Question for MSCUSA

[Kreader]

Hi- I am trying to organize a cruise meet and greet for the October cruise I am on. I have not been able to do this,and not getting much help from MSC. How do I do this? I have talked to Maggie Cassidy from MSC,left a few messages for her to call me,but she has not returned my phone calls. Any help in this matter would be greatly appreciated! Also anyone reading this thread that has arranged a Cruise Critic Meet and Greet aboard an MSC cruise,I would love to hear how you accomplished that! Last year I went on a Holland America cruise,arranged a meet and greet that HAL was extremely helpful in arranging.. Not so MSC so far!

[TravelRocker]

Hi Kreader, I may have a little suggestion for you if you have not already done so. Have you gone over to the Roll Call page to see if your cruise is listed yet? There you will find postings from all others who are going on your cruise and you can almost arrange your own Meet and Greet. Sometimes this is better because not all may be available for the date and time that MSC arranges for you.

 

If you do not see your cruise listed, do what I did and start it yourself. Keep updating it with little interesting tid-bits you learn or interesting information you gather while doing your "research" for the cruise, the ship and the Ports. Good Luck!

[riclop]

Hi- I am trying to organize a cruise meet and greet for the October cruise I am on. I have not been able to do this,and not getting much help from MSC. How do I do this? I have talked to Maggie Cassidy from MSC,left a few messages for her to call me,but she has not returned my phone calls. Any help in this matter would be greatly appreciated! Also anyone reading this thread that has arranged a Cruise Critic Meet and Greet aboard an MSC cruise,I would love to hear how you accomplished that! Last year I went on a Holland America cruise,arranged a meet and greet that HAL was extremely helpful in arranging.. Not so MSC so far!

Good luck getting any good customer service from MSC because it seems they have never heard of it.

[MSC Cruises USA]

KREADER-

 

We sincerely apologize to read that you are having difficulty organizing a meet and greet.

Can you please send the details to customer-srvc@msccruisesusa.com and we would be more than happy to look into this and forward to the correct department.

 

MSC Cruises USA

[Kreader]

Well, Maggie Cassidy finally called me this morning. A tentative cruise meet and greet has been scheduled-only took her a little over a week to get back to me! Waiting for written confirmation of time and place. Thanks tho to MSCUSA for answering me tho! No beverages offered tho,as opposed to other cruise lines that offer free beverages for this type of event. Still,this was quite a struggle to get this arranged! P.S. I am on my cruise's roll call, and have 31 people so far signed up for this event.

[ssgirl54]

Gotta love the negatives........somewhere here I saw a post about the negatives being the positives.........got to agree....the more negatives hear from the people and the responses I read....I see how positive things really are....:D

[camofwilliamsburg]

As far as I know it is only RCI that does a "formal meet and greet" with those on cc. I think it is really NICE for MSC to be helping you. We have asked cc members as part of our roll call on other lines to just meet at a certain place at a certain time. We never expected any beverages or anything put out from the cruise line. If you had a group who signed up under groups and you got a group together before hand then MSC does a great cocktail party for the group if over a certain number. If you are doing a meet and greet I think you should organize it and tell the others where to meet you. I would suggest before the sail away party at the Mojito bar at a certain time.

Good Luck with this.

[Janet&Carl]

We have been trying to get together for a meet and greet on our Roll Call for our upcoming cruise - I may have done things wrong or different ???? but I just looked at the deck plans and chose a bar to meet in - I didnt even think of contacting MSC - now I'm wondering if I should have - just to make sure that we wont be in anyone elses way in the event that some other group will be in the spot we have chosen - ????

[Janet&Carl]

On second thoughts it would be too confusing to change things - I think our little group will work out just fine :)

[Starlight Durban Cruising]

... No beverages offered tho,as opposed to other cruise lines that offer free beverages for this type of event. Still,this was quite a struggle to get this arranged! P.S. I am on my cruise's roll call, and have 31 people so far signed up for this event.

 

I've recently traveled on another big line on the West Coast, and was following the M&G topic for a few months before that. From what I read it appeared that:

 

- The days of free M&G appear to be coming to an end (across most lines). Sure, maybe the more expensive lines might still offer them for free, but then maybe they can afford to do that still (margins higher etc).

 

- More of the lines now require someone to arrange it as a formal event, in order to reserve a room. In order to do this they want a specific headcount, and the fee has to be paid upfront to hold the reservation. On the day of the event the person who arranged it has to have some mechanism to control the numbers. It appeared that even for the paid M&G events, more people would arrive than had paid. These events would have an "open" bar (calculated for the # of paid guests), so if extra people arrived (who had not paid), i.e. where there was no control on # of attendees, then the cruise line would run a loss...

 

On my recent cruise with the other line, a fair number of people on the Roll Call said they would attend an informal M&G just after sail-away, and to be honest a lot less arrived than said they would. Sure, everyone has the best of intentions, but when you get on any ship, you just get busy doing different things/exploring. If it was a free event M&G people will likely attend, but then you will also get the moochers who just walk in. And with paid events, if there are no controls then the moochers will also just walk in too. I can understand why the cruise lines are going more towards pre-paid M&G events or just not wanting to do them at all.

[sharecruises]

As far as I know it is only RCI that does a "formal meet and greet" with those on cc. I think it is really NICE for MSC to be helping you. We have asked cc members as part of our roll call on other lines to just meet at a certain place at a certain time. We never expected any beverages or anything put out from the cruise line. If you had a group who signed up under groups and you got a group together before hand then MSC does a great cocktail party for the group if over a certain number. If you are doing a meet and greet I think you should organize it and tell the others where to meet you. I would suggest before the sail away party at the Mojito bar at a certain time.

