Live from MSC World Europa. NYE Cruise, December 29, 2023 out of Barcelona.

[Stockjock]

Last year we did a New Year’s Eve cruise on Virtuosa out of Paris/Le Havre and this year we are doing a NYE cruise on World Europa out of Barcelona, so I will have some photographs and comments along the way.
 

Let me know if you have any questions. Right now we are staying in Barcelona and the cruise will leave on December 29.

 

We are staying at the NH Collection Grand Hotel Calderon, in Barcelona, which we like a lot. It’s located on Las Ramblas, which is right on the main drag.

 

Tonight, we are going to do a walking tour that includes stops at several bars with some tapas and drinks.

 

Last night, we had amazing t We had amazing tapas at Ciutat Comtal, and if you are in Barcelona, I highly recommend this place. We weren’t sure what to get, because there was such an extensive menu, so they have a special for two that includes some of the tapas that you see, including, salmon, beef, a mix, seafood, some artichoke dried things, Iberian ham. It was delicious! And we had a really nice Spanish Chardonnay. That was only about €18 for the whole bottle, I’m used to paying that for one glass. so out the door, it was about €77, plus a little bit of a tip, which I thought was extremely reasonable. If you eat here there will be a line, believe me, it’s worth the wait. 

 

 

 

 

Edited December 27, 2023 by Stockjock

[Gemina]

Following along!

[Stockjock]

Last night, we did a walking tour that was pretty similar to one that we did in 2019, but with a few changes.
 

They started off by serving some wine and tapas, and then we went to a so-called test kitchen, where they gave us some more wine and some different types of dishes that were tasty, but simple. we then went to another bar that we had been to back in 2019 and they served sangria and some different snacks. But it was fun and we had a fun group. 

 

After the tour ended, we went to a bar called Obama, and it was actually a pretty good bar, although I don’t know why they named it Obama. They had a singer that we thought was very good and a lot of fun.
 

I’m waiting for breakfast right now and I think my head hurts a little bit, lol. I was buying shots of tequila for the singer and hopefully I didn’t buy him one too many. 

[CruiseIreland]

Looking forward to following along. Sounds like a lovely way to spend new year. What is your itinerary? Ken 

[Stockjock]

Tonight is our last night in Barcelona. We board tomorrow morning and we have a Aurea Suite, which sounds pretty interesting, and it is on the back of the ship, so part of the view is at the cabins across from us, but we also have a view off to our right, which will be an ocean view.  It is a pretty good sized cabin, with a separate living room and bedroom area, and I thought about doing yacht club, but I think this is going to be perfect for us.
 

We will have four specialty dining nights out of seven, and a drink package, so I think it’s going to be a lot of fun and a great way to kick off the new year.

 

But that said, here’s a few pictures from this evening. 
 

Edited December 28, 2023 by Stockjock

[Stockjock]

2 hours ago, CruiseIreland said:

Looking forward to following along. Sounds like a lovely way to spend new year. What is your itinerary? Ken 

Here is our itinerary. There are some cruises that I book for the itinerary, some cruises, I book for the ship and date, and this would fall into the latter category. I thought World Europa sounded pretty interesting, and of course, it’s always fun to do a cruise over New Year’s Eve.  We have been to all of these ports previously.
 

I am also interested in the new specialty restaurants, which sound appealing to me.

Edited December 28, 2023 by Stockjock

[awatt]

Looking forward to your review! I have a friend on same ship/itinerary in February and I'm curious how the ports are in winter.

[ConnieTact]

Hi @Stockjock Looks like you’re both enjoying Barcelona. We board world Europa in two weeks time so will follow along with interest! I hope your boarding is smooth. 

[perakcruiser]

11 hours ago, Stockjock said:

Here is our itinerary. There are some cruises that I book for the itinerary, some cruises, I book for the ship and date, and this would fall into the latter category.

Even the itinerary is maximum boring, you should consider to visit Cinque Terre from Genoa. It is very relaxed in winter when almost empty. 

I expect 3000 kids on board next week, but you are prepared for this, not your first cruise during christmas holiday 🙂 

[Stockjock]

So we are onboard having lunch now in the Hexagon restaurant. We’ve already had a couple of problems.
 

At first, they did not have our cruise cards and they looked high and low and they had to have them made. And then after some delay, they brought them to us, but with two entirely different passengers’ names on them. And then, after another delay, they brought us the cards with the correct name, but it didn’t show our loyalty status as diamond for both of us and they told us to fix it at guest services.
 

Guest services fixed it, but afterwards I looked at it, and they only fixed mine not my girlfriend’s. So I hate to nitpick, but little things like that are mildly annoying. 
 

