JamieLogical's Live from the MSC Meraviglia 9/24

[JamieLogical]

Yesterday was our port stop in Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island. Initially, we had planned to go ashore and maybe acquire some lunch the same way we did in Sydney, but after doing a little research into restaurants near the pier and looking at the MDR lunch menu, we opted to stay onboard.

 

We were once again too late to get breakfast in the MDR, so we headed up to the buffet. I found one empty cottage cheese dish, but then found another nearly full one at the back starboard side of the buffet. Unfortunately, the only jam on offer was peach or orange marmalade and I am not a fan of either of those, so I had to eat my cottage cheese plain.

 

After breakfast, it was off to the Sky Lounge for some drinks and games. We initially successfully achieved one Mimosa Blossom each, but then our server just brought us regular mimosas for our second round. Then, when I went up to the bar to order a third round, I was informed they were out of Prosecco at that bar and had called around to obtain some from another bar, but didn’t know how long the wait would be so we settled for some screwdrivers.

 

I wanted to try to get to lunch right at noon, as I was excited about the menu. On my previous cruise, this menu had been displayed in the app, but when we got to the MDR for lunch, it was a completely different menu and we were all disappointed. This time, the menu was accurate. What we were excited about were the conch fritters and mozzarella sticks offered as appetizers. I ordered both, along with the veal scallopini for my entre. My husband only got the mozzarella sticks and the Philly cheesesteak as his entre. For dessert, I got the tres leches cake and my husband got the Boston cream pie.

 

The conch fritters were delicious. The mozzarella sticks were just okay. I think the issue was, that they tried to use their freshly made mozzarella for them, which just doesn’t have the same texture as the mozzarella that we are used to in mozzarella sticks in the US. My veal scallopini was very good, but definitely not scallopini. Instead of the expected lemon and caper sauce, it just had brown gravy on it. More of a schnitzel at that point, I guess? The cheese on my husband’s Philly cheesesteak, while impressive looking, was not good at all. He ended up eating the other half of my veal. My tres leches was lacking a leches or two and was a little dry, but tasty. The Boston cream pie was good, as usual.

 

We didn’t have time for too much after lunch, because we had the Bills game on at 2:00 (we were still on Atlantic time). We headed to Edge and just played a bit or Rummy and enjoyed a drink while we waited for football to start.

 

At 2:00, we headed to the Casino to watch the game, as that was the only bar that was open that was supposed to be showing it, according to the Daily. Well, to my disappointment, they were showing the Bengals/Titans game instead. Next on the list, according to the Daily, was the Brass Anchor, which was also supposed to be playing the Bills game, though the bar itself was closed.

When I got there, the Bengals game was on there as well! Rather than traverse the whole ship to try to find someplace playing the Bills game, we ended up just watching it in the room. It’s worth noting that during the afternoon, three NFL channels had been added to the channel line-up on the stateroom TVs.

 

My husband went down to Edge and fetched us some drinks to enjoy while watching the game. At halftime, it was my turn and I went down to Edge to fetch us our afternoon coffees. My husband was happy, because this particular bartender knew how to make a proper cafe mocha.

During the game, I called down to the specialty dining reservations desk and booked us a table for Kaito for dinner. That accomplished, I ran up to the buffet and grabbed a slice of pizza to tide me over. If you watched any of the game, you know it was not exactly full of action in the last quarter, so I didn’t miss much by running up there after the Bills scored for the last time.

 

I learned a fun statistic. In NFL history, there have only been 7 games where a team scored more than 60 points and those teams were 1 and 6 the following week. So Miami just contributed to that stat.

 

After the game, I decided to take a short nap, as I had been fighting off the sleepies for a while by that point. Then it was time to grab a drink before heading to dinner. We ended up at Infinity, as Edge was slammed with everyone coming back onboard by that point. We weren’t quite able to finish our drinks before our dinner reservation, so we just carried them with us which was no issue at all for anyone who is worried about bringing drinks to specialty dining. Not sure we could have taken them in for Teppanyaki, but no one batted an eye at us bringing them to our table for sushi.

