20165

22 minutes ago, Two Wheels Only said:

 

I believe that the person who asked the question is wondering if the gentleman that you met paid MORE than you did, would you feel better about what you paid? 

No, not really. My issue really wasnt about what i paid, i was just making the point that because MSC was selling the cabins a very discounted rate, there were a lot more 'interlopers' as they have been referred to on this post.  

24 minutes ago, JAGR said:

The real question is, were you satisfied with what you paid for your cruise before you stepped on board?  Nothing else matters.

No, i disagree, i think the real question is do i feel satisfied with the price i paid for the product i got and the answer to that is absolutely not.  That matters...

13 hours ago, mowogo said:

One thing to take solace in is that we are at the end of the booking window where people were getting bargain basement cruises from the early post pandemic sales with prices being much more in line with the competition instead of undercutting casino rates on old Carnival ships.  MSC is getting enough market penetration that they don’t see the need to discount as much as they were, and that shifts the customer base that is looking at MSC.  Vegas went through a similar shift coming out of the pandemic when the casinos regained pricing power over their rooms.

 

 

Thats great news and in my opinion, the main reason for the people issues.  I think i mentioned this earlier or in another post, but i was talking to a gentleman in one of the bars about our cabins and he had the same Balcony we did and paid less than half of what i paid for mine.  Granted, i dont know what level they had, but for them to get the cabin we got for less than $1400 total for 2 people is crazy. And he had the drink package included, although i think it was the basic one.

8 hours ago, GOLDENBONNY said:

so you made purchases on your card and you deny them ? wow. 

I dont know whats valid and whats not given they are bundled and i have have no final bill so yea, i denied all of them.  So far, none have been added back to my account so my guess is MSC is having a hard time giving AMEX detail on the charges.  AMEX is pretty good about making the vendors provide detail on the charges.

7 hours ago, GOLDENBONNY said:

you know its 21 century and all bills can be checked on app or on TV also you could go to customer service and ask for one instead of calling CC and deny charges. 

Actually they cant see it in the app for 2 of the 3 cabins because we had minors staying in them.  And no, im not going to wait in that line the morning of departure when we are trying to get off the ship and catch a flight to try to reconcile 3 cabins.  However, i will admit to 1 huge mistake and thats not researching MSC before we cruised them.  It was a last minute booking for us and i should have paid more attention to the reviews on CC because they were pretty much spot on.  Hence the reason im on the Princess board now researching the you know what out of our next cruise...

13 minutes ago, Bgwest said:

You’ve not elaborated on what you disliked about MSC. 
Would you mind expanding on your experience?

Sure, its on the MSC board under this title.

Seascape June 11-18 review. Warning, it isnt pretty...

Thanks for the info everyone and those that asked about MSC, i would highly recommend against trying it.  We have enjoyed cruising with our family for years, and this last MSC cruise really put a bad taste in everyone mouth for cruising.  Luckily we had 2 good cruises last year on Celebrity so im really trying to make sure this next one goes off without a hitch to get everyone back on board with cruising. 

thanks again.

Im hoping the answer to this is no comparison, but we just got off a MSC cruise out of Miami and are a bit shell shocked so we wanted to ask some questions about Princess since we haven't been on them in about 20 years.  We have a Princess cruise booked 12/16/23 on Sky princess and my family is questioning if we should do it or book some other vacation give the experience we had last week.  We are seasoned cruisers, have been on most mainstream cruise lines.  RCL, NCL and Celebrity.  We have been trying different cruise lines lately because our kids are getting older.  Late teens, early 20s.  We did Celebrity Edge over the holidays last year and loved it.   The main issues we had with MSC was way over crowding and some of the rudest passengers we have ever encountered on a cruise.  Im sure overcrowding contributed to that.  Some other annoyances was 22 separate charges on my credit card with no end of the cruise bill to show what they were for, making reservations for the shows, and the zoo like atmosphere at the buffet.  

So, like i said above, i hoping the answer is the Princess cruise will be nothing like what experienced last week, but again we havent been on Princess in a long time and it is owned by Carnival which we also avoid like the plague...

Thanks 

1 hour ago, PompeySailor said:

Thanks for your review 

 

Did you drive to port and if so which covered parking garage did you use

Which was best for Terminal E departure 

 

TIA

sorry no, we flew.  I think there was covered parking right across from the terminal though. thx

2 minutes ago, Georgia_Peaches said:

Wow!  Seems like such bad business practice on the part of MSC.  Sadly, it's likely going to take many people disputing charges in order for them to make a change in their practice.  I mean, how hard is it to provide a print out of charges?  I remember when the envelope would appear on the door on the last night of the cruise...then it moved to the TV screen.  The fact that MSC are not doing either of those things is frankly, just stupid.  Good on you!  I would have done the same.

