jame_g

14 minutes ago, cantgetin said:

If you have loyalty on another line, be sure to sign up for the status match which should apply for your December embarkation.

 

While Jon was able to add 24 hours before, I wouldn't push it to that limit, especially if a weekend is involved.  Shoreside messes up enough stuff without giving them an excuse!   2-3 days is not a problem at all.

Yes, I did the status match and have the bar tab with the bonus bar tab and unspecified "deep blue extras". 

For the January, I would very likely do it 2-3 days ahead of time if I decided I wanted the bar tab. Just want to get a better idea of how we use it first.

One thing I just noticed today is that for the status match the email said I was Sea Rover. I noticed my badge had updated to that as well, but then yesterday I noticed my badge was at Sea Rover. Not sure when that happened or why.

Also, since we have two cruises, only the closest one shows up in the app. Anyone know how to get the app to bring up both or at least move between them? I can get both to show up on the website.

How close to your cruise can you add a bar tab?  We haven't been on VV yet, but we have two cruises booked. The first one is a holiday cruise at Christmas, and includes a bar tab. The second one is early in January. Basically 10 days after we get back from the Christmas cruise. It doesn't include a bar tab or any extras. Since it's only a 4 night cruise, I'm not sure if we want to buy a $300 bar tab now. But I may decide after the Christmas cruise that we will want to get it. Will I be able to add a bar tab just a couple days before the cruise leaves?

We booked the January cruise first because we always take an anniversary vacation that week. The Christmas cruise was just something that we saw recently and decided it was time to do something different for the holiday without even thinking about how close it was to the January cruise.

We had a cruise booked in Jan 2020, just before the COVID closures. MSC rented out the ship and notified us around Sept/Oct before, and automatically rebooked us for a shorter cruise we didn't want. Their email said we had a choice to keep the rebooked cruise, choose another cruise, or cancel and get a refund including related expenses. We cancelled and got a refund for the cruise. We had a non-refundable hotel stay booked the night before the original cruise. We sent copies of the expense, but MSC never refunded us despite what their offer stated. 

Meraviglia had several flavors of soft serve in an area near the pool/outside the buffet for a while in the afternoon. After lunch/before dinner most, but not all days. (This was at the end of March)

SeaShore had Vanilla and Chocolate soft serve in the back area of the buffet where desserts were, not too far from the Sky bar. Again most days and only from about 3-5 in the afternoon. (Back at the end of Oct)

Wondering if SeaScape will do the same thing when we sail in Oct. Hopefully. It's nice to get some ice cream on a hot afternoon on board!

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.

2 hours ago, JoLoca2208 said:

Your post actually made me worried. We are due to embark Seascape this Sunday; there are 4 of us in two cabins. We initially booked deluxe balcony cabins almost next to each other and then decided to bid on YC inside cabins. We placed exactly the same minimum bid on both cabins a couple of months ago, and since we haven't heard anything back till this week we assumed neither bid was accepted and we are staying where we booked originally. 

On Tue this week, so 5 days till embarkation, myself and my husband got an email that our offer was accepted, however as this was the last of the interior cabins in YC, our friends could not be upgraded. There was a bit of a scramble between the 4 of us on what to do next, eventually, our friends changed their bid to the YC balcony and were accepted pretty much instantly. 

We've received a new confirmation letter, which shows YC cabin...

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!

24 minutes ago, sidari said:

Recently MSC changed the drink package policy, the longer the cruise the less you pay, the price is higher for shorter cruises especially those of seven nights and less. 

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.

6 hours ago, hamrag said:

On Seaside Antilles cruise late November 2022 they refused to provide king prawn, filet mignon or rack of lamb which for me are the 'big hitters'. I explained my surprise as we'd had such on other ships, and the response was basically this is not the other ships!!

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.

3 hours ago, mvh said:

Denim shorts, seriously? What exactly is a nice t-shirt?

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.