Beardface

27 minutes ago, sidari said:

BF ... The area below the Aft pool is a show lounge, the YC pool area has not taken over the Aurea area because there will be a Deck 20 where the YC pool is. The Aurea area still appears to be around the sliding roof of the pool, which will be two decks high unlike on Seaside and Seaview.

The buffet is on Deck 18 and the lower area at the back looks like outside seating for it, going to just one buffet is a backwards step in my opinion.

The Speciality Restaurants will be on Deck 8 where it seems there will be no outside seating or bar.

 

Show lounge?  Interesting.  I guess something similar (though smaller) to what RCI has with the Quantum Class, then?

With the Aurea deck, maybe, but I guess this means the area around where the bar is now will be inside and not open air?  Then again with the new YC cabins on Deck 19, not sure there will be room for that Aurea area, at least as it was.  And I would guess its not going to be Deck 20, since that looks to all be YC, down to the additional cabanas.

Dredging up an old thread to post some pictures I hadn't seen, yet

From the comments earlier, it looks like the Yacht Club pool deck has been extended back and has absorbed the Aurea Sun Deck to accommodate the new passengers.  There's now a glass divider next to the smokestack, and I am going to guess the area around the retractable roof is going to be the new Aurea Sun Deck, as it looks like a hot tub was added to each side in that area, with a bar under the overhang created by the YC extension.

Also looks like they've eliminated the dun deck where the Bridge of Sighs is, and have added a bar in its place.  I wonder if this implies that the buffet might have been moved up to that deck as well, which would explain the new glass enclosure. Also curious on what that new glass enclosure is on lower back.  If that's the new location of the buffet, first of all, great view, secondly, I wonder how much space will be accessible with the pool right overhead.

Granted this is the design they have right now and could always change during the build, but it looks like it'll just be a deck higher, with a similar layout.  Also looks like the YC pool area is absorbing the Top 19 Aurea area for more seating ability, as its now completely closed off from the rest of the ship.

I wonder if this means the Aurea area might be relocated.  I see there is a glass divider right around the glass retractable ceiling to the indoor pool, I wonder if that area is where it will be now, with the Aurea bar under that overhang created from the new YC extension?

Define "normal"

If you're asking specifically about quarantines, social distancing, not being allowed to mentally separate yourself from the pandemic going on in the world while on the ship... Yeah, you're going to be seeing this for a while.  Mandatory quarantines will likely be implemented for anyone coming back from a cruise, and you'll likely need a signed note from your doctor stating you are healthy before you'll be allowed on the ship.

Most countries are going to be very conservative on allowing people back into their countries, even if those same countries are acting like complete morons within the borders (looking at us, United States).

11 hours ago, CineGraphic said:

 

Who's stupid, a person who puts down a $49 fully refundable deposit, or someone that spells "organization" wrong in the age of spell-check?

organisation is an accepted spelling in the UK

1 hour ago, Happy Cruiser 6143 said:

Another tip which I don't believe has been mentioned here is to look for the Yacht Club Tent when you arrive at the pier in Miami.  Don't give your luggage to anybody else but these folks.  From there, you will be escorted by a shoreside butler to the YC registration lounge in the terminal, where you will get checked in.

 

You can have a conversation with your assistant butler about what you would like stocked in your mini bar.  No point having stuff you won't use taking up space.  For example, we agreed that the Pringles and the chocolate-covered peanuts did not need to be stored in the mini bar 😄 and they were kept on top of the counter instead.

You can let the guys get your bags as you get out of your car, but be very clear you are in the Yacht Club.  We did that and the person escorted us all the way to the right to the YC tent where we began the check in process.

It was also nice having our bags ready before muster.  Allowed us plenty of time to get settled in before we left.  Also, the YC Deluxe Suites are large and nice for the price paid, something isn't obvious when looking over it all.  I mean the rooms themselves are 50% wider than a standard cabin.  Gives you plenty of room to spread out.

