Hello all,
In April we (my wife, my stepson and i) travelled with MSC on the Virtuosa out of Southampton. Had an amazing time and while I was nervous about cruising with MSC for the first time, Any concerns were quickly swept away by the great ship and amazing staff. We did however hit a pretty big bump before we boarded at the terminal.
As we were walking towards the check in desks, we were stopped by a member of the port staff who asked if we were both the legal guardians of our son. As a step parent doesn't qualify, we were promptly told we needed to complete a legal form,which also had to be signed by my stepson's dad / my wife's ex husband and supplied along with a piece of photo ID for him. And this all had to be done before we would be allowed to board the ship! Cue a lot of panicked phonecalls and messages, thankfully he answered and had to crudely fill in and sign the form by means of "drawing" on a photo of the form by WhatsApp. This was followed by a lot of to and fro-ing before at last we were allowed to get our cruise cards and board for our amazing trip.
When asked about this the staff said it was a requirement in the small print on the MSC website and a new thing they were rolling out, but we had no warning or heads up at any time in the check in process before arriving at the terminal,and the MSC staff didnt know much about it either. Just wanted to make anyone with stepchildren aware that they may need to have all this in advance of heading on a cruise!
Sorry for the long post!
