Beamafar

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.

Duh - you’d know I don’t use taxis/Uber etc regularly. I have Uber downloaded and have used it once or twice (but quite some time ago). Gonna blame it on having a senior moment. 🙄 Had a similar experience in Miami when using Uber - both at the airport then at the port on disembarkation day. No wifi - aaagh. Cost me more than a regular taxi by having to use roaming. Thanks a mil for the great advice.

Hi LB ( @little britain)Thanks a mil for the great review. Hopefully we’ll be boarding in a little over 5 weeks’ time so the info here was very helpful. Do Uber or Careem accept credit cards? It’s unlikely we’ll have local currency on our arrival in Abu Dhabi (though I suppose there’s an ATM in the airport - just would rather not have to use it).

The best benefits were reduced the month before status match was introduced, which did leave a bad taste in the mouths of those of us who had built up points from MSC sailings. We received 20% discount (not 5+15) on ALL sailings - not just selective ones - and a bottle of Moët was awaiting you in your cabin on embarkation day. Us “regulars” had been hoping that MSC would introduce a new, higher tier, as an incentive to those who’d status-matched to Black to continue sailing MSC for even greater benefits and for us, who had felt hard-done by, especially those who had a lot more than the 10000 points. Couldn’t care less, now (I’ll have over 50000 after my upcoming cruise - 40000 of which have zero value!).

I would probably have received €/$200 OBC as I was planning to book YC. Anyway, I took onboard (no pun intended) what you said and booked direct. MSC has made it so much easier to apply the FCC than in other past experiences. It was automatically deducted from the cruise fare (after the 5+5% was applied). No filling out forms to claim or having to wait for it to be applied. One of the (few) positive experiences I’ve had of dealing with them. Now and again MSC does see sense and simplifies things. Thanks for the advice! Much appreciated.

I don’t want to use OBC for the deposit. I don’t even want to use the FCC as one (it can’t be used as a deposit). I just want to know if the FCC can be applied to an onboard booking afterwards.

Does anyone know if you can apply an FCC to a booking made onboard? Has anyone ever been able to do it? I’ve emailed MSC but am not confident I’ll get the correct answer, having had a lot of experience of misinformation over the years from them.

Dave, can you post a link, please? I can’t locate it (nor on the new Ireland site - though no surprise there 🙄).

Thanks a mil, G.

Hi Foxy. Cheers. 😘 Turns out Mr B had a blocked artery when we were on Mera that we didn’t know about which was why he wasn’t feeling great. Had a stent inserted the following March, then immediately diagnosed with cancer. The op had to be delayed due to the heart meds, but they managed to do him the following Christmas. So, for us, 2020 wasn’t about Covid. 🙄 Thankfully he’s right as rain, now, and in rude good health. Him getting ill on Seaview a few weeks before Mera turned out to be a blessing in disguise (cos he had to attend his GP). He’d given up smoking immediately after that, which helped!