Next Years Holistic Holiday at Sea Dates

Sure, go ahead and quote me.....I stand by everything I said. BTW, as was reported many times elsewhere in these boards, MSC does take the cruise critic on board meeting seriously. We went (our first ever) and many staff officers were there. The Captain made sure to stop and chat with everyone at the meeting, asking about problems, concerns and so on.

Hi gotcha3.........we were one of the very fortunate ones to cancel this Holistic cruise and now after reading your post, I'm so very grateful we did. We knew it was going to be similar to what you wrote, but reading your words brought back all the reasons we decided to cancel. I'm so very sorry you had to experience this. It's not fair!!!

quote=gotcha3;55424615]For all who are interested in MSC and the 'Holistic Cruise charters'.....my wife and I were on this year's cruise 15-25 Feb. We are not vegans. We will never knowingly travel with this group again. We were in the Yacht Club. No big changes in there that we could see, but there were a lot of vegans staying in the yacht club, as the ship was sold out.

In Le Muse, we didn't even see the sommelier for the first 2 nights, he explained that he spent both evenings with the vegans in the main dining rooms, making wine recommendations. (? what wine goes with a pureed kale?) Yum. FYI the main dining rooms were closed for the early seatings for all but the vegans. We also noticed groups of about 8 or 10 people hosted by Yacht Club members having dinner in Le Muse or socializing after dinner in the Top Sail lounge....not exactly sure how THAT works!

The vegans were absolutely everywhere. As I understand it, the ship hold @3500 people and the vegans had @2200 on board. On some days, you could hardly walk in the area of the smoothie bar and future cruise consultant as this area was set up for sales of all manner of vegan paraphernalia like books and pots & pans...they even had a palm reader, the Peta people were there and a guy touting the benefits of marijuana. I didn't appreciate all of these causes, issues, whatever so "in my face" on MY vacation!

I fault MSC for not being more upfront with folks who were impacted by this group. Many on our Roll Call changed their plans when it was learned that the vegans would be on board...we should have. MSC made it seem like there would be no disruption to regular cruisers. There were areas blocked off in the buffet for vegans and many of the shore excursions featured vegan themes. This was our first cruise with MSC and we were disappointed with the experience.

wow! How do you know whether you're on a holistic cruise? I don't mind vegan food (tried it myself for a while in the past) but my son would be unhappy and I definitely do NOT want my vacation defined by some vegan theme. I am expecting lots of meat.

So, how do you know?

wow! How do you know whether you're on a holistic cruise? I don't mind vegan food (tried it myself for a while in the past) but my son would be unhappy and I definitely do NOT want my vacation defined by some vegan theme. I am expecting lots of meat.

So, how do you know?

I don't think you can know that for sure, unless the cruiseline tell you and it seems like they don't tell people about it.

I will double my meatconsumption on the cruise to compensate for that many don't eat meat! (If we decide not to cancel.)

Read the comment of someone from the vegan prt of the cruise on the roll call for Divina Feb 15!

Posted today!

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The following is what was posted (Thanks, Nikki. Personally, I'd read enough already to make the decision to cancel but this re-inforces it)

I love the Divina. I just didn’t like that 1/3 of passengers were not informed of the Holistic Holiday. Deck chairs hoarded for 1 1/2 hours while they went to lectures. Could not get a banana as they were taking so many. I saw a women putting them down her shirt. Yoga was ridiculous no room to practice safely. Vegan Buffet line so long and they blocked doorway access. I saw a man with two canes fall as they did not hear him ask to move. I could go on and on. I spoke to many many passengers who were part of the non vegan group and to say we were not like would b an understatement. One women had done back to back cruises, she said her first week was heaven and when we came onboard it was such a negative change. One fellow Vegan I met on disembarkation who was a young guy said he was ashamed of the vegans behaviour. I have been a vegan my whole life By the way.

