Cooper30

Enjoy your cruise!! We're about as blue collar/budget conscious as you can get.....We've spent decades "living like no one else so we can live like no one else", and we are extremely frugal. Cruising is our escape from real life, and we count pennies to be able to do it. We discovered cruising in 2019 when our youngest moved out. Most of our bookings have been of the "let the cruise line pick your room" type. 9 out of 10 times, we're staying in an inside cabin. We took our first MSC cruise back in January (on Divina) and were in a gen pop balcony (thanks to a successful upgrade bid). We had a wonderful time and felt the experience was no better or worse than our usual experience on the other mass market cruise line we've always been on. Price was definitely the driving factor for our trying MSC. We are always looking at cruise line websites for hot deals, but we've found booking as soon as itineraries are released to be the cheapest way to go. We have a 7-night northern Europe cruise on Preziosa in Yacht Club this October. We booked in November, 2022. It's a smoking deal....and I mean unbelievable..$2.2k total. We originally booked a YC Interior on Euribia (before she launched) based on the itinerary and when the ship was changed, we were put in a balcony since Preziosa has no YC Interiors. If we had booked a Bella Interior, we would have been paying less than $600 total, but we decided we had enough time to earn the $$ to splurge a bit. We are aware that this YC cruise on Preziosa will be a one-off for us. As a matter of fact, we have another MSC cruise booked for May 2025. It's a plain old interior on Divina going to Greece and Turkey from Italy.

We are newbie travelers in our mid-50s and our first visit to Europe was last October on Explorer. We went from Ravenna to Civitavecchia via Croatia and Greece, as well as a couple stops in Italy. Definitely arrive at least a few days early and definitely get good travel insurance. Our flight from the US connected in Lisbon and the connecting flight was canceled. We ended up with a night in Lisbon courtesy of the airline. Knowing we had travel insurance coverage for the missed night in Venice allowed us to not stress and enjoy Lisbon. Flying in 4 days early meant we were not the least bit worried about missing the ship due to a canceled flight. Another tip: Pace yourselves and be realistic in your expectations (as far as what you do in the ports). We were on a 7-night cruise with a port every single day. By the last port (Naples), we were exhausted and decided to find a hop on/hop off bus rather than drag ourselves to Herculaneum. It turned out to be a good decision, and we already have another trip planned to go back to Naples so we can go to Herculaneum (and Pompeii). Bottom line is there is just too much to see and do in one day at any port, so don't even try....just go back and visit again 🙂 We did not use any ship excursions. Since we are both healthy and can walk, we did a ton of pre-cruise research (You Tube is a great resource) and explored all of the ports on our own. We have no regrets about going out on our own, and we are doing the same thing on our cruise to northern Europe this coming October.

Thank you for the advice. Much appreciated!!

Every time I see things about pier runners, I’m reminded of the time we watched a dozen or so people straggling back late to the ship in Falmouth, Jamaica. Seemed like the whole ship was yelling crap at them. Turns out it was a Royal Caribbean excursion…..and there was a deadly accident right in front of the bus carrying the people back to the ship that closed the whole road, causing the bus to be late getting back to the port. One of the woman on the excursion had become friendly with my wife earlier in the cruise. She was an RN who had to help at the scene and was clearly traumatized. Some of the things being yelled from balconies and the pool deck were horrible.

Only the person booking a guaranteed cabin can say whether it’s a good idea to them or not. Guarantees are a good idea for us because we book them when we absolutely do not care where our cabin is located.

Excellent information. Thank you for sharing.

D+ is in sight for us even though we’re “cheating” on Royal a bit. 😁 We’re looking forward to the same things.

Thank you. This looks like a cheaper way to go.

We dipped our toes in MSC on Divina out of Miami back in January….Fantastica “experience”. Some things were better than RC, but some weren’t. We had a good time and would do it all over again. All things being equal (including price), we would go with Royal. We are Inside Guarantee people most of the time, so our budget is on the low end, and even down there, MSC’s Fantastica experience beats Royals GTY most of the time. We have five cruises booked through January 2026….three with Royal and two with MSC.

