MSC Divina Transatlantic - Barcelona to Miami, 28 November to 14 December 2023

[Best Cat Mom]

Day 8…

 

Another sea day after another extra hour of sleep since we changed the clocks back an hour last night. One of the main reasons we booked this specific transatlantic cruise was that going from Europe to the US would allow us to gain an hour each time the clocks were changed. The idea of going in the other direction and losing an hour for multiple days seemed a depressing prospect on a vacation. We are definitely enjoying each of our 25 hour days.

 

We had our Baileys and coffee in the room and arrived at Le Muse for breakfast around 8:30am. We each had 2 mimosas and 1 cappuccino. BCD had the MSC Express with extra hash browns. I had an egg white omelet with bacon and cheese and a GF chocolate chip muffin.

 

We headed to TSL afterwards for a round of Holiday Coffee. This is our own concoction from weekend breakfasts at home. We've shared the recipe with bartenders on every MSC cruise we've taken. If it winds up on a menu someday, I don't know if we'll be proud or feel like someone stole our masterpiece. 😉

 

Over ice in a highball glass, add 1 shot of espresso, 1 shot of Kahlua, 1 shot of Baileys and 1 shot of coconut rum (Bacardi Coconut preferred). Stir and enjoy!

 

We finished our coffees and headed up to the One Deck around 11am so BCD could work on his cork car creation. At one point, I counted ~30 people up there which was nearly half of YC. The weather was much warmer than yesterday and people were enjoying the nearly full sun.

 

BCD garnered more attention as he toiled over his creation than yesterday. He had ideas to improve yesterday's model and so began a new version today. With 8 more days left to cruise, I hope we don't need a bigger cabin to hold all the prototypes.

 

Our butler Elvin came looking for us to discuss our Butcher's Cut lunch reservation tomorrow. He said that BC is having a brunch, not a lunch, for all the sea days and wanted to see if maybe we'd want to switch to a dinner. We had never known BC to have a brunch for sea days and he said he hadn't ever heard of that either. We decided to switch to dinner tomorrow instead, knowing that we'd be able to see the menu early in the day and could reschedule if Le Muse had something on their menu that we did not want to miss.

 

We saw our server team of Glenn and Ryan up at the One Pool Deck. They had told us that they'd be up there for breakfast and lunch all the 6 sea days since it was expected to be so busy outside compared to Le Muse. Ryan has been one of BCD's best "suppliers" of corks and wires and he was admiring BCD's efforts so far.

 

We opted to eat lunch there since nothing on Le Muse's menu seemed to be drawing us to them. The buffet had grilled pork chops, beef skewers, swordfish, mashed potatoes and a curry dish that I did not recognize, plus a bunch of salad items, cold cuts and cheeses.

 

BCD had a few beef skewers and mashed potatoes, plus tuna and salad, with some fruit for dessert. I had the pork, a little beef and some French fries. BCD drank a few glasses of Coke Zero and I had champagne.

 

BCD completed the latest version of his cork car creation and then we headed down to TSL around 4pm, as the temperature had started to drop and there was even a little rain. We had some drinks and some admirers stopped by to comment on BCD's newest creation.

 

After a little while, we headed back to the room to change for dinner. Tonight was the second Gala menu and the suggested dress was Elegant.

 

We arrived around 8:30pm to a quite empty Le Muse. Apparently, most people had dined early. Supplies from Ryan accompanied our menus, with our champagne delivered shortly after a brief discussion of design ideas.

 

For starters, BCD ordered the eggplant (aubergine) and I ordered the pear and bleu cheese salad. We continued with champagne and switched to chianti in anticipation of entrees: truffle filet for BCD and (what else?) lamb shank for me. I ordered a GF roll for the wonderful chianti sauce with the lamb. And we also ordered the saffron risotto to share. And also… no, that was definitely enough for entrées.

 

After we devoured our food -- well, we left a little, but did eat more that I thought we could -- we considered dessert. BCD ordered the apple strudel and I had a little brie with what was left of my bread.

 

We managed to get back to TSL, even though we thought we were too full to walk. We were happily sleepy from all that great food and there was no clock change tonight so we only had 1 sidecar and old fashioned and then retired for the night to rest up for another busy sea day tomorrow.

