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B_A_H

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Everything posted by B_A_H

  1. I'm going on the Poesia April 5 from Santos. I'll be entering Brazil on April 4. The visa requirement starts on April 10, the day before I leave the country. My question was more about what happens when you enter pre-visa but depart afterward. This answer from the Brazilian government website covers us both.
  2. 3 and 4 night weekend cruises are rough on any cruise line. They are full of locals and, yes, they are party cruises from boarding until disembarkation. And they always sail 100% full because if they aren't filling the cruise lines offer "local rates." Because they are cheap, let's just say they attract an eclectic crowd. Miami's God awful and Orlando's only marginally better for weekend cruises. The 3 and 4 night midweek cruises are less raucous because people have to take off work but are still rougher than a 7 day which costs more and requires even more time away. As someone said above, choosing dates when families aren't traveling can help. I was on a 4 night Meraviglia that departed Orlando on a Sunday about a year ago. The ship was about 2/3 full. I saw groups of people drunk off their asses by 10:00AM every day making spectacles of themselves at the pool area. As a percentage, they were a minority and because the ship wasn't full those folks didn't wreck everyone else's experience.
  3. First, no cruise line has to sell you a single cabin. As others mentioned, unless the cabin is purpose built for singles, one person sailing on a full ship where two people could have occupied the cabin is cutting the cruise line's onboard revenue in half. Second, MSC offers single discounts that can be quite generous. It depends on the sailing and how far in advance you book. I'm taking my MIL on the Seaside 10/1 7 day Caribbean and we have two balcony cabins that were $725 each plus port tax. BTW, that same sailing is now nearly fully booked and not accepting singles. So it's not outrageous that you can't book. You either picked an unavailable sailing or should have reserved earlier.
  4. You folks are funny. Alfredo's serving less food to fewer people is nothing but good for Princess. Those boycotting, you choosing not to eat something that costs Princess money and would have historically been free to you is an expense savings to Princess. Having the venue less crowded and more available to those willing to pay (or with a package) seems like a good thing for those people. Sounds like a win-win for Princess.
  5. That brings up an interesting question. What's the bigger issue to folks here: 1) that Princess changed their packages to include less at lower tiers and are charging a'la carte for things that used to be free?, or 2) that they didn't grandfather people in when they changed the packages? I ask because if Celebrity is saying All Inclusive is less inclusive starting for purchases after [insert date] that would be very different than saying for sailings beginning [insert date] even if someone's package included tips when they bought it. I'm guess it's the former because the latter is quite brazen. Although, they degraded Aqua Class with sailings effective [insert date] so I guess anything's possible. It's almost like the cruise lines have tasted blood and want more. They'll keep on squeezing until they see future bookings fall off. That happens on a delay so it'll be interesting what they do in response if they squeeze too hard. They are all riding high right now because travel is still chugging along and demand remains high. There are lots of dark economic clouds on the horizon though and if they cause demand to drop all of us aggrieved may have the last laugh after all.
  6. Celebrity just removed features from Aqua Class including for people under final payment. As you'd imagine the thread in their forum has hit six pages in twelve hours. The e-mail they sent guests said: "We sincerely apologize for any inconvenience or discomfort this might cause you." That's corporate speak for "because we can and you can go pound sand if you don't like it." These last minute degradations suck. But clearly demand is strong enough the cruise lines feel they can get away with it. If multiple cruise lines are doing the rest have no incentive not to follow.
  7. Amen. Like you, I get the principle thing. What I don't get is futilely beating something to death that can't be changed. I 100% agree Princess not grandfathering people in to the new programs was overtly hostile. But like you said, if someone's at the point in their booking that they can't cancel without penalty, letting these changes ruin a several thousand dollar vacation seems counterintuitive. Princess will make the same amount of money whether someone sails happy or miserable. For those aggrieved, retribution comes in never booking Princess again. If enough of you walk the talk maybe it'll send a message. But honestly, if there's enough new blood to replace you, Princess won't care. They clearly didn't care when they made the decision not to grandfather anyone in the first place.