 

I got the Samuri Termpora roll this time. My husband got the salmon maki and chuukara sake roll. All of it was very good. We were also able to get some sake. The last time we were onboard, the ship had no sake at all, as their sake supplier had fallen through. This time, there were two sake options available. One was covered by the Easy Plus package, so that’s the one we got! They gave us a little ceramic bottle of it as well as two ceramic shot glasses. It was very light tasting and I am not sure it had much alcohol content, but it was still good to try!

 

After dinner we did a couple of laps around decks 6 and 7 to “walk it off” and then we stopped at the Champagne bar for more Blueberry Lavender Sparklers. I learned two things on this stop at the Champagne bar. First, our bartender is scheduled to be onboard until the end of April, so not only will he be around for my 10/25 sailing, but it sounds like our 4/18 sailing may be his last one before disembarking. Second, the Champagne Bar offers food! I noticed there was a QR code on the table for both the drink menu and the food menu, which was news to me. Apparently, they have oysters and other seafood. I will post a screenshot and the pdf in my photos post.

 

There was an adult comedy show scheduled for the Carousel Lounge, which we were pretty excited about since we like that venue a lot. We headed over there about 20 minutes before the show to get drinks and decent seats. The comedian was named Daran Howard and he had done a show in the main theater one of the early nights of the cruise which we missed. Also, that was the “family-friendly” act, so I am not sure if we would have enjoyed it as much.

 

He was pretty funny and we had a nice time. We then headed to the casino, where I lost my entire daily budget, but my husband came out $100 ahead. Jerk! He doesn’t even like to gamble!

 

Eventually, we went up for late-night snack. I had my usual slice of pizza. There were shortbread cookies again, which were just okay for my husband, but we did discover some mini eclairs with chocolate cream filling that were quite good.

 

At 10:20, Chris J Clarke was going to be doing a Beatles tribute in the main Galleria. By the time we got there, the Meraviglia Lounge and regular seating in Jean Philipe were full and it was standing room only in the main Galleria area. We sat in the back of Jean Philipe in one of the booths and we could hear just fine. Unfortunately, we were too tired to stay for the whole set. We headed to the duty-free shop so my husband could buy some malted milk balls, which he had a hankering for and then we headed up to bed.

 

Day's Drinks:

Mimosa Blossom from Sky Lounge
Double Mimosa from Sky Lounge
Double Screwdriver from Sky Lounge
Mojito from Edge
Vodka Ginger ale from Casino (consumed in room)
Americano w/ Bailey's from Edge (consumed in room)
Hugo Spritz at Infinity Bar
2.5 Sake from Kaito Sushi
Blueberry Lavender Sparkler from Champagne Bar
Vodka Ginger ale x2  from Carousel Lounge
Blind Russian from Casino Bar
French 77 from Champagne Bar

[JamieLogical]

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

QR_FB_CHAMPAGNE-FOOD-MR_OTHER_DAYX_EN_1696198612.pdf

Edited October 2, 2023 by JamieLogical

[Itchy&Scratchy]

1 hour ago, JamieLogical said:

My tres leches was lacking a leches or two

lol, good one!

Thanks for your review!

 

1 hour ago, JamieLogical said:

My husband went down to Edge and fetched us some drinks to enjoy while watching the game. At halftime, it was my turn and I went down to Edge to fetch us our afternoon coffees.

so, if everybody in the party has a drink package, will they let one person order 2 coffees or 2 drinks at the same time? 2 different drinks?

Edited October 2, 2023 by Itchy&Scratchy

[BDL]

1 hour ago, JamieLogical said:

When I got there, the Bengals game was on there as well! Rather than traverse the whole ship to try to find someplace playing the Bills game, we ended up just watching it in the room. It’s worth noting that during the afternoon, three NFL channels had been added to the channel line-up on the stateroom TVs.

We'll be on board for 2 Bills games (Oct 15 and 22). Hopefully they'll show them at one of the bars but good to know we'll be able to watch in the room at least. GO BILLS!!

