JamieLogical

Also, the Magnifica is an older ship. The newer ships have far more bells and whistles, as well as more modern staterooms with shower doors vs. curtains in the bathrooms.

This link shows Cognacs between $10 and $16. https://profcruise.com/princess-bar-menus-and-drink-prices-2024/

I just checked the app. I don't even have a room assignment for my May 4 sailing on the Enchanted Princess and it too is showing the Captain's Circle desk as my muster station. So, I am assuming that is just a default until the app populates with your actual station.

I haven't done an overnight in OC, but I will warn that when I was docked there until about 9:30 in the evening, all the bars and food trucks were closed by about 4:00pm.

@Momto3girlsintheCarolinas I hope you are feeling better overall about sailing MSC. There are certainly mixed reviews, but I think it's best to keep an open mind and judge for yourself. The worst cruise I ever sailed on was on Princess, and that's supposed to be a higher-quality line. The food, service, entertainment and ship's maintenance were truly TERRIBLE. But even there, I have decided to give Princess another try in a few weeks, because I know that those things can vary from ship-to-ship and sailing-to-sailing even on the same line. Now, if I have a second bad cruise (I mean "bad" in comparison to other cruises... it's still a cruise!) on Princess in May, then I may write the line off completely, but we will see. I have a third Princess cruise booked for August and final payment for that one is due the day after I come back from my May sailing.

For sure, on an itinerary with a lot of sea days, I can't imagine not having a wifi plan!

Depends on your cell service. I have Google Fi and international text and data rates are the same as in the US. Only change for me is the cents per minute with cell calls (not wifi calls). So it I am comfortable just having Internet and and contacting loved ones in port, then I have no need for the wifi plan. However I do like being able to surf the Internet while at sea and have to check in with work frequently, so for me, wifi is worthwhile.

We are on the Enchanted May 6, so really looking forward to following along!

Wow, that is crazy late for a spring break.

I have sailed both MSC and Celebrity several times since the restart. Increased pricing on Celebrity drove me to MSC. I have mostly sailed in Balcony cabins on both lines (did one sailing in Retreat on Celebrity). For me, the main differences are assigned dining times, more crowded ships, and more children onboard. Some things that are better about MSC are clearly the pricing, the fact that Bailey's is included in the Easy Plus package (have never found a need to upgrade to the premium drink package on MSC), and the ships are generally newer (I never sailed on any of the Edge class ships). I have heard there have been cuts on Celebrity since I last sailed with them in September 2022, so I don't know how it would stack up now, but I would say that if pricing were equal, I would probably sail Celebrity over MSC. However, the pricing is nowhere even close to equal so MSC is a MUCH MUCH MUCH better value for my dollar these days. Another thing I really dislike about Celebrity is the non-refundable deposits. In the first year or so post-restart, Celebrity's deposits were still non-refundable, but you could transfer them to a different sailing if you needed to without penalty. Now that is no longer an option and I find the non-refundable deposits to be a real deterrent for us.

Right, college spring breaks can be pretty much the entire month of March and into early April. It the public grade school breaks that are a little more consistent and predictable.

Yep!

Well you can completely ignore whatever it says on the website. You will not be assigned a dining time until you check in and receive your key card.

Where are you seeing this?

While it's true that a lot of schools have a February Break, usually around Presidents' Day, you can definitely count on more concentration of breaks around Easter for grade schools at least. Now, if you are trying to avoid college Spring breaks, that is much more challenging as those are all over the place!

Looking at the Dailies from my last Meraviglia sailing, it looks like lunch went until 4:00 and dinner starter at 6:00, but grab-and-go items were supposed to be available between 4:00 and 6:00 at the grill and pizza stations.

I am sorry for your health situation and that the effective treatment for it is not currently legal in many places. The issue here will be crossing international borders. Neither the US nor Canada allow for the transport of THC into our out of the country, even if it is legal within those countries. Because of the varying international laws, to my knowledge, ALL cruise lines ban it from being brought onboard.

After the first week in April, it is usually pretty safe. It mostly depends on when Easter is. Last year, Easter was April 9 so many Spring breaks began the week prior and ended with Easter. This year, Easter was March 31, so most spring breaks started with Easter and ended a week later. This is all public grade school Spring Breaks, of course. College Spring Breaks are all over the place and usually happen earlier in March, because most colleges don't get a February break around Presidents' Day. You also have to be careful with Summer break. Here in New York, public school summer break doesn't start until the third week of June. Many schools around the country start their summer breaks with Memorial Day or even sooner.

I was on the Meraviglia for Halloween and they were still making us watch the video in our room, dial the number, then get called down to our muster station by deck... all at a set time. So, if that changed on the Meraviglia, it must have changed VERY shortly thereafter.

OMG! They cannot make this change fleet-wide fast enough! This was one of my few gripes about MSC. I could not understand why their process was so convoluted when all the other lines had a much more streamlined process post-restart.

I highly recommend that when you call about a change to your booking, you have your current booking right in front of you and then after the call, when they send the new confirmation, compare them side-by-side, line-by-line.

Exactly. Thanksgiving and Spring Break are apples to oranges.

If you get paid to do a job, you are a professional. That doesn't mean you're good at it.

I don't watch much (any?) TV on cruises except NFL football during the season. I was excited to learn on October cruise that MSC carries every single NFL game. A whole bunch of extra channels will show up on your cabin TV when the games are on, one for each game that is going on. This is a VAST improvement over Princess where I was onboard the Enchanted Princess for two regular season Bills games and missed them both because Princess only showed 1-2 NFL games per time slot. The handful of times I have wanted some TV on in the background on MSC sailings, I have been perfectly happy with the Navigation channel or HGTV.

The photo idea is intriguing. We never let the ship's photographers take our photos, because we know we will never purchase them. We have Premier for our May sailing on the Enchanted and I plan to get our photos taken anywhere and everywhere since we will get all the digital files included. I don't care about the prints, but I do like the idea of having some professionally taken digital photos of us.