Cooper30

This happened to me after I checked in to our cruise using the app. It doesn’t matter what browser or device I use, I get the wrong country message. I’ve read where some people have emailed MSC and eventually had it fixed. I’m just going to wait until the cruise I checked in for is over and worry about it then. From what I can tell (through my limited research), the app and website don’t play well together.

Since I haven’t cruised those itineraries yet, I can only address your last sentence. You haven’t lost your mind at all. We took our kids all kinds of places that people thought would be difficult….and we enjoyed ourselves. Adjust your expectations and understand that she will dictate what you do every day. Don’t try to do long excursions regardless of itinerary. No rigid plans…you always need an exit strategy to get to a place where you can stop and let your child be comfortable. Sometimes you just have to stop where you are and appreciate the moment. We never went on a cruise until our youngest was 19, but we did all kinds of “crazy” things with our three boys. For example, when the youngest was 10 months old, I took him on a 9 day canoe trip on the Allagash River in northern Maine. My wife stayed home with his two older brothers. I had a really good time and would do it again….well….not now that I’m in my mid 50s, but I would certainly do it again if I was 30. We are taking our middle son, daughter in law, and our two granddaughters on Anthem next month. They will be 9 months and 3 years old (granddaughters, not son/dil). We have no hard plans other than enjoying the time together.

Agreed. We sail in a week and have hard copies of everything. I have confidence that everything will be fine when we board. I never had website issues until I started inputting information via the app. My wife has not used the app and has no problems logging in to her account via the MSC website.

We just did this back in October for a Royal Caribbean cruise. We flew into Venice - Marco Polo International Airport, spent a couple nights in Venice, then took the train from Venice to Ravenna, and spent a night there before our cruise. The only thing we would have done differently is spent more time in Ravenna. It is an amazing city. There are two train stations in Venice... Mestre, which is on the mainland, and Santa Lucia which is on the main island, right near Piazzale Roma, which is where the road ends. Since we stayed in Venice proper, we caught the train at the Santa Lucia station. We took a high speed train (Italo) from there to Ferrara, then took a regional train (Trenitalia) from Ferrara to Ravenna. The train change at Ferrara was very easy as there are only six tracks there. Seats are assigned on the high speed train but not on the regional. We had no problems with luggage. There were overhead compartments on the high speed and plenty of space on the regional. As a matter of fact, we met another cruising couple at the Ferrara Station who had twice as much luggage as we had, and they had no issues with their bags. We purchased our Italo high speed rail tickets (Venice --> Ferrara) at the self service machine in the Venice station. For the Trenitalia regional train (Ferrara --> Ravenna), we purchased tickets via the Trenitalia app that we downloaded to our phones. Here's what I would do if I was going straight from the airport to Ravenna. From the airport to Venezia Mestre Station either bus or taxi. Taxi would be the easiest. From Venezia Mestre, take the train to Ferrara (either Italo or Trenitalia). Change trains in Ferrara for the regional train to Ravenna (Trenitalia) To get from Ravenna station to your accomodations, you could see what is recommended by the host/proprietor. We walked to our B&B (15-16 minutes). We could have taken a city bus, but we wanted to walk through the city. We didn't see many taxis around the train station, and our B&B host told us there weren't many around in general. To get from Ravenna to Porto Corsini (to board the ship), we arranged a ride through our B&B host. The cost was 40 €. There was a shuttle from the train station to the port on the day of the cruise offered by Royal Caribbean. While I cannot remember the exact amount, it was cheaper than we paid, but it was nice to have a private car take us there. It was an easy ride. Some thoughts on navigating that area of Italy....English is everywhere. Even the signs in the train stations had English on them. I spent over a year learning enough basic Italian to be understood and understand people. In Venice, no one wanted to speak Italian to me when they found out we were American. It was pretty much all English, all the time. I suspect they just wanted to get the transaction (with yet another tourist) finished as quickly as possible. Once we got away from Venice, people were more inclined to speak to me in Italian.

It's almost predictable now. We booked another cruise last night and now get the wrong country error when we try to login on the web. Our upcoming cruise does show correctly on the app, so that's good. Based on my experience last time, login will be back to normal in a few days. It's still frustrating though.

Our 6 and 7 night cruises have all required a $398 deposit for two people. We have always wanted non-refundable, so I cannot speak to refundable deposits. This is in the USA. I’m not sure if other countries are the same.

Their country, their rules. I choose to go to their country so I will follow their rules. Italy wants everyone to carry a government issued ID? Cool. I'll carry my US passport. Here in the USA I can play the "Am I being detained?" game all day long but I'm not going to in another country where I have a limited vocabulary. Something else that comes to mind is that with my passport and a credit card, I can get back home in a crisis a lot quicker than having to run back to my lodging to get my passport, and there are a lot of potential crises that could happen when traveling abroad nowadays.

Our luggage tags always seem to be live 20-25 days before our cruises.

What reviews? It’s an older, Voyager class ship. If you compare it with Wonder or similar ships, then of course it’s going to come out on bottom, especially when reviewed by someone who like the bigger classes. Voyager class ships are our favorite ships. Freedom class is a close second. They don’t have all the bells and whistles of Oasis or Quantum classes, and that’s one of the reasons we like them. We will be boarding Explorer in 20 days and have no reservations about sailing on her.

Last time we sailed out of Boston was almost a year ago. It was a hot mess with no one concerned about assigned check in times and the security contractors yelling at everyone. The outside line went down the block. It’s covered but open to outside temperatures. We were fine, but we’re from Maine. If you’re coming from a warmer climate, you might want a jacket just in case.

This is our Lyft ride from Cape Liberty to Newark Penn Station back in February. We sauntered off the ship after breakfast, so if you get off as soon as possible, it's probably doable. There was some stopped traffic as we approached the station.

Thank you both for your quick replies. 🙂

I've been looking around the website for a while now and cannot seem to figure out if it's possible to book two cabins at the same time. I'm not looking for connecting cabins, I just want to book a cabin for my wife and I and a second for our adult son and his girlfriend. I'm willing to take the heat if I'm being stupid and simply missing the way to do this online. Thank you.

My wife really liked the Blueberry Nohito

Good to know. Thanks.

We have a GTY balcony booked on Anthem for Feb 2024. We did this expecting a cabin with a view like the one in the reply above this one. Anything else will be a bonus. I don’t remember the price off the top of my head, but it had to have been good because we didn’t book an Interior. Everyone has their own list of “needs” when cruising. Cabin type and location is pretty far down on our list. YMMV

That initiative didn’t pass. The sponsors even withdrew support. There are alternatives ideas floating around, but even if one of those comes to be, it’ll be 2025 before anything happens. There’s info on the web about the whole thing if anyone feels like searching. I live five miles from Portland and everyone knows we love cruising. Even if I missed something on the local news, someone would tell us about it. We’ve been known take cruises from Boston that stop here on the way to Canada. All that being said, there has been some talk lately about how the harbor desperately needs to be dredged.

We're thinking that with the limited capacity of the Beach Club, it won't seem as crowded as the rest of the island. The Beach Club itself was sold out when we went before (as reported by another couple we met later that week who tried to book when they came onboard) and it was very comfortable for us.

We went back in November 2021. We enjoy all of CocoCay, however the Beach Club was a rare step up for us, and we decided that we would like to do it again. $100/pp is our limit. We were there during reduced capacity sailings, so I imagine it would be even better now that ships are full. We bought it a couple days ago for $79/pp for our Feb sailing on Anthem. The price before that was $160/pp.