Agrajag27

I assumed it was less the port and more the cruise line. I would love to be able to get aboard sooner and perhaps decorate our door (and that of our friends who have no idea about 90% of the benefits they're about to experience) before they get there later. Then we assume we can head out to meet them when they get there and escort them around.

One other question: We have a 12pm-1pm boarding time (Aurea experience). Can we show up earlier to get on the boat earlier or is that the earliest we will get on?

Does anyone know if you MUST wait until you board to connect a credit card to your room (via the kiosks I hear about) or can you provide one via the app and/or website to skip that step?

Can anyone elaborate on how seats are assigned to shows? Is it purely first-come/first-served? Seems crazy for up to 1,200 people.

That explains it. I grew up playing ice hockey and people couldn't understand why we'd often practice in light gear, often as little as a t-shirt and still be hot. What is DW? Thanks for this. We're looking for unique things, so this sounds like a major positive. Any comment on the types of showers or what the heck a Geyser Kneipp might be?

My thinking is to do a bunch of reservations at once; for the spa, for special dinners, for shows, etc.

Are all reservations able to be done easily, even the first day? I don't mean are they easy to get. Are they easy to try to get, or does one need to go to Guest Services or such, which would go against the many warnings of avoiding there on the first day or two.

Great idea for that period before we leave port.

Rep assures me that the Aurea Experience allows us to book the Thermal Suite without having to pay anything else, all cruise. That could be more clear on the website. If I had one major complaint as a new cruiser, their website developer needs to get a talking-to. So many things are wrong on it, missing, or not clear.

This last rep said it's what reps do when they don't know the answer to a problem. Not good.

Phew. Had a near-disaster. I was on with a rep and going over some things and I mentioned that none of my add-ons are showing in the web interface. She said, "What add-ons?" I explained we paid $140 for an upgrade to Premium drinks package and she said, "I don't see that anywhere." I KNOW it was there. So I find it on my first confirmation. I explain it. She digs deeper and we realize someone on their side just refunded it for no reason. At first she was like, "Well, what if the price is higher now?" Uh, that's not my problem. So she finally got the okay to just add it back in. Good thing I saw that, but it STILL isn't appearing in the add-ons section of the web interface.

Okay, so what about these Thermal options we have (as Aura Experience). It appears that we get ACCESS to this section due to being at least Aurea What the heck are these things (no one at MSC could tell me): -Dark/Bright Sensory Steam Bath Sounds like a steam room, but dark/bright "sensory"? Marketing? -Geyser Kneipp WHAT?! If you google it you get some Kneipp company that sells facial/body products. -Finnish Sauna Assuming this is a "sauna". -Emotional showers I assume they beat bad passengers above me and I get to shower in their tears? Seriously, I assume this is perhaps not a service you book, but one type of shower after the sauna? -Salt Relax Sounds like a float tank which, if so, I fell in love with on a recent vacation. -Snow Room This one I don't get. How does someone spend more than 12 seconds in a room filled with snow? -Heated benches FINALLY. Something that sounds like something obvious. -Blower pool Jacuzzi pool perhaps? It also seems unclear if we can use this at ALL without a pass/paying something. I think we have to pay something. They said we can get a couple pass for like $480 for the duration, but is that unlimited access (with reservations) during the cruise?

Now THAT is going to come in handy! WOW. The spreadsheet alone is a gold-mine.

I've watched about two dozen already. Seeing a ton.

Would love that. Good way to start the day. Plus we have that other couple, so a good way to reorient for the day. The only bummer we had is they recommended a specific pair of rooms to keep us away from noise (very nice rep) and the SLIGHT bummer is that we're in rooms with one room between us and that adjoins to our room. Soooo close. In the end, irrelevant. Now that would be ideal, of course.

There was never a chance of that not being the case with this. You should see us plan Disney. heheh My father-in-law loves to tell people he thinks of it "fondly" as the Bataan Death March.

So they have a buffet for thousands of people at ONE location? Wow. I literally had this image of food being out at every bar area and such nearly 24/7. Wild expectations reset. I also didn't realize our Aurea anytime meals are in one specific restaurant. Kinda cool. Going to assume even though they're anytime, they still likely need reservations.

