We just returned from a 7 day Med cruise on MSC Splendida, in their Yacht Club concierge section. We’re a family of 8 – dh and I, 4 kids ages 12-17, and a set of grandparents. We’ve cruised DCL twice (on Magic Baltic and Wonder 4 day Merrytime) as a family and dh and I have done one cruise with Oceania. We cruise to see the world, prefer port to sea days, are not big beach and pool people, and don’t drink enough soda or alcohol to make drink packages an issue. We quite enjoyed DCL, but a comparable Med cruise would have been almost 3x as expensive. I’m just going to paste an old post into here regarding costs:
You can't quite compare apples to apples, as the dates and ports are a bit different. Also, the MSC concierge seems to have, IMHO, a bit more to offer. But, if you compare peak time 2018, 7 night med cruise (because comparing for 2017 would inflate the price of DCL I think) it breaks out like this for 1 adults, 2 kids per room which is how we travel with our 4 kids. The first two MSC prices are for this summer and is their "fantastica" experience which includes dining, free room service, beverage coupons, cooking and language classes for the kids along with the kids clubs, all shows, plus other stuff. The prices aren't exact since each sailing is a bit different in price. Most of their summer 2018 itinerary is not out yet, as far as I can tell, so I can't directly compare 2018 DCL to MSC.
Balcony DCL $7500, MSC $3000
Oceanview DCL $6000, MSC $2000
Concierge (not a suite) DCL $14,000, MSC Yacht Club $4,800
The short story is that we loved it. The Yacht Club is awesome and I’d probably only cruise MSC again if I could stay with the YC. The staterooms are in a separate area of the ship, adjacent to a private lounge and pool. There is a dining room for YC members only in a separate part of the ship, with any time dining. The lounge and pool were never crowded, and there was almost 24 hour food available at both, including a breakfast that was more than enough for us. The lounge was an oasis of quiet, good for a book, or for board games we played almost every day with the kids. Most of our family are introverts and the significantly less crowded YC was perfect for us. There were a small number of kids in the YC, including two Swiss boys (ages 9-11?) who met up with my kids to play dd's Switch every night. There was a 24hr concierge desk who could answer any question or help with any problem staffed by really nice and helpful people who spoke fluent English.
The ship was very clean and well kept. The staff were very friendly. Our rooms, 16030 and 15034, which had a queen bed and a double pull out sofa, felt larger than the DCL rooms we’ve had. They were shorter, and wider, than most of the other rooms in the YC and the extra width made a huge difference. Even with the sofa bed pulled out there was a lot of room to move around. There is also a walk in closet, a Wii gaming system, and a single bath, which wasn’t really an issue for us. There was a good sized tub with a shower head, but only a half glass wall, meaning I made our 12yo ds take a bath every night for fear of flooding the bathroom with rogue shower spray. Our verandah had an easily accessible and workable “lock” that might be an issue for those with young children.
The YC provides a butler, which we really didn’t use. You do get a paper of your choice “delivered” to your room every day. It is printed onto largish paper, but my NY Times print was so small, it gave my bifocals a good work out!
The lay out of the ship is much different than the Magic/Wonder. There are no hallways, per se, and to get anywhere on the ship you have to go through someplace. For us that was on the way to the dining room every night, which was a walk thru a series of lounges and bars. They were anywhere from practically empty to very full, with many, many kids. The casino was on a lower level and we only needed to walk thru it twice in a week. There was little to no smell of smoke.
There was no movie theater. My kids did not use the clubs. It looked like the <12yo club had controlled entry. The older club was an open alcove with computer games. I couldn’t tell that anyone was watching who went in and out. There was an arcade, which only worked 2 of the 7 days, and an F1 racing simulator which also worked for 2 days and was for 18 yrs and older. There is a 4D theater, at 8 euro/person, that we did not do.
Every child under 12 is required to wear a bracelet with a bar code on it, I'm assuming with our contact info, in case of emergency. Ds was 5 days shy of 12 and had one, but to my knowledge it was never used.
I’m not a big show person, so only went to one, which was flamenco dancers. The dancers were good, but it was a pretty bare bones production. My parents went to several shows and said the majority were much bigger productions and as good as what they saw on DCL. One night about 40 kids from the younger kids club were involved in the opening number for the show.
The main pool area was larger than the Magic/Wonder. There was also an indoor pool as well, and a small pool area in the aft of the ship. Both the main pool and the indoor pool had a very large area of very shallow water, which would work well for supervised small children. It was very crowded on the deck at the main pool but the pool didn’t look like the kid soup that our DCL cruises had. The YC pool was smaller, but not crowded at all. I didn’t see a splash zone type toddler specific area anywhere.
We ate in the main buffet one night. The food was ok, with a large range of items from pizza to Indian food to salads. We also ate in the Tex-Mex “specialty” restaurant at dh’s request. It was pretty funny, as we’re from Texas. It was bland, and an odd interpretation of Tex-Mex, but I wasn’t honestly expecting anything else. Lamb tacos anyone? I never even saw the main dining room for the non-YC passengers.
The YC dining room was small, and much quieter than the standard DCL dining. There did not seem to be any shared tables with strangers. The food was hit or miss. I’d say consistently a bit better than we had on DCL, with a few much worse exceptions. The service was good, and our servers friendly.
We had no sea days, and I arranged excursions thru companies found on TripAdvisor, etc. We embarked in Marseille, then went to Genoa, Civitivecchia, Palermo, Cagliari (Sardinia), Palma de Mallorca, Valencia, then disembarked in Marseille.
