Leaderboard

I had a similar experience with status match, but after emailing MSC Voyager Club about 2 weeks after submission, even though I didn't hear from them, I logged in and saw they had completed my status match. Hopefully you'll have a similar or better experience!

Daily Programs scanned along with the Welcome Aboard and Departure letters. Meraviglia Daily Program 8-6-21 3 Nights OC.PDF

With all that was going on and sailing away late I chose dinner in the buffet. After dinner it was around the ship collecting bar menus. That ended in the pub with some pub music. Then it was off to bed for an early morning to watch our arrival into Ocean Cay.

Sail away time lapse:

I am experimenting with a 360 camera that can also take wide angle pictures so bear with me as I post some here just to see how they look on the internet.

I'm not used to boarding so late 🙂 Time was flying by and day turned into late afternoon then into early evening awfully quickly. I spent my time exploring mostly the outer decks. Bar selection: There are many areas that are seemingly deserted. I think with so few people on board there are vast areas that aren't seeing any crowds since there is no need to venture there with the main pool decks so available. Finally sail away was upon us. With a large anvil cloud over Miami lighting up occasionally with lightning it made for a beautiful sail away.

Right as I was in the buffet getting ready to put mustard on a hamburger the call for the muster drill came over the PA. Muster was at 5:30pm. Muster in the pandemic consists of going to your cabin to watch a video. At the end of the video a code is displayed. On this day it was 881. Using the phone we were instructed to dial this code to record having watched the video. Next decks were called to begin visiting the actual muster stations. This started with top decks called in threes until eventually 15 minutes later my deck was called. Muster station D is in the Plaza. Using the stairs as instructed was a bit chaotic as other guests called earlier were coming back up the stairs as my collections of decks that were just called were going down the stairs. Eventually I made it to muster D where my card was scanned and they directed me deeper into the Plaza. At this point there was no more direction and we all sort of milled about until we all came to the realization that was it. We were done. So back up the stairs! With that muster was complete. Complete both steps... dial the code and get your card scanned. Otherwise you'll get tagged for another muster drill.

Cabin tour! Deck 9, starboard, somewhat midship. Waiting for me were... Closet: Balcony: View down into the deck 8 extended balconies. View aft: View forward: The balcony is "efficient". With the curtains open: Desk area with two euro power ports, two North American 110v outlets and 1 USB. Nicely laid out bathroom with shower door. There is a panoramic elevator not far from my cabin which is one of the reasons I picked this location. Back down to the Galleria. Four guests per elevator.

Since you asked beverage packages... Every bar has a paper menu but more common are these signs with QR codes: The bottom QR code links to the beverage packages available on board. PDF: MSC Meraviglia Drink Packages.pdf Here are some menus I've collected so far... Meraviglia Pub.pdf Meraviglia Pool Bar.pdfMeraviglia Bar.pdf Come to think of it this is like a challenge game... collect all the bar menus 🙂 Here is one of the physical menus I've seen: Also note MSC does charge local taxes while in port. Interesting to note they will post the beverage package purchase to my account later tonight so that it isn't subject to local taxes.

I neglected to mention at check in they gave me a white wrist band to denote my vaccinated status. Upon walking on the ship there was a table setup where they provided an MSC smart device that serves as door key, allows drink purchases but also does contact tracing since it is a tracker that knows where you have been. Next I walked into a lounge and was immediately greeted by a drink package salesmen. For 3 night cruise MSC doesn't offer drink packages for pre-purchase and I wasn't sure I was going to bite but in the heat of the excitement of being back on a ship I caved and bought the easy package for $32 per day plus 15% service fee. This next picture was my first glimpse of the ship and where I signed up for the drink package. Cabins were ready so I didn't grab a beverage just yet but I did grab a picture of the next area that the lounge led me into:

IT'S CRUISE DAY!!! I drove to Miami this morning arriving with an extra hour before my appointment time. I think someone forgot to tell the Port of Miami that cruises are back, at least the parking department. Meraviglia is using terminal C but the terminal C parking garage is barricaded off. I had heard of this from the last group of cruisers so like them I went to NCL next door and terminal B. After a few laps around the merry-go-round following the sign for B parking I declared myself a VIP. To the right is the VIP Bag Drop and since it was the only ramp that goes up... why not try it? Sure enough this is route to park at terminal B. Left brings you back around in a circle. I was an hour early so I parked and took the elevator to the top of the parking garage hoping to get a picture of Meraviglia. Parking at B actually worked out well for this purpose. Okay, that took 5 minutes. No what? I figured I might as well head over and see how thing were looking. Turns out they weren't checking boarding pass times at 3pm so I joined the line and made it through the door. Next up security. Pretty standard ship security. After security I joined a queue for the health check. At several points they wanted to make sure I had completed the health questions and signed the form. I had done that at home this morning but plenty of others had not. After roughly 15 minutes I reached a desk where they took my health form and gave me 4 stickers with my name and a QR code. From here I joined another queue for the actual test. Five minutes later it was my turn to test. They took the stickers from me, did a quick nasal dip and gave me a sticker that corresponded with my testing station. Upstairs to a waiting area to section "10" to match my sticker where I began to write this post. I was the first into section 10 but not long after others joined me. Almost 45 minutes passed and an employee came by and announced "everybody up!" and we are going to the next step. In hindsight this meant we all passed as no one was called out. We went back downstairs to join the queue for check in. The real check in. Here they requested my boarding pass, passport and proof of vaccination. Moments later with my card in hand I went back upstairs to board the ship. All of this from the moment I walked in the front door of the terminal to the moment I was walking up the gangway to the ship was roughly 1 hour.

I guess MSC is just used to carrying cargo that doesn't care where it is stored for the trip! I wonder when Maersk is going to start a cruse line... perhaps they can just convert some shipping containers into cabins...