 

Day 9 will be next…

Edited December 6, 2023 by Best Cat Mom

[Best Cat Mom]

Day 8 Lunch menu:

 

[Best Cat Mom]

Day 8 Dinner menu:

 

[DaKahuna]

@Best Cat Mom Why DW and I prefer steamed rice to risotto.  Is steamed rice available in Le Muse? 

 

[Best Cat Mom]

Just now, DaKahuna said:

Is steamed rice available in Le Muse?

Do you mean with all the different flavors that change nightly for risotto? That sounds complex. But just as a plain rice side disk? I haven't noticed it as a side dish, but it does seem like it would be an easy special request for them to fulfill.

[DaKahuna]

48 minutes ago, Best Cat Mom said:

Do you mean with all the different flavors that change nightly for risotto? That sounds complex. But just as a plain rice side disk? I haven't noticed it as a side dish, but it does seem like it would be an easy special request for them to fulfill.

 

 Thank you.  Yes, just plain rice, or what is called "sticky rice" here in the US. We like it in place of potatoes with a lot of dishes.  One of my favorite breakfast is two eggs over easy, sausage, and rice.  

 

[Best Cat Mom]

Just now, DaKahuna said:

Yes, just plain rice, or what is called "sticky rice" here in the US

Divina has a sushi restaurant as the other specialty option besides Butcher's Cut. I can't imagine that you will have any issue getting sticky rice. I have always loved Chinese food over that white rice (I'm born and bred in NYC) though my choices are limited now that I'm GF.

[DaKahuna]

9 minutes ago, Best Cat Mom said:

Divina has a sushi restaurant as the other specialty option besides Butcher's Cut. I can't imagine that you will have any issue getting sticky rice. I have always loved Chinese food over that white rice (I'm born and bred in NYC) though my choices are limited now that I'm GF.

 

Understand. My DW is Japanese so we consume a lot of rice at home and sometimes miss it when traveling. 

 

I have pre-booked the Two Speciality Dining Experience so we will have at least one meal in Galaxy as well as Butcher's Cut. 

 

We are fortunate that the only issue is my wife has gotten to the point where she cannot tolerate milk.  Other than that no known food issues.  My wife and our kids always give me a hard time because I can pretty much eat anything and enjoy spicy foods.  I just tell them I have a cast iron gut and it should be obvious from my 'pot belly stove' physique.   🤣

 

[Best Cat Mom]

Day 9…

 

Today was our third sea day of the six for the crossing. We've never had a cruise this long before and it's great to know that we are not even half way through the sea days yet, never mind the days of the cruise after then.

 

Though there was not a time change last night, we were up before the alarm because the sunshine woke us up. We much prefer not to need an alarm and to have the natural sunrise wake us slowly. Baileys and coffee were delivered to our cabin and we enjoyed that while checking our position on a map. Due south of us was Antarctica with no other land masses in the path of our latitude at that time, though it is quite a bit away. At some point today, we will be west of the eastern most point of Brazil. As we saw that on the map, we were saying that Brazil needs to "get its elbow out of the Atlantic." LOL

 

We headed to Le Muse for breakfast at around 8:45am. We had our usual mimosas and I had a cappuccino. BCD had some pineapple juice and waffles with cinnamon and a side of bacon. MSC's waffles have come a long way from where they started. I recall reading on the boards that back in ~2017-2018 that their waffles resembled frozen Eggo waffles and were not very good. They now appear less store bought and seem more popular. BCD enjoyed his. I decided to order 2 soft boiled eggs, something I haven't had since on a holiday in 2000. I usually make hard boiled eggs at home, as I am not fond of egg yolks. Someone had ordered soft boiled eggs on our last cruise and make me think that I should have them one day for a change. Today was the day. The menu says you can have them as 3-minute, 6-minute or 12-minute eggs. I figured 12 would be more like hard boiled so I chose 3. I chose wrong. The whites were still quite liquid-y. I had ordered a lightly-toasted GF roll, thinking I might need it for the yolk spillage. I abandoned my eggs, and asked for some Nutella. It was excellent on the roll. When people ask me what do I normally put Nutella on, my go-to answer is a spoon. (Why dilute it with food?) But the roll and Nutella was a special treat and made me forget about my user-error with the eggs. Perhaps another day I will try the 6-minute version and see if that is more to my liking.

