GQAntigua

Thanks for all the replies. I was traveling so first chance I've had to respond. Great tips!

Hi,

Based on what I've read it seems one can take the commuter train to Pompeii and back from Naples pretty easily but I might be reading with rose colored glasses. Anyone try it? Just don't want to risk being late for the ship. I believe we are in Naples from noon to 7 PM.

Thanks,

Well 200 extra points so that means just 600 short of a Black Card, can cut down on spending on Preziosa now in September ... :D

 

Just need the damned website to work now ... :mad:

Been waiting ages for it to go through.

Yes the website is bad for sure. I called into Voyagers Club support and was able to confirm that my membership did in fact get registered and got my number from them. I got the extra points this way.

Good luck!

Try the hopper app. It's great for finding the best rates for flights and very easy to use.

Check out the Rick Steves Mediterranean Cruise Ports book. Great ideas, self directed walking tours, free ztours on his audio app. We used his information so much. We just returned home this week after 2 weeks in Italy. Also, try Pinterest. People joke about it, but it's great for vacation planning. We are from Boston and Pinterest linked me to some awesome travel articles from the U.K. Telegraph. We never would have found the gorgeous beaches of Albarese, which was an incredible day on the way from Tuscany driving to Rome.

 

 

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Thanks for the tip :). We just downloaded his app and it looks great and will save us some money. I'll check out pinterest as well.

sverigecruiser

Thanks for the post. We will be cruising in a couple weeks on the same floor in the Meraviglia Yacht Club. Good to read that the food and service was as good or better than the NCL Haven. We cruised on NCL last year.

Looking forward to any additional tips you can share.

Cheers,

There are 4 ways to make reservations: any of the screens dotted about the ship, on the TV in the cabin, at the venue at the designated times on the daily planner, or at the Concierge desk. This is where my problem began! (At this point I'll just add that I never switched the TV on once in the whole cruise.)

 

We had the Cirque du Soleil dinner & show package pre-booked. I didn't check it out on the day we embarked. We had lunch then went off to explore the ship. That afternoon we met Norwegian Cruiser at the pool and got chatting. We then spent some time unpacking and settling in.

 

The following day, while doing a tour of the Spa, we had a go at making a reservation for Butcher's Cut on the screen there. We had assistance from one of the Spa staff but the screen wouldn't co-operate so we decided we'd leave it 'til later. However, we spent the afternoon with our new-found friends from Norway and another couple from England who NC knew and, as it turned out, we had met briefly before on another cruise. We spent the afternoon at the pool with them and all plans for making reservations for anything were soon forgotten about.

 

It was the next day that I decided I'd better get a move on with our bookings as we had 2 speciality restaurant evenings as well as the show to plan. I was up very early that morning and spoke very briefly to the concierge who was on duty. I said that I needed to make the reservations soon and that we'd had some difficulty with the screens. She advised that I could come to the desk anytime and do it there as they were having problems generally with the new technology. Later that morning I went to the desk to make the reservations. The on-duty concierge advised that I do it from either my cabin or on one of the screens. I told her what her colleague had said that morning and she just said "No madam, you can do it on the screens or your TV"! I went away a bit miffed at that and decided I would go to the Carousel Lounge and book it there as I wanted to see if I could choose our seating. So we went down and walked the length of the ship at the designated time to make our booking. Well, there was a queue at the entrance doors which I was about to join when I said to DH "No! We're bloody well in YC - why should we stand in line here! I'm going back to get this sorted" and, at this stage, I was a little worked up. When we arrived back to the Concierge, the Discovery Channel was filming the area at the time.

 

We decided we'd wait 'til they finished as I was a point where I wanted to get this issue done and dusted, so we hung about. After a couple of minutes, an officer approached us and asked if he could assist us. I asked if we could move away to a quiet spot as I had a problem and didn't want to make a scene, especially with the TV crew milling about. Turns out Giuseppe, the officer, was none other than the ship's Cruise Director, no less. I explained all that had happened - I was getting a little upset at this stage. He was very apologetic and said that I should never have been told to go away and do it myself and that he would look after it. He then invited us to attend a preview of Sonor that evening. His assistant, Andrea, the YC director, came over and Giuseppe asked him to take over and look after us and issue us the invitations to the show. We were delighted as it was DH's birthday that day so we were getting to go to a show that we couldn't have booked on that night had we wanted to.

 

 

 

We went along and enjoyed the show immensely.

 

 

 

When we were leaving we asked one of the servers how other people who were at the show had got tickets. He told me they were Aurea, YC and Black Card guests. I knew that for the inaugural, YC guests had been given free tickets for the show but I was furious to hear that we had not received them for being both Black Card holders AND YC guests. So, I ended up being pretty miffed again. On the way back through the Galleria I met the Food & Beverages manager - a lovely man by the name of Llewellyn but goes by his second name, Charles, as many people find his name unpronounceable (though we don't!). I outlined our story and told him I was unimpressed to say the least that the Hotel Director could be so disengenuous as to issue us free passes under the terms we received them, when, in my estimation, we should have received them anyway and couldn't understand why they had not been issued to us on the grounds that they were to others. He completely understood my point and said he would speak with Giuseppe on the matter.

 

The next morning we were in the Top Sail Lounge. Andrea, the YC director, asked us how we enjoyed the show. I told him what I had said to Llewellyn the night before. He tried to pan me off with saying that the Hotel Director just wanted to personally present the tickets to us. I began to feel really offended at this point as we should have received our free invitations much earlier in the day than late in the afternoon when we were making a complaint. I pointed it out to Andrea that Giuseppe had made it appear we were in receipt of the tickets as a way of saying sorry. Anyway, Andrea told us to go to the concierge at any time for assistance, that that is what it is there for, that it is their job to make reservations, to assist in any way and that YC guests should never have to do anything, as that's what YC service is about!

 

Later that day, we were at the concierge desk and Andrea was there (he was always on hand!). He immediately came to us and asked to assist us (this was the case for the rest of the cruise!). We told him we were there to finally book the show

 

 

 

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This may help people wanting to catch the Cirque du Soleil shows.

I was just able to reserve both late shows on day 3 and day 7 at 10PM for our cruise by calling my MSC agent directly on the phone. After reading this I was concerned so I called to check and it worked. Hope it helps...

We cruised with NCL last May. An 8 day Caribbean out of Miami. Balcony suite with the 3 specialty restaurants and drinks included. Had a great time. This year we are doing a holiday (Honeymoon) in Europe and wasn't considering a cruise but checked NCL as an option to include in the trip. The price was about $5,200 for a Mediterranean cruise for both of us with the same options as last year (To be fair, it was a NCL 10 day cruise not an 8 day). Then I came across MSC Meraviglia and the YC club offers. Wow, how could we not try it out. It was about a grand less with the perks of the YC. We are not sure if the butler is a big deal but like the idea of less crowded areas a lot.

We also reserved The Seaside YC for 2018 out of Miami. If we like our experience with MSC Meraviglia we will be doing that one as well.

We will be cruising in August so I'll post our opinion about the cruise once we get back home.

Thanks for the tip.

Thanks for the information.

We sail the Meraviglia in August (YC). How do people reserve a Cirque du Soleil show for a certain date? I can by tickets online but it doesn't provide a date selection. Thanks in advance for any help.

Thanks will follow your posts.