ISLANDCRUSO

From 1st May 2020 the Duplex cabins on all Meraviglia and plus class will become YC Duplex cabins, it also appears that the Two Aurea Suites on Deck 12 12007 and 12010 will also  become part of the YC as Grand suites. You have to wonder how this will impact on cruise already booked, will they remain Aurea until bookings have cleared as Aurea or will they be classed as YC. It looks like MSC have played the Greed card in changing these cabins and will put them out of the reach of many families. You have to wonder if the NCL v YC cabins outside of the Haven argument may have influenced the decision although the Fantasia class does have forward YC suites outside of the YC.

7 hours ago, emmas gran said:

Hi we were on Meraviglia NY to Miami , I remember seeing you in YC with Bea and the lady that injured/broke her arm.

 

I posted back on page 2 (no 28) that they were going to reduce our voucher by £400 well we bit the bullet and took the reduction which ended up a £300 reduction. A least we are sorted and have a cruise booked. So sorry for all the problems you are having.

Liz

 

 

Sounds like many others that you have been conned by MSC.

Both the UK and USA site deck plans from April 2020 show the forward Deck 12 cabins as Aurea Suites, no mention of YC at all.

As you can see from the photo taken on the Meraviglia Xmas cruise the pier damaged by Armonia is far from finished.

In Barcelona there is usually a bus that will take you to the bottom of Las Ramblas near the Columbus statue from the port, not sure if you now have to pay for it. Where you get off the bus is a wooden walkway to bars and shops, directly across from the statue is Las Ramblas.

Not been to Marseille.

Genoa, the ship berths next to the city and as stated above you can walk around it plus there are various museums.

Naples, again you can walk to the main areas close by. There are two areas where you can go underground into the old water chambers we did the Napoli Sotterranea details are online for both plus videos on Youtube, there is Pompeii and Herculaneum details also online. We took the train to Pompeii one year.

Messina, the ship berths next to the Town which has a number of walkable things to see, the clock bell tower at midday is worth a watch video on Youtube or there will be trips to Taormina.

Valetta, you can walk from the port into the city by following the main road for maybe 600 yards, you will find a road to your left which takes you to the Barrakka Lift/Elevator which for a few Euros will take you to the lookout point gun battery where they fire one of the cannons each day at midday video on Youtube. This area overlooks the ships in port, on return to the port there are many bars opposite the ships and all have free wifi for the price of a drink or food.

2 hours ago, BermudaBound2014 said:

 

Thank you for replying.

 

I am going to respectfully caution anyone from assuming that just because the major US lines do things one way,  MSC will also follow suite.  MSC does their own thing on multiple levels. Not trying to be argumentative for the sake of argument, simply stating that MSC is an Italian line and they do things very different. I suspect that how US lines distribute tips holds very little relevance in this case.

 

Have you ever followed crewnews or other sites from crew members? My assumption from reading various forums is that it appears MSC is the entry level for many cruise ship employees. Once they get some experience they abandon ship for a line that pays more. 

 

 

 

 

On a recent Meraviglia cruise 23 out of 25 pool staff were Ex P and O cruises, our waiter was also Ex P and O, when asked their reason for joining MSC the response was better pay.

The CD Gene Young I believe is the first American to work in the role for MSC, he would hardly leave a well paid job to take a pay cut and work for MSC.

Despite all their glitzy ships and TV adverts and gloating about how good they are, it is ridiculous that MSC have failed miserably to sort out this issue for customers.

As a usual reader and side line sitter I have noticed that others affected by this have not posted for some time, I wonder if they also have had enough of the ineptitude of MSC ?

Sadly Meraviglia only has the small Meraviglia lounge  in the Galleria/Promenade near to the Theatre where most things go on and nothing compared to the size of the Haven lounge. There is the sky lounge which is larger which only seemed to have some kind of jazz music going on though we did not go there every night. There is a disco somewhere near the indoor sports court, not sure if they use this place for dancing. I would not worry too much about what shoes the kids wear.

Speak to Guest services and they will usually give you as late a disembarkation time as they can with late flights.

Room service includes the free continental breakfast.

It seems on the day you were in Costa Maya the flagship Grandiosa hit the pier in Palermo due to wind gusts, It seems that the ship may had been told to stay put to avoid any damage due to the berth position and the wind!

but full disclosure we didn't investigate whether a third option was available (e.g., could you exit yourself, but at a later/anytime. 

Yes we do that and have done a number of times.

From my point of view one response was answering the question asked by the original poster as to why it is the case that the boards can be poor some times in the roll call section, it was an opinion of that poster as to the reason and did not appear to influence where people should go or look.

If your cruise includes Colon then you will likely be late getting off the ship, MSC use the same system as other lines in that you are given an area or lounge to wait in until your colour code is called which is tied to your suitcase colour. 

On 1/7/2020 at 5:29 PM, joeyjeremiah said:

We were there until 11;00 pm. They cancelled the Junkanoo parade because of weather but they did the lighthouse show. 

There already seems to be a theme going on with this at O.C as they cancelled it on our recent stop there along with excursions blaming the wind which was not that bad. We left at 11 pm also despite the itinerary saying 23.59.

Our Seaside cruise that stopped at Colon had the very same issues when arriving back in Miami, MSC need to change this port, along with Freeport, Colon is the worst we have been to. On our last cruise we arrived at 12.30 and sailed straight through the priority embarkation line which was empty and was onboard in about 15 minutes.

On our recent Meraviglia cruise there was no mention whatsoever of when the night would be, the daily delivered the night before for the dress code said casual! It is pointless taking clothes for the night any longer, plus they held it a day earlier than they usually do according to out waiter. Communication with guests is something MSC really do need to learn.

13 hours ago, psmarkle said:

I could not stack the Diamond (formerly Black) status discount (5%) with my military discount (10%) last year, but I could stack my Diamond discount with our offered 30% Casino discount for this year's cruise.

You do not get the 5% discount because of the level you are at, you get it for being a member of the Voyagers Club.

There was over 200 registered for our M and M not sure of the numbers who attended but the sky lounge was full, regarding the photos it seems that MSC change with the wind direction.

27 minutes ago, Nashna said:

From what I have heard from many posters, MSC goes all out for their CC  Meet & Greets  It is not uncommon for all the major officers to attend, fancy appetizers and drinks are served, a special decorated cake is presented and photos are taken and delivered to your stateroom after the event.   

You now have to collect the photos yourself from the photo shop, certainly on Meraviglia.

Our recent cruise was due to leave at 23.59 but left at 11 pm with no reason given, it seems odd for the ship to leave at 4 pm given that O.C is only about 50 Nautical miles from Miami.

MSC really do seem to have made a mess with this on Seaside, you have land based offices asking their HQ for the answer and that is that the meal can be used at any restaurant but it appears someone on Seaside or at the USA office have taken a decision that it is not included.

Sounds like someone needs a swift kick up the backside.

Wonder why MSC chose not to add a speciality dining room when they added the new mid section ?

Photos do not open sadly.

I wonder if they have used any of the 5th beds?

It appears that some of you are missing the point, MSC along with other cruise lines point out that you should not leave the card in the slot while out of the cabin with items charging due to the risk of fire, I have had cabin stewards remove the card from the slot when I did try once to leave it in there in order to see what happened, on another occasion I came back to find chargers unplugged.

It does appear that double standards are being applied when it's alright for YC cabins to have a card in the slot while other cabins are not allowed!

Good that we are getting to see more cabins.

Sooner or later prices will rise as they have done over the rest of MSC cruises over the last two years.