 

We were supposed to have BC for dinner tonight, but when we checked Le Muse's dinner menu and saw porcini risotto we knew we couldn't miss that and would have to change the BC reservations. We thought that we'd try to check this so-called brunch menu to see what was on that menu. Given that the hours listed in the paper (calendar, schedule, program, whatever it is called that is delivered to the cabin) are 10am to 2pm, we thought there might still be lamb and beef offered. Then, a brunch would fine for us.

 

We chose to walk back the room via deck 7 so we could check BC's brunch menu. Unfortunately, it indeed looks to be only breakfast-y type items so we'll change dinner to tomorrow at 8pm and check Le Muse's dinner menu tomorrow morning to see if we need to postpone another day.

 

We went back to the room to retrieve my devices and BCD's cork car supplies and past prototypes. Then we headed to TSL for a Bloody Mary and a cappuccino so BCD could begin the day's design and production activities.

 

Around 10am, the YC Head Butler Rudy proudly presented BCD with a pair of needle-nosed pliers! The world is finally rotating properly on its 23.45 degrees axis, the drinks taste better, the sun is shining brighter and my world is calmer. It's always amazing how your own personal perspective changes your enjoyment of a cruise. LOL

 

As we debated lunch, we decided that we did not want pool food today. It doesn't feel special to us, but sometimes we'll settle for it, like yesterday. We are not particularly fond of eating on plastic plates and drinking out of plastic glasses. I'm not a fan of eating outside in the wind of a sea day, either. We rarely eat like that at home, so why would we do that on a holiday where we're spending ~$750 per day?

 

If we miss lunch in Le Muse or if the menu is especially unappealing, maybe. But it's just not really for us. Geesh, I think I've had French fries 3 times so far on this cruise -- and I cannot even recall the last time we made them at home.

 

When BCD was at a good point to pause production, we went to Le Muse for lunch. We both had the seared beef for starters. It was excellent, similar to beef carpaccio, which is one of our favorites. For our entrées, BCD had veal cannelloni and I had the chicken supreme, which I was pleased to discover is GF. BCD had chianti and I had pinot noir. BCD also had a Mexican sundae since it sounded so good.

 

After that big and filling lunch, we lumbered back to TSL so BCD could resume work on his cars. Pepe stopped in and when he saw the work in progress, he said he wants one for his office. So many people commented over the course of the day that I told BCD he'd better get busy finalizing his design and beginning mass production. I think he has 4 solid orders, with another 5 or so that would be nice to have on hard to offer to others. People are so nice too -- they keep telling us that they're ordering champagne to help the cause 😉

 

After a long day in the car factory, we returned to the cabin a bit earlier than usual to dress for dinner. We arrived at Le Muse at 7:45pm, early for us, but found it to be quite empty. I think we’re still not used to such a small YC population. We are on another Divina cruise in April and I hope that it's not too crowded then. Being spoiled now would make it seem even more full, just like people who sailed during the pandemic have said about now compared to the empty ships from then.

 

Ryan brought us some champagne and some champagne remnants (supplies) for BCD for tomorrow's production. BCD shared the images of the different prototypes that he'd produced so far and Ryan's enthusiasm soared. I am quite optimistic that we will establish a strong strategic alliance with Ryan and that he will become a Tier One supplier for us and perhaps identify potential Tier Two suppliers elsewhere on the ship.

 

We both ordered salmon tartare as starters. BCD chose the veal cordon bleu as his entrée and I chose the grilled salmon from the Always Available section of the menu. I requested extra vegetables and knew that the hollandaise would need to be omitted from my dish to keep it GF. We also shared the porcini risotto. We had an Italian merlot with our meal, a Forchir Mirie, one that was new to us. It had a nice earthy component to it, as many Italian merlots do, and even had some soft tannins. I think it could be our choice with a filet for an upcoming dinner. When Glenn asked if we wanted dessert, I pointed to the risotto. If we weren't so full, we would have readily dug into another portion!

