marktwothousand

If the bus is right outside your accommodation sure but if you’re transferring to it from your hotel why botha

So, I’m taking the 8:30 London train on a Friday, luckily my MSC cruise officially departs at 6, so even if I had major issues, I likely wouldn’t need to worry about being a bit late, anyone know what the latest check in time is for a 6 PM sailing out of Southampton? I am over in Canada and just heard about this awful circumstance from this week in which about 20 PAX missed their cruise because of a failed train. https://montreal.ctvnews.ca/quebec-city-via-rail-passengers-out-thousands-of-dollars-after-missed-cruise-ship-departures-due-to-delay-1.7023634

I had this issue on this ship. Luckily it wasn’t prevalent and never happened while I was sleeping or trying to go to sleep. It eventually turned off with enough rubbing or simply on its own.

What was wrong with the food? I was on a similar ship the Meraviglia and had no problems w the food. What happened on Virtuosa

It’s a two week cruise with the first week being half term autumn break, and the second week not. i would like to believe parents would be more responsible and choose one of the one week cruises to bring their kids on holiday as opposed to a two weeker and miss a week of school, but who knows It will also be at the end of October and has many sea days at the top end which will be very cold outside, I don’t imagine the kids area or water slides will even be open on those days.

Same thing happened to us on the meraviglia. My aft cabin floor was washed by the steward daily however. But the soot would hit people in horizons.

Also worried here too for my upcoming. Following closely

What does Butlins mean? This is awful! I’m so worried that my cruise later this year will be like this. Thanks so much for the report. It’s too late the cancel now, at this point all I can do is cross my fingers 😞 thanks again

Oh shut up no way! Did you ask to be seated with other North Americans or did it just end up that way? I think I remember reading somewhere MSC does use factors such as country, language, and solo status to help determine which table you’ll end up at. Not sure if they use things like sex or age though.

@DamianGthanks a lot for the info. Awww shucks tho, I’m kinda miffed about the light bleed from deck 8 but given the privacy of the bulkhead being on one side, I’ll probably just keep my cabin. I think you’re booked in the more forward version of my cabin as mine has the bulkhead on the right, so maybe the lighting will be different on my end. thanks again for this.

Interesting! And I am guessing there was probably nobody else from Canada aboard that you met, let alone Ottawa? lol i am connecting with someone from Ottawa for this trip. We are booking flights (via Toronto) today. $1300 roundtrip!! Yikes.

Sounds great! And I love to hear opinions from someone from Ottawa! Did you sail out of the UK?

@DamianG thanks so much for posting this report, I’m doing two weeks on board later this year and I’m pretty stressed about everything because I’m bringing someone on board who is new to MSC. question, you said you were in one of the balconies that’s at the edge of one of the sticky-outie parts of she ship, I’m booked in one of those too. I booked it specifically because I like to play music on my balcony and prefer a little more privacy. Upon seeing outside photos of the ship however, the “wall” side of the balcony looks like it makes the balcony smaller and much colder. I was actually hoping for lots of sun, so I didn’t even think about it. Could you give me your impression of the feeling of the balcony, does it seem smaller than a usual balcony or do you like the extra privacy? I’ll be on a deck 9 balcony like yours and wondering how much you can see the lighting below at night as I do like a bit of stargazing but it looks like the lifeboats are pretty brightly-lit unfortunately. 😞 any idea how much the 3 pack specialty is going for on board? have you noticed any non-UK PAX on board? I’m coming from overseas and a little anxious about the culture clash. Are you finding the other PAX fairly polite or is there a bit of rowdiness about? thanks so much for all this info. I’m following intently and already practising a brrrrrritish accent!

Thanks for the positive stories. I booked the Virtuosa cruise because I had such a good first time experience on my NYC Meraviglia cruise this year. And it’s just like the Virtuosa I gather, so I’m hoping for as good as an experience. That cruise was essentially a party cruise from Brooklyn, so I was pretty concerned about a rough local crowd there too…and hoping that the Virtuosa crowd will be, at least, no worse than that crowd. The worst it got on that cruise was a lot of F** bombs in the music and raunchy dancing at the adults club, which was WAY less of an issue than I felt it would be.

