Mark_T

Understood, but your initial dining assignment will be different so you will need to get that fixed once you are onboard, unless you all plan to eat in the buffet every day... If you win the bid of course which is always far from certain...

It would however be a considerable stretch to imagine them giving you a YC cabin that you didn't bid on when you are currently in a Fantastica Balcony. Given you are in a group I probably wouldn't have bid on the Aurea suite either as you will have different dining arrangements to the rest of your group... but you can fix that once onboard, just talk to the Maître d' and see if they can move you to whichever dining room the rest of your group is in...

You are over-thinking this, if you win a bid for a whirlpool suite then that is what you get, if you don't win you don't get the whirlpool suite you stay where you are.

Probably not worth the effort as all that will happen if they do accept the point is that the prices will go up by the same amount as the current gratuity, so you'll be no better off.

How do you get beyond the 2nd day without raising that sort of problem as a concern? I remain a firm believer in calm complaints while there is a chance to fix a problem, rather than complaining afterwards...

Always interesting to get different perspectives, we have been on Divina twice now, most recently in February this year and still find the YC restaurant preferable to Luminae on Celebrity. Didn't find it dark and only had to return one dish where the waiter had simply picked up the wrong plate and it was rapidly replaced. We also loved the smaller YC section and the resulting very personal service from all the crew. We will certainly sail on her again at the earliest opportunity.

Envelopes are alive and well for any additional gratuities you wish to give out. They are not required and MSC officially discourages it, but of course on US sailings it is still common.

We usually sail in YC and although the escort to the head of the line is very useful, I would not depend upon it to try to reach and board a train that departs only 25 mins after the planned arrival. Those tickets are still available simply because they are not a viable alternative.

... because for cruises that have the UK as their home port it is not legal to add a mandatory gratuity to the bar prices, so most lines use different prices for those cruises which already include the 15% and adjust package inclusions accordingly. With MSC and their cruises which run in loops around Europe with passengers boarding an leaving at each port it isn't so simple to manage, and the actual home port is often not the UK even if they are selling cruises that begin and end there.

... even the highest Marriott level only gets you Gold.

The expectation is zero, the advice from MSC is zero, as ever people will do as they wish, but you will not experience expectation of tipping per service as you have already paid for this aspect within your standard daily service charge. Tipping at the end of the cruise is of course very common.

If you book onboard you'll benefit from some extra OBC and double Voyager points on the next cruise. You can still transfer the booking to your TA ...

Nothing other than the list on the MSC website ... 🙂

It seems unlikely if you are only now, some months later, sending your Voyager Club numbers to the TA... Pity as the savings are worth having, but it is probably too late to do anything about it this time. How long until you sail? ... is there any availability to let you cancel and rebook perhaps? (if the prices have not risen significantly)

The rules are the same for all, but there is this bit in the T&Cs: 4.1.2 The only way to be eligible for the MSC Voyagers Club benefits is to provide the MSC Voyagers Club Identification number at the time of the cruise booking. We do often see people getting the benefits applied when they status match shortly after making a booking, but it sounds like you booked a few months ago and only recently got the match... Did you get the 5%+5% discount?