New2Cruise76

You'll be able to book both show times and specialty dining once on board. Have a great cruise!

Great pictures! Please tell me you "took care" of the Spotted Laternfly in the 13th image, very destructive and invasive species.

It appears to have cleared up. Both app and web are working correctly, and no iframe errors in the console.

Same issue for me. The only way I could even post a reply is by inspecting the page and deleting the modal container.

For the moderators: It looks like there's a couple of console warnings about the iframes running outside of the sandbox environment.

Well, I've sent an email to them to get a better understanding of what's included. For all I know, they may be including DSC in that rate. If that's the case, it changes the whole dynamic.

On a completely unrelated note, my youngest mad a new island in Animal Crossing and named it Ocean Cay. I think she's excited for the cruise.

Ill keep you all updated on what I hear.

57 minutes ago, Sundiego said:

Also, in addition to the Voyager's discount, make sure you get the 10% military if you qualify for that.

So, thIs is an interesting one. I did serve in the Naval Reserves, but only for 2-3 years. For complicated reasons, I seperated early. We're going through the file cabinet to try and find my discharge paperwork, but to hedge my bets, I've also requested a new copy of my DD214.

I know that the discharge status was "General Discharge Under Honorable Circumstances", so it was nothing bad surrounding my discharge. I honestly haven't touched my paperwork in close to 20 years, because I didn't need to use any possibly available benefits and I also didn't feel right using benefits that rightfully should go to those who put their lives on the line, and not some dude who sat in an overglorified classroom once a month for a few years. I guess I'm ok with saving 10% on a cruise though, guess we know where my line in the sand is, lol.

Good point, @Best Cat Mom, I haven't spoke to them yet, payday is tomorrow, so that's when I was planning on booking. I'll reach out to them to verify I'm not missing something.

Oh, and Happy Thanksgiving everyone!! We celebrated yesterday, since my eldest is staying at their friends cabin over the weekend, and I completely forgot.

@bundtkate good thought, i decided to take it to the final screen where you input credit card information, and the price listed (for the three person, 10378). So, yeah, I still as stumped as before.

Like I said, I may be cheap, but I'm more then willing to spend a little more to reduce headaches down the road. I mean, technically the TA is giving ~10% in OBC, they're just also charging me ~10% more, lol.

4 hours ago, Mark_T said:

Are you sure that your Voyager discount has been deducted from the TA price you are comparing?

10 hours ago, Av8tor said:

Ive never had to pay travel agent MORE for a cruise than booking direct.  With the OBC the TAs offer it's usually significantly less...  Perhaps you should check for other TAs

@Mark_T I'm not sure if the VC discount is being applied by the TA, but I did supply when requesting the quote. I honestly don't get much from VC, since I've never cruised before, and I matched my blue level from from Carnival for Classic at MSC, still gives me the 5+5, which is what I was hoing for.

I think it might make things easier if I include what I'm being quoted from the TA as well as MSC

Quote from TA:

MSC price for 10378:

and for 10382

also. I just realized that MSC also includes $50 OBC per cabin which I guess makes the TA deal less attractive.

Like I said, I'm completely clueless when it comes to TAs. We almost never fly, and have never flown for a vacation, never taken a cruise or went to an AI, so I'm really moving out of my comfort zone. I really don't know how to find a good TA, and know this isn't the place to ask for recommendations, lol. It's made even more difficult, since it seems that most TAs don't have a lot of desire to work with MSC. There was a second quote provided from another TA, which doesn't include which cabins, just the class, which makes me nervous, also the one that's in the screenshot was much more well reviewed on multiple sites.

I think you all have convinced me. Running the numbers, it's only $15 more then booking direct, after deducting the OBC. It's also a plus that this is basically a backdoor way of prepaying the DSC, which will make this an even more all inclusive vacation, which is really appealing to me. 

I'm a pretty cheap guy, so I'm always trying to save money where I can, so I can spend it somewhere tangible. In this case, it does seem like it would be penny wise, pound foolish to not go the TA route. Hopefully this will start a business relationship with a TA that can pay off in the long term.

Thanks again for helping this newbie cruiser!

Hey all, me again! I'm closing in on booking our cruise on the Meraviglia in June, and I once again have questions.

I want to preface this by saying I'm not asking for recommendations. What I'm trying to figure out what exactly is the point of going through a travel agent? I know it provides a layer of insulation from the infamous MSC shoreside customer service, but looking at a highly recommended site that compares TAs, every result I'm seeing is at least slightly higher after deducting the OBC provided by the TA compared to booking through MSC direct.

