May 2019 EBTA - Taking the Magic eastbound across the Atlantic (and bonus non-DCL Mediterranean cruise!) - Update 8/3/2022

My jetlag “trick” comes from a study done by Dr. Saper on circadian rhythms in the journal of Science. (Here is a summary article ( https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2008/05/study-identifies-food-related-clock-in-the-brain/)

Here is how I’ve applied it. Every person is different and you should always consult a medical professional before making changes to your health plan.

The idea is to give your body 16 hours of fasting. To do this you must stop eating at 4pm of the destination you are traveling to. This can be done mid travel, the day before travel, or the day you arrive (it depends on the circumstance which I do) and then you go to sleep and your next meal is breakfast on the “new” destination time.

Several examples:

Flying from NYC to Anaheim CA. +3 hour time difference. Flight leaves at 10:00am EST. Once I arrive in CA, I would eat a “final” meal right before 4pm PST time. Then I would go to bed on PST time say 10:00pm PST. The next day I would wake up around 7am PST time and eat breakfast. My body will be reset from there.

On the way back to NYC you just reverse the process , which means you must stop eating at 4:00pm EST time which would be 1:00pm PST time in Anaheim CA.

Flying from Seattle to London Direct. +8 hour time difference. Flight leaves at 5:00pm PST.

I could stop my eating at 4pm London time, which would be 8:00am PST time the day of my flight, but that makes restarting your clock difficult during the in-air travel. Instead I eat all the meals on the plane, and since I’ll be landing around 12:00pm London time, I again make sure to eat one last meal of some kind (even a power bar works if you are just “not hungry” ) shortly before 4:00pm. I go to sleep at a reasonable time in London (no naps once I get there sorry) say 10:00pm, and get up around 7:00am and eat breakfast.

This has always worked for me. It can get tricky figuring out when to stop eating, (a flight to Asian that lands at 7:00pm local time means I had to stop eating 3 hours before my flight landed) and the fasting is never “fun”, but being able to travel around the world and have no jetlag….. Totally worth the hassle. I don’t need to tack on several days pre/post trip to “adjust” to the time.

Let me know if you have any questions about how I’ve used this information. Every person is different and health decisions should always be consulted on by a health care provider.
We take a homeopathic jet lag spray that you spray under your tongue. Tastes pretty bad, but works every time!
 
Just stumbled upon your trip report and am really enjoying it. Are you planning to complete the MSC part? I hope so as I also have young kids and I’d love to hear more about your comparisons between the two lines and different excursions with kids.
 
Just stumbled upon your trip report and am really enjoying it. Are you planning to complete the MSC part? I hope so as I also have young kids and I’d love to hear more about your comparisons between the two lines and different excursions with kids.

Thank you so much for your kind words! I just came back to the DIS today on seeing new itineraries for 2022; have been in a real "2020-induced" funk and was avoiding the DIS as a result :(

I will try to complete the trip report!

But I think it's safe to say that in many ways there is no comparison; I would choose Disney hands down if price were not an issue. That being said, as I mentioned, we saved a boatload by sailing MSC, even in the Yacht Club (concierge), and my kids were so spoiled in the Yacht Club that it really made up for any 'deficiencies' I found with MSC. [Part of the reason the savings were so significant is that MSC has a lot of options for families of 5; DCL doesn't]. On a port-intensive cruise like in the Med, I don't personally find the ship to be that significant since long days are spent elsewhere. I would be very unlikely to choose to sail MSC on a transatlantic with kids though.
 
Hi everyone!

I thought I'd come back to complete Day 15 - Ajaccio, Corsica (France) but in doing so I realized I have very, very few pictures. I am somewhat regretful that we didn't book an excursion. Some of MSC's excursions were actually fairly well priced, and if you book them online ahead of time you usually get a discount. However, we didn't book anything partly due to port fatigue. The one-port-per-day pace of the latter half of the transatlantic was a bit exhausting and I couldn't find anything I really wanted to do in Ajaccio. We ended up walking around (it was a bit drizzly that day) and we got to utilize our French at a local restaurant ordering some crepes and coffee.

