sunny2runner

We had a great day with Brandon. He's actually an American who lives on the island. He was super flexible and accommodating. We definitely recommend him! Here's his info:

 

https://travelerpalmexcursions.wordpress.com/

We just did a tour with Brandon! It was awesome! We got to truly enjoy the best of Martinique. And we felt fortunate to have our tour experience with Brandon as many on our cruise seem not enjoy their time in Martinique. We loved our time in Martinique :cool:

Which cruise did you book? Curious to see what my cost would be. Thanks

Summer Western/Eastern Cruise on Caribbean Princess 14 day :cool::cool:

Amazing deal!

We just booked this sale for family of 4 getting 3rd and 4th passenger free. Yippee! What a deal for a summer cruise!

Has anyone ventured to a beach where you can swim with the turtles? What beach? How long to get there? Private tour guide or, on our own with taxi? We will be in port from 8-5. We would like to do something memorable in Martinique. Any advice is appreciated.

We are using Brandon for our tour and doing Sea Turtle Beaches for our spring break trip.

https://travelerpalmexcursions.wordpress.com/

Southern Martinique Itinerary #2:

Sea Turtle Beaches

Fort-de-France to Anse Noire 9:00-10:00

Anse Noire & Anse Dufour 10:00-12:45

These beaches are famous for the numerous sea turtles that frequent the sea grass beds. The water is usually crystal clear, and even if you aren’t able to spot a turtle, snorkelers will not be disappointed with the diverse array of marine life and intriguing rock formations. Both beaches require a bit of a hike from the parking lot, but the picturesque stretches of sand make for an excellent combination of beach relaxation and salt water adventure.

We have sailed Princess on a 10 day with our kids. They were 10 and 13 years when we did it. It was late March so near spring break time. There were plenty of families with kids of all ages. There are lot less kids than on other cruises we have taken with NCL and Disney but plenty of other kids. My kids LOVED this cruise and because of the smaller amount of kids on board they actually meet lots of friends during the cruise. The crew were happy to engage with the kids. My kids were never bored or even out of place. We are going back in 30 days from another 10 day trip on the Royal Princess.

We have sailed MSC, Princess, Disney and NCL in the last year and our Princess cruise was the least expensive of all the cruises. We found an amazing one week sale price for the sailing we wanted and snagged it up quickly. I think that Princess prices fluctuate a lot and you have to kind of watch them and seize the moment quickly when you see a price drop.

Vitamin D is more effective as treating and preventing the flu than the vaccaintion and tamiflu. Four years ago, we came home with the flu from a winter cruise. It started the morning of disembarkation. We stopped at a CVS minute clinic on the way home and had confirmed cases of the flu. We felt awlful on the day we were traveling home. I called my Naturopath on the way home and she told me to take 30,000 IUs of Vitamin D3 for 3 days and than 10,000 ius for 2 weeks. We were both over the flu within 3 days ( no fever, sworenss, chills, fever or fatigue. By day 5,we had no sign that we even had the flu. I know have myself and kids taking Vitamin d3 in the winter months as well as in the weeks before we travel on a cruise and than carry some with me in case anyone comes down with anything on the trip.

Yeah we were looking to book a summer cruise and it looks like Summer on Sale requires a 10% non refundable deposit.

I am wondering if our Future Cruise Credits will work for deposits on non refundable cruise.

I guess we will call Princess to check but wondered if anyone here knew about that and why they are requiring the larger deposit and having it be non-refundable.

We booked a very awesome deal last summer for our spring break cruise coming in 30 days. It was around July 4th but than just recently Princess had our same cruise on this one week only sale for $800 less than we paid and $150 of on board credit. We canceled and we rebooked. This when having Princess's cancel for any reason insurance comes in handy.

We did the 12/23 sailing in a regular balcony. We had a lovely cruise. No complaints at all. Everything went so well for us. We loved so much about the ship, crew and food options.

