Passengers off MSC Preziosa I’ll!

[Bobal]

Interesting to see that someone who was on the flight has posted on this board saying the truth behind what actually happened https://boards.cruisecritic.com/topic/2642505-passengers-quarantined-in-gatwick-returning-from-msc-preziosa/

[rattla]

23 hours ago, Beamafar said:

Looking at prices for the 14 night itinerary for March this year vs March 2021:

 

YC on Preziosa 2019  ..... €3879

 

YC on Splendida 2021 .....€5399

 

That's a 39% increase!

 

 

Isn’t that probably because the March 2019 would now be a late special offer trying to sell the last few cabins?

[Beamafar]

2 minutes ago, rattla said:

Isn’t that probably because the March 2019 would now be a late special offer trying to sell the last few cabins?

 

Not necessarily ... we don't get late special offers here.

 

YC on Splendida 2020 is €4189 ...  2021 is almost 29% dearer than that!

[KlausM999]

On 3/6/2019 at 7:41 PM, Beamafar said:

Looking at prices for the 14 night itinerary for March this year vs March 2021:

 

YC on Preziosa 2019  ..... €3879

 

YC on Splendida 2021 .....€5399

 

That's a 39% increase!

 

 

We just booked 2x 7 nights MSC Splendida in Germany. It was almost 1000 EUR cheaper than 14 nights and 0 EUR for our two boys. 27.03.21 + 03.04.21. 

Voyagers Club 5% und 10% Belissima virtual tour discount. All together for our family of four 4500EUR Aurea-Balcony. 3879 for two weeks YC seems perfect...or is it for one person?

Edited March 7, 2019 by KlausM999

[Beamafar]

10 minutes ago, KlausM999 said:

We just booked 2x 7 nights MSC Splendida in Germany. It was almost 1000 EUR cheaper than 14 nights and 0 EUR for our two boys. 27.03.21 + 03.04.21. 

Voyagers Club 5% und 10% Belissima virtual tour discount. All together for our family of four 4500EUR Aurea-Balcony. 3879 for two weeks YC seems perfect...or is it for one person?

 

Sorry ... I should have stated - that's PER PERSON!

[Nikita4]

The YC Prices are higher then two oder three years before. 2017 we have to paid 3900 Euro/week for 2 adults and 2 kids in the YC. This year we have to pay 4700 Euro/Week in a Aurea cabin for all of us, with the 10% Discount its 4300 Euro.
They are made same price adaptations, especially for the YC.

[sfaaa]

Flu season and people get sick. Nothing to see here.

[hamrag]

1 hour ago, rattla said:

Isn’t that probably because the March 2019 would now be a late special offer trying to sell the last few cabins?

 

Certainly not for YC cabins, no offers of any kind for those cabins!

 

What Bea is seeing re pricing, is similar in the UK.

[Beamafar]

10 minutes ago, sfaaa said:

Flu season and people get sick. Nothing to see here.

 

Turns out it may have had nothing to do with the coughing/respiratory illness situation.  The airline crew had gastro-intestinal symptoms and were quarantined away from the cruise passengers - it was suspected to be Noro-virus among the airline crew!  There's a thread with the up-to-date info on the forum about it.

[Beamafar]

13 hours ago, hamrag said:

 

Certainly not for YC cabins, no offers of any kind for those cabins!

 

What Bea is seeing re pricing, is similar in the UK.

 

Just had a look at the YC prices for the Splendida 7 night cruise Fort de France loop for March 2021 on the MSC website vs the prices with a German TA who we have an upcoming cruise booked with:

 

YC1   €2669   MSC

 

YC1   €2129   German TA

 

We would get a Bella Inside for 2 of us with the TA for just €100 more than the price of 1 on MSC - €549 pp vs €999 pp with MSC!

 

That's some difference in pricing!

