Skipper Tim
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Posts posted by Skipper Tim
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We had not purchased any insurance. Pullmantur says they will reimburse 125% of our cruise but the cost of the cruise was way less than the airfares.
I am not a great advocate of insurance generally but making independant travel plans to another continent without any insurance does appear foolhardy. My latest annual travel insurance was less than £20. It is not a great expense for the reassurance and backup it brings in cases like this.
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There is always the consumer leglistation that says any contract that is not individually negotiated and puts the consumer at a disadvantage is unfair and cannot be upheld. If MSC's terms and conditions are unreasonable, they would lose a small claim. The sections about the master having to divert due to an emergency or distress are fair. To confuse them with the absolute right regardless to change the itinerary is not.
The limitation of liability in such a case is whatever money you have paid. It is not like getting 400 Euros compensation for delayed £20 flight.
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After 250 views and no replies I will take that as a "no".
I am looking forward to sharing my experience of Pullmantur Grand Class/CDF Service Luxe here on CC.
Just short of a year to go....
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A minor update, from the UK Pulmantur website, I am led to believe that on CDF, Grand Class is now known as 'Service Luxe'. Here is their summary.
Service Luxe:
On the day of embarkation:
- Personalised check-in
- Exclusive counter for customers
- Priority boarding
In the cabin:
- Bottle of premium Cava and fruit
- Lavazza coffee and tea machine
- Premium toiletries and accessories
- Dressing gown and slippers
- Pillow menu
- Free room service (food/drink)
- Canapés or sweets every day
- Free ironing service for Gala Night suits and dresses
Excursions:
- Administration and private talk
- Priority gangway access when returning to the ship in each port
On board:
- Service Luxe Hostess
- Welcome desk
- Free internet per cabin during certain times
- Casino Match Play per day
- Daily express disembarkation

In the restaurant:
- Pre-assignment of table in the best area of the main restaurant
- Booked table in the main restaurant for breakfast
- Personalised souvenir menu from the Gala Night signed by the chef and captain
Disembarkation:
- Priority and assistance during disembarkation
- Personalised disembarkation letter
Still, there is nothing like first hand experience to make sense of all this! Anyone?
- Personalised check-in
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I have booked one of the 'Royal Suites' (it doesn't look very 'Royal' :)) on the repo in my signature. It comes, as far as I can tell, with free room service for both food and drinks as part of the 'Grand Class' offering. I just wondered if any CC member had any experience of Grand Class and if I need to pay for an all-inclusive drinks package in order to get free drinks on room service.
The ship is CDF but I booked at the Brazilian Pulmantur website so I assume it is the latter's terms and service levels that apply. CDF being a minority non-English-speaking subsiduary of a minority non-English-speaking line (Pulmantur), it really is very hard to find any reliable information on them, especially in English!
Hoping someone can help me out. Thanks in advance.
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P!S have you looked at the Picture Heavy fun review of the Armonia on the first page of this forum. It has recent bar menus.
I forgot that there is a difference in how we use the word cocktails between US and UK. If you are only wanting a G&T that is not a cocktail to us but a spirit and mixer and cheaper than a cocktail. A cocktail to is is something like a Piña Colada or Mojito.
You used to be able to use the cocktail vouchers for a G&T but you didn't really save using them for that.
From Wikipedia....
When used to refer to any generic alcoholic mixed drink, cocktail may mean any beverage that contains two or more ingredients if at least one of them contains alcohol.
Usage and related terms
When a cocktail contains only a distilled spirit and a mixer, such as soda or fruit juice, it is a highball; many of the International Bartenders Association Official Cocktails are highballs. When a cocktail contains only a distilled spirit and a liqueur, it is a duo and when it adds a mixer, it is a trio. Additional ingredients may be sugar, honey, milk, cream, and various herbs.
Etymology
The origin of the word cocktail is disputed.
The first recorded use of the word cocktail not referring to a horse is found in The Morning Post and Gazetteer in London, England on March 20, 1798:
Mr. Pitt,
two petit vers of “L’huile de Venus”
Ditto, one of “perfeit amour”
Ditto, “cock-tail” (vulgarly called ginger)
I always view the sickly-sweet variety of cocktails as being designed for one purpose alone: to make women drunk without them noticing the alcohol.
My favourite cocktail, Bloody Mary, is very much old school, as is Gin and Tonic from the days of the British Raj.
