Super Family Plus and Group Booking Logistics

[ColoradoTravelLover]

Hello! We are sailing on the New Year's Meraviglia cruise in just a couple weeks, and getting excited!  We booked a Super Family Plus cabin, which is three staterooms connected together under one booking number, but it also means that our party of six technically have different cabin numbers (they put me and the three youngest kiddos in one cabin, then assigned my husband the second cabin, and my son (the oldest kid, but still only 15) his own cabin.)  The three rooms are designed to be combined if a family books it that way, but they can also be sold as individual staterooms, so it looks like they go ahead and "assign" someone to each room. 

 

For anyone who has had this type of arrangement, I'm curious how this works for logistics. Obviously we can sleep wherever we want once we're in the rooms, but will each "cabin" have their own account that needs to be reconciled for charges, or will it all come on one "master" account?  Can we (as parents) get our cards to give us access to all three rooms?  We are supposed to be receiving onboard credit from our travel agent, which we were hoping to use for gratuities.  Will that apply to all three rooms, or just the one under my name?  We were given three different "e-ticket" packages for each stateroom, and my husband ended up getting a different embarkation time than all the rest of us, so it makes me think MSC doesn't quite have it all together for this type of arrangement. 

 

To make things even more complicated, we are traveling with our sister and brother-in-law, who booked their own stateroom, separate from us. BUT -- they are the parents of two of the kiddos in OUR super family cabin (it was cheaper to book them under our room, and we thought it would be fun to have all the kids stay together).  But now we are realizing that's causing some complications. We've linked our bookings online ahead of time, so I'm hoping they seat us together for dinner. But we have different embarkation times, even though they are the legal guardians of two of the kiddos in our room. Can they jump the line to board with us - as I don't think they'll let us board with two kids who aren't our own? 

 

If my sister and BIL wants to see a show or make dinner reservations including their own kids, can they book on their behalf, even though they are technically in "my" room?  Or if I end up needing to be the master "planner" of sorts, is there a way I can book specialty dinner times, show reservations, etc. for my sister and BIL, even though they are in a different cabin?  

 

Thank you in advance - any guidance or advice would be appreciated!  

[slei15]

You are able to select which guests from the reservation you want the onboard account to cover when you register the credit card.  The OBC will attach to the reservation number, so it will offset any charges against the accounts of the people covered when you register. As far as the keys go, no, you won't likely be able to access all 3 with one key, but you can always leave the connecting doors propped. As long as the reservations are linked, your sister should be able to book things for her kids, but I can't promise that. If not, you can always do it together while you sit at lunch in the buffet once you board.

[joeyjeremiah]

Hi CTL,

I have not sailed on the Meraviglia or had the super family plus cabin but I have sailed on the Divina with my teenage son who was in a cabin with my MIL so can answer a few of your questions. 
 

Embarcation: in Miami you arrive fo through security and then check in where you are given a number. This is tour boarding group number so you wait until your group is called and you board together. Check in together for all 4 cabins and you will be able to board the ship together. 
 

Onboard account: once on-board you register your credit card in a kiosk to activate your on-board account. At this point you can also register other people (your kids) to your account. Do this with you sister and brother in law so they can assign their kids to their account. Also as a FYI on the Divina they used to offer a teen card. For $50 it gave $60 worth of credit and turned the kids cards into a prepaid card. This allowed my 12 year old son to but what he wanted or play in the arcade since we didn’t worry about him losing track of what he has spent and giving us a large bill for arcade games. Not sure if they offer on the Meraviglia but depending on the kids ages you might want to look into it. 
 

OBC: it isn’t easy to move OBC from one room to another however since it should be for the booking when you link the on-board accounts together the credit transfers with it. So you should be ok where it would be complicated is to try and move from your sisters room to yours. If you login online to Msc website it should show you the OBC and who it is attached to so double check now and have your TA make any corrections if needed. 
 

keys: once on-board is you are changing who is sleeping where guest services should be able to print new keys so that everybody can get into where they sleep. As for being able to access all 3 rooms you will have to leave connecting door open because your key will only allow access to your room. Otherwise depending on the age of the kids just keep one of their keys with you so you can get into their room. 
 

Dining: size your reservations are linked you should be assigned a table together 

 

hopefully that helps a bit. 

[Essiesmom]

It has been reported here that MSC does not give out extra keys to cabins.  However, get everyone bracelets.  They will be coded for the person issued to, but they will do everything but clock you on and off the ship, so the kids/others could access their cabins with their bracelets and you could carry their room key cards.  EM

[ColoradoTravelLover]

Thank you, all!  Very helpful tips and information.  

[mamaneedsavacay]

We've sailed as a Super Family on the Seaside and as far as staff was concerned we were separate cabins. There's no *Superfamily designator with the cabin numbers. We have an upcoming cruise where we just booked two cabins on the same booking, rather than as a Super Family, and everything looks the same as it did on the previous cruise- one booking, two cabins. We did (and are doing) everything on my husband's cabin card, just to keep things simple. He is the first name on the booking, so OBC credit will go to his cabin and we'll use his cabin to order photo package, etc. 

 

 I agree with the above advice to buy wristbands and use those as the "extra" key cards. But keep in mind that when you're dealing with drink packages, you can't have swapped wristbands with one of your kids and still get the adult beverage at the pool!