[Sakura Tomoe]

16 minutes ago, BDL said:

We'll be on board for 2 Bills games (Oct 15 and 22). Hopefully they'll show them at one of the bars but good to know we'll be able to watch in the room at least. GO BILLS!!

I don't know about MSC as I've yet to sail with them, but on other cruise lines the bartenders have changed the channel to whichever game people wanted when they were asked.  As long as there's not people who really care which game is on, I don't see it being an issue.  I guess, just doesn't hurt to ask.

[JamieLogical]

43 minutes ago, Sakura Tomoe said:

I don't know about MSC as I've yet to sail with them, but on other cruise lines the bartenders have changed the channel to whichever game people wanted when they were asked.  As long as there's not people who really care which game is on, I don't see it being an issue.  I guess, just doesn't hurt to ask.

 

We were told at the Casino bar that we would have to contact the multimedia department, because the bartenders did no have remotes for the TVs.

[JamieLogical]

1 hour ago, Itchy&Scratchy said:

lol, good one!

Thanks for your review!

 

so, if everybody in the party has a drink package, will they let one person order 2 coffees or 2 drinks at the same time? 2 different drinks?

 

I have never had trouble getting two drinks at a time on MSC, even if they were different drinks.

[JamieLogical]

Yesterday was our second sea day. We were a bit rushed getting showered and dressed in time to make it to the MDR for breakfast, but we had decided that was our goal. As usual, things were pretty hectic in the MDR. I am not convinced Panorama is the best venue for MDR breakfast as it seems difficult for the staff to maneuver around. Waves seemed a little more organized.

 

We both had omelettes and my husband decided to try the waffles. I have been complaining the whole cruise that the commercial they keep playing for the Marketplace Buffet on the TVs around the ship show waffles on the buffet at breakfast, but there hasn’t been a single waffle to be found. They even have stations labeled “Waffles & Pancakes” all around the buffet at breakfast, but they only ever have pancakes, french toast, and sticky buns there. So, he got a waffle from the MDR just to prove that waffles are a thing on this ship.

 

(Update: we skipped the buffet this morning 10/3 and my husband decided to just go up there for a Danish and found waffles on the buffet, so they had them on the last day at least!)

 

I also accomplished toast, despite forgetting to ask for butter when I ordered my toast. I asked for it when my toast was delivered and they brought us two little pats of butter. I donated one to my husband for his waffles.

 

After breakfast, we hung out at Edge all morning trying to accomplish Mimosa Blossoms. The servers and bartender did not seem to comprehend and kept bringing us regular mimosas. Finally, I went up to the bar and explained what I wanted to the bartender and he managed to make them by following the ingredient list off the bar menu. It was pretty cute and he seemed pretty proud at the end. They were also very good!

 

At one point, I went over to the reservations desk in Ocean Cay to see about getting reservations for lunch at Hola! I was able to get one for 1:00, which suited us just fine. I then went up to the room to check the invite to the Gold Party for what time it was happening. Turns out we missed it! I was in the room checking the invite at 11:15 and the party had started at 11:00. Oh well.

 

Lunch at Hola! Was delicious as usual. It was more packed than I have seen it all cruise, presumably because of the sea day. We were seated at one end of one of the high-top tables, which I had never sat at before. We got the El Chapo dip, small nachos (my new favorite), and chips and smoked chipotle salsa to share. My husband got a Tostada and I got my beloved Chipotle Carnitas Taco. It was so good and I am glad I will be back on the ship in a few weeks or I would have been really sad about it being our last meal at Hola! for a while.

 

After lunch, I decided it was nap time, so I went back to the room and my husband went up to the Sky Lounge to play his Switch. The plan was for me to text my husband when I was done napping and we would meet up for coffee. It didn’t quite happen that way. I had a hard time sleeping and he ended up needing coffee before I did, but we ultimately ended up at Edge where I had my coffee and we hung out for a bit then headed back to the room for a bit before the evening.