Also to mention cocktail of the day comes at a discount to the menu price.
Finally, I should also sing the praises of the cheaper all-inclusive package. While it does not include quite as much as before, it does include an awful lot more than alcoholic and soft drinks that those without the package may find themselves paying extra for: speciality (or should that be 'drinkable') coffees, ice creams, shakes and smoothies, real fruit juices etc.. The whole package should be considered, not just the cost vs. known drinks requirements.
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Does anyone know if CDF has a loyalty programme?
I am booked on the Zenith's repo from Venezuela to France next March and it struck me odd that a cruise line would not have a loyalty programme.
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Hi All
MSC Magnifica is returning to SOTON in 2016 for a short series of 6 cruises including a Round UK.
GH hopes for even more ex-UK sailings in 2017.
Annie
TravelMole has it as the MSC Splendida:
http://www.travelmole.com/news_feature.php?news_id=2016080&c=setreg®ion=2
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It is certainly possible to buy them but then buying one ashore would be far cheaper. Buying one ashore would probably also be cheaper than renting one aboard, if they do rent them.
I have on my packing list an ultra-light weight bath robe specifically for when cruise ships and hotels do not provide them.
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1) Pre-order drinks packages etc. to save 15% (nominally 'service charge' but it really is just a 15% discount that happens to be the same amount as the service charge) compared to booking at the terminal or onboard.
2) Don't pre-pay so that the expenditure counts as onboard spend for MSC Club points.
3) Vitally important - print out the confirmation and take it with you!!!! There are countless tales of MSC's systems losing bookings between the web and the ship. A printed confirmation should be enough to prove that you are right and their notorious IT system is wrong.
The onboard expenditure that counts for points includes the daily automated 'hotel charge' (a.k.a. 'gratuity'). Keep a record of the total on your account as it may be worth rounding up to the next 200 with a purchase at the onboard shops etc.. You never know when one point may make all the difference to a future cruise.
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Who knows what is going on. Could be the notoriously glitchy website playing up or could be the start of them restricting club discounts with any other promotional price. They used to not allow club discounts with sale proces and then they moved to always allowing the club discount in the UK. I've seen other posters from elsewhere report they can't get their club discount on certain deals.
As for solos, they either don't want us at all or are severely restricting numbers and the cruises they will allow us on. Beginning to feel like I should have someone walking in front of me warning "unclean".........! If I could be bothered, I'd start looking into anti discrimination legislation but frankly have better things to do with my time and there are other companies on land and at sea that will happily accept my money.
AmoMondo, you know I share the same views. I did look into the discrimination laws a little. It appears they can choose their customers however they want. Public shaming is an option that they would be very senstive to but they have already rehearsed their defence. It feels pointless and I can see no gain in persuading a company to accept me if they really don't want me. That would feel like being the only one at the party by right instead of being invited.
It is a privately-owned company and such companies often make glaring mistakes because of their cultural blindspots - Italian, Catholic, Meditterranean, for a start.
Someone will have done some simplistic research showing overall net revenue from solos vs. multiple occupiers failing to take into account that solo travellers are friends of multiple occupiers and it is often a group decision which line and itinerary to choose.
MSC have lost my custom of late despte preferring them above other lines and despite the inevitable empty cabins on the repo cruises I would have booked. Stupid, stupid....
Then there is the broader issue to which you reference - if a cruise line makes solos feel unwelcome, there is a ground shift in the demographics of their guests and it becomes an unnatractive line for solos overall, even if the ocassional itinerary accepts them. I don't want to be on a ship full soley of couples and families except me. I want a broader, more representative mix. If they lose my demographic, I will never be inclined to return regardless of whether in the future they may be willing to take my booking.
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I'm not so sure these new ships are being built to appease our generation or previous generations Tim. The cruise lines are all looking to attract the next generation of cruisers,,,the millennials. This topic was heavily discussed at the Cruise Shipping Miami Conference this past week.
That is an interesting article, many thanks for the link.
I am sure you are right - these new ships are not intended to appeal to me. The 'millennials' will have never seen an ocean liner to appreciate the sea-going lines. The compromise in every cruise ship between ocean liner and floating resort appears in these designs to have drastically lurched towards floating resort.
