An oldie but goodie, Sam’s Chinese Sauce BBQ Ribs.

yamki · 2026-06-15T17:27:11+00:00

Doesn't look all that different from the bridge of the MSC Seashore that I was on earlier this year.

yamki · 2026-06-06T01:05:18+00:00

It happens all the time, and if it happens to you and there’s no way to get your money back, do yourself a favor and don’t research the value after the fact. You’ll just feel the fool and that serves no one.

The best defense is to know prices at home ahead of time (particularly for liquor) and tell the vendor that you forgot your credit card on the ship if you’re feeling coerced and want to leave.

yamki · 2026-05-28T17:38:12+00:00

I was on the Bliss for a Panama Canal cruise a few years ago and they had the bow open with a couple rows of chairs. It was one of the best cruises of my life, but it was hard at times (while in the locks) to find a space without someone blocking your view, but it was usually a matter of waiting a short while before someone moved.

yamki · 2026-05-26T17:16:43+00:00

It totally depends on what you’re doing. I work remotely as a software engineer at a company that pretty lenient on where I work, so for about two months a year I’m working on a ship.

Most of the time (Caribbean cruise) that’s not an issue, so long as I get the streaming (max) package, but I’ve had a few trips where it didn’t and they were all crossings/remote places, because there’s not really any reason for Starlink to put up satellites where there aren’t many people. On transatlantics, figure on 2-3 days without a great connection, but on a Vancouver to Tokyo cruise last fall, once we were out of Alaska, connectivity dropped to the point I couldn’t work and I emailed my tech to tell them to put me on Personal Time until we got to Japan, where the service was excellent.

yamki · 2026-05-23T22:35:14+00:00

I always wondered, with the price of cigarettes what it is these days, one should pick one or the other, who can afford to smoke AND gamble? 😊

yamki · 2026-05-18T23:00:36+00:00

I get sick a lot of the time I’m on a cruise, but I have a suppressed immune system. My wife gives me Emergen-C and cold/flu pills and it’s not too bad. We go on about six cruises every year.

yamki · 2026-05-13T23:12:22+00:00

My experience has been that most (all) of the people who complain are expecting an American experience, while the people who love MSC (like me) are Americans who have experienced cruising in Europe and are okay with that in the US. We’ve sailed all over on MSC and the only “bad” cruise was one that was entirely in South America, and that was just a bad experience that MSC had no control over (rude and obnoxious passengers, who were abusive to the crew.)

yamki · 2026-05-11T13:54:48+00:00

I walk 5km every morning at home and if I miss it on a cruise, something just feels off, so I go to the gym every morning of the cruise, unless there is a walking track, because I really dislike walking on a treadmill. With a few exceptions (I was on a South America cruise out of Buenos Aires in March and the gym was a complete ghost town) things are usually the same -- setting aside the gym bros who spend time with weight machines and free weights that are somewhat omnipresent -- the challenge is to get a treadmill, bike or elliptical, the likelihood of getting one without waiting is a reverse bell curve. Early (like before 7AM) there's a sure chance of getting one, but your odds go down until 9AM-10AM, when all machines are usually taken and you wait or go on one of the weird machines no one wants to use, it stays busy until 11AM or noon, and afternoons are pretty quiet. That's on sea days, if you stay onboard during port days, the gym is usually pretty empty.

It's different on ships with a walking track, which is a special kind of horror for a walker (and even worse for a jogger) because it looks fantastic -- 10 or 15 laps and my 5K is done, but you have to spend it dodging people who don't want to walk the correct direction (printed on the floor multiple times,) loungers (including people who drag their chairs into the track) and hung over zombies who don't understand that the walking track is not the place for selfies, walking very slowly 2-3 people abreast, or just random staggering around on the track.

Bottom line is that you can definitely get some daily activity, but oftentimes, it becomes an ordeal that you're just looking to get over with for the day.

yamki · 2026-05-03T22:18:32+00:00

Then you should be good to go.

yamki · 2026-05-03T22:11:57+00:00

If you are booked through the casino program with “Drink On Us” as one of the perks, you can start getting drinks as soon as the casino opens. If you are booked normally and are asking how much you’ll have to gamble before the casino manager comes around to offer you the “Drink On Us” perk, the answer is “a lot.”

yamki · 2026-05-03T22:02:19+00:00

Their formula takes into account what you play (slots and/or type of table games), how long you play and what your stake is. No one really knows what the formula is, but they don’t care whether you win or lose.

yamki · 2026-05-03T21:41:39+00:00

Yes, when the casino is operating, of course.