We went into this cruise very open with no exceptions given it was a new ship and a new cruise line experience. We found MSC did several things much better than other cruise lines yes even Disney!

We have done 13 DCL, 4 NCL and 1 Princess. Each cruise lines seems to have the niche on what they are good at and somethings that are kind of not so great.

They were aces at embarkation and debarkation - both for us went so smoothly and pretty darn fast. Much faster than our previous NCL Epic and Princess boarding process.

Like MSC Seaside beat out NCL on pool deck. We have been on Breakaway, Epic and Escape and enjoyed MSC's open pool deck plan much better than NCL but than the Royal Princess pool beats both and Disney's is unique that is hard to compare to but Princess beats Disney are well.

And we thought MSC did just as well with food and food options as NCL and Princess which all beat Disney.

We enjoyed the entertainment better than NCL and Princess but Disney beats all in entertainment.

What I am getting at is there are pros and cons to all cruise lines. Some things you will enjoy and some things you won't so much.

If we get a chance to do Seaside again soon, we definitely will. I am hoping more people cancel so we get a good deal. Cancel away people :-) Its was so sucky, you really should cancel :-)

We were able to reprice our spring break cruise with this new sale. We saved $400 (basically the cost of our 3rd and 4th passenger), got a room upgrade (from inside to balcony) and $$ onboard spending. We did have cancel for any reason insurance though so that allowed us to cancel and rebook. If we didn't have that insurance than we wouldn't have been able to get the better fare.

Granted that ship is game changing in it’s outside design, but after seeing it in person the inside isn’t game changing.

I was on the Regal in December for a cruise and overnight on the Seaside on 12/21 for the naming ceremony plus watch that ship leave every week. There are some great things but there are also some design flaws on that ship just like there was on the Regal.

 

Not as impressed as I thought I would be with the ship. Hated that you couldn’t get from the back of the ship where there were some bars to the specialty dining restaurant without going down a level. Also the very low ceilings. At 5 ft 7 I didn’t expect to always be able to touch the ceiling!

That's weird as we were on the 12/23-12/30 inaugural sailing of MSC Seaside and my 6"3 DH had no problems with the ceilings.

We loved the MSC Seaside! It is a lovely ship and very much enjoyed it. There is much to do on the ship. Plus, there are so many opening sitting places to relax both on pool deck/promenade/outdoor sitting in the buffet area and inside that you never feel like there are over 4,000 on the ship. The shows were spectacular and rival Disney quality shows.

With that said, we absolutely love the Royal Princess which we are sailing in less than 70 days!:cool:Yippee!

We have done NCL, Disney and now MSC but Princess is still doing some things much better than those other lines. Although it seems like the cruises lines are working hard to out do each other which the newer ships.

We have done 12 DCL cruises and starting branch off due to DCLs increasing cost. We have enjoyed MSC, Princess and NCL. Princess is the most like Disney service wise and entertainment wise. MSC and NCL are great options as well.

I couldn't agree more about the hard beds. They were so hard in fact that my girlfriend and I got off the ship at 1 am and went to our homes when we had the cabin for free for the night after the naming ceremony. We both figured we weren't going to get a good night's sleep and had to be off in the morning by 9 am anyway. We weren't the only ones getting off at that time with suitcases.

Interesting:confused: We were on the ship for a week and loved our bed.

We sailed 12/23 and had a wonderful trip on MSC. I just can't understand all this undue negativity.

We have sailed 3 NCL, 1 Princess and 12-13 Disney and would rank this ship and cruise experience up there with the best of those ship experiences.

IMO..many are nitpicking here! The ship and crew were wonderful. We loved the food and enjoyed all the entertainment.

It is always interesting how you can be on the same ship and have a totally different reality of the same cruise.

To those looking to cancel based on some peoples negative opinions and outlook seems so crazy. The vast majority most likely enjoyed their experience. While on the ship we spoke to so many fellow cruisers that were loving their trip and MSC. The more picky and disgruntled tend to show up to post on these boards.