At least on this cruise, every port was an embarkation point, so there were life boat drills daily for new embarkees. This was only an issue as they did it over the PA system, which got old hearing it every night in 4 languages. I think the rotating embarkment (is that a word?) is what made crowds unpredictable night to night on our walk to the dining room.
Feel free to ask questions. I’d definitely sail MSC again, if we could get good YC prices.
You can't quite compare apples to apples, as the dates and ports are a bit different. Also, the MSC concierge seems to have, IMHO, a bit more to offer. But, if you compare peak time 2018, 7 night med cruise (because comparing for 2017 would inflate the price of DCL I think) it breaks out like this for 1 adults, 2 kids per room which is how we travel with our 4 kids. The first two MSC prices are for this summer and is their "fantastica" experience which includes dining, free room service, beverage coupons, cooking and language classes for the kids along with the kids clubs, all shows, plus other stuff. The prices aren't exact since each sailing is a bit different in price. Most of their summer 2018 itinerary is not out yet, as far as I can tell, so I can't directly compare 2018 DCL to MSC.
Balcony DCL $7500, MSC $3000
Oceanview DCL $6000, MSC $2000
Concierge (not a suite) DCL $14,000, MSC Yacht Club $4,800
The short story is that we loved it. The Yacht Club is awesome and I’d probably only cruise MSC again if I could stay with the YC. The staterooms are in a separate area of the ship, adjacent to a private lounge and pool. There is a dining room for YC members only in a separate part of the ship, with any time dining. The lounge and pool were never crowded, and there was almost 24 hour food available at both, including a breakfast that was more than enough for us. The lounge was an oasis of quiet, good for a book, or for board games we played almost every day with the kids. Most of our family are introverts and the significantly less crowded YC was perfect for us. There were a small number of kids in the YC, including two Swiss boys (ages 9-11?) who met up with my kids to play dd's Switch every night. There was a 24hr concierge desk who could answer any question or help with any problem staffed by really nice and helpful people who spoke fluent English.
The ship was very clean and well kept. The staff were very friendly. Our rooms, 16030 and 15034, which had a queen bed and a double pull out sofa, felt larger than the DCL rooms we’ve had. They were shorter, and wider, than most of the other rooms in the YC and the extra width made a huge difference. Even with the sofa bed pulled out there was a lot of room to move around. There is also a walk in closet, a Wii gaming system, and a single bath, which wasn’t really an issue for us. There was a good sized tub with a shower head, but only a half glass wall, meaning I made our 12yo ds take a bath every night for fear of flooding the bathroom with rogue shower spray. Our verandah had an easily accessible and workable “lock” that might be an issue for those with young children.
The YC provides a butler, which we really didn’t use. You do get a paper of your choice “delivered” to your room every day. It is printed onto largish paper, but my NY Times print was so small, it gave my bifocals a good work out!
The lay out of the ship is much different than the Magic/Wonder. There are no hallways, per se, and to get anywhere on the ship you have to go through someplace. For us that was on the way to the dining room every night, which was a walk thru a series of lounges and bars. They were anywhere from practically empty to very full, with many, many kids. The casino was on a lower level and we only needed to walk thru it twice in a week. There was little to no smell of smoke.
There was no movie theater. My kids did not use the clubs. It looked like the <12yo club had controlled entry. The older club was an open alcove with computer games. I couldn’t tell that anyone was watching who went in and out. There was an arcade, which only worked 2 of the 7 days, and an F1 racing simulator which also worked for 2 days and was for 18 yrs and older. There is a 4D theater, at 8 euro/person, that we did not do.
Every child under 12 is required to wear a bracelet with a bar code on it, I'm assuming with our contact info, in case of emergency. Ds was 5 days shy of 12 and had one, but to my knowledge it was never used.
I’m not a big show person, so only went to one, which was flamenco dancers. The dancers were good, but it was a pretty bare bones production. My parents went to several shows and said the majority were much bigger productions and as good as what they saw on DCL. One night about 40 kids from the younger kids club were involved in the opening number for the show.
The main pool area was larger than the Magic/Wonder. There was also an indoor pool as well, and a small pool area in the aft of the ship. Both the main pool and the indoor pool had a very large area of very shallow water, which would work well for supervised small children. It was very crowded on the deck at the main pool but the pool didn’t look like the kid soup that our DCL cruises had. The YC pool was smaller, but not crowded at all. I didn’t see a splash zone type toddler specific area anywhere.
We ate in the main buffet one night. The food was ok, with a large range of items from pizza to Indian food to salads. We also ate in the Tex-Mex “specialty” restaurant at dh’s request. It was pretty funny, as we’re from Texas. It was bland, and an odd interpretation of Tex-Mex, but I wasn’t honestly expecting anything else. Lamb tacos anyone? I never even saw the main dining room for the non-YC passengers.
The YC dining room was small, and much quieter than the standard DCL dining. There did not seem to be any shared tables with strangers. The food was hit or miss. I’d say consistently a bit better than we had on DCL, with a few much worse exceptions. The service was good, and our servers friendly.
We had no sea days, and I arranged excursions thru companies found on TripAdvisor, etc. We embarked in Marseille, then went to Genoa, Civitivecchia, Palermo, Cagliari (Sardinia), Palma de Mallorca, Valencia, then disembarked in Marseille.
At least on this cruise, every port was an embarkation point, so there were life boat drills daily for new embarkees. This was only an issue as they did it over the PA system, which got old hearing it every night in 4 languages. I think the rotating embarkment (is that a word?) is what made crowds unpredictable night to night on our walk to the dining room.
Feel free to ask questions. I’d definitely sail MSC again, if we could get good YC prices.
