Disembarkation day for us started when we awoke at around 5:30am. After our morning ablutions and then packing our hand luggage we all made our way to the buffet for our final visit for breakfast. It was extremely busy this morning but if you wandered to the aft area, the crowds thinned out and it was a lot more civilized. All the serveries are open and display exactly the same food, it’s just that most people tend to be lazy and don’t want to walk too far so as far as I am concerned, it’s their loss and our gain. Self Disembarking ran from 7:15 until 7:45 followed by Diamond members at 7:55. We got Diamond numbered tags the previous evening, we used one for ourselves and then gave the rest to the youngsters with the intention that they could self-disembark and we would follow up the rear collecting all the cases on the way. Even that was overthought as in the end we all walked off together picking up our cases en route to the car park.
We have had a fabulous few days of spending time with the family and will look back fondly at the experience. Whether you will ever see us on another MSC ship is another thing, they have beautiful ships but the onboard experience is not a good fit especially the dining side of things. I’ll never say never but as things stand they are not on our radar. We arrived home just before 10:30am which still left us a decent amount of the bank holiday to enjoy. Our next cruise is January 2024 so we have a bit gap until then.
Interesting blog as always. We haven’t sailed with MSC recently and can’t see us going again although I have seen some great deals. We didnt have a great experience Yacht Club and even worse ìn the regular cabins. We are preferring smaller ships now. Have 2 booked on Fred and one with Ambassador.
It’s been interesting to hear what you thought about MSC, I had my reservations and you still haven’t convinced me otherwise. The extra charge, which was then given back as OBC was ridiculous. The main thing was that you enjoyed time with the family.
Great review as always Mike but even better making family memories.
Thanks for the usual great report. Can’t believe you have to wait until January for your next cruise. At least you will be able to read about two of ours before then. I will do my best to make you feel like you are coming along. Sorry that MSC has kind of fallen off. We have never sailed with them and now I know for sure we won’t. Ships are too big for us anyway. We are going to max out at around 1200 people from this point forward. Viking, Oceania or maybe splurge on a Seaborn or Regent.
We have a land-based trip to Cape Town in September to see family. Lots of planning going on and it is totally highlighting the great value cruising is. I’ll look forward to reading yours until we sail again on what will probably be our last outing on Celebrity.