KJB416

We board on August 8 and I’ll definitely report back on the feel and atmosphere of the restaurants and the ease of getting multiple reservations at Marble and Sakura. You do need to book reservations through your travel agent (or direct with EJ if no TA was used) which has not been communicated well to these first cruisers and also there has been nothing communicated anywhere to say only one evening of dining is allowed in the reservation required restaurants (Sakura and Marble). I wonder if they are being as strict with allowing only one reservation in Anthology as well per booking? I heard my sailing is almost full and this was quite shocking to me since a lot of cabins were available 6 weeks before sailing. My TA asked last week how full the ship will be and the EJ advisor said it was almost full. I’m not that excited about sailing with other TA’s and influencers that are getting their trip for free and taking up my space at a dining venue. I understand it’s the first sailings, but it doesn’t seem fair to those that have paid to go on a luxury cruise line that promises all this and more to go without so those who are getting a free ride get it instead. Anyway, time will tell. I’m just looking forward to it actually sailing and reporting back a fair assessment. I’ve only sailed on Regent, so I am expecting a lot and I really hope they deliver.

I downloaded the app last week and uploaded passport information , added Live Photos and a credit card for my husband and I. I am all checked in now and when I log into the app (you must put your name and booking number in each time to log in) it just shows our cabin number and that we are checked in with a link to our boarding pass. There’s nothing else in there at this time. Perhaps once on board it will be more interactive, but for now, unless I’m missing something, it’s purely for checking in. You can not proceed with the check in without taking a Live Photo of yourself. I was not prepared to take a pic of myself and my husband was not around so I just took a photo of a recent photo of each of us and uploaded it. It does not allow you to access your photo library. That part was frustrating because you can not move on without it. I hope more features become available as time goes on. Restaurant and shore excursion information would be great. I forgot that it also has a countdown clock: 9 days: 7 hours: 55 minutes until I sail. That’s fun!

Thank you so much for posting the menus and other pictures since I’m not on Facebook. It looks amazing and I can’t wait until we sail on August 8. We leave in just under a week and all the recent stress seems to be worth what I’m seeing. I’m super excited!

Thank you! I had my TA book Sakura and Marble and there was no issue. I understand that you can book additional nights once on board, but only one night per restaurant before the cruise. We are not interested in pre booking Anthology.

Well I’ve paid for my shore excursions (per Explora’s request) and booked our dining reservations for our Aug. 8-15 sailing. I had checked in my husband and I over a month ago, received the printable bag tags etc., but my husband is still getting emails from EJ for him to check in. This has been, and continues to be, a very stressful situation that I feel I have no control over. I truly hope the Aug. 1 cruise sails and my cruise thereafter and we can report back that once on board the service and treatment far exceeded any of our expectations. I’m looking forward to be wowed and taken care of since it’s been a pretty miserable past few weeks and until that ship has left the Monfalcone dock, I will not be resting easy.

It’ showing still in Skagen on August 14, so yes we will see if they are changing the itinerary to Kiel. I don’t really care as long as it’s a go. Some possible positive news in that my TA was contacted by EJ today and they requested that I pay for my shore excursions. I’ve been waiting to pay for them since I wanted to understand the cancellation policy better, but have had them in my cart for a few weeks ready to purchase.

Interesting. Thanks for the information.

Thank you so much for posting. It seems like it’s going to be just a wait and see approach and continue to scour the internet for any news. I’ve been looking for days for any news to no avail. Thanks again!

We are also on the Aug. 8th - 15th sailing and we have heard nothing from Explora. I am beyond stressed with trying to make contingency plans if the new inaugural cruise dates get pushed. This is very challenging to do in Iceland with hotel availability being slim to none. I really don’t know what to do about my car rental (we have 4 nights hotels with car rental pre cruise already booked) or outbound flights to get to Copenhagen as we fly out of there on Aug 17th and have non refundable hotel rooms there post cruise. It’s really a shame that they have had no communication with those cruising in August/September. It’s been a week since they’ve decided to cancel the July 17th inaugural cruise and I feel an update would go a long way with easing some of the anxiety of not knowing what’s going to happen and just waiting for some news. This is definitely not how I want to be spending the weeks before a vacation. It sure does not feel luxurious in any way at this point.

I agree we probably won’t need reservations in the restaurants, but was just emailed last week that they are working out the kinks with the reservation system and it should be up and running by mid month. I’m not too concerned if it’s not as I don’t think a reservation will be necessary on my cruise. Please do let us know how it goes on the July 17th sailing. I can’t wait to hear what everyone thinks.

I was told dining reservations should be open around July 15th for my August 8, 2023 cruise.

It’s working fine for me too. You click on details and then under experiences, on the right hand side, click on the paper with pencil icon and the excursions being offered are there.

My bookings page is just spinning and will not load, so they must be doing work on their site. I have not had an issue with it before not loading or displaying the experiences.

I was able to get the current promotion on my booking in August 2023 with Diamond status, so thank you all again for posting about the loyalty matching program on MSC.

After reading through this topic I provided my Regent status to MSC and received Diamond status with about 72 hours. I’ve just emailed my TA asking her to request the promotion for Diamond status and I’m eager to hear if Explora will apply it to our Aug 8, 2023 booking. I started looking at Explora when they offered the 10% off for pay if full and when we decided to move forward with the cruise, they had brought this discount down to 5% so I was pretty upset about just missing out on a few hundred dollars off, so I will be extremely happy if I am able to get this promo or anything extra with it. I’m really exiting to try a brand new ship and I wanted to explore Iceland. Regent has gotten so expensive I can’t justify paying their fares. Anyway, I just wanted to say thank for for posting about the MSC loyalty matching program and I will report back if I’m successful in applying the promotion to my booked cruise in 2023.