Hi Sverigecruiser........there are several websites that offer information on theme cruises.......I google to find different sites, then search for theme cruises on the cruises I have booked......noticed there are many, many theme cruises out there..... Of course some of the theme cruises may only have a small number of passengers which would not affect the cruise at all. I look for theme cruises with groups that are offering lecturers, etc., etc., etc......which would make me think the group is large. If you google the Holistic Vegan site you can also "sometimes" see how many people are attending, etc. Good luck!!

I don't think you can know that for sure, unless the cruiseline tell you and it seems like they don't tell people about it.

 

I will double my meatconsumption on the cruise to compensate for that many don't eat meat! (If we decide not to cancel.)

For all who are interested in MSC and the 'Holistic Cruise charters'.....my wife and I were on this year's cruise 15-25 Feb. We are not vegans. We will never knowingly travel with this group again. We were in the Yacht Club. No big changes in there that we could see, but there were a lot of vegans staying in the yacht club, as the ship was sold out.

 

In Le Muse, we didn't even see the sommelier for the first 2 nights, he explained that he spent both evenings with the vegans in the main dining rooms, making wine recommendations. (? what wine goes with a pureed kale?) Yum. FYI the main dining rooms were closed for the early seatings for all but the vegans. We also noticed groups of about 8 or 10 people hosted by Yacht Club members having dinner in Le Muse or socializing after dinner in the Top Sail lounge....not exactly sure how THAT works!

 

The vegans were absolutely everywhere. As I understand it, the ship hold @3500 people and the vegans had @2200 on board. On some days, you could hardly walk in the area of the smoothie bar and future cruise consultant as this area was set up for sales of all manner of vegan paraphernalia like books and pots & pans...they even had a palm reader, the Peta people were there and a guy touting the benefits of marijuana. I didn't appreciate all of these causes, issues, whatever so "in my face" on MY vacation!

 

I fault MSC for not being more upfront with folks who were impacted by this group. Many on our Roll Call changed their plans when it was learned that the vegans would be on board...we should have. MSC made it seem like there would be no disruption to regular cruisers. There were areas blocked off in the buffet for vegans and many of the shore excursions featured vegan themes. This was our first cruise with MSC and we were disappointed with the experience.

gotcha3, I could not agree more with your post, especially the last paragraph. I also knew about the Holistic group prior to going, but decided to keep an open mind. We were bumped from our original first dinner seating (booked over a year ago) & once onboard found out that eating our dinner by 9 pm was not working for us. We ended up sometimes eating at the buffet or booking a specialty restaurant in order to eat at our normal time. To worsen matters, as time went on, we saw some vegans eating meat at our end of the buffet. Suddenly our lines became very long! (Some even made sure to tuck in their holistic lanyard!) We did enjoy many aspects of the Divina, but it was dulled by the lack of venues open to non-vegans... not to mention activities. One person on Roll Call warned it would not be a "typical cruise" & they were so right! SO many non-holistic people were upset with being bumped to late dining and had no idea prior to boarding about the 2400 vegans onboard. (they don't read Cruise Critic) We have been on several cruises but this was our lst with MSC and their lack of disclosure at the time of booking does not install much confidence for furture bookings with them. 1st lesson learned (or more of a suggestion): Fill the annual holistic voyage with just vegans or at least warn others of what to expect so that they can decide. (maybe a bit of a discount?) 2nd lesson learned: DO NOT knowingly book to go on a holistic cruise if you are non-vegan. It will definitely NOT be the full wonderful cruise experience!

To be fair to MSC I know of no cruise line that informs guests of any group being on board.

To be fair to MSC I know of no cruise line that informs guests of any group being on board.

You are correct Mafig. Unfortunately, at least in the USA, the cruise lines risk litigation due to privacy concerns to list groups onboard. It's a shame that our society has come to that but it is what it is.

Bret

To be fair to MSC I know of no cruise line that informs guests of any group being on board.

Why should any of us be fair to MSC? I certainly don't think there were fair to me!

You are correct Mafig. Unfortunately, at least in the USA, the cruise lines risk litigation due to privacy concerns to list groups onboard. It's a shame that our society has come to that but it is what it is.

