tim716

I'm also on Splendida grand voyage from Singapore in a few days, and reading all the annonuncements and restrictions I expect total paranoid madness at embarkation. 

Has MSC published any special notices on what happens if you tragically sneeze at embarkation and are denied boarding according the new restriction? Will be any refund of the cruise fare and/or the drink package?

I have zero fear of the virus which is milder than the plain flu, but I'm trembling with fear of all this hysteria.

Can you please specify: is it FORBIDDEN to walk out the port and there is security who actively prevents you (these cartel guys own you) or it’s just to far/uncomfortable to walk for most?

I’d gladly walk 3 miles/one hour to avoid the taxi mafia and just catch a baht bus. That’s a matter of principle.

I'm booked on a 27 day Splendida grand voyage/repo cruise from Shanghai to Dubai. I guess you all know what's happening in China, all cruise departures from China are banned at the moment. MSC might cancel the cruise, but since it's a repo cruise they rather change the embarkation port for the next on the itinerary, i.e. Naha Okinawa. If they do that'll mean the cruise will be shortened by 3 days. If they move the embarkation to Hong Kong - that's a whole week. 

I'm considering to buy a drink package, at 972 pounds p/p it's already more expensive than the cruise itself, so this price is the absolute maximum for me. If 15% service charge is added to this (if I understand right this happens if I try and buy the package onboard), it becomes out of bounds to me. I planned to just prebook it online, but now I'm worried what happens to the package if the cruise gets canceled or shortened. If they cancel the cruise they 'll reimburse the price of the package I guess, but what if they shorten the cruise?  Will they reimburse the unused days of the package if I book it now for the full price? Or should I wait till they make the final decision on the cruise? How long before the departure day do they allow to prebook packages? And if they do shorten the cruise before I book the package - will the online price get recalculated and reduced?

Please give me a good advice how to do it right.

4 hours ago, Stefan_Varong said:

The difference is just that you either need a spending limit high enough or enough money on that card

Can you please make this more precise?

How much money, with Costa, is “enough” money?

More than the amount of onboard spendings (the bill is 1000 euro, 1001 euro on the card is ok)?

The bill + XXX euro (XXX = ?)?

The bill x2?

The bill x3?

The credit limit of the Count of Monte Cristo? ;)

Thank you again for trying to help!

Please read the link I posted in the previous message. Many cruisers with small credit limits, not only Russians, face this problem.

I perfectly understand that the money is not removed from the account, the money get "just" blocked.

The problem is: when at the end of the cruise the company tries to charge (remove from the account) the full amount of spendings, the bank (or processing system)  doesn't recognize this transaction as an order to convert the previously made holds into charges. It "thinks" it's a NEW TRANSACTION, unrelated to the previous holds, and this transaction can only take the  UNBLOCKED (disposable) money on the account. This transaction cannot use the blocked money. And if there is not enough UNBLOCKED money on the card for this full final charge - the transaction gets declined.

All the cruise company sees in this case: the holds go through successfully, but the payment gets declined. They call the cruiser to the reception and tell him that his card "doesn't work" for payment and ask him to pay with another card or cash, which I personally have none of (or cannot spend for that). 

The bank declined my request to raise the credit limit, and I don't think it'd allow a transaction exceeding the limit.

Unfortunately your information confirms my worst expectations, but thank you anyway, it's always better to be informed.

Happy Western cruisers who uses law protected credit cards with large credit limits have no idea of this problem, because with those cards the payments always go through. And they're even unaware of the holds which remain after the payment (and drop in days or weeks), because these holds tie the bank's money which the cruisers are not gonna use anyways.

Thank you for you reply! 

Concerning the cash deposit, can you please make it very clear because it’s very important for me. Can it be done like this?:

At the beginning of the cruise: 

The receptionist:

- You have 900 euro of preorders on your account, you have to give 900 euro as a cash deposit.

Me: 

- That’s fine. (give him nine 100 euro bills)

At the end of the cruise:

- The receptionist: Your final bill is 1100 euro. How would you like to pay?

Me

- I want to pay all the bill by the card and get my deposit back. 

Receptionist: 

- That’s fine. (Takes the card, transaction of 1100 euro successful, GIVES ME BACK NINE 100 EURO BILLS).

Or it’ll be like this:

Receptionist:

- Sorry sir, I cannot give your nine 100 euro bills back, they’are taken as the payment, you just have to pay the remaining amount of 200 euro. How’d you like to pay?

The latter case would be a disaster for me.

Concerning the credit card. Actually exactly what you describe what Costa does with a credit card constitutes a problem for me. 

If Costa CHARGED my daily spend on my credit card each day - that’d have been fine, I have quite enough funds for that. But if it just holds (pre-authorizes) the money as you say - this is where sh$t hits the fan. For example, I have 1500 euro on the card (including the credit limit). My onboard spendings is 1000 euro, and Costa takes  (pre-authorizes) 1000 euro on my card successfully. This leaves 500 euro of disposable money on the card. Then at the end of the cruise they try to CHARGE me 1000 euro as the final payment. TADAM - transaction declined! Because, obviously, there is only 500 available, since the other 1000 euro is blocked...by Costa. They call me to reception and ask me to pay the bill. And I can’t pay it because I don’t have any other money. I have to have at least DOUBLE the amount for it to go through (maybe even more), and I don’t have that. 

The problem is nicely described here: https://www.creditcards.com/credit-card-news/cruise-ship-credit-card-problems.php ,Case #1. I have a credit card but not "plenty of funds" on it...

Going on a Costa cruise in 2 weeks, and I'm a bit stuck - don't know what to do with the onboard account.