 

We headed back to TSL for a few -- okay, 5 -- rounds of sidecars and old fashioneds. Clocks are turning back tonight so staying up late was not a hardship. 🙂

 

Day 10 tomorrow…

[Best Cat Mom]

Day 9 Lunch menu:

 

[Best Cat Mom]

Day 9 Dinner menu:

 

[DaKahuna]

 Still not Zacapa Old Fashion?  

 

 Do you know what bourbon they are using for your regular old fashion's?  

 Are the sidecar's made with Hennessy's? 

 

Asking for a friend 🤣

Edited December 7, 2023 by DaKahuna

[Best Cat Mom]

Woodford is in the old fashioneds.

 

Hennessey is indeed in the sidecars,  sometimes Martelli.

 

Hubert is your guy in TSL. I just told him you are asking. :)]

[Best Cat Mom]

I had a Zacapa 23 yesterday afternoon. It was not for the faint-hearted.

[DaKahuna]

27 minutes ago, Best Cat Mom said:

Woodford is in the old fashioneds.

 

Hennessey is indeed in the sidecars,  sometimes Martelli.

 

Hubert is your guy in TSL. I just told him you are asking. :)]

 

 Well, I hope that Hubert is going to still be on board in February.  If he is, tell him I look forward to his creations.  

 

26 minutes ago, Best Cat Mom said:

I had a Zacapa 23 yesterday afternoon. It was not for the faint-hearted.

 

 Really, I normally find them milder and slightly sweeter than the ones made with Woodford.  Then again, I am fond of a large cube of ice and three fingers of Zacapa in a highball glass. 

 

Quick question:  Is the Japanese style restaurant in Galaxy open for lunch on port days or just in the evenings?  We are looking for places to eat, aside from the buffet and Le Muse for the couple of ports where we do not plan to leave the ship. 

 

Edited December 7, 2023 by DaKahuna

[Best Cat Mom]

Hubert will still be here in February. In fact, he'll still be here when we come back in April. I have told him to prepare for you.  😉

 

I think he made the Zacapa a double, since he makes BCD doubles all the time.  (Maybe I'm miscounting the drinks each night then?)

 

 

[Best Cat Mom]

Day 10…

 

Woke up to another beautiful sunrise this morning, again before the alarm, making a great start to our day. An extra hour of sleep last night was also a contributory factor to our happy morning.

While we were enjoying our Baileys and coffee, we noticed that it was raining. Not sure when it started, but it stopped just before we headed out to breakfast at Le Muse around 8:30am.

 

We opted for the outside walk on Deck 15 since the rain had stopped. It was quite wet outside, with lots of standing water between the wet loungers around the pool. The rain must have surprised the crew after the loungers were set up. The wet loungers did not stop people from enjoying the now shining sun. Looks like it will be a nice sea day after all. The glare off all the wet surfaces was pretty intense so we opted for an inside walk on Deck 7 back to YC.

 

We had checked lunch and dinner menus for Le Muse and noticed that today's lunch has the one entrée that neither of us like -- grilled king prawns. This was an entrée we had tried on two previous occasions on two different ships and agreed that it was not for us. Before this cruise, we had said that the day this was on the lunch menu would be the day we would use our Diamond specialty meal at BC.

 

Unfortunately, we had dinner reservations at BC and could only have brunch during the sea days. This would have been a great day for lunch instead.

 

We stopped at the casino, but remembered that we never registered our credit card. This time we had not gotten a reminder either. I think in the past we would find a card on our bed with the other assorted papers given during turndown service.

 

Wandered around that middle atrium area of this ship for a bit. We walked up the Swarovski stairs at one point and were amazed at how small they were, both in depth of each step and the width of the staircase. The stairs in YC are much bigger. We were really surprised since any images we've seen of the stairs in the atrium always looked the same as YC.

 

As we wandered around, we marveled at few people we saw. We thought perhaps everyone was now at the pools?

