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MSC Cruise out of Genoa to Civitavecchia, Palermo, Malta, Barcelona, Marseilles

Caffeteria Italiana

Next, we walked into the Caffeteria Italiana. This place must be modelled after a traditional Italian cafe. I found it very pleasant. We had walked through this cafe earlier today, while boarding. This is a video I made, which includes a significant part of the menu. A cafe latte was priced at 2.2 Euro. A cupcake was 80 cents Euro. I thought the prices were ok, for a cruise ship. Definitely cheaper than a Cafe Latte in a typical Starbucks joint in Singapore.

Here are some pictures. I am usually not a big fan of sweets and desserts but these look very pretty.
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Seating area. This place gets lively in the evenings. There is also live music here.
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Got this picture of the drinks packages. Useful reference. For example, COFFEE CUDDLE package for 23 Euros you get 15 coffees (including Cappucino and Cafe Latte). I think they slap on a 15% service charge. So, 26.45 Euros, divided by 15, that works out to be 1.76 Euros per coffee, service charge already included. Not bad a deal! From the picture, you can also see their packages for beers and cocktails. Overall, I don't think it is too expensive.
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We decided to walk to the buffet area again, as by this time it was after 3pm. The objective was to see what food they had, at this time of the day. It was called INCA, or MAYA.
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True enough, the food offerings now were different from lunch. Afternoon snacks. A good crowd.
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They had burgers and fries, neatly laid out. I thought this was a good idea. More hygienic. I believe that tongs in the buffet are one of the greatest sources of virus transmission onboard any cruise ship. They also had pizza and pasta.
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This fake cactus is interesting
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I made a video of some of the food at the buffet during this time (late afternoon). Well, there is plenty to eat, not doubt about that.
 
There would be a compulsory lifeboat drill coming back so the plan was to head back to our cabin. Along the way, we passed the Solarium. Pretty busy!
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A picture of the tables. This is the floor overlooking the Solarium.
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See this video which gives you an idea how busy the hot tubs at the Solarium are. I guess this being winter, it is colder outside. So more people would flock to the indoor Solarium.

Back in the cabin to rest. I decided to make this video to show you more details of the balcony of 16008. And since MSC Fantasia was docked nearby, the ship made for a good backdrop. The balcony is long and narrow. Our cabin is on the front right side, facing an angle outwards (2 o'clock direction). Two deck chairs, two chairs, one table. Piece of trivia, the MSC Fantasia is slightly smaller than the MSC Preziosa. Enjoy.

Back in the cabin to rest, hanging up the legs, waiting for the life boat drill. Then the announcement comes on. This video contains the English announcement for the drill, if you are interested to hear it. I recall the announcement was repeated in several languages. That is the norm on MSC.

Here are some stills of the MSC Daily on our embarkation day.
Welcome on board!
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Front page continued
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The show tonight was singing.
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YC Daily Planner
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Activities. Well, what do you think? Not many activities. This is going to be a trend. Compared to say RCI or NCL, there aren't many organized activities around the ship.
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Bars and Lounges. Top Sail lounge operate from 7am to 2am.
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It was time for the drill and we made our way to our muster stations, with our life jackets. They scanned our cruise cards when we arrived, and this was the scene that greeted us.
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I was quite surprised that almost all the passengers had started to put on their life jackets. The life jacket demonstration had not started, and in this picture you can see the crew relaxing by the covered grand piano.
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Yet, almost every passenger that came in started to put on their life jacket on their own accord, like this family that came in shortly after we arrived. Straight away, they started to figure out how to put on their life jackets.
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Here is a video of the drill. Almost all in life jackets.

This is the first time in many cruises that I actually tried to put on my life jacket. All the past cruises in the past 3 years, I don't think I have put on my life jacket. On reflection, I think this is a good practice. I never knew that the life jacket had a strap that was to go underneath my groin. My bad. Anyway,the drill was soon over and we all headed back to our cabins. Nowhere else to go since we had to go back to our cabins to deposit our life jackets!
 
Great review. I've been cruising RCL twice. Wonder how MSC, not in yacht club, would stand against them, as when checking 'cruise critic' MSC and Costa seem to have significantly lower scores compared to the other major cruise companies.
 
Great review. I've been cruising RCL twice. Wonder how MSC, not in yacht club, would stand against them, as when checking 'cruise critic' MSC and Costa seem to have significantly lower scores compared to the other major cruise companies.

Thanks for your comment. Good question! Prior to sailing with MSC, we have sailed with RCL many times (we are Diamond status on NCL), and we have also sailed once with Celebrity and NCL. So we were most curious to see what the differences would be.

The bottom line is that the MSC cruise line is a cruise line catered towards European (Italian) taste. (and bear in mind cruise critic boards are largely American and some English). Food-wise, it is Med style - lighter cooking, which we like.

One thing is certain though, the MSC ships are more crowded. MSC Preziosa is their flag ship and based on how they designed it, it is clear to me that they have chosen to maximize the cabins. RCL ships have the more 'WOW' factor because RCL tries to create more open spaces (like Royal Promenade). So, overall, the MSC ship feels more congested, which also makes disembarking and boarding at ports more challenging due to crowds.

