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MSC Cruise Review

My wife Sharon and I just finished a MSC “repositioning” cruise that departed from Hamburg Germany ending Genoa Italy.  We have both been on cruises in the past but this was our first with MSC.  We sailed on the MSC Fantasia ship.

Prior to the cruise Sharon had joined a Facebook group for the ship.  This was useful in being able to pose questions to people who had sailed with MSC in the past.  One perk that came of it was finding out about the MSC Voyager Club.

If you have elevated status with other credit cards or programs you can get the same status with MSC (check the dedicated enrollment page https://www.msccruisesusa.com/manage-booking/msc-voyagers-club/status-match)  In my case I have Diamond Status for Hilton which put me at the highest level for MSC.

One of the perks is priority embarkation/debarkation.  When we arrived at the port in Hamburg the line for embarkation was extremely long, however we quickly jumped in the Diamond line and were processed and on the ship within about 20 min.  Later we overheard some people talking about the wait to board in the other line which exceeded 2.5 hours.  YIKES!

Now that we were safely on board we headed to our stateroom at the back of the ship.  When booking we had at length discussions about the best place to be during the cruise.  We wanted a balcony but based on information we had read, cabins near the front or back and higher cabins are more common to experience sea conditions.  It was decided that we would book a stateroom at the back of the ship and roughly mid-way up (Deck 10).

The room was actually quite nice and the deck was good size.  It allowed us plenty of space to hang out and enjoy the views whenever we wanted.  After settling in it was time to set out to explore food options.

Up on Deck 14 was an extensive buffet.  There was everything from salads, main entrees, mediterran to burgers and fries.  Because we didn’t purchase any of the drink packages we were stuck with water or buying individual drinks which we were completely fine with.

Ok, that’s about enough of the idle chatter let’s get down to some of the specifics of things we like and things that we didn’t.

Likes:

    • Most of the staff were cordial and respectful
    • Room was always made up in a timely manner
    • Shows in the theater were ok
    • Early embarkation/debarkation
    • The second “White Night” was pretty good up by the pool deck
    • Pizza and fruit were pretty good
    • Butcher’s Cut steak dinner was pretty good for the most part

Dislikes:

    • Bike excursion in Lisbon was total chaos and not very well organized
    • We had no idea that we were going to be charged $12/per day per person which added about $270 right off the bat
    • Every purchase had an automatic gratuity added to it
    • Some of the food wasn’t very good to include the scheduled dinners so we normally stuck with the buffet.
    • Even if you buy 2 wifi packages you can’t switch between devices.  For example once I registered with my laptop I couldn’t turn off the wifi and switch to my phone.  As a former IT guy I get it, however it’s frustrating.

Overall impressions it was pretty much what we anticipated.  Because it was a repositioning cruise the price was right so we decided to give it a go.  Would we sail with MSC again, most likely yes.  They seem to be as good as any of their competitors.  We did decide though that 11 days is probably too long so would likely opt for something like 7 days.

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Travel lightly

Well, here we are the last day of the cruise headed for Genoa Italy from Marseille France.  It’s almost unfortunate that it took me the entire cruise to come to the realization that when out being a tourist there is something to be said about “traveling lightly”.

As I said in previous posts I started out carrying a small point & shoot, my phone and a bottle of water.  It was very clunky at time trying to juggle everything so I decided to skip the camera and just carry my phone and the water.

Today was the best day because I set out with just a phone for photos.  Man did it ever make the experience so much better.  All I had to worry about was enjoying the trip.

I couldn’t help but notice people carrying their DSLRs or mirrorless cameras with lenses.  One person in particular was carrying a camera bag that was in my opinion more than I’d want to carry.  With his mirrorless camera he was using the LCD display on the back for the viewfinder and had variable length lens.

While I’m sure he ended up with some pretty good shots, I would venture to say that there wasn’t anything extraordinary that I wasn’t able to capture with my phone and my load was much lighter.