I'll be the first to admit that I'm new to using a TA and don't have a clue. I know I can use the OBC to cover the DSC and have a little left over for on board spending, but is that the only reason to go through a TA?

I've planned out this trip pretty thoroughly, and I don't foresee any reason to alter the booking after I make it, so it's doubtful that I'm going to end up in the repricing nightmare many go through.

I just want to know if there is some other intangible benefit that I'm not seeing?

1 hour ago, dexddd said:

OP, why don't you and DW try a short trip by yourselves to see?  You can probably snag a trip for two around$1,000.

 

We just got off Mera and have been four times.  No rowdy crowds.  I will say from a lights and glass perspective, it is similar to being in Las Vegas.

 

There is a sport court, race cars, bowling, other games.

Funny, we actually talked about that, but PTO is hard to come by where I work. There would also be challenges with child care. But those could be worked around. So we decided to just do a family vacation.

Honestly, I'm an overplanner and worry far more than I should. In the grand scheme of things, we're going to have fun and make a ton of new memories, and it won't matter one bit which cruise line we go with. It'll still be fun.

1 minute ago, Itchy&Scratchy said:

 

We are trying MSC for the first time in 10 days (yay!), and from what I've gathered so far, the crowding issue is serious on their ships due to design. We never felt crowded on RCI or Princess ships even on full sailings (and they are always full when we sail), but MSC is different. Might be an issue for someone on a spectrum

Yeah, this is my big concern as well. My middle child doesn't have much of an issue with crowds and my wife is the same way, whereas my youngest, oldest, and myself all get overwhelmed by crowds. It's definitely another good reason to go with the balcony rooms, I'd honestly prefer to do YC for that low passenger volume enclave to hide out in, but at this point, it's outside the budget.

@Two Wheels Only Thanks for the reassurances. I've been pouring over reviews and YT vids and I figured there'd be enough to keep them entertained, but it's always a concern being in a confined area and finding out there's not enough for the kids. It's really a balancing act with them, they want to go, go, go, but then at the drop of a hat, their social battery goes to E and the behavior struggles start. That's why I'm looking at two balconies there should be enough room for them (Or me, lol) to head back to the cabin and decompress when things get overwhelming.

I'm surprised to hear there might be issues with opening the dividers between balconies. For reference we're looking at the premium aft balconies on deck 13, I think they're "Family balconies" or something similar, where there are two balconies with an inside studio between the two balcony rooms and the 2 balconies are connected with the studio. I'm thinking that all three are designed to be book together to make a suite, which would lead me to believe that connecting the balconies would be something they can do. Then again, it seems like with most mainstream cruise lines, the only consistency is inconsistency, lol.

@JamieLogical I was hoping you'd show up! I've been loving your live reviews, especially as a defector from NCL, it's been nice to see the comparisons between the two lines. We're definitely doing the fun passes for the kids. It seems like a good value and I try to give them as many new opportunities and experiences as possible, especially on vacations.

@gizfish I'm glad to hear that the food is good. Half of my family is a bit on the picky side, my youngest will pretty much not eat meat, except when she does, lol. I've poured over the menus, and there's definitely stuff all of them will eat, and pizza is always a hit. 

I've definitely been seeing widely mixed reviews on swapping rooms with MSC. It seems like it just depends on the day, and policies are evolving with their US sailings, so for all I know things will be easy peasy when we get to embarkation day.

@blueslily It seems like the wristbands are hit an miss depending on ship, I thought I read somewhere here that they had stopped offering the wristbands on Meraviglia except for YC, but like I said above, who knows where things will lie next summer.

I'll be honest, one of the reasons I've been leaning towards MSC is because they are so polarizing. If for some reason the family doesn't like the cruise (Although, judging from everyone's excitement, that seems unlikely), I can just use the fact that they are different from the more mainstream lines as a reason to try RC, Carnival, or NCL. If they end up loving it, we can cruise on them in the future as well as check out other lines. It's a win-win, lol.

I'm super excited about this, I've always had a soft spot for being on the ocean, and the ability to see other countries is a big draw for me, even if it's only a sample of a country, it an east way to get an idea if it's somewhere I'd like to explore more thoroughly.

I know this is probably a question that's posed all the time, but I'd love to hear pros and cons from similar people.

A bit of background on me and my family. My wife and I (early to mid 40s) have three kids age 10, 11, and 14. Our entire family is neurodivergent to one extent or another (quick joke, how do tou tell if someone is on the spectrum? Don't worry, they'll tell you! 😉), primarily Autism, with a sprinkling of ADHD for excitement. The point of this is that most of my family have sensory issues, which I'd guess could be exacerbated by being on a ship.

