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

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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.

Seating area. This place gets lively in the evenings. There is also live music here.

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.

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.

True enough, the food offerings now were different from lunch. Afternoon snacks. A good crowd.

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.

This fake cactus is interesting

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.

 

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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!

A picture of the tables. This is the floor overlooking the Solarium.

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!

Front page continued

The show tonight was singing.

YC Daily Planner

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.

Bars and Lounges. Top Sail lounge operate from 7am to 2am.

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.

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.

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.

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!

 

[martin-agren]

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.

 

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martin.agren skrev: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.Klicka för att utvidga...

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!

 

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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

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.

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.

I tried the lamb shank. Big serving, definitely couldn't finish.

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!

Enjoy the food and have a blessed Christmas!

 

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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!).

In case you were wondering, MSC does have drinks of the day too. The MSC Blue on Blue at Euro 5.90

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.

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.

 

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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.

Second part of the front page.

The show tonight was some dancing and singing.

Note the dresscode for buffet and onboard restaurants, which is quite standard.

Today's drinks suggestion.

And the activities. Looks like more stuff going on compared to yesterday.

Part 2 of the activities page.

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.

One of my kids had this.

All very good.

 

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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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

The fountain outside Versace was pretty neat.

There was this dinosaur model.

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.

We were docked right behind a container ship.

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.

 

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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.

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.

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.

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.

Plenty of fruits available at the One Pool bar area.

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.

Another headless bust. Reminds me of the ruins in Rome. Well, this is an Italian cruise line after all.

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.

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.

That is the shore excursion desk. Pretty crowded place.

Ah yes, this was the entrance to the Toy Store. Shut at the moment, as the ship was still in port.

We went to the Main Dining Room and took a photo of the menu which was posted outside.

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.

A view of the elevators at the Centrum.

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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Continuing on the theme of being hungry and food, today was also the first time we experienced Afternoon Tea on the MSC Preziosa Top Sail lounge. Afternoon tea is served from 5pm to 6pm, everyday. Some of the tables in the lounge were laid out for tea. You don't have to pre-book. Just turn up and grab a seat!

A butler will come around with a trolley, and your choice of tea would be prepared before you. Can't remember how many choices they had, but we chose Earl Grey.

The lounge wasn't crowded at all. In fact, it was rather empty.

The food is served. Delectable.

These cucumber sandwiches were my favourites. I ate too many of them!

Check out the movie I made, of our afternoon tea experience.

 

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GOING FOR THE SHOW

This evening, we decided to go watch the show first before going to dinner. Well, we were very full from afternoon tea. The show was advertised as SWING, featuring 2 singers and the Preziosa dancers.

This was the main theater, which was very large. I think it seats about 1,700.

We decided to sit higher up, in the circle seats. The reason is that it would be easy to leave the theatre early and go to dinner, if we did not like the show.

The front row seats in the circle were awesome. It was a glass panel and you had an unobstructed view. In this video, I show you the Cruise Director coming on stage to introduce the show. Not supposed to record the actual show.







How did I find the actual show? Well, the dancing was ok, but I didn't fancy the singing too much. Not that the singers weren't good, but perhaps I just wasn't impressed. Oh well, I'm no expert in entertainment, but suffice to say that after about 20 minutes of the show, my family decided to leave and make our way to the suite restaurant for dinner.



The Platinum theatre is at the front of the ship. So we had to walk to the aft to get to the suite restaurant. On our way to the restaurant, we passed the Centrum and it was quite lively, with live music. There were two guitarists, singing.

Were they singing in English? No. But I found this song that they sang to be rather familiar. Must have heard it before somewhere, on the radio or internet. Watch the video, if somebody can tell me the name of this song, I'd be grateful.







They were having some sale of goods here. In fact, I think they brought out stuff to sell every night. Notice the ladies bags on the right side. My wife told me the bags were reasonably priced, though she didn't buy any.

 

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DAY 2 DINNER



Alright, we have reached dinner on Day 2. Second of seven wonderful dinner onboard MSC Preziosa Yacht Club. First let's check out the menu. There was shrimp cocktail this evening. I am going to have that!

