Beamafar

It would depend on availability, demand for lower level cabins, how many others bid on your particular cruise and how much stronger their bids are. We were successful with a very low bid on Azamara last year as sales were slow, with fewer bookings on suites. Currently we don’t get to bid with MSC.

UK (and Ireland) can’t get refunds for cancelling. For cruises in that region, it’s very unlikely that cruise prices will drop (for UK bookings); they’re more likely to increase. Mind you, MSC could make a liar out of me on this one.

I found the following on a well-known German TA site for our cruise.

MSC is generally lax about check-in times. We’ve embarked in Dubai a couple of times and arrived earlier than our allotted time without any problems.

We’re hoping MSC will offer a transfer to MM from Genoa on our disembarkation day next month.

Best of luck, Ivi. Hope you have a wonderful cruise (likewise to the OP). We did that crossing on Preziosa a few years back. Great cruise but predominantly Brazilians onboard.

The only thing I can think of, so, is Google? Any luck there?

Is there a roll call for your cruise? Perhaps you could ask there. Or the Ports of Call forum?

My advice would be for only one of you to collect points for onboard spend - especially if you always travel together. I reached the top tier well before my husband but he benefited by me receiving the perks - priority boarding, robes & slippers, etc. For most perks (at Diamond level) only one person gets them, even if both are Diamond - complimentary meal in speciality restaurants, bottle of Prosecco, etc.

Even if they acknowledged each 10000 point milestone with an onboard gesture - a higher discount off laundry (it’s 15% for Diamond members), a nicer bottle of Prosecco, perhaps. Would it really cost them that much?? 🤔

Yes - I can understand, when you’re aiming for the next level up, that all points are valuable to you. Sometimes, though, there is just no explanation for random points.

Over the years both myself and DH have had points added that we had no idea why. No idea if it’s still happening as I don’t keep a check anymore. Any points beyond the 10000 required for the Diamond level are worthless.

That’s for the old pricings. The new costs to upgrade (Euro sailings) pre-cruise are: Easy (€39) to Easy Plus (€54) = €15 Easy to PremXtra (€74) = €35 Easy Plus to PremXtra = €20 Don’t know, yet, what the onboard prices will be. I’ll find out in 3 weeks’ time, I guess, when we embark World Europa. For our US sailing next year, those prices are the same on our booking (our currency is Euro so the prices on the website are in Euro).

I’ve just seen some of the menus that Itochen kindly posted on the menus thread. Most of the offerings are the same as ever. I would seriously struggle with many of them. If they’re similar on our sailing I guess I’ll be eating a lot of the time in the buffet.

Thank you, Itochen. Much appreciated. Haven’t had a chance to follow your thread yet. Hope you’re having a blast.

Much appreciated! Also the bar menus would, indeed, be interesting to see. Agree about the food offerings - hopefully they have improved. Though there still seems to be supply issues, so we’ll see.

Hope you have a wonderful cruise. We embark World Europa on your disembarkation day. I would be interested in seeing one or two menus (I understand you not wanting to post them all - I’ve done some live reports and it’s not always easy). I’m expecting the offerings on our cruise to be similar to European menus.

Which one are you doing? At least we can get the test done at home as we’re only travelling out the day prior to embarkation. Still, it’s a bit of a nuisance to have to have it done.

The drinks package is no longer included in Aurea (they’re now offered at a discount on Aurea bookings) so you’re not losing out there.

Not if you want a YC booking - this is bound to have an impact on fares as the Premium Extra is included in the price.

Apologies for previous (since deleted) response. Ridiculous that MSC insists on having different approaches to cruises depending on the onboard currency. This is just another one that’s been newly introduced. It used to always be 15%, regardless of € or $ onboard.

That’s because this particular requirement hasn’t been changed/updated since then, Ivi (unlike other requirements, which have since been dropped). I’m hoping they’ll drop it before our sailing on March 27th, but am not very optimistic.

An antigen test will do. This is the current info for Grand Voyages:

You’re quite right, N. 👍

We did indeed, Marco, and, yes, we’re on WE from Abu Dhabi. Unfortunately we’re not in YC this time. It wasn’t “available” despite making the booking when it first opened up. I think it had to do with the embarkation port. Still no availability from AD but there is from Dubai.