Might Be Giving Up

[Epos Man]

4 minutes ago, NJGeorge said:

Hey DCG. Have you cruised on the Slpendida?

If so did you like the ship?

We have and liked the ship it was the first cruise we went on and were amazed by the beauty of the ship inside the waiter we had was brilliant and remembered the names of all the people at the table throughout the cruise.

 

We had some enjoyable nights after the shows and relaxed in the bar areas and of course at that time the drinks packages were such good value (even now I think they are still one of the best) and actually for the people who don't want all the fancy cocktails the easy package is good value in my opinion.

 

Shows were good

 

All in all we enjoyed it and is the reason we have gone with Musica last year and Seaside this year. Umlike others we have had no reason to not like MSC but then it suits what we want from a cruise.

[patrice1]

I might be joining you!

Cannot get my booking to link on the MSC website after 2 phone calls and an email.

 

1st call I was told my name was spelled wrong, so I created a new profile with the corrected name and a different email. Nope. Then she said it was my browser. Nope.

 

2nd call explained the problem and was told they would make up a ticket and his supervisor would add it within 48 hours. Gave them 4 days. Nope.

 

Then got an email from them in my husband's name stating here was our booking number and go log in. Used the link to log in and it wouldn't let me, saying they couldn't match the name with the booking number.

 

Uncle. 

Edited April 22, 2019 by patrice1

[thetaro]

34 minutes ago, patrice1 said:

I might be joining you!

Cannot get my booking to link on the MSC website after 2 phone calls and an email.

 

1st call I was told my name was spelled wrong, so I created a new profile with the corrected name and a different email. Nope. Then she said it was my browser. Nope.

 

2nd call explained the problem and was told they would make up a ticket and his supervisor would add it within 48 hours. Gave them 4 days. Nope.

 

Then got an email from them in my husband's name stating here was our booking number and go log in. Used the link to log in and it wouldn't let me, saying they couldn't match the name with the booking number.

 

Uncle. 

 

Try these two emails.

MSCExistingReservations@msccruisesusa.com

mscvoyagersclub@msccruisesusa.com

 

Don't bother with phone customer service if you have web or account issues.

Edited April 22, 2019 by thetaro

[patrice1]

Just now, thetaro said:

 

Try these two emails.

MSCExistingReservations@msccruisesusa.com

mscvoyagersclub@msccruisesusa.com

 

Don't bother with phone customer service if you have web or account issues.

 

Many thanks!

[ashank1m]

On 4/19/2019 at 2:37 PM, deliver42 said:

When NCL lowered their status's, MSC lowered theirs from NCL accordingly

I was silver but because of lowered status I was only given Classic as well.  But as thetaro mentioned, not much there for Classic and Silver.  Both gets the welcome back cockatil, to get some freebies need 7 sailing to reach Gold. to get small benefits.

 

I did my own reservation first time, some of my pre-purchased didn't show and had some issues.  This time via TA and all smooth.

[Host Jazzbeau]

I had no trouble with my booking.  It did seem to take a long time to get Status Match, so I called MSC booking number and said I was holding booking until Status came through; told it would be in regular queue but [surprise] got the email the next day!  Then had my TA make the booking with the 5% discount, and everything has always shown up correctly on MSC website.  I bought an internet package and several shore excursions via the MSC website – no problems [none of that 'you have to go through your TA' business that I hear about on various cruse lines here] and everything shows up correctly.  The only glitch was that I couldn't sign in to the MSC Voyagers Club for a long while – but when I tried again yesterday it went through fine and showed correct level and points.  So, for me, MSC is as smooth as any cruise we have booked.  But obviously [based on this and other threads] YMMV! 

[ashank1m]

On 4/19/2019 at 2:37 PM, deliver42 said:

When NCL lowered their status's, MSC lowered theirs from NCL accordingly

I was silver but because of lowered status I was only given Classic as well.  But as thetaro mentioned, not much there for Classic and Silver.  Both gets the welcome back cockatil, to get some freebies need 7 sailing to reach Gold. to get small benefits.

 

I did my own reservation first time, some of my pre-purchased didn't show and had some issues.  This time via TA and all smooth.

 

Lucky for you, I didn't find out until I booked and cancellation penalty and promo was higher than 5%... I did a booking for my aunt, one just finished for YC and in May Fantasia.  I asked if she can get 5% disc for May cruise, they said no, so you have to be a member before you book.