So maybe I'll use this post to talk a bit about MSC's Yacht Club and our experience. MSC's Yacht Club is their version of concierge. I haven't sailed concierge with Disney, and may never due to cost, and how spoiled we were in the YC on MSC. But here are my thoughts.

1. On the big ships like the Seaview, the Yacht Club takes up about 3 decks in the forward section of the ship - so it's HUGE. The indoor spaces for YC include the Top Sail Lounge and Restaurant. I think I shared a picture earlier; these spaces are large and never feel crowded. In the evenings there is often live music. In the afternoon, the butlers offer a high tea type of service. And at almost all times of day there is a variety of snacks available. Oh, and key for many people, the Lounge has a bar, and all alcoholic/non-alcoholic drinks are included except for some very top shelf liquors. The private lounge and restaurant and bar are a pretty key feature of YC; you really do feel like you're in a ship of your own once you buzz into the YC.

Here's the lounge again, you can also see a lot of outdoor couches and space:
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Some of the snacks:
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2. Another key feature: the YC-exclusive pool deck. There is a small pool only for YC guests and another bar with grill-type restaurant. You can see the pool behind my kid here. It is pretty deep (most of the pools are 6' deep!) but has a bit of a wading area around the edge. I believe the pools are also saltwater. Anyway, there was plenty of outdoor space for YC guests. Even the pool towels are plushier for YC guests than for the rest of the ship! You could always find a lounger, and the staff were also circulating to offer drinks frequently. There are also two hot tubs.

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We enjoyed several breakfasts and lunches here on the top deck and this was a perk not to be missed. I should mention that we went to the main buffet a couple of times as well and it was massive, but also very packed. So being able to enjoy a more quiet breakfast was excellent.

You can see the many loungers behind my DH here. You can also see that he's wearing an MSC wristband, these are YC wristbands that are kind of like "magic bands" in WDW. You can have them scanned to get into the YC and your own room, to get priority in the elevators (more on this later perhaps), for room charges, etc.
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3. The service in the YC is excellent. This isn't really a perk compared to DCL since DCL's service is, of course, amazing. But as I may have mentioned, MSC is a European line and I get the feeling that their customer service in general is not quite what we might 'expect' as North Americans. Their guest services desk, even in YC, was not supremely helpful - but all of the butlers and staff in the YC itself were perfectly lovely, friendly, and helpful to us. Our room was always very clean and we had chocolates every night plus random gifts like these:
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4. Yacht Club comes with length-of-cruise thermal suite access which is kind of like the rainforest room on DCL - but we didn't take advantage of this, sadly! The cruise is just too busy with so many ports.

5. Priority embarkation - oh my goodness, this perk could literally not be beat. In the Barcelona cruise terminal it was generally packed, but YC guests had a separate check-in area (no line) AND there was a separate lounge area with snacks and drinks (in case you weren't sure if you were going to have enough food on board?? lol) and a butler came down to escort you right up past the "commoners" (I'm kidding, but YC did seem to really embrace the class system) up to your room. You can see how happy my DH was about this separate sitting area :D
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Of note, some of the ports had YC priority lines to get back on board too, but not all.

6. Unlimited gelato!! I don't know why I don't have a picture of this, but YC perks included unlimited gelato served around the ship. Other guests had to pay separately for gelato, but not YC guests. There were several gelato places on board and we just had to show YC wristbands or cards.


More to come, I hope!
 


Loving this review! I have been eyeing a TA but ended up booking a second WBPC, but this time with friends....and man I have never seen a cruise book so fast! between people being bumped from other cruises and the uncertainty of the upcoming PC in 2021 there will likely be almost no new cruisers on that crossing :rotfl:
 
Really enjoying this report, thinking of doing roughly the same trip in May 2023....it’s the only time it works out for us.

Ready for day 16 :). Wondering about the Mediterranean weather for your last week aboard. Thanks for putting the report together.
 


Day 15 - Ajaccio cont'd

I did end up finding that I took a couple of pictures ....but just of crepes that we ate at an outdoor cafe while in town. That did feel rather French, but I won't bother posting those pics - I'm sure you have all eaten crepes.

I did want to mention that we purchased a specialty dining package on MSC which gave us access to dine at their Asian restaurants 3x. It's basically teppanyaki one night, Asian fusion one night, and sushi one night. This was a very nice perk to have and not expensive. Children are permitted, and they are not charged if they order off the kids menu.