For the main, I was going to choose the meat, which is from the Tex Mex speciality restaurant. Looks very interesting.

I mentioned earlier that the red and white wines for the evening were always different. Tonight, I remembered to take a photo of them. I asked for two glass, one white and one red, so that I could try both.



This was the white wine. It was very drinkable.

This was the red, also good. I must say I'm no wine expert, so please take my review with a pinch of salt.

I shared earlier, in response to a question, that my kids wanted to order from the adult menu. It made them feel a lot more grown up, and as parents we also hoped that they eat more adult food. But sometimes, they get tired of it, so tonight one of my kids had this chicken breast with fries, which was pretty good too. I think they have this chicken breast every night.

And this meat dish was definitely the highlight of my meal (with the prawn cocktail a close second). This was awesome. Cooked perfectly and went so well with the red wine. Looking at this photo now is making me very hungry.

Check out my video of the meal for the other dishes we ate. Another excellent dinner.







I realised that without all the photos and videos I took I would have long forgotten what I did on the cruise on certain evenings. The human memory just cannot store so much information, or maybe I am just getting old. So, on this eveing, after the dinner, I can say with 100% certainty that I went to the Top Sail Lounge, got a drink and something to eat!



This was my drink, together with some nuts.

This were the aperitifs I had in the lounge.

Look at those dressed up strawberries! Delicious looking but I was too full for an more food.

This video shows you the food in the Top Sail lounge that evening. As I was having my drink, they started to clear out the food and put in new ones. Transiting from aperitifs to late night sweets. Cool.







Dinner in the buffet



Earlier this evening, before we went to the suite restaurant for dinner, I took a walk around the Inca buffet to check out what was served for dinner. This is the video I made.







Overall, I think the food selection at dinner isn't as good as Royal or NCL. Definitely not as good as Celebrity. But that is just my observation. Also, about half the buffet area was closed. I guess they don't 'expect too many passengers to go to the buffet lines for dinner. They had bar seating like these, which was cool.

Some meat and roasted vegetables on skewers.

And some desserts.

 

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DAY 3 PALERMO ITALY

Today was Day 3 of our 7N cruise. The ship MSC Preziosa was due to dock at Palermo, Italy. Check out the MSC Daily. Arrival was 10am and all aboard at 1630. The day in port wasn't too long, but we'll make do.

Palermo is the capital city of Sicily, and I am sure it had a glorious past.

We had some time in the morning and we certainly did not have to wake up early. So we woke up and had a leisurely breakfast in the suite restaurant. I took this photo with the little bottles of jam.

This video shows you some snippets of the breakfast we had. And thereafter we went to check out the One Pool and Top Sail lounge to see what else there was to eat! I know, greedy. But hey, we are on a cruise.







At the aft of Deck 15, is the Garden Pool.

In this video I show you the Garden Pool, which is at the aft of the ship. Nobody was swimming this morning. This being winter, it was a bit cold.







Plenty of Deck Chairs for you to choose from.

The MSC logo, on the MSC Preziosa.

A view of the Vertigo waterslide. MSC claims that the Vertigo waterslide is the longest single body water slide at sea - 394 feet! I rode the slide once and screamed a lot. That video is on the first page of this review.

But I decided to put the water slide video here again, just in case you missed it.







A picture of the main pool. I count a grant total of one person swimming.

This was taken in the One Pool area. You can see the ash trays on the tables. This section of the One Pool allows smoking.

Snapshot of what was available for breakfast at the One Pool.

Thereafter, we went back to our cabin to rest, and watch the sail in to Palermo!

I could see the port. We were getting close. There was a ferry leaving port.

And as we were docking, another ship came in. Here is a video.







Like our ship, the Costa ship came into port, did a turn, before backing in. This was to facilitate easy departure later this evening.

The Costa ship came right by us. They were so near, we could throw something over, I think. Anyway, I didn't try. Plenty of people on the sun deck, watching the sail in. If you watched my video, you could hear me yelling. Yeah, I get crazy sometimes.

