perakcruiser

As many other European cruise companies lifted the testing requirements in the last two weeks MSC certainly had to follow. Good that they reacted fast.

$195 seems to be the biggest COVID scam worldwide since beginning of the pandemic. And there have been oh so many scams.

As discussed many times here, the Switzerland HQ of MSC is not dealing any daily business of MSC Cruises. All is done in Napoli, Italy.

This guess was kind of educated guess, Poesia cannot cruise around in November and December, she also has to work at the World Cup 😄 https://www.cruiseindustrynews.com/cruise-news/28291-doha-set-for-three-msc-ships-and-other-cruise-ships-for-world-cup.html

Not true. If the TA is not really qualified to deal with MSC better book by yourself and don´t give away the booking to a second (third) party. If the TA is somebody that speaks the language MSC fluently, let him speak on your behalf.

With a TA that is well connected. MSC ranks TA in five categories. My TA has the highest rank "Commander" and does not lie when he says that they have a "good connection" to MSC. Can even change a "Bella" booking without letting MSC messing up things 😄

Most probably this has to do with the World Cup. Maybe Qatar wants to have a third hotel ship in addition to Poesia and Europa. With the end of december cruises you should be save. The Europa leaves Doha on Dec 20, the the Opera is bookable already from Dec 18 for a cruise without Doha. Sure, Qatar took already two MSC ships. But only last week they found out that they still lack of accomodation and announced that no tourists without World Cup tickets can enter in November and December. Grabbing a third MSC ship is probably the easiest solution. But thats still just a guess.

Looks like all is done now.

You need to be seated at 5:30, actually 5:45 with the 15 minutes grace period.

No, the Preziosa is also involved in the big switch. At the city stops you certainly can use public transport or just walk around.

The ships are so totally different, even if there is an "offical" equivalent category in reality the cabins are just not comparable. Overall being changed from Opera to Bellissima suite sounds not like a bad deal.

You are right. With the other things also. When it comes to places out of their home market (the Med), then things are totally different, I would not expect they let you off somewhere in the Caribbean or the Middle East.

You should write where MSC denied you. I don´t believe that MSC would ever deny to get off in one of their schengen ports in the Med that anyway have lots of pax embarking and disembarking. Not to talk about the above case leaving the cruise in Bari instead of Venice one day later.

Don´t even think about Kotor, this is non-schengen area! Bari is a port where many people will embark/disembark, so this should not be a problem at all. And the train to your preferred airport in Italy should be VERY cheap if you book it so far in advance. This is probably true for most cruise lines but not for MSC in the Med.

The 20€ is not always available and especially not on every market. But, yes, if available only at the time of booking, no second chance.

No, only the newer ships and the shows mentioned here are only available on the Mera: https://www.msccruises.no/nyheter/carousel-production-at-sea-shows

Actually this is a good question! I recognized on our last MSC cruises that the "path" or route channel is missing. Not happy with this, will ask next time on board why.

Very nice! Enjoy your cruise, looking forward to the review. Where on board you catched that amazing crayfish pasta?

Last week of summer holidays in some parts of Europe. Next week all the kids will be gone except the very young ones.

Sure, but as far as I know Portugues speakers can communicate with Spanish speakers. And for cruise lines it is not easy to hire Portugues speaking staff, but maybe their middle america workforce went to a language school for a few weeks before boarding.

Wow, that is brutal that Spanish is not enough for the staff.

That the buffet is not open usually not means that you cannot go to the drink stations. Did you try to attack the buffet area from the front and back entrance before 7AM?

And they are so similar that most passengers could not tell on which ship they are. Going from Virtuosa to Lirica would be a difference, but one could argue that it is not a downgrade to go from a crazy big ship to a smaller and more releaxed ship. Smaller ships are by no means cheaper 🙂

These exist only on the newer and bigger ships that have a small second theatre for it. They are not always available, thanks to Covid and the death of Cirque du Soleil they did not have it for years. Now slowly coming back. If you are not interested then you easily not even notice it because they are not effecting the main theatre program.

If it is the Preziosa, calling her a lower class ship should disqualify you from ever booking MSC again 😉 And I find it quite generous from them that they offer you a refund just because the ship has changed. Usually they not even give a refund for a dropped port.