Breakfast
On our last full day on the MSC Meraviglia we got up at around 8:00 am, got dressed, and headed to the buffet for breakfast. Hint for the buffet, there are always open tables to either side of the buffet in the very front, and always open tables in the very back. It was quieter than usual in the buffet and the line to the omelet station was short, so I got a Denver Omelet, along with bacon. I would definitely recommend waiting in line for an omelet, they were much better than the pre-made eggs. I wish I’d done it sooner.
Normally I love biscuits and gravy for breakfast, but the gravy just didn’t look like the usual southern sausage gravy so I passed. It may have been delicious, but I didn’t give it a chance. They also have fruit, pancakes, waffles, and some ethnic food. I try to avoid carbs if I can, so I didn’t have any of those. There is a small cereal bar, no raisin bran, plus yogurt. I saw a big bowl of peanut butter, and there are jams, so kids may want a peanut butter sandwich. There’s also a large selection of pastries and breads, and some breakfast pizza. Hint for coffee cups, the blue MSC mugs are harder to find but bigger. Mostly you’ll see white cups. Also, a number of times there were no cups or mugs to be found. Just keep walking and you should find some at one of the stations.
Luggage tags
We had gotten our disembarkation luggage tags the night before, along with a memo letting us know what time to go to our disembarkation meeting point. We had gotten a yellow number one tag, which met at 8:20 am. That was actually a bit too late for us since we had to get back to our motel, get our car, and drive home. So, he headed to the reception desk to see if he could get an earlier departure number.
The reception desk was a great help and he managed to get a Lime number 1, which left almost an hour earlier than the yellow. Don’t forget that you can do this on most ships, it’s at least worth a try if you’re not happy with your disembarkation time. You can also leave earlier on most ships if you want to carry all of your luggage out with you. That’s not always easy, and the wheel on my large suitcase was broken, so that wasn’t going to work for us.
Packing
We went back to the cabin to try and get at least some packing done. We bring large compression bags for our dirty clothes so that we’ll have extra room in our luggage for souvenirs. After we put the dirty clothes in, he knees on them and presses out the air, then I put the cap back on. This works really good.
Waves dining room for lunch
After packing most of our things, we decided to try the Waves Dining room for lunch for a change, and we were glad we did. We wished that we had tried it earlier, instead of going to the buffet every day. It was a really nice change from the chaos of the buffet.
We were seated at a table for two in the back of the dining room. The menu isn’t extensive, but had enough choices for lunch. We were waited on promptly. We both decided on the Signature Burger. I substituted Sweet fries, which are actually sweet potato fries.
The burgers were delicious, then I really wished that we’d come earlier in the cruise for lunch. For dessert he had Boston Cream pie, and I had sugar free Mango Mousse cake. Both were good also. We didn’t have the drink package but I was craving a Diet Coke so I got a can. Almost $4.00 with tax and tip, but so good. I’d definitely recommend Waves Restaurant for lunch.
Taking some time to relax and recharge
It had been a really busy four days in a row, so I decided to take the rest of the afternoon to rest and recharge for our trip home. That’s the good thing about cruising, being able to do what you want when you want to. Mad About You with Helen Hunt and Paul Reiser was on the TV so I watched that a while. I’m not sure why, but the television goes black three or four times a minute. This happened the entire cruise, and it can get annoying.
I bought the Social package for internet. It covers Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter. It cost $69.99 for the entire cruise, and gives you 1500 MB. I only used it a few minutes each day to catch up with the family, and post a couple of pictures from the cruise on my Facebook and Instagram. Make sure to turn it off after each use so that you don’t waste it. It was plenty of time for what I used it for. It worked well most of the time. There was one time that the internet on the whole ship was down that it didn’t work, but that was it.
Our last dinner on the ship
We had a packed table at this last dinner time on the ship. Every other evening we had extra seats at the table for ten, but on this last day we somehow had eleven at the table. I have no idea on how that happened. They just added an extra chair and place setting, and we all squeezed together. One thing about the Waves Dining room is that it’s so noisy. I’m not sure why, it could be the layout, or it could be that the tables are so large that people have to shout to be heard. The German family came back, and we learned that they live in Florida. They chatted among themselves in German though. No matter, we had a lot of company speaking English.
My appetizer was French Onion Soup. It wasn’t all that good, it had a circle of bread on top, but I couldn’t find any cheese. I would have liked some of that good homemade Mozzerella cheese on it. I had Chicken Parmigiana and an entree. Problem was that it had dry spaghetti with very little sauce on anything. I’m talking really dry pasta with barely any marinara. This may be a cultural thing, I’m really not sure if that’s the way they serve pasta in Italy or not. But as an American, I like a lot of sauce. Our waiter was good enough to bring out more. Dessert was a berry cobbler, which was just okay. All in all, not the best food night, but we didn’t starve. That’s the good thing about a cruise, plenty of food.
Entertainment
The show in the Broadway Theater was about love songs. A word about the Cruise Director, Gene Young. We didn’t see him much, we must have missed most of the things that he was hosting. Every time we saw him he was wearing a black suit and tie. He seemed nice enough, but if you like the Carnival Cruise type of Cruise Director, Gene isn’t it. A more classy type of Cruise Director, I guess. He is actually from Utah in the United States, and his standing joke is “some of you will get that tomorrow” after he tells a joke.
The show was good, but by now you know that we don’t like Opera, and a lot of this show was Opera. I guess that I’m not cultured enough for that. At the end of the show they had a parade of some of the staff of the ship, which was really nice and very moving.
Ending our last day on the ship
And then to end our last night on the ship we did our usual, and went to the buffet for decaf and dessert. We wanted to sit outside at our usual table, but the ship was really moving and you could smell fuel fumes. We found a quiet table just inside the back area, and enjoyed our snack.
After that we went back to the cabin to finish packing up the last of our clothes. We were sure to keep what we needed for morning, including our passports, and put everything else in the big suitcases. We added our luggage tag, and put the luggage outside the cabin door for pickup. I keep a large red pompom on our luggage handles for ease in finding them in the terminal. Believe me, there are a lot of similar looking pieces of luggage, and the pompom makes it so much easier to find ours. And then we called it a night because we had an early morning and long day ahead of us.
Disembarkation
We got up at 6:30 am on Disembarkation day. The ship was already docked in Miami, and our meeting time in the Carousel Lounge was at 7:40 am. We dressed quickly, put the rest of our things in our backpacks, and headed to the buffet for one last breakfast. I had the same breakfast as every other day. Every day there has been pretty much the same selection of food in the buffet. I guess I wish that they’d had a big more daily variety, plus freshly cooked over easy eggs and wheat toast.
We went to the Carousel Lounge by the Casino a little bit early and found a seat. There were plenty of places to sit. After the craziness of embarkation, we expected to be waiting a while, so we were glad for the seats.
However, to our surprise, we were called to disembark just a couple of minutes past our 7:40 am disembarkation time. We walked straight off of the ship, found our luggage easily, and walked straight to the Customs agent. Customs took less than a minute and we were out the door of the terminal before 8:00 am. This was one of the smoothest disembarkations that I’ve ever had.
And back to the motel…and reality
We were planning on getting a Lyft back to the motel but a shuttle driver gave us a good price, the two of us for $15.00. He dropped two groups off at the airport, then us. It didn’t take long, he dropped us off, we went to our car, and we were on the road by 9:00 am. Not bad at all…and now for the long drive ahead…and a reality check. Till next time!
The Quiet Cruiser 