Alright, it was time to disembark. It was a bright, sunny and rather warm day. We have never been to Palermo before. The plan was to take a long walk into the historic city center (yes, you read correctly, walk) and then find our way to the Palatine Chapel. Thereafter, maybe even walk back to the ship. Sounds very strenous? I guess it was somewhat energetic, but we decided that we needed more exercise. Anyway, the distances didn't look too far. Just walk at a leisurely pace.

 

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This video shows you snippets of the walk. As we head out of the ship, there were many private tour vendors and tuk-tuk drivers canvassing for business. So, plenty of private tour options, and there was no real need to book a ship's tour.







In case you are wondering how I navigated the walk, I was using the GPS on my phone and an app called CityMaps2Go. The cost of this app is marginal (less than $5 i think) and I have used it very successful for many trips now. The app does not need data, so no hefty roaming charges. However, you must remember to download the map for the city that you are visiting before your trip, otherwise there is no map on your phone for the GPS signal to map against.



From the historic city center, I think we did turn and kept walking along a straight road that would bring us to the Chapel Palatine.

A photo of the junction at the historic center.

In this video, some snippets of the walk and I observe some of the architecture along the way.







More pictures of the scenery along the way. We are headed towards the chapel.

 

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PALATINE CHAPEL

We made it! Cost to enter was 15 Euros. Today we could see many things. I can't remember how much they charged for my kids but I think it was free of charge.

There was a group from MSC too, at least I think so. I say some of the with tour stickers from MSC, and this chap carrying an MSC bagpack.

I was pretty sure this group in front of us was from the MSC Preziosa, I think a ship's tour. Ah, I remember now, I was holding my tickets and as my family approached the gate, the tour guide for the MSC group looked at me and then told the gate attendant that I was not part of her group. Haha. Yeah, I just waved my tickets at her.

We were behind the large group from the ship, and behind us there were no more visitors. That is the good thing about travelling in winter. Not too many people. We were told that during summer, this place could get really packed. Looking behind us, there isn't that much space to stand in line either.

Getting in took a bit of time because they did security checks like airport. We had to put our bags through an X-ray. We got through that quite quickly, and went through some restoration exhibit before heading up the stairs towards the chapel.

The entrance to the Palatine Chapel is on the left.

This is the video I made while inside the chapel. It is quite a gorgeous chapel with a small an intimate feel. Dating from the 12th Century, this was a chapel for the Norman Kings. Quite a sight. Glad we made the trip, as this chapel is quite different from what we have seen in all our travels so far.







Here are some still pictures from within the Chapel. It has an intimate yet awesome feel. You can see the MSC group here. The guide was giving them a very thorough brief of the mosiacs and the history.

Given that this place was build in the 12th Century, I guess there must be many stories over the years. This is a picture of the ceiling. Look at the detail! Amazing.

Glad that this chapel has been preserved through the centuries.

 

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We didn't stay for too long. The kids were getting restless, can't blame them.

I caught this sign on the way out. Made me pause. Who was King Ruggero II? Year 1130 AD? Wow. Back home, I googled the name. From wiki, I learnt that this King was Roger II of Sicily. He lived from 1095 to 1154. He became the King of Sicily in 1130. He went on to become one of the greatest European Kings of those times. It appeared that this King was very open to learning, and capable men of diverse nationalities served under him. I am sure books have been written about this era of history. But what struck me most was Kings come, and Kings go. Here I am, in 21st Century, looking back at a chapel commissioned by a King way back in 1130. We are alive for a season, but Christ is eternal. This is not our world, this is our Father's world.

Oh well, I guess the more cynical among us would say, if you want to leave a legacy for the future generations to remember you, just built a nice chapel. Haha That is another way to look at the issue. For some reason, I took a picture of the tickets. Useful? Perhaps. A 21st Century ticket to visit a 12th Century icon. I can almost write a song. (Side note - there were 4 of us, 2 adults and 2 kids, but I got a bunch of tickets like these and I didn't know how to read Italian so I didn't know which ticket is for which attraction. So I ended up handing the whole pile at the entrances to the various exhibits within this tourist attraction.)

Alright, we didn't spend too long in the Chapel. After the chapel, we could also visit some residence/meeting rooms of the government (or was the President), I can't remember already but those rooms weren't memorable and since they didn't allow me to take photos of that place, I have long forgotten what they were all about.



