MSC OPERA --GGC2006--01/28/2006--02/04/2006

We started this adventure by flying out of San Antonio a day early, January
27th. After arriving, we met up with some of our group at the motel..Others
staying at other hotels arrived later that night...some did not arrive until
the next day. Fourteen of us got together and went to a Greek Restaurant (I
can't remember the name right now) that evening...It was filled to capacity
with a very long waiting line...We were in the way, so the owner/manager
threw us out....nah...just moved us to the outside until tables were
available for us as we, as a fairly large group, were blocking the waiters'
way to wait on others.. The food was very good, as was the ouzo! We
*almost * had Ermalee dancing on the table... She did make it as far as the
chair for a few seconds!

Before I go on with my review, we went on the MSC Opera anticipating it to
be an entirely different experience and came away experiencing just that.
You have to go on with an open mind to really enjoy yourself and that we
did.


In Command was : Captain Giacomo Romano
Staff Captain: Alfonso Franca
Cruise Director: Franco Pili
Head Entertainer: Daniela De Nicola...who was FANTASTIC!


The Embarkation:
Very smooth and prompt with just a few in line ahead of us. Because we were
with Erm and Bill, who was making use of a wheelchair to make things easier
for him, we were some of the very first on board...Boarding photos were
taken and we proceeded to our cabins...The cabins were not quite ready, but
we left our carry-on baggage there and went to the buffet. Afterwards, we
did a little exploring of the ship..gotta' find, right away, that "den of
iniquity," the casino! We also had promised Tobie and Barb that we would
check with the Maitre d' to make sure that they were seated with us...Had to
break into Tobie and Barb's cabin..(not really...
a stewardess let me in thinking I was one of the occupants and I swiped the
dining card off the bed which had their table number on it.. Ha!...and you
said that I could *no way* do it, Roland! Of course, having Erm as an
accomplice helped..you know her and her face of *innocence*..Yeah, sure!!!
Happens that they were not at their table, but they were next to ours of
six...Even though I tried to talk the Maitre d' into changing their table
reservations, by talking to him in Polish (he was Czech, but spoke Polish
fluently.), there was no way that he could arrange it ..They were all tables
of six with one table of three and we had Erm & Bill and Barb and Cotton at
our table and it was too small to make it a table for eight....but it all
worked out well as they were close to us at the next table so we did ample
table hopping. In fact, all the early seating people in our group were
seated very close to each other in a cluster...In the meantime, Tobie and
Barb had arrived in their cabin and were looking for their dining time card
which I still had in my possession! Erm allayed their worries and told them
that I had it.


Safety Drill:
We had ours in the casino and all the passengers were English speaking, so
we did not hear the instructions in other languages as we had expected
to..Other necessary shipboard announcements were made in German, French and
Italian..


The Ship:
Absolutely beautiful and EXCEPTIONALLY clean..Subdued elegance with lovely
colors and decor. Some pastels and some in lovely fuchsia and black and
other tasteful primary colors here and there..Very pleasing to the eye. The
Pursers' Desk's decor reminded me somewhat of that on the Celebrity
Zenith..except much larger and attractive with seating not too far away..

The Food:
As expected...different, with some very good and some mediocre dishes...The
eggplant parmigiana was excellent. The pastas were very good also...All
Italian specialties were good..There were a few disappointing dishes, but we
always managed to find something that we enjoyed. The Italian breads all
were hard in texture and the desserts on the *dry* side...not moist...such
as the always available plum cake. The best ones were made with apple or
fruit along with the crème Brule..Even the crème Brule seemed not as creamy
as crème Brule usually is..the texture more porous..

Breakfast had most all the ingredients of usual cruise line breakfasts plus
cold cuts and cheeses...They had plenty of kiwi fruit on the ship, both
fresh and in salads. Lots of fruit ..melons, bananas, grapes, watermelon and
fresh pineapple..They had made to order omelets, pancakes, boiled, fried and
scrambled eggs and their coffee was VERY strong!! Thank heavens they had
plenty of half & half! Just two juices and tea were available.
Cane woven chairs furnished the buffet. The service in the buffet was
fair...You were pretty much on your own...There is a language barrier when
conversing, but the crew does try.. That will improve as time goes by and
they get a chance to use it more often.. The crew is made up of mostly
Italians along with some Romanians...The difficulty with English was more
noticeable among the food serving staff..the rest of the crew and
entertainers mastered English very well. But this made the experience all
the more interesting!


One complaint in my case was that the buffet hours were not long enough for
us...We like to sleep in a little, so the buffet line closing at 9:30 am was
too soon. The lunch hours could have been extended for another hour,
too..Only other place to go afterwards was the Aroma Coffee Bar where you
had to pay for your coffee. They had many different choices of coffee
available but we were able to have some wonderful chocolate and fruit filled
croissants that you could not find anywhere else onboard, which were free...
so it was a good trade off.

The Cabin:
We had a balcony cabin, mid-ship and it was quite adequate. Not as large as
Carnival, but not as small as Royal Caribbean..The decor was in shades of
blues and quite lovely...Enough space for all that we brought for the two
cruises. (The following week we were to board the Celebrity Infinity.) The
mattresses were very comfortable. The chairs on the patio were cane weaved
chairs with an about a 30" glass topped table in between.

We did not use room service on this ship. It had a very limited menu with
coffee, warm milk, chocolate milk, yogurt, rye and whole wheat bread,
croissants, orange and grapefruit juice.

The bathroom was about the size of those on Princess ships and had a
hairdryer. We had huge sheet sized white towels. They had fairly decent bar
soap and a shampoo dispenser in the shower as well as bottles of shampoo.
Better quality than what we've had in Italian hotels but had sort of a
medicinal smell..glad I brought my own..No conditioner...Plenty of hot water
was always available.
There was a well stocked refrigerator and bar which was not locked. Drinks
were the same price as those at the bars. Couldn't believe that Coke and
Sprite were $2.15 a can! that's $12.90 a six pack!!

Service:
Our cabin stewardess was Jelena for Yugoslavia..Very sweet young lady who
went the extra mile whenever needed. Not only was she personable but very
efficient.
One thing that was really obvious was the constant cleaning going on this
ship all hours of the day and night...I have never seen such continual
cleaning on any of our previous 31 ships of any cruise line.. They were
scrubbing away everywhere all the time! We got notices in our cabin that at
10 am on a particular day, for us to avoid our cabin balcony because they
would be cleaning with a power hose and for privacy to close our drapes as
they would be doing the windows too...They opened all the partitions on the
balconies and worked the entire balcony deck...got sprayed in the face when
I opened the drapes to watch (not really, as the glass doors were locked!
;-) ) but the cleaning crew got a big kick out of my jumping back away from
the spray when it hit the window!