That's what new people are for! I went on that deck plan site, but don't recall seeing anything market as a buffet area. Then again, oddly, that sight didn't seem to show several things, like the Solarium area or the Thermal area. One funny thing happened. A friend heard we were doing MSC and wrote to say she was surprised as MSC doesn't (as far as she new) do movies in a cinema onboard. I'm a literal full-time film critic so that LAST thing I want to do on a cruise is sit in a theater to see a movie, especially when I've already seen it. Could be a big plus for MSC with me!

That goes on the MUST REMEMBER list.

Gotta say Debbie, that this is both great and also overwhelming. My wife will implode when she sees these sheets as she'll want to go over every line item and make sure we're not missing anything. Will we really only get these the morning of?

So there's some delay to getting your luggage in your room? I guess that makes sense with potentially 5,000 people on board. I assumed we'd head right our rooms first and the stuff would magically be there somehow and then off to wherever. So it's not like on TV where there are like food tables scattered around the ship? Are the buffets only in the MAIN dining rooms? (I think there are just 3) I assumed there would be smaller versions of them at some bars and such. Guess not. Definitely doing that, but deciding on how many. Thinking with 7 nights, maybe two or three. I'm VERY put off if I'm reading this right, that if you buy the Specialty food packages they are specific to restaurants. I'm not interested in Mexican or Hibachi (we have a lot of great ones here at home), but can't get just Sushi, Steak and Seafood. And then the whole thing with those plans limiting your menu and if the discount OFF-menu (which we'd do for sure) is worth the price. We're social drinkers, but this is surely social and we'll be with our best friends so this is huge advice. The friends think we've gone 100% low-end to see how things go. We're paying for most of it and are surprising them by upgrading most everything. Looking forward to the same sort of wondrous looks that you experienced.

THAT is great to know.

Just joined cruisedeckplans.com. Was wondering if there was something like this, so thanks! I take it from what you said that our larger bags will be delivered to our room? Also, are you saying that our cabin may not be open at the time we get onboard, and thus, it's good to make better use of that time? Also looking forward to your live views.

We're going on our first cruise ever after a lifetime of thinking I'd get to it at some point and now, decades later, finally getting there. We're starting light with a 7-night cruise on Seashore out of Port Canaveral and heading to Ocean Cay and two Mexico stops. We decided to try out the Aurea experience in a Balcony Suite with drinks/wifi and upgraded to Premium drinks. We expect we won't do that going forward, but felt the stress of spending too much was less than the angst of wishing we had. So, at this point we're both overwhelmed. What do we do immediately upon getting aboard with a 12pm boarding slot and thus 5 hours to fill in before embarking? We have no idea if much of the ship is accessible at that point. Are the buffets up and going? Are the venues all open? Are pools accessible? I do know we want to check Wifi immediately and book certain things, but that raises other confusion. The thermal suite, for example, confuses both of us. What the heck do you do in a snowsuite? We obviously won't be bringing winter gear and sitting in a freezing room for any time in shorts seems an odd thing to bring one pleasure -- and still we want to experience it, but can't imagine just walking in, going "that's cold" and walking out. I love the sound of some of the showers, but is that an experience or is that a shower after a sauna? And given all this, when do you want to book them for? Immediately? That night? Times? How long do these things in there last? What will it conflict with? There seems so much competing for your time that FOMO seems inevitable. How does everyone overcome it? Other non-first day questions: We apparently get two Gala dinners so seems a bad idea to book a Specialty restaurant for those nights, and are we expected to dress up? If so, to what degree? Business Casual? Sportscoat and slacks okay? Truly formal? How do most people go about planning out their detailed itinerary? It sounds like we won't really know what the schedule is until we're on the ship and given the WiFi restrictions, I planned to use my phone for the device, but doing itineraries on it seems like torture. Is there a third-party app that helps with organizing this? Their own app is barely working for us 87 days out. Constant errors and it doesn't seem to know about our upgrades though Support swears they're still in there, but in another area. Given all this, I'd be surprised if it's a good tool for handling itineraries. I just HATE not having a detailed plan. Just running into things around the ship isn't my cup of tea. Thanks for ANY insight in helping to make this a better experience. Already signed up for Voyagers Club (though the app doesn't seem to realize it).

Our first cruise is in August and, so far, I've been impressed with all the fees seemingly showing up on the front end.