 

We encountered a BC representative at a display to sell specialty dining. Knowing we still had another meal to use at BC, we stopped to ask if lunch would be available later in the cruise, after all the sea days of the crossing. He told us that not every sea day was a brunch; on some days lunch was offered. And today was a lunch!

 

We headed back to our cabin to grab a credit card to register at the kiosk by the YC concierge desk and to ask the concierge to verify that BC did have lunch today instead of brunch. We checked the schedule in the room first, and BC had lunch hours of 10am to 2pm for today -- which sounded more like brunch. We tried to remain optimistic as we asked Simone to check with BC for us. He also was doubtful because of the hours listed but a bit hopeful, given that a BC representative had told us. You would think this was a life-or-death matter with us holding our breath while he called the venue. And then we had a big sigh of relief to find out that today was indeed a lunch day! So our holiday was saved as we now had lunch reservations for 1pm today at BC and wouldn't have to eat prawns. LOL

 

We went to TSL to celebrate. BCD resumed his line work and I oversaw manufacturing operations until lunch time. BCD also checked in at the One Pool Deck to see if the bar could contribute some more supplies to the cause.

 

When the time came for lunch, we headed down to BC and were surprised to see only 3 other tables occupied. We thought perhaps the brunch vs. lunch "fiasco" <sarcasm> was the root cause. Regardless, we had a great meal, eating way too much and enjoying it all immensely.

 

BCD loves the bread basket there and the two types of flavored butter. As usual, the bread was warm and the butter was just the right temperature to be easily spreadable. They had GF bread for me as well with regular butter. I had the roll with my meal and saved the chocolate croissant for dessert. BCD ordered the foie deviled eggs -- he absolutely loves them -- and I had the house chop salad. Then an 8 ounce filet for BCD with Brussel sprouts and double lamb chops with roasted cauliflower for me for our entrées. BCD had lava cake for dessert while I had the previously delivered GF chocolate croissant. We each had 4 glasses Malbec with our meals. We left pleasantly full.

 

One thing to note about free or purchased "Dining Experience" meals at BC -- we've never received a check at the end to sign since the meal is already covered/prepaid. If you choose something not on the Dining Experience portion of the menu, you'll likely have a check to sign. We never have any cash, so if we don't get a check and yet feel that we had excellent service (as we have every single time in BC), we'll tip on the last day using an envelope from the YC concierge. And they will even look up the name of your server for you if you can't recall it or are not sure of the spelling.

 

Then we headed back to TSL so BCD could get back to work. The lounge was completely empty so we sat at the bar. Many of the staff stopped by to admire and comment and BCD quickly used up all of his available supplies. Completion of the third car would have to wait for another production day.

As we sat there, we realized just how big of a lunch we had. As dinnertime approached, we weren't even hungry. We thought that would change eventually so we went back to the room to relax until dinner.

 

Around 8:15pm, we finally arrived at Le Muse for dinner, both thinking we'd eat light. We were surprised that the dinner menus differed from what was online. (I'll post both though.)

 

Another surprise was that our regular server Glenn was "off" this evening. At first we were concerned since we've never seen anyone "off" before but his assistant Ryan said that he himself had been "off" for breakfast and Glenn was off for dinner. We later wondered if maybe on these long cruises they give people time off even if there is no port for them to visit. If so, I guess that is great for the crew, but I doubt they have the nice types of areas like we do to relax at sea for the time off. 😞

 

After 10 consecutive dinners of our regular server team, it was interesting to see the interaction between these two new partners. We could see that there was not as smooth of a handoff between them during service, making me think that it could seem that way with any new team. Then we thought that maybe this is what leads to some guests not having optimal dining experiences, the breaking-in period of a new server/assistant server team. And maybe some guests don't notice that new team awkwardness on the first night of a cruise because they are newly embarked? Maybe that's why there is a big discrepancy in reviews -- who notices and who does not and which of them are posting here?

 

(And is this type of musing too deep? Am I just pondering these questions because this is my fifth of six sea days and I have nothing better to do?? My mind must be going back to management in my pre-retirement business life. I know -- another drink pronto to get back into holiday mode!)