Waiters need more training to deal with English speaking passengers...The
waiters in the dining room were abrupt at times, bordering on rudeness. To
anyone who has never been to Italy and seen for themselves that it is just
their way, it appeared as rudeness..If you don't understand what they say
the first time, they are not exactly happy to explain it a second time! We
expected this, having been to Italy three times...This will have to be
worked on and improved as it offended some... Saying in a loud voice,"You
asked me two times, and I TOLD you two times, we DO NOT have bagels and
cream cheese on the last day." while some one else is sitting that very
moment and at the very same table eating bagels and cream cheese served to
him by a different waiter, does not cut it! I'm sure that the longer that
they are in the Caribbean, some of this will improve...

The dining room was lovely...I can't remember that they had any other color
than white tablecloths and napkins. They had the tiniest water glasses that
I have ever seen! They were the same size as small wine glasses and they
were often filled both glasses with water, if we did not have wine, as we
needed refills so often...Guess that is because Italians are great wine
drinkers with their meals while Americans drink more water with
theirs...just my assumption...They also used water pitchers that had a lip
holding the ice back...leaving no ice in our water...

Our waiter in the dining room was extremely busy as he had to take care of
four tables of six ...They have a different system...The waiter took our
orders and gave them to the assistant waiter who then disappeared for a long
time into the galley kitchen with them while the waiter filled the water
glasses and brought the bread...Then the assistant would appear with the
items for each course...Our waiter seemed to always be in a hurry with very
little time to talk to us. At times it left you with a feeling of being
rushed. I also did not appreciate one bit, the waiter twice royally chewing
out the young assistant waiter in front of everyone..The poor kid happened
to be from Indonesia and it was his very first cruise..There was just no
excuse to be so rude and abusive and it was very embarrassing to the young
man...We slipped him an extra tip because we felt so badly for him.

Drink Prices:

We found the bar prices rather steep on this ship in comparison with other
cruise lines...
Beer was $4.50
Cocktails ranged from $6.75 to $7.95...Martinis were $7.95-$8.95...Drink of
the day was $6.95.

Smoking:
I was not bothered by smoking at all. People obeyed the rules and our cabin
had no smoking odor left from previous occupants...
There really was not that much smoking going on ...much less than I had
expected, being that there were many Europeans on board.

There was a large Polish Polka Group with their Polka Band on board. They
came from all parts of the USA. The Cruise Director managed to learn a few
words of Polish as well as about six other languages that he had mastered.


Entertainment:
FANTASTIC! Have never seen such caliber on any ship before! The entire
entertaining staff was wonderful..
There was a trio of Romanians..a tenor whose voice compared to Boccelli, an
excellent pianist and a very talented violinist who could play, *The Flight
of the Bumble Bee,* like no one I have ever heard! They had so many
standing ovations that they ran out of time; so they had them give an extra
concert at 5 pm one night because of their popularity and demand..The tenor
was Adrian Mocanu, the pianist, Tudor Cicerone, and the violinist, Marian
Cristea...all men. They also had a wonderful red haired soprano
singing with Adrian one night by the name of Michaela Bozagui...Her gowns
were gorgeous as was her voice. All from Romania!
One of the cast of dancers had a beautiful alto voice.

I cannot say enough good things about the Animation/entertainment
staff..they were so much fun and they encouraged passenger involvement
everywhere you went..
Before show time, four of them would wear black shiny derby or bowler hats
and stand at the first level stairway top...As people walked in, all four of
them would step in line behind them and follow them to their seats..if the
people stopped and pointed, they all stopped and pointed..they mimed
everything the people did..Then when they reached the seats that they
selected, one of the mimes would slip into the seat quickly so that the one
of the theatre goers would sit in their lap..or vice versa...It was
hilarious! The expressions on the faces of those theatre goers was
priceless!! They ranged from anger, surprise and a lot of laughter! I must
say very little anger when they realized what they were doing to them. We
*sicked* them on Barbara and Cotton when they came into the theatre!! They
had us in stitches with their pranks until it was show time..they were as
much fun as the shows! As we exited the theatre, they would be lined up
asking everyone to meet them for a certain event..such a karaoke, trivia,
Italian lessons,
musical chairs, etc..They were a bunch of both girls and guys in their early
20's or so and spoke fluent English....Kudos to those young people! They
gave us a lot of joy and laughter.

We especially enjoyed Daniela and Giorgio who conducted the Trivia
contests...They worked very well together and had us laughing all the
time..We had Tobie and Barb as partners and as always, *Encyclopedia Barb,*
led us to many victories and prizes....

We had a group gift exchange, where everyone bought a gift on one of the
islands which was to be no more than $8 and no less than $5...wrapped them
up and put them on a gift table.. Numbers were drawn as to who would get
their gift first and as we watched them being opened, could either take one
that we liked or draw one from the table..After a gift had been taken three
times, it was *frozen* and the one who possessed it at that time could keep
it permanently..It was the first time that I had participated in such a game
and it was a lot of fun...especially since it was going on while those of us
who brought wine and mead (Roland's home made) from our regions of the
country was opened and being consumed...yes..we do have wineries in Texas
and mine was St. Genevieve! Anyway, there was much laughter going on!

It is so much fun cruising with friends...Some of us have shared many
sailings together..Erm & Bill, Tobie and Barb, Mary Foster, Lloyd, Cecil and
Marsha, for example..We met some new *old* friends from rtc, such as Roland
and Kristi, Cal and Patty Ford (our T/A) and brand new friends, the Powers &
Smiths (friends of Cal and now ours), Barbara and Cotton as well as Harry
and Delma.
What a terrific group! I hope that we sail together again.

So much for now...if anyone is interested, I'll touch on some of the
ports..They may already be covered by others who have posted reviews.

GGC2006 has come and gone..I hope this group continues to thrive..We
thoroughly enjoyed it and the MSC Opera.


--Jean

Hey, Hey! Good for you Jean... a review this soon after getting home from
the MOAGC!

FWIW, table linens did get changed... I might not have noticed had I not
overheard a waiter saying that they had to be for that night... they were
green and had to be changed to cream for formal night.

And speaking of waiters, yours did seem "abrupt" at times, I have no idea
why he seemed to like me... but he did...

Some of the waiters did a jiggly thing with the pitchers, so some ice would
get past the lip into the glasses, and one could asked for an iced tea glass
for their water.

Marsha

"Jean O'Boyle" wrote in message
m...

We started this adventure by flying out of San Antonio a day early,
January 27th. After arriving, we met up with some of our group at the
motel..Others staying at other hotels arrived later that night...some did
not arrive until the next day. Fourteen of us got together and went to a
Greek Restaurant (I can't remember the name right now) that evening...It
was filled to capacity with a very long waiting line...We were in the way,
so the owner/manager threw us out....nah...just moved us to the outside
until tables were available for us as we, as a fairly large group, were
blocking the waiters' way to wait on others.. The food was very good, as
was the ouzo! We *almost * had Ermalee dancing on the table... She did
make it as far as the chair for a few seconds!

Before I go on with my review, we went on the MSC Opera anticipating it to
be an entirely different experience and came away experiencing just that.
You have to go on with an open mind to really enjoy yourself and that we
did.


In Command was : Captain Giacomo Romano
Staff Captain: Alfonso Franca
Cruise Director: Franco Pili
Head Entertainer: Daniela De Nicola...who was FANTASTIC!