[Toofarfromthesea]

22 hours ago, Host Jazzbeau said:

I had no trouble with my booking.  It did seem to take a long time to get Status Match, so I called MSC booking number and said I was holding booking until Status came through; told it would be in regular queue but [surprise] got the email the next day!  Then had my TA make the booking with the 5% discount, and everything has always shown up correctly on MSC website.  I bought an internet package and several shore excursions via the MSC website – no problems [none of that 'you have to go through your TA' business that I hear about on various cruse lines here] and everything shows up correctly.  The only glitch was that I couldn't sign in to the MSC Voyagers Club for a long while – but when I tried again yesterday it went through fine and showed correct level and points.  So, for me, MSC is as smooth as any cruise we have booked.  But obviously [based on this and other threads] YMMV! 

 

This mirrors my experience.

[deliver42]

Mine too. Have never had a problem booking on line or booking the extras on line. By putting in your Voyager Club information, it will even give you the prices with the 5% discount.

[DCGuy64]

On ‎4‎/‎22‎/‎2019 at 10:11 AM, NJGeorge said:

Hey DCG. Have you cruised on the Splendida?

If so did you like the ship?

No, we have not. We've been on the Seaside and really loved it. We've spoken with other passengers about other MSC ships and have gotten very good feedback from them.

[JamieLogical]

2 hours ago, deliver42 said:

Mine too. Have never had a problem booking on line or booking the extras on line. By putting in your Voyager Club information, it will even give you the prices with the 5% discount.

 

Yep, that all went fine for me until after I booked. Then the 10% discount code just mysteriously dropped from our booking and since then it's been nothing but headaches. Also, since we have the Easy Drink package included, we can't upgrade to the Premium package through the website. You can only buy drink packages outright through the site, not upgrade them.

[Epos Man]

In the uk you can call and upgrade from easy not sure why you wouldn't be able to on the USA site

 

[JamieLogical]

9 minutes ago, ikea logistics said:

In the uk you can call and upgrade from easy not sure why you wouldn't be able to on the USA site

 

 

You can call, yes. You can't do it through the website though, which is what I said in my post....

[DCGuy64]

31 minutes ago, JamieLogical said:

 

You can call, yes. You can't do it through the website though, which is what I said in my post....

When I called MSC last year to upgrade our drinks package to Premium, I got through in about 2 minutes and the entire upgrade transaction took about 2 minutes or so. However, YMMV as we all know. I don't blame you for being hesitant to deal with them on the phone, I'd feel the same as you.

[deliver42]

I don't know of any cruise line where you can up grade a drink package on line, except when booking Celebrity and going from better to best on the original booking. I up graded my package from classic to premium with Celebrity, and had to call. Up grading dronk packages is never a problem. even with MSC.

[gmbhardy]

On 4/19/2019 at 10:45 AM, JamieLogical said:

I am beginning to wonder how anyone manages to successfully sail on an MSC cruise. It sounds like the actual cruises are pretty good and I was really looking forward to trying our first one in September. But at this point, I am just ready to give up completely thanks to their truly and utterly TERRIBLE customer support. I had heard it was bad. But reading about it and experiencing it first-hand are very different things. Here's a run-down of my experience so far:

 