  8. Nothing @caribill, absolutely nothing. Let me all give you some insight in to my cynicism. I work for one of the major hotel companies. I've lost track of the number of customer-unfriendly "enhancements" we've put in place since the pandemic. Each accompanying public communication is hollowly swathed in the benefit to the customer. Hard truth. There is no customer benefit. And the product and/or service degradation is solely to provide additional profit. Everything we degraded was then degraded by competitors. If a competitor degrading something first we quickly followed. The airlines, hotel companies, and cruise lines are coming out of a cycle in which they all lost billions. Demand has coming roaring back and they're recouping their losses. Maybe in a few years the dynamic will change as it has in past cycles. Then with less demand or too much supply suppliers will start offering benefits for competitive differentiation. That never works for long though because competitors match it. The good news is that the raising of the bar will benefit the market. Those of you harping on what customer service used to be like can just stop. It's gone, at least in the cycle we're in. This cycle is purely about money. And none of these customer-unfriendly decisions are made without clear knowledge of their negative impact to loyalty and customer service.
  9. I posted this in the now 26 page long angst thread. It was one of the five options I provided the castle storming villagers with. "Send a letter or letters to various decision makers at Princess sharing your displeasure. You'll receive a placating letter or phone call from a customer service rep in return but they aren't going to do anything for you. If they did something for you they'd have to do it for everybody and by not grandfathering everyone in to the new program Princess has already spoken." Hate to say I told you so, but I told you so. Princess isn't backing down and everyone's thrashing amongst themselves isn't going to change a thing. There's nothing anyone can say in this thread that's any different than what was said ad nauseum in the 26 page thread. There's only one next step (other than acceptance) now that Princess's position is clear. Lawyer up. If you pursue an individual legal action prepare to pay the legal fees upfront as no lawyer would take this on contingency. If it ends up a class action lawyers will make millions and you'll receive a $50 future cruise credit three years from now. Here are the five stages of grief: denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance. Most here seem stuck in anger and bargaining. My recommendation is getting to acceptance as quickly as you can because short of legal action (which won't solve the short term problem anyway) this is over.
  10. I'm taking my MIL on the Seaside in October and you made me feel better. I usually travel in YC. It sounds like you and I have similar viewpoints on people's behavior in public. What you described is about what I'm expecting. MSC Is weird because more than other cruise lines I've sailed the personality of an MSC cruise varies wildly depending on port of departure and length. I avoid MSC out of Miami and same thing for anything less than a week. I'm hoping October is tamer than your summer experience. More for my 82 year old MIL than for me. I did go on a 4 night Meraviglia out of Orlando in Aurea not that long ago and my reaction to the food was similar to yours. Good to hear that your food experience was positive. With all the new capacity, I sense MSC is actually trying to up their game where other cruise lines seem to constantly be looking for things to cut or to charge extra for. MSC has beautiful well maintained ships and if they just upgrade the food and experience they'd be able to price themselves much closer to their mainstream competitors. Personally, I'd be willing to pay them more if it cut back on the people-who've-never-worn-shoes crowd. I'm glad your family enjoyed the cruise.
  11. I actually find this thread immensely entertaining. I hope the merry marauders on this forum achieve whatever their goal is. However, I'd peg the odds of a grass roots uprising causing Princess to reverse their decision to be about the same as winning Powerball and here's why. Princess knew not grandfathering people in to the new packages would piss untold people off and did it anyway. The negative reaction being witnessed here is an anticipated byproduct of their decision. Does anyone truly believe Princess is so naïve they didn't anticipate backlash? I think we can all agree on one thing. Princess put money over goodwill. Heck, they even threw their own staff under the bus by forcing them to explain to "previous package" purchasers face-to-face that the free pizza they thought they were getting isn't free any longer. The villagers with pitchforks and torches will then take out their ire on the poor Filipino servers who had nothing to do with the decision and are victims themselves. Apparently, Princess isn't the benevolent God we thought they were. Your anger isn't with me, it's with Princess because they consciously made a customer unfriendly decision and there's nothing anyone here can do about it. I think it's that powerlessness that has people so upset. One parting comment. I browse the forums here for all the major cruise lines from time to time. There isn't a single one of them that isn't lit up because of customer-unfriendly decisions that are being made in the name of profit. As long as the economy remains robust and demand remains high things are going to get worse before they get better and the cruise lines will only become increasingly brazen.
