Bestbubba

Thank you everyone for your helpful and thoughtful replies.

We're really looking forward to our first Cunard cruise. 

First time sailing Cunard but we've been cruising since the 80s. 

On past cruises we've been able to pre book  speciality dining, cabin gifts, wine etc but I can't find anywhere online to do this for our QM2 cruise in November. Am I too early? Am I not looking in the right place? 

Any help would be much appreciated. 

Many thanks. 

1 minute ago, david63 said:

I have found that on Princess the sommelier in the restaurant is only too willing to allow you to have a taste of any wine before you order it.

Thank you, that's good to know. 

18 minutes ago, david63 said:

If you don't like it then why order it in the first place? That is just plain wasteful.

How will the poster know if she likes it or not if she doesn't taste it🙄? 

10 hours ago, Doug R. said:

Or Crocs with socks.

My teenage grandchildren tell me crocs with socks are the fashion! 

18 minutes ago, 20165 said:

Thank you and thats the one we are looking at.  Can you tell me how it worked?  Special bag, credit on your onboard account, etc?  Im trying to spend a little time in guest services as possible and it seems the more stuff i prebook, the more time i get to spend with them straightening things out.  We have had bad luck prepurchasing things on other cruise lines so just wondering how MSC does with prepurchases. thx

We're just back from the Divina. 

We'd prepaid for laundry. You just fill out the regular form, add your 20/40 pieces and we just wrote on the form PAID with a copy of the confirmation MSC had sent. We bought the package before the increase. As others have said, the new prepaid price is higher than the offer on the ship. If it were me I'd wait till I was onboard. 

Our last MSC cruise was pre covid, on the Musica from Rio to Venice. A really great cruise. Every evening in the dining room, a different risotto was offered as one of the starters. They were delicious. I've seen lots of menus posted lately and no risotto on any of them. We're sailing on Divina in May, the TA to Barcelona and my dear husband was looking forward to enjoying them once again. Is he going to be disappointed? Its certainly not that big a deal but seemed strange on an Italian cruise line. Can anyone confirm one way or the other? 

Many thanks and warmest wishes for a happy new year. 

We've just booked an MSC cruise for next May. Yesterday we received an email from them with links to specific Covid cover "add on" insurance. We are in our 70s and the quote was £53. Although we have an annual policy that does say it covers Covid-19,  we thought for £53 it was worth it. Belt and braces perhaps,  but we wont have to worry about the wording of our policy perhaps not ticking all MSC boxes.

Thank you everyone for taking the time to reply. I will certainly take note of all your advice and suggestions. Again, many thanks. 

Sue 

30 minutes ago, Beamafar said:

That would certainly be a lovely way to travel home.  😁   Divina is a great ship, too.  I love the Fantasia-class ships. 

It does look lovely 😊

40 minutes ago, Beamafar said:

Hi Sue.  Thank you for your kind words.  Which TA are you considering.  We have one on Europa ending at Genoa, too.   Hoping Ryanair will be flying to Dublin then. 
 

Bea

Hi Bea 

I'd love to try Europa, looks amazing. We're on Divina, looking on it as a nice way to come home after visiting our children in the USA. 

Sue 

3 minutes ago, Beamafar said:

We thought we’d never fly Ryanair til we had no choice last year when our Aer Lingus flights, booked through MSC, were swapped out.   Well, we were very pleasantly surprised by our experience and would have no hesitation flying with them again. 

Hello Beamafar! I remember what a great help you were when we booked our first MSC cruise pre covid, I was hoping you'd see my post😊

Many thanks for your prompt and positive reply. 

Sue 

We're thinking of booking a T/A  next spring that ends in Genoa. The only airline seems to be Ryanair. Any thoughts or experiences flying with them from Genoa would be gratefully received. Thank you. 

Were cruising B2B in November.  Got our assignment last week. Phoned, without much hope of success as we're based in the UK, and asked could we change to the same cabin for both sectors. Neither cabin was available for both. Really nice chap told me to hold on, he'd be awhile. 20 minutes later it was all done and new confirmation emails had arrived. The 2 reference numbers now show as linked too. We were delighted.

There seem to be a lot of problems reported with Lloyds. From personal experience I'd recommend visiting or phoning the branch the day before to confirm your appointment. We have also used DAM health, we read some scary reviews but they were excellent and we'll be using them again. 

20 hours ago, Milwaukee Eight said:

Supply and demand 

What demand??

13 hours ago, PoohUnderstands said:

I' m still waiting for my deposits to be refunded for an August cruise and a September cruise which I cancelled back in April.  Just wondering how long this new set of cancellation refunds will take!  Heard today that RCCL is doing their refunds at about the 30 day mark or less?!  I love you Princess, but come on......... please!

 

Pooh

Our Royal Caribbean refund took 92 days, cancelled back in April, arrived last week. 

26 minutes ago, starrcards said:

I guess I have no complaint yet at 40 days.

Give it time 🤣

1 hour ago, Biker19 said:

Call several times until you get someone who will talk to you or tell RCI the TA is unresponsive. 

Thank you, we're trying, and we'll keep trying. It's very frustrating. 

8 hours ago, Biker19 said:

There's your issue, don't expect anything via those methods - call.

We did, Royal won't discuss this with us, TA says we must be patient. Please don't anyone tell us we need a new TA, this was "one and done" as we usually book direct with the cruise line. 

Waiting for refundable deposits on a November b2b. Cancelled 9th April, 63 days, zilch so far. 

18 minutes ago, Ourusualbeach said:

If it’s just a deposit for a cruise or a cruise planner item that you cancel it does come much quicker Than the refunds where the entire cruise gets cancelled. We had a refund for our deposit in 8 days.

We're waiting on a deposit refund, certainly not quicker for us, 52 days so far.... 

1 hour ago, IrishComet said:

Requested a refund on May 23rd, and my card was credited on May 30th. 

That's really great, we're still waiting since 9th April. Maybe it's what they call the luck of the Irish! 🤣 

20 minutes ago, dani negreanu said:

 

"The ONE I know".....Zoom 😁

😀😀😀😀

13 minutes ago, jerseygirl3 said:

Same here, except we didn't start cruising til the mid 90's.  We love cruising.  I'm very anxious for a vaccine, but I'm not sure I'd still feel comfortable cruising again.  We always get a flu vaccine, and my husband still contracted Influenza A on Grandeur this past February.  He was quarantined for the last 4 days of the cruise.  My concern is there were 82 people who contracted it during that sailing (and Lord knows how many more that never went to the Medical Center to be tested).  I wonder if, like the influenza vaccine, there is a Covid-19 vaccine, will it make the symptoms and duration of the illness less severe.  

I just read what you wrote to my husband. He agrees with you. He also said sometimes you have to know when to leave the room (or the cruise ship!). We've crossed everything off our bucket list except New Zealand, maybe it wasn't meant to be. We're grateful for what we've seen and done, the friends we've made, the laughter we've shared, he says we don't want to push our luck. 

To anyone celebrating Seder tonight, we certainly know the answer to "why is this night different?" this year!