NCMtnBoys

Divina (2), Seaside and Meraviglia. Next year have Seashore and Musica booked.

Of the 34 cruises I've been on, 4 were MSC (2 Divina, 1 Seaside, 1 Meraviglia). Each of them were as enjoyable as all the other cruises we've been on. My favorite of the 4 MSC cruises was Meraviglia. That's a great ship! We'll be sailing MSC again next year, Seashore in May and Musica in October. No complaints and, no, we don't sail in YC and never will.

You’re welcome. On that site they have a button you can click where you can input your cruise departure information and it brings up all the excursions for that cruise. We had been to Corfu previously but Athens, Mykonos, Santorini, Rhodes and the two Turkey stops were new for us as well! Enjoy your cruise!

We booked a five port excursion package through shoreexcursions.com. Every excursion was fantastic. We didn’t get to choose the excursions in the package but each excursion visited the sights I wanted to see. I was very happy doing this and would recommend them.

Booked a Bella Balcony guarantee and was assigned a handicapped room immediately. Since we don't need it, called MSC to see if they could assign us a different room in the same category and when the rep tried, she also kept seeing that only the handicapped rooms were available. We opted to pay a little extra and switched to Fantastica and a more mid-ship room. MSC didn't seem too concerned that we were assigned a handicapped room and don't need it, and didn't offer to move us to a different category to get us out of the handicapped room. We might have just kept it for the extra room, except that the room didn't have a couch so that there was more space in the room.

We did a seven night cruise last September round trip Athens which included Istanbul, Kusadasi, Rhodes, Mykonos and Santorini. Loved all of it! I was looking for a seven night sailing that included Athens, Mykonos, Santorini and Istanbul. We made all the ports and enjoyed our time in each port. We had booked a five port excursion bundle through a company and each excursion visited places I had wanted to go. Honestly, it was incredible to be in all those places. Seeing the Blue Mosque, Grand Bazaar, Ephesus, Oia, etc... one of the best trips ever.

I would have gone and decided for myself whether it was good or bad before losing half of what I paid. There are plenty of bad reviews for every cruise line but I've never let those be the deciding factor in taking a particular cruise. Of the 34 cruises I've taken, four have been on MSC and each of those cruises was as enjoyable as any other that I've taken. We have two more MSC booked as well.

There were no issues. Because the promotion our friends booked automatically came with the drink package, it ended up the rule didn't really apply to our situation. And on top of that, while the wait staff in the main dining room knew we didn't have the drink package, they still never charged us for soda at dinner all week since our friends had the drink package. A very unexpected, nice gesture on their part.

I won two slot jackpots on Meraviglia in May, totaling $15,700. By far, the best I've ever done on a cruise.

We used BOGO air for the first time for our upcoming September cruise on Jade from Athens. Our flights were booked with Virgin Atlantic routing us from Charlotte to JFK to Athens, but the flights are operated by Delta. On the return, the flights were booked with United routing us from Athens to Toronto to Charlotte, but the flights are operated by Air Canada.

It must. Our BOGO outbound flights CLT-JFK-ATH are operated by Delta and I am not able to even select seats ahead of time, let alone upgrade. I've tried the website, app, the airline the flight was booked with (Virgin Atlantic), calling Delta... everything. We cannot select seats ahead of time. Likely because we're on a basic economy ticket. Delta seems to be one of the few that are strict with not allowing advance seat assignments ahead of time with basic economy, even for a fee, and their website states that. No advance seat assignments or upgrades with a basic economy ticket. We were able to select seats with Air Canada for our return ATH-YYZ-CLT. While it would be preferable to sit together on our flights, it's not a deal breaker having saved considerably over booking flights ourselves.

Thank you. Yes, I've tried both Virgin Atlantic and Delta with their respective record locator numbers and neither will allow me to choose seats. I keep checking hoping that I'll be able to, but so far I've not been able to. When I called Delta the rep said I couldn't choose seats because it was a Virgin ticket, but I don't think that's the case. I think it has to do entirely with the segments being basic economy. I'll just be happy to be on the flights!

I had never used NCLs BOGO promo and said I never would... but never say never because I did end up using that promo for an upcoming Greece/Turkey cruise round trip from Athens in September. We got our flight assignments this past week and I'm very happy with what we got with one exception. Our outbound flights are CLT-JFK-ATH and we leave CLT at 1:20pm, 4 hour 40 minute layover in JFK, arrive Athens at 1:15pm the next day. Two day deviation. For the return we got ATH-YYZ-CLT and we leave Athens at 1:10pm the day we disembark, have a 2 hour 35 minute layover in Toronto and arrive back in Charlotte at 9:30pm. Our information says our outbound flights are Virgin Atlantic but operated by Delta, and our return says they're United but operated by Air Canada. So we were able to choose our seats for Air Canada, but cannot choose our seats ahead of time for Delta (the one exception that I am not real happy about). I've tried choosing the seats but since we're booked in Basic Economy I haven't been able to select seats at all for Delta. Booking the BOGO promo saved us A LOT of money and I can't complain considering the good flights we were assigned. There are folks on our roll call who also used the BOGO promo and ended up with two connections, so I'm glad just to have one. I had been searching for our flights for months and prices were running about $1800+ per person for one connection flights with decent layovers that left Athens at a reasonable time and did not have an overnight connection. Thinking that seemed really high, I finally decided to add the BOGO promo on our reservation and just hope for the best. I've seen multiple reports that NCL books the cheapest flights they can and sometimes that's why people aren't happy with what they got. But the day after we got our flight assignments I went online to do a mock booking of airfare and selected the flights NCL gave us and it came up to $3239 per person for economy. That's far more than flights I had been looking at and considering. We paid $1450 total with NCL through the BOGO promo. And if I had been booking flights on our own, I would not have booked the flights they gave us (except the return... the return flights they gave us are exactly the ones I had been eyeing and hoped to get). I wish we could choose seats ahead of time for our outbound flights to Athens but it looks like we'll have to wait until check-in and maybe hope that we can change seats at that time to sit together if our seats are not together at check-in. But it's not the end of the world if we can't and, for me, worth the savings. All in all I'm very happy so far with my first BOGO experience. We'll see how it goes between now and flight time, and with our flights, but so far so good.

Thanks for the review. Sailing the Jade for the first time in September. Sounds like a great ship!

Tip - Pack your patience. The area around the port is not built to handle the amount of traffic generated from people disembarking the ship and the next group embarking the ship. We were on Meraviglia May 21-28 and it was gridlock both the 21st and the 28th.