• Booked the Sept. 7 sailing on the Seaside in a Balcony cabin with the Fantastica experience under their "All In" promo, which includes WiFi and the Easy Drink Package via their website. That all went super smoothly.
• With the launch of the Bellissima they ran a promotion where if you did the virtual tour, you could get a 10% discount code to apply to a future cruise. I did the tour and got my code.
• I found out about the status match option and since I am Gold with NCL, I thought i would go ahead and do that. This is where things started to go sour. Gold on NCL somehow only matched to ONE point on MSC. One point! It takes 2200 points to go from "Classic" to "Silver" on MSC. They gave me ONE point. I am hardly well on my way to any sort of status with them. I tried to rescind my match, since it is one-time-only, so I could wait until I was maybe a higher level with NCL, but they would not let me. I am stuck with my ONE whole point.
• The only "up side" of my ONE point is that I now qualified for the 5% off Voyagers Club discount. So now that I was to receive 5% off for Voyagers Club and 10% off with my Bellissima code, I decided to call up and cancel my initial booking and re-book with my new discounts. I tried using the "Call Me" form on the MSC website. I filled it out twice and never received a call. So I called them and after about a 20 minute wait, I spoke to an customer service rep and got my booking canceled.
• I then logged into the website with my new Voyagers Club account, proceeded through the booking, this time picking an Aurea Balcony since I wanted to use the money we "saved" through our discounts to upgrade our experience. Got to the screen where I had to enter my Bellissima discount code. It went through. All was correct. Totals looked good and I booked.
• I received my reservation confirmation email with the PDF attachment and everything looked perfect. Both discounts applied and the totals were all correct. This was at 3:48 PM.
• At 9:00 PM, I suddenly received a new booking confirmation email with the same reservation number. I opened the attached PDF and now, all of the sudden, my booking no longer has the 10% discount for the Bellissima promo. It only shows the 5% of for Voyagers Club!
• Since it was now after 9:00 PM, I had to wait until the next day to call customer service. So a long wait time and a long, confused conversation later, I was assured that they would escalate my issue and I should see the 10% discount code reapplied to my booking with 5 business days. That was on the 20th of March.
• I waited and waited. Still no email update and every time I logged into the MSC site, my booking was showing the same info. Decided to give them a little extra time because I had heard that the 10% was causing them a lot of headaches. Went on a scheduled cruise with NCL on April 7, figuring I'd follow up when I got back.
• I got back this past Sunday and was back to work on Monday. I filled out the "Call Me" form on their website three more times. Still no call back.
• Finally, last night I had the time to try to call again. Over 20 minutes on hold before I got a rep. I had to explain my issue to her all over again. She had me forward her my original confirmation email... the one with the correct totals. She was completely confused. She looked up my previous "ticket" in the system and it had not been updated/worked on/acknowledged since the 20th when it was initially created. She told me she would create a NEW ticket and escalate it. She made me no promises about a timeline for a solution. And that was it.

 

So here I am a full month closer to the sailing and no closer to a resolution. I don't know if I'm supposed to give them another 5 business days or another month to get this resolved? I still want to upgrade to the Premium Drink package prior to sailing to save the service charges, but I am TERRIFIED to make any other changes to my booking if they do actually get this resolved. It's just such a disaster. Wait times are insane. No answers are given. And no resolutions are implemented. I just sit in limbo with time ticking away trying to decide if I should risk booking airfare for a cruise I might not even go on. In the grand scheme of things, the 10% off only amounts to about $212. So probably not worth all this hassle. But it shouldn't even BE a hassle. I don't want to REWARD them for their failure. I shouldn't have to pay them MORE to suck whether it's $5 or $1500.

 

Like you, I have been a NCL loyalist since I started cruising about four years ago. We’ve stayed in the Haven a few times but most of the time we book standard balconies. I read so much about the Yahct Club on these boards we decided to jump ship and try the Seaside. We had a great experience and as a result we have booked two future cruises on MSC. We love the casual atmosphere on NCL and will still cruise with them but I’m glad we gave MSC a chance because it’s good to mix things up once in a while. The Seaside is a beautiful ship and the vibe is a bit different than on NCL, but I think you’ll enjoy it.

[JamieLogical]

2 hours ago, DCGuy64 said:

When I called MSC last year to upgrade our drinks package to Premium, I got through in about 2 minutes and the entire upgrade transaction took about 2 minutes or so. However, YMMV as we all know. I don't blame you for being hesitant to deal with them on the phone, I'd feel the same as you.

 

Every time I've called customer service so far, the wait time to get through has been a minimum of 20 minutes and they never respond if you fill out the "Call Me" form on the web site to try to avoid wait times. But that's not what I'm actually worried about. My concern is that the 10% discount code already mysteriously dropped off of our booking once. I am worried that if/when it gets reapplied, making ANY other changes to our booking will cause it to drop off again.

[DCGuy64]

1 hour ago, JamieLogical said:

 

Every time I've called customer service so far, the wait time to get through has been a minimum of 20 minutes and they never respond if you fill out the "Call Me" form on the web site to try to avoid wait times. But that's not what I'm actually worried about. My concern is that the 10% discount code already mysteriously dropped off of our booking once. I am worried that if/when it gets reapplied, making ANY other changes to our booking will cause it to drop off again.

That's understandable given the nightmare they've put you through. Is there any way of printing the current information showing the 10% discount code, calling them to make whatever changes are necessary and then making sure the discount survives the changes? Could you get the name of the MSC representative you speak with and make sure to ask for that person if you need to call back? I wish I had more advice for you.

