Balcony Aurea?

[Railwaylass]

Just booked the Musica for a cruise that is quite far out - March 23, 2025, Luxor - Genoa. We wound up with a Balcony Aurea cabin, which is identical to a regular balcony but supposedly has some perks. Anybody out there been in one of these cabins? Did you get/enjoy the perks? 

[CruisingFox27]

If you've booked the Aurea experience you'll have access to the private Aurea sun deck, Anytime dining and the spa. Bathrobes and slippers. The website will have the full list of perks included with an Aurea experience booking. The list isn't as long as it used to be but still plenty of benefits. 

[Railwaylass]

7 hours ago, CruisingFox27 said:

If you've booked the Aurea experience you'll have access to the private Aurea sun deck, Anytime dining and the spa. Bathrobes and slippers. The website will have the full list of perks included with an Aurea experience booking. The list isn't as long as it used to be but still plenty of benefits. 

Cheers!  I wish that there was a private pool too, lol!

[Stockjock]

Most of the time, there isn't a lot of difference and it's probably not worth the cost.  I have an upcoming cruise in an Aurea suite that's a lot larger and probably is worth the cost, based on what I paid.

On a past cruise, they messed up our reservation and moved us to an Aurea cabin that, in my view, was inferior to the standard veranda cabin that we had before the error occurred.

Edited December 4, 2023 by Stockjock

[Railwaylass]

11 hours ago, Stockjock said:

Most of the time, there isn't a lot of difference and it's probably not worth the cost.  I have an upcoming cruise in an Aurea suite that's a lot larger and probably is worth the cost, based on what I paid.

On a past cruise, they messed up our reservation and moved us to an Aurea cabin that, in my view, was inferior to the standard veranda cabin that we had before the error occurred

My only real desire in a cabin is for an unobstructed balcony in a quiet spot, which the one I got appears to be. We've got limited funds and want to use the money for fun stuff.

 

I waited a bit too long to check on this cruise with my cruise consultant - they'd had a promotion going for a while and I called on the final day - and this one Balcony Aurea was the very last balcony available that they had been allocated for now. They held it for me whilst I checked around and turns out this was a really great deal.

 

I got this BA cabin with the perks, plus drinks package, WiFi and $100 onboard credit for less money than a balcony with no package on any of the other sites I checked. 

 

Even without the Aurea perks I feel I've lucked out! 😁

 

 

 

[Stockjock]

11 hours ago, Railwaylass said:

My only real desire in a cabin is for an unobstructed balcony in a quiet spot, which the one I got appears to be. We've got limited funds and want to use the money for fun stuff.

 

I waited a bit too long to check on this cruise with my cruise consultant - they'd had a promotion going for a while and I called on the final day - and this one Balcony Aurea was the very last balcony available that they had been allocated for now. They held it for me whilst I checked around and turns out this was a really great deal.

 

I got this BA cabin with the perks, plus drinks package, WiFi and $100 onboard credit for less money than a balcony with no package on any of the other sites I checked. 

 

Even without the Aurea perks I feel I've lucked out! 😁

 

 

 

To me, the Aurea labelling is pretty close to meaningless.  In my view, the perks aren't especially noteworthy.  Sounds like you got what you wanted at a good price, and that's what matters.

[CruisingFox27]

4 hours ago, Stockjock said:

To me, the Aurea labelling is pretty close to meaningless.  In my view, the perks aren't especially noteworthy.  Sounds like you got what you wanted at a good price, and that's what matters.

Compared to? Fantastica? 

It really depends what's important for each passenger. We've only ever sailed YC or Aurea, under the old benefits. With the changes to the benefits, we tried Fantastica in April. It confirmed that even with the reduced benefits we'd still book Aurea. Although we were lucky to be in an overflow area of the restaurant and at a two top, the fixed time dining was detrimental to our holiday. As was not having the Solarium to use. 

[Stockjock]

26 minutes ago, CruisingFox27 said:

Compared to? Fantastica? 

It really depends what's important for each passenger. We've only ever sailed YC or Aurea, under the old benefits. With the changes to the benefits, we tried Fantastica in April. It confirmed that even with the reduced benefits we'd still book Aurea. Although we were lucky to be in an overflow area of the restaurant and at a two top, the fixed time dining was detrimental to our holiday. As was not having the Solarium to use. 

To me, the anytime dining isn't a big deal.  We typically prefer a late dining, perhaps around 8:30 pm, and we can usually get that.  We like having the same table & waitstaff every night, most of the time.

Don't really care about the Solarium, but we have been able to sneak in there.  Didn't think it was a big deal, but to some maybe it is.  A few years back Aurea included a drink package, but no longer.

[CruisingFox27]

Although we do eat later, usually 8pm to 8.30pm ish, we were assigned 9pm which was just to late. We were hanging around 8pm to 9pm and then only had a short evening after dining. The biggest issue is needing to be ready at a fixed time, we missed the flexibility of eating when we were ready and no time pressure. 

 

It was a massive disappointment removing the drinks package, Aurea was such a great deal before. 

[perakcruiser]

On 12/4/2023 at 7:04 PM, Stockjock said:

Most of the time, there isn't a lot of difference and it's probably not worth the cost

On a full ship and a cruise with a couple of sea days the private sun deck for Aurea (which has very nice areas on Musica) is something very nice. And if you want to use the spa, the spa access is also worth many bucks. On board our Musica cruise in November the Spa pass for 7 days was a crazy 315 Euro plus service charge. Priority check is also fine if you are not Diamond. 

 

If you not plan to use the spa or the private sun deck, Aurea is surely not worth the cost, but if you do so, it is worth it obviously. 

[mets07]

Our first MSC cruise was last month on the Meraviglia. We enjoyed the Aurea experience. 

 

We were able to board within minutes of checking-in due to priority boarding.

 

We had a deck 12 midship balcony.  We loved the anytime dining. We typically arrived around 7 - 7:30pm and were brought immediately to a window table for 2. We have cruised a lot on Royal and the handling of "my time dining" has really declined and involves a wait. Other things about Royal (particularly the Loyalty program) are hard to beat. 

 

We typically don't go to the spa on a cruise, but took advantage of and enjoyed the thermal area included for Aurea on MSC. We could not take advantage of the private "Solarium" due to the weather on this cruise, but checked it out and it looked inviting.

 

Enjoy your cruise, @Railwaylass