BillieJeanKaraokeKing

Within the email received yesterday for our cruise this weekend: "Please make sure to respect the assigned check-in time indicated in the last e-ticket, otherwise you may be requested to wait outside the terminal until your scheduled time." 

On 8/27/2023 at 9:59 PM, snaefell said:

For our 19 night cruise back in May the drinks package would have cost us £1500,when you consider that I don't drink alcohol,sodas,coffee or tea it would have been some going for my Wife to make it worth the money on her own!😂

Let her have a go! 

Her next holiday afterwards could be at The Priory. 🙂

I always find these discussions amusing, as ultimately each individual group is the one who should know their own drinking habits and itinerary best. 

At £40pppd last year on a fjords cruise, 3 of us spent less than half that, though there were only two sea days. If we were to go transatlantic however, we might think different. 

My only advice (if you don't sup like a fish), is to pay as you go first time for each different type of cruise, then afterwards have a look at your actual bill/consumption etc. to decide what would likely work best for you next time. 

Some people simply love nothing better than having  a whinge, so will be itching to find something to complain about. 🙂

There are actually some of us who do go on holiday to enjoy ourselves and are able to accept the usually minor blips that one will experience as just that. 😉

Just back myself. Nice break overall, and we met some fantastic people who we'll hope to catch up with again. 

Good:

- inside cabin, big space for hanging clothes with plenty of hangers, small but well laid out bathroom, nice space each side of bed, tv with decent enough live/movie/show selection

- MDR only went in twice, but seated and served quickly, decent choice and food

- some great, fun staff who joined in with our mad tribe

- enjoyable comedian (only saw first one), a ventriloquist, and Spotlight Bar production show

Not as good:

- as mentioned elsewhere, trying to get a seat in venues was quite often impossible (as bad as our experience on RC), so we missed out on a few things we'd have joined in with

- service for drinks was slow at bars, almost non-existent out on deck (except from our lads out the back) 

First Princess. Our best cruise experience. No. Put off? No, we just enjoy being away 🙂 Would we go Princess again? Sure. 

We're on this one tomorrow too, first time on Princess - looking forward to seeing what's on offer.  Driving down from Lancs. 

On Virtuosa last October, I think there was one performance most nights at 7pm or 9pm, alternating between the two different shows. One was better than the other imho, but both definitely very good, worth seeing, and a bargain at £9 including cocktail. 

38 minutes ago, insidecabin said:

Would be something like Walmark/Target V Rhoche brothers

Having said that a canny shopper can do very well with Waitrose and M&S if you yellow label shop.

 

I don't think NCL and MSC are that far apart, quite  different product delivery.

With MSC you need to avoid the cruise that will be full(school holidays) or Booze(short)

 

UK MSC prices are really good at the moment  getting 7n cruises for £500($620)-£550 with premium bevs.   many have 20% solo  and free(pay for beverages) kids places, family of 4 on a weeks cruise for under £1,200

 

 

if we did not have NCL booked in May we would on Virtuosa Norway for £520pp 

We went on the Virtuosa 15 nighter early October last year for £1200 all in, and are doing it again this year for slightly cheaper.  Also worth saying it was an inside cabin, but the best nights sleeps we've ever had on a cruise. 

There were a few unpleasant and uncouth people, but our view is you're gonna find that, and you either just avoid it or laugh and view it as free people-watching entertainment. 🤣

A stroll in Mumbles on a nice day with a Joe's ice cream and you're living the dream.

6 minutes ago, Selbourne said:

We had a private dinner with our daughters on the balcony of our corner wrap suite, whilst cruising down one of the most beautiful fjords in the world on a warm summer evening. Spectacular scenery and near silence. We could have thought that we had the ship to ourselves. Magical. We couldn’t have done that ourselves.

No, that's great, and lovely experience for you, was just saying how I'd probably feel. Although you may (or may not) be different class to me 😁, I'm just northern (Lancashire). 🤣

I agree the comparison does seem somewhat unfair. It seems equivalent to comparing the supermarket clientele of Asda against Waitrose (UK, sorry don't know USA equivalent). 

I for one liked my sole MSC cruise, have booked another, and as you say like most DO NOT wish for the prices to be increased. 🤣

I can't ever see myself wanting to have/use a butler, as I don't think they'd provide anything that I wouldn't want to be doing myself, plus I think I'd probably feel uncomfortable with even just their presence.  Although it does seem they are more popular than I'd imagine they would be. 

I could understand you being a little upset with the procedure if it was the first time, but you stated "there has not been a SINGLE cruise we've taken with MSC where something like this hasn't happened." so I'm a bit confused why you are not familiar with how it's working for you and your particular payment method(s) by now. 

I'd suggest our first cruises on Royal Caribbean were worse for us, where a hold went against every transaction (i.e. drink) and I essentially had to double up the balance (debit card) on what I expected to spend - I suppose it depends on what you're going to spend as to what method works best. 

