MacMarauder

Nice, I grabbed the CocoCay Waterpark for 50% off. Still outrageous but better than $200 pp. My kids are super excited about it so I don't have much option lol. 

Also for some reason when I tried to book on my phone I got an error email - "Well that didn't go as planned". Received a confirmation after booking on the computer so I should be all set.

I'll probably be called a Royal cheerleader for this but here is my theory, they have containers for milk and half&half because they intend to have both. However, if they can't get half&half for whatever reason they just fill both with milk rather than store the half&half container. Maybe I'm naive but if they never intended to have half&half again they would just label both containers as milk. 

Also for the record I drink my coffee black!

Thanks for the review OP. Question about the terminal, how did you find getting in and out? I haven't sailed out of Bayonne since 2017. We like to do a later check time when the lines at the terminal die down.

I'm booked on Symphony out of NJ with two balcony cabins next year for around the $7k you were quoted. Compared to Wonder at $10k plus flights to FL it's a steal lol. I like Royal but I agree there is a certain point where the value isn't there anymore. We did Carnival Celebration this summer out of Miami and it was great. I would like to try MSC one day as well but always get scared off by bad reviews.

1 hour ago, cruisegirl1 said:

We’ve occasionally had the taxes/fees go down from the time we booked  to the time we sailed. Occasionally we would get some odd amount of onboard credit (usually less than $5), and when we inquired at guest services, they always tell me it was a decrease in the fees/ taxes. 
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This happened to me earlier this month when I was on Carnival Celebration. Everyone in our group had some odd number between $5 - $10 of onboard credit due to a tax/fee change from one of the ports.

Nice pics and review, also impressed that you have a Pikachu Squishmallow those are hard to find lol. 

Also one question you said you ate at the MDR first night, how busy was it? I've had bad experiences with the first night of MDR being chaos and then settling down as the cruise went on. Not sure if that was the case for you or not.

I vote no to lanyards. I'm a guy and all my pants have pockets, including board shorts for the pool. My kids are small so I carry their cards, and if my wife doesn't have pockets in her dress I'll carry hers as well. Carrying a max of four cards in my pocket is easier than wearing something around my neck IMO.

3 hours ago, MrBoccia said:

Ok, as expected - Oasic class with Edge cabins. And some clean-ups.

Ugh the Edge style cabins are a bummer IMO I'm not a fan of that style. I like all the family stuff and the big waterpark but it's pretty much a Oasis class on steroids.

29 minutes ago, pcur said:

Always call C&A.  They can book cruises and take care of anything the regular customer service reps can.  

This is a good tip, I'm trying to cancel a cruise and I haven't successfully got through the regular customer service line. I'm not sure what happened, previously it only took 10-15 minutes now it's several hours? 

As an update I called again over the weekend to cancel this, figured I would roll the dice and see how much I got back. Surprisingly the person I talked to said I would get the entire deposit back and it was their corporate policy to refund the trip insurance. She even said not to panic when the first refund hit my card for the smaller amount (about $50) because the remainder would take another week or two. She seemed very confident so we will see!

29 minutes ago, Itchy&Scratchy said:

Super Family Plus is usually 2-3 connecting cabins, as far as I understand. So, when when MSC switches you ALL to a single balcony room, you don't get what you paid for.

This is correct, I had Super Family booked which is 2 connecting balconies as opposed to Super Family Plus which was 3 (I messed up my terminology in the OP). In any event MSC did away with those categories, and instead of moving me into two connecting balconies they put my whole family in one. So a two for one deal but you pay for two and get one.

5 minutes ago, styles27 said:

I just double checked to be sure with our friends who were supposed to cruise with us last Nov on Divina because they had a similar situation. 

We booked in July 2021 for Nov 2021 and purchased insurance through MSC. 

Our friends decided not to go, so she called to cancel before making final payment. 
MSC told her the same thing that she wouldn’t get the $280 they paid for insurance refunded.
 She was ok with that. 
 

Low and behold within 10 days the full amount for the deposit and insurance was refunded to her credit card. 
 

So sometimes (or most of the time 😉) the phone reps don’t even know what will happen. 

Maybe this will happen for you 🤞

Lol I like the positivity here! I think that is going to be my strategy, just to cancel and hope for the best. In any event it's a lesson learned and not a huge amount of money. Have to roll with the punches sometimes!