7 hours ago, WH_Cruise said:

Why anyone is booking a cruise right now, especially with an organisation with holding refunds for up to 2 years is either stupid or has money to burn.

If you know you are going to go, book now, and then just push out your sail date to when they are actually back.

Personally, I'm waiting for 2 things before I book.

1 - Ships to actually sail, so I don't begin my countdown too early only to be disappointed

2 - Prices to fall once lines realize the demand has sharply fallen for tourism & travel coming out of this

Hope you get to sail

My wife and I were in the Seaside YC the week before cruising was canceled.  Its truly wonderful.  Embarking is seriously a breeze.  We went from taxi to Top Sail Lounge on the ship in about 15 minutes and basically only waited as long as it took to process our documents at every stage before we were escorted through security and onto the ship.

And yes, you don't have to register your CC until you are on the ship.  And you can do that with the kiosk at the YC Concierge.  First day was really quiet, so that was a breeze to do as well.

Drink plan is different as well.  We paid a little extra ($17pp pd) and got the Premium Plus plan (though for some reason even that cost was refunded to us, so we effectively got it for free) and literally drank whatever we wanted for the duration of the trip.  While the rest of the ship was nice, we never really wanted to venture too far from the YC itself, only really going out at night for shows or events.  Do not worry about reservations for shows, there are 2 dedicated rows in the theater for YC guests to use and all you really need to do is show up and you're in (except for the Michael Jackson show, go to the YC Concierge about 20-30 minutes before and they'll escort you in.

Dining was easy.  Because its a European line, its busiest around 8:30-9, so for my wife and I, who tend to eat at 7, the YC restaurant was always empty when we went.  No reservations needed, though they do appreciate if you show up around the same time so they can use the same waiters, who make a point of remembering your perferences.

The YC Pool Deck is very nice, and the pool is plenty big for how many people are there.  There are 2 hot tubs at the front, but when under sail, they get incredibly windy, and unless you're in ideal warm weather, are fairly miserable because of the cold wind.

As for the staff, they were great for us.  Bartenders in the TSL also rotate through the Pool Deck during the day, so they quickly learn your preferences.  Butlers also rotate through waiting at the TSL and Pool, and you'll notice good service if yours is on duty, which is not to say service otherwise is bad, but they tend to be very attentive to their own.

On 5/16/2020 at 11:14 AM, Couple-Somerset said:

Just to lighten the mood - how about this from Amsterdam?

 

Can you imagine "diners seated in glass concept houses" (a greenhouse to you and me) down the full lengths of the ship - staff serving your food on long planks of wood lol

Kind of romantic at night lol

Note the servers face screen and keeping one hand firmly in pocket (perhaps cutting down on ppe gloves lol)

If they aren't thoroughly sanitizing the glass walls after every patron leaves then this has the opportunity to be far more dangerous than just keeping everything open.  As we've seen on ships, the virus sticks on smooth, flat surfaces for a period of time (upwards of 17 days on some Princess ships), so doing this could effectively do nothing more than creating incubation chambers to eat your meals in.

21 hours ago, CGTNORMANDIE said:

 It will be impossible to visit any islands until a vaccine becomes available.

If this holds true, sailing out of the US will effectively be canceled until the vaccine comes, because US law pretty much forbids cruises to nowhere without taking measures that the cruise lines deem fiscally prohibitive.

20 minutes ago, Cruiser Bruiser said:

 

I have abandoned my 15 Sep 2020 cruise on Preziosa. My group is now booked on Virtuosa departing on 11 Sep 2021.

Good deal!  Stinks that its delayed but I think you'll be much happier now that you aren't stressing on whether its going to sail and what it will look like.

13 hours ago, Cruiser Bruiser said:

The fact that Preziosa is at Ocean Cay gives me not comfort whatsoever. I'm supposed to be sailing her in Northern Europe in September. What to do...

