Friday May 9, 2025
Nikki and I left for Florida around 12:30 in the afternoon. We drove roughly until about 8:45 and made it to Richburg, SC, where we stayed the night at the Quality Inn And Suits just off I-77. The traffic from the road was very loud and we got some sleep, but were awoken several times with loud vehicles driving past the hotel.
Saturday May 10, 2025
We were on the road around 7:00 am and drove the rest of the way to Titusville, Florida where we were going to be spending the night. on our way to Titusville, we got off I-95 around St. Augustine and drove down A-1A which has the ocean on the east side of the road for a portion of the drive. We stopped at a beach and enjoyed the warm weather and even dipped our toes in the Atlantic.
We continued down A-1A untile Flagler beach and then caught the Old Dixie Highway between Flagler and Daytona. Drving through the old cypress trees with Spanish moss hanging off them was scenic and I enjoyed sharing that experience with Nikki. I wanted to do that for years, but never had the time or could find the road I had taken about 15 years prior on a Motorcycle trip. It was nice to see again and we were even greeted in a small stretch with hundreds of butterflies. We got into Daytona and were hungry and ate at Stonewood Grill and Tavern. The food was great, the service was slower that we had hoped and we were there for nearly two hours. After getting into Titusville, we continued on to Merritt Island and went through the Merritt Island National Wildlife Reserve. We saw countless birds and saw many alligators.
After the reserve, we checked into The Extended Stay America Premier Suites back in Titusville.
Sunday May 11, 2025
We got ready and packed for the Embarkation of our cruise and went across the street to Cracker Barrel for breakfast on Mother’s Day. We perused the shop since we had time and then went back and gathered out luggage and headed towards the Port Canaveral Cruise Port. We ran into some traffic closer to the Cruise Port as the ships were loading up with people boarding. We got parked in a pretty good spot on the main floor of the garage and made our wat to the terminal. Marcus’ Aunt Sue works security for MSC and we met her outside the terminal and she walked us right through security and to the front of the line to get our baggage scanned and checked. We we made it from the parking lot to on the ship in about 20 minutes and that includes the 5 minutes we waited on the laoding ramp before they allowed passengers to start boarding. Thanks Sue for helping us get through that so painless! After boarding we stood in line to wait for elevators. The elevators were interesting and frustrating. You would enter the floor you wanted to go to on a kiosk and it would tell you which elevator was going to be yours. It didn’t matter that other elevators were going in the same diretion and opened before your elevator was ready. You would be waiting for 3-4 minutes and someone else would enter a floor within a level or two of yours and doors would open immediately for them and they would get on an empty elevator and go to floor two levels above yours, meanwhile you were still waiting. Then your elevator door would finally open and the elevator was packed with people and no room for you, so the door would close and you would have to start again. It made no sense. The waits were better durring non peak times, but it was still frustrating. There are no buttons on the inside of the elevator. Once you boarded the elevator, you were bound to whereever it was going to go. We got to our room and were able to get in the room and put our luggage in the closet. The room was not ready yet, but we were there early and didn’t mind. We waited in line and got a wrist band to allow us to pay and open our door without having to carry a key card in our pocket. We waited in line to have them setup our phones with wifi service we paid for. We could not do it on our own as they manually typed the password on our phones and played with our settings, which made me nervous giving our phones over to a stranger who didn’t want us to see what they were doing. We then went back to the room only to find that our key cards didn’t work and our new write bands did not work. We went back down to customer service to wait in line and find they turned off access because the room was not ready yet and it might be a couple of hours. We waited in line at the bar to get a drink and relax for a bit while waiting for our room to get ready. We noticed they put us at dinner at 7:15 after we signed up for all the 7:30 shows in the theater. We went back to customer service and waited in line to see if we could get it changed to 5:15. We were told to go to the main dining room and request the change there. We waited in line there to see if they could get us moved to an earlier seated dinner. Needless to say we were waiting in lines for hours the first day. We ended up eating in the buffet, which was really good and then went and watched the “Live from MSC Seashore” show in the Madison Theater which was very good after that show we went and watched “Show Time at the Rouge” in the La Caberet Rouge bar and that was awesome.
