Club room would open for our week, but none ever did outside of the interior rooms that only sleep two.  My mom and friend will also be in a balcony but Forward Starboard side also on deck 9.

Itinerary- As of right now this one is still up in the air. We think we know what they’ll do but may not know until we embark next Sunday. As of last week, before the announcement of the December opening of Ocean Cay our itinerary was

Day 1- Miami

Day 2- Sea Day

Day 3- Costa Maya

Day 4-  Belize City

Day 5- Roatan, Honduras 

Day 6- Sea Day

Day 7- MSC Ocean Cay (not happening but they haven’t updated the itinerary)

Day 8- Miami

Based on route and history, I’m pretty sure Day 6 will become Cozumel, Mexico and day 7 will become our sea day. One of the MSC phone agents tried to tell someone in the group that we’d be in Cozumel on Day 7, which clearly can’t happen unless they’ve added rocket boosters to the ship.

PreCruise Stay and transportation-

We’re big believers in not risking it and arriving the day before. We’ll be flying BWI-FLL on Fort Lauderdale Saturday morning and then trying something interesting. We figured we could take an Uber like usual, but decided to give the BrightLine train a try. It drops off only half a mile from our hotel, and for only 21 dollars per person a train ride with Food, Drinks, and a departure lounge to wait seemed like more fun than the UberXL for about the same cost. 

There’s only a few Marriott properties near dodge island (most are on Miami Beach or further away) so we picked on we really liked last time, the JW Marriott Marquis. It’s in a nice downtown location nearby a CVS and Whole Foods to get supplies (I love to have Amazon prime packages delivered to Amazon lockers rather than lugging things like Sunblock with me) Last time we got a great suite upgrade, and will be trying to use another Titanium suite upgrade certificate for this stay.   

Excursions-

For Ocean Cay we had booked a Cabana, which were very reasonably priced at 249, which for 5 people is a good deal, considering some of the Cabanas at CocoCay are 700+ some days.

Costa Maya- We tried to book Maya Chan for the day, but as 4 other ships are in and one is Symphony of the Seas, it was already sold out by the time we booked. We took a recommendation from a friend and booked Nohoch Cay for the beach day.

Belize City- in our other visits to Belize, it has never seemed like a place where you would just venture out on your own. This time we booked Cave tubing along with several other members on another social app for our cruise through a service called ButtsUp Cave Tubing. It almost seems too cheap for an excursion as they only charge $35 per person, and it weirds me out that they only take cash on arrival.

Roatan- we’ll venture out on our own this time again in Honduras, probably take a cab to see the Monkeys and Sloths as they are Addison’s favorite. We’ve always been very comfortable. 

So all in all, I kinda feel like I’m flying blind when it comes to MSC, they seem to be very polarizing online, but as we’ve learned with society, it seems most things are polarized now. I also know that you can’t expect Filet Mingon at Sirloin Prices (or in this case Regent Seven Seas Service at MSC prices)

I’m going in to this with an open mind and very much taking the “no matter what a day at sea is better than a day at home.”

4 minutes ago, *Miss G* said:

 

 

I am probably going to book on MSC for this October but will need to do the status match first.  How in the world can Marriott Titanium be matched to Silver for one and Black for another?  Is it Hilton or do they think that Titanium is silver?  I cannot get a sense of order out of all this.  

 

Thank you for starting this thread, OP!

It’s why even though they said  to do otherwise I sent in both statuses. The funny part is that if you’re just looking at stay numbers Marriott Titanium is much harder to obtain than Hilton diamond. I also wouldn’t put it past them to have never updated their system after the Marriott status level transition from last year. 

So if status doesn’t carry through the room like on RC, how does one show up to the black card event with their spouse?

Does anyone know that if like Royal Caribbean your spouse retains the same status as you? Was just matched to black on MSC so still new and with lots of questions. 

Sent in both my Marriott Titanium and Hilton Diamond at the same time and was matched to black.