Edited March 8, 2019 by Beamafar

[hamrag]

1 hour ago, Beamafar said:

 

Just had a look at the YC prices for the Splendida 7 night cruise Fort de France loop for March 2021 on the MSC website vs the prices with a German TA who we have an upcoming cruise booked with:

 

YC1   €2669   MSC

 

YC1   €2129   German TA

 

We would get a Bella Inside for 2 of us with the TA for just €100 more than the price of 1 on MSC - €549 pp vs €999 pp with MSC!

 

That's some difference in pricing!

 

Best UK price I can find is £2150, which is about 2450 euros, both less 5% Voyager discount. To be frank, YC is not worth that money for us. The 2 YC cruises we had were much less on a per day basis.

[Beamafar]

I've seen quite a few YC prices in and around the €2600 pp mark for a 7 day cruise, now (before the 5% discount).  There's no way we'll pay over €5000 for a week on a ship PLUS flights and ancillary costs.

[ssmea03]

3 hours ago, Beamafar said:

 

Just had a look at the YC prices for the Splendida 7 night cruise Fort de France loop for March 2021 on the MSC website vs the prices with a German TA who we have an upcoming cruise booked with:

 

YC1   €2669   MSC

 

YC1   €2129   German TA

 

We would get a Bella Inside for 2 of us with the TA for just €100 more than the price of 1 on MSC - €549 pp vs €999 pp with MSC!

 

That's some difference in pricing!

Is that a TA or a package tour operator, or do German TA's sometimes offer their own packages? Can you get flights with that? You'd just need a ryan air to the jump off airport then.

 

[Beamafar]

15 minutes ago, ssmea03 said:

Is that a TA or a package tour operator, or do German TA's sometimes offer their own packages? Can you get flights with that? You'd just need a ryan air to the jump off airport then.

 

 

It's a travel agency that only sells cruises.  Our upcoming cruise on Seaview was cheaper to book with them, too.  Here in Ireland, our TAs can only quote what MSC is quoting at the time, anyway, so there's no real incentive to use a TA here unless you want them to put a flights/cruise/hotel package together.  For the itinerary in question it may be the best option for us as connecting flights would be organised, which may not be possible to get if DIYing it.  However, with that disparity in pricings, I won't be booking it anytime soon - €999 pp for an inside Bella is a joke!

Edited March 8, 2019 by Beamafar

[Nikita4]

4 hours ago, Beamafar said:

 

It's a travel agency that only sells cruises.  Our upcoming cruise on Seaview was cheaper to book with them, too.  Here in Ireland, our TAs can only quote what MSC is quoting at the time, anyway, so there's no real incentive to use a TA here unless you want them to put a flights/cruise/hotel package together.  For the itinerary in question it may be the best option for us as connecting flights would be organised, which may not be possible to get if DIYing it.  However, with that disparity in pricings, I won't be booking it anytime soon - €999 pp for an inside Bella is a joke!

 

I have also a german TA who sells a lot of cruises, we live in Switzerland and here the prices are much higher then in Germany. Since 5 years we book al our cruises over her.

[Beamafar]

As a result of this thread (which put me in mind of the itinerary, having had friends of ours on a similar one a couple of weeks before) I've begun to do more research re itineraries and price comparisons.  I've discovered that the 14 night repo in Nov 2020, from Barcelona, in Aurea, booked direct with MSC, is quite reasonable @ €1799 pp (the German TA is not quoting for Aurea;  their Fantastica balcony is €10 cheaper but the Bella balcony is €30 dearer - go figure  🙄).

 

The repo only includes the North Caribbean islands;  our friends have highly recommended the Southern route, so I decided to price the subsequent 7 night with a view to doing a B2B.  This is where the German TA's prices are more attractive:

 

German TA:      Bella Inside €609         Fantastica Balcony €929        Aurea Balcony €1329

 

MSC                       ditto      €1059                 ditto               €1409                   ditto      €1809

 

(All prices I quote are before any discounts).