 

I changed into my “White Night” clothing. My husband didn’t have any so he just sucked it up. Fortunately for him, a much smaller percentage of the passengers on this sailing were dressed for white night than our last cruise. He didn’t stick out like the sore thumb he worried he might.

 

We went to the Champagne Bar for some pre-dinner drinks and to play some rummy. I hung out near the Future Cruise desk to eavesdrop on what future cruises people were booking. I am so jealous of anyone doing either of the upcoming world cruises!

 

We had decided to do the MDR for dinner. Our mother/daughter tablemates had specialty dining booked for these last two sea nights, so we knew we wouldn’t be seeing them. The married couple we hadn’t seen at dinner for a few days because the wife hasn’t been feeling well. They did actually come to the MDR for dinner but ended up requesting a table for two so as not to get any of us sick. They did at least stop by and say hi and promise they weren’t being antisocial.

 

We had a nice time chatting with our two remaining tablemates who I gather are two friends that just travel together occasionally. Both have significant others who stayed home for this cruise, but one of them is actually going on the Oasis of the Seas on Sunday with her SO, so she will only be home for a couple of days between sailings. They live in upstate NY, not to be confused with *western* NY, which is where we are from!

 

For dinner, I was planning to order both the Legume Soup and the Stuffed Meatballs as appetizers, but my husband convinced me to order the soup and he would order the meatballs and we would share. Well, it didn’t exactly happen that way. He gave me ONE whole bite of the meatballs, which were delicious, and I pretty much had the whole bowl of soup to myself, which was also delicious. I think I would have preferred to have both to myself as originally planned.

 

None of the entrees were calling my name any louder than the Pasta Bolognese, which I know I love. So, I had that while my husband had the Mediterranean Cous Cous. Oh, I forgot to mention that the Chef’s Recommendation for the evening was the Tennessee Chicken Fried Steak, which was apparently the source of MUCH confusion for the non-American passengers and staff. Our waiter told us there was a “mistake” and that the dish was “actually beef” even though there was a pretty thorough explanation of the dish printed right there on the menu. I was pretty amused. I think there are roughly 50% non-American passengers on this cruise, so I am not surprised that the dish would be confusing to non-English-speaking passengers.

 

My husband wasn’t feeling great after dinner and I had a headache, so we headed back to the room after dinner and ended up just hanging out there the rest of the night. I did go up to the buffet for my late-night pizza at one point, but otherwise, it was just a lazy night watching TV.

 

Day's Drinks:

Mimosa x3 from Edge
Mimosa Blossom from Sky Edge
Margarita from Hola!
Americano w/ Bailey's from Edge
Blueberry Lavender Sparkler from Champagne Bar
French 77 from Champagne Bar

[JamieLogical]

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited October 3, 2023 by JamieLogical

[mtnmom3dogs]

I hope that the foreign reception to Chicken Fried Steak doesn't keep them from offering it next week. That would be a treat!

[Mark_T]

23 minutes ago, mtnmom3dogs said:

I hope that the foreign reception to Chicken Fried Steak doesn't keep them from offering it next week. That would be a treat!

... did they manage to serve the correct gravy though? ... as that would also confuse many who had never eaten it before...

[JamieLogical]

59 minutes ago, Mark_T said:

... did they manage to serve the correct gravy though? ... as that would also confuse many who had never eaten it before...

 

That I don't know, as no one at my table ordered it.

[JamieLogical]

On 9/30/2023 at 11:28 AM, AstoriaPreppy said:

 

Could you post a beer menu (or recount the beer options) at Brass Anchor? We're on the Meraviglia in January, and would enjoy knowing what we're going to be facing 🤣

 

Sorry it took so long for me to get back to Brass Anchor to take these pictures for you.

 

 

 

 

 

[Sakura Tomoe]

Oooo, the draft list doesn't really do anything for me, but I do enjoy Asahi, so when my stomach is inevitably upset with too many days of liquor, that'll be a nice change of pace for me.

