Stockjock

Answers in bold italics below: I have cruised with Princess, P&O, Carnival and RCCL but never with MSC. A. I think it's great to try different cruise lines, as there are sometimes major differences. We are looking at potentially booking a cruise for Aug 25 on the MSC Seascape out of Miami, but i have a few questions. Are the drinks packages and dining packages worth it? A. Generally, yes. In my view, MSC tends to offer the best pricing on both drinks packages and dining packages. The best deals are when you can get drinks and wi-fi baked into the price. Also, if they offer a dining package promo, *at the time of booking*, that's usually a better offer than what you may see later. Is there a piano bar? A. Different ships have different venues. I can often find someone playing a piano, but not always. It's not uncommon though. On some ships, we can often find a pianist, perhaps with vocals or guitar, in the Sky Lounge. We were recently on World Europa, and there was no Sky Lounge, which I deeply missed, but we did find a pianist in the Raj Polo Teahouse. The kids will be 11 and 13 - does anyone have experience of the kids club on MSC and could give me an idea of the kinds of activities they do in kids club for those ages? A. No experience, but we've wandered through the areas designed for kids and they seem to have good offerings. Not sure about 11 and 13 year-olds though, as they are a bit older. Any tips for a first time MSC cruise? A. Try not to call customer service, unless you have to. They have good intentions, but often screw things up due to MSC's screwy system. Also, you may have more announcements in many languages, so be aware of that. Be aware that MSC has an excellent status match program, so explore this if you have status on other cruise lines or hotel chains. Thanks for any info! A. Enjoy, and report back once you've returned. Keep an open mind, as MSC can be a bit different in some ways.

I'm not minimizing your housekeeping comments, but I've always had outstanding housekeeping with maybe one exception, which wasn't awful, but a bit below the usual high standard.

I’m particularly interested in somebody that had to file the claim with them. The pricing that they are offering on a cruise that I recently booked seems pretty good at $138 US for the two of us. I suppose the downside is that the limits are a lot lower than perhaps adding something on my own. Any thoughts on this? On an unrelated note, I mentioned in another thread that MSC could not figure out a way to make my booking appear in my MSC account, so I canceled it yesterday and rebooked it. They credited my deposit today, so less than a 24 hour turnaround. I think that’s the fastest refund I’ve seen from any cruise line so far.

We were in Venice last year. My GF *really* wanted to do a gondola ride. I didn't especially care, and I thought they seemed to be a bit pricey. But if we visited Venice and didn't do a gondola ride, I'm pretty sure I would not have heard the end of it, so I booked a tour that included one and a lot more. This was a third party tour that included a tour of Venice, boat rides to the nearby islands of Murano and Burano, and a gondola ride for I think 30 or 45 minutes. I felt like I got a better value for my money by baking the gondola ride into a much more comprehensive tour. I think this was a good way to do this, but Murano in particular was underwhelming, as we only had time to visit one shop and watch them make glass. It was interesting, but I would have preferred more time to walk around. Our time on Burano was also very limited. As to your question about getting on and off, it could be tricky. Depends on how bad your knee is. But there is a pretty big step-down into some gondolas, and they can move around a lot. One more tip: Some of the smaller streets simply end at the canal. One night, we almost walked into the canal while on our phones trying to get back to the hotel. Neither my GF nor I swim, so it could have ended badly. No light, no sign, no fence, the street simply ended at the canal. So be careful where you walk, particularly at night.

I don't know any reason why I shouldn't be able to document a long-running series of errors by MSC. If you don't like it, don't read it. Better yet, simply block me, which is a nice feature of Cruise Critic. It's actually far less repetitive than the "new" posts, which are typically the same questions asked and answered over and over again. I also think there's good info here, as an example, today's remark that if one opts out under privacy options, they may not have the ability to bid on an upgrade in the future. I'll bet most didn't know that. FWIW, I've cancelled the booking today, since MSC cannot figure out how to associate an MSC booking with my MSC online account. I may re-book at some point in the future.

As a follow-up to my most recent message, MSC restored my ability to log on, but my home address was missing and I could not access my privacy settings or see my booking. Plus, there was no way to modify any of these. I went back and forth with them for the past month by e-mail. They did restore my home address, although the formatting is wrong (my unit number listed first), but I'm not going to mess with that. Magically, one day, I was able to update my privacy preferences. This is important because if you opt-out, you may not have the ability to bid on an upgraded cabin via the MSC Upgrade program, as it's handled by a third-party. Anyone who doesn't receive those, should check their privacy settings and opt-in. Ultimately, they stopped replying to my periodic messages, so I called MSC this morning. She said, "Try to add your booking number now." I did and it worked. So I got off the phone, tried it again, and now I cannot view or add it once again. Fixing issues like this shouldn't be so difficult or time-consuming.

