peder

20 minutes ago, devonuk said:

The constant embarkation/disembarkation at each port with all of the relevant tannoy announcements etc. 

People often bring this up as a complaint with MSC, but this seems like the most minor possible thing? And in exchange, embarkation/debarkation tend to be much simpler, so that should should balance out the additional announcements, no?

20 minutes ago, devonuk said:

The having to listen to messages in all of the differing languages. 

I don't understand why this would be a complaint for a European line that serves customers in many different languages. In NYC, the Meraviglia currently does announcements in English and Mandarin, for instance, because they know there are a ton of Mandarin-speaking passengers, so they try to accommodate them. It seems like a very basic way to meet your customers where they are, and I think it's absurd to critique MSC for this.

Comparing the booking IDs between the two reservations, I assume?

Love to see MSC's commitment to the area, but I will repeat my concern that across different lines, there are a ton of ships all doing the same Cozumel, Costa Maya, Roatan itinerary, and there are not a ton of options for other itineraries.

Maybe we'll see MSC get creative and start sending to other ports outside of the Yucatan.

From MSC's perspective, I'm sure this button was "free", as in: the vendor already supported lookups for this and MSC simply needed a way to jump directly to it / add a form from their UI that found the correct URL to jump to on the vendor side.

But I would really like to see some web-based tools to change your stateroom within your current category and change your booking category. These tools are already available for travel agents, seems like it would be trivial to add these for end users.

1 hour ago, BookBikeBeyond123 said:

Wow thanks for sharing the data point! Did you buy the first one directly without the upgrading program? Do you need to pay for the full price diff to upgrade a Non yacht club to a yacht club onboard?

We had a YC grand deluxe suite on a Seashore sailing out of Genoa, added the 2nd on our first night onboard because they had a few available and it worked better for our group. I don't have numbers, but our sailing didn't seem completely full. I'm guessing they didn't get many bids for YC or the bids were too low and they rejected them, so there was apparently to no shortage of other YC cabins to offer us. But I don't think that's typical.

As far as cost, the YC concierge called someone for a price. The cost was about half what it would have cost if we had reserved the room ahead of time.

It was all a very manual process. Spoke volumes to me about how operations are handled in the ship vs off.

I've actually added a 2nd Yacht Club cabin once onboard ... my experience is that MSC will absolutely try to sell you something if they have something to sell.

Ooh, I want to know more about this. I've definitely seen reviews for YC cabins on the Seashore/Seascape sleeping 5, but in cabins that the Declan says only sleep 4. I'm really curious how/when MSC permits this.

I don't see why not. But I wouldn't presume there'd be availability of cabins.

I wonder if any users here have access to the Chinese WeChat and could check for any schedule info for the Bellissima and Splendida. Maybe there'd be more details available.

Definitely not that new of a policy. We ran into this early last year as well. I think it's a fair policy that prevents people from effectively having a hold/option on a cabin that they never intend to use, leaving certain cabins and cabin types available for those that do intend to use them.

I'm just perplexed by the currently scheduled dates. Is MSC selling / publicizing some sailings only within the Chinese market, so sites like Cruisemapper don't have data for those sailings?

It's all really weird. You never see gaps like that in a schedule, especially so close to the sail dates, and so soon after a dry dock.

4 hours ago, no1talks said:

We cannot go until I have retired and no longer have to worry about catching up at work after a long vacation. When that time comes, I hope MSC will still have cruises like this October one.

 

It's odd that Cruisemapper doesn't list that itinerary

I'm a bit surprised by this, because it looks like the Bellissima is selling well, I would have thought they'd have a bit more of a plan in place by now. Not much news about MSC out of the area, but I did see this article that's perhaps illuminating about the process that MSC follows in the area: https://www.portstrategy.com/ps-directory/taiwan-international-ports-corporation/homeport-cruise-season-kicks-off-at-keelung-with-dual-homeport-voyages-by-msc-bellissima/1490777.supplierarticle

> An understanding reached with MSC Cruises CEO Gianni Onorato to consider Taiwan for currently open routes led to the decision to open 30 cruise voyages (60 calls) for MSC Bellissima at Port of Keelung this year

It kinda reads like Taiwan made a push to bring MSC into the area more frequently, that it wasn't MSC leading that charge. So perhaps that means MSC is getting some sort of incentives to bring the Bellissima to Keelung more often? Overall just seems like MSC is still figuring things out in Asia.

17 hours ago, TrinaLC said:

I’ll agree wholeheartedly that MSC’s post-covid muster is substandard. 
 

What possible reason can there be for making everyone go to a muster station at the same time, only to be clocked in?

In a real emergency, this is how it would go. I appreciate that it seems like MSC is the only line that's trying to prepare passengers for what the actual experience might look like (i.e. elevators are down, there's a crush of people trying to board lifeboats, etc.).

On our last Aurea sailing, we had only shampoo, conditioner, and body wash.

Is this an issue with just your specific booking or is the cruise itself canceled?

What notice did you get from MSC?

Presumably the reason the Virtuosa canceled even this Barcelona-London cruise is because MSC is leaving the Middle East with a skeleton crew and won't rehire most of their staff until they reach London.

In the case of the Toscana, that April 15th sailing out of Barcelona will already be well into its new rotation. I think there's less likelihood that it is canceled.

I have only seen soft serve available one time, I just never seemed to be in the buffet when they were serving it.

My recommendation to everyone is to simply buy gelato from the several locations selling it. It's only a few bucks. Just go in assuming that if you want ice cream, it's going to be a few dollars a day extra.

Lots of reviews of these cabins on the Facebook groups (i.e. "MSC Euribia Forum" and "MSC Euribia Cruisers … Past, Present and Future")

Many reviewers of the aft aurea suites complaining about noise on deck 9 because a speaker vibrates against the room. But deck 10 and above are apparently not impacted by the sound from the Carousel Lounge.

I can't speak to the noise from the Marketplace Buffet.

I should clarify: our experience on both the Seashore and Seascape is that the kids were broken up by age, but there were just quite a few kids in an age group.

Any other cruises you could try? Costa has a sailing out of Palma that day. It's fairly to get from Barcelona to Palma.

Obviously you need another one-way flight in the mix but maybe that's the best way to salvage this trip?

It might be partially a function of space, but also probably staffing levels and even the whims of the kids-club director on a particular ship factor in.

Basically, I expect your mileage may vary. Best bet tho is to ask the schedule for the week and try to work around that.

Kinda the same, depending on the time of day. We dropped off our kids during a popular port stop, and our kids had the kids club to themselves and were able to play with legos and even got some prized time with the game consoles.

But during dinner and sea days they pretty much usher the kids around from group activity to group activity. I think it's the only way they can efficiently handle a larger number of kids.

You can follow the current Seashore cruise director on Instagram (@endrigo_martin).

He posts frequently on Facebook in the "MSC Seashore Cruisers … Past, Present and Future" group. Just recently posted the following: