JLMoran

@twangster, thanks for the review of Meraviglia and Ocean Cay! Might have missed it, but did you see any of the on-board shows during the sailing? You had mentioned the one theater that had a show happening later that night, which you took pics of but I guess you didn't attend the show? Just wondering how they compare with show reviews I've read for Seaside and Divina; opera-heavy and/or very... eclectic? Is that the right word here? I know MSC is working to cater better to US audiences for their US ships and still learning what works and what doesn't, curious to see if this ship marks a step forward in that process.

I think Billy himself said that if you're sailing MSC you pretty much have to get the Fantastica upgrade. Otherwise you're really sailing bottom-of-the-ladder steerage rate, with absolutely nothing at all included.

Thanks for the review. Was fun to see Larissa (hope I spelled that with the right numbers of s'es) taking part and giving her commentary; she's been in so many of your live blog photos and other posts that it was great to finally "meet" her through the video. Now if I can just convince the wife to do an extended stay in Cancun vs. in addition to another cruise to Bermuda... 😁

@Jedi Jason, I'm actually now booked on a slightly different 14-night Med sailing with Princess. Instead of Rome to Barcelona, we're sailing from Athens to Rome. Princess offers three different 7-night "legs" for the Med on a 3-week rotation: Athens to Barcelona Barcelona to Rome Rome to Athens Originally I was thinking the family would most want to do the 3rd and 1st leg B2B, because that gave the doubled stops I had mentioned. But they actually wanted the combination of legs 1 and 2, so I was outvoted. ? The good part about this is that now we will fly in to Athens a couple of days early, and have time to explore there without rushing. And instead of doing our Rome touring before the cruise, we'll just fly out the day after we disembark and get our touring in that Saturday (and hopefully have some time Sunday before flying home, since we can leverage the time change to fly out later in the day).

I had read the same over on CruiseDeckPlans.com, along with these interesting bits that make getting our aft balconies even better yet (emphasis added): Now, this was very recently updated because I was reading the above just a couple of weeks ago when I booked; when I went back to the site to get this quote, I saw the following had been amended to #5: "(UPDATE: MIDSHIP CREW STAIRS HAVE BEEN CONVERTED TO PASSENGER STAIRS)" I'll leave it to you to decide whether this will ultimately be acceptable or not. Since crew stairs are typically bare metal and completely interior / enclosed by the metal superstructure, I'm hoping this "conversion" was more than just leaving the door unlocked and included making the stairs more comfortable for lots of people to walk on, and hopefully giving that stair corridor some visual improvements. Either way, I'll be happily taking the aft stairwell that's right near to our cabins, and the elevators when I need to go more than a few decks up or down.

Did you also get the Princess Plus fare? Seems like a no-brainer for the price and what's included, especially with the current "Best. Sail. Ever." offer that tacks on a room location upgrade and one specialty dining reservation. Since one of my kids is pescatarian now, and my wife doesn't eat any kind of seafood, I'm guessing we'll be using ours in the Italian restaurant. (want to say Alfredo's?)

My TA advised the same to me when I booked our 2022 sailing to the Mediterranean. I was looking at all of the lines, and had mentioned to her that I wanted to see what HAL had given the typically nice itineraries they seem to offer, plus the large number of music venues on board (at least with some of the more recent ships) that would appeal to us. She said even with those, and our kids both being adults by the time we sail, they'd prefer Princess over HAL. That said, if this is a Caribbean itinerary you're looking to replace, my TA also said that if she was doing a Caribbean sailing that Princess would be far from top of her list for first choice of cruise line; but no comment about HAL for that kind of trip. Seemed that was purely based on itinerary options and on-board activities & amenities for the numerous sea days when compared with other lines. Billy had good things to say about HAL on his Caribbean sailing, so I'd still keep them in the running here.

Looks like I'm going to be sailing on Regal Princess for our 2022 Mediterranean sailing. It's a 14-night sailing from Athens to Rome, visiting 9 ports across Greece, Italy, France, and Spain. Awesome itinerary, and their current Princess Plus package seems like a great offer. Basically, add $40 a day to the base cruise fare and you get pre-paid gratuities, unlimited wifi, and the Premium Beverage Package with tips included. Just curious for people's impressions of Princess in general, as my only experience so far is with Royal Caribbean (Freedom and Anthem of the Seas). And if anyone here has sailed Regal Princess, any insight / opinions about her venues, dining, etc. would be even more help. I see she's a pretty new ship, having started sailing in 2014. And it looks like she's comparable to a Freedom class ship in size / passenger capacity. We're booked in a pair of aft-facing Premium Deluxe Balcony cabins, on deck 9 and deck 11. Chose those because those are the decks with semi-covered balconies; read that the uncovered aft-facing balconies had reports of soot issues at times, so figured this would help cut that risk while getting those aft views of the Med during sail-away and the few sea days we have.