The lighting was extremely red so some of these are B&W or adjusted, here are a couple of pics from our dinner this night which was Asian Fusion:
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pork belly baos:
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lamb chops with hoisin glaze:
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ahi tuna:
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chicken wings:
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Anyway, everything was very tasty. I thought Yacht Club dinners were very good so I wouldn't say that the specialty dining was necessary at all, but it was a nice change of pace.

After dinner we went to explore the ship a little bit more. The Atrium is 4 decks tall and there was often live music, with a lot of dancing. Again, this ship was enormous and I'm sure that we did not see all of it in our week onboard.

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How cool is this - MSC has a partnership with Lego and there is a Lego MSC cruise ship you can buy. I didn't buy it, but am regretting it now that it's been nearly 3 years since we have been able to cruise! Lol.

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Day 16 - Genoa

We did not have much planned for Genoa. I had in my mind that we would check out the Aquarium and that was really about it. There is also a Maritime museum which looked interesting. Both of these are in the Porto Antico area, which is walking distance from the cruise port (although, a tad on the longer walk side).

We started our day with breakfast upstairs on the YC deck. Really, I could get used to the 'concierge' life. :)

Here is a view of Genoa from our balcony. What a neat looking port. Somewhat industrial, as many ports are, of course.

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We had a great time at the Aquarium! Lots of great snapshots while there. At the entrance there were a couple of somewhat irritating vendors, you know the sort, the ones who want to put a bracelet on you and then charge you money. Best to avoid eye contact LOL.

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There was an interactive part of the aquarium where you could pet rays. I can't remember exactly what rays there were, but this was great for the kids, and a very cool exhibit:

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Also, several times a day they have a dolphin show that is outside, although the area where you stand to view it is covered and you are behind glass. I believe there is a 'splash zone' though.

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That's it for the Aquarium - onto the rest of Genoa!
 
Day 16 - Genoa cont'd

After spending a couple of hours at the Aquarium, we were on the munchy side so we decided to get some pasta. Genoa is in the Liguria region of Italy and they are known for their pesto (probably those of you who have seen Luca will not be surprised.) We walked through a few streets in this area (honestly, just wandering, with the knowledge that the ship was in "that" direction) and we overheard a tour guide mention to his small tour group that this pasta restaurant was excellent, so we gave it a try. It's a tiny place and the name appears to be Pastificio Artigianale de Cannelo - based on my google search. This was an excellent, excellent choice. The restaurant is small and mostly counter-service, I believe it is also a deli/takeout counter. We asked what they would recommend, and they suggested trofie pasta with pesto, and a ravioli with a walnut sauce. Excuse my pictures; I don't know if I mentioned this earlier in the trip report or not but I got a new DSLR for this trip and spent a lot of time trying to figure it out :D

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The pasta was delicious and filling. I love, love, love pesto and this pesto was so fresh and delicious. The walnut sauce was also excellent. We probably could have gotten a third plate, but there's so much food on a cruise ship that it just did not really seem worthwhile to eat a ton while in port.

It was a bit of a grey, drizzly day, though it was not cold per se. We wandered our way through narrow streets to go back to the ship. At times I was sure we were lost, except that you can't be fully lost when you know the water is on one side of you - but dense and narrow roads make it hard for directionally-challenged people like myself. Anyway, got to catch a few interesting sights along the way. I even noticed a few Chinese shops/restaurants, and later found out that Italy has quite a large Chinese population (relatively speaking) and that at times this has caused tension among Italians toward the immigrant Chinese population. Interesting how the immigrant experience is kind of universal, but I digress.

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It rained periodically through our walk back to the ship, but nothing ridiculous. Once we got back to the ship we went to get gelato (a major perk of being in Yacht Club - free cups of gelato all day, every day!!) and then to check out the Bridge of Sighs, which is a very cool glass bottom bridge that juts out over the aft of the ship (maybe it doesn't jut fully out, I don't remember
exactly.

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The kids were not into the bright sun that had appeared when I tried to take this pic. Depending on where you are sailing when you take this picture though, it's very instagram-worthy...lol

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I believe it was also afternoon tea time, so these and snacks were on offer in the Yacht Club. I am a total sucker for a macaron so I indulged.
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And that was Genoa!! A working port for sure. I'd love to do a more adventurous excursion next time.