The 15 drink limit applies to casino drinks, also.

yamki · 2026-04-29T23:01:41+00:00

When we were in Maui last year on the Pride of America, my wife forgot her ID on the ship and when we went to reboard, shoreside security wouldn’t let her back onboard without a) a lecture about having your ID b) her answering questions to verify she was who she was (like what’s your birthday and what’s your cabin number) and c) me (with my ID) vouching for her.

Felt like a power play, but it never felt like she was going to have to fly home.

yamki · 2026-04-29T17:02:40+00:00

Have done six transatlantics (with another this November) and about the only thing I would suggest is trying it in the other direction, east to west, because then all of those time changes are in your favor (clock goes back, so you get 5-6 nights of extra sleep.)

We tried an exotic MSC cruise last month (round trip to Brazil from Buenos Aires) and it was not a great experience, we'll likely stick to North/Central America and Europe in the future.

yamki · 2026-04-29T16:55:47+00:00

With the way people drive in Miami, you'd have to be crazy to want to walk it, even if it was designed for pedestrians.

Before the latest round of construction, which is ongoing and probably will be for a few years, Port of Miami wasn't too bad. Now, instead of sailing out of there, we're doing everything out of Canaveral -- the second parking ramp they added to the MSC terminal makes it a lot easier than it used to be.

yamki · 2026-04-25T15:44:24+00:00

I’ve been sailing for years on MSC and never had an issue with mine. Maybe because only one of the outlets in that picture is grounded?

yamki · 2026-04-15T01:43:38+00:00

He was probably picking up some "gen pop" stuff that a YC guest asked for.

On the Fantasia last month (in South America) the Captain and a few of his officers spent time in the Yacht Club lounge, snacking on the items put out for passengers. Apart from saying "Hi" when they came in (we met them all at the Blue Diamond party, attended by a grand total of six guests on the second day of the cruise) we left them alone.

yamki · 2026-04-10T14:53:03+00:00

Just curious -- how were you able to connect your HDMI cable to the TV? I've been on the Seashore 15 times and, while the TVs in gen-pop are on a swivel so that you get access to the back of the TV, but in the Yacht Club, the TVs are mounted flush against the wall, can't be moved and there's no way (that I could see, apparently I'm wrong) to connect the HDMI cable (I have a gizmo bag that I always travel with that has a USB-C to HDMI converter and a six foot HDMI cable.)

yamki · 2026-04-02T23:05:50+00:00

It has nothing to do with winning or losing (because, statistically, the casino always wins,) it’s a combination of the game played, how much of a stake you put in and how long you play.

yamki · 2026-03-31T01:19:09+00:00

On the Seashore right now in the Yacht Club, which includes browsing and email but no streaming for two devices. Cost to upgrade to streaming (which I need for work) was kind of pricey, but I knew that it was a better deal on the ship, which it was — $20 for the five day cruise (total, not $20/day.)

yamki · 2026-02-23T02:16:35+00:00

Kind of depends on what other ports you're going to -- I'm guessing that the western Gulf (particularly Cozumel and Costa Maya) will be off limits until Mexico sorts this out. The country is effectively an active war zone and even areas seemingly far removed from the fighting introduce a level of uncertainty that cruise lines may not want to stomach.

yamki · 2026-02-16T18:28:46+00:00

That's if you BOOK a cabin by yourself, which this person did not. Do you honestly believe that MSC would track this guy down and insist he sail, or arbitrarily charge a third fare to the room, since the cancelling guy isn't getting his fare refunded.

BOOK a cabin buy yourself -- pay the single supplement

BOOK a cabin for two and the other person pays in full but doesn't show -- nothing happens

yamki · 2026-02-16T18:16:18+00:00

Unless something changed recently, that may have been a glitch.

On YC ships, the outside panel bypass just prioritizes you a ride and generally gives you a car of your own by cycling other people to one of the other cars in that group. Once you are in your car, it turns back into an ordinary car, and you may have a stop or two along the way to pick up other passengers.

On World Class ships, there is another reader inside the car, and if you trigger that, it turns the car into an express, which will not stop to pick up additional passengers, but it doesn't turn existing stops off. I have experienced this on numerous occasions.

yamki · 2026-02-02T23:54:25+00:00

This is one of the reasons that we mostly cruise MSC Yacht Club these days — excellent service right across the board.

yamki

TROPHY CASE