Sailing on the ‘Lirica’
by Hema Khan

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MSC is a very international line,and it has an international flair with many of the passengers from Europe and Canada. The “MSC Lirica” is a medium-size ship (59,058 ton) that was beautiful and clean. There were many lounges with good music and entertainment, and the shows were quite good.

The inside and outside cabins were small (140 sq ft) but very nice and clean. The balcony cabins were a little bigger (240 sq ft) and the staff was friendly (most of them were Indonesians, with Italians in the entertainment staff and other higher positions). All announcements on the ship were made in many languages.

We loved the ports on this cruise.Since we had been to all these ports before, we did not do any tours of the islands. In San Juan, the best part was we were the only ship docked because we had left Florida on Wednesday and arrived there on Saturday (a day when many cruise ships are still docked in U.S. ports beginning new sailings). We have cruised to San Juan many times, and we have always had four to six ships docked there. This time, our walk in the narrow streets of old San Juan was great because we were not fighting the crowds. On Sunday, we were in St. Maarten – again, very few ships in port, and we just did some shopping and walked around town.

In St. Lucia and Antigua, we had day passes for Sandals and spent the day at two Sandals resorts. All travel agents who are registered with Sandals can get a day pass for the agent and one guest. To get this pass while you are on a cruise, you need to go to the Sandals travel agent site and click on the “Commonly Used Forms” link. Then, click on “One Day Pass” and print the form, fill it out, and fax it to Unique Vacations a month before you sail. Unique Vacations will fax back your confirmation for each resort you picked. The confirmation page needs to be presented to the Registration desk or the Sales office when you arrive at Sandals.

In St. Lucia, we visited Sandals Regency La Toc Golf Resort & Spa. This was a 10-minute cab ride to the resort, at a cost of $10 each way. In Antigua, we visited Sandals Grande Antigua and had a wonderful time at its new Mediterranean Village. This resort was a 15-minute cab ride and the cost was $12 each way. In both resorts, we were given a tour of the property and we also got to see a few room categories.

Our next scheduled port was Tortola, but on the second or third day of the cruise, we were told we will be going to Virgin Gorda. Later, we found out that there were too many ships in Tortola, so they decided to take us to Virgin Gorda. We had to tender into Spanish Town. This island was very small, and there’s not much to do other than beach or water sports. This port reminded me of Tortola a few years ago when ships first started going there. Near the dock, there was some construction and the sign said there were shops coming soon. Our guess was that more ships will be stopping here in the near future.

Our next stop was Cayo Levantado in the Dominica Republic (MSC Cruises’ own island), with a very nice beach and lots of locals with shops where we could spend our money. We had to tender in and we were told we could have lunch on the island, but there was a cost of $15 per person. We noticed most passengers came back to the ship to have lunch.

MSC Cruises provided many unique bar/soda packages during our trip. These offers included three different wine packages, two different beer packages, a soda package (14 soft drinks for $25), a vitamin package (10 fresh-fruit cocktails and milk shakes for $33), an ice cream package (10 cones of soft ice cream for $25), a junior card (five soft drinks and five cocktails without alcohol for $28) and a honeymooners card (combination of drinks for $56).

Smoking on this ship was only permitted in designated smoking areas and on deck. There was no smoking allowed in any passenger cabin or balcony.

On this cruise, the staff offered daily kids program in three groups: Kids club (3-9 yrs.), Juniors club (10-12 yrs.) and Teenagers club (13-17 yrs.). The ship had a nice kid’s club area on deck 11, and during the cruise we saw many younger kids playing there. They had a mini golf course on the top deck. There was no basketball court for the older kids. They had two swimming pools that were divided in half, with one side as the adult pool and the other half as the kid pool.

Here are some interesting facts about MSC Cruises:

• Kids sailed for free if they were under 17 years old and shared a cabin with two full paying guests. (I’m not sure if this was a promotion or if it’s true for all sailings – no one could give me an answer to this question.)
  
  
• You had to pay for ice cream on the ship, except when you ordered with a meal.
  
  
• No gratuities were added to the bar bill (we were told that service charge had been included in the price of the drink).
  
  
  
• Gratuities were $12 per day per adult and $6 per day per child (4-17 years), added automatically charged to your final bill.
  
  
• To cash travelers checks, you must pay a 3 percent fee.
  
  
• The main pursers desk was unable to help you with any issues related to banking or accounting. There was a separate desk for both functions, and they had very limited hours per day.
  
  
• There are no chocolates at night on your pillow. I never thought I would miss it. but I did!

Overall, this was a good cruise, and we enjoyed ourselves. The ports of calls were excellent. The majority of the Americans who were on the ship were seasoned cruisers, and they told us that they were on MSC Cruises because they had the BEST rates and offered great deals. The one disappointment was that MSC Cruises markets itself as an Italian experience, and we did not get the “Italian feel” on this cruise. However, we did enjoy the international flair!

Hema Khan operates her home-based travel business in New Jersey, where she also works as director of the state’s OSSN chapter. You may reach her at hema@kirkwoodtravel.com.

(Credits: Hema Khan; MSC Cruises)