  12. I booked two Bella guarantee balconies on the Seaside for October a couple of months ago. It was two separate reservations and I was assigned two Fantastica balconies near each other within 24 hours. If you booked directly with MSC, every time there's a change to your booking, whether you do it or they do it, it'll automatically send you an e-mail. If you booked via a travel agency they'll receive the e-mail and hopefully forward it to you. Mine didn't and I found out by seeing the cabins on the reservations on the website.
  13. So you're opting for option 5 I see. My comments were meant to be general and just highlighting the futility of a bunch of people in a forum beating each other and Princess up by restating the same grievances over and over for 25 pages when the outcome is already foregone. Carry on.
  14. Princess is going to do whatever they want with or without your and my feedback. Since you're determined not to let go, here are your choices: Send a letter or letters to various decision makers at Princess sharing your displeasure. You'll receive a placating letter or phone call from a customer service rep in return but they aren't going to do anything for you. If they did something for you they'd have to do it for everybody and by not grandfathering everyone in to the new program Princess has already spoken. Hire an attorney and either singularly or as part of a class sue Princess for misrepresentation. No self-respecting attorney would take this on contingency as an individual case and the amount you'd have to front makes the very idea preposterous vs. your claimed harm. If somehow this ended up a class action and Princess settled the attorneys would get millions and each of the class would receive enough for a DiGiorno frozen pizza. Ask Princess to cancel your reservation without penalty due to you feeling they changed the value equation of what you purchased. Has anyone actually tried this? I'd be curious as to Princess's position. Them refusing could add support for item #2 for those that want to go that way. Suck it up and move on. Enjoy whatever cruise or cruises you have already have booked and don't let the marginal cost of the changes affect your vacation. Then, vote with your wallet moving forward and don't book Princess again. If more people follow that course then Princess's ability to replace them with new blood that more than anything would get Princess's attention. Continue ranting and raving amongst yourselves here for another 23 pages which won't change anything.
  15. Of course you do. That would be pretty crappy. I'll withhold judgement on drinking between 10-15 drinks per day. 😉 But you have three choices: 1) wear your grievance as a badge of honor, 2) accept what happened and move on, or 3) knowing Princess's behavior leaves you vulnerable to a change like that choose not to book with them. In general, when you look at the total cost of a cruise vacation these days, paying the nominal amounts for what used to be be free adds single digit percentages to the total cost. Is it right or fair? No. Can anyone whose run this thread to 23 pages change that? Also no. There's an old saying. "Would you rather be right or rather be happy?" I wouldn't let these changes ruin my cruise nor harbor bitter resentment because they occurred. YMMV.
  16. That's a separate issue actually. And one that was self-created by Princess. They could have easily just grandfathered in all those on previous packages. It would have been easier technically and a ton easier on the onboard staff. Why they did it is pretty clear. $$$. I guess goodwill took a back seat to more revenue. But that in itself should put to bed the discussions about what loyalty is really worth today. At least to Princess. Looking more broadly, all the mainstream cruise lines are charging for what used to be included, reducing what's provided in quality and/or quantity, jiggering packages to generate more revenue, and charging more for everything. With the exception of MSC, all the big cruise lines are public companies and their financials are shared and measured broadly. Those that aren't doing what I shared will have to just so that their profit margins remain competitive. Surrender Dorothy. The witch won. 😉
  17. 21 pages in 4 days - impressive. I haven't sailed on Princess in ages but just booked the Sky out of Port Everglades for 1/27. Yes, even after the horror of Princess's changes that have everyone's panties in a bunch. Looking at the forest through the trees, you have to research cruises now based on total value. Meaning, add everything (including the package upcharges) together and compare them. In my case, Princess was the cheapest between the Sky and Celebrity Apex and surprising close to the MSC Seashore for near identical cruises sailing the same day out of South Florida. I don't do RCI, I'm not partial to HAL, and I'd rather chew off an arm then sail Carnival so those were my choices for a 7 day Caribbean. An inside cabin on the Sky with Premier for two people including port tax is $2,967. The Apex with Always Included would have cost $3,409 and the Seascape with drinks and Wi-Fi would be $2,038. Let's compare. On the Sky, the drink package is at the highest level. On Celebrity and especially MSC you'd have to buy up to get the higher tier. On Celebrity that