I can't imagine any cruise ship will legitimately sail this year.  And even if any do, you probably don't want to be on one for at least a month or two afterwards so the lines can get some kind of routine around the new policies.

If I were you, I would seriously start looking into delaying your trip to another date.

1 hour ago, slei15 said:

Off topic a little, but I was speaking to a Carnival rep today for a client and found out the significant issues with the refund process. It applies to most cruise lines the way the systems were designed for convenience in normal operating times. The system is set up to automatically charge cancellation penalties when a cruise is canceled. Due to this, they have to manually enter every reservation, override the penalties, determine if it is FCC or refund, ensure the appropriate amount is set to refund, and have the refund processed by the revenue accounting team, which are not large teams at any of the cruise lines. Carnival at this point is not giving a timeframe for refunds, as they are so overwhelmed and they have no clue when they will get through it all. They are going cruise by cruise, while also trying to go about the necessary everyday business and keep things going for the future. All of this while dealing with significant furloughs and layoffs, which frankly are a part of how they are saving the cash to be able to refund. It is a slow process for every cruise line, but they also know that if they end up screwing thousands of customers by not refunding, they will not have anyone feel safe enough to ever book again. The refunds will happen, but they will take a significant amount of time. It is frustrating for everyone. Please also know, if you booked through a travel agent and dispute the charge on your credit card because you lose patience, the cruise line can ultimately charge the travel agent back for the full amount of the dispute. 

Yep

And just to get an idea of the sheer number of requests we are talking about, I ran some of these numbers on another thread.

The entire fleet has basically been mothballed for 2 months now.  17 ships that have a total double occupancy (according to Wikipedia, so it could be slightly more or less) 58,156 passengers.  Every week that's the number or people who are supposed to be on their ships.  So if you factor in that we've been on this haitus for about 8 weeks now, (and factoring in that ships would not be sailing in full capacity, and some ships sail 2 week cruises) that's around 250k to 500k refunds that MSC needs to issue globally, and that number increases by 20k=50k per week.

And now factor in that these lines have a furloughed staff working remote at home logging into systems that likely were not designed for remote work having to manually enter and verify each cancellation and.... Yeah.  You can see how this would back up quick industry-wide.

3 minutes ago, BermudaBound2014 said:

I respectfully disagree.  If you think MSC is in line with everyone else, please provide evidence to support the claim. Right out of the gate, their policies have been less consumer friendly. This is typical of MSC shore side service. Nothing new here. 

I love it.  Accuse, accuse, accuse of MSC acting in nefarious ways, and the second that someone says they're just acting like everyone else, (which, you can literally go see for yourself on any of the other forums just how many threads there are about lack of refunds) the immediate reply is "oh yeah, prove they aren't this bad".  You didn't need the proof when you accused, you just went on feelings, not sure why the burden of proof is to prove innocence rather than guilt.

To answer the original question, not only do I not think MSC Cruises are going to go bankrupt, but I think that they are best positioned to take advantage of this situation and be able to perform and strategic purchase or merging with another line who may stumble into financial troubles.

I would not be shocked to see them come out of this as a legitimate big name cruise line, on par with the others, when this all settles.  I still think there is a good fit with them buying up and absorbing the NCL brand as the operating parent.

Its gong to be a while before the money comes, but you will get it.

I mean think about it pragmatically.  The entire fleet has basically been mothballed for 2 months now.  17 ships that have a total double occupancy (according to Wikipedia, so it could be slightly more or less) 58,156 passengers.  Every week that's the number or people who are supposed to be on their ships.  So if you factor in that we've been on this haitus for about 8 weeks now, (and factoring in that ships would not be sailing in full capacity, and some ships sail 2 week cruises) that's around 250k to 500k refunds that MSC needs to issue globally, and that number increases by 20k=50k per week.

