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steveknj

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Everything posted by steveknj

  1. Thinking about this more, I'm really surprised with newer technologies that use interactive TV, that none of these cruise lines have made it just REALLY simple. You get into your cabin, you turn to whatever channel has the muster instructions, you thumb up that you've watched the video, and your done. It's that simple. NCL's kinda/sorta works that way in that you could watch the video on your phone prior to your cruise, and then you just check in with someone on the ship, where they check that you've acknowledged that you watched the video on your device. I think that's where they need to do at this point.
  2. On my three day cruise on the Seashore, it was $99 for two meals pp and it was limited to ONLY the Steakhouse and Tepenyaki. While I would have enjoyed the steakhouse, we've done the Tepenyaki on other cruise lines and it's fine, but really, nothing I need to do again. $71 for 3 nights sounds like a really good deal. Maybe next time if that's offered we'd take it.
  3. Thanks! $60 is still expensive, too expensive for my blood and they don't have my favorite cuts of beef (Rib Eye, TBone/Porterhouse) as a choice. That said, NCL has gone a la carte as well (though most of the cruises I've taken with them included a two meal specialty restaurant package...no extra charge). But, while a Rib Eye on MSC is $68 a la carte, on NCL it's $39 (though the MSC one is a little bigger, but not almost double size). So yeah, the MSC specialty restaurants are more expensive then NCL. Carnival is $49 per person surcharge. So that's something else to consider if you are not a MDR or Buffet person and want to eat more elegant. They WERE offering a $99 per person 2 meal package, so that MIGHT be worth it if you go on a longer cruise.
  4. I never saw an option for any type of "experience menu" It was just the a la carte menu, with the cheapest steak in the $45 range. A far cry from the $30 upcharge on Cagney's we used to get. How much is the "experience menu" and what steaks are available?
  5. Agreed. Where I was confused, is they asked us to go to our cabins and watch a video. I tuned to the TV, and it brought me to a screen that said, "Safey video will begin shortly" and we had the announcement via PA that the video was now starting. The TV never showed the video on the channel I was tuned to, nor was there instruction on what channel to tune to. So, when the next announcement came to go check in at your muster station, we did that without actually watching the video. We checked in and were done. Which is bad if you think about it in an emergency. When we got back to the cabin, I flipped around the channels, and there it was, on an entirely different channel that we initially tuned to. If they had just said, "tune to channel 10" or whatever, we would have.
  6. Thanks. I'm more used to one surcharge and getting (mostly what I want). And to be fair, one of the things I used to like is that I could eat at one of these specialty restaurants for a small upcharge, with food that was equivalent to what I'd pay on land and enjoy the experience. But over the last few years, many of these have gone a la carte with prices that are on par with what is on land. For example, at one time, eating at Cagney's on an NCL cruise was just a $30 upcharge. Well where on land can you got a top grade steak dinner for $30. But when looking at the MSC menu, the prices for their steaks were not really any cheaper than I could get on land, thus, we just decided it wasn't worth it. In fact, most of the specialty restaurants were a la carte (we did the Mexican place on an $18 all you can eat deal). It's one of the things I'm not that fond of on MSC.
  7. I think for a lot of people, they want that completely pampered experience rather than just a "normal' vacation. I don't care about that sort of thing, especially at 3x the price. It depends on what type of experience you are looking for. So the OP talked about taking trips to WDW. If those trips included the top hotels, the Contemporary, the Floridian or that type, then a week in a "typical" cruise cabin might feel constricted. But if they go to WDW and stay in one of the less expensive to moderate hotels, then the YC experience, might be more than they need. But everyone wants something different from their experience. I can't speak to that.