What is going for MSC is the price. MSC's prices are usually much more competitive than RCL.

For us, having tried MSC this once, we will probably only sail MSC if we can get to sail in the Yacht Club. As at current pricing, the YC product is priced at a level which makes it attractive, given its perks.

Hope this is useful and I'd be happy to answer any more questions. You will see more pictures/videos as I post more on this review.

Thanks for reading!
 
First dinner Yacht Club Restaurant

Greetings from Singapore on a Christmas Day. I am posting this in the afternoon (local time) of 25th Dec 2015, in Singapore. We thank God for all His blessings, including our wonderful travels to see the world, and enjoy the MSC cruise!

As a family, when cruising, we like to eat early. The suite restaurant is open for dinner from 1830 to 2145 hrs. We usually go at around 1830hrs, but that would mean missing the first show which starts at 1900hrs. If we wanted to catch the show, we would go for the second show.

Earlier today, we ate at the Suite restaurant for lunch. This evening, it would be the first time for dinner! This would be the start of seven wonderful dinners over the next 7 nights! I'm going to get cruise withdrawal symptoms doing this review. The theme for tonight was Mediterranean Flavours and Savours
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I asked for a glass of red. There is a different red and different white wine every night . Makes for a very interesting dining experience.
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This is the video I made of the food we had.

This was my appetizer - a Japanese inspired dish. Beautiful presentation. Every night, there is a dish (either appetizer or main) that comes from one of the speciality restaurants, not necessarily on this ship but from some restaurant that is available onboard the MSC fleet. Very cool.
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I tried the lamb shank. Big serving, definitely couldn't finish.
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For dessert, I deliberately chose the cheese sampler because I wanted to see how it would look like. It was beautifully done, though way too much cheese for me. (I don't eat much cheese in the first place). This is one of my favourite dishes, from a presentation point of view!
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Enjoy the food and have a blessed Christmas!
 
After dinner, we wandered around the ship a bit. Went into the Sports Bar and managed to catch this family playing with the bowling alley. Quite cute. I think it costs 6 Euros a game. I should have more video footage of the Sports Bar later in the cruise.

Ah ha, I found this photo. Indeed, the cost was 6Euros per game, which wasn't too bad. After all, you get 10 frames (20 throws thereabouts, unless you keep striking!).
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In case you were wondering, MSC does have drinks of the day too. The MSC Blue on Blue at Euro 5.90
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And back in the Top Sail lounge, there was live music (a pianist) and here are the apertifs. Too much to eat! I don't think I had any, I was well and truly stuffed.

Got back to our cabin and found these sweet treats waiting for us. So nice. We were too stuffed for this, so I kept them in the fridge.
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So, this concludes our first day of our 7N cruise on the MSC Preziosa. Tomorrow, we will arrive in Citivavecchia, and the plan was to pick up our rental car and drive to some shopping mall outlet.
 
DAY 2 of Cruise - Civitavecchia

Had a good sleep (the seas were very calm) and now we start Day 2 of our 7N cruise. The ship was scheduled to dock at Civitvecchia at 8pm and I think we were on time. Let me start with some stills of the Daily.
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Second part of the front page.
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The show tonight was some dancing and singing.
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Note the dresscode for buffet and onboard restaurants, which is quite standard.
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Today's drinks suggestion.
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And the activities. Looks like more stuff going on compared to yesterday.
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Part 2 of the activities page.
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The plan was to wake up and have breakfast in the Suite restaurant, before getting off the ship for our day's activities. The restaurant would open for breakfast at 7am. When we got there, we found it almost empty. Subsequently, very few passengers turned up for breakfast. We wondered why but realised that most of the pax probably ate at Top Sail lounge or the One Pool that morning.

This morning would be our first breakfast at the suite restaurant. The video shows you our experience. The menu is the same everyday, which is fine since they had pretty much everything you needed. Over time, we learnt that we could customize our orders. Just order stuff in the combination that you like. e.g. my kids usually ask for pancakes and hash brown, or fried eggs and hash brown.

I had the Eggs Benedict.
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One of my kids had this.
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All very good.
 
After breakfast, we still had some time and went to the Top Sail lounge. We found many more pax there, having their breakfast. Well, the lounge is much nearer all our cabins, so I can understand why. Here is a video of the breakfast items in the Top Sail lounge. The items they have for breakfast are adequate. If you wanted hot food, you had to go up to One Pool, there why also had breakfast! I guess that is why they did not provide a toaster here.

Some of the food available at continental breakfast in the Top Sail Lounge.
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Soon, it was time to disembark. For YC passengers, you can wait in the concierge and wait for a butler to bring you off the ship. It would be faster this way. Before that, I spotted this interesting ship docked opposite the Preziosa. The ship looked like some type of aircraft carrier, I think a helicopter carrier. My smart kid asked me why a French ship was in an Italian port. It turned out that he was right, this was a French ship. If you google "L9014" and the ship turns out to be a rather modern French helicopter assault carrier. Couldn't see any helicopters on deck. Very interesting.
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And L9014 wasn't the only navy ship in port. This was the other ship. A 'La Fayette' class frigate, also from the French navy. Neat.
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The view of the port from our balcony. Civitavecchia is a rather industrial port. You can see the coaches waiting, I think those were for ship's tours.
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Our plan was to get on the free port shuttle, get out to the port gates, and find our way to the Avis car rental. We had booked a car and the plan was to drive to the Castel Romano Shopping outlets, about 80km away. So here is our adventure to get our car, in this video.