Believe me, the refund department of all these cruise lines are not vast, nor has it likely been streamlined at all in the past.  And that is during a time when they were able to get all their employees into the office to collaboratively work together.  So now this entire industry is stress testing a system they intentionally did not want to ever utilize while the vast majority of their workforce is working remote.  And this is why you are seeing these kind of "where is my refund" threads pop up all over Cruise Critic.

It sucks, but have some patience.  The refunds will come, and the companies aren't being nefarious.  They just don't have the capacity to handle the demand for refunds they are seeing right now, which is creating a massive bottleneck of getting the requests processed and sent.

On 5/9/2020 at 12:15 PM, BermudaBound2014 said:

 

The short answer is YES! Other cruise lines are providing refunds. Granted, not everyone has received a refund, but according to CC members, each of the cruise lines I have checked are providing  refunds to some customers.

 

Here is one thread from Carnival. Skip to the end and you will see refunds reported for the April 6th sailing. I've been following this thread in particular because I was scheduled on Seaside April 4th.

 

 

 

 

 

Disney is not the exception. Just trying to keep things factual. Look at post #12 from the HAL board. This CC member even provided a screen shot of the refund received. I will grant you that everyone is complaining and the number of people reporting refunds is a small ratio when compared to the whole, but other lines are providing some refunds. MSC is unique in that there have been zero cases of cash back reported here on the MSC board.

 

 

 

 

Take a look at post #4 here from the Celebrity Board:

 

 

I could provide links to threads from NCL, RCL, Princess, Celebrity, Carnival, and HAL  where CC customers are receiving cash back.  The fact is that MSC has yet to refund anyone cash (here on CC) and other lines have. However; I wouldn't jump to making an inference that the lack of refunding indicates they are going bankrupt. I would say that lack of any refunds (while the competition is managing a small number of refunds) is pretty typical of  poor shore side service from MSC.  Even the biggest fans of MSC acknowledge that shore side service has been historically shabby.

For every one thread where customers have received their funds back, there are 4 or 5 others with angry customers still waiting for their money to come back.  MSC is right in line with what everyone else is doing, and claiming otherwise is really just trying to stir the pot for no reason other than stirring it.

And to say this... The fact is that MSC has yet to refund anyone cash (here on CC) and other lines have.

I find multiple issues with this kind of broad brush statement.  First, there's no way to know whether or not there is not a single person on this community who has received their refund.  That's a pretty definitive statement for something you cannot know for a fact.  Secondly, the MSC community here is tiny compared to the communities here of Royal, Carnival, Norwegian, and all their subsidiaries.  You're talking about a much smaller sample size here than those other places.  And lastly, the CC community overall is a small portion of the entire cruise community in general.

Yes, MSC really is acting like the others here, but MSC just deals with a smaller subset of this community which tends to be largely influenced by an echo chamber of negativity, stemming from a lot of the same people I see in many threads just like this one.

Drink package is included to distract you from the fact the ship never leaves port!

33 minutes ago, DCGuy64 said:

You're darn right, they never said that. I'm not sure why people post things saying a cruise line IS GOING to file for bankruptcy when nothing like that was said. In fact, I read an article just yesterday from The Points Guy (whom I respect) saying the exact opposite.

https://thepointsguy.com/news/norwegian-cruise-line-bankruptcy/

Gotta love the first comment to that article basically accusing the author of only writing that because he/she owns stock in the company

This whole pandemic really has the anti-cruise community emboldened to mouth off at every opportunity, hasn't it

3 hours ago, rkacruiser said:

 

I have not sailed in a Cove Balcony.  If it is anything like the in-hull balcony staterooms on QM2 in which I have sailed, no thank you.  The interior of the stateroom was great.  The view from the balcony left much to be desired.  Sitting in a deck chair, one had a wonderful view of the sky and no view of the sea.