Just revisited ours, so they put a hold of £250 on 1st October, took £173 for actual spend on 16th October, the day after the cruise finished, and the hold dropped off at the end of October (unfortunately 30 days, but Chase's policy). 

1 hour ago, mscdivina2016 said:

...

I'm the type to pay it off the next day even a year and a half ahead. 

... 

 I can assure you that you will not get another nickel out me.

Someone's getting an extra nickel or two to be fair, earning interest off your early paid up cruise money instead of you. Just sayin' 🤣

I think last year I had the £250 taken, and despite me getting in touch Chase bank let it run their maximum of 30 days before it dropped off.

I've just booked Med on Virtuosa at end of September. 

The TA documentation says max is €15 for Europe (€17 for US and Japan). However, login to MSC and it tells me it's max '?14' (yep, question mark lol). So make of that what you will. 🤣

Luckily I'm a scrubber from the north in the UK, so most of my tipples won't reach that anyway. 😉

P&O are equally as inept in that respect. On Iona in June, kids were "swimming" in the jacuzzis, totally unopposed by staff. 

To give MSC their due, when we were on at the start of this month, there was always a lifeguard on duty by both the outdoor pools and the indoor tropical pool. And that was not the case with P&O. 

No separate card, we purchased online and just attached it to both of us (so the room). We just presented our normal cruise cards at the desk for the stuff to book (bowling, simulator, cinema etc.), and swiped it for the pinball, air hockey etc. 

For us on the Virtuosa, the 4D cinema was one long row of seats with guns, and you could play one of three types of game (won't say what lol). 

We purchased £70 fun pass for Virtuosa, in advance, for £140 credit. For examples, bowling was £30 for half hour, £55 for an hour; F1 simulator £12 for around 7 minutes; virtual cinema/shooter £10 for several minutes; air hockey £4.50 for not very long lol; pinball 50p bargain. You signed for each activity, and the receipt showed your remaining balance at the bottom (not refundable ofc). HTH

8 hours ago, Bogof1 said:

Thanks for the info. We too are new to MSC and travel next week. I. Very confused with the wording of testing for covid for embarking. One line says you have to have a certificate to say covid free then the next says if fully vaccinated LFT not needed??? Anyone been since the beginning of oct who can say what it is from Southampton. Thanks,

We went on 1st October, the first day the rules changed. As we'd already purchased some LFT tests, we did them anyway and downloaded the certificates. However, the guy booking us on wasn't interested in seeing them - though we did ofc show our NHS certs to prove our two jabs and boosters. 

I've just come back off MSC, the premium package (anything up to €13 value) was purchased for £26pppd, and there were no issues getting served in a timely manner at all. So that additionally puts P&O's pricey restrictive offering in perspective. 

19 hours ago, tom1022 said:

We're on the Virtuosa for a Mini Cruise to Hamburg next month, I've seen that they've changed the testing policy to "For vaccinated Guests it’s not required (but strongly recommended) to present a negative test."

 

Were they asking you for for negative tests still? Or did you just show them the vaccination info?

 

We went on a Med cruise last year, and they were constantly changing the rules, but some of the ships were being funny/following what was stated on the website, so I wanted to double check 🙂

The rules changed to this on 1st October on the very day we embarked. As we already had tests purchased, we did them, but the check-in lad wasn't interested in seeing the results at all.

Are there any ‘Formal’ nights? Do people dress up? 

We were on the 15 nighter at the start of October. Think there were three formal and one white night. I'd suggest a reasonable amount of people dressed up fully, but MSC's wording was "choose your level of elegant", so it seemed to me a bigger proportion were at smart shirt level. 

Our ship leaves at 8.00 pm. From Southampton. What time will check in start?

Our first time on MSC but check-in time was from 10am-11am, so pretty much as soon as stragglers had got off. 

We are Diamond members on the Loyalty Match scheme which says we will have priority boarding. What time will that likely be?

Impossible to know the answer to that, but I must say the boarding was very swift. Probably 15-20 minutes tops for us, and would have been quicker but for one customer causing bother at the security area lol

Are they very strict about boarding times?

Seemingly not. One chap was saying he'd have to wait in the car park for an hour, and another chirped up to suggest he just went in, as he himself had got in a couple of hours earlier on a cruise earlier in the year. 

I think it's any antigen test where you can get a confirmation certificate (so in UK for example, buy the tests for £11 or so each from the likes of Randox, upload to their app, receive downloadable cert back, which you then have to present at the terminal). 

Our first cruise is with MSC next month, in an inside cabin. We've twice been invited to bid for ocean view and above, but similar to as mentioned above, the minimum amount we could select was above what we could have paid when originally booking, so a completely pointless exercise in our case.