MrsBlakey

I’ve received an email from operations this evening, cancelling my Jan 28th cruise on Grandiosa and stating:

As this public health emergency continues to evolve, the authorities of many countries have effectively closed their ports to all cruise ships. In light of this development, as other cruise lines MSC Cruises has decided to temporarily pause its cruise operation until the situation improves. 

We expected this given the lockdown situation and rising cases again.

The PP+ package is different to the YC package and the champagne bar is included. 
 

5 minutes ago, Couple-Somerset said:

 

MSC are a terrible company for customer service - always have been.

 

We are in the same situation re flights - we booked ours with Vueling nearly a year ago.

 

The problem we have is we KNOW the ship wont be built and the cruise will be cancelled BUT until that happens we cannot claim for the flights on our travel insurance.

 

Our travel insurance runs out in September and a new policy wont include coronavirus cover - but we arent sure if the flights will still be covered due to the ship delay or if they whole lot will be put down to coronavirus and we either have to pay to reschedule flights to another date or lose the money.

 

I am ready to book another MSC if they cancel soon, but will take the refund if they drag it out.

 

Our other issue is we booked Yacht Club on Virtuosa nearly 2 years ago for just £1,000 each - and any YC sailing of 7N or more now is £2,000+

 

Is it worth contacting the Citizens Advice Bureau? Just to see if there is another avenue that could compel a faster decision, or at least an increased FCC in view of the YC price hike. 

I would like to think that by September there has been a definite announcement as MSC surely can't fail to acknowledge a delay, once they pass the point at which they should be starting sea trials of the ship.

Have you spoken to your travel insurance company about any of this? You may still be covered beyond September if they put it down to Coronavirus, as the delay/cancellation and need to amend flights has happened due to a pandemic which commenced DURING your period of cover. It will of course all be down to the underwriting.

My personal experience though has been that if a covered cause happens in a policy term; any effects from this, happening after the policy ends (up to original cover limits) can still be claimed for. My experience has only been on Home and Car insurance, but that would not stop me from asking if a travel insurer would use the same principle. Particularly as they are often sold and underwritten by the same companies as home and vehicle insurers. 

On 5/28/2020 at 1:51 PM, Couple-Somerset said:

We are due on Virtuosa in December.

The shipyard and MSC agree that the ship wont be ready until early 2021.

However, the UK office wont issue a FCC or anything as they say "the cruise has not been cancelled, merely delayed"

Thankfully, Im not desperate for the money but as they know it wont be sailing, it would be better for them PR wise to start the FCC/refund process.

Im quite happy to rebook but cant do it until they make a move.

 We are also on the Virtuosa in January 2021 and contacted MSC about this. The reply we got was this:

Hope you are well and keeping safe. We are aware of reports surrounding the launch of MSC Virtuosa. For the moment we haven’t had any official statement regarding the ship being delayed. Should anything affect your sailing, we shall be in contact when and if we need to. Our website is frequently updated and will be should the ship be delayed. 

We thank you for your continued support during these unprecedented times.

Kind Regards,

S. H. 
Contact Centre Agent

What is more frustrating for us is that as we booked over 1 year ago, we couldn't book flights at the same time, and have since been unable to on the MSC website since, so have booked these separately, same with transfers. We really need to know where we stand with our Virtuosa sailing so that we can try and change these if necessary.  We had tried to get MSC to contact us about web booking flights etc but never received a reply. We are more and more disillusioned with MSC and haven't yet set foot on Virtuosa. The problems are not all Coronavirus as some have been brewing before.