Today is the day!!! 😁 Sailing on the Seaside

[NCteacherlovescruising]

1 hour ago, morpheusofthesea said:

This statement seems to suggest that perhaps your cabin steward/junior butler was brand new ? Many times MSC pulls from the ranks of cabin stewards their next butlers. Butlers rarely clean ones cabin though they know exactly how to clean having perhaps been a cabin steward. We had one butler that was always a butler having been a butler at a 5 star hotel for 20 years and just coming to MSC. On our last cruise the ship was short a cabin steward that did not show up, so from the YC One Pool Deck was commandeered a very able and deserving pool attendant to be our cabin steward. The first two days of the cruise all he had to wear was his pool attendant garb with "POOL ATTENDANT" in bold on the back of his t-shirt. By day three he had his brown cabin attendant uniform. Of course our butler was seen helping him out assisting in all the room cleanings and training. Perhaps this was the same in your case, which over tired the butler having to take on double duty and still serving the more 'needy' among us.

That very well could be!  We have never traveled in a suite before so we weren’t needy at all. 

1 hour ago, Mark_T said:

We were making notes to see if there was anything we missed to make sure we tried it next time.

 

Only thing we didn't see was the formal afternoon tea service with cake stand etc. but not sure if that still happens?

 

We will make more use of room service next time as we only used it once for a pizza delivery (... which was excellent! )

 

 

They did have the afternoon tea yesterday, our last sea day. They put an invitation on our bed the night before. I was out by the pool reading so we didn’t attend. 
 

We had pizza delivered twice. It was ok. The second time I ordered pepperoni, sausage, bacon and ham and it came with pepperoni, raw bacon and hot dogs!  🤢

 

21 minutes ago, emmas gran said:

6 YC cruises and didn’t know this

Oh wow!  I read it somewhere online. Our butler also informed us when I inquired about how to go about it. It worked out perfectly because that was how many items we needed pressed. 
 

9 minutes ago, jules815 said:

Good info. I didn't know about his.

My husband and I will be on Seascape in September for 2 weeks and over the past couple of days I've been going thru the storage bins with summer cruise clothes, starting to make lists, etc. I just decided yesterday that I'm not going to agonize over wrinkles anymore while packing. If anything looks particularly bad, I'm just going to send it to be pressed. 
 

It was super convenient!  

9 minutes ago, jules815 said:

Also plan on doing some things we've never done on a 7-day in the YC. Pizza delivery, book specialty dining a couple of nights, maybe I'll book a massage. I've never even set foot in the spa area on either MSC ship we've sailed on. We've done 2 YC cruises and not once have we done a specialty restaurant because we didn't want to miss out on anything in the YC dining room. We've never used our Diamond perk, etc. 

 

We didn’t feel the need for specialty dining because we loved the suite restaurant. We took a tour of the thermal spa but never used it. I did get my hair done three times. Twice I got a wash and blow out and an updo on gala night. They were more expensive than Celebrity for blowouts. 
 

8 minutes ago, jules815 said:

I didn't either. 😃

Well now ya do!  😁

[JAGR]

3 hours ago, NCteacherlovescruising said:

Our favorite server/butler (recently promoted but not assigned cabins yet) was Arnold from the Philippians. He always came to help us as soon as we entered Top Sail Lounge and insisted on carrying our glasses to our cabins one day when we decided to go back there to drink them. 

That's Arnold Castro Jr.!  We last saw him on a B2B on Seashore, where he was the YC Lounge Butler.  He'd naturally know to carry your drinks!  A very good person and personality.  A well-deserved promotion!

[8420PR]

2 hours ago, NCteacherlovescruising said:

With the yacht club you get four items pressed free of charge. 

I believe this varies ship to ship.  E.g. On MSC Virtuosa we were able to have 4 items laundered with no charge (by asking our butler), but on MSC Seaview and MSC Bellissima it wasn't possible and nobody had heard of it.

[morpheusofthesea]

3 hours ago, NCteacherlovescruising said:

We have never traveled in a suite before so we weren’t needy at all

That is the key.  To paraphrase Dr. Samuel Johnson " Many of our (luxuries) are merely comparative, did we not see them in the possession of other (Yacht Club guests)."