Thanks for pointing it out. Going to read it now

Dear me, I’m taking my first UK cruise this fall…two weeks long on the Virtuosa…and this kind of review has got me tremendously worried! I was definitely hoping for a good party atmosphere and it’s a damn shame to hear the streets are rolling up at 11 PM. I’m also quite disconcerted to hear there’s rough trade aboard, especially with the anti-immigration sentiment out there right now, makes me leery for my own safety aboard. I do like a good evening walkabout among the crowd. I think I’ll be keeping a low profile if the sentiment portrayed in this review, and the media sentiment out there, Both hold true in a couple months time. unfortunately it’s too late to cancel, but it will definitely make me rethink dinner arrangements as I will be very concerned about being placed at a table with the kind of behaviour and atmosphere described in the review. Perhaps the unique itinerary and port intensiveness of my sailing will help keep things in check and be a saving grace. OP please keep us posted in the next week how things are going.

I specifically asked at a table and they said no. Also at a slot machine there was no indication of a fee

Honestly everyone, regarding pizza… YES it was good and well made. BUT, didn’t anyone else find the pizza - especially late night buffet - to be totally gross and destroyed? Several times I tried to get pizza and the toppings had all been destroyed, and there wasn’t even a regular inventory of pepperoni. It was often just a pile of cheese and dough, a hot mess literally so YES good pizza. When it was properly servable and had the type you like. anyone? Or am I the only one who got pizza at 1 AM?

OMG I swear @JamieLogical you would make the best cruise therapist!!!

Any updates on this policy? I am travelling with family (we are two solo passengers in separate cabins and unlinked bookings) and we want to eat together in the MDR. in fact, we don’t mind sharing a table of 6 or 8 but we are also fine alone. Will it be possible to get a table together once we are on board? we are doing a Southampton virtuosa sailing if that makes any difference. I have the drinks package and the other person does not. (The person does not drink alcohol) I would love to know what people’s recent experiences have been like as solo’s eating in the MDR. how have your assignments been and have you been able to tweak them? (At least at the beginning of the cruise. If it was later in the cruise, even better but not counting on it)

Ughhhhh so much information and no real answers lol, how do you like MSC so much. NCL was so much easier 😂 to complicate things I am sailing the Virtuosa, see my new post in the main LOL.

This SUXXXX but on the upshot the 2 pack covers two of my restaurants. The 3rd restaurant, kaito, anyone know if that is the same as teppanyaki (with the up charge of course) or is it SUSHI KAITO only?

Ok, so I’m usually an organized thinker so this might seem like a combined rant with questions, please bear with me i am getting a whopping $600 USD through a combination of various OBC on an upcoming 2 weeker. Can this be used for anything pre cruise? I am wanting the specialty dining which is “advertised” to be cheaper pre cruise. Is that actually true or can it be a good deal on board too? Because I will wait to get on board to use my OBC if it’s a deal. and then to tie it all up in a nice bow, I got 3 different answers on airport transfers from Southampton: first call, “they’re available”. Second call, “sorry they’re not offered.”, “third call; they are offered but you have to go through your agent and can’t use OBC” and none of the above can be counted against OBC pre cruise? Really? I guess it’s good that you can draw OBC as casino money, because changing it all to cash will be one of the first things I do when the casino opens!!! to boot, I’m in Canada, paid USD for the cruise, everything on board is in GBP and all the ports are in Euros. Welcome to MSC

Ok. Coz I heard teppanyaki is an extra $10 on dining packages and butcher’s cut is a limited menu if you don’t want to pay charges…so I figured there was some typical MSC caveat to hola definitely makes me wonder about buying the 3 pack dining, or at least the best way to use them. Might as well just pay for hola a la carte and use the other 3 for other places…

I liked that I was able to get an aft cabin at the same price as a regular balcony. Also, the ship is beautiful. Loved the party atmosphere in the concourse and up top at the back. Shows were good especially sitting in the front row. Pizza was good but unfortunately got destroyed much of the time because it wasn’t always cut properly and all the ingredients wouldn’t pull off with the slices. They really should fix this. I didn’t try specialties but I am surprised to hear Hola was an extra cost, on top of the specialty dining packages?!