The Embarkation:
Very smooth and prompt with just a few in line ahead of us. Because we
were with Erm and Bill, who was making use of a wheelchair to make things
easier for him, we were some of the very first on board...Boarding photos
were taken and we proceeded to our cabins...The cabins were not quite
ready, but we left our carry-on baggage there and went to the buffet.
Afterwards, we did a little exploring of the ship..gotta' find, right
away, that "den of iniquity," the casino! We also had promised Tobie and
Barb that we would check with the Maitre d' to make sure that they were
seated with us...Had to break into Tobie and Barb's cabin..(not really...
a stewardess let me in thinking I was one of the occupants and I swiped
the dining card off the bed which had their table number on it..
Ha!...and you said that I could *no way* do it, Roland! Of course, having
Erm as an accomplice helped..you know her and her face of
*innocence*..Yeah, sure!!! Happens that they were not at their table, but
they were next to ours of six...Even though I tried to talk the Maitre d'
into changing their table reservations, by talking to him in Polish (he
was Czech, but spoke Polish fluently.), there was no way that he could
arrange it ..They were all tables of six with one table of three and we
had Erm & Bill and Barb and Cotton at our table and it was too small to
make it a table for eight....but it all worked out well as they were close
to us at the next table so we did ample table hopping. In fact, all the
early seating people in our group were seated very close to each other in
a cluster...In the meantime, Tobie and Barb had arrived in their cabin and
were looking for their dining time card which I still had in my
possession! Erm allayed their worries and told them that I had it.


Safety Drill:
We had ours in the casino and all the passengers were English speaking, so
we did not hear the instructions in other languages as we had expected
to..Other necessary shipboard announcements were made in German, French
and Italian..


The Ship:
Absolutely beautiful and EXCEPTIONALLY clean..Subdued elegance with lovely
colors and decor. Some pastels and some in lovely fuchsia and black and
other tasteful primary colors here and there..Very pleasing to the eye.
The Pursers' Desk's decor reminded me somewhat of that on the Celebrity
Zenith..except much larger and attractive with seating not too far away..

The Food:
As expected...different, with some very good and some mediocre
dishes...The eggplant parmigiana was excellent. The pastas were very good
also...All Italian specialties were good..There were a few disappointing
dishes, but we always managed to find something that we enjoyed. The
Italian breads all were hard in texture and the desserts on the *dry*
side...not moist...such as the always available plum cake. The best ones
were made with apple or fruit along with the crème Brule..Even the crème
Brule seemed not as creamy as crème Brule usually is..the texture more
porous..

Breakfast had most all the ingredients of usual cruise line breakfasts
plus cold cuts and cheeses...They had plenty of kiwi fruit on the ship,
both fresh and in salads. Lots of fruit ..melons, bananas, grapes,
watermelon and fresh pineapple..They had made to order omelets, pancakes,
boiled, fried and scrambled eggs and their coffee was VERY strong!! Thank
heavens they had plenty of half & half! Just two juices and tea were
available.
Cane woven chairs furnished the buffet. The service in the buffet was
fair...You were pretty much on your own...There is a language barrier when
conversing, but the crew does try.. That will improve as time goes by and
they get a chance to use it more often.. The crew is made up of mostly
Italians along with some Romanians...The difficulty with English was more
noticeable among the food serving staff..the rest of the crew and
entertainers mastered English very well. But this made the experience all
the more interesting!


One complaint in my case was that the buffet hours were not long enough
for us...We like to sleep in a little, so the buffet line closing at 9:30
am was too soon. The lunch hours could have been extended for another
hour, too..Only other place to go afterwards was the Aroma Coffee Bar
where you had to pay for your coffee. They had many different choices of
coffee available but we were able to have some wonderful chocolate and
fruit filled croissants that you could not find anywhere else onboard,
which were free... so it was a good trade off.

The Cabin:
We had a balcony cabin, mid-ship and it was quite adequate. Not as large
as Carnival, but not as small as Royal Caribbean..The decor was in shades
of blues and quite lovely...Enough space for all that we brought for the
two cruises. (The following week we were to board the Celebrity Infinity.)
The mattresses were very comfortable. The chairs on the patio were cane
weaved chairs with an about a 30" glass topped table in between.

We did not use room service on this ship. It had a very limited menu with
coffee, warm milk, chocolate milk, yogurt, rye and whole wheat bread,
croissants, orange and grapefruit juice.

The bathroom was about the size of those on Princess ships and had a
hairdryer. We had huge sheet sized white towels. They had fairly decent
bar soap and a shampoo dispenser in the shower as well as bottles of
shampoo. Better quality than what we've had in Italian hotels but had sort
of a medicinal smell..glad I brought my own..No conditioner...Plenty of
hot water was always available.
There was a well stocked refrigerator and bar which was not locked. Drinks
were the same price as those at the bars. Couldn't believe that Coke and
Sprite were $2.15 a can! that's $12.90 a six pack!!

Service:
Our cabin stewardess was Jelena for Yugoslavia..Very sweet young lady who
went the extra mile whenever needed. Not only was she personable but very
efficient.
One thing that was really obvious was the constant cleaning going on this
ship all hours of the day and night...I have never seen such continual
cleaning on any of our previous 31 ships of any cruise line.. They were
scrubbing away everywhere all the time! We got notices in our cabin that
at 10 am on a particular day, for us to avoid our cabin balcony because
they would be cleaning with a power hose and for privacy to close our
drapes as they would be doing the windows too...They opened all the
partitions on the balconies and worked the entire balcony deck...got
sprayed in the face when I opened the drapes to watch (not really, as the
glass doors were locked! ;-) ) but the cleaning crew got a big kick out of
my jumping back away from the spray when it hit the window!

Waiters need more training to deal with English speaking passengers...The
waiters in the dining room were abrupt at times, bordering on rudeness.
To anyone who has never been to Italy and seen for themselves that it is
just their way, it appeared as rudeness..If you don't understand what they
say the first time, they are not exactly happy to explain it a second
time! We expected this, having been to Italy three times...This will have
to be worked on and improved as it offended some... Saying in a loud
voice,"You asked me two times, and I TOLD you two times, we DO NOT have
bagels and cream cheese on the last day." while some one else is sitting
that very moment and at the very same table eating bagels and cream cheese
served to him by a different waiter, does not cut it! I'm sure that the
longer that they are in the Caribbean, some of this will improve...

The dining room was lovely...I can't remember that they had any other
color than white tablecloths and napkins. They had the tiniest water
glasses that I have ever seen! They were the same size as small wine
glasses and they were often filled both glasses with water, if we did not
have wine, as we needed refills so often...Guess that is because Italians
are great wine drinkers with their meals while Americans drink more water
with theirs...just my assumption...They also used water pitchers that had
a lip holding the ice back...leaving no ice in our water...

