Svea817

The contract language protects the cruise line if/when they have to change an itinerary. Again, in good faith. Anyway, Virgin fixed it. I read that there have been other lines taking ports in France off the list. Not sure if they did it to booked cruisers, but if they did, hopefully VVs decision yesterday helps those cruisers enjoy a speedy remedy as well.

Glad to see that Virgin re-evaluated. It also goes to show that there wasn't a legitimate reason to skip this port to cruisers who had already paid and were beyond the point of a refund. To be fair...they never said there was a legitimate reason to act in bad faith. I look forward to my first VV cruise and potentially future cruises (their quick resolve outweighs the hasty boneheaded decision in my book..(I'm sure there's an intern to blame lol)) So in the end, there were some characters in this thread who showed their over-the-top loyalty in this litmus test sort of situation and I am glad to know who's advice to take with less than a grain of salt moving forward. Imagine the audacity of suggesting that if a cruise line turned their entire itinerary to sea days, we should be happy with it...because...we signed up for that possibility. Cheers to everyone who is now getting what the product that was advertised, in good faith

I came on here for this topic as this affects our June 13th cruise. Definitely disappointed. End of the world? Nope. Bad faith and will affect my future cruise line decisions? Absolutely. It's almost scary/cultish if you see zero issue with this. If this was due to an unpredictable spike in crime/violence/political chaos....or (assuming cruise was next week, due to weather) then I'm all good. I have no pity for people who complain because they cruised the Caribbean during hurricane season. But this is not the same. Past customer feedback is not a crisis. It can, and should, affect decision making. But there is no reason to have it affect cruises booked where a refund window has passed. And...if this falls in some gray area where they really need to not visit Toulon...then exceptions for refunds should be made, in good faith. If they did that, I'd be fine with their call, and I'd likely not even opt for the refund myself. Just not a fan of companies that can afford to not be shady being shady.

To affirm the other responses... We ended up taking our time in the morning and got to the port at 12:30. There were two lanes (divided by poles with the nylon pullout ropes between them) each with a feather banner. One read something like "Checking in on time" and the other read something to the effect of "Checking in not on time." Before I could even consider the moral choice, the employee stationed there directed us into the "on time" lane and was clearly just trying to keep both lines moving at an even pace. From there we snaked through the terminal in a line created by seats and ropes and landed at one of a few dozen friendly employees who reviewed our paperwork and gave us a pamplet with "some information about the ship" and told us our cruise cards would be on our door. From there it was off to boarding. In hindsight, it was pretty quick and simple. But, in what would become a theme of our short cruise, a lot of strange "performance art" in their methods that made things messier than they should have been.

Is the muster drill at a set time (like after 4PM?) and are you free to have lunch, go in the pool, etc up until that time? Or is everyone hanging out in their room until after the drill? First MSC cruise tomorrow so I appreciate the insight. It might affect how we plan our day.

Thanks everyone. Do they call out groups by individual parties or larger group numbers etc?

We are taking our first MSC cruise this weekend out of Port Canaveral (Friday-Sunday) and when I did the online check in on August 27 I received an 11AM check-in open time but now that I'm printing out my documents, I see 16:00. This is disappointing given that the entire cruise is only 2 nights so the afternoon is a larger percentage of the short vacation than it would be on a longer sailing. This change in time also happened after the cancellation window and all costs were paid. Has anyone else experienced this? Is it something MSC will resolve either over the phone or at the terminal? The boarding documents state that you will have to leave if it is before your time so I don't know about gambling with just showing up. I do have the original email with the 11am time saved and can print it if that's been helpful to others.

Is there a trick to search cruises that stay late enough to enjoy the lighthouse show and firepits? I'm finding that the cruises with Ocean Cay on the itinerary all are leaving at 6PM or 8PM even if the next day is a sea day. Their site says certain ships stay over but I'm not finding that to be accurate unless the debarkation times are wrong. I'm looking in March which is before the scheduled renovations.