Yea, I guess the driving part isn't really that big of a deal other than normal paying attention to local laws. Thank you

This may be unrealistic, but I'm curious of people's opinions, positive or negative. This coming October, my wife and I are on a 7-night MSC Preziosa cruise out of Southampton that stops in Hamburg. Has anyone traveled from Hamburg to Kiel, more specifically the Laboe Naval Memorial/U-995 Museum? I am kicking around the idea of renting a car for the day like we are in Le Havre (in order to travel to Omaha Beach on our own). Our time in Hamburg is 0700-2100 on a Sunday, and a quick look at Google Maps puts the travel time as 1 hour 30 minutes each way. Additionally, any thoughts on an American driving in Germany? I'm not concerned about France as I can limp along in French well enough, but I am not familiar with the German language whatsoever. I'm sure I can learn the very basics, but I will never feel as comfortable as I do with French (and Italian). Thank you for your time.

You gotta pick your cruise dates carefully if you don't want to be inundated with kids on a family cruise line. We were on Anthem 2/17-2/25. It was pretty much all extended families, ours included. As mentioned a few times, it was school vacation week in quite a lot of the northeast. Since our daughter in law is a school teacher, it was the only week we could realistically take them this winter. We even paid more for the "privilege" of cruising during this week, and we'd do it all over again. We knew going in that this was a cruise for our son, dil, and granddaughters, not us. People were pleasant, and we had a great week.

My small sampling of booking GTY cabins leads me to believe it’s not an issue. Three out of our five upcoming cruises booked with RC are GTYs. We only choose when it’s on a bucket list itinerary, and at that point we’re willing to spend a bit more to get an aft cabin.

sorry for the delay. I got busy and forgot. here’s the post I made https://boards.cruisecritic.com/topic/2985244-can-anyone-help-with-advice-for-travelling-venice-to-ravenna-via-train/?do=findComment&comment=66759026

My wife tried logging in two days ago and got the wrong country error. This was the first time she had tried logging in since using the app on our recent cruise. She copied and pasted the email I sent, inserted her name and Voyager number, and less than 24 hours later was able to log in to her account online.

I just received this e-mail. I am able to log into my account now. I first contacted MSC this last Sunday evening. “Thank you for contacting the MSC Voyagers Club. We have updated the country on your Voyager account to reflect USA. If the error persists, please do not hesitate to contact the Voyager Club helpdesk. Should you require additional assistance please feel free to contact our contact center at 1877.665.4655 Best Regards, James MSC Voyagers club MSC Cruises (USA) Inc. 6750 North Andrews Avenue, Suite 100 Fort Lauderdale, FL 33309 877-665-4655”

I’m at work now and my break is almost over, but somewhere in the past month I posted how my wife and I went from Venice to Ravenna last October. I'm not sure if it’s on this board or the Italy one. when I get home from work and can get on my desktop (rather than phone), I’ll look for it and post a link if you can’t find it.

I had no problems logging in online until I checked my wife and I in for our cruise last week via the app My wife had no issues accessing her account online until she downloaded the app and logged in when we boarded.

We went to Europe for the first time last fall. We were stressing over the best way to get Euros and decided to call our credit union. They told us to just use a bank atm in Europe. I forget what the actual fee was, but I remember my wife (who counts every penny) being surprised at how small the fee actually was. It was less than if we had gone another route. Obviously everyone has different circumstances with regards to banks/credit unions/etc, but this worked very well for us. When we got to our B&B, we asked the host where to find an atm. He showed us where the one at his bank was and we used that. He told us the key thing to remember was to use an actual bank atm, not a third party one because they charge more fees. Edit: I did see you're on a Miami to Barcelona cruise and not able to access a European atm prior to boarding. You could always find a bank atm at your first port call in the EU.

The pictures in the Amazon link you posted show the luggage tag holders with printed tags in them for display purposes. The various things on the printed tags help luggage handlers get your luggage to the correct part of the ship and then to the hallway outside of your cabin. The luggage tags for your specific cruise will become available when you get close to your cruise, and you can print them at home (or work 🤷‍♂️) You will receive empty tag holders (heavy duty plastic with a ziploc type closure) and small steel cables with a threaded barrel closure. When your luggage tags are available to print, you print them and insert them into the holders. This is a more secure way of attaching the luggage tags to your bags as opposed to folding the printed paper then stapling or taping the ends together. We use holders and like them, however they are not necessary. Every cruise, hundreds and hundreds of bags use the fold and staple/tape method and are just fine.