[JamieLogical]

Yesterday was the last full day of the cruise. It was also our third sea day. For breakfast, we decided just to skip it. We had our coffee and pastry in our room but didn’t try to make it to the MDR. Instead, we headed down to Edge to try to get a decent spot to hang out for the morning. My husband did decide to go up to the buffet to grab a muffin and some cheese slices. That’s when he spotted actual waffles on the waffle station for the first time all sailing.

 

We hung out in Edge, asking our server for Mimosa Blossoms, but he brought us regular mimosas anyway. For our second round, I took matters into my own hands and went up to the bar and ordered Mimosa Blossoms from the same bartender who had learned how to make them the previous day by following the ingredients listed on the menu. The danger was he was making them in large wine glasses with full shots of everything. Two of those each and we were REALLY wasted. My usual limit is three Mimosa Blossoms before lunch. Since these were essentially doubles, we were at four plus the regular mimosa we had first.

 

Somehow we made it up to the buffet for lunch where we ate random food (pizza mostly?) to try to soak up the alcohol, but I needed a nap as soon as I was done eating. We headed back to the room where I promptly passed out. My husband also took a nap but got up before me and headed up to the Sky Lounge to play his Switch.

 

I eventually came out of my coma and went up to the Sky Lounge to play some board games and drink some coffee. We checked out the MDR dinner menu and decided to try to get a last-minute reservation for Hola! or Kaito. It was Italian Night in the MDR, but they had no calamari! My husband went to the phone near the elevators and tried to call down to make a dinner reservation, but the phone just rang and rang. So, he gave up on that and just physically went down to Ocean Cay where he was able to procure us a 6:00 reservation for Hola!

 

After playing our fill of board games, we headed back to the room to drop off our stuff. We found we had luggage tags and disembarkation instructions waiting for us. We got group 12, which would have had us disembarking at 8:55, but we planned to do the express walk-off because my husband was paranoid about missing our 11:41 flight out of LGA.

 

We headed down to the Champagne Bar for our final round of Prosecco-based drinks and to say goodbye to our bartender. I am happy he is still going to be on the ship for my 10/25 sailing and I tried to warn him about my rowdy solo crew.

Then it was time for our dinner reservation at Hola! Things were a little crazy there as apparently they only had one waiter at the moment. I felt so badly for him as he was clearly being run ragged. The Meitre’D tried to help out by pouring water and running food. He even ended up taking our order painfully slowly, as he clearly didn’t know how to find anything in the tablet interface they take orders through.

 

Some of the other customers were getting testy, but we were very chill about the slow service. It wasn’t even that slow. Our reservation was for 6:00 and we were in and out of there at 6:49. We had the same exact food as the previous trip. We shared chips & salsa, small nachos, and El Chapo dip. I had a Chipotle Carnitas taco and my husband had a Tostada. We had high hopes of having enough room for dessert, but when the time came, we both decided we probably shouldn’t.

 

After dinner, we went back to our room to get our casino tickets in order to cash those out. Our room steward hadn’t completed our turn-down service yet, so we decided we would have to kill some time before heading back to pack. The casino doesn’t give change. They only give tickets for amounts under $1. So we decided to pool our loose change tickets and did two spins on a slot machine. No luck.

 

We walked around the ship a bit and then decided to have a seat outside of the Brass Anchor and people-watch. The display on the Galleria ceiling was showing video of people walking through the Galleria, so everyone was looking up and taking photos of themselves on the big screen. It was pretty entertaining.

 

By the time we got back to our room, Bibi had made it up and we were able to get busy packing. We got our bundles packed as well as our big suitcase with all of our games and random stuff. All that was left was toiletries and electronics that would go into our backpacks.

 

I went up to the buffet for one last late-night slice of pizza and then I tried to get to bed early since we had agreed to set an alarm for 5:30am.

 

I didn’t sleep very well. It took a long time for me to fall asleep and then I kept waking up frequently. At 5:30, the alarm went off and I was eager to get up and get showered/dressed so I could finish packing.

 

After we were clean and shiny and had packed the last of our stuff, we left everything in the room and headed up to fight in the cage match at the buffet. The first priority was coffee. It was our first time drinking the buffet coffee on this whole cruise and it wasn’t too bad. Then we each took turns getting a little food.