Not that I am saying this is a bad thing. To me the logical progression is towards cruise-line branded hotels which offer the cruise experience without actually being on a ship. I love hotels and yearn for Cunard or MSC ashore.
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I fail to understand the attraction of these new classes of ship. As far as I can see, they follow the 'block of flats' principle - maximising the number of balcony cabins at the expense of sea-going properties and asthetically pleasing lines.
The only innovations relate to maximising revenue: adding an extra deck of balconies compared to other cruiseliners of a similar size, making them fatter and shorter to access more ports (hence more embarkation/disembarkation and tour opportunities) and slower to save on fuel costs (fuel costs rise in proportion to the cube of the speed, approximately). In other words, they just exude 'rip-off'.
The one thing I like about these new ships is that they will add huge extra capacity to MSC and hopefully the people that like uly mega ships will be drawn to them and away from the older, more modest and elegant ships in the MSC fleet. This should mean better deals for me.
Sorry to be a party-pooper.
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It is a over 20 years since I was last in the Bardo. Then I made the train journey from Hammamet for the day to see the mosaics of Douga - the best preserved Roman City ever found - that I had visited the week before. However I was aboard the MSC Armonia one year ago when she visited La Goulette, the cruise port of Tunis. I remained in La Goulette on that visit but did heartily recommend visiting the Bardo to anyone aboard who would listen to me. I shiver to think that any of those caught up in the mindless violence today may have aboard the Armonia then or had even met any of those who were.
Tunisia is not in the Middle East but, like all of North Africa, fell to the Arab Muslim Conquests in the middle ages. So the influences of the Arabs and the more recent French colonial power are omnipresent but it is still an African country.
Apart from the immediate trajedy of those lost and injured today, I fear a greater trajedy: that Tunis will now be removed from all cruise itineraries, encouraging any crazy little militant group to do the same again, and again elsewhere.
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Only once have I not booked a guarantee cabin and only one of those times had I not had an upgrade. Hence I prefer guarantee cabins if ever they are available.
They say the trick to booking a guarantee cabin is be 100% certain that you would be happy with even the worst cabin of the guaranteed category you have booked. If you wouldn't, pay for a higher category and/or specific cabin.
I find an inside guarantee goes well with an all-inclusive package - then there is no need to use your cabin for anything other than sleeping, washing and changing in. Many people get addicted to their balconies and I understand that too. What I would say is that it is always going to be harder to move down a category than be be treated to a free upgrade.
My friend James, who AmoMondo knows, calls this syndrome 'carpet thickness theorem' - one initially appreciates luxurious, thick carpet when walking into a room then one becomes accustomed to it. Stepping back on to thinner carpet is unpleasant. It follows therefore that one must go through life with ever-thicker carpet in order to remain content. The counter-theorem is that one should regularly 'rough-it' to reset unrealistic expectations and appreciate a free upgrade to an obscured view outside cabin when one happens to come along.
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Were you able to confirm your booking? And what was the deposit? I had briefly looked on my phone when I saw your posting and the transatlantic was showing but now a couple days later I am at home on my computer and it is no longer there. This sounds like a great deal!
I had a reply saying my booking had been automatically cancelled because I had not supplied credit card details. I have waited for the cabins I chose to be returned to the for sale inventory, checking every day, but they haven't. Eventually, I tried to book two other cabins and received an error - possibly because the system thinks the same people are already booked. I will wait and see.
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Yes, probably undersold and MSC are considering cancelling. If repos sold out, cruise lines would offer nothing but. As they are, repos are a logistical necessity but financial inconvenience.
This is one of my irritations with MSC UK at the moment. Everyone knows those repositioning cruises are going to sail with empty cabins but in many cases MSC UK won't allow sole-occupancy at any price. I don't even want to sail on a cruise line that is predjudist against solo travellers. How quickly things can be changed, pointlessly, for the worse.
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There is also the luxury French lines ant that are more your large yacht experience and there is also,the other Spanish operator Ibero Cruceros.
I've more or less completely given up on MSC, even if I can find a cruise they'll let me book as a solo, the prices are far too steep now. Cancelled the June Divina cruise and going to Crete for a week instead.
I don't like CoSta's newer ships but they have good prices and often reduce single supplement to 30%. The Neo rNge look lovely and I thought the Stlantica was a lovely ship so I'd happily sail on her or her sister the Mediterranean again.