Though as I write this, the Hexagon dining room is nearly empty, but we’ve been here for an hour and a half. And they just now served us our desserts. So I think to say that the service is very slow is an understatement.

 

In terms of the food quality for lunch, it was pretty good although they did bring my girlfriend the wrong entrée and then had to replace it. My meat skewer was reasonably tasty, but barely lukewarm.  
 

While we were waiting on the food, I asked where I book the specialty restaurants, and I was pointed to a room with a man with a white coat, so I sat there for about 20 minutes and then once my number was called, I was told that they don’t book specialty restaurants, lol.

[Stockjock]

Here are a few pictures of our room, which is one of the one bedroom Aurea suites.  I think it’s a grand suite, but I’m not sure. We like the room. It’s good-sized and has a nice layout. I did a YouTube video that I will upload later and I’ll provide a link to that once it’s done.

[countess5]

Just joining in. Will be interesting to read your experience on MSC. As Diamond I am sure you have cruised quite a bit on MSC. We are Celebrity cruises but looking for alternatives.

 

We just followed a Celebrity cruiser who sailed on MSC then went to Celebrity and made comparisons. They too were in a suite.

 

I hear and the poster confirmed that food is questionable on MSC. We only eat at specialty restaurants. 

 

Thank you for posting.

 

Cheers! 

[Stockjock]

9 minutes ago, countess5 said:

Just joining in. Will be interesting to read your experience on MSC. As Diamond I am sure you have cruised quite a bit on MSC. We are Celebrity cruises but looking for alternatives.

 

We just followed a Celebrity cruiser who sailed on MSC then went to Celebrity and made comparisons. They too were in a suite.

 

I hear and the poster confirmed that food is questionable on MSC. We only eat at specialty restaurants. 

 

Thank you for posting.

 

Cheers! 

We mostly cruise on Celebrity and MSC, so I have a pretty good familiarity with both of them. I was on Infinity this summer, and then a month later, on Eclipse for the second time, and then we will be on Celebrity Ascent in the summer of 2024.

Edited December 29, 2023 by Stockjock

[Stockjock]

A few photos from our first day sailaway. Sure we will have plenty more, lol.

 

Mission accomplished on the Speakeasy tickets, I hit up the Hotel Director and Director of finance who were hanging out and asked about it and they got me some tickets.

[Stockjock]

Dinner time at Butcher’s cut. The food was amazing and the service outstanding.
 

[perakcruiser]

7 hours ago, Stockjock said:

We mostly cruise on Celebrity and MSC, so I have a pretty good familiarity with both of them. I was on Infinity this summer, and then a month later, on Eclipse for the second time, and then we will be on Celebrity Ascent in the summer of 2024.

Will go on Infinity next week, I expect the food a little bit upscale compared to MSC (but less upscale compared to 10 years before), everything else I think I would prefer MSC. But the route from Barcelona to the Canary Islands is exactly what I want and Celebritys price was right. 

 

8 hours ago, Stockjock said:

And then, after another delay, they brought us the cards with the correct name, but it didn’t show our loyalty status as diamond for both of us and they told us to fix it at guest services.
 

Guest services fixed it, but afterwards I looked at it, and they only fixed mine not my girlfriend’s. So I hate to nitpick, but little things like that are mildly annoying. 

Last cruise was my first diamond. At check in I got "WELCOME", at GS I got "GOLD" and then finally "DIAMOND" 😄 Mildly annoying is the perfect wording, but as always, I never expect MSC to be perfect. 

Edited December 29, 2023 by perakcruiser

[countess5]

23 hours ago, Stockjock said:

We mostly cruise on Celebrity and MSC, so I have a pretty good familiarity with both of them. I was on Infinity this summer, and then a month later, on Eclipse for the second time, and then we will be on Celebrity Ascent in the summer of 2024.

Thanks,

We sail on Ascent in February, looking forward to it. Then board Beyond for 21 days after. I usually do a live from so take a look.

 

Cheers! 

[Stockjock]

Today,  the ship stopped in Provence, France, and we did a tour that was pretty long, and it went to Avignon and Aix en Provence.  We did a *very* similar tour on Divina and 2015 or 2016, so maybe, in retrospect it wasn’t the best choice.  If I had to book it over again, I would probably pick something else, although there were some interesting aspects to the tour.  It was just a very long day, with a lot of time on the bus, and I didn’t feel like we spent enough time where I wanted to spend time and we spent too much time where I didn’t want to spend time.  While it warmed up later in the afternoon, I was freezing my backside off early in the morning, so, if you take this tour, be sure to bring appropriate clothing to keep you warm, depending on the season, of course.
 