We typically do one big week+ long vacation a year, with the occasional shorter trips wher vacation time allows. Since we own a pop-up camper, a lot of our trips are to state parks, but if our big trip is a camping trip, we'll go to a Yogi Bear, or other camping resort to use as a base to explore the area we're staying at. Other trips we've done were renting a Class C motorhome and "camping" at Cedar Point for a week, as well as renting a houseboat for a week.

About two months ago, I saw a reddit post about the Meraviglia, and just for giggles, I started pricing things out.  I've always been fascinated by Cruises, but thought the price would be exorbitant, or that it would be targeted more to "geezers" and not families. 

Anyway, that post got my curiosity up, and i priced out sample itineraries, and was shocked that a basic cruise on MSC would actually be over a thousand less than the housboat rental on the Erie canal that we were planning on doing next year.

So I brought up the possibility of doing a cruise for the vacation, and the kids nearly lost it in excitement. At first, i was leaning towards MSC, but i researched and saw all the bad reviews about food, rowdy behavior amoung the steerage class, and YC interlopers. So i looked at Carnival, RC and NCL, and was strongly leaning towards an Oasis class ship, but the pricing for two balconies was 8k without drink packages or wifi 

The kids were insistent that they get the ship with the roller coaster, go karts, or be one of the biggest ships. Obviously, Meraviglia doesn't fall under any of those categories. 

I'm back in the MSC camp because, the prices are still the best with drinks and wifi, and I'm personally really intrigued by the more European feel described in the lives I've read as well as reviews. I also think my kids would be overwhelmed by the size of the larger ships.

So here are some of my concerns (focused on Meraviglia):

1) Is there enough activities to kids to keep them occupied? Kids clubs, and other activities. They like to do active stuff, but also like gaming and tech.

2) is steerage, gen pop, the plebs, whatever really that raucous? I obviously don't want the kuds to have a ton of stress, but these are also kuds that live to go to big theme parks, so how does the ship compare to that.

3) Any recent experiences with room swapping, we're looking at two balconies side by side, and there's no way to have the kids in one and the parents in the other. Is the wristbrand talked about an option to allow my wife to stay in the same room. If not, with a shared balcony, there's definitely work arounds.

We're looking at the 6/2 or 6/14 Bahamas cruise out of New York. I don't see any available connecting cabins, but I'm assuming that if we get side by side balconies, we can join the balconies and have a super sized balcony.

I'll probably put down a deposit on Black Friday and maybe score a deal.

Thanks for reading, and i welcome any tips or recommendations from all you experienced cruisers!

7 minutes ago, cruisegirl1 said:

So funny!

 

But,  only  for those on the new ships. Once a ding, he/she can park anywhere. 🚢🚗

M

Yep, I've heard with the Vision class ships, the just run them right up the beach. Makes disembakation a breeze!

I think we're both on the same page. Honestly, when my kids started begging for go karts and the like, I internally sighed. I'm not a fan of huge crowds, and the thought of hanging out with 7000 new friends isn't really my happy place.

Since lurking on this forum, I've looked at lines like Cunard as well as smaller ships on the mainstream lines, and the smaller ships have a huge appeal to me. They can get to the smaller ports which will be less touristy, and have more historical and, hopefully, culturally related excursions. But for now, the bells and whistles are what suit the majority of my family.

I've enjoyed reading all the viewpoints in this thread!

1 hour ago, runner2013 said:

My thoughts. (Some of you may agree with me, some may not. To each their own right?)

Those of us who have been 'around' for a while remember what cruising was like way before covid came along.  Since then, it seems ships are marketing towards families and 'newbies' by offering more and more attractions, more food venues that mimic eating 'on land', and the mentality that cruising is just like a land vacation. Of course, they've achieved this by raising prices on absolutely everything to pay for these additions and enhancements. First time cruisers, who don't 'know any better' as well as families who are already so conditioned to pay exorbitant prices for a vacation will continue to demand all the bells and whistles for a 'land vacation experience' and pay for those experiences no matter what the cost.

Even if those of us who remember, and actually enjoyed and appreciated dressing nicely for dinner, relaxing with our fellow cruisers with a drink before a Broadway type show, or even just enjoying some nice music for the evening chatting with new friends, completely stopped cruising all together, the cruise lines won't even blink. They'll just keep pushing those who are willing to pay more for less to spend.