Last year we were planning a NCL cruise out of NYC, there were so many negative reviews and comments on CC that I was sad I had already paid in full so I could not cancel our trip. We ended up having such a terrific trip. Not one concern other wrote about on CC was a part of the reality we experienced on that cruise. I am so happy we didn't cancel based on some silly reviews.

MSC is trying really hard and we felt it on this cruise/ship. Gorgeous ship, kind crew and wonderful food and food options. In fact we all rank MSC at the top of cruise experiences.

Try Compass Bonaire :-) www.compassbonaire.com

We did a snorkel sail through them last year while visiting Bonaire on Princess. Lovely crew and great snorkel spot!

We were on Seaside last week and you could not buy the 18 vouchers on board.

Welcome back! Any hints for those of us going next week? Bob

Thanks so much for your kind reply Bob! It was a tremendous trip!

I would get to port early. We wish we had gotten their earlier than 11:30am but people on CC were saying not get there till after 1. They try to board as early as they can as they have 5,000 people to get on board.

Very nice outdoor seating on deck 8 if you want to sit outside on a sea day but not be with crowds on the pool deck.

We liked the 9:15 showtime versus the earlier showtimes as the theater seating options were much better. The crowds tend to do the earlier showtimes.

Have fun!!! :cool:

Just off12/23 with Black card benefits . Both my husband and I have black card status. We used our black cards to have complimentary dinner at Butchers Cut. We were both able to get a free dinner for our kids so all 4 of our meals were complimentary.

We received our black card party invite on the 3rd sea day. This was likely due to Christmas Eve and Christmas Day being Sea day 1 and Sea Day 2 of cruise.

Free drinks and gift of chocolate molded Seaside at Back card party.

I think we received our chocolate strawberries and sparking wine on 3rd day.

Black card gift of hats and paperweight on second day.

We got to port early around 11:30am and they had already started boarding. We wish we would have gotten there even earlier seeing as they were boarding by 11am. We were boarded within 20-30 minutes from entering building. They were boarding both black card and regular at the same time. Very friendly crew at port processing documents and getting everyone boarded.

Our cabins were ready by the time we boarded as well. So we set our stuff down in our room and went to pool deck.

Walked off easily this morning!

Happy Sailing all!

Just off 12/23 Seaside sailing!

This was our first MSC cruise. We have done 12 DCL, 1 Princess and 3 NCL.

We were 4 people in a balcony (2 adults, 2 kids)

We were overall very delighted with our cruise experience MSC!! We had a lot Cruise experience to compare too ��

After reading some intial reviews from some on here. I was slightly afraid we’d be sailing in filth with horrible food and crew.

This was not the case so please take reviews with a grain of salt as others have pointed out.

We found ALL the crew we interacted beyond wonderful and helpful. We find that if you treat staff with kindness and warmth they will treat you the same.

Yes I agree bar server was slow. My husband and I both even commented that they seemed to be no urgency in making drinks. I truly believe this a cultural thing as Americans are in so much more of hurry. In addition, they were a bit short staffed.

We loved the food. We were all surprised to have ranked it as good and even better in some regards to other cruise lines. The pizza is divine.

Although morning in the main buffet around 10:30-11. They seemed to run out of many items as well as plates/utensils so going a little early to avoid the crowds was a bit nicer. I also think they were trying to find their groove in terms of cruisers needs.

We had a delightful dinner Butchers cut too.

Yes room storage was a bit of issue but we made do and it wasn’t a big issue. We will bring some baskets for under bed storage for our next MSC Seaside Cruise.

We did 4 shows and loved them all. Comfy theater seats with great views. Timeless was our favorite.

The fellow cruisers were a mix of Europeans/South Americans/Asians and Americans. I would say in this cruise Americans made up 30-40 percent of travelers or even less. We found everyone to be super kind and courteous.

We loved all the spaces around the ship.

The pool deck is wonderful and the entertainment staff were very enthusiastic, high energied and kind. Loved the sailway party.