Ehh my first few cruises were in cabins with in hull balconies 25+ years ago, so that doesn't bother me at all.  A balcony on deck 3 or so, however... That would be interesting

6 minutes ago, UPNYGuy said:

we used to sail Haven too. We have 2 bookings in the YC now, and have been more than satisfied with the standard suites on MSC. We are black/diamond, and get all the associated perks. The expedited embarkation alone with Haven is it enough to justify it, as we get that just being black/diamond. We also have an upcoming working on carnival vista in the Havana area. It will be interesting to compare the Havana to the Haven and the yacht club. 
 

obviously the Havana is nowhere near as extensive, but it is also significantly less expensive. 

I'm interested to try the Havana in Carnival at some point, but I'll be honest... if I were to sail Carnival, I'm looking at a Cove Balcony.  I wish more lines would have balconies like that, low and below the lifeboats.

11 hours ago, Cruiser Bruiser said:

I would guess that NCLH (the holding company for NCL, Oceana and Regent Seven Seas) would be purchased outright by some equity fund and then the brands and/or ships would be sold off to pay down debt. I could see Carnival Corp or RCI purchasing the smaller ships to supplement their existing fleets, or operating the brands independently.

 

NCL's largest ships are problematic for a variety of other brands: the top decks are crowded and pools are minimal. None of NCL"s ships have an enclosed pool, for example. And they have too many specialty restaurants. I think they would be very expensive to modify. Given that a lot of MSC's identity is embodied in their ship designs, I cannot imagine MSC would want any of NCLH's existing fleet, especially the large ships. Meraviglia, Grandiosa, Seaside, Seaside Evo, World Class, MSC knows how to build ships.

If NCLH is nearing bankruptcy, there is going to be a deal to be had for a competitor to purchase them or merge with them on the cheap.  If that happens, I would expect drydock renovations in the near future for some of their ships (looking at you, Breakaway Plus Class) to bring them more in line with what you'd expect with MSC.

Also, NCL already has an agreement with Fincantieri to build 6 Project Leonardo ships, based on the same basic design as the Seaside Class with MSC

Construction on the first of this class hasn't started, yet, and the details of the design haven't been officially announced.  This would be a great opportunity for MSC to use this class, the first of which are due for delivery in 2022, to effectively align the two brands going forward.

1 hour ago, rkacruiser said:

 

As NCL is currently branded, I have no interest in making another booking.

 

My one experience, granted years ago on their primitive private island, was a very pleasant one and one that I remember.  (Maybe that's because of the sand flies bites during our island visit?)  

 

Based upon my 2020 MSC experience:  MSC needs to be in control of such a future combination.  

Agreed.

I'm just saying, to the American consumer, NCL is the more recognizable brand.  If the two merged I could see NCL being the flag in North America and MSC being the flag elsewhere, with MSC running the show.  Meaning NCL would adjust their business practice to align with MSC, down to pricing and amenities, just that the amenities are tailored specifically for the US market while MSC stays European.  Hell, I'd even go so far as to say they would move the Seaside to NCL branding to help smooth those waters.

The more I think about it the more it makes too much sense.  This could be a huge opportunity for MSC if they play it right.

Always thought Princess was just the Caribbean version of P&O.  Wasn't until recently that I realized they were different.

Costa being consolidated within the Carnival brand makes sense.  Carnival is the bigger name, and after the Concordia sinking, I have felt like the Costa branding has taken a hit they've really not recovered from.  They could benefit from going full whale tail.

MSC and NCL seeing some kind of merger could also make sense.  Similar brand strategies with the ship within a ship that would be easy to sync across the board.  And NCL could really benefit from MSCs current strategy of lower up front cost while MSC would benefit from the NCL branding.  Seems like a win-win there.

Not shocked to see Norwegian struggling.  Their nickel and diming of the cruise experience reminded me a lot of what we saw out of US Air before they went under / merged with American Airlines.  Would not be surprised if they end up in a forced merger by the end of the year, with a new line emerging as a major player, possibly still under the NCL name.

Curious on what happens with their fleet.  The Encore is in the middle of its maiden season.  If they go under, they have some very new, very nice ships that would be attractive for other lines to pick up.