would be $420 and on MSC it would be $336. MSC is actually higher than it seems because their premium level only covers 75% of what Princess and Celebrity consider premium so you're likely to have to pay the difference plus gratuity for better wines and liquor brands. Premium Wi-Fi on Princess includes 4 devices per person at the highest level of bandwidth. Celebrity and MSC include one per person at the lowest level. The buy up on Celebrity is $210.00 and it's $70.00 on MSC but on MSC it's per device and once a device is activated it can't be switched to another device forcing people to pay double for two devices. Gratuities aren't included on MSC and that's $196 additional. Premier includes two specialty dining meals which adds $216 on Celebrity and $180 on MSC. Final tally apples to apples = Princess $2,967, Celebrity $4,255, and MSC $2,820. And that doesn't factor in some of the other Premier benefits not available on the other two lines. Before everyone attacks me, I know this is far from scientific; it's meant as a single example. But for better or worse, it's what is necessary now to compare different cruises. Maybe that's the point. 😉 I also know that people most impacted by Princess's changes are those that sail bare bones and buy what they consume on board a'la carte. But as discussed throughout this thread, the cruise lines don't care about you anymore. With demand as high as it is there's plenty of new blood willing to pay big bucks for an all inclusive experience. On that, all inclusive is the hottest segment in the hotel industry with the three big brands falling all over themselves to buy or build all inclusive properties. So for you bare bones folks it's only going to get worse. The times they are a changing.
  18. Let me give you a current example. I booked a YC cabin on the Seaside out of Civitavecchia for October on the MSC Italy site. First up, a 60 euro insurance policy is mandatory. The deposit was 25% on the Italy site and all but 100 euro is refundable even in YC if you cancel 90 days out. I decided to take my MIL on a cruise in October on the Seaside out of Port Canaveral instead. I called MSC Italy to cancel the Seaview and it was no problem at all. Four weeks later I got a strange e-mail asking for my banking information to receive the refund. They don't refund to credit cards. Problem is they use IBAN in the EU vs. SWIFT in the U.S. and being in the U.S. I can't provide them IBAN information to receive a refund. I'll end up having to book another cruise on the Italy site and have the refund I'm due applied to that. When things go routinely booking via other countries is no problem. Changes, revisions, and cancels are a problem and you're bound by the contract and terms of the country you're booking in. Caveat emptor.
  19. I've done it but it's not without challenges and not for the feint of heart. You're bound by the terms of the country whose site you book on. I'd suggest you read them carefully because the cancel policies are different and even with just a deposit applied you may find yourself responsible for more than that. In addition, all support for your booking has to be done by calling that country's call center. A booking made in one country can't even be viewed by agents in a different country. If all goes well from booking to cruising it doesn't matter that you booked in another country. If you have any issues getting them resolved will be costly, frustrating and a huge consumer of your time. BTW, to book on another country's site you can only use an address in that country - it's hard coded. So unless you coincidentally have a real address to use in that country the information you'd be entering would be intentionally false.
  20. If I hear the word "interloper" one more time, I'm going to scream. Whether anyone realizes it or not, YC makes up 15% of MSC's available cabins. Yet. Every thread in this forum is somehow commandeered to a discussion of the YC. I sail YC as well. But I'm also conscious of the fact that 85% of the people using this forum don't or won't. I talk YC when I'm in a YC oriented thread. Otherwise, I don't because it doesn't affect the vast number of people reading it. Words to live by.
  21. Good lord. Everyone's making it sound as if the ship was in danger of sinking. This wasn't an emergency. Let's recap and this is common to all three ships affected that day: Ships arrived hours late through nothing the cruise lines could control. Passengers arriving at their embarkation times caused a huge back up in the cruise terminals because there was no flow of moving passengers because no one could board. The event that caused this was of an unknown duration which hampered planning and communication. Inbound passengers that arrived late exited in to the already over crowded terminal where departing passengers were backed up. Many also probably missed their flights and most likely had to overnight at their own expense due to later flights already being full. Departing passengers basically had the first day and night of their cruise vacations ruined. Eventually, everyone got off that needed to and everyone leaving boarded and departed. Unless I'm missing something, that's the story. No one on any of the three cruise lines didn't have a horrible experience that day. Only degrees of more or less horrible.