 

Bret

That doesn't make sense, as all these cruises have to be advertised for sale. You won't sell many charters if you keep them secret.

What I'd like to see, and it applies to all lines, is an announcement thread with the dates of planned charter cruises, the group concerned and the size of the charter. If the cruise lines don't make the information public the group's offering the charter certainly will.

You are correct Mafig. Unfortunately, at least in the USA, the cruise lines risk litigation due to privacy concerns to list groups onboard. It's a shame that our society has come to that but it is what it is.

 

 

 

Bret

Bret,

Sounds like you are pretty experienced with MSC. I would like to contact you privately. Can you email me at lmcgrail_1**yahoo.com? Replace ** with @. Apologies for hijacking this thread.

Lori

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There are some horror stories associated with this cruise. Not because the people are bad, but because the rest of the ship is very limited. I would not assume that you are ok just because you are already booked in YC. Like Nikki said, check out the other social media sites. Wishing you lots of luck with this, the good news is that you are aware so you are leaps and bounds ahead of the rest.

 

 

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It's not a horror, the MDR is open to others but most likely you will eat at 830 because the vegans eat at 600 and they take 1 lounge to sell books etc. and the shows are later because they use the theater for lectures and the buffet has a whole side for the vegans. That is the way it was in 2016 and we were on that cruise.

It's not a horror, the MDR is open to others but most likely you will eat at 830 because the vegans eat at 600 and they take 1 lounge to sell books etc. and the shows are later because they use the theater for lectures and the buffet has a whole side for the vegans. That is the way it was in 2016 and we were on that cruise.

Ric ... have you read the reports, on this very thread, from those who've just recently been on the Divina cruise which had been chartered by the Holistic group? I've seen the schedule of events for the group - it certainly used a lot more venues than 1 lounge! Here it is, showing the different venues and times of the events:

http://www.atasteofhealth.org/events/program/Program2018v1003.pdf

There are other (very negative) reports about this cruise on the Roll Call forum.

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I have to thank you again for posting the information about the cruise.

MSC did the right thing and let us change the date for free.

Fortunately they had ONE suite available for the cruise February 10 and we now have a confirmed booking for that cruise! (They had one suite we could see on their Swedish site, maybe they have more we couldn't see.)

Again, THANKS!

 

We've decided to cancel and spend the money elsewhere. Sorry, SC, we'll have to make a date for some other time to share that bottle of champagne. :(

I was sorry to see that you had cancelled but now when we have changed our date it doesn't matter anymore! Could you cancel for free or was your deposit lost?

My plan was to first share a bottle of Champagne and then invite you for a meal in LeMuse! (I have heared that it's possible to do that for a fee so my plan was to arrange that as a thank you for all the great information we got from you before our first MSC experience.)

I was sorry to see that you had cancelled but now when we have changed our date it doesn't matter anymore! Could you cancel for free or was your deposit lost?

 

My plan was to first share a bottle of Champagne and then invite you for a meal in LeMuse! (I have heared that it's possible to do that for a fee so my plan was to arrange that as a thank you for all the great information we got from you before our first MSC experience.)

Oh - that would have been a very generous - and welcome - gesture, indeed, SC. I, too, am sorry to be cancelling the cruise as I was looking forward to meeting you. :(

I had just got an email alert of your post about you changing your date and was about to post here to ask about it, when, immediately after it, I received another alert which was a response from MSC to my email to them about the situation. The following is the response I received:

"Thank you for your email

In response to your query. I have been informed that there will be indeed a large group participating in an event known as "Holistic Holidays at Sea" which i understand will restrict guests not within this group access to certain areas of the ship

For this reason, i would recommend that we do approach a cruise move to another departure to avoid this?

We would be happy to waive the admin fee to do this, however, please note the new cruise must be within the same destination of travel as the original booking and past the original sail date."