Getting off the ship this morning was the easiest and smoothiest process!

Overall top notch experience!

To all that are interested in giving her a try, it is a wonderful ship and crew.

Ok, for the avoidance of doubt, yes I am interested to know if anyone else is having issues with the MSC website and not being able to retrieve their booking, or maybe not had tickets because Christmas is approaching. I'm purely trying to understand if this is just me affected or anyone else is having similar issues.

 

I certainly would not expect anyone on CC to issue my tickets! I thought this was a friendly chat forum to exchange experiences but now I'm doubting myself again.

 

Having been on circa 20 other cruises, of course I know I need to call the cruise line/TA. That was of course my first call. My post here was to establish if this is just affecting my booking or anyone else had a similar issue recently.

 

So thanks for all the obvious messages of "call the cruise", I think I need to be more direct in my next post clearly.

 

Merry Christmas all... and I hope you have your tickets to your next cruise ;-)

I found the other posters very condescending as well. I am sorry that they were like that to you when you were just trying to assess if this is happening to others.

You did not need their judgement but were asking if others experienced this before or it is happening to any one else.

I have experienced a few rude responses from people in this MSC forum. Not sure why? :confused:I have never had rudeness in the other groups NCL/Disney or Princess just in here. Sorry it happen to you.

I truly hope that all works out for you and that they are able to figure ASAP what is going.

Wishing you and your family a Merry Christmas!!! :)

I would recommend looking into Bay West Adventures.

We used them for a private snorkel trip and they were fantastic!

I know not a beach recommendation but we did a boat tour through Bay West Adventures and they took us to two amazing snorkel sites. The first was one where we saw 6-7 sea turtles. These are wild and not feed ones like Bardados but they are extremely comfortable with human presence. They were amazing. We also saw the hugest grouper that I have even seen in my 19 visits to Caribbean (different islands) than they took us to a reef which was one of the most beautiful, healthiest reefs i have ever seen. We were amazed you normally think you have to go the Virgin islands or ABC islands to see such beauty but nope they are some beautiful reefs in the Bahamas.

Anyway it was farily inexpensive as far as tour go. :-) We paid @$250 for a family of four. In addition, the sites they take you too not other tours groups are there so the water is clear and you aren't running into a ton of people.

Fabulous! This is where we wanted to go when we arrive in St. Thomas on our cruise in late December. Really appreciate you taking the time to share. Thanks so much!

About the relaxed dress code on the Divina: There is a problem with the status match program that MSC is using to build a passenger base in the US. Because of the low cruise prices, many of the status match passengers are from the US entry level cruise lines (Carnival, NCL and RCI) where matching a baseball cap with the sneakers is formal wear. :cool:

.

So we have sailed 18 cruises in the last 8 yrs with our kiddos that are now 11 and 14 yrs old. 12 Disney cruises, 3 NCL, 1 Princess and 1 Fathom Adonia.

I would not say we are entry level cruisers by any means but we enjoy the more relaxed casual dressing on cruises especially on Disney. We vacation to relax and get away from dressing up daily. We love putting a summer dress (me) and khakis and relaxed shirt (DH) and kids very similar. Vacation is a time for us to get away from the "musts" of day to day life. Every one has different lives and desires when they select a vacation.

What about live and let live???

Yes, NCL does allow for a more relaxed experience and we choose those cruises just for fun family time away not for dress codes. We never do the track suit or baseball hats in the dining rooms but there are nights that we do allow kiddos to wear shorts and flip flops to dinner.

We are there to spend quality time together enjoying each other/appreciating the environment and opportunity to travel not try to impress our fellow passengers. Honestly, if you are consumed with thoughts about what others (judgement) are wearing you are not fully enjoying your time with your family. Those that judge others are often the most unkind people in the world. Maybe spend less time consumed about what others do/wear and more time just enjoying and appreciating the experience of vacation/family/meeting new people/sea/cruises. When your thoughts are filled with these loved centered values what others have on won't even cross your mind.