Andy0215

I picked the NCL one. We are going May 24th on that itinerary. Never been to Europe so we are, to say the least, excited!

Thanks. The room we booked is an H4 on Viva and it is an owners suite. I won’t be upset if we don’t have champagne or the in room mini bar.

I’m excited for and expect our next cruise to be the best room we’ve had. We booked the H4 aft facing owners suite on the viva. I’ve never stayed in one and hopefully we aren’t let down by it. @Sthrngary I see you mentioned extra perks for that….I wasn’t aware of anything other than the mini bar. Are there others?

You shouldn’t have any trouble using your phone in the spa. I wouldn’t be making calls or using FaceTime but as you suggested as an e reader you will be fine. There will be lockers in the changing area you can store it along with your other belongings if you would like.

I think that still leaves me with the same comparison for NCL Haven rooms. I’m not sure about Celebrity but I think the smaller retreat room was roughly $1k less if it compares better room for room.

This is for a sailing on Dec 6 2024. I was looking for something around the holidays. Regent Granduer 7 nights from Miami “standard” Caribbean ports (costa Maya, Belize, Roatan and Cozumel) concierge suite, 400-500 sq ft room no flights included in pricing. This also gees me spa use, complete drink package and overnight stay/transfers, laundry service, unlimited wifi and prepaid gratuities. Total price at one of the large box TA’s (I have never used one just trying to find one to be honest.) $10,498 taxes, fees and etc all in with an extra $500 OBC added from the box TA NCL Jade 7 nights from Miami almost same itinerary (costa Maya, Roatan, Belize and Cozumel) just different order penthouse suite 450 sq ft no flights included and their “free” at sea program $10,318 at same place with $800 OBC. this does NOT include access to spa, only a $50 credit for shore excursions and basic beverage package. To compare daily we would need to upgrade beverages and WiFi $349PP and add spa access for the week $299PP for a total of $1296 additional. Let’s assume we used the OBC for that so that leaves us adding ($1296-$800= $496) to the total Now for shore excursions. You would have $50 PP credit for them with the NCL packages. Let’s assume you did basic minimum excursions of $99PP at each port. That’s an additional cost ($198-100=$98x4= &392) at 4 ports. One more thing NCL will add is Daily Service charges which amounts to $20PP per day. So $280 Add all that up and you are at $11,491 with $0 OBC because you spent it all noted above to try to match amenities. You have a private restaurant (which is good) that serves the same meals every single night. You get 2 specialty dining vouchers but can get again spend more to add more. You are also on the hook for a hotel and getting to/from the cruise port which would be an additional $200 min. So at the end of the day I’m seeing about $12,000 for NCL and not even accounting for the OBC about $10,500 for Regent. Celebrity Reflection 6 nights from Ft Lauderdale Fl caribbean (Cozumel, Cayman, Bimini) not as good of itinerary and shorter Celebrity Suite closest in size and perks at 499 sq. Ft no flights and refundable deposit to equal others and prepaid gratuities $9286.42 at same box TA with $195 OBC. Im not as familiar with Celebrity and their packages as I’ve never sailed with them. However I can find $399 couple passes. I don’t see any shore excursion credit so let’s assume the same costs as I listed above of $99PP per day. Only 3 ports adds $600 Im unsure of their drink package. If it’s comparable but for the sake of argument I will say it’s the same as well as dining. Add the bare min $200 for a pre cruise hotel and transfers and you are adding $1200 to your cost. Subtract your OBC and it’s $1000. So I’m seeing $10286 for only 6 nights on Celebrity with a less exciting itinerary having to go to Bimini Bahamas. I feel that’s the fairest comparison I can do based on room sizes and amenities across the three options. Experienced Regent travelers please tell me if I’m seeing anything wrong here. Recap: Regent $10,500 NCL Haven $12,000 Celebrity Retreat $10,300 for 6 nights

I ended up on this page because I started planning future cruises and it looks to me like Regent IS less expensive than either Celebrity retreat or NCL haven when comparing Room benefits. I’m still looking, double looking and triple looking to see what it is I’m missing that makes this possible. I really enjoyed my Haven experience but I can’t see how it’s actually worth more than what I see with Regent and etc. I wrote it off when I planned my last cruise I just took because I just assumed it wasn’t near the same price. Wish that I had looked into “what you get” with each at the time.

This was something we paid to add to our previous NCL trip in the haven and we enjoyed it every day if only for a short period. We will do the same with this one as well, I’m just glad it’s not at an additional cost like that was.