It's a conspiracy!!! I kid. I hope the person in medical distress has a prompt and complete recovery.

Celebrity does potentially qualify. As I mentioned earlier, certain promotions may not qualify, such as exciting deals.

I believe it only applies to American Express Platinum card holders. Basically, if you book cruises through an Amex Qualified Travel Agent, you may receive some perks when you use your Amex. Platinum card. Many travel agents have this qualification, but not all, so for those looking for the perks, it's important to ask. Right now, I have 2 bookings with 2 unrelated TAs and both have that qualification. You do have to make the request, as it doesn't happen automatically. Direct bookings don't qualify, so again, to get the perks, one must use a Amex qualified TA to do the booking, and the entire balance must be paid w/the Amex Platinum card. There are also some nice trip interruption/ medical evacuation benefits backed into the card's benefits. It's pricey, but I get a lot out of it. What the perks are depends on the cruise line, number of days in the sailing, and category of cabin booked. For example, we have an Oceania cruise upcoming and I think for pretty much any category booked, I receive $300 in OBC, a bottle of wine of my choice from their tastings menu, and an invite to a wine tasting. Usually, I get $200-$300 OBC on my Celebrity bookings, but it depends. This is in addition to any OBC that your travel agent may provide in their normal course of business. Often, they include an extra amenity, which could include specialty dining, or similar. Here's a link that may be helpful.https://www.americanexpress.com/icc/cards/benefits/travel/cruise-privileges-and-discounts.html

We will be doing Ascent this summer out of “Rome”, so we are both looking forward to that one. She had a limited amount of time available later in the year due to her work schedule, so I saw a seven day Caribbean that fit our needs on Oceania, and booked it.

Some of them are legit sales. The short cruise out of L.A. was pretty much Carnival cheap even on Concierge Class.

I'm taking the GF on Oceania Sirena for a milestone birthday. I'm really concerned that it might be too boring for us, and especially for her. Frequent Oceania cruisers mentioned entertainment which included shuffleboard, lectures, hanging out in the library and "curling up with a Kindle." In other words, the sort of things I want to avoid on a cruise. I also hear that their food is going downhill. I'll probably try it anyway, but it's not a cheap birthday gift (I'm covering the cruise, hotel and cross-country air), but I have been second-guessing my decision to try them.

It’s been my understanding that the pricing offered under Celebrity’s exciting deals promotion is about as good as it gets. In fact, I grabbed a discounted cruise out of Los Angeles last year, and they refused to honor my usual American Express cruise privilege benefit on that sailing because exciting deals are supposedly their rock-bottom prices, and don’t qualify for perks like that. I got their most recent exciting deals today, and they don’t seem exciting at all. They seem to be about what I would usually expect for a regular sailing that wasn’t part of a promotion. So is it just my imagination, or are the exciting deals a lot less exciting?

I don’t know if they will ever be able to return, but it is looking more and more doubtful at this point. As previously discussed, there was an effort to transfer two older Celebrity ships to Pullmantur. Celebrity initially denied this, but it wasn’t announced for no reason. And I had heard from some of their former employees that they had been contacted by the company about a potential restart. But that ended up not happening, and the company was fully dissolved, and even the name sold for next to nothing. In fact, I’m not even sure if it sold and I think the starting bid was something like €177,000. At this point, my best guess is that they’re gone forever, but you never know. Many companies were able to survive the Covid lockdown, but obviously that was a huge financial drain. But unfortunately, this company was not a survivor, it was just too much to overcome.

We like the shows on probably a bigger scale than seems to be offered on Oceania, different bars/clubs, the GF likes to dance but I really don't, I suppose a broader array of venues. We like some of the MSC ships that have a Sky Lounge up high, overlooking the pool, with a band playing jazz or popular hits while we sip Grand Marnier in a snifter or a good red wine. I've always preferred the mid-sized ships, maybe 2,500ish in capacity. I think the GF likes some of the Monster of the Seas type vessels, since they have so many varied types of entertainment. That said, I'll probably still give it a shot. We have zero sea days, so between visiting the ports, getting back to the room, relaxing a bit, cleaning up for dinner and actually doing dinner, I'm not sure there will be a ton of down time anyway. As I mentioned earlier, if she gripes she gripes. At least I'll be providing the cruise, air and hotel.