hawkeyetlse

For your past cruises, you can dig up your booking confirmations from NCL and look at the booking codes in the top right corner. Things like LATITUDES, LATBONUS, or LATDBLX indicate "Insider offers" and other extra point promos that were in effect for your booking. (If you use a TA you might not have access to this document.) The current extra point offers are on the website, and the eligible sailings change every month or two.

NCL's Platinum level is more similar to MSC's Diamond level as far as the benefits go, but they (MSC) have become less generous about matching people to their highest level right off the bat. It's still a nice gesture for them to give you any kind of status at all before you have even sailed your first MSC cruise.

Yes, the number they gave you after Status Match is your Voyagers Club number in MSC's loyalty program. You should give that number when booking from now on, and have it added to your April cruise if it is already booked. Hopefully your fare will be adjusted with the 5% discount, and you will be recognized as a Gold member for your very first cruise.

I didn't end up doing it because of the wintry weather, but I would definitely recommend booking it on-line beforehand, because the price was much higher on board, like almost twice as expensive. It was 78 € on board. They were offering 15% off some e-bike excursions booked on board, but (as far as I could see) not for Zeebrugge.

MSC is very slow with refunds. They make no effort to hide this: the agents on the phone will tell you up front that you won't get your money back for 3 months. They can obviously do better than this if they are motivated to, and I would encourage people in this situation to report it to consumer protection agencies in their countries. If this is determined to be an illegal practice, the CEO will receive some messages that they will not be able to ignore so easily. In the meantime, if you have something in writing confirming that your refund is on the way, then I think the money will arrive eventually with no further action on your part. Again, I am not saying this is OK, but I believe that continually contacting your TA and MSC only wastes more of your time and makes you angrier, and does not speed up the refund process. If it brings you some satisfaction to post complaints on-line to warn other potential customers, then keep doing that, but as I said the most useful thing you can do is contact consumer advocacy organizations in your jurisdiction.

If you booked this under the recent deal from MSC USA, it should be a 1-device browse package for each guest (and the Easy Plus beverage package). If you booked as a solo, you get a 2-device browse package (or at least I did).

I think Grey Goose is over the Easy Plus limit, though. Even Jack Daniel's (which I would hardly consider "top shelf") requires Premium Extra. The difference is $20 a day, so depending on how you look at it, you need to have 2 to 4 of the more expensive drinks every day to make it worthwhile. Two glasses of champagne at breakfast and you don't have to / won't be able to think about it for the rest of the day.

Yes, most things will cost more on board than the pre-cruise prices. But it also depends on where/how you booked your cruise (in what currency) and what currency is used on the ship. You can try to get in touch with someone who's on board your ship now (or just returned recently) and ask them for the latest prices on the ship. Then compare with the prices you're seeing.

It's the same base price pre-cruise and on board (they just charge you the difference between the two packages) but if you wait until you're on board they will also charge you the 15% gratuity. So it's better to do it before the cruise. Normally this upgrade will be listed under Beverages in "Plan My Cruise" but if for some reason it's not, ask your TA to add it or call MSC to purchase it.

As long as you vacate your cabin at the time indicated in your disembarkation instructions, you can hang out in public areas of the ship for a couple more hours. But if you leave your luggage out the night before, it will be waiting in the terminal at your assigned time, and I would be a little worried about letting it sit there for too long. But if you have all your stuff with you, you can stay on board until they make an announcement for you to please disembark already.

It depends which perks specifically. But by default you should assume everything is only for the card holder. Extending to everyone in the cabin is the exception. But tell us what level of status you have and which perks you are asking about.

Yes, a multi-device package allows you to use all devices at the same time.

I managed to get the cake once, but it was just two of us and a big cake. We didn't even touch it, and after carrying it around the ship for a while, I gave it to some crew members who probably tossed it. If it ever happens again I'll ask the head waiter to find some family that's celebrating something that week and give them a cake. Or I'll pack a cake box in my luggage and some ice packs. Laundry would be nice!

There's not really anything that you absolutely need the app for, but for example you can see what the dining room menus are for the rest of the cruise. And reserve restaurants, shows, excursions etc., without having to go anywhere or call anyone. And you don't have to carry around the daily program because it's all in the app (but if you're going ashore, do take the program with you!) You can connect to the ship's wifi for free and use all the functions of the app (and scan the QR codes for bar menus). But you won't have internet access unless you purchase an internet package.

It's per person. For what you want to do, they expect each person to buy a one-device package, which costs in total about 50% more than a single 3-device package for one person. That said, you can totally just buy a 3-device package in one person's name and share it among 3 people. The only issue is that you will all have to be logged in with that person's identity in the MSC app in order to get on the internet. So that person has to be OK with everyone having access to their onboard account, chat messages sent through the app, etc. And whenever you want to check your own account or chats or reserve your own shows/restaurants with the app, you will have to log out and then log back in as yourself (and you will lose internet access until you log in as your cabinmate again). Up to you to decide how much of a hassle that is, and if it's worth the savings.

I have never managed to get any of these discounts applied to pre-cruise purchases. It definitely doesn't happen automatically, but when I called to ask, they always insisted that the price was already discounted. And when I tried to get the discount retroactively on board, they said that anything I paid for pre-cruise was none of their business.

Access is unlimited. I don't know if the reservations situation has stabilized across all ships after Covid, so you'll have to ask on board (or ask other people on board closer to your sailing). My most recent experience was that it was possible to make reservations, and maybe they encouraged it, but I was always able to just walk in, even on sea days when it was busiest. But I would be prepared for them to say "sorry it's too full right now, would you like to make a reservation for later?"

The most reliable way is to ask someone who is on board the same ship, doing the same itinerary a few weeks before you. Join an internet group for that ship and someone will probably help you, and you'll learn a lot of other things about the ship at the same time.

The only options I am aware of are for wine and champagne in the cabin.

It’s all in euros. They don’t have separate chips for you to bet in dollars, or nickel slots, or whatever. They will take your dollars but then charge you to convert them to euros.

If they advertise 24 hour coffee it must be the one of the beverage stations up in the buffet, with the brewed coffee dispenser, and hot water for tea.

What did they send you? Sounds like it was probably just an updated booking confirmation and it’s probably still a bit too early to get your cruise ticket. Try again 20 days out.

Thanks for your review! Bad luck with the itinerary change. I hope you get to visit Malta one day soon. I can only imagine how stressful it was for the passengers that were supposed to embark or disembark there! I'm glad to hear that they're still giving out the chocolate ship (many others have reported getting an ordinary small bar of chocolate instead). I'm also kind of amazed to learn that there is one person on the planet who has actually used the Zoe speaker… 🤭 Did you go to the Butcher's Cut twice? Or where did you go for your Diamond dinner? And what did you get at Teppanyaki with your dining package? What excursions did you do?

The texting function requires the ship's wifi to work, but you do not need to purchase internet access for this. Simply connecting to the ship's wifi network is free and lets you use all of the functions of the MSC for Me app, and flash the QR codes at bars, etc. Airplane mode may turn your phone's wifi function off by default, but you can turn it back on and then select the ship's network.

It's the same thing, they call it e-Ticket or Cruise Ticket or "Your travel documents" and it sounds like you already have them. The "boarding pass" is specifically the page labeled "01. Embarkation Form" that you're supposed to print out for each passenger, along with the health form. However, it is strange that it won't let you request the ticket on the website, and that you are not able to join the Voyagers Club. So I would suggest that you give them a call and see if they can help you.