 

Edited March 8, 2019 by Beamafar

[ssmea03]

1 minute ago, Beamafar said:

As a result of this thread (which put me in mind of the itinerary, having had friends of ours on a similar one a couple of weeks before) I've begun to do more research re itineraries and price comparisons.  I've discovered that the 14 night repo from Barcelona in Aurea, booked direct with MSC, is quite reasonable @ €1799 pp (the German TA is not quoting for Aurea;  their Fantastica balcony is €10 cheaper but the Bella balcony is €30 dearer - go figure  🙄).

 

The repo only includes the North Caribbean islands;  our friends have highly recommended the Southern route, so I decided to price the subsequent 7 night with a view to doing a B2B.  This is where the German TA's prices are more attractive:

 

German TA:      Bella Inside €609         Fantastica Balcony €929        Aurea Balcony €1329

 

MSC                       ditto      €1059                 ditto               €1409                   ditto      €1809

 

(All prices I quote are before any discounts).

 

Have you asked the German TA about flights? They might be able to beat a flight back to paris, and there might not be much difference between budget flights back to Dublin.

[Beamafar]

They don't arrange flights, unfortunately.

 

I had a look at options for Nov 2019 to get an idea of prices for that time of year from Martinique.  Crosair does a connecting flight arrangement back to Dublin through Paris with a 7 hour lay-over.  If we do decide to go for this itinerary, we'll look into it further.  It's 20 months out, so I've plenty of time to be distracted by other itineraries LOL

[ssmea03]

1 hour ago, Beamafar said:

They don't arrange flights, unfortunately.

 

I had a look at options for Nov 2019 to get an idea of prices for that time of year from Martinique.  Crosair does a connecting flight arrangement back to Dublin through Paris with a 7 hour lay-over.  If we do decide to go for this itinerary, we'll look into it further.  It's 20 months out, so I've plenty of time to be distracted by other itineraries LOL

An itinerary we both like is the Mereviglia repo from NY to Miami, with the inaugural visit to Ocean Cay. But it's almost sold out and the timing doesn't work for us personally. 

[Beamafar]

6 minutes ago, ssmea03 said:

An itinerary we both like is the Mereviglia repo from NY to Miami, with the inaugural visit to Ocean Cay. But it's almost sold out and the timing doesn't work for us personally. 

 

That's a shame!  We're on that one;  we're also doing the 10 night to Canada prior to it.  The roll call is quite active at the moment.

[Norwegian Cruiser 73]

There are a lot of airlines flying from Paris to both Guadeloupe and Martinique. From Orly Airport Air France, Air Caraibes, Corsair and French Bee operate direct flights and from Charles De Gaulle XL Airways operate. On the outbound way from Norway we spent a night at a airport hotel Orly in order to make the journey easier. On the way home we did it straight home, 22 hours in total including a change of airport in Paris. 

[Beamafar]

Corsair offered the connecting flight from Martinique to Paris, then on to Dublin, NC, which is what we'd be hoping for if we were to decide to go for the 14 night repo to Martinique B2B with the 7 night Southern route.  We would sail from Barcelona, so only need a flight (with connections) home.

Edited March 8, 2019 by Beamafar

[hamrag]

2 hours ago, Beamafar said:

 

That's a shame!  We're on that one;  we're also doing the 10 night to Canada prior to it.  The roll call is quite active at the moment.

 

We have a YIN booking on the NYC to Miami sailing 28th October also....sadly it is 95% likely we will need to cancel, but are retaining our booking until final payment is due!

[Beamafar]

12 minutes ago, hamrag said:

 

We have a YIN booking on the NYC to Miami sailing 28th October also....sadly it is 95% likely we will need to cancel, but are retaining our booking until final payment is due!

 

Such a pity, HR.  There are a lot of great CC members on it.

[hamrag]

3 minutes ago, Beamafar said:

 

Such a pity, HR.  There are a lot of great CC members on it.

 

Yes, I know and am disappointed in that!