One more thing that I wanted to mention about Yacht Club; we had the opportunity to choose a newspaper for delivery to our room every day. I gather they print these onboard at a slightly smaller scale than if you had an actual newspaper. I chose NYT. This is such a neat perk, it's been a long time since I have read a physical newspaper.

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Thanks for reading - hopefully I will be back before another year passes by....haha!
 
Thanks for coming back to this trip report. I remember being super curious on MSC vs DCL with kids especially since a European cruise sounds really cool. Maybe not right at the moment but I’m hoping things calm down and want to consider summer 2023 when Disney releases their schedule.
 
I cannot thank you enough for this trip report. We did the Transatlantic this year with an 8 and 9 year old. We booked last-minute and therefore pretty much used your trip report as our guide. It was a fantastic trip and all of your suggestions were spot-on with kiddos that age. Thanks for taking the time to write this all down!
 
I cannot thank you enough for this trip report. We did the Transatlantic this year with an 8 and 9 year old. We booked last-minute and therefore pretty much used your trip report as our guide. It was a fantastic trip and all of your suggestions were spot-on with kiddos that age. Thanks for taking the time to write this all down!

Thank you so much for your kind words. I'm so glad to hear that you and your kids had a great trip! I really wish I'd been able to do this cruise again! :)
 
LOVE reading your report. Thank You! I just found it through a link on the social media page for the EBTA 2023.

My family was on the 2019 EBTA with you and am-re living that cruise through your report. I did not Keep a journal, which I now regret. We did many different things and many in common - my DH also was in the poker group, e.g. With 3 grands, the oldest a 6 year old DGD, we did many character and princess things. The interactions were fantastic and the princesses were her friends - princesses knew the names of their serious fans and played spontaneous evening games with them like hide and seek on the ship - 3 princesses each with 3 or 4 girls, running all over the ship and finding hiding places.

Who knew it would be so long before cruising again - we were cancelled out of the 2020 WBTA and the 2021 EBTA. The longer cruises are the best.

I am still in Lisbon on your report but want to thank you for sharing.
 
THANK YOu SO MUCH for this amazingly detailed awesome sauce trip report! We did the WBTA in uh - I can't remember - the covid times have messed up my sense of time because of no cruises - the one that was supposed to go to eastern Canada and got rerouted straight to NY for 2 days instead. Anyway - we're signed up on the EBTA 2023 and I think the Itinerary is the same. I can't thank you enough! We have already looked up the Amazon Sim card and I think we'll do a tour like yours in Lisbon. LOVE LOVE LOVE those pastries! Any chance of you coming along for a second round? I NEED some cute "grandsons" to spoil.
 
LOVE reading your report. Thank You! I just found it through a link on the social media page for the EBTA 2023.

My family was on the 2019 EBTA with you and am-re living that cruise through your report. I did not Keep a journal, which I now regret. We did many different things and many in common - my DH also was in the poker group, e.g. With 3 grands, the oldest a 6 year old DGD, we did many character and princess things. The interactions were fantastic and the princesses were her friends - princesses knew the names of their serious fans and played spontaneous evening games with them like hide and seek on the ship - 3 princesses each with 3 or 4 girls, running all over the ship and finding hiding places.

Who knew it would be so long before cruising again - we were cancelled out of the 2020 WBTA and the 2021 EBTA. The longer cruises are the best.

I am still in Lisbon on your report but want to thank you for sharing.

Thank you so much for your kind words! How cool, i'm social media famous! hehehe.
Wasn't it such a great cruise!! DH really enjoyed poker!! That sounds super super fun with the princesses - my boys were not at all into the princesses!
 
THANK YOu SO MUCH for this amazingly detailed awesome sauce trip report! We did the WBTA in uh - I can't remember - the covid times have messed up my sense of time because of no cruises - the one that was supposed to go to eastern Canada and got rerouted straight to NY for 2 days instead. Anyway - we're signed up on the EBTA 2023 and I think the Itinerary is the same. I can't thank you enough! We have already looked up the Amazon Sim card and I think we'll do a tour like yours in Lisbon. LOVE LOVE LOVE those pastries! Any chance of you coming along for a second round? I NEED some cute "grandsons" to spoil.

