perakcruiser

To be fair, this is common practice in the cruise industry. Celebrity also is showing by far not all available cabins. All cruise lines want to sell their flight contingents and "individual" travelers not make them happy🙂 Some more, some less. The ones who own airlines obviously much more. Some of them even sell ONLY with flights, MSC is much more "generous". And there is no real understandable system, from my example MSC had all cabins available until recently and then suddenly blocked.

She lied to you. MSC works perfectly with many agents. But your TA seems to be not qualified for the "special" phone line for preferred MSC agents, understandably that makes her not happy. And she has probably a fine status with other lines, so she directs her clients to these lines. Always keep this system in mind when booking a cruise with a TA.

Yes, this constellation is the perfect situation to book Fantastica. I book 70% Bella and 30% Fantastica (only because I needed the free change option).

Yeah, but even if the offer ZERO flights in this market to the ship, these blocked cabins cannot be booked.

That with the cancellation fee is normal unfortunately. Even if the rep on the phone already told you the cancellation fee will be waived, first you get a new booking confirmation with the cancellation fee. And possibly a much higher price. BUT the price will be adjusted. First I could see it online in the payment section that the price was correct again. But I did not get a new confirmation PDF automatically, for this I had to call again. Was a little bit frightened that this call could hurt the booking again, but it didn´t 🙂 As I said in another topic, sure they have cabins. Cabins they blocked for only to be booked with a flight from MSC. Good that you insisted until they gave you this cabins!

No, unfortunately not. This is a big difference to Celebrity and NCL (I don´t follow Royal Caribbean), where the "best sale of the century starts over and over again 😄 If you want the "Free drinks and wi-fi" you better lock it tomorrow. An agent maybe can make it as a option for a couple of days so you gain some times. I have not seen an offer like this with Easy Plus and Wifi recently.

Practically no European cruise line does adjusting. At least I never heard of one. I wonder if this extremly customer friendly conditions are because of US law or because MSC still is in the "entering the US market" mode.

Indeed very interesting. At least he is totally aware of the clash between American intrusiveness and European invisibility. I hope I will never hear a "How was your day? What did you do in port today in Cozumel?" on MSC, this is just not acceptable behaviour. But the part I liked most is this: Ocean Cay, our private island, is a marine reserve. Most private cruise destinations have waterparks and swimming pools and air-conditioned shopping arcades, and there's nothing wrong with that. It's a lot of fun. But that's not us. ... There's no waterparks, no air-conditioned shopping malls. It's very pristine, white sand beaches, gin clear water, paddleboarding, kayaking, snorkeling, very rich marine life ... I really, really want to go there. While Costa Maya was the worst cruise stop I ever have experienced.

It is said that the MSCs booking situation for the summer holiday (mid june to mid september) is excellent. So they will not do sales for this period, actually they probably will not sell much cabins if you not add the flight from MSC. From mid September onwards we are playing a different game hopefully. By the way, I totally hate this blocking such a high number of cabins for the bookings with flights. I know that loads of cabins are available on the Musica, actually on our trip in the whole segment of the deck ONLY our cabin is taken. But all is blocked. Yes, I know, they need to make money and sell their flights...

Maybe MSC is willing to let you change for the World Europa that sails exactly the same dates. You have to make it to Barcelona however.

4pm is not a problem if the ship leaves at 6pm.

Being able to bring my bicycle on a cruise would be an absolute dealbreaker for me. I never thought about it as I expected to be not allowed anyway.

Excellent. Especially when dining in Tuscan Grill and Le Petit Chef I want to enjoy a nice glass of my wine. And in the MDR a Sancerre at Lobster Night if there is a Lobster Night 😄

When going onboard you are leaving EU law so Celebrity (and all other cruise lines also EU lines) can add gratuities to their services. They cannot add later on board gratuities for anything you buy NOW from Ireland online, these prices have to be final.

Absolutely true, it is totally unpredictable and it all depends solely on the motivation of the security guy behind the screen. Has nothing to little to do with "Europe" or the ship, I think this level of laxness is really personal and even the cruise line is not a factor😄

That was 12 or 13 years before on a Celebrity cruise in Europe. I prefer to fill by myself from a carafe, but not a big thing.

Just to clarify, this is not true for many European cruise lines and even Celebrity does not charge a daily service charge in some European markets. These wonderful machines are found at the buffet only, not in the MDR, right? Does Celebrity still put a mug of water on the table in the MDR or do you have to order water by the glass?

(1) only dinner (2) only main dining room (3) 2 hrs minimum (4) expect 6:15 pm early, 8:15 pm late. +/- 30 mins (5) no (6) always same time, same table

Actually the point is not to touch a booking again if it is fine. Sometimes you cannot follow that advice, I also had to touch my last booking again (via call with the hotline) and it certainly produced a disaster, price exploded, crazy fees were added. Then you need to be lucky and get a person on the hotline who can fix ist. I was told "I will fix it and call you tomorrow at 10 am if I made it". And he called and he fixed it. I now have to pay EUR 54 more than expected, but this is for two cabins and it was my fault that the first booking was not "perfect". So my advice for all beginners is FIRST THINK, then THINK AGAIN, then BOOK. Then never touch it again. But as my example shows, it is not impossible that the MSC hotline solves a problem fast and efficient.

The "largest" tables are just a lot of square or rectangular tables put together for big groups. You can ask them to do so for you, but there are no big round tables for 20 (certainly). Not much use (if you are not the Russian president), I would prefer two more communicative round tables.

Where to find this Following?

We just walked from the terminal to the Metro, not far, but no signs, you need to use googlemaps. Inside the port there was a shuttle to the gate/ship.

"Foreigners" usually don´t get the PUP emails, but I heard some from UK are lucky.

OK, I am acting the same way, my last 5 bookings are MSC, TUI CRUISES, AIDA, CELEBRITY and MSC again right now. Costa was always more expensive than MSC, not to talk about the Germans. At the moment MSC is sometimes more expensive than all others in Western Med, which I have never seen before. Celestyal and P&O, I heard the names, but have never seen any ships of them or even any advertisement. So they do really exist? 😄

Maybe because you compare them with the US companies in the Med, not with the other Europeans? our past cruises give me this idea 😉