peder

They might say everything is great and they're changing nothing, then suddenly announce a bunch of changes. They just probably don't want to announce things before they are ready to roll them out.

But also, yes, they're probably still largely content with their product launch and may not be aiming to make large changes just yet.

Sure, but the fossil market is already captured. Explora's cost of customer acquisition is going to be highest with the fossils.

MSC knew before even entering the market that they'd need to find ways to carve out new segments / differentiate themselves, because the market is a very crowded oligopoly that has many substitutes (like Four Seasons on land).

This has been hit-or-miss for years. Depends entirely on your cabin stew and how much they'll go out of their way to help, is my understanding.

Maybe try to find a deckhand that openly discusses how much they hate MSC and ask them to bring one down for you 😅

3 hours ago, Pat said:

It seems like it is almost impossible to avoid a "spring break" now.  The states are all doing their breaks at different times.  It used to be okay to sail in March because the Elementary, middle and high schools were on break in February and April and the colleges were on break in April........now it doesn't seem to matter what week I pick in March or April,  some schools are on break.    

School districts stagger breaks throughout the entire Jan-Apr period.
 

And also, more and more parents will take their kids out of school without worrying about missed days.

jockstock isn't really resurrecting an old thread... it's a rolling list of bizarre issues about MSC.

What ship and itinerary?

Will be in the Il Campo Aurea restaurant space that has been underutilized?

5 minutes ago, jean87510 said:

Oh come on.  3-4x a day your room was cleaned?  Surely you jest.

When we sailed on the Seascape we had an amazing cabin steward that was by our cabin several times each day. Very hard worker, always checking in. And not heavy cleaning, of course, but if we stopped in quick to get the kids a quick shower and outfit change after pool time, hit the buffet, then come back a short while later, we'd find that the room had been tidied in between.

So I don't think that level of service is a total anomaly.

25 minutes ago, Two Wheels Only said:

 

There's also wide with walk-in closet. 😉

 

Some DGS sleep 4 and some sleep 5. 19002 is also one of a kind. 

I'll get it done, eventually. 

Yep, I caveated my post by saying that exceptions do exist like 19025 and 19028 🙂

To avoid heartbreak by getting the wrong cabin, best to just get a Royal Suite or Owner's Suite 😉

From my understanding, there are basically (though a couple exceptions do exist) two Seashore / Seascape YC Grand Deluxe cabin configurations: skinny with a walk-in closet and wide with extra living space (they're more akin to the Fantasia-class Grand Deluxe cabins). Mostly these are differentiated by deck.

Even if it's just 1 meal out out however many for the week, that's such a weak offering that's not uncommon for MSC. They shouldn't even bother putting that on the menu IMO.

Could be the last sail date for the crew, who all might be eager to head home

Regardless of budget, what would folks recommend for a family of 5 on the Fantasia-class ships?

I know that the Divina and Preziosa, for instance, have connecting YC Executive & Family Suites, sleeping up to 8, which would be a great option if we were looking at itineraries on either of those ships. I don't believe there are any YC or Aurea connecting suites on the Splendida or Fantasia?

For the Splendida specifically, if you were booking for a family of 5 with 3 young kids, what cabin would you book?

I'm interested in the cruises leaving from Hamburg because the ship comes so far inland on the Elbe. I'd love to know if there are any other sailings that come far inland. Maybe on the St Lawrence?

Our experience on sea days on the Seascape was that it was quite busy. We sailed in February on a very full ship, and everyone wanted to be outside enjoying the unseasonably great weather. So it probably depends on how full the ship is and how the weather is.

There were some posts about the Starlink rollout on the Euribia, and folks were consistently getting great speeds with low latency throughout most of the ship. There's always a chance that you'll have issues with VPN, but on other MSC ships I've personally not run into any issues with my company's VPN.

There is a "business centre", but I believe it's more of a conference room that's used for larger meetings:

Per CruiseMapper: "Business Centre (size 721 ft2 / 67 m2, Conference Hall / Meeting Rooms)"

And per CruiseDeckPlans, it looks like this (https://www.cruisedeckplans.com/ships/shiptour.php?r=13192😞

And per the MSC official ship tour video, it looks like this (https://youtu.be/RF6bqeKUZBo?si=BFBKX8yKnMgrI7o6&t=780

Likely the difference between the CruiseDeckPlans photo and the MSC photo is that they are different rooms, because the second photo here is clearly has a window whereas the other is in an interior space. Neither appears to have a printer or really any space for someone to work for a while. They're just meeting spaces, probably used most often by the crew.

Curious if anyone here has sailed on MSC and can compare the Sun Princess Enclave to the MSC Aurea Spas on their newer ships. Maybe no ice room? No salt room? But otherwise a couple differnet type of steam rooms?

How crowded has the Enclave been?

And maybe not even prematurely. They might just list even the ships that are optioned: MSC might be reserving/holding an option to use those dates in case they want to position the Bellissima there.

Why specifically is the Preziosa considered great but nobody seems to mention the Divina/Splendida/Fantasia in the same way?

2 hours ago, JamieLogical said:

I don't really ever watch TV on a cruise, so the lack of channels hasn't bothered me. The one caveat to that is that I watch all of the Bills games during NFL season and I am happy to report that MSC has every single NFL game available on a different channel in your stateroom, so I have never had any problem catching a Bills game. Wish the same could be said for Princess, where I ended up missing two Bills games on a 15-day cruise. 😭

Just FYI for anyone reading this thread, do not assume that a non-American sailing will have NFL games. We've done Western Europe and Japan sailings that had very limited English-language programming. Not unexpected, but our TV was effectively just a piece of wall decor.

29 minutes ago, muttley said:

MSC is a much better value but they do take even more shortcuts than the other lines.

It's like MSC started without any preconceived notions of what should be available on a cruise line and approached the entire concept differently. I guess if you don't overstock wine or spirits, you are less likely to dump out half-finished bottles at the end of a sailing. If you don't overstock, you need less storage space overall. And most customers must not care about getting specific brands at the bars or must not care about having a ton of TV channels because MSC has no trouble filling their ships despite some peculiarities. And that extra scrutiny on unnecessary cost allows MSC to be a price leader.

Definitely Riviera during the winter months, but summertime they might have some other plans.

No Bellissima on the Alaska cruise schedules for 2025 yet, but I'm not sure if that's finalized: https://claalaska.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/All-Alaska-Ports-All-Vessels-2025.pdf

Would the Bellissima do something else on the west coast besides Alaska?

And an Alaska route probably depends on Russia sanctions?

Probably depends on how far south they start the trip. NCL has done routes like this between Tokyo and the West Coast: