Coronavirus Cruise: March 2020! MSC Meraviglia Yacht Club

[CTslotters]

And more food pics because food is delicious.
The mozzarella is made on the ship and ridiculously delicious. I swear, one day for lunch we ate a pound of it with only two small pieces of bread and some tomatoes, lol. This is the appetizer for dinner with a normal amount of cheese.


Above is perfect steak (mine). Adam had a gross tuna he didn’t eat for dinner this night. No pic, just wanted to say not everything was great.
Giant lobster tails with truffle risotto, pretty damn fantastic!


The most perfect pasta ever! Made fresh for me at the pool for lunch! Also, during the week I ate the amount of carbs I typically eat in 6 month period, lol.

Blended coconut mojito, yes please!

Belize beer, for our second round we got land shark instead, lol.



Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[treyster]

Good call on the Landshark!

[bluesfan]

Wow, looks like a great time. Glad you were able to get this in before everything shut down....

[CTslotters]

Wow, looks like a great time. Glad you were able to get this in before everything shut down....

We had a great time, we left on Feb 29th and the week of March 2nd is when everything really started to explode on the virus front in the US. We had our updates with the news stories in the WSJ, but we didn't have internet on the ship and limited tv channels anyways (not that we watched much since we tend to completely unplug on vacation). Docking on March 8th and turning on our phones and catching up was eerie. It's like we came back to another world - which in a way, we did. If our sailing was a week later, I'm not sure we would have been so eager to travel.

[BorgataBabe]

Loving your TR, especially since it looks like we will be cancelling our anniversary cruise to Bermuda in May. You made this one just in time. Loving all of the food pics, it looks delicious.

We went to Belize 3 years ago with NCL and ported there, I guess every cruise line does something different?


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[dvandentop]

great love reading the trip report makes me yearn for another cruise

[Slotspert]

We had a great time, we left on Feb 29th and the week of March 2nd is when everything really started to explode on the virus front in the US. We had our updates with the news stories in the WSJ, but we didn't have internet on the ship and limited tv channels anyways (not that we watched much since we tend to completely unplug on vacation). Docking on March 8th and turning on our phones and catching up was eerie. It's like we came back to another world - which in a way, we did. If our sailing was a week later, I'm not sure we would have been so eager to travel.

We got off the Carnival Panorama the same time you got off your ship except our ship's disembarkation was held at the Long Beach port for one additional night before anyone got off as one passenger was Covid 19 tested and the 4000 of us had to wait for the results. Thank god the passenger was negative but it was nerve wracking for all of us. The three Mexican ports (Cabo, PV and Mazatlan) we travelled to that week were already out of face masks and hand sanitizer. Needless to say it was chaos for the 4000 embarking passengers since they could not get on the ship since we could not get off it. I have no idea were 1500+ hotel rooms were found to put these 1000's of waiting passengers. This was a true nightmare.

[Zooms]

We got off the Carnival Panorama the same time you got off your ship except our ship's disembarkation was held at the Long Beach port for one additional night before anyone got off as one passenger was Covid 19 tested and the 4000 of us had to wait for the results. Thank god the passenger was negative but it was nerve wracking for all of us. The three Mexican ports (Cabo, PV and Mazatlan) we travelled to that week were already out of face masks and hand sanitizer. Needless to say it was chaos for the 4000 embarking passengers since they could not get on the ship since we could not get off it. I have no idea were 1500+ hotel rooms were found to put these 1000's of waiting passengers. This was a true nightmare.

We were on the Panorama for the February 15th sailing. Brand new ship. What did you think of it?

[Slotspert]

We were on the Panorama for the February 15th sailing. Brand new ship. What did you think of it?

Thanks for asking.....After 15 Carnival Cruises (since the 1990's), I think I am really done with Carnival for a long time. The Panorama crew and their service was impeccable and personable. The problem is that the mass cruise market has just become way too congested (e.g. just too way too many people and too many queues) on their ships. The shows were great, but the showroom layout and sight lines were the worse ever (and that was considered an improvement from the other Vista ship we were on). The casino was, for the first time in my 80 cruises, unplayable! Reason: The entire casino is the dedicated indoor smoking area 24 hours a day. Its so bad, that transiting non-smokers had to go up one deck and cross over before going back down stairs. What a dreadful design and my play was the least ever on any cruise ship because of this. On the other hand, the new NCL Encore has a non smoking and separately ventilated and isolated/enclosed smoking casino and it was wonderful except even the NCL Encore suffers from the same passenger congestion issues. I am still a big fan of cruising, but I think its time to look at less passenger ratio ships in terms of "elbow room." I'll try more River cruises (which I love!), once this Covid virus is past us. My estimate is that is won't be until year 2022 that this pandemic is under control so that cruising becomes as safe as it was before this started. Otherwise, trust me, its not worth the stress to travel this way.

[Zooms]

Thanks for asking.....After 15 Carnival Cruises (since the 1990's), I think I am really done with Carnival for a long time. The Panorama crew and their service was impeccable and personable. The problem is that the mass cruise market has just become way too congested (e.g. just too way too many people and too many queues) on their ships. The shows were great, but the showroom layout and sight lines were the worse ever (and that was considered an improvement from the other Vista ship we were on). The casino was, for the first time in my 80 cruises, unplayable! Reason: The entire casino is the dedicated indoor smoking area 24 hours a day. Its so bad, that transiting non-smokers had to go up one deck and cross over before going back down stairs. What a dreadful design and my play was the least ever on any cruise ship because of this. On the other hand, the new NCL Encore has a non smoking and separately ventilated and isolated/enclosed smoking casino and it was wonderful except even the NCL Encore suffers from the same passenger congestion issues. I am still a big fan of cruising, but I think its time to look at less passenger ratio ships in terms of "elbow room." I'll try more River cruises (which I love!), once this Covid virus is past us. My estimate is that is won't be until year 2022 that this pandemic is under control so that cruising becomes as safe as it was before this started. Otherwise, trust me, its not worth the stress to travel this way.

I wasn’t that impressed, either, even though that was only our 4th cruise. My casino play was also way down from previous cruises. I can’t say that was entirely due to the smoke, although I did notice it. It was hard to get on machines, which may have been because of the smoking situation, and there weren’t very many of the type I like..3 reel, single line. I usually will play up to $10, but I mostly stuck to dollars because they ticked me off at the beginning. My booking was supposed to have free drinks in the casino for me and one other person, but when I went over to get my drinks card they told me no, it was just me.

I also thought the food in the buffet could have used a little more variety. Four two-sided serving centers with exactly the same food on both sides, sometimes with two sets of the same food on one side. They’re rationing the bacon at breakfast? I know a lot of people waste food but why pick bacon? The lobster on “cruise elegant” night was good, though.

Overall, I liked our November cruise on Norwegian Getaway better. I even won sometimes in the casino, although no hand pays. We had a specialty dining package, but enjoyed the buffet too, much more variety than on Carnival this time.

I had not expected to get any good offers from Carnival again after low casino play, but the current situation seems to have made them desperate so the offers have started up again. The earliest dates are mid-May. Like that’s happening.