Guaranteed cabin suspence - two weeks to go and still no assignment

[Skipper Tim]

We are booked on the Musica repositioning from Venice to Rio de Janeiro departing 18th November - just two weeks away - in guaranteed Cat 1 inside cabins. All insides appear to be sold out now so we are hopeful of an upgrade. There of course remains the possibility that MSC have retained a few insides that nobody else wants just for us.

 

I thought that our cabins would have been allocated by now. Does anyone have any expeirience of how MSC deals with guarantee bookings?

 

I suppose the suspence and anticipation have come to a head and this post is really therapy for me :-)

[Alex71]

We got our guaranteed cat 1 cabin assigned about two weeks before the cruise, ended up with a cat 5 with porthole. The cabin first showed up on the online check-in page and on the page where we could reserve drink packages and excursions.

[AmoMondo]

I've had guaranteed a few times and they either show up on the e-tickets or the online checkin a few weeks before.

[Skipper Tim]

I've had guaranteed a few times and they either show up on the e-tickets or the online checkin a few weeks before.

 

You are making me nervous! MSC's website is still showing "awaiting cabin assignment" with less now than two weeks to go.

 

I am aware that MSC are unique in the industry in that they reserve the right not just to allocate guarantee cabins up to boarding time but also to change guarantee cabins part-way through the cruise.

 

Are they waiting for guests to die, cancel for other reasons or just not show before allocating ours? I can't imagine there will be too many people booking a 16 night cruise requiring at least one long-haul flight at very short notice. I would love to have knowledge of their yield-management and guarantee cabin allocation algorithms.

 

Che sera, sera!

 

Tim.

[KirkNC]

Hope you have a great time!

[AmoMondo]

Don't think it's very scientific, but rather they're not very organised!

 

You do have a good chance of an upgrade as I've never been on a repositioning trip that was full.

[ellamalta]

We booked a guaranteed cabin, and got to know the number a week before, when we recieved the tickets. We were allocated an outside cabin Cat 5.

[Skipper Tim]

11 days to go and we just received our cabin assignments - a very welcome upgrade to two cat 5 'obscured view' outside cabins. At least we will have a bit more space and know whether it is day or night when we wake up.

 

We can barely wait!

[AmoMondo]

11 days to go and we just received our cabin assignments - a very welcome upgrade to two cat 5 'obscured view' outside cabins. At least we will have a bit more space and know whether it is day or night when we wake up.

 

We can barely wait!

 

Great news!

 

Absolutely love that trip when I did it a couple of years ago. Are you staying on in Rio for a day or so at the end? It's such an amazing place. Was slightly nervous after reading about how dangerous it was but I've been twice now and had no issues whatsoever. Never went wandering around in a favela though - mainly stuck to Ipanema, Leblon and Copocabana.

 

Have a wonderful voyage. Boa viage!