This picture was taken just outside the tourist attraction. We are on our way back to the ship now and I spotted this cactus (?). I think it was a cactus but I paused for a moment because I hadn't expected to see a cactus here.

I was sorely tempted to touch the plant but was quickly reminded by my dear wife that they had thorns and unless I wanted to bleed all the way back to the ship, I should just look at the plant from afar. Ok, "see no touch". Take photos also can. (Singlish speaking)

As we were walking, this mini train came right past us. Pretty cool. Not sure where to board the train from though. I didn't see this at the port gates earlier. Maybe next time.

Back at the historic city center, just around the corner, there was this fountain structure which apparently was rather famous. Officially, this was a Renaissance fountain in the Piazza Pretoria in Palermo by Francesco Camilliani. However, this fountain is also known as the 'Fountain of Shame'. Why? Plenty of nude figures, in lewd poses, with lewd stares etc.

Another picture before we move on.

Now we begin to walk back to the ship. By this time, we were a bit tired. Still, there was plenty of time. So we could take a leisurely walk back.

From here, you can see the ship in a distance. From the historic center, we took about 30-40 minutes to walk back. Weather was very nice for walking. Kudos to wife and kids for keeping up with the walk. Plenty of exercise chalked up, but that was the plan anyway.

Almost there. We can see the ship. MSC Preziosa.

The two ships in port. MSC Preziosa and the Costa Mediterranea. Both MSC and Costa are Italian cruise lines. From this angle, the Preziosa looks a lot bigger than the Mediterranea.

A closer view of the aft of the MSC Preziosa. You can see the aft cabin balconies.

Spotted some passengers embarking at this port. Check out the luggage. Not sure where the cruise terminal to embark/disembark is. Didn't go through the cruise terminal on the way out. Looked like these passengers came here via some Port Terminal bus.

When I first saw these staircase up the ship, I was like... whoa... that looks rather steep doesn't it? I don't recall having to climb down such a steep staircase when we got off the ship earlier, and in fact we did not! If you check out my earlier video on walking to the Chapel, you will see the video start from when we scanned our sea pass cards to get off the ship and the most gentle ramp slope to get off the ship. So what was this all about? Turns out that these staircase was for embarking passengers! Ok. Good luck. We re-entered the ship by the way we exited earlier, a nice gentle ramp.

We got back on board very easily because the lines were very short, as it was still early. It was definitely before 2pm as we headed to the suite restaurant for lunch. After the lunch, we stepped outside and saw the long lines of passengers waiting to get back on board. Check out this video. The all aboard time was 4:30pm and this video was taken at around 3pm. Unfortunately, this is one feature of cruising MSC. The lines to get off and get back onboard can be very long, especially during peak times. Fact of the matter is that this ship is big and packs in many, many passengers.







A still picture. Not sure whether the lines grew even longer as 4:30pm approached.

 

[guitarsingapore]

Back on board, it was lunch time! This was a short video I made of the lunch experience.







Part of the lunch menu.

The seafood pasta.

The beef, which was really good too!

After the lunch, in our usual style, we went to the One Pool and Top Sail lounge to check out the food there, and ended up eating some more. Gluttons, I know. Here is a video I made. We found Nasi Goreng (Indonesian style fried rice) at the One Pool. Couldn't resist!







Watching the Costa ship as we sailed out of port on the MSC Preziosa.

This video shows the Preziosa sailing out from Palermo, and we stand outside on our balcony, watching the Costa ship. Earlier this morning, we watched the Costa ship come into port. This evening, we are leaving first. Goodbye Palermo!







Soon, it was time for dinner. Yeah, eat again. I know. Hence the long walk this morning. Even with all the additional walking, I would still gain weight after this cruise. Here is a video I made of the Gala Dinner experience.







The white wine for this evening.

It was Gala Night tonight. We would have two gala nights this cruise. This was the menu.

The house red for this evening.

Cheers!! By now, our waiter (we had the same waiter every night) knew my preference. I would always want to both House white and red.

The escargots, snails!

I had the beef, which was really good.

Dessert, some crepe suzette.