  8. I got off our first MSC cruise a week ago (3 night cruise) and while not everything was perfect, a lot of what people complain about, food, nickel and diming etc. were no better or worse than most cruises I've been on. Firstly, I upgraded to the Aurea package, so that does have SOME influence on our impression. That gave us access to a couple of special perks, a special area on the ship (The Seashore out of Port Canaveral), and we got some chocolate and a bottle of Italian sparkling wine. We are not big drinkers and indeed we didn't drink on this cruise, but we did like that the drink package gave us access to specialty coffees (really excellent cappuccinos). As far as the food, like just about every other cruise, it's hit or miss, with mostly hit. The pizza is the best I've ever had on a cruise line (and I'm a native NYer and somewhat of a pizza snob). The buffet was the same every day but what we tried was actually pretty good. We enjoyed the breakfast in the MDR. And we ate dinner in the MDR two of the three nights. The first night, I had some pulled pork thing that was pretty good with a good portion. The second night I had some blackened grouper that was overcooked. We also did the taco joint for dinner one night. We wanted to do the steakhouse but it was all alacarte and TOO expensive, So like I said, hit or miss. We really liked the private island, which was definitely better than what NCL and RCCL offers (though since we've last visited, they've updated that island, but haven't experienced it). Problem was it was too cold (in the 50s) so we couldn't enjoy the water and didn't stay as long as we would have liked. The entertainment was on par with Carnival, but not as good as NCL/RCCL. I liked the little cabaret where they had rotating acts everynight, 3 or 4 different ones each doing a 15-20 minute set. That was different and interesting. Embarkation and Debarkation was seamless, despite the horror stories I read on here about it. We were on the ship within 15 minutes of arriving at the port and off the ship in like 20 minutes after standing on a continuously moving line (we did self checkout and took our own bags). Like I said, there were a few things we didn't like. Desserts were mostly subpar (and considering this was an Italian ship, that surprised us). We are used to having sliced cake options at the buffet but all they had were mini pastries (but no Napoleans!!). Muster drills were confusing, but really didn't take a whole lot of time. We don't gamble a lot, but while I do appreciate that the main casino was smoke free, there were only two draw poker machines, so we didn't play. The trivia games were few and far between. No coffee was offered at dinner, which we normally enjoy with our dessert. Would I do another MSC? Absolutely. We are not actively going to book another cruise any time soon. We have some other expenses and plans, but when we are ready again, we'd book another one.
  9. We upgraded to an Aurea balcony on our upcoming cruise (18 Jan) and it's indeed confusing. Looking at my check in papers, it shows it as an Aurea balcony and lists the Aurea benefits, but it also shows the "experience" as Fantastica. So I hope we don't get screwed out of what we paid for. It does show that same paragraph as posted by @maehara so if they give me a hard time, I'll show them that. We went for the upgrade for two reasons, the spa access and "Anytime dining" which is something I'm used to on the other cruise lines I've been on.
  10. I bet that this question has been asked before. We are taking our first MSC cruise. I've heard (mostly from my son) that we would need to print out all of our check in materials, but when I went through the check in process through the MSC app, it says there's a boarding pass. Is that boarding pass all I need when I get to the pier? If I need more, what exactly do I need. I know on the other cruise lines we've taken (Carnival, NCL, Royal), what's in the app or what we got via email was enough. I know we need our passport and all that. Also, is there a way to pre-book specialty restaurants or is that something I cannot do until we get on board. I know you can buy a meal plan, but we don't want to do that, as this is a 3 night cruise and we want to at least experience the MDR once, and a specialty once and then perhaps make a decision on the third night based on our MDR experience. Any other embarkation tips?
  11. We have cruised mostly on NCL but also a 3 cruises on Carnival and 2 on Royal. We sailed on NCL in 2022, after the pandemic and I have to say, that the MDR food really went downhill. Last year we sailed on the Carnival Italian style ship, the Venizia, and we found the food REALLY good. The thing about Carnival is there are lots of choices, especially for lunch. So you can usually find something that is good. We are going on our first MSC cruise in a couple of weeks (Seashore) and I'm less than encouraged by the reviews, but know that food is subjective. I'm encourage to read that the pizza is good (as someone else in the thread I'm a native New Yorker living in NJ and pizza is practically a way of life). But I haven't found too many reviews of the MDR that are positive. The only food that seems consistently good is the Mexican place so we'll probably try that one night (my son's one and only cruise was on the Meriviglia and he said it was great as well, but he has nothing to compare it to). Our cruise is only a 3 night one, so we'll get a taste of what it's like and if it's reasonable we'll do more, but if it's terrible, we'll probably skip MSC in the future.
  12. Think about it. If you are waiting with 4 people and you push just once, and the person standing next to you has 4 people and pushes once, how does the elevator know you are 8 people or one person? And that's why you get such overcrowding. The elevator has no idea how many people to expect. If you push it 4 times for 4 people, the "crowd control" that the elevator should control (because that's the point of elevators like that) knows how many button pushes and thus, how many people. Otherwise an elevator designed like that doesn't work.