@KathyC, that's an interesting take on that kind of cruise. I was looking at Princess' just-released Med sailings for '22 today and talking about it with my travel agent. The one I'm most-interested in is a 14-night sailing from Rome to Barcelona, which includes a double-stop in Naples. I was saying to her how that was great, because it meant we could go to Capri one time, and Pompeii the other (or just enjoy Napoli on its own in the first or second half of the trip). And because it starts in Rome, we can arrive a couple of days early and use the time to explore / see the sights, without the rush of a standard port day. Then just board the ship late in the day after seeing whatever last-minute bits we want to catch, and be off on our adventure. I'm not sure I could sell my family on doing the kind of itinerary you planned out, but I definitely see the merits of repeat stops at ports where the main points of interest are quite a ways away from the actual port.

So with our 2020 Iceland & Greenland cruise canceled and nothing on deck for 2021, I'm waiting for the 2022 European itineraries to come out. My family has said they want go to the Mediterranean. Not Iceland. Not Norway. Not Alaska. The Med-i-ter-ran-ian, thank you. So, I have no choice. What I do have a choice about is the itinerary... or itineraries. Seems like it's really hard to find sailings longer than 7 nights on the mass-market, upscale mass-market, or even luxury lines. Every line I've checked has mostly 7-night sailings, with a smattering of 10 and 11 night. Absolutely no one seems to have a 2-week itinerary option that isn't a transatlantic. So... I'm thinking about booking a B2B, most likely out of Rome, that would cover eastern (Italy, Greek Isles, and if I'm lucky Croatia / Montenegro) and western (Italy, France, Spain). I know how port-intensive most Med itineraries are, and this may honestly be nuts to even consider. But I have some good reasons: This will most likely be our last vacation taken as a family. My older daughter will have graduated college and will almost certainly be starting a new job and living somewhere on her own; while my younger one will be starting college at the end of August that year. Only my wife has been to the Mediterranean before, and it will likely be our only trip there for many years. I have mobility issues that are only going to get worse as the years go by; I'd rather burn myself out in '22 and know I've seen as much as I could, just in case I'm unable to do that kind of trip in 15 or 20 years, when I'm retired. I won't have done any kind of big vacation in over 2 years by that point, so if I'm going to have a big trip then let's have a big trip But is this overreaching? Are the itineraries so intense and draining that going for a second week is foolish? I was figuring that any B2B we did would have at least one port overlapping both legs, so that we could use one of the overlaps as a "rest day" and just stay on the ship or do nothing more than go into town for lunch and maybe some souvenir shopping. And western itineraries do seem to typically have one sea day, sometimes two, so that will be another chance to recharge. Would you do this, or should I just find the best 10/11 night option that we all agree on and leave it at that?

I liked this video, gave some good information (and speculation ?). Good to get the understanding of the effectiveness of the new HEPA filters against the virus, as well as those electrostatic sprayer things. The final decisions on actual capacity limits, any mask use, etc. are what I think all of us are really waiting to hear. Along with how long all of this will end up lasting, and how fast or slow the transition back to standard capacity, easing of social distancing requirements, etc. will be.

Yes, thanks for making the time and effort to post all of this and give everyone a real understanding of what sailing Disney will be like. If my kids were a lot younger, I might consider it. But they're 19 and 16 and we all have basically outgrown Disney (except my wife, who I think will always love to go to WDW no matter how old we get). Just no way I can justify it now, with how much more they cost and how limited their itineraries are.

To follow up on my update about the cabin change: A whole block of the aft OV cabins with 6-foot windows on deck 3 opened up, I’m guessing a group booking canceled. Immediately called my TA and got us moved the two cabins closest to mid-ship. Even though they have huge windows and are considered “premium” by those who know about them, Celebrity actually considers them a “worse” cabin category (cat 6) than the mid-ship OV (which are cat 5), so I got a more desirable cabin while paying a little less than I was before. If anyone is feeling optimistic about August, there are lots of OV cabins still available, and there is a pretty good resident rate for NJ residents, maybe residents of other states. 2-week sailing from Aug 2 through 16, open jaw from Cape Liberty to Dublin. Stops in Canada, Greenland, and Iceland.

Just thought of an unexpected perk of the work from home thing: at 5:30 PM, the lock comes off the beer fridge and I can enjoy one while I wrap up my day. Heard an urban legend that’s standard policy in any Australian office, figured I’d make it a reality here at home. ??

We're doing OK here in northern NJ as well. I've already been working home for 5 months because of a slow-healing wound I'm dealing with, and my wife just got work-from-home setup with her employer. Both kids (one HS, one college) had their schools closed last week and are now on distance learning for the rest of the school year / semester. Actually took advantage of some people canceling their booking on my August 2 cruise to upgrade from a pair of inside cabins to a pair of OV cabins. Summit's OV have good-sized windows, about 4 feet across in the rooms we booked, so that will be a nice step up; keeping an eye for an adjoining pair of the aft deck 3 OVs to open up, will move there if possible for the 6-foot windows they have. And being on deck 3 should feel more stable than up on deck 7 if we run into any rough waters in the north Atlantic.