As we head off to Genoa, I am still considering what to use for our day trips but I guess we’ll see.  Stay tuned…

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It’s all about convenience

Well in my last post I said that I would be taking a DSLR on my trip.  True to my word I did bring along the D200.  That said it has not proven to be my “go to” camera thus far.

Our trip started in Hamburg Germany.  The little bit of site seeing that we did I took our small point & shoot Canon.  Part of my rationale was that it’s such a big city and didn’t feel that there would be many photo ops.  As it turns out for me this was accurate.

From here we got on a ship and headed for Lisbon Portugal.  This mean 3+ days at sea so not much in the way of photography.  What little bit I did shoot on the ship was done with my iPhone, with the exception of a few with the D200 as we pulled into port.

Once in Lisbon we did a shore excursion which was an eBike tour.  It started out rainy but as the day progressed the weather cleared up.  Regardless, because we were going to be on bicycles I didn’t want to drag a bunch of weight so the big camera stayed in the cabin.

We set sail later in the day headed to Cadiz Spain.  Our excursion for this day was a wine tasting tour.  I chose to carry the point and shoot for this trip, again because I didn’t feel like toting the bigger camera.  As it would turn out, while I did take some with the small camera I found it much easier to just resort to my iPhone.

I’m thinking that until we get to Italy most of my photos will be done with the phone.

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Taking a step back

As we prepare for a trip to Europe, I’ve been torn on what camera equipment to take along.  While we have a point & shoot that is extremely compact and capable, I know there will be cases where it would be limited.  We also have a couple different DSLR cameras and a variety of lenses but I don’t really feel like lugging a bunch of equipment across the world.

After much contemplation I’ve settled on my old Nikon D200 crop sensor DSLR mated with a Nikon 18-300mm lens.  This certainly isn’t the my ideal setup.  For me potential drawbacks of this setup include:

    • High ISO isn’t very good at upper ranges (anything above 1600 can become unusable)
    • Cropped sensor – (some may view this as a benefit because it effective raises the focal range by 1.5, (e.g. 300mm is more like 450mm, but reduces extreme wide angle)
    • Lens is a slow lens (3.5 in the wide angle ranges, 5.6 in the telephoto ranges)

Even with these potential challenges I feel that this combination will be best for the trip.  Just as there are drawbacks, I feel that they are outweighed by some significant benefits.

    • Weight – While not as light and compact as a point and shoot, this rig will provide me high resolution with a broader field of view.  This will be of particular use for telephoto shots.  Another aspect of weight is I’ll only be carrying one lens verses three to get the same range and cutting weight by at least 2/3.
    • Cost – I’m always leary of wondering around with a bunch of expensive equipment.  Whether here at home or abroad there is always a potential of theft.  While I don’t want to lose any of my equipment, if it were to happen it would be much easier to replace the lens and because the D200 is so old there would be no need to replace it.

I still plan on taking a point & shoot for quick/easy shots, but it will be nice to have a bigger setup to capture the awesome beauty of Europe.

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Year of music

This summer started out rather chaotic.  For anyone that lives in Colorado you’re fully aware of the unusual rain that we’ve had this year.  As a result of the rain we experienced some flooding in our home.  In order to resolve the issue we had to do some significant work on our house and yard.

Once we got past that issue it was time to try to get some enjoyment out of the summer.  Thanks to the Vet Tix organization we had the opportunity take in some great shows/events.  Among them we saw:

    • Colorado Rockies @ Coors Field
    • Ambrosia @ Pikes Peak Center
    • Kenny Wayne Shepherd & Buddy Guy @ Fiddlers Green Ampitheater
    • Rod Stewart @ Ball Arena
    • Loverboy & Foreigner @ Ball Arena

For any vet I highly encourage you to check out Vet Tix (vettix.org).

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We’re back!

Well after a series of unfortunate events we’re back!  With the loss of previous articles we’ve made the decision to provide our readers with a broader spectrum of content rather than just photography related material.  We hope that you find the new articles interesting and as always, thank you for following us online.