Monday May 12, 2025
The seas were rough all night and the winds were high. In the morning we were supposed to spend the next day and a half at Ocean Cay, the ship missed the first approach due to high winds which were 36-43 knots. We said in a 10 mile circle and attempted the approach again, but were blown off couse again as it started raining, thundering and lightning. The captain announced that we were going to cancel our day and half at Ocean Cay, as we started to sail away in rough seas. About two hours later there was another anouncement that we were rescheduling our day to Costa Maya a day early from the 15th to the 14th, but adding another port stop at Roatan Honduras on the 15th. I had just read that Honduras was bumped to a level 3 by the State Department and Nikki and I were talking about just staying on the ship that day instead of risking going ashore. It also messed up our plans with Costa Maya as we booked our excursion through a third party and not through MSC and now we needed to try to reschedule ourselves. I was able to cancel the excursion that originally scheduled for the 15th, but I was unable to reschedule it thorugh the third party on the 14th instead. So we had to pay over twice as much to reschedule our Mayan Ruins excursion through MSC. We had lunch at the buffet and explored the ship some more and had some drinks. We had dinner at the main dining room with David and Isobella from Orlando who moved from Puerto Rico about 18 years earlier. They were very nice and although we never at the main dining room again, we stopped and talked to them several more times on the trip. The food was god in the main dining room, but we found the food in the buffet just as good as well and we were on our schedule then. That night we watched comedian Giovanni King in the Madison Theater before going to bed.
Tuesday May 13, 2025
Today was a day at sea and we finally were out of the roughest of seas, but the winds were still high and it was a bit of rough seas. Luckily Nikki and I are not prone to sea sickness and didn’t have any issues. We saw the sun rise and found out we were close enough to Cuba, about 15-20 miles offshore that we could see the lights from Havana and the Mountains to the west of Havana. We spent several hours on the Veranda and were entertained by the flying fish. They are amazing little creatures and would typically jump out of the water aand fly 10-20 feet before diving back in. Some of them were going over 100 feet and out of sight. We had lunch at the buffet and then went to the game show called Love and Marriage. It was fun and entertaining and then we spent more time just sitting on the veranda and watching Cuba disappear. We ate dinner at the buffet and cought The Journey in the Madison Theater and then went back to the Rouge for more live entertainment before heading for bed.
Wednesday May 14, 2025
We woke up early and around 4:10 am our cabin lost water, we called down and reported it and later found out they shut down almost all the ships fresh water to fix a water main pipe. We were able to find working public bathrooms near the buffet and were at least able to go potty and wash our hands before eating breakfast at the buffet. Water came back on shortly after 7:00 am. We went to shore to explore mostly a bazaar with shoped and ungodly hot and humid temps. Nikki and I ordered a couple of yard long frozen alcoholic drinks to cool down with. We went back to the ship to shower and dress for our excursion to Chocchoben. We had a quick light lunch before disembarking the ship. The buses that were going to take us to the ship were made for Mayan sized people and very uncomfortable for both of us. We enjoyed the excursion and the tour and history of the ruins dispite the weather being very hot and humid. We also did get to see a wild monkey on the tour, but we were never fast enough with our carmeras to catch a picture. After our tour we headed back on the cramped bus and took much needed showers again and went to eat . We were so exhausted from the heat from the excursion that after we ate we went back to the room and fell asleep until the following morning and missed the show we booked for that evening.
Thursday May 15, 2025
We ate breakfast as the ship approached the island to dock. We decided last minute to book a glass bottom boat tour. Roatan appeared much nicer than Costa Maya as we saw all the nice homes dotting the mountainside overlooking the strait. Our tour van picked us up near the pier and we stopped at a place called Stone Castle Cameo Factory and saw some amazing conch shell carved artwork and jewelry. We purchased some pieces and boarded the bus to finish our ride to the boat launch located at West End. Our guide Rosa was informative about the native culture and history. The glass bottom boat reminded me of 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea ride at Disney, but everything was alive and real. The coral reef and fish were interesting as well as listening to the informative recording in English talking about the different species of fish and coral found in the area. It was amazing and I highly recommend it to anyone planning on traveling there. We were then transported by van again to the town of West End, which is a colorful little tropical town that you envision in the movies. All the shops were painted bright colorful colors as well as the boats at the docks. We visited a chocolate factory that harvests the fruit, extracts the beans, roasts the beans and makes the chocolate. It was a small operation and everything was delicious. You can order coffee and chocolate online at https://www.TheRoatanChocolateFactory.com/shop. We got back tot he ship and had dinner at the buffet, then headed to The Rouge theater to watch kareoke and then to the Madison Theater to watch the show Encore before heading to bed.
Friday May 16, 2025
We were having breakfast around 6:30am when we came into port at Cozumel.
