jame_g

The app is currently designed to only work while you are actually on a cruise aboard a ship that supports it. It's designed for your cruise experience (shows, menus, excursions, onboard services, etc.) not for cruise booking and planning.

If you are on a ship with the MSC for Me app, you can also use the app once onboard to register your credit card.

Yes, if you don't have a card registered for the cabin or a cash deposit to draw against, they will stop allowing purchase at some point. We had that happen when my card didn't properly link to my spouse as well. They will place a Hold on debit cards too, and that is where people typically experience issues. Because the hold can take time to release and likely won't match up to a specific purchase, that money may be unavailable for a time until the release is processed. The hold may still be there for a while after the charges are processed and subtracted from your account. Using a debit card for onboard expenses is generally discouraged due to potential issues with a hold that can impact the availability of the cash in your account. Only you can decide what is right in your situation though.

I think they should have just said "...or put feet on the furniture". It really doesn't matter, bare or not. Shoes don't belong on the furniture either, that's really just as gross and dirty.

If your booking/boarding pass information shows the YC, then you should be good. The experience can be an inconvenience, we had that problem after they switched us. Inside the YC it won't make a difference because they don't scan your card for anything once you're in the YC. Outside, it would impact your ability to access the YC drink package, and possibly the thermal suite. It took them another day to correct that for us after we finally got moved to the YC. Sounds like you've already gotten that resolved. Like I said, MSC made it right for us eventually, and we've booked other YC cruises as a result. Congrats and enjoy your cruise!

That would make sense to me. The short cruises tend to be party cruises with people drinking a lot. The longer cruises aren't going to attract the same party crowd, so the amount of drinking probably decreases with the length of the cruise, up to a point anyway.

Usually with a true group bookings, cruiselines require the entire group to purchase the drink package or you can't get it at all. It doesn't matter who's in your cabin or who you're dining with. That's why some groups opt not to do it at all. However, many cruiselines will also give large enough groups a discount on the drink package too - assuming it's a true group booking and not just people booking individually and travelling as their own group of friends or family. This one sounds odd because groups usually have set pricing with set group benefits and everyone must book and pay within a scheduled timeframe. It's strange that one couple would have the drink package included in their pricing and others wouldn't.

In the Yacht Club restaurant (not grill) on the Mera, the director offered to make items that were not on the menu with 24 hour request. Now that was for dishes that could have been reasonably made for an individual or couple and they had the items available, and not something that would have required say a whole prime rib to be cooked just for two people when it wasn't on the menu that day, for example. (This was in response to us asking if Prime Rib was on the menu before the end of our cruise, he thought it was but when he checked it wasn't.)

We just booked this cruise for our Christmas Holiday this year. We're a male couple, and we're not in our 20s, 30s or even 40s anymore. LOL. Looking forward to this cruise as it will be our first Virgin Voyages cruise and we've heard some good things. Hoping that we meet some friendly people on board! Is anyone else here booked on this cruise?

As people have said, it was nice for breakfast and lunch. It was never open for dinner and we found the YC dining room to be extremely slow. So we ended up going to the main buffet for dinner half the time. (On the Seashore, the YC Grill was open for dinner most evenings, but not all evenings, so we missed that. plus it had more shaded seating nearby.) On our Meraviglia cruise there were only a couple of tables in the YC grill area with shade. Everything else was full sun and you would get hot quickly, even at breakfast.

Thanks. Guess I missed that when I was looking thinking that it was to book new items.. I see it now.

Is there any way to see the sailor loot associated with your booking in your online account? For example, if I am supposed to have a bar tab included in my booking, is there any way to see it when I'm in my account / managing my booking? Thanks!

I always end up having to call to have my spouse's VC number added properly after I book online in order to get both the OBC and the points for the trip. The website never lets me add that information, but I also don't see it show up anywhere.

You won't need to use his ship card for purchases. Just set it up so his payment method is registered for both him and you, then he will get the credit for all purchases. He can do this onboard using the kiosks or using the MSC for Me app.

No, everyone needs to have their own Voyager's Club account.

Please explain how this is a response to the question. Seriously.

We pretty much only wore shorts all day, including to the dining room for dinner. Either denim or khaki, and usually with a nice resort casual type t-shirt or polo.