We just got off the Epic and stayed in Haven. It was our first NCL cruise (my first period) and we had a very memorable and great vacation. That being said, somehow I felt a little let down by the haven. I think my expectations after reading many reviews might have been a little too high for a mass market cruise line. That said I would definitely cruise with NCL again and certainly in the haven if I did, but not at the current price. I got what apparently was a great deal for our cruise last month. I added the premium drink package and a pass for the thermal spa. We probably didn’t need the drink package but my wife wanted the internet and Starbucks and I wanted sodas so when I looked at those items individually the price was so close the convenience of not having to worry about paying for any drink was just worth doing the upgrade to me. The thermal spa was great and we really enjoyed our time using it. When I started looking at prices for trips next feb/March I was shocked to see haven rooms, including the exact one I stayed in, a minimum of 35-40% more than my all in cost on the last one. At the price points I was seeing I didn’t feel like my recent experience matched that cost. Same basic itinerary and March 15/16 dates, add drinks and spa pass put me at nearly $11k. We decided to try MSC YC. I’m all in at $5300 (drinks and spa included) for a larger room with a bigger balcony. The basic itinerary is the same but I believe prefer the MSC visit to Ocean Cay over NCL’s trip (not even going to private island and our last cruise we missed it due to tender boats not being able to operate anyways). Not a huge deal for me yet but they matched the points I just earned on NCL for their status program which gets me an extra 5% discount on that $5300 price and some OBC thrown in. The videos of the ship in particular looks like a very nice ship and the YC looks VERY nice in comparison to NCL’s product. If the experience is even remotely similar to what I felt was average service (excluding restaurant which was EXCELLENT) in Epic haven then I will be ecstatic. I’ve read some complaints on MSC customer service but so far my interaction with them has been fine. I’ve already received a call from a pre cruise YC concierge (never got one from NCL) asking me what they can do to make our cruise great and I’ve only been booked for 3 days with them.

Picture tells a thousand words in this case.

I don’t mean to hijack your thread but I’m curious about these too having never sailed MSC. My question is, are they needed? I see a lot of chairs with shade from umbrellas and the amount of trees and etc makes me feel like maybe not? Also, on the dedicated site for ocean cay by MSC it says these come with complimentary snorkeling gear for the day, no mention of it on the main MSC site however. Can anyone shed some light on that for me please?

We are excited to have our next cruise booked. We previously sailed on NCL Epic in Haven and we really enjoyed our trip. I went to look to book another and found prices nearly double what I had paid for our trip for same time frame and ship (also considerably more than double a deluxe YC suite when I added comparable drinks and spa access). I then discovered YC and after reading as much as I could we booked a trip on Seashore. It’s not even close to being soon, it’s in early 2025. I think I got most of the info I need. We got a status match (no reason to other than it got us to the first tier for a small discount with MSC) and I am waiting to get a discount now for my wife being a teacher. I guess I will be hanging around this board some now. Thanks in advance for your help to questions I will probably soon have and I look forward to participating here!

All of this probably has been mentioned but here is my take just off epic this past Sunday. Cagneys was good. We both had fillet and they were good and both were prepared medium as we ask. The whole meal was just…good. It wasn’t great. Moderno was not good. The only that keeps me from saying awful is the salad bar WAS great. The meat however was the worst I have ever had in a Brazilian steak house. Everyone around me seemed to love it though according to comments I heard made to their servers. The bacon wrapped chicken was very good. The other cuts were not. Unfortunately for me the worst was the picanha. That’s usually my favorite at any Brazilian place and it was impossible to cut and had absolutely zero flavor. Even the simple sausages had weird consistency and just didn’t taste good. We barely got “one round” of meats and left for other options. Teppanyaki was average. The rice and chicken was pretty good. The steak was a subpar cut of meat and again did not have much flavor. The service in both teppanyaki and Moderno were very bad. Unfriendly at moderno and not enough of em at Teppanyaki. We had empty drinks for probably half of our meal. (Only came to offer a refill one time at basically the end of the meal when we got their attention) All that being said we had one other specialty voucher we didn’t even use due to our experience in the other 3. We felt we had better options elsewhere.

Great move! Everything I have seen on these boards is making MSC more appealing to me. We just cruised on NCL and we hated going through the stinky casino.

Hopefully an update will be coming soon. Yesterday, I just started looking at MSC cruises in general as we plan our next cruise and the site leaves a lot to be desired! It seems a lot of info is on it but it’s harder to find than it should be.