BubMunkeyBles

We've been when we lived in Italy. We plan to go on Saturday and do the Christmas markets in town and just enjoy the town (probably in the rain, lol).

We used PK Travel last year and they were great. Booked again with them for in a couple weeks.

When I book online mine are all in USD (even though the cruises are in Europe). Once on the ship it’s € though.

I'd just suck it up to a hard lesson learned. It's stated in the terms that it's a non-refundable deposit. 😞 I had trouble getting an allowed deposit refunded so I highly doubt they'd give you one for a deposit that they're entitled to keep.

There should be a tab that's labeled ENHANCE YOUR CRUISE. It seems to be missing for some reason. Maybe it's not all the way linked? We did our first MSC back in November out of Marseille on the Magnifica. We really liked it, enough that I have two booked for this year and will probably be booking 2 for next year also. If coming from the states make sure you fly in a day early for sure. We stayed at the Best Western in town and it was pretty nice and walking distance to everything. Most the differences I didn't mind but I'm old at heart so was happy to not have all the crazy parties and stuff like on the US lines. It seemed a lot quieter (but was 12 nights in November when schools were in session).

When is your cruise? I found cheap airfare on British Air from London. Definitely worked out cheaper than having to fly elsewhere and grab the train or anything.

Yep. People complain on every cruise line about it. I've seen similar posts on the Carnival and Celebrity boards also. Same people will complain about something else.

The website has said for quite a while that the coupons would be going away (at least on my end it has). I don't know if the price difference is really worth it from Bella, but I do like not worrying about getting the dining time I want as much. Not sure that's worth a couple hundred though or not. Sorry you're disappointed. I don't think that's enough to make or break a vacation for me though.

Genoa is an easy walk off the ship into town. Valletta the same, we walked to the Barakka lift and then walked down back to the ship since it was packed to go down, lol. We started in Marseille but I think I would just take a taxi or Uber honestly.

We're holding out booking our November cruise to see if they offer a new deal after March like they are in the UK.

We hit most of those on our recent Magnifica cruise. We did our own thing in all three. Valletta- We just walked around town. We saw the battery and the cannon firing at noon. Was a nice relaxing day. Had a coffee in a coffee and got lost on the cute streets. Barcelona- We took the port shuttle (not the MSC one that was 3x as much) to the city center. We took the metro to Sagrada Familia. I pre-booked tickets for Sagrada Familia and to go up in the facade so we did that and looked around the area. We then headed back to the ship and walked Las Ramblas. Genoa- This was towards the end of our cruise and I just took the kids to the aquarium. There's some nice day trips to Portofino though which I'm hoping to do next time.

I was wondering about this too. I've been waiting for March in hopes that a new promo for European sailings opens for the US. Wanting to book for November but planning to just hold off and see as it's not prime Med cruising time anyways. I definitely would keep bugging them as it seems wrong. The 12 vouchers are still listed on the website too for new bookings and just says until the last winter sailing with no even reference to what year. If you're just looking at MSC for the first time for all you know that's winter next year!

Enjoyed reading another view. You got off the same day we got on it looks like. 🙂

They were definitely NOT strict. Jeans and shirts were often worn on formal nights (not by me but sometimes people at our table didn't even know what the dress code was that day). I wore jeans a couple of evenings and no one said anything. You can wear what you want in my opinion and no one will say anything unless you're in pool clothes or something.

Day 13: Disembarkation in Marseille. We were all super sad to leave our amazing cruise behind (we have done a lot of vacations this year since we just moved to England 5 months ago and this one topped the rest for both me and my daughter). We met at the MDR for breakfast with all our table mates. Seriously, it was the 8 of us one last time. It was nice that we all got along so well that we set up one last meal. Disembarkation was really simple, didn't have to clear customs or anything with my passport etc. There were plenty of taxis lined up outside and we headed to the airport. I think I'll try to get a slightly earlier flight next time because we waited almost 5 hours for our flight to leave at 3:30pm. Luckily the airport had wifi. There was some weather in London so we took off a bit late but were soon on our way to Heathrow and heading home. If you've read this far thanks for following us! I'm excited to say that my parents have just committed to joining us next Thanksgiving on the Magnifica out of Venice (stopping in Bari, Olympia, Santorini, Athens, Corfu and Kotor). Hopefully my husband will be able to make this next one too. If you have any questions I'd be happy to try to answer. 🙂