The Jaques Family Sails on MSC

Where to even start....We got out of our comfort zone and sailed a new cruise line. I like to stick to what I know but figured since becoming a travel agent I should branch out a little more and when there was a deal we couldn't pass up for Spring Break we decided to go for it.

I had a lot of anxiety leading up to this trip. We didn't know anyone who had sailed on MSC and I just had so many questions that I had to wait to get answers to. There are just things you know when you sail one cruise line all the time so to make a change I knew it would be different. I tried my best to just go with it.

Boarding day came, we drove to Port Canaveral which was just over an hour for us. One thing about MSC is that when you do your online check in they will assign you a port check in time at a later date. They also assign your main dining room time once you board the ship. I am used to picking this and our check in time. Our check in time was 12:30pm but we are used to getting to the port by 9:30/10:00 to check in. We got to the port at 11am because we didn't want to get there too early in case they wouldn't let us check in. We got there, dropped off our luggage, parked the car and then headed straight inside. We showed our boarding pass (this has to be printed) and our passports. We then went through security and then over to do our actual check in. In addition to printing our set sail passes we also had to print a health questionnaire and fill it out. I am used to everything being digital. They then gave us a boarding group number and we went to wait. We were on the ship around 11:45am. We grabbed a drink at the bar and then went to the buffet for lunch. Our booking included the drink package and wifi. The buffet was really good, lots of options.

We did receive our cards in the port so we were able to see that we got the early dining at 5:30pm. I do not know how they choose the dining times and if it has anything to do with having young children that got us the earlier time. We spent the next few hours wondering around the boat and checking things out. I also went to register the kids in the kids club.

Our rooms were then ready so we went to check it out and look for our luggage. I am

used to Royal Caribbean where the luggage is up and down the hallways and you just look around and grab it. What is different about MSC is that they actually put your luggage on a little cart and bring it to your room and knock. Well we had 3 suitcases and 2 showed up. I started worrying. The missing suitcase had all of our toiletry bags, sun screen, snorkel gear and shoes. We unpacked our clothes and waited around for a few minutes to see if it would show up. It didn't so we decided to go back our and explore more.

In our adventure around the ship we got to take a picture with their mascot which the kids loved. It was also my birthday on embarkation so I told the family they had to take whatever pictures I wanted!

My anxiety was getting the best of me over the luggage. I kept thinking the worst, I checked them all together so why weren't they still together. We popped back to the room just to check and it was there. Now I could totally relax and fully unpack.

Lets talk about the room, we had an ocean view balcony. I assumed the couch folded out but it didnt, instead it turned into bunk beds! The best part about this is that it could stay set up, we had plenty of room to walk to the balcony and the kids could keep their extra stuff at the end of their beds. My only complaint in the room is that the vanity where the mirror was didn't have drawers. There were drawers in the closet but I felt like we lacked some storage space. Luckily this time I packed most of our clothes in cubes so I just stacked those in the closet.

Dinner Day 1 - We did not book any of their specialty restaurants as we wanted to try the main dining room. We had a great table with windows all around. Our servers were amazing. The food was great and my kids enjoyed dinner. The servers were very engaged with the kids and got them anything they needed/wanted. After dinner we walked around a bit, checked out the shops and also visited their chocolate factory.

We decided that it had been a long day and knew we were getting up early for the beach the next day so we called it an early night

Day 2 - We arrived at their Private Island - Ocean Cay

We went to the first beach right off the pier by the light house. There were different chairs and bean bags on the beach along with a bar and close restrooms. The kids really wanted to snorkel but the waves were too strong. We did learn that the drinks available on the island are slim. They had the vodkas, rums, beers etc but things like a mudslide or bloody marys are not available which are my drinks that I like. I went with my backup of Vodka, pineapple and sprite. My husband is a beer drinker so he was set. We decided after a bit to go check out one of the other beaches to see if they could snorkel.

We found a great spot and they were able to snorkel and my husband made them a sand alligator - his specialty!

It was a bit of a walk to the bar and took a few minutes to get a drink. We noticed they had a large buffet on the island as well as food trucks. Those did not open until 12pm. We had gotten out on the beach so early that by 11 the kids were ready to go swim on ship. What was interesting is that we were staying docked overnight at their island.

We went and grabbed lunch in the buffet before hitting the pool which was pretty empty since everyone was on the island. Around 3:30 or so we headed back to the room to shower and get ready for dinner. Dinner the 2nd night did not disappoint, in fact it was even better than the first night. We walked around for a bit and then went out on the island once it was dark.

The lighthouse does a cool LED show at 9pm and there is a DJ on the beach. It was a little windy and chilly so we didn't stay out long.

I realized that we would not be at the island all day the next day, the gangway opened at 8:30 and it was all aboard at 11:30. We decided that we would rather get our chairs by the pool before it got crazy. I love the sun but I also like to have a shady place to be as well. We found 3 chairs on the 2nd level near the Jacuzzi that were completed shaded and in case of rain we would be in a good spot. It definitely got busy around 11:00. We also checked out the waterslide area and it was a bit crazy with everyone on board.

We headed back to the room at 1:30 to get my youngest showered and changed so she could go check out kids club for a few hours. This gave us a little time to get showered ourselves and then go relax with a drink and just look around the ship more. We also went to check our the photos in the photo gallery. This is where we realized something - before we went to had our status matched. MSC will match your status on another cruise line or hotel chain. Since we are Diamond Plus on Royal we had them match us which put us to Gold which is one below their top tier. We got the Gold discount on our booking and one of the perks was a free photo. The photo gallery was telling us no but I looked it up online and it said yes so we went to customer service and they didn't have it updated and our cards should have been gold. So we got that taken care of and went back for our photos. Now on Royal we each get one free photo of our choice but on MSC its only free dining room photos. Well we got 2 photos from dinner and 2 photos from the island plus a frame for $18 which was not bad at all.

By this time we had to go get our youngest from kids club, she could have stayed longer but they were taking them to a movie and she didn't want to go to that. We got changed and headed to dinner. This dinner had to be my favorite out of the entire cruise, it was Italian night. I think I ate my weight in cheese and pasta. We needed to go pack up before doing anything else. We had our luggage tags which gave us a debarkation at 9:30am. Since the kids were still on break and it was a sunday we were not in a rush. It did say to head down at 9:15 but we were required to be out of our room by 8:30am. We got ready and headed to the buffet which is not something we would normally do but my youngest needed some yogurt to take her prescription medication so we grabbed that for her and I had some hot tea since it was cold outside. we decided to take our chances and head off the ship by 8:30, we got into the port and saw they only had a few numbers of luggage and thought we were going to have to wait until our luggage came off the ship, after 10 minutes we asked and were told the luggage was spread out throughout the building and we just needed to walk further down. Found our luggage and jumped in the passport line and we were on the way to the car.

So here are my thoughts and recommendations for MSC. Great ships, food and pricing especially when you can get the drink package and wifi included. Bar tenders are not as fast as some of the other cruise lines but they do allow you to get 2 drinks at once. They also have beer carts around the pool deck and those carts also have a few liquors and mixers. The one time I didn't bring a yeti cup and I wished I had one with me. Getting 2 drinks at once is great except they melt quickly and it would have been nice to dump them into a larger cup to keep them cold. The bar tenders weren't great at knowing who was next so a few times we had to be vocal that we were next but honestly it was a great trip and we can't wait to go again on MSC especially now that we know our way around and know a lot more!

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