I honestly don't ever see or expect prices to level out or go back down to something more manageable. It's a shame. I feel a lot of us out there who really appreciated what a cruise was, or even could be in this day and age, will end up finding alternative ways to go on vacation and take our long standing 'tradition' of cruising with us.  Give it another year or two and a good portion of the 'mass market' cruise lines will all just be floating versions of Epcot Center or Universal Studios in Florida, and the ones who've managed to 'hang on' to the 'old' cruising experience will be the 'luxury' lines that not a lot of us can afford. I know DH and I can't, and it's too bad. I introduced him to cruising when we met 7 years ago, we were recently married on a cruise and have always dreamed of cruising the world when I retire in 4 years. More and more it seems that dream is slipping away. 

But hey, as long as little Johnny can ride a roller coaster while floating around the St. Lucia it's all good right? 

I don't disagree with what you're saying at all, Runner, but I'd love to provide a counterpoint, since I'm one of those 'newbies'. We're planning to take our first cruise next summer, and decided we'd do a cruise.

For some background, when my family does vacations, we generally do fairly basic vacations. We own a pop up camper, so most of our short vacations are to state parks, but we generally do one week long vacation per year to more of a resort campground (think Yogi Bear Resort). Since we have 2 tweens and a teen, our trips need to have a mix of high activity days for the kids as well as down time days so the vacation isn't miserable for the wife and I.

The last few years we've had to change things, since the camper is getting cramped, so 3 years ago we rented a houseboat, and 2 years ago we rented a Class C motorhome and went to Cedar Point. This year we had to skip a vacation because we needed a "new" car which destroyed our vacation budget.

My personal goal with vacations is to see new places we haven't seen, and do things we've never done. I've always been interested in cruising, but have ruled it out because of distance (since airfare is insanly expensive for 5 people), as well as what i perceived as an exorbitant price for the cruise itself. I also saw cruising as being targeted to an older demographic, with not a lot to do for kids. However, it's always stayed in the back of my mind because it meets my #1 priority of seeing new places that we wouldn't see otherwise.

Over summer, our family started talking about 2024 vacation ideas and settled on renting a houseboat on the Erie canal. The kids would have lot's of stuff to see along the canal, and it would be a really neat experience. This vacation would have been ~5K, plus food, gas to get to the canal, as well as whatever we spend at the towns along the way. 

Well, back in August, reddit started poulating my feed with posts from r/cruise, and that started me thinking about seeing what that would cost. I did mock bookings with MSC, CCL, and RCL, and was shocked to see that 2 interior cabins would have been between 3 and 5k with gratuities and port taxes. That wouldn't include drink packages (except for MSC, which had a level that included it). I also discovered that we could cruise out of New York/Jersey or Baltimore, which are both reasonable driving distances from SW PA.

Of course, the plan has evovled and gone up in cost, since when I brought the idea with the kids, the automatically went straight to,  as they put it: "We don't care where we go, as long as it's tropical, and either has go karts, a roller coaster, or is one of the biggest ships", lol. And we're contemplating booking balconies if the difference is less than 150/pp, so we're now at around 7k without drink package. But that does include food as well as entertainment like the shows and comedy clubs, which we normally don't do because of costs.

All of this is to say that, to me, cruising is, surprisingly, comparable to or only slightly more expensive (for my family of 5) than our typical vacations. But with the benefit of seeing "exotic" locations and checking out entertainment options we normally would try.

The other side of the coin is that prices on everything has skyrocketed, and technology, combined with stagnant wages, particularly for service level jobs, has brought about reduced service levels across all industries. In addition, all companies are going to target the most profitable demographics, in this case younger families in the late gen x and Millennial generations. This group is used to activities and amenities on their vacations and, for better or worse, don't sit on formality on their vacations. Many of them have to follow business casual dress codes at work, and really don't want to do that on vacation as well. 

I've already "outgrown" a few demographics, and it's always annoys me when I realize I'm not the group they're targeting. My mind always thinks "I'm not that old, I should still be in that group".

To somehow loop back to evidenced original topic, RCL is obviously having success targeting these families and newbies, as evidence by their profits, Carnival seems to be doing well also with this targeting. I think it's pretty cool that while they're still building the megaships like the oasis and Icon classes, they still have the smaller existing ships, as well as talks of a new smaller class that can target smaller ports, and more intimate settings for those that prefer those. I personally would fall in the latter category if it wasn't for the kids. I love seeing stuff that's not buried in touristy stuff, but the ships that will keep my kids fully entertained are too big to hit thise smaller places.

