Splendida here we come!

There will be a series of new posts on the blog for a week starting on Wednesday as Alex and I board MSC Splendida in Southampton for a week-long cruise.  This post is a prelude to the main event so I can tell you a bit more and fill you in on our itinerary.

MSC Splendida

We booked this trip shortly after getting off our most recent cruise on Celebrity Eclipse in May.  Alex and I were looking for a relatively relaxing holiday for later in the year, and we saw a fantastic deal in a Yacht Club stateroom on MSC Splendida with an itinerary that wouldn’t be too busy.  I just had to go for it!

As many regular readers will know, MSC is not a cruise line I’ve sailed on before.  I have certainly heard about them though.  They’re a bit like Marmite; people seem to love them or loathe them!  My take from this is that I have a cruising experience in store that will be entirely different from anything I’ve experienced previously.  Sounds pretty exciting to me!

The Yacht Club is MSC’s ship-within-a-ship, an all-suite concept onboard some of their ships.  It is similar in that respect to NCL’s Haven.  This means that certain areas of the ship are reserved exclusively for Yacht Club guests, offering a quiet and spacious retreat.  In MSC’s case, this consists of accommodation, a lounge, and a sun deck spread over the forward fifth(ish) of decks 15, 16, and 18 (there is no deck 17).

Although I say Yacht Club is an all-suite concept, the definition of suite might not pass muster to those accustomed to other cruise lines.  All but 5 of the 71 suites within Yacht Club are the YC1 category which has a floor area of 26m² to 39m².  Quite compact in comparison to some lines’ offerings.

Here is a deck plan of the Yacht Club area.  Notice that the dedicated Yacht Club restaurant is not in the Yacht Club area, nor are the three, larger, YC2 staterooms which are located on Deck 12.

We will be in stateroom 15027 (highlighted in red on the above deck plan), which is one of the smaller YC1 staterooms.  Most of the YC1 staterooms are this size, so I should be getting a pretty typical Yacht Club experience.  Anyway, I won’t say too much more – stay tuned for the stateroom review and tour later in the week, along with more information about the Yacht Club experience.

Our Itinerary

Here is the itinerary for the cruise.

Day   Port                     Arrival    Departure
WED   Southampton              --:--      18:00
THU   Zeebrugge, Belgium       09:00      19:00
FRI   Amsterdam, Netherlands   09:00      --:--
SAT   Amsterdam, Netherlands   --:--      09:00
SUN   Hamburg, Germany         07:00      18:30
MON   SEA DAY                  --:--      --:--
TUE   Le Havre, France         08:00      22:00
WED   Southampton              08:00      --:--

I won’t go into what we have planned now, so stay tuned to see what we end up doing in each of the ports.  Bear in mind I said it was planned as a relaxing trip, so don’t expect too much!

Roll on Wednesday.  I’ll see you on board!