The problem is - I have a credit card, but the credit limit is small. It's prudently sufficient to cover the spendings onboard, but nowhere near 2x that amount to "cover" the abundant pre-authorizations AND the payment. (Yeah yeah I'm jealous about American and European true credit cards, which have all the fraud risks protected by law. In Russia getting a credit card with a large limit is a fancy mean of suicide, because if the money up to the credit limit get stolen from the card - that's only your problem and you're effectively sold into slavery. Did I mention neither we have a bankrupcy law?). 

I'm a brilliant member at Royal Caribbean, and the solution with Royal Caribbean was always simple: I just prepaid the onboard credit. The remaining holds were rather small and weren't a problem.

Actually I'm gonna have 90% of my onboard spendings already on my account by the time of boarding (I'm gonna preorder an all-inc drink package, the excursions and an Internet package). But I read it's impossible to prepay anything with Costa (at least I found no way to do it). 

Another way is to give a cash deposit. But I have not much cash (and draw it from the card is VERY expensive). It'd be ok if I could give a cash deposit, and the end of the cruise TAKE IT BACK and pay ALL the amount with the credit card. Otherwise I'll have nowhere to live and nothing to eat in Mauritius after the cruise (cheap villas don't accept cards). But a couple of guys here mentioned that was also impossible with Costa, they never return the cash deposit and you can only pay the remaining amount with the card.

So, any advice please? Any way to prepay, return the cash or make them not pre-authorize a ton of money? Otherwize I'll really have to resort to "Ok, you blocked my money to guarantee, now use that guarantee and take the blocked money, because I have no other money or cards to pay" and walking away. But I want no conflicts actually.

Sorry for resurrecting an old thread, but now I have the same problem and an even brighter idea. I have a “credit” card with an $100 credit limit and the exact amount  (my own funds) I’m gonna spend on the cruise. I won’t need the card for anything else. I’m gonna link it to the onboard account and let them hold there as they please. Then, at the end of the cruise, if they can convert those holds into charges - fine, everyone’s happy. But if the change get declined and they ask me to pay in cash or with another card, i’ll say: “Ok guys, what you made those holds for? To guarantee that I pay my expenses? Great! You have the guarantee for the full amount due. Now USE this guarantee and take the held money, since I don’t have any other money to pay besides the one you made the hold of. (Show my empty pockets). You can’t? Then why did you make those holds in the first place? Anyway, these are your technical problems, not mine. Goodbye gentlemen and have a nice day.”

And what will they do? Call the police? I’ll just show the police those holds on my electronic statement. It’s not like I don’t want to pay my debt, I just don’t want to make their problem my problem.

What do you think about it?

Thank you for your information! Actually I'm quite interested in sharing. I can't send you a PM here on the forum unfortunately, so if you could write to my mail tim716 <at gmail dot c o m>, I'd reply to you with my thoughts about the matter. I have whatsapp, Telegram and Viber as well.

Thank you very much for your answer! I'll be very grateful for any useful advice.

The matter which worries me about the pier operators is that in this case it's only my responsibility to return to the ship on time. And February is a rainy season there (that's what can make my ongoing cruise very different from yours indeed). What if I go on an excursion, and then it starts raining (pouring) in the afternoon making the timely return impossible?

What did the roads look like (to the places you went)? Hard surface, stones or dirt, which I guess can make the road undriveable during hard rain?

Malaria concerns me too, thank you for the reminder. Unfortunately there's no chance to buy Malarone in Russia or Mauritius. And by the way it's really toxic to the liver, so I wouldn't like to take it "just in case". What I'm gonna do is buy Coartem and an express test in Madagascar, and in case of any illness after Madagascar promptly make the test and take Coartem if positive. And repellents for skin and clothes of course (even Costa recommends them for shore excursions).

What I hope for is we won't spend any nights in Madagascar, and I heard the moscito species transmitting malaria are active only in evenings and nights.

Hi everybody!

I'm on this cruise Feb 2 2019. Trying to plan the shore excursions for the ports now, I as well think the ship's excursions prices are exorbitant, so I'm planning to minimize the costs by taking as much local agency tours as possible. I'd like to see as many places as possible as this is probably gonna be the only opportunity to see those places in my life.

I'd be very grateful for any reviews or tips from anyone who already completed the itinerary. (Thank you kremerlorraine, your message is priceless to me).

I especially need the info on a few things:

- Which of the ports of call are tendered? (this is quite strangely not shown on the official itinerary). What was the situation with the tender tickets/early tender access? Did it disrupt your local agency excursion plans? Also by my experience tendered ports are 10x times more probable to get missed due to weather.

- How did you plan for Tamatave where the ship visits for only half the day?

- What places did you like the most?

- Please please the contacts of the local tour agencies which you used and were happy with! For any port. I copied Madabest for Diego Suarez, will contact them.

- In Seychelles, how to make a day excursion to Praslin and La Digue on budget? The cheapest price I've found so far is about $200.

- Did anybody take Piu Gusto or another all inc drink package onboard? How well did it work?

I'd be also very grateful for any other tips and advice.

I'd consider a Boardwalk or Central Park cabin only if they're MUCH cheaper than ocean view balcony cabins.

The internal balcony cabins might sound unusual but their only "advance" is the possibility to watch the life in the opposite side staterooms (and their - to watch your life). Their real value is somewhat similar to Promenade stateroms on Voyager/Freedom class. You see little of the sea in the public areas on Oasis - why would you add the same problem to you cabin?

As for Boardwalk VS. Central Park - IMHO Central Park is somewhat better (but not the highest deck), except the Boardwak cabins closest to the aft - you should be able to see much of the sea from there.