Alright, I'm done writting a novel, lol

3 hours ago, Sea Dog said:

I will say the two guys that sang that song last night did a good job but I am so partial to the original. I do need to listen to disturbed version. That could be interesting.

Definitely give the Disturbed version a listen. My parents are big S&G fans, so i grew up with them. My tastes now lie towards Disturbed's "traditional" style, but I have a very eclectic taste in music. To be honest Disturbed's version stays fairly true to the original, but improves in many ways, as @jk04 said "Haunting".

I actually saw them in concert in August, and it was even better in concert.

Thanks so much for doing this live! I've been enjoying it immensely!

3 minutes ago, The Sunset Glow said:

I have not eaten at Golden Corral but Olive garden, Red Lobster and Outback have way better food than the MDR on Royal ships now. I've eaten better food in a hospital cafeteria than what I had on my recent B2B. 

Now, since this your first curise, you may think it's fine but for those of us who have been cruising for 20+ years it is hard to accept the current offerings.Truly disappointing.

That's kind of a bummer to read. For the price of a cruise, I'd hope for better. It does seem like this is a change across most of the mainstream cruise lines. I'm willing to sacrifice food quality in exchange for a wider variety of amenities for my 3 kids.

My viewpoint is that every vacation has tradeoffs. There's a ton of cruise lines out there, and each person has to decide what they want to sacrifice to get something eles they desire.

At my stage in life (mid 40s, with 3 kids between 9 and 15), I'm looking for activities for my kids, some entertainment and bars for my wife and I, and the ability to see parts of the world I've never seen. In ten years, my desires are going to be completely different, and my vacation choices will change too.

I agree 100% on your last sentence, there is no need to drastically reduce quality levels. Doing that only alienates existing customers, and reduces a brand's reputation. I've never been able to understand why companies do that. I get that they're looking at improving quarterly sales and year over year profits, but the long term effects of that are almost always bad.

I find these reviews on the fiod interesting. We've never been on a cruise before, and I've been pouring over both RCL and CCL and both have tons of posts about how bad the food is.

I'm a little picky when it comes to food, if it's prepared poorly I'm not very happy. To be honest though, one of my family's treat restraunts pre-covid was Golden Corral (in my defense, it was never my choice, primarily because it's a 40m drive to the nearest one, but you know what they say, Happy wife, happy life). And a special occasion calls for Olive Garden, Red Lobster, or Outback.

I'm personally far more concerned about service. The chefs and wait staff have little control over what materials they're allowed to start with, that's a bean counter decision. It seems my backwoods family will probably be just fine with MDR fare.

We're also doing a cruise for the ship and the ports, to a lesser extent, and not necessarily the food. But i would hope for at least a slight increase in service and food quality compared to the restaurants above.

On 10/17/2023 at 7:18 PM, ckmommy said:

Also, my husband bought Cuban Cigars for our boys and him to enjoy when we are all together at Christmas.  6 Cubans for $50.  When we got home my husband looked up the Cigars and they are NOT cuban--just some junk cigar.

Just a question on this, since I do love me some Cuban cigars, and we're looking at a western Caribbean cruise this summer. It looks like there is a La Casa Del Habano store in Cozumel, did your husband go there for the cigars? LCDH is the Cuban sanctioned distributor for cigars, so those should absolutey be genuine.

Less than $9 a stick would be a red flag for me, as well. About the only genuine Cubans I can find online at that price would be mixed filler cigars, and definently not the more mainstream brands.

Honestly, much as I love Cubans, it's almost not worth the risk of fakes to get them, probably why I haven't ordered any in years.

Also, if you can access the box they came in, the LCDH website can valid the code on it to verify if the box is genuine.

Am I reading that wrong? It looks like the total cost was 698, and then there's the 200 in OBC, so that would work out to 498 for the cruise.

On 9/22/2023 at 6:45 PM, glrounds said:

It is on my phone . . . . don't use the phone for CC . . . .

If it's on the app, there's an add files button that should allow you to add a file, select the image from files, then click insert, and it'll be put in the post.

I'd assume the process is similar, if not identical, on a mobile web browser, since the app seems to be a stripped down web browser.

Sorry for butting in on your thread @GetToLivin, but we've never been on a cruise, but my whole family loves fishing, and we're planning on a cruise to Bermuda next summer and I have a follow up question.

When you do a fishing excursion on a cruise, what do you do with your catch? I'm assuming customs would have issues with bringing fish from another country, not to mention safely storing it until you get home. Is it just catch and release, or do excursions have the ability to cold store your catch and ship it back to your address? Or just cook it up at the beach?

Thanks for any input!