  13. Exactly. On the Venizia they have signs up on how to do it so perhaps MSC needs something similar. I know I'm going to mention it to people waiting on the Seashore how to do it correctly and maybe the word will spread 🙂 They should give me a free cruise for that!! (I keed, I keed!!)
  14. We will be on the Seashore in January. Thanks for the review. Just a note on the elevators. Some of the newer Carnival ships have similar type elevators. I was on the Horizon a few years ago and it was similar to what you encountered, long waits and crowded elevators when they did arrive. But, we were on the Venizia this past summer and with similar elevators, i don't think we ever waited more than a minute or two, and the elevators were only crowded a couple of times and those were after a show let out from the theater. So the system CAN work on a cruise ship if implemented correctly. Perhaps MSC needs to look at the issue and figure out how to make it work. In theory it should work, but often times people forget to hit their floor one time for each passenger (i.e if you are there with 3 people, hit the button 3x.).
  15. Awesome. Considering that parking at the Manhattan Cruise Terminal is $45/day, that's a relative bargain. Driving down to Orlando in January to drop my daughter off for her Disney Internship and considering a 3 day from Port Canaveral while we are down there. That will work out well.
  16. We are looking at this cruise too. We are taking our daughter to live in Florida for a spell and figured we'd attach a short cruise to it. Never sailed MSC, but my son has out of Brooklyn. Ship looks really beautiful and also figured a short cruise would work to see how we like it (We've sailed NCL, Carnival, Royal Caribbean).
  17. The cruise port is in midtown Manhattan so with that said, there are not many places, especially near the port like Walgreens to buy what you are looking for. Maybe a few blocks there could be a pharmacy you might be able to get something. Certainly not a Walmart (I'm not certain there are even any Walmarts in Manhattan). I also don't believe (but it's been many years since I lived in NY) that you can buy liquor in any store other than a dedicated liquor store (it's like that here in NJ and used to be that way in NY when I lived there). As far as from the airport, you can probably take a taxi, though I'm probably not the best person to answer that.
  18. Also they had masks available in the photo area (I forget the name of the venue, but where you looked at the photos taken during the cruise) It's not the best buffet layout by any means. And yes, you would need to wait in line to get to specific portion of the buffet you need to get to in many instances. For example, if you wanted to get to the entrees, you'd have to wait online, go through the salad bar to get to the entrees. That said, the few times we did the buffet, I don't think we waited online for more than a couple of minutes to accomplish that. The horror stories of "long lines" were just not something I encountered.
  19. I think we might have eaten like 5:45 one night, but still a 10 min wait.
  20. We actually didn't do that walk. We walked from the pier to PA which took, about 20 minutes, dragging one large suitcase. I have asthma and had to stop once or twice, but it was still not bad. But PA is a bit farther north and west than Penn. I'd imagine probably a half hour to get to Penn. As I said we DID walk a few blocks west of Penn station on our way to the pier and then got a cab on 10th Ave. That was still $30 due to midtown traffic on a Tuesday afternoon.
  21. This is what we thought when we decided to walk to PA. But it was such a nice day, we just walked the whole thing. We sort of did that in reverse on embarkation day. We walked a couple of blocks away from Penn Station and snagged a cab there. THAT day was very hot and muggy and was too much to walk it.
  22. I have not used Lyft in Manhattan yet, and I'm not sure how that would work at the cruise port. But the Taxi situation they have now IMO is untenable. We've taken maybe 5 cruises out of NY. The first one, I remember it was hard to get a cab, but we ended up getting one with none of this pricing nonsense that went on this time. The next time, they actually had a taxi line. That worked great. The next two times, we drove in and parked, but that's gotten so expensive that we decided to go back to our bus/train/taxi plan. They do need to make it less of a free for all. If I was heading to LGA, I think I'd take their shuttle. Just to avoid the hassles I went though, I'd rather pay extra. NOTE: The other times I've cruised from NYC, the cruises began and ended on a weekend, so maybe it's only this bad during the week? That will be a consideration next time we cruise out of NY. What issues have you heard about with their shuttle?
  23. That is the one place where I felt NCL had Carnival beat and that's their shows. While we enjoyed the Carnival shows, they are "typical" and the types of shows I've seen on cruises for as long as we've been cruising. NCL (and RCCL) have broadway shows. We've seen SIx and The Million Dollar Quartet on our recent NCL cruises and were both excellent. I guess Carnival figures they'd rather spend on the overall "fun" experience than just on broadway shows.
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