IT'S TIME FOR MORE OBSERVATIONS FROM THE POOP DECK

[Nunagoras]

4 hours ago, ChC said:

 

YC is a ship within a ship. You can not use the example of YC to show what MSC is. YC is special.

 

To many of the passengers who could not get into the exclusive YC class, MSC is still a ... er...Ryanair class. 

 

To make some sense, on MSC Seaview, there are 2066 cabins in total and only 86 YC cabins. That is only 4.16% of the cabins available. When you use 4% of the experience to showcase the whole company (or ship), it is like for the top 1% of the people tell the bottom half of population that everybody should be able to afford million dollar house and Ferrari cars. Or use a less intrusive example, if someone travel with BA First class all the time, have all the special treatment and gourmet food and champagne, could this passenger say BA is wonderful and tell the fellow passenger who travel on BA's 29 inches Euro Traveller class which charges for coffee and tea until recently, that he/she does not understand why they say BA is awful?

 

Perspective is important.

Hi! While; I'll not argue that some of the complaints are legitimate; I own have the experience on both MSC outside the YC and RCI also on a regular balcony cabin, and TBHH, they're mostly comparable, apart the RCI's Oasis class of ships distinctive features. Surely no Ice show, no aqua show, no Broadway show on any MSC ships whatsoever... But, again: Food is comparable, at least on European sailings where both companies will serve you ingredients from the very same providers. Service was hit or miss on both with RCI's being somewhat more "intrusive" on "on your face" than MSC what for me is a bit worse, maybe just a cultural barrier once reserved professionalism is the norm where I live. Shore excursions were the same from same providers for both. Cleanliness and general maintenance is actually better on MSC by a good margin. RCI's website while hit or miss is far better than MSC's by a good margin... And I can continue!...

 

For the sake of us all: Both MSC and RCI are actually 4* cruising products with pretty much same standards developed in different ways. I don't expect them to be anything better than that!... And to say the least they're both far better than whatever else Ryanair has on offer.

 

Have a nice day!...

[Two Wheels Only]

On 3/25/2022 at 7:43 PM, Nunagoras said:

Finally as regarding to some charges on the mini fridge even for YC guests, here I believe they're just joining the trend for most 4*/5* land hotel industry, most likely to avoid waste.

 

Another example of MSC's inconsistency.....

 

At Port Canaveral, there were mini-Pringles cans at the check-in area. The butler who escorted us onto the ship gave my kids each a can. Later, my butler on the ship noticed that my kids liked the cans of Pringles and continued to bring new cans almost every night (if he noticed that the cans were empty). We were never charged for anything including the soft drinks and Toblerone bars in the mini-fridge. We still have 2 Toblerone bars left from weeks ago. 

[JAGR]

8 hours ago, morpheusofthesea said:

Not on Ocean Cay, just on the ship was complimentary. If one thinks about it, that would be chair hogging to have 2 cabanas available for ones use at the same time only being able to use one.

I just want to thank you for your recent reviews!  Last month's helped prepare us for our B2B.  The one thing I am curious about:  You never mentioned the :secret stairs" from the Sun Deck down to near your suite on deck 19.  I'm sure Pradeep would have shown it to you.  You'll have to take advantage of it on your upcoming B2B.  All the best, John

[morpheusofthesea]

6 hours ago, JAGR said:

I just want to thank you for your recent reviews!  Last month's helped prepare us for our B2B.  The one thing I am curious about:  You never mentioned the :secret stairs" from the Sun Deck down to near your suite on deck 19.  I'm sure Pradeep would have shown it to you.  You'll have to take advantage of it on your upcoming B2B.  All the best, John

Thanks for all the tips over the years. Our upcoming cruises are all Royal Suites on deck 16. Any "secrets" you can impart from deck 16 ?  You will have an exceptional time, but I do not have to tell you that.

[perakcruiser]

21 hours ago, ChC said:

To many of the passengers who could not get into the exclusive YC class, MSC is still a ... er...Ryanair class. 

