maehara

Our next 2 trips are on World Europa and then Lirica, which is just about opposite ends of the MSC scale. I'm looking forward to both, to be honest, as they'll be very different experiences. Watching ship tours etc has me not expecting Europa to be massively different from Euribia, our last trip. Only thing that I marked down the old Armonia-class ships is that from certain unkind angles they have a bit of a car-ferry look to them - and we wouldn't see that when we're on board. Otherwise I'm all for the different experiences that smaller ships offer.

That itinerary runs over the English Halloween school holiday (schools break on 25th Oct, back on 4th Nov) so I'd expect kids.

If you’re not self-disembarking, you’ll be given a disembarkation group (higher deck = later group, with some exceptions). Each group will have a designated meeting point & they’ll call the groups in order. All went very smoothly on our trip earlier in the year, but we were disembarking in Copenhagen & didn’t have to deal with UK Border Force…

It used Terminal 3 for our embarkation / disembarkation days back in August; but I don’t think that’s locked as always being it’s terminal.

We cancelled one of our pre-booked excursions on Euribia over the summer - waited until we were on board (rep of MSC's shoreside customer service being what it is...) & cancelled at the Excursions desk on-board. No questions asked as to why, and cost refunded as OBC pretty much on the spot.

MSC’s website also says 7-4.

Was on Euribia for a week in August past. No charges for 2nd mains.

Got ours within a week after we disembarked.

Same situation here. Booking is on World Europa, so while I can see the “adults” booking on MSC for Me, we get the same error as you for the booking in our daughter’s name. (The app is mostly just a wrapper for the website, so no surprise there…) We had tried creating a website account for her, but that gives the explicit error that you need to be 18 to register. So we’re assuming that we’ll have to wait until she’s 18 to book any excursions etc (5 months before we sail), or risk dealing with the call centre…

We’re doing that itinerary on Lirica (Armonia-class ship) in 2025, albeit embarking / disembarking at Venice. Will be following your trip as a taster. 😁

5% / 10% / 15% discount for Silver / Gold / Diamond respectively, according to the list of perks in the MSC for Me app.

From the Casino FAQ on the MSC for Me app.

For the actual menus for your cruise: once on board you’ll get them 1-2 days in advance on the app. No advance versions.

If you already have a booking, you'll find the prices for your cruise on the website - Beverages tab of your booking. If you haven't booked yet, the "With Drinks" option when booking is nearly always the cheapest option, and in the UK at least gets you Premium Extra (I believe other countries may offer different packages with that option, check the small print). The "save 15% against onboard prices" they refer to is simply that you don't pay the 15% gratuity if you pre-pay.

I think Ryanair charges 45 euro per person if you don’t do online checkin / print your own boarding pass. They have a whole schedule of “gotcha” charges in their small print to fleece the unaware with. 🤬

Just off Euribia a few weeks back, so can hopefully be helpful... 1) You won't know your dinner allocation until you're on the ship, but if you're in the same cabin / several; cabins on linked bookings you should be seated together. If not, ask at the MDR on boarding and they'll sort you out if they can (more difficult the more full the ship is....) 2) As well as the screens around the ship mentioned, you can also use the MSC for Me app on-board. Shows can't be booked pre-boarding; you can book for your cabin / party. When we were on board this was only needed for the main Delphi Theatre, and they filled up fast so keep an eye on them going on release the night before; shows in the Carousel Lounge were always just turn up. 3) If the kids have mobile phones, tucking them between phone and phone case works well too. We used lanyards, but it's down to preference. 4) You're stuck with what the boarding time they allocate, but by most accounts MSC don't enforce these much if at all. 5) In addition to the note about face towels, a note of caution about pool towels - you'll find one for each person in your cabin on arrival, don't lose these!! The towel booth on the pool deck will not give you one unless you hand one in; and there's the threat of a 30 euro charge per towel if you don't leave them in your cabin at the end of the trip. 6) Can't register in advance; once on board, Kids Club desk on Deck 18 aft.

We booked 2 cruises via the Future Cruise desk on our last trip. OBC (dependent on cabin grade) & double Voyagers club points are the perks I’d consider worthwhile; we also got the trips for a decent bit less than what I’d priced up online earlier in the day (16% less, although the Voyager’s Club 5+5 was part of that).

No problem at all. 🙂

Sample of the sofa-to-bunkbed setup MSC have on newer ships. Sturdy enough for 2 late-teens, and far preferable to the double sofabed older ships have.

Sorry, missed this query earlier... Yep, Butchers Cut's location is now being used for Il Campo, which is the Aurea MDR. The BC 'replacement', Le Grill, is inside L'Atelier du Voyageurs, in the spot that would've been Indochine on Virtuosa.

One last info dump from our Euribia trip: full set of Daily Planners. MSC still deliver paper copies of these to your cabin, and that's the version here; most of the information from them is also in the MSC for Me app, which lets you flag events of interest (and book theatre shows) and gives you a 30min warning before they start. And with that, I'll return to lurk mode until our World Europa trip next Halloween... Euribia-Planner-13August.pdf Euribia-Planner-14August.pdf Euribia-Planner-15August.pdf Euribia-Planner-16August.pdf Euribia-Planner-17August.pdf Euribia-Planner-18August.pdf Euribia-Planner-19August.pdf

We boarded Euribia on the 11th August - we had to present the Embarkation forms (included in the e-ticket), and our passports. COVID certs haven't been required for several months now. There's a "mandatory" health declaration for each adult on the booking included in the e-ticket, but these weren't checked. Heath insurance is mandatory per the conditions of carriage, but again they didn't check that we had any / that it included cruise cover. I'd still make sure you had the health declaration & proof of insurance on hand, in case your check-in staff are more thorough than ours were...

Hopefully you'll have a great time - it's a wonderful ship with a (mostly!) wonderful crew who looked after us very well. I'd like to think our experience wasn't an outlier! 🙂

Same as that menu I’d posted. - if you’re eating “a la carte”, there’s no cover charge and everything is priced as listed on the menu - if you’re using the Dining Experience, the deal includes starter / main / dessert from the menu items that don’t have a double-asterisk next to them; if you want something that does have a double-asterisk that’ll cost a surcharge of 50% of the listed price. Which is a waaay more complex way of doing things than it needs to be, probably, but makes more sense when you’re there. Your waiter will explain the details before you order anything.