Our waiter in the dining room was extremely busy as he had to take care of
four tables of six ...They have a different system...The waiter took our
orders and gave them to the assistant waiter who then disappeared for a
long time into the galley kitchen with them while the waiter filled the
water glasses and brought the bread...Then the assistant would appear with
the items for each course...Our waiter seemed to always be in a hurry with
very little time to talk to us. At times it left you with a feeling of
being rushed. I also did not appreciate one bit, the waiter twice royally
chewing out the young assistant waiter in front of everyone..The poor kid
happened to be from Indonesia and it was his very first cruise..There was
just no excuse to be so rude and abusive and it was very embarrassing to
the young man...We slipped him an extra tip because we felt so badly for
him.

Drink Prices:

We found the bar prices rather steep on this ship in comparison with other
cruise lines...
Beer was $4.50
Cocktails ranged from $6.75 to $7.95...Martinis were $7.95-$8.95...Drink
of the day was $6.95.

Smoking:
I was not bothered by smoking at all. People obeyed the rules and our
cabin had no smoking odor left from previous occupants...
There really was not that much smoking going on ...much less than I had
expected, being that there were many Europeans on board.

There was a large Polish Polka Group with their Polka Band on board. They
came from all parts of the USA. The Cruise Director managed to learn a few
words of Polish as well as about six other languages that he had mastered.


Entertainment:
FANTASTIC! Have never seen such caliber on any ship before! The entire
entertaining staff was wonderful..
There was a trio of Romanians..a tenor whose voice compared to Boccelli,
an excellent pianist and a very talented violinist who could play, *The
Flight of the Bumble Bee,* like no one I have ever heard! They had so
many standing ovations that they ran out of time; so they had them give an
extra concert at 5 pm one night because of their popularity and
demand..The tenor was Adrian Mocanu, the pianist, Tudor Cicerone, and the
violinist, Marian Cristea...all men. They also had a wonderful red haired
soprano
singing with Adrian one night by the name of Michaela Bozagui...Her gowns
were gorgeous as was her voice. All from Romania!
One of the cast of dancers had a beautiful alto voice.

I cannot say enough good things about the Animation/entertainment
staff..they were so much fun and they encouraged passenger involvement
everywhere you went..
Before show time, four of them would wear black shiny derby or bowler hats
and stand at the first level stairway top...As people walked in, all four
of them would step in line behind them and follow them to their seats..if
the people stopped and pointed, they all stopped and pointed..they mimed
everything the people did..Then when they reached the seats that they
selected, one of the mimes would slip into the seat quickly so that the
one of the theatre goers would sit in their lap..or vice versa...It was
hilarious! The expressions on the faces of those theatre goers was
priceless!! They ranged from anger, surprise and a lot of laughter! I
must say very little anger when they realized what they were doing to
them. We *sicked* them on Barbara and Cotton when they came into the
theatre!! They had us in stitches with their pranks until it was show
time..they were as much fun as the shows! As we exited the theatre, they
would be lined up asking everyone to meet them for a certain event..such a
karaoke, trivia, Italian lessons,
musical chairs, etc..They were a bunch of both girls and guys in their
early 20's or so and spoke fluent English....Kudos to those young people!
They gave us a lot of joy and laughter.

We especially enjoyed Daniela and Giorgio who conducted the Trivia
contests...They worked very well together and had us laughing all the
time..We had Tobie and Barb as partners and as always, *Encyclopedia
Barb,* led us to many victories and prizes....

We had a group gift exchange, where everyone bought a gift on one of the
islands which was to be no more than $8 and no less than $5...wrapped them
up and put them on a gift table.. Numbers were drawn as to who would get
their gift first and as we watched them being opened, could either take
one that we liked or draw one from the table..After a gift had been taken
three times, it was *frozen* and the one who possessed it at that time
could keep it permanently..It was the first time that I had participated
in such a game and it was a lot of fun...especially since it was going on
while those of us who brought wine and mead (Roland's home made) from our
regions of the country was opened and being consumed...yes..we do have
wineries in Texas and mine was St. Genevieve! Anyway, there was much
laughter going on!

It is so much fun cruising with friends...Some of us have shared many
sailings together..Erm & Bill, Tobie and Barb, Mary Foster, Lloyd, Cecil
and Marsha, for example..We met some new *old* friends from rtc, such as
Roland and Kristi, Cal and Patty Ford (our T/A) and brand new friends, the
Powers & Smiths (friends of Cal and now ours), Barbara and Cotton as well
as Harry and Delma.
What a terrific group! I hope that we sail together again.

So much for now...if anyone is interested, I'll touch on some of the
ports..They may already be covered by others who have posted reviews.

GGC2006 has come and gone..I hope this group continues to thrive..We
thoroughly enjoyed it and the MSC Opera.


--Jean

Jean O'Boyle wrote:




In Command was : Captain Giacomo Romano
Staff Captain: Alfonso Franca
Cruise Director: Franco Pili
Head Entertainer: Daniela De Nicola...who was FANTASTIC!


The Ship:
Absolutely beautiful and EXCEPTIONALLY clean..Subdued elegance with lovely
colors and decor. Some pastels and some in lovely fuchsia and black and
other tasteful primary colors here and there..Very pleasing to the eye. The
Pursers' Desk's decor reminded me somewhat of that on the Celebrity
Zenith..except much larger and attractive with seating not too far away..

This was either the cleanest or second cleanest commerial ship I have
ever been on. The other one that comes close would have been a
Ukranian flagged ship called the MV Gruzia (and I am not even sure that
is the proper spelling) years ago.

The Food:
As expected...different, with some very good and some mediocre dishes...The
eggplant parmigiana was excellent. The pastas were very good also...All
Italian specialties were good..There were a few disappointing dishes, butwe
always managed to find something that we enjoyed. The Italian breads all
were hard in texture and the desserts on the *dry* side...not moist...such
as the always available plum cake. The best ones were made with apple or
fruit along with the crème Brule..Even the crème Brule seemed not as creamy
as crème Brule usually is..the texture more porous..

Breakfast had most all the ingredients of usual cruise line breakfasts plus
cold cuts and cheeses...They had plenty of kiwi fruit on the ship, both
fresh and in salads. Lots of fruit ..melons, bananas, grapes, watermelon and
fresh pineapple..They had made to order omelets, pancakes, boiled, fried and
scrambled eggs and their coffee was VERY strong!! Thank heavens they had
plenty of half & half! Just two juices and tea were available.
Cane woven chairs furnished the buffet. The service in the buffet was
fair...You were pretty much on your own...There is a language barrier when
conversing, but the crew does try.. That will improve as time goes by and
they get a chance to use it more often.. The crew is made up of mostly
Italians along with some Romanians...The difficulty with English was more
noticeable among the food serving staff..the rest of the crew and
entertainers mastered English very well. But this made the experience all
the more interesting!

One complaint in my case was that the buffet hours were not long enough for
us...We like to sleep in a little, so the buffet line closing at 9:30 am was
too soon. The lunch hours could have been extended for another hour,
too..Only other place to go afterwards was the Aroma Coffee Bar where you
had to pay for your coffee. They had many different choices of coffee
available but we were able to have some wonderful chocolate and fruit filled
croissants that you could not find anywhere else onboard, which were free....
so it was a good trade off.