  22. Lots to unpack. Let's start with communication. Until the scene of the pleasure boat fatality was documented and cleared, what was there to say? As far as I know, there's not a prescribed time frame for dealing with such an incident. So any times provided by the Coast Guard or port were bound to be pretty vague and subject to change. That's not any of the cruise line's fault. Would @PharmacyRx have been happier with multiple updates that all ended up being pushed wrong? Anything any of the cruise lines said regarding timing was all based on being provided with the same information. It was a great idea by Carnival to bus there passengers to Bayside Marketplace to get them away from the pier. Personally, rather than being one of thousands waiting my turn to get on a 52 passenger bus I'd have gotten away from the pier on my own and at my expense. MSC is screwed at PortMiami until their new private terminal opens. Terminal C is way too small for a 5,000 passenger ship on a good day. Add the drama of what happened and I'm sure it was pure chaos. Again, with limited public areas at Terminal C, MSC drew the short straw. I was on the Divina in January and we used Terminal D and there was plenty of public area available. So I guess MSC has a choice. Do the best they can with random terminal assignments until their private terminal is complete or abandon sailing out of Miami. You all can debate among yourselves your opinion of what they should do. There are a lot of really frequent cruisers on this forum. How many times has something like this happened to you? I'm asking because everyone's freaking out over a 1:10,000 (guess) incident. I've been on dozens of cruises and, knock on wood, I've never arrived late. I've had two unusual arrival incidents that are kind of in the same league as this one. Once, I arrived in New Orleans at 8:00PM on Disney the night before we were due to dock because of a medical emergency but early (with overnight accommodation on the ship) wasn't a hardship. The second was being trapped on the Liberty of Seas due to hurricane Harvey which required a four day detour to Miami before we could return back to Galveston, our scheduled arrival port. I chalk that up to force majeure and the size of the ship precluding docking in New Orleans which Carnival did. RCI couldn't have handled the situation any worse, made the news because of it, and actually got slapped with a class action lawsuit. How many of you even remember that and do you think it affects RCI today? Keep that in mind when you're "never againing" MSC. Here's what I would have done had this happened to me. Obviously, the time to turn a ship can only be compressed so much. I'd have gone on my own to a full service hotel near the port and had lunch and possibly dinner as well. I'd use the hotel facilities until it was time to go back to the ship. Under the circumstances, I'd have wanted to be one of the last on vs. the first. Adding no less than six hours to the actual ship arrival time for turn around activities to be completed, and without a word from MSC, I'd have been pretty close to the optimal time to show up for boarding. It's not like they were going to turn the ship in 90 minutes and I'd miss it. And if anyone noticed, all the ships arrived about the same time and departed about the same time as well. Travel post-pandemic sucks be it land, sea, or air. Travel providers are short staffed and customer service suffers because of it; especially in unusual situations. Either suck it up buttercup or don't travel if you don't want to deal with the occasional drama.
  23. Then either: A) there's nothing available for the filters you're applying, or B) you aren't doing it right. What's displayed is availability based on one person in the cabin. MSC blocks single occupancy on many sailings so "nothing available" could be a valid response. Just to recap, all anyone's doing is changing the "2" (default) preceding the percentage sign with a "1."
  24. Here's a shortcut to find single availability and pricing. After make an initial availability request, change what's show from 2 to 1.
  25. So this is new. I'm booked on the Seaside October 1 and when you select purchase for the Four Dining Experiences package this pops up. I've never seen it before. But in typical MSC fashion, no matter what date or time I select it says "There's no availability for the selected option." You also can't get past Kaito Sushi without selecting an option so basically you can't buy the package online at all. Has anyone else seen this or actually been able to select times for all four options in order to get to the "Add to my cruise" button? I think it's fantastic MSC is offering the ability to pre-select specialty dining times but I'd be even more impressed it worked.
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