oceantriumph

Hi! We booked a bella guarantee oceanview for our cruise. We saw that our cabin was assigned and we were given an Aurea Balcony instead. Our cruise docs say the updated room, but still say bella experience. Does anyone know if we will get the aurea experience since we are in an aurea room? Or will they somehow know that it is still bella despite the aurea room?

Any insight from someone who has had similar situation would be helpful

Can anyone whose been on Seashore or Seascape share if the Aurea only dining room has the same menu as the MDR?

Additionally how does the thermal

pass work now? I heard reservations were required?

finally, does the Aurea experience include thermal pass for all guests in cabin or just the first 2 guests!!

we are considering upgrading for $700 from ocean view to Aurea balcony so would appreciate your insight

thanks I’m advance for the answers 

Can you find out if the Aurea dining room has a separate menu from MDR?

Can anyone comment on seashores thermal

suite? How does it compare to seasides? Also, when did they open the therms suite as I know it was closed before

Hi! does anyone know if we need to bring our physical vaccination cards for sailings from the U.S., or if just a picture of them will work? Anyone have experience with this.

13 dining venues, 21 bars

looks like Vinchi is portrayed in the graphic

6 pools, 14 whirlpools 

A new district 

Brand new renderings from MSC.

The first details 19 cabins to choose from

The second “a futuristic city at sea”!

still feels very opulent to us! I mean look at those beautiful lighting adornments, the angled balconies, the flooring. It feels like it has all the MSC design language, while applying to a larger ship. We really liked the new rendering -- it definitely feels like a "posh" Oasis class, which for us is a big plus with all the outside space

first indoor rendering, of the oceanview promenade

first indoor rendering!

Looks like multiple sources (including MSC trademarks) have confirmed the name of the forthcoming Seaside Evo II will be MSC Seascape!

Congrats to MSC on a beautiful name 

Happy Scarlet Night for responses!

Just wanted to start a discussion as someone who was/is very excited for Virgin Voyages and thinks it has potential to disrupt the market despite existing faves.

Biggest confusing point for me so far has been the ship design itself....not even the decor which it seems is polarizing, but the actual planning/design/blueprint/structure of the vessel.

In case any one is not familiar, Virgin built the Lady ships' designs based off of ship-builder's, Fincantieri's "Project Mile" innovative new design for vessels, allowing ships to have a wide, never before seen open-air promenade. 

The first line to bring this to market was of course MSC, with the MSC Seaside class, which in my opinion had a home-run with this and did a great job (rendering of the open air promenade and advantages of Project Mile shown below):

What feels a bit confusing is why Virgin Voyages decided to design their ships with the "Project Mile" prototype (which by the way has the con of having a narrower main-body as shown above), while taking away the advantages of such a design by not positioning this space for al-fresco dining, nice walks and views, an additional pool area, etc. and instead, covering it up with lifeboats as MSC cleverly navigated around! It felt like that's the whole appeal of that type of ship design and wanted to pose the question in case someone with more experience/knowledge about this topic could answer it.

On 2/25/2020 at 10:14 AM, BoundForSea said:

That said, have you seen the pics and videos of that Scarlet Lady?? Shes same master design by the ship yard as our Seaside Class, but man is she ugly as all heck!!! Awful. Talk about taking a great framework and ruining it. Makes me appreciate the beautiful and talented designers that MSC employs. 

Completely agree! I really thought Virgin Voyages was so smart for using Fincantieri's Project Mile (what Seaside is based on as you said) at first and that they were going to have a fleet of ultra-modern "Seaside" like ships without having older ships before such innovative frameworks were created, but boy did they drop the ball on that one! It looks like they did indeed take inspiration from MSC, except they looked at their container ships instead!

The Seaside is a gorgeous, refined, modern vessel, while the Scarlet Lady looks like a floating barge (and what were they thinking with the lifeboats all around the promenade deck?! the open deck and connection to sea seems like one of the biggest appeals of this type of ship design!)

@Disnyfan2 I echo what @jdvmd said; Seasides thermal area is stunning and only really crowded on sea days. Even so, you can use all parts (crowding doesn't affect it) and some parts are almost not used at all by most people (i.e. hot/cold gaiser and sensory showers)

It is 18 years old on all ships @Jgraham03

However, whereas on the SEASIDE, the spa manager wouldn't seem to allow anyone even one day too young enter the spa (we had a 16 year old who got in but was kicked out even though the site allowed us to pay for him when the ship was new), the MERAVIGLIA staff were a lot less "watchful" and seemed to not even check if people purchased the pass (not sure if it's just cuz they knew us or what but they never seemed to scan our cards or ask for verification that we paid for spa passes

Mama Mia, here we go again!

We read a lot of bad reviews about Seaside smelling bad like "sewage" in her early sailings, but never felt any smells as she was spotless on our sailings 

Now, I just read a review about someone saying there is a bad smell / smell of sulfur on the top decks of Meraviglia. Can anyone pitch in? Did the experience this?

We're starting to think no MSC reviews can be started as our experience has been in stark contrast to those in reviews...even in Yacht club when we are in lower classes?!

For anyone whose been to these ports, I'd appreciate some suggestions for best excursions for a family of 5 ranging from 20-50 in age who will likely not have a chance to return to these places:

• Costa Maya, Mexico
• Belize City, Belize
• Isla de Roatan, Honduras

On MSC's Instagram, they took a picture of Alexa Aponte, the daughter of Pier Francisco Vago (the EXECUTIVE of MSC) and said she was the Godmother of MSC Grandiosa!

Instantly, I thought bridges were burned with Sophia Lauren, or that she and Pier Francisco Vago were no longer friends since she has Christened/been the God Mother of all other ships.

And then I went to MSC's website and saw that it says Sophia Lauren will be the Godmother...anyone know? They should start a TV show with such gossip...I'm sure it would be a hit to get some more American passengers aboard MSC XD

Anyone know what is going on?

Asking again because my other thread was hijacked...We paid for pass on Seaside our last 2 cruises and absolutely loved it! Especially the salt water hot tub so the chlorine didn't get in our eyes/skin.

We're seeing reviews of the thermal suite of Meraviglia and hearing it was worse than expectations, has chlorine, and wasn't as good. Can anyone whose tried both classes of thermal suites tell us what they thought was better and/or the differences? We want to buy the pass but want an experience similar to that of Seaside (we didn't use outside area so not too concerned about lack of that on Mera)

bump. Anyone have any insight to this?

We paid for pass on Seaside our last 2 cruises and absolutely loved it! Especially the salt water hot tub so the chlorine didn't get in our eyes/skin.

We're seeing reviews of the thermal suite of Meraviglia and hearing it was worse than expectations, has chlorine, and wasn't as good. Can anyone whose tried both classes of thermal suites tell us what they thought was better and/or the differences? We want to buy the pass but want an experience similar to that of Seaside (we didn't use outside area so not too concerned about lack of that on Mera)

I've heard a lot of people who have OV guarantees on MSC Meraviglia getting upgraded to balcony due to the low amount of ocean views onboard, but has anyone had experience with a Family Ocean View cabin GTY upgrading to a balcony? Let me know!