I think everyone on the cruise had teh same sort of comments. Buffet
hours, and a little trouble talking to the dinning room staff. Some of
the food was a little different, or not what we expected. We could
find something good, it just took a little bit of trying to figure it
out.


The Cabin:
We had a balcony cabin, mid-ship and it was quite adequate. Not as large as
Carnival, but not as small as Royal Caribbean..The decor was in shades of
blues and quite lovely...Enough space for all that we brought for the two
cruises. (The following week we were to board the Celebrity Infinity.) The
mattresses were very comfortable. The chairs on the patio were cane weaved
chairs with an about a 30" glass topped table in between.

The inside cabins were smaller than on most other cruises. Not as
small as our first cruise on NCL's Seaward.

The bathroom was about the size of those on Princess ships and had a
hairdryer. We had huge sheet sized white towels. They had fairly decent bar
soap and a shampoo dispenser in the shower as well as bottles of shampoo.
Better quality than what we've had in Italian hotels but had sort of a
medicinal smell..glad I brought my own..No conditioner...Plenty of hot water
was always available.
There was a well stocked refrigerator and bar which was not locked. Drinks
were the same price as those at the bars. Couldn't believe that Coke and
Sprite were $2.15 a can! that's $12.90 a six pack!!

Drink prices did include the tips. Still a bit more than on other
lines.

Entertainment:
FANTASTIC! Have never seen such caliber on any ship before! The entire
entertaining staff was wonderful..
There was a trio of Romanians..a tenor whose voice compared to Boccelli, an
excellent pianist and a very talented violinist who could play, *The Flight
of the Bumble Bee,* like no one I have ever heard! They had so many
standing ovations that they ran out of time; so they had them give an extra
concert at 5 pm one night because of their popularity and demand..The tenor
was Adrian Mocanu, the pianist, Tudor Cicerone, and the violinist, Marian
Cristea...all men. They also had a wonderful red haired soprano
singing with Adrian one night by the name of Michaela Bozagui...Her gowns
were gorgeous as was her voice. All from Romania!
One of the cast of dancers had a beautiful alto voice.

I cannot say enough good things about the Animation/entertainment
staff..they were so much fun and they encouraged passenger involvement
everywhere you went..
Before show time, four of them would wear black shiny derby or bowler hats
and stand at the first level stairway top...As people walked in, all fourof
them would step in line behind them and follow them to their seats..if the
people stopped and pointed, they all stopped and pointed..they mimed
everything the people did..Then when they reached the seats that they
selected, one of the mimes would slip into the seat quickly so that the one
of the theatre goers would sit in their lap..or vice versa...It was
hilarious! The expressions on the faces of those theatre goers was
priceless!! They ranged from anger, surprise and a lot of laughter! I must
say very little anger when they realized what they were doing to them. We
*sicked* them on Barbara and Cotton when they came into the theatre!! They
had us in stitches with their pranks until it was show time..they were as
much fun as the shows! As we exited the theatre, they would be lined up
asking everyone to meet them for a certain event..such a karaoke, trivia,
Italian lessons,
musical chairs, etc..They were a bunch of both girls and guys in their early
20's or so and spoke fluent English....Kudos to those young people! They
gave us a lot of joy and laughter.

We especially enjoyed Daniela and Giorgio who conducted the Trivia
contests...They worked very well together and had us laughing all the
time..We had Tobie and Barb as partners and as always, *Encyclopedia Barb,*
led us to many victories and prizes....

We had a group gift exchange, where everyone bought a gift on one of the
islands which was to be no more than $8 and no less than $5...wrapped them
up and put them on a gift table.. Numbers were drawn as to who would get
their gift first and as we watched them being opened, could either take one
that we liked or draw one from the table..After a gift had been taken three
times, it was *frozen* and the one who possessed it at that time could keep
it permanently..It was the first time that I had participated in such a game
and it was a lot of fun...especially since it was going on while those ofus
who brought wine and mead (Roland's home made) from our regions of the
country was opened and being consumed...yes..we do have wineries in Texas
and mine was St. Genevieve! Anyway, there was much laughter going on!

It is so much fun cruising with friends...Some of us have shared many
sailings together..Erm & Bill, Tobie and Barb, Mary Foster, Lloyd, Cecil and
Marsha, for example..We met some new *old* friends from rtc, such as Roland
and Kristi, Cal and Patty Ford (our T/A) and brand new friends, the Powers &
Smiths (friends of Cal and now ours), Barbara and Cotton as well as Harry
and Delma.
What a terrific group! I hope that we sail together again.

So much for now...if anyone is interested, I'll touch on some of the
ports..They may already be covered by others who have posted reviews.

GGC2006 has come and gone..I hope this group continues to thrive..We
thoroughly enjoyed it and the MSC Opera.


--Jean

I cannot say enough good things about the entertainment either. It was
out of this world.

roland

"Marsha L" wrote in message
...
Hey, Hey! Good for you Jean... a review this soon after getting home from
the MOAGC!

Thanks, Marsha!
I made a few typos which I have corrected below (too late)..As long as the
word is spelled right, it goes through whether in the right or wrong
context! ;-)

Yikes, now I have to start on the MOAGC one!

FWIW, table linens did get changed... I might not have noticed had I not
overheard a waiter saying that they had to be for that night... they were
green and had to be changed to cream for formal night.


You are right...come to think of it, they were green at breakfast and lunch
time.


And speaking of waiters, yours did seem "abrupt" at times, I have no idea
why he seemed to like me... but he did...

Some of the waiters did a jiggly thing with the pitchers, so some ice
would get past the lip into the glasses, and one could asked for an iced
tea glass for their water.

Not ours....and I like my water and milk icy cold!

--Jean



"Jean O'Boyle" wrote in message
m...

We started this adventure by flying out of San Antonio a day early,
January 27th. After arriving, we met up with some of our group at the
motel..Others staying at other hotels arrived later that night...some did
not arrive until the next day. Fourteen of us got together and went to a
Greek Restaurant (I can't remember the name right now) that evening...It
was filled to capacity with a very long waiting line...We were in the
way, so the owner/manager threw us out....nah...just moved us to the
outside until tables were available for us as we, as a fairly large
group, were blocking the waiters' way to wait on others.. The food was
very good, as was the ouzo! We *almost * had Ermalee dancing on the
table... She did make it as far as the chair for a few seconds!

Before I go on with my review, we went on the MSC Opera anticipating it
to be an entirely different experience and came away experiencing just
that. You have to go on with an open mind to really enjoy yourself and
that we did.


In Command was : Captain Giacomo Romano
Staff Captain: Alfonso Franca
Cruise Director: Franco Pili
Head Entertainer: Daniela De Nicola...who was FANTASTIC!