I purchased the Trio specialty dining package, so tonight we tried Hola Tacos. I’m from San Diego, so I’m probably the wrong person to talk to about good Mexican food, because we live just north of the Mexican border and outstanding Mexican food can be found on almost every block. One of the servers said that their food was “inspired by” actual Mexican food, so if you don’t know any better, you might think it was reasonably tasty. if you do know better, like we do, I’d suggest that maybe they should hire some actual Mexicans to create something a little more authentic. My girlfriend hated it, I thought it was OK.  That said, the service was good, so that was not the issue.  I had the street tacos, which were very small, but relatively tasty. I would not mistake them for the street tacos I can get in Southern California, but they were not bad. My girlfriend had the Molé enchiladas, and it was not a particularly good representation of what they should taste like.  Overcooked, dry, and not very authentic. I had the bartender, make me a margarita from scratch with fresh lime, I don’t think that’s something they normally did, but it came out pretty nice. I did order a shot of Grand Marnier on the side to make my own premium margarita on the rocks.

 

After that, we went to a magic show, and the audience seemed to enjoy it, but I wasn’t terribly impressed.

 

We got some snacks later, and I was a little bit surprised that the buffet was closed, although it was late. They sent everyone down to Pizza and Burger on Deck 6 forward, so we had some junk food before bed, which is always such a great, healthy idea.

 

We also tried the Elixer craft cocktail bar, and I didn’t think it was worth the money, quite frankly. My Easy Plus drink package covers drinks up to nine Euro, and most of those drinks were about €15. We did try two drinks and while they were pretty good, I didn’t really feel that they were exceptional and they didn’t justify the cost, in my mind. I think that Celebrity’s specialty craft cocktail bar, which I think they call World Class,, is considerably better. 

 

As I write this, I am lying in bed, and there is some serious disco baseline booming and reverberating throughout the cabin. Don’t get me wrong, I really like the cabin a lot, I think we got an excellent price on it and it’s a good design with plenty of room and well laid out. And I don’t really hear creaks, pops, or groans either. But it’s 12:30 AM, and I’m not loving the disco beat constantly blasting throughout the room.  It is quite pronounced, not something that you barely hear.
 

While we are having fun, this is a huge ship and I think it holds 6700 passengers. So it’s very full, and it feels a bit like organized chaos.  At first, I wondered why they didn’t have a central atrium per se, but I think that it would just be too many passengers in one place. You want to spread it out a little bit when you have this many people on the ship. My girlfriend said that it is a floating mall.  I do miss the Swarovski crystal stairs, but I think they have that in Yacht Club club, I’m not sure about that though.

 

Service has generally been quite good and our cabin steward is excellent.

Tomorrow, we will be in Genoa, and we have booked a very short tour for the day.

 

In closing, for tonight, at least, let me say that when I first reviewed MSC in 2015 or 2016, they had a largely Russian crew m, or similar, that were extremely grumpy, and seemed like they hated their jobs, hated their employer, and hated their passengers. I don’t sense any of that at present. The crew seems eager to please, and I sense that they enjoy their jobs, and that MSC is treating them reasonably well. So I felt good about that aspect. 

 

Edited December 30, 2023 by Stockjock

[Preziosa]

Why did you have both Strawberry and Macarons. Maybe you did the special order for Strawberrys. Have a fantastic Cruise.

[Stockjock]

3 hours ago, Preziosa said:

Why did you have both Strawberry and Macarons. Maybe you did the special order for Strawberrys. Have a fantastic Cruise.

I ordered the chocolate dip, strawberries, but otherwise, one of the deliveries we got was for having the Aurea suite and the other one is for being diamond members.

[Stockjock]

Errors with this message. I’ll try it again below…

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited December 31, 2023 by Stockjock

[Stockjock]

We had a rainy day in Genoa today, so our three hour tour, which included an overview of the city, with three stops, was just about perfect.
 

Because it is New Year’s Eve, it will be Gain Night in the main dining room, and then we will spend the changeover of the new year in the speakeasy, which should be memorable and interesting.

 

i

Edited December 31, 2023 by Stockjock

[FamilyCruiserUK]

Following along as we are on the same cruise and itinerary in April for my birthday 👍

[Stockjock]

23 minutes ago, FamilyCruiserUK said:

Following along as we are on the same cruise and itinerary in April for my birthday 👍

It’s a big ship, so it takes a while to explore it, but let me know if you have any questions.

[Stockjock]

A few photos from New Year’s Eve dinner and now drinks in the speakeasy. It is a pretty interesting concept, we only have six people here out of over 6700 passengers, so I see why they can’t really do too many invitations.
 

We are about a half an hour from the calendar clicking over a notch, and I think the live entertainment will come out pretty soon.
 

I may post some more pictures later as we get closer to midnight, and presumably get a bit more intoxicated.
 

 

Edited December 31, 2023 by Stockjock