Might sail MSC again some time in the future, but the UK office would need to reverse their anti solo policy before that happens.
Ibero Cruceros are no more. They have been technically absorbed into Costa but both ships have gone elsewhere.
What made you cancel The Divina? I thought you were very brave booking that cruise in the first place given everything we have read. You cannot go wrong with Crete. East or West?
Join us on the Zenith! You will need a good chunk of Avios to get to Caracas though. I bagged the last Royal Suite so I have the 'party room' this time.
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Have you looked at air fares?
I will be using Avios to fly business class on Iberia from Madrid to Caracas. That is around £250 in Tesco vouchers plus around £30 taxes. I have the points but it is two months too early to book the seat. I save points at Tesco just for one-way flights to meet/leave repo cruises.
It will be a cheap low-cost carrier from somewhere in the UK to Madrid and also back from Marseille.
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Costa are good, provided you haven't paid a small fortune. I found more similarities to MSC than differences (apart from the ships decor which is somewhat different!) I wouldn't mind trying Aida or TUI, although unlike MSC/Costa there seems to be no provision for non-english speakers at all. I don't much help with survivingC but when there isn't an english version of the website it could be challenging, but I exciting!
David, It is exciting when one has to rely upon Google Translate to get through a cruise booking and still then, not really comprehend what one has booked. It is most encouraging for the voyage ahead.
Like you, I am not too sure about Aida. I may be as happy staying at home and watching the 'Yesterday' channel at weekends.
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I know a fair few MSC loyal guests have been alienated by recent MSC pricing especially in the UK and especially solo travellers. We like the 'product' but the fare feels no longer justifiable.
I have been looking at alternatives for those, like me, who want a different culture, i.e. not predominantly American or British, aboard so that the ship becomes very much part of the cultural experience.
I also love repositioning cruises and parts of the World I would not normally think of visiting.
There is Pullmantur - Spanish-based and owned by Royal Caribbean now.
Croisieres de France - owned by Pullmantur but selling mostly to France.
Costa - MSC's competitor in Italy and owned by U.S. giant Carnival.
From my signature, you will see I have voted with my feet. What other non Anglo-American lines may be worth a go? Views and thoughts?
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Hi Tim, that is a very good deal. I am currently contemplating - even though I am struggling with understanding the website!
Thanks for finding it.
Hi Sandra,
Yes, even with Google Translate, the site is quite a struggle.
My biggest issue was that the site only offered me the option of paying 100% now. I paused at that point. Translating that page, it said I was already booked. Sure enough, I received an email confirming the booking with the (translated) caveat that my booking would be cancelled if I had not paid in full 60 days before departure. I have emailed the Brazilian office, in English, asking how I can pay a deposit.
For the best bargains, nothing is straightforward. One has to try though. I booked two suites, one for me and one for my mother. These have not reappeared on the bookable inventory online so I assume we are truly booked.
This cruise is already interesting. Plus Caracas? I have never even met anyone who has been there, AFAIK.
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I have just booked my mother and myself into suites on the Pullmantur/CDF Zenith on her repo from La Guaira to Marseille in March 2016 and I am very eager to pick up the sort of detail in your review. Thank you.
We have paid extra for the standard all-inclusive package, so I assume this is a change of policy that may come with better waiter service. I hope they have put back the bar stools too.
What was your parents' experience of the minibar in their suite? I have read, via Google Translate, on the Brazilian web site that we booked through, that the mini bar is included for those in Grand Class who book one of the two all-inclusive packages. A friend aboard an MSC ship who stayed in their Yacht Club through a party for a group of non Yacht-Club friends, including me, and he essentially had a butler with trolleys of canapes and drinks brought to his suite. I wonder if I might be able to do the same?
I very much agree with your sentiments on obtaining value rather than just low cost. Hence we are booked in to 'Grand Class' suites (there were no solo supplements on this repo cruise).
Anyway, thanks again and please follow my journey, when it happens, on CC.
CDF Horizon Transatlantic 11th April 2014 - Eventful
in Other Cruise Lines
Posted
The news story about the man overboard is here:
http://www.independent.ie/irish-news/irish-abroad/irish-man-67-missing-after-going-overboard-cruise-ship-in-caribbean-sea-31146902.html
I look forward to the review as I will be doing a similar transatlantic on the Horizon's sister ship, CDF's Zenith, next March.