TBH, I'm not sure how to respond. I was going to forfeit the deposit. I'll have to look and see what else is available at that time of year. Maybe we'll give Seaside a go? It states that the new cruise must be within the same destination. Now, we booked a TA of 31 nights. The 11 night Caribbean itinerary is the section of ours that's being impacted. I'm sure they'll accommodate a move to a Caribbean booking. Funny how they're allowing you to bring the sail date forward, but our move has to be "past the original sail date".

I am following this thread because I am sailing MSC Seaside in Jan 2018. Just some info concerning another cruise line and not informing booked guests about a themed cruise prior to cruising... last year we cruised on celebrity equinox...I believe it was either a third or a half of the cruisers belonged to a cult (sorry but it is) called "Abraham Hicks." Ruined our cruise. They were EVERYWHERE. The thing we loved most about cruises was doing our own thing, everyone doing their own thing. Not this cruise. We had no idea prior. I emailed customer service with my displeasure after the cruise - they said sorry, but they don't feel it's necessary to let other guests know prior due to privacy. What about my privacy? Needless to say, if I know there is a themed cruise, I wouldn't go on it. Problem is, not knowing.

I mean, 2019.

Funny how they're allowing you to bring the sail date forward, but our move has to be "past the original sail date".

I have read the fine prints in MSCs brochure a lot the last days and the information is the same there, the move must be "past the original date". I don't know why they let me change to an earlier date but I'm very glad they did!

I have read the fine prints in MSCs brochure a lot the last days and the information is the same there, the move must be "past the original date". I don't know why they let me chsnge to an earlier date but I'm very glad they did!

I'm so glad for you, SC - especially that you managed to get an alternative YC cabin!

I've had a look and there's really nothing of interest to me, either as a repo or as a Caribbean cruise (and we would consider doing YC on Seaside with the budget we'd allowed for the original booking). So it looks like we'll just forfeit the deposit. I'm not happy about it, but I'm not prepared to book something I don't really want and spend big money just to "save" €200.

I'm so glad for you, SC - especially that you managed to get an alternative YC cabin!

 

I've had a look and there's really nothing of interest to me, either as a repo or as a Caribbean cruise (and we would consider doing YC on Seaside with the budget we'd allowed for the original booking). So it looks like we'll just forfeit the deposit. I'm not happy about it, but I'm not prepared to book something I don't really want and spend big money just to "save" €200.

I'm really surprised that they had a YC cabin for me with less than a year to the cruise!

I'm sorry for you but hope that since you cruise so much it matters less for you than it should for me. I haven't slept much for a few nights now so it feels very good now!

I understand that's not an option for you since you have more cruises booked after this cruise but if an option should be to book an earlier cruise, maybe MSC should let you do it is you told them that you know that other persons have been able to do it?

Can you change to the same cruise 2020, if it's available then?

Can you change to the same cruise 2020, if it's available then?

They're only offering the Miami-Genoa TA in 2020. What I loved about our booking was that it was comprised of the 11 night Caribbean with the 20 night TA without having to do it as a B2B. I'm sure that we could still do the TA leg of our original cruise - I don't know if they'd let us keep the cabin we've booked, though, or what availability there still is. I may follow up on that.

TBH, I didn't really want to bring the date forward, anyway. I was just curious when I read that you had done so and, immediately after, I received notification stating that we would have to sail after the initial sail date.

You're so right about it not being as big a deal for us. We are heading off in a little over 3 weeks time in YC on Splendida for the 28 night Dubai-Yokohama trip. We have Poesia booked for late Summer this year and Meraviglia booked again for later in 2019.

 

TBH, I didn't really want to bring the date forward, anyway. I was just curious when I read that you had done so and, immediately after, I received notification stating that we would have to sail after the initial sail date.

 

Maybe MSC in Sweden didn't knew that they wasn't supposed to let me change for an earlier date and when the booking should be made they let the mistake pass. I don't know the reason for it but I appreciate that they let me book the February 10 cruise. I have the new date confirmed and hope that they won't change that!

I also made it very clear to them that if we should do the March 3 cruise, absolutely no "reduced service" or less than expected cruise experience should be accepted.