Babaduck

3 hours ago, MSC anti body said:

Member States may not impose additional restrictions to free movement, unless they are necessary and proportionate for the purpose of safeguarding public health.
 

And there you have it.  MSC, as an Italian company, has decided that additional testing for non-Schengen passengers in the form of a PCR test is necessary to safeguard passenger and crew health onboard.  I don't think that starting a protest is going to achieve anything here.  We may not like it, but we are the ones choosing to cruise and we have to follow their rules

What some people are forgetting is that the UK market is very small in the grand scheme of MSC.  They're working with the majority rules policy and just because the UK has a different way of vaccinating teens, doesn't mean that the UK gets a free pass.

This isn't a poke at the UK members but the world doesn't revolve around you and no cruise company is obliged to make every single country happy as that's unfeasible.  Given the Covid transmissions during the end of summer staycation cruises, carrying unvaccinated passengers was the wrong decision and had a massive impact on the crew as well.  There was also the issue of BoJo declaring no masks for anybody in England which some dopes took as gospel no matter where they went, refusing to wear masks or have common decency onboard.

Sometimes you just have to accept a situation and possibly look for an alternative which fits your circumstances.

On 9/19/2021 at 9:19 AM, Beamafar said:

That would make sense as there wasn’t enough notification given for September travellers.  Still, it’s a pain as well as an extra cost!

No such luck - we sail on Monday and we have to have PCR tests done

I'm unsurprised to see that the most negative comments come from people who haven't sailed with MSC in quite some years.  We sailed on the Preziosa in YC in 2014 and the rest of the ship was chaotic and the buffet was like a zoo.

Fast forward 5 years to our next cruise on the Seaside from Miami in 2019 - we had a Fantastica cabin so were only in the main part of the ship.  There was a phenomenal improvement in the food and the buffet was a pleasure to use.  The quality is great although some American passengers were surprised that not everything was deep fried...  The MDR food was also really good - I had 2 courses out of 18 which weren't to my taste. That doesn't mean that the food was of poor quality, it just wasn't appealing to me (there are a lot of OMG THE FOOD WAS CRAP posts on some of the FB groups, but it's not the food, it's the person eating it)

I'm looking forward to a bit of luxury in the YC at the end of September and will be hugely appreciative of having 10 days of meals handed to me.  

There's absolutely no dress code on MSC.  You can be as dressed up or as relaxed as you want to be.  Just no swimwear anywhere but the pool...  There won't even be a sports jacket in my husband's case as there's no need

On 8/12/2019 at 7:24 AM, mnocket said:

Is it just me or is it impossible to check out?  I've tried several times over several days and using different web browsers.  I add an Internet package to my booking.  It gets added to the cart.  I then go to checkout.  I enter all of the info (card type, cardholder name, etc.), check the confirm T&C box and click "Confirm & Pay".  Then nothing.  Page just sits there and does nothing. Another thing that seems weird is that while it asks what type of credit card I'm using (e.g. Visa), there is no place to enter the card number.  Anyone know what's going on?

I ended up calling my agent and prepaying for everything I wanted.  Apparently that worked out cheaper for me (I'm in Ireland) as

(a) I got to pay in Euro

(b) If I did the cart option, the total is added to my shipboard account & I settle onboard

(c) I'd be hit by USD/EUR conversion rates which add to the cost

(d) Apparently the 15% service charge would be applied too if I did the shipboard thing