Exactly.  I dont ever remember not receiving an itemized receipt on any of the 30+ cruises we have been on.  Also, the other cruise lines would put pending charges on my credit card throughout the cruise, but they would all go away and i would get one lump sum charge at the end of the cruise based on the itemized receipt i got.  MSC, 22 actual charges on my credit card that dont correlate to anything we can think of buying. For the larger dollar amounts, it looks like they were bundling charges.  who knows.  Crazy.

8 minutes ago, Georgia_Peaches said:

Do you mean they wouldn't give you an itemized printout of your expenses while on the cruise or that there was an unexplained 3K charge on your bill?  I guess what I'm trying to understand is how you know that none of those 3K worth of charges weren't made by you or someone in your party? 

Correct, no itemized printout on any of our 3 cabins.  When i called monday, they said the matter was already settled and they wouldnt email me a detail report of what those charges were for.  And im sure some of those charges are valid, i just have no idea which ones.  There were 22 charges on my amex ranging from $5-$400+ dollars.  The lady i was talking to at AMEX said she was surprised it did set off fraud alerts there were some many charges last week. 

9 hours ago, chaparro28906 said:

I booked directly with MSC.  Maybe if I had used a Ta I would have an advocate.  My reason for the refund was also a missed cruise due to sickness.  They approved the refund. They just won't give it to me.  Today they emailed me and asked me to prove my residency in a country I do not live it. And they have a copy of my passport! 🤷

Not sure what credit card you used to book, but we denied about $3k of charges on our AMEX from our cruise last week.  MSC wouldnt/couldnt provide me any detail as to what those charges are for so let them duke it out with AMEX.  

6 minutes ago, miched said:

20165 thanks you for response.

 

I have read that some providers can block hot spots and/or charge extra.   I also read that it is illegal in the USA to block it after doing a google about using a device as a hot spot. 
 

I doubt that the ship is subject to those rules and may be able to block it 

 

 

 

Happy cruising 🌊🚢🇺🇸🌅

It really didnt block the hotspot but rather dropped me off the ships wifi when i connected the mac to the iphone.  i tried several times, but ever time it dropped my wifi connection.  Again, could have very well been user error and i didnt mess with it much other than trying a couple of times

I tried last week on seascape.  Unsuccessfully. When i connected my Mac to my iPhone hotspot, it dropped my wifi connection with the ship.  When i disconnected the mac, the phone reconnected with the WIFI.  Could have been something i was doing wrong, but i couldnt get it to work.

45 minutes ago, morpheusofthesea said:

I agree with everything you wrote. Even the 4 year olds outside the Yacht Club were insulting.

Thank you.  We are on Sky Princess in December.  Hoping for a better experience...

• Beautiful new ship with lots to do
• Service staff was very good.  Cabin steward and MDR waiters were excellent.  Bar staff was good once they knew you were tipping.  
• We did the Mexican, Sushi, and Seafood restaurants and they were all very good. 

• Embarkation was a not good.  Partly because they seemed a bit unorganized, especially once you had your ship card and are waiting upstairs to get on. People pushing and shoving to get to the front of the line. 
• We booked 1 minor in a cabin and that did not work well at all.  We couldn’t see anything on his account, he couldn’t make show reservations, card didn’t work in the arcade etc.  This was more on us the MSC. We knew it would be a challenge doing this, but when we talked to guest services about getting some of it resolved, it all became our fault even though MSC allowed us to book that way.  
• Loud music at the pools.  People brought their own speakers and started doing karaoke.  Im not even kidding…
• I didn’t think the buffet was bad, but it was packed every day to the point where people were just getting nasty with each other.  Grabbing food with their hands, kids running everywhere, nowhere to sit.   

• It’s hard to describe the mix of people, but it wasn’t good.  Extremely rude, witnessed people shoving others out of their way in the halls/elevators and buffet.  I used the word ‘thuggish’ on of the other posts and that wasn’t an exaggeration.  There were some pretty rough looking people on that ship that I would not feel comfortable letting smaller kids out of my sight around. 
• No end of the cruise statement so I have no idea if our charges are correct.  There are 22 separate charges on my AMEX throughout the week.  I did deny all of them so let MSC explain them to AMEX.  Amex thought my card was stolen there were so many charges…
• Disembarkation was also bad.  The room with our son it it apparently had a $106 balance on it even through they had my credit card on file for it and had been charging it all week.  They couldn’t tell me what the charge was for, but would not allow us off the ship unless we paid cash.  I finally convinced them that I didn’t have the cash and they let me put it on my credit card which I promptly disputed once we got off the ship.  

36 minutes ago, morpheusofthesea said:

Here is another lesson we learned on our Spring Break cruise on Nieuw Amsterdam. Do Not believe what you are told on board. We booked the top Pinnacle Suite to compare with MSC Royal/ Owners Suite. We had our travel agent verify that we had bottled water complimentary with this suite. We have a confirmed email. Then I further inquired  (thanks to another poster on the CC Hal site) that they say that the mini bar in the Pinnacle Suite is also complimentary. Any guest in all the suites can pick up bottles/cans of water in their suite dedicated Neptune Lounge complimentary. But just in case I questioned the concierges and the room steward about the mini bar water. All said that in the Pinnacle suite the mini bar is stocked complimentary. We get our final bill and their are mini bar charges, no time for the concierge to adjust the bill. Got home and their was even more mini bar charges. We did not need anything from the mini bar as there was plenty of complimentary water from elsewhere.Just yesterday we finally got confirmation that the dispute was resolved in our favor.