The Embarkation:
Very smooth and prompt with just a few in line ahead of us. Because we
were with Erm and Bill, who was making use of a wheelchair to make things
easier for him, we were some of the very first on board...Boarding photos
were taken and we proceeded to our cabins...The cabins were not quite
ready, but we left our carry-on baggage there and went to the buffet.
Afterwards, we did a little exploring of the ship..gotta' find, right
away, that "den of iniquity," the casino! We also had promised Tobie and
Barb that we would check with the Maitre d' to make sure that they were
seated with us...Had to break into Tobie and Barb's cabin..(not really...
a stewardess let me in thinking I was one of the occupants and I swiped
the dining card off the bed which had their table number on it..
Ha!...and you said that I could *no way* do it, Roland! Of course,
having Erm as an accomplice helped..you know her and her face of
*innocence*..Yeah, sure!!! Happens that they were not at their table, but
they were next to ours of six...Even though I tried to talk the Maitre d'
into changing their table reservations, by talking to him in Polish (he
was Czech, but spoke Polish fluently.), there was no way that he could
arrange it ..They were all tables of six with one table of three and we
had Erm & Bill and Barb and Cotton at our table and it was too small to
make it a table for eight....but it all worked out well as they were
close to us at the next table so we did ample table hopping. In fact, all
the early seating people in our group were seated very close to each
other in a cluster...In the meantime, Tobie and Barb had arrived in their
cabin and were looking for their dining time card which I still had in my
possession! Erm allayed their worries and told them that I had it.


Safety Drill:
We had ours in the casino and all the passengers were English speaking,
so we did not hear the instructions in other languages as we had expected
to..Other necessary shipboard announcements were made in German, French
and Italian..


The Ship:
Absolutely beautiful and EXCEPTIONALLY clean..Subdued elegance with
lovely colors and decor. Some pastels and some in lovely fuchsia and
black and other tasteful primary colors here and there..Very pleasing to
the eye. The Pursers' Desk's decor reminded me somewhat of that on the
Celebrity Zenith..except much larger and attractive with seating not too
far away..

The Food:
As expected...different, with some very good and some mediocre
dishes...The eggplant parmigiana was excellent. The pastas were very good
also...All Italian specialties were good..There were a few disappointing
dishes, but we always managed to find something that we enjoyed. The
Italian breads all were hard in texture and the desserts on the *dry*
side...not moist...such as the always available plum cake. The best ones
were made with apple or fruit along with the crème Brule..Even the crème
Brule seemed not as creamy as crème Brule usually is..the texture more
porous..

Breakfast had most all the ingredients of usual cruise line breakfasts
plus cold cuts and cheeses...They had plenty of kiwi fruit on the ship,
both fresh and in salads. Lots of fruit ..melons, bananas, grapes,
watermelon and fresh pineapple..They had made to order omelets, pancakes,
boiled, fried and scrambled eggs and their coffee was VERY strong!! Thank
heavens they had plenty of half & half! Just two juices and tea were
available.
Cane woven chairs furnished the buffet. The service in the buffet was
fair...You were pretty much on your own...There is a language barrier
when conversing, but the crew does try.. That will improve as time goes
by and they get a chance to use it more often.. The crew is made up of
mostly Italians along with some Romanians...The difficulty with English
was more noticeable among the food serving staff..the rest of the crew
and entertainers mastered English very well. But this made the experience
all the more interesting!


One complaint in my case was that the buffet hours were not long enough
for us...We like to sleep in a little, so the buffet line closing at 9:30
am was too soon. The lunch hours could have been extended for another
hour, too..Only other place to go afterwards was the Aroma Coffee Bar
where you had to pay for your coffee. They had many different choices of
coffee available but we were able to have some wonderful chocolate and
fruit filled croissants that you could not find anywhere else onboard,
which were free... so it was a good trade off.

The Cabin:
We had a balcony cabin, mid-ship and it was quite adequate. Not as large
as Carnival, but not as small as Royal Caribbean..The decor was in shades
of blues and quite lovely...Enough space for all that we brought for the
two cruises. (The following week we were to board the Celebrity
Infinity.) The mattresses were very comfortable. The chairs on the patio
were cane weaved chairs with an about a 30" glass topped table in
between.

We did not use room service on this ship. It had a very limited menu with
coffee, warm milk, chocolate milk, yogurt, rye and whole wheat bread,
croissants, orange and grapefruit juice.

The bathroom was about the size of those on Princess ships and had a
hairdryer. We had huge sheet sized white towels. They had fairly decent
bar soap and a shampoo dispenser in the shower as well as bottles of
shampoo. Better quality than what we've had in Italian hotels but had
sort of a medicinal smell..glad I brought my own..No conditioner...Plenty
of hot water was always available.
There was a well stocked refrigerator and bar which was not locked.
Drinks were the same price as those at the bars. Couldn't believe that
Coke and Sprite were $2.15 a can! that's $12.90 a six pack!!

Service:
Our cabin stewardess was Jelena from Yugoslavia..Very sweet young lady
who went the extra mile whenever needed. Not only was she personable but
very efficient.
One thing that was really obvious was the constant cleaning going on
this ship all hours of the day and night...I have never seen such
continual cleaning on any of our previous 31 ships of any cruise line..
They were scrubbing away everywhere all the time! We got notices in our
cabin that at 10 am on a particular day, for us to avoid our cabin
balcony because they would be cleaning with a power hose and for privacy
to close our drapes as they would be doing the windows too...They opened
all the partitions on the balconies and worked the entire balcony
deck...got sprayed in the face when I opened the drapes to watch (not
really, as the glass doors were locked! ;-) ) but the cleaning crew got a
big kick out of my jumping back away from the spray when it hit the
window!

Waiters need more training to deal with English speaking passengers...The
waiters in the dining room were abrupt at times, bordering on rudeness.
To anyone who has never been to Italy and seen for themselves that it is
just their way, it appeared as rudeness..If you don't understand what
they say the first time, they are not exactly happy to explain it a
second time! We expected this, having been to Italy three times...This
will have to be worked on and improved as it offended some... Saying in
a loud voice,"You asked me two times, and I TOLD you two times, we DO NOT
have bagels and cream cheese on the last day." while some one else is
sitting that very moment and at the very same table eating bagels and
cream cheese served to him by a different waiter, does not cut it! I'm
sure that the longer that they are in the Caribbean, some of this will
improve...

The dining room was lovely...I can't remember that they had any other
color than white tablecloths and napkins. They had the tiniest water
glasses that I have ever seen! They were the same size as small wine
glasses and they were often filled both glasses with water, if we did not
have wine, as we needed refills so often...Guess that is because Italians
are great wine drinkers with their meals while Americans drink more water
with theirs...just my assumption...They also used water pitchers that had
a lip holding the ice back...leaving no ice in our water...

Our waiter in the dining room was extremely busy as he had to take care
of four tables of six ...They have a different system...The waiter took
our orders and gave them to the assistant waiter who then disappeared for
a long time into the galley kitchen with them while the waiter filled the
water glasses and brought the bread...Then the assistant would appear
with the items for each course...Our waiter seemed to always be in a
hurry with very little time to talk to us. At times it left you with a
feeling of being rushed. I also did not appreciate one bit, the waiter
twice royally chewing out the young assistant waiter in front of
everyone..The poor kid happened to be from Indonesia and it was his very
first cruise..There was just no excuse to be so rude and abusive and it
was very embarrassing to the young man...We slipped him an extra tip
because we felt so badly for him.