[NCteacherlovescruising]

21 hours ago, JAGR said:

That's Arnold Castro Jr.!  We last saw him on a B2B on Seashore, where he was the YC Lounge Butler.  He'd naturally know to carry your drinks!  A very good person and personality.  A well-deserved promotion!

Yes!  He seemed like a very nice young man. I’m certain he will be a fantastic butler. 

21 hours ago, 8420PR said:

I believe this varies ship to ship.  E.g. On MSC Virtuosa we were able to have 4 items laundered with no charge (by asking our butler), but on MSC Seaview and MSC Bellissima it wasn't possible and nobody had heard of it.

That’s odd. I won’t go on to the Europa with that expectation then.  I’m sure we will have some items that need attention. 

[8420PR]

3 hours ago, NCteacherlovescruising said:

That’s odd. I won’t go on to the Europa with that expectation then.  I’m sure we will have some items that need attention. 

Here you can find everything you are guaranteed to get when you book Yacht Club:   https://www.msccruisesusa.com/cruise/msc-yacht-club 

 

But I think there is quite some flexibility and some ships will go further, I assume based on the YC Director, Hotel Director or maybe the regional office in the case of the US cruises.   

 

As an example, from my experiences:

- the Seafood Extravaganza is unique to the Caribbean.

- the free laundry or pressing you experienced is not on every ship.

- on some ships we have had fresh flowers in our cabin, on other not.

- on some ships the "bottle" and newspaper preference are taken during YC checkin, and on others the butler takes them onboard when he has time.

- the restaurant menu is typically the same on all ships (in the Med/UAE at least), but the presentation/execution/taste can be totally different.  Whereas Celebrity is sharing the recipe and presentation guide/ photos across all ships to standardize the offer, MSC is definitely not.

- plus more small differences....

 

For me this represents part of the charm of MSC - employees (from the ships management down) are more empowered to provide you an enjoyable cruise, and not to just follow a pre-defined process like a machine.  The downside is some things on your next cruise may be better, some different, and in a small number of cases worse than what you have experienced on MSC Seaside.

 

Edited July 3, 2023 by 8420PR

[JAGR]

4 minutes ago, 8420PR said:

- on some ships the "bottle" and newspaper preference are taken during YC checkin, and on others the butler takes them onboard when he has time.

- the restaurant menu is typically the same on all ships (in the Med/UAE at least), but the presentation/execution/taste can be totally different.  Whereas Celebrity is sharing the recipe and presentation guide/ photos across all ships to standardize the offer, MSC is definitely not.

 

For me this represents part of the charm of MSC - employees (from the ships management down) are more empowered to provide you an enjoyable cruise, and not to just follow a pre-defined process like a machine.  The downside is some things on your next cruise may be better, some different, and in a small number of cases worse than what you have experienced on MSC Seaside.

 

Excellent observations and points of interest!.  In particular, we have seen differences in the points I italicized above.  In cruises since COVID, we received an email on pillow, liquor, and paper once, three times we had to ask the butler after getting on board, and in one case, the butler had no idea what we were asking for and we had to go to the concierge and then the YC director for resolution.

 

On the food, you are spot on about the standardized menus but individual cooking and preparation methods.  On Caribbean cruises the first day YC lunch has something I really like: hamachi and avocado starter.  It was great, until one time on Meraviglia they snuck in jalapeno peppers as an "added" (but unwelcome!) extra.  Same variation in French Onion Soup and the Escargot to mention a few.  I do hope they fully standardize the dining presentation and preparation, and leave the variation to the maitre d's pasta/rissoto preparation or the specialty cooking demonstrations on the One Pool Deck.

 

Not earthshaking problems, but it would be a nice step. 

[mmbcater]

On 6/26/2023 at 4:10 PM, Steff79 said:

ice pyramid

.with ice cream in the middle

 

Baked Alaska!

[perakcruiser]

On 7/4/2023 at 1:47 AM, 8420PR said:

 

- the restaurant menu is typically the same on all ships (in the Med/UAE at least)

Interesting, this is YC only then. I sailed the Virtuosa 2022 in UAE and then in Europe and the menus were pretty different in the MDR and buffet also. With the most obvious thing that no pork was served in UAE.