After dinner, a walk around the ship is always good. The Centrum was very lively, as you can see in this video.







Also live music at the Cafetteria Italia.

A picture of the violinist and pianist in the Centrum.

Life Boats. Walking at Deck 7, I was looking at the lifeboats and decided to make a video about them.







I explored Eataly, the speciality restaurant. We didn't eat in any speciality restaurant for this cruise.

Since this was Gala Night in the suite restaurant, it would also be Gala night in the Main Dining Room. Realising this, I walked to the MDR to take this photo. Sorry, it isn't standing up correctly, but you should be able to make out the menu for Gala Night. For the mains, the had a choice of fish, leg of lamb, fillet of beef of a vegetarian option.

I have come to the end of Day 3, Palermo, Italy. I hope you have enjoyed the review so far. Tomorrow, the ship will be in Malta and we will have a wonderful day.

 

[guitarsingapore]

Valletta, Malta - Day 4 of cruise

Today, the ship will call at Valletta, Malta. When we booked this cruise, about a year ago, the ship was scheduled to dock at Tunis. Unfortunately, tragedy struck with the mass shootings of passengers from the ship. Condolences to all the deceased in that horrific act of terror. As a result, the itinerary was changed and instead, we would call at Valletta, Malta.



Let me start with pictures of the MSC Daily.

Bottom part of the front page.

Entertainment highlights.

As the ship was only going to dock at 10am, we had plenty of time in the morning, for breakfast and to relax on board. We had breakfast in the suite restaurant, as usual. In this video, I just highlight the very nice bottled yogurt that we can get in the YC areas. I couldn't find this yogurt in the main buffet.







This is the MSC Express. One of my kids must have asked for this.

We had some time after breakfast to wander around. So I went up to check out the kiddy water play area. Hadn't taken a close look at it the last time round. So here is a video.







They have this Top 18 Exclusive Solarium. You have to pay some money to use this space.

How much? I took this picture. I didn't pay to go up, so I have no idea how that area looks like.

Approaching Malta.

I wasn't the only person out of deck. Many passengers were up here to watch the beautiful sail in. Good weather today.

The scenery as we sailed in was great! In this picture, I am back on the balcony of my cabin.

Looking gorgeous in the sunlight.

The ship had to make a turn using her azipods, before moving backwards to get into port. This was to facilitate leaving port later. Azipods in action to turn the ship around. As we sailed in, backwards first, we spotted this 3 mast luxury yacht. Wow.

I made a video of this part of the sail-in and also captured the luxury yacht. Check it out!







At about this time, on the cabin TV, I noticed that they were playing advertisements from Etihad. Are MSC and Etihad in some alliance? Or maybe Etihad just bought advertisment space. Not sure.

The ship has docked in Valletta, Malta. From our balcony, I took this picture and noticed some interesting ships ahead of us.

And there was a submarine! Best part, it started to leave port. Looked like a tug boat was helping the submarine to make a sharp turn.

 

[guitarsingapore]

Fun to watch! I made this video while watching the submarine leave port. Incidentally, this was the second time I have spotted a submarine while on a cruise. The first was on the NCL Jade, when we saw a submarine sailing on the Bospherous Straits.







Alright! Enough submarine watching (which was fun). Time to get off the ship.

The port was very convenient. We got off the ship.

A map of the waterfront. You have to walk along the waterfront (many shops) to the end where there are many private tour operators and taxi operators canvassing for business.

We walk along the waterfront. Pretty pleasant. Many private tour operators at the end of this short walk and the fares looked reasonable. For us, we ended up going with a white taxi company. We bought a 4-hour package (for 80 Euros) and the driver would bring us to the major sites, like Blue Grotto and Mdina. Follow along!

We were on our way! In the white taxi, which looked like this.

A very short video clip from the front passenger seat as we were leaving the port area. In Malta, the driver sits on the right side of the vehicle, like in the UK, Singapore, Malaysia. Makes sense - they were a former British colony too. Officially, they were called the Crown Colony of Malta, from 1813 to 1964. Fascinating, when compared to Singapore. Sir Thomas Stamford Raffles founded Singapore in 1819 and we became fully independent in 1965. Very similar time frame.