Our excursion for the day was the Mayan Ruins at Chichen Itza. We disembarked the ship on to the pier and walked along the pier to the water taxi where we boarded. The water taxi seated about 200 people in leather lounge chairs and we sat neear the window. The wind was still blowing hard and the seas were still choppy. Nikki decided to use the restroom on the catamaran. No one spoke english and after she was guided to the restrooms she was led outside and on a narrow walkway with just a single rope to hold on to get to the back of the boat. It was choppy and windy as she headed to the man sitting on a chair at the back of the boat with a round life preserver resting against him. He made some crude communication pointing to his groin and then pointing to the bathroom around the corner. Nikki did her business as well as expected on rough seas in a small boat. As she stood up her head banged loudly on the door in the tight quarters of the bathroom. As she existed the man pointed to his head and bumped it and they both laughed. She made her way back down the dangerously narrow catwalk with single rope railing and finally made it safely next to me sitting comfortably in the leather lounge chair. I had no idea about the adventure she just had but it sounded exhilarating when she came back and told me. The ferry dropped us off at Playa del Carmen where we boarded tour busses. Our guide was Irving Uc and was of actual Mayan decent. He was not full Mayan though as he was able to grow a beard, but was bald which is opposite of 100% Mayan. The tour and ruins were amazing. The size of the city is astounding as it covers about 4 square miles. Only a small portion has been uncovered to the point where visitors can see. We toured around the main temple and some fo the smaller buildings around it. They were only smaller by comparison of the main temple. The stone carvings were detailed and decorated large portions of each building. The scale of the whole thing was impressive. There were hundreds of vendors around the ruins plaza that turned the area into a flea market. The vendors would step in front of Nikki all the time to the point where she held my hand and followed me as they didn’t do that to me. We gathered as a group in front of the main temple and our guide, Irving, demostrated the acoustics of the temple by having us all clap. The echo sounded like a heavy reverb. He explained that whomever was on top of the temple, which was usually the ruler, could hear individual conversations from the people way below. We were allowed to explore the area on our own for about 45 minutes after the tour before we had to head back to the tour bus for the 3 hour bus ride and water taxi ride back to the pier. On the return our tour bus lost air conditioning in the 90 degree heat with humidity in the 90’s as well. We transfered to another bus so we wouldn’t melt for the rest of our journey back. We got back to the pier with about 5 minutes to spare before the cruise ship was going to pull the ramp and stop boarding to leave port. We never got to visit Cozumel at all or step foot on the island. We will have to return to do that! We took much needed showers and headed to the buffet to get some food as we were very hungry after our nine hour excursion. That evening our entertainment was a magic show that was cute, funny and entertaining in the Madison Theater.
Saturday May 17, 2025
Nikki got coffee and we both had breakfast at the buffet. We went to get pictures of our eye’s iris to possibly get an aluminum printed color print. We also visited future cruises but decided to waint unto our next cruise in less than 3 weeks on Celebrity. We went back to see our iris pictures and ended up not getting them as neither of us could recognize each others eye’s and thought they were high resolution pictures of someone else’s eyes! Distinctive features of our eyes were missing and there were other distinctive features that neither of us could see in each others eyes. Even the color was wrong on Nikki’s shade of blue. We spent some down time on the balcony as we got further from land the heat and humidity were not so oppressive. We then decided to be like hobbits and have a 2nd late breakfast. We wandered around the ship and explored some more. We had a mid afternoon lunch and then spent more time on the balcony. We ate dinner at the buffet and went and watched the show Rock Royalty in the Madison Theater. It was high energy and I think both of our favorite show of the cruise. We went back to the room and packed for disembarkation the following morning. We both took showers and went to bed.
Sunday May 18, 2025
We arrived back in Port Canaveral around 6:00am. We were already up and wandering around a bit before breakfast and watched them dock the ship. We then went back to our room and packed the rest of our toiletries and such. We decided to carry all of our luggage ourselves as we could then get out as soon as possible and not our assigned time of 9:30. We went down around 6:50 and got in line to disembark. Once the line started moving it went pretty quick. We made it through customs quickly and and headed to the parking garage. We parked on the main floor and were one of the first people off the ship so we were headed towards I-95 north pretty quick. There was an accident in South Carolina on I-95 where were in stopped traffic for about an hour. We stopped a few times for gas and a few more times for potty breaks and stretching legs. We pulled into the driveway about 11:20PM.
Post MSC cruise analysis.
Compared to Celebrity there were not a lot of quiet spaces like alcoves or just quiet rooms to sit and have quiet conversation and relax. They also needed more public indoor spaces with windows as well as public outdoor spaces. Unless you are in the Yatch club, there are no public spaces at the front of the ship. It’s nice to be able to see where you are going sometimes. Purchased wifi was a waste of money. Were were unable to hardly use it, it was slow and failed all the time. The only place for free coffee was the buffet. The elevator system sucked.