As @ChC said, there are not many things so uncomparable as Ryanair und MSC (I love them both, but for different reasons. And I a little bit hate them both also 😄).

 

Even Irish and not British, Ryanair is the most British business I could imagine. They should have painted Margaret Thatcher on their planes. While MSC is totally Italian, including all the negative and positive things incl. the unlimited love for bambini, which is something good for some and something bad for others. 

 

By the way, there was a "Ryanair" style cruise company with EasyCruise about 15 years before. I remember the price was less than $25 per person per day 🤪

[gclara]

Question: I know the YC Cabin includes 2 Devices for the Browse Internet service. My son needs to take some zoom classes (I know it is his spring break, but we've already paid a monthly fee) during the week. How much is it to upgrade to a Browse+Stream service? Ideally, only need this service for one device.  Thanks!

[mscdivina2016]

2 hours ago, gclara said:

Question: I know the YC Cabin includes 2 Devices for the Browse Internet service. My son needs to take some zoom classes (I know it is his spring break, but we've already paid a monthly fee) during the week. How much is it to upgrade to a Browse+Stream service? Ideally, only need this service for one device.  Thanks!

I inquired about zoom and it was going to cost me about $150 for the week but I only needed it one day and I moved it to the last day and only had to pay for the last day and I think it was around $21???? I ended up not using it so I cant comment on how good it was.

[gclara]

1 hour ago, mscdivina2016 said:

I inquired about zoom and it was going to cost me about $150 for the week but I only needed it one day and I moved it to the last day and only had to pay for the last day and I think it was around $21???? I ended up not using it so I cant comment on how good it was.

 Thank you! Looks like it is cheaper to upgrade it now as I need it for five days. 

Edited April 1, 2022 by gclara

[Sykes]

5 hours ago, gclara said:

Question: I know the YC Cabin includes 2 Devices for the Browse Internet service. My son needs to take some zoom classes (I know it is his spring break, but we've already paid a monthly fee) during the week. How much is it to upgrade to a Browse+Stream service? Ideally, only need this service for one device.  Thanks!

On my 7-night sailing it was $56 (total) to upgrade from 2 devices Browse to 2 devices Browse+Stream. If you upgrade onboard you get credit for the cost of the Browse package included in YC so it significantly reduces the cost since you're only paying the difference between the packages. I have no idea if it'll do that when upgrading online pre-cruise (our reservation was horribly broken on the website for several months leading up to our cruise so we had to use phone agents for everything). As far as I can tell all of the devices on the plan have to have the same package, though, so you can't just upgrade one to stream.

 

btw, I did two hour-long Zoom calls on my current sailing (with the Browse+Stream package) and both were nearly flawless. iMessage is super wonky when it comes to rich media though (anything other than a simple text message). I had to VPN out to get images and links through.

Edited April 1, 2022 by Sykes

[mscdivina2016]

9 hours ago, Sykes said:

 As far as I can tell all of the devices on the plan have to have the same package, though, so you can't just upgrade one to stream.

 

That's correct, we ended up with 4 devices that could stream for just the one day.

[gclara]

10 hours ago, Sykes said:

On my 7-night sailing it was $56 (total) to upgrade from 2 devices Browse to 2 devices Browse+Stream. If you upgrade onboard you get credit for the cost of the Browse package included in YC so it significantly reduces the cost since you're only paying the difference between the packages. I have no idea if it'll do that when upgrading online pre-cruise (our reservation was horribly broken on the website for several months leading up to our cruise so we had to use phone agents for everything). As far as I can tell all of the devices on the plan have to have the same package, though, so you can't just upgrade one to stream.

 

btw, I did two hour-long Zoom calls on my current sailing (with the Browse+Stream package) and both were nearly flawless. iMessage is super wonky when it comes to rich media though (anything other than a simple text message). I had to VPN out to get images and links through.

Thank you for your detailed answer. 

[gclara]

1 hour ago, mscdivina2016 said:

That's correct, we ended up with 4 devices that could stream for just the one day.

Ok. Thanks!