Drink Prices:

We found the bar prices rather steep on this ship in comparison with
other cruise lines...
Beer was $4.50
Cocktails ranged from $6.75 to $7.95...Martinis were $7.95-$8.95...Drink
of the day was $6.95.

Smoking:
I was not bothered by smoking at all. People obeyed the rules and our
cabin had no smoking odor left from previous occupants...
There really was not that much smoking going on ...much less than I had
expected, being that there were many Europeans on board.

There was a large Polish Polka Group with their Polka Band on board. They
came from all parts of the USA. The Cruise Director managed to learn a
few words of Polish as well as about six other languages that he had
mastered.


Entertainment:
FANTASTIC! Have never seen such caliber on any ship before! The entire
entertaining staff was wonderful..
There was a trio of Romanians..a tenor whose voice compared to Boccelli,
an excellent pianist and a very talented violinist who could play, *The
Flight of the Bumble Bee,* like no one I have ever heard! They had so
many standing ovations that they ran out of time; so they had them give
an extra concert at 5 pm one night because of their popularity and
demand..The tenor was Adrian Mocanu, the pianist, Tudor Cicerone, and the
violinist, Marian Cristea...all men. They also had a wonderful red haired
soprano
singing with Adrian one night by the name of Michaela Bozagui...Her gowns
were gorgeous as was her voice. All from Romania!
One of the cast of dancers had a beautiful alto voice.

I cannot say enough good things about the Animation/entertainment
staff..they were so much fun and they encouraged passenger involvement
everywhere you went..
Before show time, four of them would wear black shiny derby or bowler
hats and stand at the first level stairway top...As people walked in, all
four of them would step in line behind them and follow them to their
seats..if the people stopped and pointed, they all stopped and
pointed..they mimed everything the people did..Then when they reached the
seats that they selected, one of the mimes would slip into the seat
quickly so that one of the theatre goers would sit in their lap..or vice
versa...It was hilarious! The expressions on the faces of those theatre
goers was priceless!! They ranged from anger, surprise and a lot of
laughter! I must say very little anger when they realized what they were
doing to them. We *sicked* them on Barbara and Cotton when they came into
the theatre!! They had us in stitches with their pranks until it was
show time..they were as much fun as the shows! As we exited the
theatre, they would be lined up asking everyone to meet them for a
certain event..such a karaoke, trivia, Italian lessons,
musical chairs, etc..They were a bunch of both girls and guys in their
early 20's or so and spoke fluent English....Kudos to those young people!
They gave us a lot of joy and laughter.

We especially enjoyed Daniela and Giorgio who conducted the Trivia
contests...They worked very well together and had us laughing all the
time..We had Tobie and Barb as partners and as always, *Encyclopedia
Barb,* led us to many victories and prizes....

We had a group gift exchange, where everyone bought a gift on one of the
islands which was to be no more than $8 and no less than $5...wrapped
them up and put them on a gift table.. Numbers were drawn as to who would
get their gift first and as we watched them being opened, could either
take one that we liked or draw one from the table..After a gift had been
taken three times, it was *frozen* and the one who possessed it at that
time could keep it permanently..It was the first time that I had
participated in such a game and it was a lot of fun...especially since it
was going on while those of us who brought wine and mead (Roland's home
made) from our regions of the country was opened and being
consumed...yes..we do have wineries in Texas and mine was St. Genevieve!
Anyway, there was much laughter going on!

It is so much fun cruising with friends...Some of us have shared many
sailings together..Erm & Bill, Tobie and Barb, Mary Foster, Lloyd, Cecil
and Marsha, for example..We met some new *old* friends from rtc, such as
Roland and Kristi, Cal and Patty Ford (our T/A) and brand new friends,
the Powers & Smiths (friends of Cal and now ours), Barbara and Cotton as
well as Harry and Delma.
What a terrific group! I hope that we sail together again.

So much for now...if anyone is interested, I'll touch on some of the
ports..They may already be covered by others who have posted reviews.

GGC2006 has come and gone..I hope this group continues to thrive..We
thoroughly enjoyed it and the MSC Opera.


--Jean

Hey Jean, thanks for the neat review. You may not remember, but you've
helped me with info several times. Anyway, great review and thanks again.
Hope we meet onboard someday!

AG in MD


"piperut" wrote in message
oups.com...
Jean O'Boyle wrote:




In Command was : Captain Giacomo Romano
Staff Captain: Alfonso Franca
Cruise Director: Franco Pili
Head Entertainer: Daniela De Nicola...who was FANTASTIC!


The Ship:
Absolutely beautiful and EXCEPTIONALLY clean..Subdued elegance with lovely
colors and decor. Some pastels and some in lovely fuchsia and black and
other tasteful primary colors here and there..Very pleasing to the eye.
The
Pursers' Desk's decor reminded me somewhat of that on the Celebrity
Zenith..except much larger and attractive with seating not too far away..

This was either the cleanest or second cleanest commerial ship I have
ever been on. The other one that comes close would have been a
Ukranian flagged ship called the MV Gruzia (and I am not even sure that
is the proper spelling) years ago.

The Food:
As expected...different, with some very good and some mediocre
dishes...The
eggplant parmigiana was excellent. The pastas were very good also...All
Italian specialties were good..There were a few disappointing dishes, but
we
always managed to find something that we enjoyed. The Italian breads all
were hard in texture and the desserts on the *dry* side...not moist...such
as the always available plum cake. The best ones were made with apple or
fruit along with the crème Brule..Even the crème Brule seemed not as
creamy
as crème Brule usually is..the texture more porous..

Breakfast had most all the ingredients of usual cruise line breakfasts
plus
cold cuts and cheeses...They had plenty of kiwi fruit on the ship, both
fresh and in salads. Lots of fruit ..melons, bananas, grapes, watermelon
and
fresh pineapple..They had made to order omelets, pancakes, boiled, fried
and
scrambled eggs and their coffee was VERY strong!! Thank heavens they had
plenty of half & half! Just two juices and tea were available.
Cane woven chairs furnished the buffet. The service in the buffet was
fair...You were pretty much on your own...There is a language barrier when
conversing, but the crew does try.. That will improve as time goes by and
they get a chance to use it more often.. The crew is made up of mostly
Italians along with some Romanians...The difficulty with English was more
noticeable among the food serving staff..the rest of the crew and
entertainers mastered English very well. But this made the experience all
the more interesting!

One complaint in my case was that the buffet hours were not long enough
for
us...We like to sleep in a little, so the buffet line closing at 9:30 am
was
too soon. The lunch hours could have been extended for another hour,
too..Only other place to go afterwards was the Aroma Coffee Bar where you
had to pay for your coffee. They had many different choices of coffee
available but we were able to have some wonderful chocolate and fruit
filled
croissants that you could not find anywhere else onboard, which were
free...
so it was a good trade off.

I think everyone on the cruise had teh same sort of comments. Buffet
hours, and a little trouble talking to the dinning room staff. Some of
the food was a little different, or not what we expected. We could
find something good, it just took a little bit of trying to figure it
out.


