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Matching a travel partner won't matter for some of the Voyagers Club benefits, such as 5% discount and even Diamond specialty meal, priority tendering and welcome back events where one Gold member is enough to get both in. But for other benefits like Early booking OBC, gifts and photo both would need to have the higher VC status. Otherwise your wife will automatically be assigned Welcome status with zero points at embarkation and get her first points after sailing.

The same applies for the Diamond bottle of Spumante, it's also one per cabin rather than per member.

Myself and a couple others that noticed were appalled. Normally I would have pointed it out to the pool attendant but he also knew who the perpetrators were and wouldn't (didn't) intervene. Unfortunately I've seen it before and it's one reason I rarely use any ship's pools or hot tubs. Sorry, but it's a ridiculously inconsiderate thing to contemplate.

I was on a Seaside sailing where several wives/families of top officers were on board. They would meet at the One Pool deck on port days after most passengers were gone. They let their toddlers in swim diapers play in the splash area of the pool.

Moving from a YC interior to YC balcony often requires a bid that is more than if you booked the YC balcony in the first place (early). The minimum bid is frequently just a few hundred less and not worth the loss of cabin choice and getting the least desired cabins. Those YC balcony cabins will be awarded to bidders from regular balcony cabins where the bid amounts are more reasonable, especially for those who booked without drinks, internet, etc.... There's a small chance corporate won't 100% fill the YC so it may be worthwhile to ask the concierge as soon as you board.

MSC now states web check-in officially begins 30 days before sailing, but in actuality you can usually get most of it completed way before that. Boarding documents are something different and usually become available 20 days before sailing. Of course there are often variations to this timeline.

You were given bad information. While you won't need a new cruise card, on US sailings you will have to get off the ship so it can be zeroed out for immigration purposes. On many MSC US cruises lots of people get delayed boarding while the crew searches for people who don't understand this is a necessity for US sailings.

Likely not covered by the MSC drinks packages....

I've seen posts here from email conversations with MSC/Plusgrade stating items pre-purchased, like beverage and internet packages, are factored into the Yacht Club bid acceptance algorithm. So theoretically if you book an inclusive rate or buy them separately it would give you an advantage versus the same bid by someone without them. In practice I don't believe this is 100% correct and shrewd booking/bidding can prevail. You can cancel the package anytime before the bid is accepted (within two days of sailing) but not after a bid is won. If you don't get the bid accepted early enough you won't have time to pre-purchase and will pay the on board 15% gratuity on the drinks package. Four days is likely a correct guess since MSC seems to make the bid acceptances well before that.

The ship's Technical Sheets list the number of YC cabins. https://www.mscbook.com/shop/TAPortalExternalView?catalogId=10001&langId=-1004&storeId=10757&taportalIframeKey=MENU_TECHNICAL_SHEETS&marketCode=USA

Here's a link to the MSC US booking website showing drink package prices, you can link to your booking country website if it's different. Yacht Club comes with the Premium Extra package. After looking at the bar menu prices you may find the Easy Plus package acceptable. MSC usually offers an inclusive booking rate where the packages are less expensive than outright purchase. If the inclusive rate includes a lower package you can upgrade to the higher package for the price difference https://www.mscbook.com/shop/TAPortalExternalView?storeId=10757&catalogId=10001&langId=-1004&taportalIframeKey=MENU_BEVERAGES&hideSideBar=true

There's YC cabins available for the 14 day cruises from Martinique, very limited numbers. Now I can't find any 14 day round trip from Pointe-a-Pitre, just the 7 days. I don't see any ( 7 nor 14 day) itineraries with embarkation in Barbados on the Italian, German or French websites.

You can watch YouTube Europa videos of both cabins and see they both have walk in showers and a separate jetted bathtub.

Sorry, mistyped on Pointe-a-Pitre in above post. Yes, I see those 14 day itineraries are missing from the US website. They're still available on European MSC sites. I've no idea if they are just temporarily gone or if MSC no longer plans on offering those 14 day itineraries to North America. I agree about the flight logistics from the US. Barbados is usually most practical but MSC has always severely limited inventory from that embarkation port.

You can book the 14 day versions from both Martinique and Port a Prince. The sailings from Barbados are very limited regarding YC and even some limits on Aurea availability. The possibility of upgrading to YC on a Barbados sailing will be next to nil since those cabins will be offered to people sailing from the other two ports.