Aurea Dining are on MSC Lirica.

It is several years since I last visited this web site and some five years since I cruised on an MSC ship. Then I travelled, with my dear lady, as a guest with a press pass and my last trip was with a great bunch of folk including “Skipper Tim,” on-board the Fantasia from Brazil to Venice.

Now, well and truly retired, I cruise for pleasure and so can avoid the over the top attention given to travel writers.

However, since then MSC have introduced add on experiences such as “Bella, Fantastica and Aurea.”

I am booked on an MSC Lirica Repositioning Cruise from Dubai to Venice, Tim knows my preference for these types of cruises. The booking states that as an Aurea, guest there will be an area of a dining room set aside for Aurea guests. My first question is: Which dining room and which area within that dining room?

My second question relates to boarding. As my flight is overnight, we will arrive in Dubai, terminal 3, at around 8am. Giving say an hour to clear immigration and customs and around thirty minutes to drive to the cruise terminal, arriving at around 9:30 to 10:00, will we be able to board straight away and then wait around, on-board, until our cabin is ready? Or will they keep us hanging around in the terminal until 12 noon?

We normally cruise on the larger ships with Yacht Club but in 2016 we were in an aurea suite on the Opera which is one of Lirica's sister ships. The Aurea my choice dining was in a reserved area of the aft restaurant on deck 6 and we usually had one of the two person tables right next to the aft facing windows. Very nice especially at sunset. On the Lirica this would be the Ippocampo restaurant. We'll be on the Lirica in March 2019 sailing from Dubai to India and back to Dubai. Enjoy your cruise.

My second question relates to boarding. As my flight is overnight, we will arrive in Dubai, terminal 3, at around 8am. Giving say an hour to clear immigration and customs and around thirty minutes to drive to the cruise terminal, arriving at around 9:30 to 10:00, will we be able to board straight away and then wait around, on-board, until our cabin is ready? Or will they keep us hanging around in the terminal until 12 noon?

We boarded Fantasia last year in Dubai. We arrived early morning and were at the port by 10 or so. Boarding was almost immediate as few cruisers were there at that time of the day. We could not access our stateroom or cruise cards until 1.00pm so we had to use our Setsail Checkin docs to get drinks on the package. Enjoy, Ken.

I asked the same question regarding embarkation for our cruise on Splendida from Dubai, the answers were that we could embark when we arrived at 10 am. We missed embarkation in Dubai due to 'the beast from the east'. However, when we were disembarking at 8.30am people were already embarking for the next sailing.