The Cabin:
We had a balcony cabin, mid-ship and it was quite adequate. Not as large
as
Carnival, but not as small as Royal Caribbean..The decor was in shades of
blues and quite lovely...Enough space for all that we brought for the two
cruises. (The following week we were to board the Celebrity Infinity.) The
mattresses were very comfortable. The chairs on the patio were cane weaved
chairs with an about a 30" glass topped table in between.

The inside cabins were smaller than on most other cruises. Not as
small as our first cruise on NCL's Seaward.

The bathroom was about the size of those on Princess ships and had a
hairdryer. We had huge sheet sized white towels. They had fairly decent
bar
soap and a shampoo dispenser in the shower as well as bottles of shampoo.
Better quality than what we've had in Italian hotels but had sort of a
medicinal smell..glad I brought my own..No conditioner...Plenty of hot
water
was always available.
There was a well stocked refrigerator and bar which was not locked. Drinks
were the same price as those at the bars. Couldn't believe that Coke and
Sprite were $2.15 a can! that's $12.90 a six pack!!

Drink prices did include the tips. Still a bit more than on other
lines.

Entertainment:
FANTASTIC! Have never seen such caliber on any ship before! The entire
entertaining staff was wonderful..
There was a trio of Romanians..a tenor whose voice compared to Boccelli,
an
excellent pianist and a very talented violinist who could play, *The
Flight
of the Bumble Bee,* like no one I have ever heard! They had so many
standing ovations that they ran out of time; so they had them give an
extra
concert at 5 pm one night because of their popularity and demand..The
tenor
was Adrian Mocanu, the pianist, Tudor Cicerone, and the violinist, Marian
Cristea...all men. They also had a wonderful red haired soprano
singing with Adrian one night by the name of Michaela Bozagui...Her gowns
were gorgeous as was her voice. All from Romania!
One of the cast of dancers had a beautiful alto voice.

I cannot say enough good things about the Animation/entertainment
staff..they were so much fun and they encouraged passenger involvement
everywhere you went..
Before show time, four of them would wear black shiny derby or bowler hats
and stand at the first level stairway top...As people walked in, all four
of
them would step in line behind them and follow them to their seats..if the
people stopped and pointed, they all stopped and pointed..they mimed
everything the people did..Then when they reached the seats that they
selected, one of the mimes would slip into the seat quickly so that the
one
of the theatre goers would sit in their lap..or vice versa...It was
hilarious! The expressions on the faces of those theatre goers was
priceless!! They ranged from anger, surprise and a lot of laughter! I
must
say very little anger when they realized what they were doing to them. We
*sicked* them on Barbara and Cotton when they came into the theatre!!
They
had us in stitches with their pranks until it was show time..they were as
much fun as the shows! As we exited the theatre, they would be lined up
asking everyone to meet them for a certain event..such a karaoke, trivia,
Italian lessons,
musical chairs, etc..They were a bunch of both girls and guys in their
early
20's or so and spoke fluent English....Kudos to those young people! They
gave us a lot of joy and laughter.

We especially enjoyed Daniela and Giorgio who conducted the Trivia
contests...They worked very well together and had us laughing all the
time..We had Tobie and Barb as partners and as always, *Encyclopedia
Barb,*
led us to many victories and prizes....

We had a group gift exchange, where everyone bought a gift on one of the
islands which was to be no more than $8 and no less than $5...wrapped them
up and put them on a gift table.. Numbers were drawn as to who would get
their gift first and as we watched them being opened, could either take
one
that we liked or draw one from the table..After a gift had been taken
three
times, it was *frozen* and the one who possessed it at that time could
keep
it permanently..It was the first time that I had participated in such a
game
and it was a lot of fun...especially since it was going on while those of
us
who brought wine and mead (Roland's home made) from our regions of the
country was opened and being consumed...yes..we do have wineries in Texas
and mine was St. Genevieve! Anyway, there was much laughter going on!

It is so much fun cruising with friends...Some of us have shared many
sailings together..Erm & Bill, Tobie and Barb, Mary Foster, Lloyd, Cecil
and
Marsha, for example..We met some new *old* friends from rtc, such as
Roland
and Kristi, Cal and Patty Ford (our T/A) and brand new friends, the Powers
&
Smiths (friends of Cal and now ours), Barbara and Cotton as well as Harry
and Delma.
What a terrific group! I hope that we sail together again.

So much for now...if anyone is interested, I'll touch on some of the
ports..They may already be covered by others who have posted reviews.

GGC2006 has come and gone..I hope this group continues to thrive..We
thoroughly enjoyed it and the MSC Opera.


--Jean

I cannot say enough good things about the entertainment either. It was
out of this world.

roland

"grossbea" wrote in message
...
Hey Jean, thanks for the neat review. You may not remember, but you've
helped me with info several times. Anyway, great review and thanks again.
Hope we meet onboard someday!

AG in MD


How nice of you...Thank you! I sure hope that we meet onboard one day soon!
Are you planning a cruise in the near future? We will be on the SGC2006 to
Bermuda and Turks and Caicos on August 25th on the new Crown Princess and
then again on the Carnival Conquest over Halloween...both group
cruises...any chances that they may fit in your schedule?

--Jean

"Jean O'Boyle" wrote in
m:

There was a trio of Romanians..a tenor whose voice compared to
Boccelli, an excellent pianist and a very talented violinist who could
play, *The Flight of the Bumble Bee,* like no one I have ever heard!
They had so many standing ovations that they ran out of time; so they
had them give an extra concert at 5 pm one night because of their
popularity and demand..The tenor was Adrian Mocanu, the pianist, Tudor
Cicerone, and the violinist, Marian Cristea...all men. They also had a
wonderful red haired soprano singing with Adrian one night by the name
of Michaela Bozagui...Her gowns were gorgeous as was her voice. All
from Romania! One of the cast of dancers had a beautiful alto voice.


Marian is an incredible violinist. He could play Ave Maria, in a bar of
all places and get away with it because it was just soooo beautiful.
When I was abaord last year he and his pianist (a different one) played
an evening show and were well, fantastic of course!

--
Joseph Coulter
Cruises and Vacations
http://www.josephcoulter.com/

"Joseph Coulter" wrote in message
Marian is an incredible violinist. He could play Ave Maria, in a bar of
all places and get away with it because it was just soooo beautiful.
When I was abaord last year he and his pianist (a different one) played
an evening show and were well, fantastic of course!

--
Joseph Coulter
Cruises and Vacations
http://www.josephcoulter.com/


That I can believe...he had me spellbound by the beauty of his music! I'm
glad that you got to hear him.
By the way, the tenor, Adrian, was only 25 years old!! What a future he has
ahead of him!

--Jean

Hi Jean very good review .We are going to try MSC when they come to NYC
for year round cruises . I tell people all the time when going on Costa
go with an open mind and you'll have a good time .We like trying new &
diffenent cruise lines ,for the different experiences they offer .
Ken G...............

JEAN: A very good review,really enjoyed reading it,you are a pro. Glad
you had such a good time. Also glad you got home safely.
surfer e2468

(.a cruise lover.)