You don't need to do the photo. I've never done it. Just complete all the online info except for the photo and credit card/onboard payment info. They will email you your boarding pass at around 20 days prior, plus or minus a few days. They will take the photo when registering at the port, and you can enter your onboard payment info on board using the kiosks or the app.

My take is yes. Easy Plus is adequate for moderate drinkers. Especially if you are flexible in what brands and specific drinks are okay. It may not work if you are someone that has to have specific higher end brands of liquor or a very broad selection. (My biggest issue is that I prefer Jack Daniels over Jim Beam or Seagrams 7, and Jack is in the Premium tier. However, I can definitely get by with the other brands.)

We used an agent from a well known large agency on our first cruise ever, and then on a couple of group cruises - the group didn't offer the category we wanted so we booked through their agent so we could travel with the group. We never received anything additional, no discount, no additional credits, over what we would have gotten by booking directly ourselves online. I think we did receive 1 bottle of wine once, which we don't drink. As a matter of fact, I even ended up arranging for an upgrade myself which the agent didn't even try for, and then had to get the agent's permission to finalize it, which really annoyed me. Since then I've booked all my travel myself and been more than happy not to have to deal with the middle man that frankly never benefited me in any way. It's amazing how much experiences with TAs seem to vary, but a TA has never benefited me.

We were only notified by email 3 days prior to the cruise, they billed the credit card immediately. Ours was not a cheap upgrade because the cruise was almost entirely booked. It was pretty close to the price for YC if we had booked it to begin with. We never got the correct updated paperwork despite calling about it when we saw our "upgraded" paperwork still had us in our original room. We were told it would be handled at the port when we checked in. It wasn't. They knew nothing about it in the port, at customer service on the ship, or in the Yacht club on shore and on the ship. We were given our original room on board and literally treated like we were scammers when we tried to get it corrected, accused of making fake receipts and emails when we showed them the email confirmation and copy of the credit card transaction. It appears that this happened to several other people on our cruise (those who would have been upgraded into the couple YC suites still available and the chain of upgrades that leads to), and that it had been happening for several months prior to our cruise based on what staff told us (and seeing a couple older posts here), yet nothing had been implemented to try to address this on-going issue. We finally did get moved to Yacht club halfway through the cruise after corporate took days to confirm the upgrade. The Yacht Club director stated that getting an upgrade confirmation after boarding had never happened before, despite several others previously being in a similar situation. Eventually MSC did give us a pro-rated refund for the time we were not allowed our upgrade, but that took more than a couple weeks after we got back home. Hopefully they've finally corrected this issue since they've had about 6 more months now. But I would be very hesitant to ever bid on an upgrade again. Not trying to complain, we ended up happy with the resolution in the end. MSC eventually made it right. Just be aware that they have a history of significant issues with their upgrade process, at least for the Caribbean cruises leaving from the US.

These days many people dress casual on "elegant nights". Many lines now consider them optional. Don't worry about it. Just dress a decent resort casual and you will be fine. Only about half the people will truly dress up, some will dress a little better than normal, but many will still stay casual. These days we don't dress up either. Khakis/khaki shorts and a polo shirt are about it. You will not be forced to go to the buffet if you don't want to. Enjoy your cruise.

The health questionnaire comes with your ticket - the one that's supposed to come roughly 20 days before your cruise. There's one for each passenger in the packet.

You have to submit something for each person that wants to obtain a status match.

Businesses commonly put holds on credit and debit cards. The bank (not the business) should release the hold when the corresponding charge comes through or within a certain number of days. A hold will typically show as "pending" and does not affect your actual credit card balance, but might reduce the amount of available credit you have. Where people typically have issues is using a debit card for things like hotel stay room charges and onboard cruise accounts. Since the charge is unlikely to match, the bank tends to keep the hold there the maximum amount of time until it is released. This usually isn't an issue for credit cards unless you're near your limit, but can be a huge issue for debit cards because actual funds end up being unavailable until the hold is released. In the meantime you've also likely been charged for the actual fees incurred that didn't match the hold. This can cause big issues for cruisers on nearly all lines using debit cards and why you should avoid doing so. If it was an actual charge, that's a totally different issue.