Thank you for your post, I really appreciate it!! I really, really want to do the EBTA again, but unfortunately as my oldest will be in high school next year, I am really reluctant to pull him out of school for what will end up being over two weeks. If only it aligned with spring break!! I hope you have an amazing time, I really enjoyed all of the ports we visited!
 
Day 17 - La Spezia

I am not sure if anyone is still following along, and now that it's been 3+ years I am definitely relying on a faulty memory....lol...anyway! Here's what we did in La Spezia. I had grand plans of taking the ferry up the coast to visit Cinque Terre, we were going to go to the farthest village and wander around, then take the train back. I had done some research on the five towns making up Cinque Terre and knew which ones I wanted to see most. We decided that we would take the ferry from the cruise port. I recall that it cost about 75 euros for the 5 of us; it's kind of a hop on/hop off ferry.

The cruise terminal itself in La Spezia is rather industrial, so you have to hop on one of their shuttle buses to take you out of the port itself. No cost. It was a relatively short walk to the ferry - maybe 10 minutes or so? Really easy, and we got our tickets for the ferry right away.

From what I recall there is some narration on the ferry, although I don't remember if it's in English. There were many tour groups on the ferry and we did overhear tour guides narrating in various other languages. It was a fairly crowded ride, as you can imagine spots near the outside of the boat are crowded as everyone tries to get pictures. I took a few:

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I think this is Portovenere?
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The ferry is known for being a bit rough at times...
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To make a long story short, it was so rough that my little guy ended up getting seasick on the ferry, which was a minor disaster; he made it most of the way to a trash can at least. Ugh. So we got off at the first stop - Riomaggiore. Physically getting off the ferry was also a bit challenging, I would not really recommend this if you have any mobility difficulties. You have to use a narrow ramp/walkway, and the boat is bouncing up and down the whole time on the waves. Here is how it looks as we approached Riomaggiore.

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(I had to hold my camera quite high to get pics above the heads of everyone in front of me!)

Since we had not made any plans at all to visit Riomaggiore, we decided to just wander into town and see where that took us. There's a lot of elevation, unsurprisingly for towns built right into the mountain. I really loved how colourful the buildings were:

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It was not rainy, but there was a bit of a chill in the air. Have i mentioned the packable jackets? I'm sure I have, these are from Uniqlo and fold up super small and light. Perfect for summer cruising.

Oh, I'm being called away! Will have to come back to this post.
 
Day 17 - La Spezia, continued

As mentioned, no plans other than wandering the streets of Riomaggiore. One of the first things we did when we got to the main part of town was find a pharmacy to see if we could get some seasickness meds for our little guy. Very fortunately, we found one and the pharmacist understood English, much to our delight.

Here are some pics of this very cool town:

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So many stairs
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Amazing views from the top of the town:

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Fresh lemons grow everywhere!
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This is a church near the top:

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After we had walked up and down the many, many stairs - and got ourselves a little lost, because I have terrible directional sense - we ended up back in the town where we decided to snack on a cone of fried seafood, very popular from what I could see. We also had gelato, but apparently I forgot to take a picture of that.

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We decided not to chance the ferry on the way back, despite having paid for the ticket, so in the end, it was a rather expensive ferry trip to Riomaggiore. But oh well, things happen, and I have learned with 3 kids that you have to be flexible. The train ride did not take long as it's only really 1-2 stations before you get back to La Spezia. It is also possible to take the train to most of the villages in the Cinque Terre, in case you don't feel like being on a ferry. I can't remember exactly, but you have to buy the ticket and have it validated, or risk a fine if you haven't done it properly.

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In La Spezia, the train station is further away from the cruise terminal than the ferry terminal is (makes sense, since ferries are on the water...lol) but we decided to walk back. Google had said it was a 2km walk, and we felt that was doable with the kids. Definitely not a bad walk at all.

A few pics:

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And that was our day in La Spezia / Cinque Terre. One day I'll get back there!

We ended off our day by having some evening snacks in the Yacht Club, and then went for sushi at the specialty restaurant.
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Next up: Rome!!
 

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