Oh we have definitely gotten errors in the past. Has anyone reading this thread sailed MSC not in the YC and if so, did you get a statement at the end of the cruise?  If we just had 1 cabin and we didnt get one we would just think oversite, but none of our 3 cabins got one which leads me to believe maybe they dont provide a final bill at the end of the cruise?

11 minutes ago, morpheusofthesea said:

I was debating whether or not to use the same font and bold typing to reply, but there is one very sensitive poster , hamrag, that will get a conniption over it. The last time I was actually censured by CC for saying when I do it it is 'shouting', but when he does it he calls it 'highlighting'.

 Anyway to answer your question. I went to the concierge desk to get this final bill, which was already prepared in an envelope. It had everything correct. $98 pp hotel service charge (which goes into the general fund to help the cruise line pay all its staff). Venchi chocolates , about a kilo which I consumed by the end of the cruise. The biggest box of Venchi assortment ($99 retail) but purchased at the 20% sale which I was glad to see reflected on our bill as $79 (since the kiosk did not give us a receipt POS. ( The box of chocolates are for my doctor as I have a blood test this week and it reduces his admonishments). So all in all there was no charge out of place. This morning we both got our emails from MSC asking how was our time onboard.

Thanks and didnt mean to use a bold font.  It wouldnt let me change it.  Guess when i copied your name it made it bold for some reason... 

Well, we got nothing in the way of a final statement on any of the cabins and when we tried to leave, they said my sons cabin had a balance of $106 even through it was also on our credit card.  No explanation as to what it was but we just paid and get the heck off the ship.  There are a total of 22 charges on my AMEX all processed, not pending. Ranging from $4 to $454.   I denied all but 1 this morning given the amount looks like the shore excursions we purchased.  Guess MSC will have to explain to AMEX what all those charges are for...  Even the lady at AMEX i was talking to said this was crazy and she had never seen anything like this before.  She wanted to turn it over to their fraud department, but i told her that some are valid, i just have no idea which ones and it looks like they may have bundled some of the charges.  Example, we didnt spend $454 at one time anywhere on the ship.  Crazy

morpheusofthesea, 

Did you get a final invoice yesterday before you got off the ship? We usually get a final bill breakdown the last night or disembarkation day and we didnt get anything on any of our 3 cabins. And the charges on AMEX are all over the place.  Looks like they were randomly charging items throughout the week.  Some individually, some lumped together.  Did you experience the same?

1 hour ago, firefly333 said:

It's gotten to where unless you have casino rates even carnival is more than the old $100 a day. I cant tell you how many posts I've read saying if you want a cheap cruise go look at msc. MSC is the cheapest right now ..and its attracting those with low budget wanting it all for free.

Yep and shame on us for not researching that prior to the cruise. This was a last minute cruise booked 2 months ago. It’s a shame. Msc has some real potential. Beautiful ship, great staff but the people it’s attracting with those fares is not good. And it wasn’t just rudeness. Some looked boarderline thuggish…

1 hour ago, morpheusofthesea said:

Regulars are interlopers that just sneak in from outside the YC. The others are friends and family residing in the rest of the ship and are let in by their YC members. They open the door for them or give them their wrist bands. Pool attendant says it is impossible for him to be on duty all the time to catch them. The attendant perks up when he finds us on board. Told us a wedding party of 70 from Miami were on board last week and took over the entire pool. Said something that they plan to be back in July. (I hope not on our date). That is the problem with cruises as 20165 is so upset about, rude, very rude, and extremely rude fellow passengers that interlope into the YC as a favorite pastime.

He’s right about that. But i think I figured out why this is the case. Was talking to someone with the same balcony cabin as ours and they paid almost $2k less than we did. So at some point they were giving away these cabins and then reason for it being so packed and the “interlopers”. I just call them degenerates…

1 minute ago, morpheusofthesea said:

This could be a 'bestseller' ?

Could be. We will have to ‘see’.

11 minutes ago, morpheusofthesea said:

Okay, don't forget anything.....

Taking copious notes…

23 minutes ago, morpheusofthesea said:

"Nightmare"? Please elaborate (this could be interesting). 

Oh don’t worry. I’ll have the full review for you next week when we get back in a separate thread. 

3 minutes ago, NCteacherlovescruising said:

A nightmare?  Is it really that bad?  We will be in the YC, but is it that different, than Carnival?  With the exception of Guys Burgers.

This is Carnival, although a nicer ship... Im just waiting with Cell camera ready for when the fight breaks out with some of these passengers.