Picking up the car was fairly easy. We were the first (later on I found out that they rented 5 cars today). There were 2 ships in port today, ours and a Costa ship. Take note that they require an International Driving Permit, which I had prepared.

The drive to Castel Romano shopping outlets wasn't difficult. I had loaned a GPS. Take note that the road had tolls. Look out for the toll booth which was manned (a sign with a hand). I paid cash for all the tolls, the cost was under 6 Euros, each way.

While on the toll roads, the roads were smooth. But once we got off toll roads, I found the roads to be rather bumpy (with potholes). So that part made for a slightly more bumpy ride. Then again, perhaps our car was small so all the bumps could be more acutely felt.

This was the car, an Eco 4-door smart car. We had booked an Audi A1 or equivalent, and this was what we got. Take note that the car was rather small, and the back seats were tight. Ok for my kids, but I think it would have been very cramped for adults.

It took me about an hour to drive to the outlet mall. The car performed well on the highway and I was hitting speeds of 130km/h without problems (that is the speed limit, in case you were wondering, I wasn't speeding). We spent a few hours at the outlet, shopping. The place was quite crowded, with locals, which was good. At least it showed that locals patronize this place. All the well known Italian brands were there. We visited a few stores and ultimately I bought some stuff from Coach. I also could do the paperwork for VAT Tax Refund, but the final claim can only be done at our final point of departure from the EU, which would be London Heathrow. To do the refund paperwork, you would need to bring your passport. Check out this video for some snippets of the shopping experience.

The outlet place was pretty large.
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The fountain outside Versace was pretty neat.
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There was this dinosaur model.
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We got back to Civitavecchia in very good time. (I don't like to risk getting back to the ship late). There was a petrol station just opposite the car rental, so filling up the tank was pretty convenient, i.e. no need to hunt for a petrol station. As with car rentals, do note whether your car takes petrol or diesel. In my experience renting cars, it could be either. In our case, it was petrol.

Returning the car was also fast and painless. With all the paperwork done and car checked (no damage, thank God for the safe drive), we got ourselves back on the free port shuttle and back to the ship.

The MSC Preziosa, docked in Civitavecchia.
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We were docked right behind a container ship.
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On this day, I don't recall long lines getting on board. Probably we were back slightly early. But there are definitely lines coming back on board the ship on most days. That is one issue passengers should be prepared for, especially if you return to the ship during peak times.
 
Back on the ship and we were hungry! Didn't eat too much while on shore, just snacked enough to keep us going. Looking back at the photos/videos, I laugh at how 'greedy' we were. After putting our stuff in the cabin, we went first to the Top Sail lounge to grab a bite.
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My kids had a dirty banana. I can't remember what drink I had, I didn't take a picture! Must have been too thirsty and hungry.
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Then we went up to the One Pool area to check it out. It was rather chilly by then, so there weren't many passengers there. Here are the pool towels.
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Plenty of deck chairs, no passengers. This is one downside of sailing in winter - when the weather gets cold, the outside areas are not so attractive. The upside is that the prices are cheaper.
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Plenty of fruits available at the One Pool bar area.
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A video I made of some of the food we had at Top Sail and One Pool.

After all that food, it was time to take a walk around the ship. The fastest way to get fat is to do nothing after food. Seriously. Gotta keep that metabolism going. Some random pictures from around the ship. A headless bust.
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Another headless bust. Reminds me of the ruins in Rome. Well, this is an Italian cruise line after all.
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A unique juxtaposition. No more headless busts. MSC Excursions desk, I think.
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They had a small toy shop onboard which sold interesting stuff. They carried some LEGO Star Wars, which caught the attention of my kids. Yeah, we bought it for them. Prices were pretty reasonable, I thought. And indeed, they were reasonable because when we went back to London, UK after the cruise, we saw the same LEGO sets but they were more expensive, like 15 Euros versus 18 GBP for the same thing. So glad that we bought on the ship.
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Yes, we were at the excursion desk. Well, we did not purchase any shore excursions through MSC, so I can't really comment on them, other than the fact that the prices didn't look too bad. They offered packages too.
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That is the shore excursion desk. Pretty crowded place.
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Ah yes, this was the entrance to the Toy Store. Shut at the moment, as the ship was still in port.
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We went to the Main Dining Room and took a photo of the menu which was posted outside.
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A closer look at the English menu. Sorry, I don't know how to get it to stand upright here. The food looked ok. For choice of mains, you had fish, smoked ham, braised beef.
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A view of the elevators at the Centrum.
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This is how Guest Relations look like. As YC guests, we didn't have to use the Guest relations as we had our own concierge.
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