Hello all, hope I can get some help regarding the MSC Cancellation policy. I booked Seashore for August, originally under the "Super Family Plus" stateroom type. MSC has since changed it to one balcony cabin without telling me so I'm planning to cancel. However, when I called today to cancel I was told that because I selected the travel protection plan I won't get my deposit back for it. Apparently I can cancel the cruise itself because we are well ahead of the 90 days to sailing, but you can only cancel the travel protection within 10 days. I've never heard of anything like this, is this true or should I call back and try to get someone else? It's not a huge amount of money but annoying if I have to pay MSC $350 for nothing!

4 minutes ago, smokeybandit said:

The CDC gave a backhanded compliment to the cruise lines.

Yes but still a compliment which is more than I would expect from the CDC lol

Lol what a terrible article, I would like to know what the author thinks the CDC would accomplish by investigating these ships. Or maybe an alternative solution for where to house COVID positive employees. 

Cancelling a cruise used to be easy, I remember a NE/Canada cruise I cancelled with a click of a button on Royal's page. Money was refunded in a timely manner, and the whole process took no time at all. Now you have to call, wait for customer service and then they walk your money back as slowly as possible. Clearly they are trying to keep as much cash on hand as possible. 

Wow that's a tough one. The booster hit me with chills for 12-18 hours after. Granted by 24 hours post shot I was fine other than tiredness from not sleeping well. If you were 3-4 days out I would say get the shot, but 2 days + driving I say wait until you get back. Just my $0.02

13 hours ago, Reenie75 said:

I can never find a super family cabin ever when I'm booking. 

Yes it appears they completely did away with it, which is a bummer for people like me who really value connecting cabins. Given MSC's reputation for changing cabin assignments I'm not sure if there is a way to be confident in booking connecting cabins with them at this time. 

I would go. A cold is not a big deal, and part of it might be that you are over analyzing things because you have a trip coming up. Good chance once you are on the ship your cold symptoms will disappear. This has happened to me before, even in the pre-COVID times I was paranoid about getting sick prior to a cruise. No fever and negative COVID test means go for it IMO.

Pina colada is my favorite of the blended mixed drinks. However, nothing beats a nice bourbon on the rocks while sitting on the balcony!

16 hours ago, cruiser82 said:

 

Nope, still no resolution. I spoke to them again this week and I was told that it was escalated and that someone would be either calling or emailing me soon. If I don't hear from them in two weeks I'm going to call again and may well consider cancelling because this is ridiculous. I was told that if I did cancel I should be able to get a refund instead of a future cruise credit since the change was because of MSC, so we'll see what happens.

Ok thanks for the info, that helps me make my decision. I'll just cancel mine and re-think my vacation plans for next year. It's crazy they didn't have a better plan on how to handle the existing FLA bookings but it sounds like that is par for the course with MSC. 

On 11/30/2021 at 5:15 PM, cruiser82 said:

 Also, instead of the FLA room category (Super Family Balcony- 2 connecting balcony staterooms), our category was now just a balcony, and appears to be only one balcony.

 

I called them the next day and spoke to a guy who didn't really seem to know what was going on. He was doing an online chat or something with a supervisor and I was unable to speak with them directly.

Hello, I was curious if MSC was able to resolve this? I'm in the same boat, from what I can tell they changed my FLA room to one balcony. Having connecting balconies is a big deal to me, so I'm not sure if I should just call and cancel (cruise isn't until Aug 22) or if they have some way to fix this.

Did MSC delete the Super Family Plus category? I booked a Seashore August 2022 cruise with this category because it guaranteed connecting balcony cabins. Per my confirmation email back in October it lists "FLA − Super Family Cabin". However when I look at my booking online now it says "Deluxe Balcony". Even more concerning when I try to re-book the same cruise I can't even find a place to book a Super Family Cabin. I'm guessing that MSC killed the family balcony type and moved us into one regular balcony. Since this vacation is so far out I'll just cancel the whole thing and start from scratch, but I wanted to see if anyone else has heard of this.

Nice! How old are you kids, I'm planning to sail on Seashore next year with a 4 and 7 year old. Is there an indoor area for the kids to run around / play? 

This is exciting, while my cruise isn't until August of next year I'm interested to see US reviews of the Seashore. And hopefully Cruise Critic can do their photography of the ship which is always nice. I hope the crew has a nice voyage across the Atlantic!

I was worried about the re-assignment of cabins as well, I'm glad I read about it here because I originally had two connecting cabins booked for next summer. I changed it to the Super Family cabin type which is a guarantee of two connecting balcony cabins. Even though I can't pick the area of the ship I'm glad knowing that we won't be split up. So, +1 for the usefulness of this board!