 

We decided that once we got back to the room and triple-checked we had packed everything, we would just go down and get in line for the express walk-off, even though that wasn’t supposed to start until 7:30. We quickly gave up on elevators and just carried our stuff down the two flights of stairs to Deck 6 where they were lining people up. The line wasn’t long at all. I think we got into it at 7:04 and it started moving almost immediately. Apparently, they were cleared to disembark a little early. We got through the line pretty quickly. Once in the terminal, we were met with an escalator and they wouldn’t let you on it if you didn’t have a free hand to hold the railing. That meant my husband had to take the elevator because he was handling two roller bags. There were only two elevators and one of them was out of order, so everyone was having to take one elevator down. I took the escalator so as not to take up room in the elevator, but I had to wait at the bottom through three elevator loads of people before my husband made it down.

 

Getting through customs was super quick and then we were out on the curb, ordering a Lyft. The wait time was 7 minutes and the price for a trip to LGA was $58. It took our driver a bit longer to get to us than anticipated because some semi-tractor-trailer driver had accidentally gone the wrong way and was blocking traffic because they initially wouldn’t even let him in the passenger pick-up area. Eventually, they figured out there was no other option and let him pass through there.

 

Traffic wasn’t bad and we were to the airport, through security and at our gate before 9:00. Currently our plane is flying from Little Rock to LGA and is on time. Hopefully, it will stay that way and we will be home in a few hours!

 

Day's Drinks:

Mimosa from Edge
Double Mimosa Blossom x2 from Edge
Americano w/ Bailey's from Sky Lounge
Hugo Spritz from Sky Lounge
Blueberry Lavender Sparkler from Champagne Bar
Margarita from Hola!

[JamieLogical]

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited October 4, 2023 by JamieLogical

[PTC DAWG]

Safe travels, enjoyed your review…

[Mommapadraig]

Thanks for sharing! Wonderful review. Safe travels.

[AstoriaPreppy]

15 hours ago, JamieLogical said:

 

Sorry it took so long for me to get back to Brass Anchor to take these pictures for you.

 

 

 

 

 

 

It’s appreciated! I guess the real question now is what beers will be out of stock because of “supplier issues” this January. On our Gem cruise this summer, finding anything that wasn’t Michelob Ultra onboard was challenging. 

[Ottawa_Cruiser]

Safe travels home! I love your live review again!

[DaKahuna]

 Really enjoyed your review and am looking forward to your next one with your rowdy crew! 

 

[3some]

I really enjoyed your semi b2b reviews and this one, too. I'll be on the Oct 25 itinerary with you and the 'crew'. Thanks for doing the live reviews. They are extremely helpful.

[JamieLogical]

Made it home safe and on time! See you all again when I start my 10/25 Live Blog!

[afn10305]

1 hour ago, JamieLogical said:

Made it home safe and on time! See you all again when I start my 10/25 Live Blog!

Jamie, so I am curious and would like your honest opinion.  With regards to food and drink how does MSC stack up (or not) vs. NCL?

We're in Quebec City waiting to board the Pearl on Friday. 

[JamieLogical]

3 hours ago, afn10305 said:

Jamie, so I am curious and would like your honest opinion.  With regards to food and drink how does MSC stack up (or not) vs. NCL?

We're in Quebec City waiting to board the Pearl on Friday. 

 

The included drink package is waaaaaay better on MSC, because it includes so much more than NCL's included package. I would say the MDRs are about the same level, though very different in their offerings. The pizza on the buffet is much better on MSC. I think the selection *was* better in the buffet on NCL, but I don't know what they have cut since last October. I do know that NCL has eliminated the late night snack in the buffet, which would be really tough for me. I definitely miss an included sit-down option that isn't the MDR like O'sheehan's/The Local. Fortunately there are some really cheap a la carte options on MSC in Kaito and Hola! but they do cost extra and aren't open 24/7.

 

Edited October 5, 2023 by JamieLogical