Cooper30

Thank you for the advice. Much appreciated!!

Every time I see things about pier runners, I’m reminded of the time we watched a dozen or so people straggling back late to the ship in Falmouth, Jamaica. Seemed like the whole ship was yelling crap at them. Turns out it was a Royal Caribbean excursion…..and there was a deadly accident right in front of the bus carrying the people back to the ship that closed the whole road, causing the bus to be late getting back to the port. One of the woman on the excursion had become friendly with my wife earlier in the cruise. She was an RN who had to help at the scene and was clearly traumatized. Some of the things being yelled from balconies and the pool deck were horrible.

Only the person booking a guaranteed cabin can say whether it’s a good idea to them or not. Guarantees are a good idea for us because we book them when we absolutely do not care where our cabin is located.

Excellent information. Thank you for sharing.

D+ is in sight for us even though we’re “cheating” on Royal a bit. 😁 We’re looking forward to the same things.

Thank you. This looks like a cheaper way to go.

We dipped our toes in MSC on Divina out of Miami back in January….Fantastica “experience”. Some things were better than RC, but some weren’t. We had a good time and would do it all over again. All things being equal (including price), we would go with Royal. We are Inside Guarantee people most of the time, so our budget is on the low end, and even down there, MSC’s Fantastica experience beats Royals GTY most of the time. We have five cruises booked through January 2026….three with Royal and two with MSC.

Yea, I guess the driving part isn't really that big of a deal other than normal paying attention to local laws. Thank you

This may be unrealistic, but I'm curious of people's opinions, positive or negative. This coming October, my wife and I are on a 7-night MSC Preziosa cruise out of Southampton that stops in Hamburg. Has anyone traveled from Hamburg to Kiel, more specifically the Laboe Naval Memorial/U-995 Museum? I am kicking around the idea of renting a car for the day like we are in Le Havre (in order to travel to Omaha Beach on our own). Our time in Hamburg is 0700-2100 on a Sunday, and a quick look at Google Maps puts the travel time as 1 hour 30 minutes each way. Additionally, any thoughts on an American driving in Germany? I'm not concerned about France as I can limp along in French well enough, but I am not familiar with the German language whatsoever. I'm sure I can learn the very basics, but I will never feel as comfortable as I do with French (and Italian). Thank you for your time.

You gotta pick your cruise dates carefully if you don't want to be inundated with kids on a family cruise line. We were on Anthem 2/17-2/25. It was pretty much all extended families, ours included. As mentioned a few times, it was school vacation week in quite a lot of the northeast. Since our daughter in law is a school teacher, it was the only week we could realistically take them this winter. We even paid more for the "privilege" of cruising during this week, and we'd do it all over again. We knew going in that this was a cruise for our son, dil, and granddaughters, not us. People were pleasant, and we had a great week.

My small sampling of booking GTY cabins leads me to believe it’s not an issue. Three out of our five upcoming cruises booked with RC are GTYs. We only choose when it’s on a bucket list itinerary, and at that point we’re willing to spend a bit more to get an aft cabin.

sorry for the delay. I got busy and forgot. here’s the post I made https://boards.cruisecritic.com/topic/2985244-can-anyone-help-with-advice-for-travelling-venice-to-ravenna-via-train/?do=findComment&comment=66759026

My wife tried logging in two days ago and got the wrong country error. This was the first time she had tried logging in since using the app on our recent cruise. She copied and pasted the email I sent, inserted her name and Voyager number, and less than 24 hours later was able to log in to her account online.

I just received this e-mail. I am able to log into my account now. I first contacted MSC this last Sunday evening. “Thank you for contacting the MSC Voyagers Club. We have updated the country on your Voyager account to reflect USA. If the error persists, please do not hesitate to contact the Voyager Club helpdesk. Should you require additional assistance please feel free to contact our contact center at 1877.665.4655 Best Regards, James MSC Voyagers club MSC Cruises (USA) Inc. 6750 North Andrews Avenue, Suite 100 Fort Lauderdale, FL 33309 877-665-4655”

I’m at work now and my break is almost over, but somewhere in the past month I posted how my wife and I went from Venice to Ravenna last October. I'm not sure if it’s on this board or the Italy one. when I get home from work and can get on my desktop (rather than phone), I’ll look for it and post a link if you can’t find it.