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Maria63

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    Finland
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    Gardening
  • Favorite Cruise Line(s)
    Celebrity

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  1. FWIW, here´s my 2 cents: I can´t in all honesty say that youtubers / vloggers make it very high on my individual list of "cruise annoyances I would like to see regulated or even banned altogether". It makes no difference to me if I´m seen by other people when actually doing my cruise, or later in the background on someone´s youtube channel that is reviewing the cruise I happened to be on. I also think that some of the youtubers provide a valuable service to me in helping me decide which cruise to book, so I´m fine with allowing them to continue doing what they have been doing so far. Personally I prefer the no-frills and factual content of for instance Matthias Morr and his "Morr-Rundgang" (German-speaking youtuber) to Ben & David, though I do find the latter very nice and entertaining in their commentary. But this is strictly a matter of individual taste & preference. If there is to be a clamp-down on annoying phenomena on cruise ships, I would prefer the industry to start with for instance prohibiting the professional cruise-photographers from setting up shop in the middle of the gangway on embarkation day and thus causing a congestion. This has happened repeatedly when embarking in Singapore. I would also like to see less aggressive product-pushing by the spa personnel after the treatments (but I do realise that this is how they make money and get promoted so it is no fault of the spa employees themselves). Furthermore, I do strongly dislike Diamonds International and their product pushing esp. in the Caribbean (google for reviews on their products). Same goes for the so called "art" still sold onboard on may ships, and I´m not sure about the perpetual foot-print analysis either. But never mind, all this is part of cruising life, and I can live with it. Same goes for youtubers & vloggers, and they actually provide a service that I myself find useful, though I do fully understand that others may see it differently.
  2. This may well be factually true, but MSC does not appear to enforce any strict privacy rules on their European cruises when it comes to vloggers in general. And this is the central question, ie did MSC single out Ben & David and if so, for what reason? To illustrate my point, in the German-speaking cruising world a vlogger named Mathias Morr is very popular and on his channel he has lots of material from MSC. He is known for doing thorough walk-throughs, the so called "Morr-Rundgang", of all areas of the ship and gives his commentary. In one of his recent videos of MSC World Europa he is filming in the buffet and several guests can be clearly identified. One of them actually recognizes him and they have a brief and friendly discussion. Here Morr actually asks the lady "btw, can I film you", which to me indicates that he did not have a general permission to film, or at least the people he encountered had not been generally asked permission before he began his filming.
  3. This is exactly why it was so bafflingly stupid of MSC to allow this situation to arise, when it could have been handled more discreetly and diplomatically (the MD in his response to B & D admits this himself). Given today´s culture and media climate MSC has stepped into a minefield of potential severly negative PR, and it is unfortunately irrelevant whether anyone intended to be discriminatory or not. It´s all about the optics of the situation. Even if it doesn´t cause MSC any lasting damage, the MD and PR-people will very likely in the coming weeks have to dedicate their valuable time to formulating apologies and carefully worded responses in order to contain the damage. All this could have been avoided if the people in charge in YC that day had taken the time to think things through before reacting
  4. Actually, the MSC Managing Director has now responded to Ben & David and offered an apology and they have made his letter public (go for instance to the best known social media site to read what it says). Looks like the whole situation began with complaints from esp. one guest in YC, but the MD admits that the situation was handled poorly by MSC.
  5. I can certainly see how some guests in YC might have found the presence of a popular vlogger annoying and then complained about it. But on the other hand, even those who chose the YC or the other luxury products in the industry, most likely do their research beforehand by watching youtube reviews. Personally, I don´t think that I could on one hand complain about having vloggers onboard while I myself am cruising, but then still use their content to help me decide which cruise to book. It is also reasonable in this day and age for cruise lines to want to somehow restrict and control various influencers from creating content onboard. But the issue is how MSC handled this situation. Regardless of whether the story went exactly as related by Ben & David, the end-result is that MSC came out looking really bad for a lot of potential customers. It will most likely blow over and not cause any lasting harm to MSC, but to allow such a situation to develop at all, illustrates that MSC still has issues with learning how to deal with paying customers when unexpected problems arise. If the problem really was that their filming caused complaints amongst the YC-crowd, one would think that Ben & David could have been approached with a polite & friendly "we are so sorry but.. / we regret to inform you ...", or perhaps a polite but firm written reminder about the rules (if such rules indeed do exist). The very last thing MSC should have done is to allow the situation to escalate into a potential PR-nightmare, and the fact that a popular same-sex couple landed in the center of an unpleasant public controversy makes it look even worse and more unprofessional.
