Passengers off MSC Preziosa I’ll!

[BermudaBound2014]

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.

 

Let me know if you have any questions about the Canada part of that Itinerary. I've spent much time up and down the Saint Lawrence Seaway. Be a pleasure to help you.

[BermudaBound2014]

On 3/7/2019 at 10:47 AM, Bobal said:

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/

 

I'm not sure I buy this as the ultimate truth either. I can't see Gatewick quarantining an entire plane due to 5 sick crew members of Virgin Air. I suspect we will never know.

[Beamafar]

1 minute ago, BermudaBound2014 said:

 

Let me know if you have any questions about the Canada part of that Itinerary. I've spent much time up and down the Saint Lawrence Seaway. Be a pleasure to help you.

 

Thanks, BB - I appreciate it!  I haven't given it a lot of thought, just yet.  I've gathered some info on Boston so far, but that's about it.  I'm not great for planning ports, plus we're on Seaview in August, so I'm more focussed on that.  I'll give you a shout out when I have a closer look at the Canadian POCs.  In the meantime, if you have any suggestions, I'd be delighted to hear them (or should I say "read them"  LOL)

[BermudaBound2014]

1 minute ago, Beamafar said:

 

Thanks, BB - I appreciate it!  I haven't given it a lot of thought, just yet.  I've gathered some info on Boston so far, but that's about it.  I'm not great for planning ports, plus we're on Seaview in August, so I'm more focussed on that.  I'll give you a shout out when I have a closer look at the Canadian POCs.  In the meantime, if you have any suggestions, I'd be delighted to hear them (or should I say "read them"  LOL)

 

What exactly is your itinerary? 

[Beamafar]

Here's a screenshot (the places are a lot more familiar to you than they are to me, BB!)

 

 

[8420PR]

MSC Preziosa:  Antilles

I spent 2 weeks on the Fantasia last year on this routing and it was incredibly special, largely for the beautiful ports visited, which were very different from the ports offered on sailings from Miami.  I would love to do it again... 

If you send 2 weeks on board, Martinique and Guadeloupe are visited twice.  Given the port intensive itinerary I'm not sure it is really worth it to book the Yacht Club - just my opinion.  On this route YC pricing has been consistently high for the 2 years I have been looking at it (compared to other routes), but there are bargains to be had on other cabins.  My gut feeling is that the flights are selling out before the cabins, due to the limited number of flights to the area, which if you can arrange your own flights (see below, we had to route via Miami just to get there) means you can get a bargain.

For english speakers, there were very few Americans on board, and just the plane load of British that get on each 2 weeks in Barbados (some of which were very very unhappy).  The remainder were German, Italian and lots of French (both from mainland France and local Caribbean), many of whom spoke better English than I can speak their language and were typically friendly and fun.  On board, the feeling was more along the lines of a typical MSC Med cruise than any Caribbean cruise from Miami.

I 100% recommend this cruise.

 

Flights:

We flew to Fort de France via Miami (with a 2 night stop), and back via Paris.  In Paris we had to change airports from Orly to CDG, which was painful after a longhaul economy flight but simple enough to catch the regular bus/coach (at a cost).

 

German pricing:

I'm British but married to a German, so we look at both countries for the best offers.   UK pricing has increased significantly in the past 2 years, but on a currency neutral basis is still largely the same (with some delay as obviously MSC cannot change the prices as fast as GBP has fallen) and competitive.   There are exceptional offers to be had in both markets for certain cruises, so it does pay to check.   Also the German market has a much bigger voyagers club selection on offer.

Knowing that the Irish prices are managed from London, and also how big companies operate, I wouldn't be surprised if the Irish prices are a victim of the UK price increases.  Within the EU, you can book from any other EU country with no restrictions.  MSC's websites try [illegally I think] to stop you doing this, but ultimately is no problem, except that you would only be able to access your booking (for checkin, excursion booking etc) on the MSC website of the country you have booked.

[Beamafar]

If we were to do the repo from Barcelona and then add the 7 night from Martinique, we would end up doing Barbados and Grenada twice.  I certainly wouldn't be looking to do YC for this cruise as a B2B with the repo.  I think Aurea is good value on the repo and we'd look to do a Bella balcony, possibly, on the 7 night one (which is showing cheaper with the German TA at present).  Combined with the repo, this would give us the 14 night route, which is very appealing.

 

However, it will possibly be this time next year before we make a decision about it, when the availability of flights can be checked out.