 

Since Ryan was very familiar with my GF-ness, he took the lead in making sure that I was still accommodated in the same safe manner. He even took my starter back and got me a completely new one when there was a component with gluten on the dish -- even though he could have simply removed that from the plate. For all of those reading who have allergies, you know how comforting it is to know that someone cares. There is a lot of stress in worrying every time you have meal made by others instead of making it yourself.

 

We had champagne and then as starters BCD had dumplings and I had the sea scallops. (The sea scallops were the dish that Ryan corrected for me. When originally served, the papadum crisps listed on the menu were also on the plate. Instead of simply removing them from the plate, he brought me a new dish that never had the crisps on at all.) For entrées, BCD had prime rib, I had tuna, and we shared a risotto.

 

As the food came, we realized that we were overstuffed just from the starters. We barely touched our entrées and our servers both noticed, asking if the protein was overdone or the risotto not al dente. We assured them it was us not them (LOL they did not know that phrase, thank goodness). We escaped after pushing our entrées around on our plates for 45 minutes or so. We did finish our wine, however. 😉

 

We stopped in TSL for a digestivo -- I had a limoncello and BCD had Jägermeister. When the musician finished his next set, we retreated to the cabin, finished our drinks and headed to bed quite early and still quite full.

 

Day 11 tomorrow…

[DaKahuna]

@Best Cat Mom I am so glad that you are continuing to have an excellent experience and it is making me feel better and better about our upcoming Divina cruise. 

 

We only have a couple of sea days on our cruise, being very port intensive; 6 ports in 11 days, so I think we will look into the BC brunch/lunch situation.  

 

Out of curiosity what was it that you and BCD did not like about the grilled shrimp meal?  I love grilled shrimp but know that it if is not properly prepared and seasoned it can be a disaster. 

 

[Mommapadraig]

@Best Cat Mom I’m loving your review. I’d love to cruise with you just for your wine suggestions! 

[Best Cat Mom]

Just now, DaKahuna said:

Out of curiosity what was it that you and BCD did not like about the grilled shrimp meal?

Different answer for me and BCD. The prawns were the typical Italian preparation, with all the body parts (head, tails, antennae, etc.), and BCD does not care for that. For me, it was the taste just wasn't all that. Both of us prefer more of a hearty garlic shrimp flavor -- we make a great scampi at home -- but these were a more bland preparation, maybe because the spices did not quite absorb through all the outside body. Not a big deal, as there are other menu choices that we know not to order because we don't like them. For instance, we do not eat Indian or Thai food. I do not eat any spicy food at all. This is just one of those menu items that I know better than to order now.

[Best Cat Mom]

Day 10 Lunch menu (we skipped this meal in Le Muse):

 

[Best Cat Mom]

Butcher's Cut menu:

 

[Best Cat Mom]

Day 10 Dinner menu (from online, not what we had in Le Muse):

 

[Best Cat Mom]

Day 10 Dinner menu (from Le Muse, not what was online):

 

[DaKahuna]

25 minutes ago, Best Cat Mom said:

Different answer for me and BCD. The prawns were the typical Italian preparation, with all the body parts (head, tails, antennae, etc.), and BCD does not care for that. For me, it was the taste just wasn't all that. Both of us prefer more of a hearty garlic shrimp flavor -- we make a great scampi at home -- but these were a more bland preparation, maybe because the spices did not quite absorb through all the outside body. Not a big deal, as there are other menu choices that we know not to order because we don't like them. For instance, we do not eat Indian or Thai food. I do not eat any spicy food at all. This is just one of those menu items that I know better than to order now.

 

 Thanks  for you answer.  I have had lobster prepared that way and it has been hit or miss.  I guess if I try it I'll be prepared to have a second entre standing by. 

 

 One of my favorite dishes is Kurama Ebi (raw tiger prawns) where the head is removed and deep fat fried and the ship is served raw over a small helping of rice, sushi style. 

 

Yet another bothersome questions - is the daily schedule they leave in your cabin the same for YC as it is for the rest of the ship?  On the ones I have seen posted, I have not seen the hours for the any of the YC dining areas.  Just curious if it was the same or different and you had something else that provided the dining hours and any of the YC exclusive entertainment.