perakcruiser

They do have. A lot of sweet breakfast pastries, we like them. 

Coffee depends. The free coffee is OK, the paid coffee is great. 

No. But the welcome buffet leaves nobody disappointed and is open the whole afternoon. 

1 hour ago, amurray88 said:

Hi, I'm not sure it's fair to say I messed dinner time up. I was assigned to 6:15, not given an option. On the whole we're happy with that - we can work round it. But when the ship doesn't arrive into port til 1pm and stays in port til 7pm I do feel they should be flexible. I agree, 5pm is not the best time to sort it but that is why we tried several times in the morning to sort it.

Usually you will get the slot you "order" when you make the booking. If MSC messes it up, happened to all of us, it can be changed at the first night with the Maitre D before the first dinner session. Not in the morning, not at lunch time, not at 5 pm (if that is not the start of the 1st seating), certainly not with the reception. 

Early session has advantages, the early one most cruisers NOT from Southern Europe prefer, but certainly it is not ideal for the days when the ship departs in the evening. Can you imagine the chaos if many first session Pax want to change to second session because the ship is in the port from 4pm to midnight? 

2 hours ago, sidari said:

Sadly this is one of the issues (Dining) that let's MSC down badly, far too inflexible and a could not care attitude by a number of members of staff. 

Well, MSC offers you to BUY flexibility (Aurea) and even flexibility plus attitude (YC) 😇

3 hours ago, mianmike said:

 

You're replying to the wrong person.  I'm not the OP and I've never been on that ship.  

Sorry 😌

Mera is surely one of the nicest cruise ships around. 

Food is fine, the bad user reviews can be ignored completely. Certainly some dishes rock, some dishes fail, as I first time MSC cruiser you will probably order some dishes that sound good, but are not. And their hamburgers and hotdogs are something I personally totally dislike, but with 1 billion other options, that is not a problem at all. 

12 minutes ago, Germancruiser said:

I agree- the Dining Time is fixed- that I appreciate- but they could have a bit more accomodating- even with a ship sailing not at full capacity. I don´t know about the attitude of the OP, though. I nice smile would have helped a bit.

Actually I managed to do this one time. From late to early session. Showed just up for the early session and asked "Could we join the early session today?". Answer was "No, go to the buffet". I said "No like, today is my favourite pasta dish on the menu, but I need to watch a very important football match later". The combination of Football and Pasta convinced the Maitre D, what else?, but we had to wait quite a long time to have a table assigned and he made us feel we asked him to change the ship in the middle of the cruise not just the dinner time.

That was more than 20 years ago, but I still remember that after everything worked out well, coming back to the room just for kickoff. My team was down 0-3 after 30 minutes already and I stopped watching and went to a bar 😄 

1 hour ago, mianmike said:

 

Wow

Well, it may sound harsh, but it is absolutely correct. You made a mess with the dinner time and continued to make it a personal matter/fight which never is a good idea. You maybe can be lucky to find a maitre D (certainly not at 5pm) that is willing to change for this night, but the normal answer is "No, please go to the buffet". If at this night there is a dish in the MDR you don´t want to miss and that does not exist at the buffet, you need to arrange your times, not they. 

Apart from that the extensive selling of drinks packages and speciality restaurants sounds totally annoying and disgusting. I never experienced it in almost 15 years of cruising with MSC also not in 2022. If that would happened in the past I would have gone straight to the reception and cancel the service charge completely. Now cannot cancel anymore, hopefully this is not giving them the go for these super annoying behaviour. 

Drinks at the buffet, yeah, old problemI thought they had improved, but obviously not consistent. 

44 minutes ago, Morgsmom said:

And if people keep doing such things which cost the business time, effort and money (booking, cancelling, re-booking the same cruise) pretty soon the deposit WILL BE non-refundable.  

As MSC is only refunding on the US market (as fast as I know), maybe there is a legal reason for this? 

3 hours ago, RudiRatlos said:

$50 OBC for all cruises for VC silver and above is still valid.

It was never valid for all cruises. 

5 hours ago, Germancruiser said:

IMO that has nothing to do with YC - serving those crepes one has to pay for in such a cheap and environment unfriendly way is unacceptable!

That has nothing to do with MSC. Venchi is a third party tenant doing their own business in the way they think is most profitable. 

13 hours ago, 1kaper said:

So it is possible for a girlfriend to be covered, it just depends on the situation and the policy. 

Not suprised to hear, certainly another case of cultural differences. Something like a "Domestic partner" sounds reasonable in Canada, but this idea maybe will take decades to arrive in other countries. In Malaysia centuries. 

16 hours ago, Stockjock said:

Has anyone had experience with something like this?

Not with a cruise company but with airlines when my mom in law passed away. Death of a close family member is maybe the only case where airlines are willing to refund (or give credit or reschedule for free). I needed to provide death certificate of my mom in law, birth certificate of my wife and our marrige certificate. 

And there is a problem for you as you wrote "GF". Even I assume that MSC would be as generous as the airlines, 50% of the money for flights and cruise is gone. Also a travel insurance will probably not cover her, but this is pure speculation and certainly hige differences between insurances and countries. 