[JamieLogical]

16 minutes ago, DCGuy64 said:

That's understandable given the nightmare they've put you through. Is there any way of printing the current information showing the 10% discount code, calling them to make whatever changes are necessary and then making sure the discount survives the changes? Could you get the name of the MSC representative you speak with and make sure to ask for that person if you need to call back? I wish I had more advice for you.

 

I do have the name and email address of the customer service rep I spoke to last, because she had me forward her my initial booking confirmation (the one that correctly showed the 10% discount), but I have not heard back from here. I tried emailing her again yesterday and have not yet received a response.

[DCGuy64]

1 minute ago, JamieLogical said:

 

I do have the name and email address of the customer service rep I spoke to last, because she had me forward her my initial booking confirmation (the one that correctly showed the 10% discount), but I have not heard back from here. I tried emailing her again yesterday and have not yet received a response.

Oh, that's good. From what I remember in your OP, your cruise isn't until September or so, right? If that's correct, then there are still more than 4 months to iron this out. Let's hope they do.  

[JamieLogical]

23 minutes ago, DCGuy64 said:

Oh, that's good. From what I remember in your OP, your cruise isn't until September or so, right? If that's correct, then there are still more than 4 months to iron this out. Let's hope they do.  

 

Well I won't be making final payment when it's due at the 90 mark if this isn't resolved by then. I need to leave myself time to cancel without penalty.

[DCGuy64]

16 hours ago, JamieLogical said:

 

Well I won't be making final payment when it's due at the 90 mark if this isn't resolved by then. I need to leave myself time to cancel without penalty.

Right, that makes total sense. I re-read your initial post and several of your subsequent ones, so my understanding is that you currently have an Aurea cabin, which you got at a 5% discount due to the Voyagers Club, but they haven't applied the 10% discount you received thanks to your sailing on the Bellissima, correct? I'm just wondering if that can be credited some other way, either through OBC, a free drinks package or upgrade to one, or some other way. Ugh! I feel for you. Hoping things turn out.

[JamieLogical]

40 minutes ago, DCGuy64 said:

Right, that makes total sense. I re-read your initial post and several of your subsequent ones, so my understanding is that you currently have an Aurea cabin, which you got at a 5% discount due to the Voyagers Club, but they haven't applied the 10% discount you received thanks to your sailing on the Bellissima, correct? I'm just wondering if that can be credited some other way, either through OBC, a free drinks package or upgrade to one, or some other way. Ugh! I feel for you. Hoping things turn out.

 

I didn't sail on the Bellissima, I participated in a promo they had on their website where if you did an online, virtual tour of the new ship, you received a discount code for 10% of future sailing on any ship (not just the Bellissima). Also, the discount code WAS applied to my initial booking for the Aurea Balcony on the Seaside, but then later that night, I mysteriously received an "updated" booking confirmation with the code removed and the price adjusted accordingly. Since then I have been working to get the code reapplied, but because it WAS applied to my initial booking, it is showing as no longer being a valid discount code, because it's supposed to only be one-time-use.

[DCGuy64]

4 minutes ago, JamieLogical said:

 

I didn't sail on the Bellissima, I participated in a promo they had on their website where if you did an online, virtual tour of the new ship, you received a discount code for 10% of future sailing on any ship (not just the Bellissima). Also, the discount code WAS applied to my initial booking for the Aurea Balcony on the Seaside, but then later that night, I mysteriously received an "updated" booking confirmation with the code removed and the price adjusted accordingly. Since then I have been working to get the code reapplied, but because it WAS applied to my initial booking, it is showing as no longer being a valid discount code, because it's supposed to only be one-time-use.

Noted. Hoping things get resolved. We sailed on the Seaside last October, my TA sailed in December and we all enjoyed it. I hope they sort things out for you and you're still able to make it.

[NJGeorge]

On 4/25/2019 at 9:34 AM, JamieLogical said:

 

I didn't sail on the Bellissima, I participated in a promo they had on their website where if you did an online, virtual tour of the new ship, you received a discount code for 10% of future sailing on any ship (not just the Bellissima). Also, the discount code WAS applied to my initial booking for the Aurea Balcony on the Seaside, but then later that night, I mysteriously received an "updated" booking confirmation with the code removed and the price adjusted accordingly. Since then I have been working to get the code reapplied, but because it WAS applied to my initial booking, it is showing as no longer being a valid discount code, because it's supposed to only be one-time-use.

 

Any  developements or resolutions?