perakcruiser

Same for January after Jan 6.

The just raised AGAIN to 12 EUR/14 USD.

Has been discussed here a lot of time. People throw the tissues in the toilet, MSC says, this makes problems.

Both. Basically all shows in the theater are free. But if some very special guest artists from outside do a show then there can be a fee. It happens extremely rare, but I remember the Buena Vista Social Club coming on board in Havana.

Thanks, so as expected. I am pretty sure this Garden Kitchen will be dead empty when the ship sails in Europe. The only clientele that would pay that prices "lives" in the YC and also will not go there.

Wow, these prices are pretty high. I guess the Dining Experience cannot be used with Diamond/Black. Great to finally know the Dammam procedure in black and white. So I guess it is best to prepare absolutely nothing and then book the 22 USD visa when getting the letter above.

I don´t know any other place apart from Marseille, for sure nothing on this trip. Hamburg on a Sunday the MSC shuttle probably is your best choice. Zeebrugge you can also take the public bus to Brugge, the stop is close to the port at the church.

No. But MSC is a little bit different, usually the excursions are never fully booked before the cruise. There are very few exceptions, but 4 weeks before your cruise you still should get everything.

I really don´t understand anything that Carnival is doing. They destroyed Costa, a brand they desperately need to compete with MSC. Giving up the Chinese market is totally crazy as it obviously is the most important of the future. The only reason why AIDA is working well, Carnival let them do their business and does not involve too much. I have no doubt that MSC will make it to the top, their bosses are smarter.

They probably follow the rule "Book and never look at the prices again". By the way, also the American lines do not allow their European customers free cancelation even if the cruise is two years away. But to be true, they found a solution not to confuse their booking systems.

It is very simple, usually when you cancel a MSC cruise minimum 20 percent of the price is the cancellation fee. So MSC certainly will never give you the current price if you want to upgrade or change after a price drop. For whatever reason, maybe legal stuff, MSC US customers can cancel for free if they do it long enough before the cruise. That confuses MSCs famous IT, so don´t blame the agent. There is no solution to this.

No problem with English, but don´t expect any other language apart from these two.

The MSC app only works properly when you are connected to the ships internet. Before and after it is pretty useless. But this is the norm at least on European cruise lines.

Depends on the ship! Certainly the water park on Armonia is a different thing than on Seaview. But for very small kids the one on Armonia is better.

The out of Havana cruise with the Armonia was really hard to beat. Just perfect.

I don´t really understand why CCL is destroying Costa (and maybe also Aida). These are great products that can compete with MSC. Which by the way 10 years before were bigger in Europe than MSC, hard to believe nowadays.

You also can see it from the other side. Are RCCL, Carnival and NCL really offering a good product for the Non-US-market? If they want to keep up with MSC they need to improve. I am not sure if they are able to compete at all.

That is because for almost all markets MSC does not collect the taxes and fees separately. It is part of the cruise price. Actually in many European countries it would be illegal to add these taxes and fees as the published price always have to be final. Even RCCL and Carnival have to follow the final price rule there for all of their cruises. Also for me MSC never returned anything because of missed ports, but I also did not expect it. Anyway I highly prefer the European system and totally hate the fake prices for Asian and American markets.

The refurbishment was in 2015! If you know any Lirica-class ship, then you basically know the Sinfonia.

Not so new, a couple of years already. The ship docks indeed opposite Stadium 974, Googlemaps marks the position as Cruise Ship Hotel - MSC Poesia (at least now).

Yes, that was the way before and I don´t see any reason why it should have changed.

Yes, you can disembark anytime after the 9am arrival on Feb 11. Certainly you also can stay until lunch time on Feb 12. And you can go to city and return anytime between.

Good, I one time crashed with no idea into this Pentecost holiday week in central Europe without knowing, that was not good.

Also in the Middle East. And also on other Norway cruises with starting points in Germany or Denmark. And Brazil. Even the Caribbean cruise I did with MSC had embarkation almost at every port, but this has changed I think.

Ok, I was talking about this: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pentecost