1 hour ago, alohayall said:

Port fees are refunded for anyone who is a no-show.  

No, absolutely not. Only for cruisers from special markets who paid the port fees separated from the cruise fare. For other customers nothing will be refunded in case of a no-show.

8 hours ago, KINGBOBOFTHENORTH said:

Is Saturday a holy day in Saudi Arabia?

No, but Saturday is part of the weekend. "Weekend" in Saudi Arabia means for most people Saturday and Sunday, for some Friday afternoon to Sunday and for others Friday to Saturday. And for the Banglas, Nepalese and Pakistani in the lower ranks only Friday. 

As a tourist this is completely irrelevant except for the bus schedules. 

The Europa will be used as a hotel for the World Cup.

I liked the idea, but when seeing the prices I prefer to do a cruise: 

https://www.qatar2022.qa/book/en/cruise-ship-hotels

19 hours ago, HipHipOnAShip said:

Sounds like you are sailing out of Europe; the wines will be different.

 

In the US I will say that the Easy Package wines are the equivalent of $9/$10 bottles (retail) wines.  Personally we upgrade to the Premium plan because we don't like them.

In Europe the easy package wines are wayyyyyyy under equivalent of 9/10. Half maximum. Easy plus gives you a limited selection of some long time MSC favourites with retail prices up to or around 10€. 

4 hours ago, emmas gran said:

The only people they have an early embarkation chance is Yacht Club

Not really.

Aurea.

Diamond.

Families with baby.

18 hours ago, amurray88 said:

Is it really 3:30pm? Has anyone experienced joining in Marseille? Can we go at 11ish?

11 is the worst time, you maybe will wait hours. usually from around 2 pm it will be acceptable. 

Unfortunately Ryanair's Genoa flights usually do not fit to cruise departures and arrivals. If yours does, great for you. Ryanair is the most punctual airline in Europe, we always choose Ryanair if possible.

1 hour ago, oilsand said:

On my recent trip from dubai to barcalona  ( end of March ), bottles of water were supplied each evening in the dining room

I also had the feeling that EVERYBODY got free water in the MDR on board of Virtuosa at the Dubai cruises. I thought maybe it was because the majority on our table had a drinks package anyway so they just put the bottles on the table. Certainly we did not ask questions about it 😄

4 hours ago, lasnev said:

Thank you for the detailed answer.

Are there ever offers/deals on drink packages?

Best offer usually comes at the time of booking. Sometimes 20€ per person per day. UK booking includes water and coffee, so definitely useless to buy the package for "occasional glass of wine at dinner" only.

On 5/30/2022 at 4:06 PM, Raj.K said:

I am not sure I have seen a thread comparing what the experience is like when cruising on ships with Yacht Club (YC) experience and those without. In particular, what's the experience of cruising in a Suite cabin (Aurea experience) on ships that don't have YC

• Dining

This is a good question that is not easy to answer.

4 years ago on the Armonia in the Caribbean the Aurea restaurant had a upmarket menu. Not a YC menu but many dishes from speciality restaurants. Bascially it was the MDR menu with one or two dishes changed. We were unhappy not to have Aurea.

On the Virtuosa I did not recognize any menu differences. We were happy not to have paid for Aurea. 

Conclusion, the only person that could give the right answer is someone that is now on a Non-YC-ship with Aurea.

On 5/31/2022 at 1:12 AM, rodo2894 said:

Virtuosa's thermal suite (same ship class?) was incredible.  A lot nicer than any other line I've tried (I've sailed on RCCL, Celebrity and NCL.). In comparison, the other lines' thermal areas were a sauna, steam and change area.  Virtuosa's was like a spa experience with multiple pools, saunas, steam rooms and loungers.

Not the same class and quite different spas. But both are very good, overall I would prefer the Mera spa. 

10 hours ago, sheltielover256 said:

Thanks for the replies guys.  We'll just suck up the loss and enjoy our cruise!  But I'm wondering if we need to call and let them know so that we don't get charged gratuities?

I definitely would not touch this wonderful booking before being onboard. If the gratuities really show up (which I do not expect) it is easy to correct at the reception.  

On 5/20/2022 at 11:35 PM, nasellemom1 said:

3 What is the vibe like for kids in the YC, mine will be 13 & 11 when we sail, they are veteran cruisers, so they know how to behave. But do many cruisers look down on kids in the YC.

This is a company from Italy that behaves like a company from Italy. Anyone who "looks down on kids" will be thrown overboard. "Bambini first" is the overall motto. But your kids probably will have more fun in the Teens club than in YC.

OK, we all (and me especially) love to complain about MSCs terrible IT and website. For a good reason. But after researching for a cruise with another line I have to say that the Royal Caribbean website and the Costa website are by no means any better.

RCCL has great promos on the Singapore landing page, but if you search for are cruise in detail you get absolutely ridiculous prices where the kids not sail free as advertised. As usual with US companies a myriad of crazy fees and taxes are added very late and the advertised price has nothing to do with reality. 

With Costa there international pages not include the cruise in Asia. For this you will be directed to costaasia com. A webpage that is not working at all and looks and feels like programmed by guys who where fired for incompetence from MSC 😄