  6. My DH & I generally like MSC, but we also had a rather unpleasant experience once on Bellissima (pre-Covid) when we were in the YC. For this reason, I tend to believe Ben & David when they claim that the situation was handled poorly by MSC. If I get the issue right, it was not so much about the general ban on filming, but first and foremost about the aggressive attitude from the staff when things went wrong. Our experience in short: The ship did an overnight in Dubai, and we had a late evening flight on the first night. This was supposedly perfectly fine and according to the rules. The YC-concierge gave us an all-clear when we said goodbye, indicating that our bill was settled so we were good to go. We were escorted by our butler to the gangway, but when we "pinged out" the system flashed red, and the security-person in charge prevented us from leaving, because we supposedly had not settled our bill. We of course protested and told him that everything should be okay, and we had been given an all-clear by the concierge. At this point, our butler turned absolutely useless and went completely silent, so we had no help from him at all. The security-person flat out told us that he will not let us leave the ship and was quite aggressive about it. We had to step aside and wait quite a while for the security personnel to phone somebody somewhere, and finally he got a confirmation that everyhting was indeed okay and we were free to leave. We got no apology whatsoever from the security nor from our butler, not even a friendly good-bye at this point. It was no big deal for us and we have sailed with MSC since (though not in the YC) and will do in the future. However, it left a bad taste and a feeling that all the politeness in the YC is rather superficial and somewhat phony, and can indeed quickly evaporate if there is a real issue to be sorted out
  7. My DH & I are in our early 60s, and our favorite lines are Celebrity & RCI (due to loyalty benefits), but we have also cruised with Viking, Azamara, Cunard, HAL, Princess, Costa, and MSC (both YC and non-YC). To be blunt, I would recommend that you do a thorough research before booking, and you need to be aware that the YC-reviews and experiences do in no way reflect the experience on the rest of the ship. MSC is a very different product than Celebrity, and generally much more lively, noisy, and crowded. On the newer MSC-ships with the Galeria-design (for instance World Europa) you will struggle to find a quiet lounge, and as the YC takes up most of the front of the ship, there is nothing like an observation lounge in the front for non-YC. However, if the itinerary is port-intensive and you plan to do lots of excursions, MSC can be a very sensible choice budget-wise, as the experience on the ship itself might then be a secondary consideration. In the Mediterranean MSC allows you to embark in most ports along the itinerary, so you have lots of flexibility and choices in how you plan your flights and pre- & post-cruise travels
  8. I´m no expert on the monsoon patterns by far, but if I´ve got it right it is somewhat complicated. For instance, in Thailand, Phuket on the west coast is usually fine in late December, while Koh Samui on the east coast gets rains and high winds until around February. Singapore also has more or less daily showers until at least February.
  9. I would say it depends on your embarkation port. At least in Barcelona, on embarkation day your carryons are scanned by port security, and they do not (in our experience) enforce cruise line -specific regulations about bringing alcoholic- or non-alcoholic drinks onboard. Besides, after the security-scan at the terminal, there is a duty-free where you can buy soft drinks, wine & spirits, and bring them onboard without any interrogation or further checking of bags on embarkation day.
  10. One thing to keep in mind is that December is in the middle of the rainy season in much of Indonesia, so it´s a less-than-ideal time to visit for instance Bali. The scenery in the interior is absolutely breath taking, but when shrouded in clouds & rain you don´t get to see any of it.
  11. DH & I did the Indonesian Discovery in 2023 on Westerdam, and I would recommend it to anyone who is interested in history & culture as it takes you to places you would not normally get to visit on a holiday trip to the region. In Jakarta we took a private tour with a local guide, and had ample time at the Jakarta History Museum and the Old Town. The cultural tour of Lombok was also fascinating, to name just a few of the interesting places. Komodo dragons on the other hand are perhaps somewhat overrated, but the scenery in these parts is very beautiful.
  12. It´s true that rude and inconsiderate people exist in all cultures. But as for the "who is the last one?" -system, I had it explained to me by my native Spanish language teacher when I lived there. I then also experienced it in real life for instance in the post offices in Spain.
  13. DH & I went through the Suez the first week of this December on Costa Toscana and did not notice any unusual security arrangements. Later on, some 2 weeks ago, we witnessed NCL Dawn being grandly welcomed into Doha, Qatar, with water cannon salutations. We are currently in Dubai and tourism is in full swing, though there appears to be significantly fewer American or Western European visitors than before.
  14. There´s no need for a taxi or other form of transport if you just want to have lunch in town. There are very good food courts within easy walking distance from the cruise pier.
  15. If your embarkation is at the Marina cruise terminal, there are duty free shops that sell both wine and spirits, so taking alcohol onboard is not an issue for the local authorities. Dubai is nowadays not very restrictive regarding alcohol, you are for instance allowed to bring some 4 liters into the country for personal use and the law that allowed drinking only at licenced venues (not for instance in private apartments) has also been dropped for now. On embarkation day, cruise ships do not usually scan your bags when you enter the ship itself, but the scanning is handled by port security. I would recommend you carry the alcohol in its original bottle in your hand luggage. If the cruise ship does not allow it, they will confiscate it and give it back to you at the end of the cruise.
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