Good Luck with this.

 

Wow....more misinformation

 

NCL has great cruise critic meet/greets.....now Carnival is dong more on this too, John Heald has been helping people set them up. And yes, Royal has been doing this for some time

 

I too am trying to arrange some sort of meet/greet for my 80 plus NON group group....MSC won't give us anything, not even as goodwill....and the travel agent and I can not get them to respond about where/when we could get the group together the first day

 

Even if one signs up as a group, the amenity points on MSC surely do NOT buy much. Sorry but I don't think a so called party of sparkling wine and fruit punch is worth $22 per person or should be the only deal for a group.

I have another cruise on NCL sky, much smaller group...we get 2 one hour open bar parties, one with hot cold appetizers, 2 bottles wine per cabin

and they have already told me that I can again have my "welcome" table in the atrium for an hour between 2-3PM.

 

MSC?>>? They have yet to tell us when we really can board let alone help us with the much larger group.

 

of course we also don't really know what time to board....info changes depending on which rep you talk with.

[camofwilliamsburg]

What are you talking about being charged 22$ for the party? A group earns a certain amount of points. I am curious as to what your travel agent told you that you were getting. How many points? I had many things to pick for the group. Also, we had a blast at our cocktail party last year. We had a small group and they gave us a few tables in a lounge all for us and in the other areas were other groups. We had our own waiter bringing us TONS of the drinks. Yes it is the sparkling stuff and the punch. WE mixed them and it was a fun time. Our waiter kept the drinks flowing and the chips refilled. We laughed and had a ball.

 

All of our Meet and greets over the years on other ships were right after muster or before muster. You pick a bar and you go there. It does not need to be formal at all. It works just fine in that way. WE did it this way on Star Princess and they had over 100 signed up. They all did not show up. We stayed in that area for about an hour meeting those that did show up.

 

You are making much too much of this meet and greet. If you want to make it happen, pick the mojito bar on deck 13 at a certain time. Sail away is late, so make it after muster giving everyone time to get onboard.

Have someone buy the name tags and have a list of the screen names and when they go to that area that you picked, have them sign in give them a name tag, write their screen names along with their real name. DONE!

 

Sorry about not knowing about other cruise lines doing a formal meet and greet. Back when I sailed CCL they did not. I know HAL does not, PCL does not. I have never tried NCL so I did not know. Sorry for any misleading information.

[TNGALOHA]

In Dec. 09 on the Poesia we had a group gathering and were told that we would be having an open bar and "dry snacks" for one hour. Well when the time came (the second day of the cruise) they had the Bar Di Poeti roped off for us and we had an open bar with ANY drink you wanted but to our surprise we didn't have any dry snacks. Instead they came around to everyone in the group and gave us a choice of Salmon roll and asst. petit fours and even Baluga Cavier. (That is what the server told us it was)

I was absolutely floored to think that a cruiseline would go so far above and beyond for just the 35 of us and that included the kids that were with us.

I must also say that this was for my husbands and my 30th anniversary Vow Renewal. The only part that we paid for extra was the Italian Wedding Cake that we ordered once we were on the ship. (and I must say it was FABULOUS)!!!

 

I have cruised on HAL and on MSC and I feel that the service, food and ships are both very good. (4-4.5****)

The one main difference between the two cruiselines in the entertainment. MSC is far more superior then HAL's.

As far as any other meet and greets all we have eve done is just decide on our roll call board where to meet and when and gone from there. Very simple very easy.

[sharecruises]

What are you talking about being charged 22$ for the party? A group earns a certain amount of points. I am curious as to what your travel agent told you that you were getting. How many points? I had many things to pick for the group. Also, we had a blast at our cocktail party last year. We had a small group and they gave us a few tables in a lounge all for us and in the other areas were other groups. We had our own waiter bringing us TONS of the drinks. Yes it is the sparkling stuff and the punch. WE mixed them and it was a fun time. Our waiter kept the drinks flowing and the chips refilled. We laughed and had a ball.

 

All of our Meet and greets over the years on other ships were right after muster or before muster. You pick a bar and you go there. It does not need to be formal at all. It works just fine in that way. WE did it this way on Star Princess and they had over 100 signed up. They all did not show up. We stayed in that area for about an hour meeting those that did show up.

 

You are making much too much of this meet and greet. If you want to make it happen, pick the mojito bar on deck 13 at a certain time. Sail away is late, so make it after muster giving everyone time to get onboard.

Have someone buy the name tags and have a list of the screen names and when they go to that area that you picked, have them sign in give them a name tag, write their screen names along with their real name. DONE!

 

Sorry about not knowing about other cruise lines doing a formal meet and greet. Back when I sailed CCL they did not. I know HAL does not, PCL does not. I have never tried NCL so I did not know. Sorry for any misleading information.

 

 

BUT....we do not have amenity points because MSC won't give them due to the rock bottom low price with AARP.

 

I have run many group cruises...we do a lot more than name tags.

We have lanyards. Many of my friends and I will be wearing same tee shirts (in different colors but same)

 

It is not "screen names">> I have a large social group and we are single cruisers. I am not even talking about a "cruise critic" meet and greet. I am talking about getting my (non) group cruisers together in some fashion

[The_Big_M]

Could someone explain what "AARP" is? Sounds like "... recommended price" but that doesn't really fit with context.

[mjmagee]

American Association of Retired Persons. Basically an organization you pay a few dollars to join. They offer discounts on services, a magazine, a lobbying group in congress. I think you just have to be 50 to join and you do not have to be retired! MSC has an ongoing deal with them to offer discounts to members.

 

Marilyn