I got home from ours last night and sent an email to that address. Now we wait.

This happened to me after I checked in to our cruise using the app. It doesn’t matter what browser or device I use, I get the wrong country message. I’ve read where some people have emailed MSC and eventually had it fixed. I’m just going to wait until the cruise I checked in for is over and worry about it then. From what I can tell (through my limited research), the app and website don’t play well together.

Since I haven’t cruised those itineraries yet, I can only address your last sentence. You haven’t lost your mind at all. We took our kids all kinds of places that people thought would be difficult….and we enjoyed ourselves. Adjust your expectations and understand that she will dictate what you do every day. Don’t try to do long excursions regardless of itinerary. No rigid plans…you always need an exit strategy to get to a place where you can stop and let your child be comfortable. Sometimes you just have to stop where you are and appreciate the moment. We never went on a cruise until our youngest was 19, but we did all kinds of “crazy” things with our three boys. For example, when the youngest was 10 months old, I took him on a 9 day canoe trip on the Allagash River in northern Maine. My wife stayed home with his two older brothers. I had a really good time and would do it again….well….not now that I’m in my mid 50s, but I would certainly do it again if I was 30. We are taking our middle son, daughter in law, and our two granddaughters on Anthem next month. They will be 9 months and 3 years old (granddaughters, not son/dil). We have no hard plans other than enjoying the time together.

Agreed. We sail in a week and have hard copies of everything. I have confidence that everything will be fine when we board. I never had website issues until I started inputting information via the app. My wife has not used the app and has no problems logging in to her account via the MSC website.

We just did this back in October for a Royal Caribbean cruise. We flew into Venice - Marco Polo International Airport, spent a couple nights in Venice, then took the train from Venice to Ravenna, and spent a night there before our cruise. The only thing we would have done differently is spent more time in Ravenna. It is an amazing city. There are two train stations in Venice... Mestre, which is on the mainland, and Santa Lucia which is on the main island, right near Piazzale Roma, which is where the road ends. Since we stayed in Venice proper, we caught the train at the Santa Lucia station. We took a high speed train (Italo) from there to Ferrara, then took a regional train (Trenitalia) from Ferrara to Ravenna. The train change at Ferrara was very easy as there are only six tracks there. Seats are assigned on the high speed train but not on the regional. We had no problems with luggage. There were overhead compartments on the high speed and plenty of space on the regional. As a matter of fact, we met another cruising couple at the Ferrara Station who had twice as much luggage as we had, and they had no issues with their bags. We purchased our Italo high speed rail tickets (Venice --> Ferrara) at the self service machine in the Venice station. For the Trenitalia regional train (Ferrara --> Ravenna), we purchased tickets via the Trenitalia app that we downloaded to our phones. Here's what I would do if I was going straight from the airport to Ravenna. From the airport to Venezia Mestre Station either bus or taxi. Taxi would be the easiest. From Venezia Mestre, take the train to Ferrara (either Italo or Trenitalia). Change trains in Ferrara for the regional train to Ravenna (Trenitalia) To get from Ravenna station to your accomodations, you could see what is recommended by the host/proprietor. We walked to our B&B (15-16 minutes). We could have taken a city bus, but we wanted to walk through the city. We didn't see many taxis around the train station, and our B&B host told us there weren't many around in general. To get from Ravenna to Porto Corsini (to board the ship), we arranged a ride through our B&B host. The cost was 40 €. There was a shuttle from the train station to the port on the day of the cruise offered by Royal Caribbean. While I cannot remember the exact amount, it was cheaper than we paid, but it was nice to have a private car take us there. It was an easy ride. Some thoughts on navigating that area of Italy....English is everywhere. Even the signs in the train stations had English on them. I spent over a year learning enough basic Italian to be understood and understand people. In Venice, no one wanted to speak Italian to me when they found out we were American. It was pretty much all English, all the time. I suspect they just wanted to get the transaction (with yet another tourist) finished as quickly as possible. Once we got away from Venice, people were more inclined to speak to me in Italian.