perakcruiser

In Hamburg unfortunately the public transport ignores the port on Sundays. If you want to leave the ship better take the MSC shuttle.

No, all European or Asian cruise lines will not offer cold ice tea. It is something totally US, very strange that you expect it everywhere in the world.

Yes, every answer you got was true (somehow). Because everything is possible 🙂 Ships, ports, staff (who is on duty this day is not on duty the other day), sometimes you get away with six bottles of wine, sometimes one bottle of water will set off the alarm.

When I read "Quebec" I think it is good to remind you, that you should ignore everything said by a Non-Canadian. Every market has different rules, mostly totally different.

Depends on the number of UK pax. If the ship stops Southampton then Indian food options are available daily😄

Maybe not on all cruises, but on most. It is absolutely logic that MSC needs to limit the bookings to allocation. Otherwise loads of cabins are not bookable because they are occupied one or two days. Late releases for YC cabins were very common, now with the upgrade bidding less. The Virtuosa cruise you are talking counts as five different cruises that share one boat. You cannot grab a Rotterdam cabin from Southampton. Only if it is empty for the next cruise also, then there will be a late release.

When MSC has to change the number of seatings the old times get cancelled. Happens many times. One of the reasons for this. In your case it looks like they have to change from 2 to 3 seatings because the ship will be on full capacity I guess. In Northern Europe MSC is happy about every guest who wants late seating 😄

Usually families get there own table, even with odd numbers like 3. We never got seated together with others when travelling with our kids and also were never seated together with a family with kids when travelling without them.

Hope that you win as you are one of the few that could produce a YC review that is useful for me.

I highly recommend the Louvre Museum in Abu Dhabi. All transport can be done by Careem. Walking distance from the ship is the fish market (more interesting that one might expect) and also the eastern part of the Corniche.

Waste of time. First the call center agent has no idea and second whatever he answers has no relevance on board. The 1 hour free access will not be extended to the second guest and also can not be transferred to anyone else, not even to your spouse. The only option apart from a very expensive day pass is to book a cheap massage/treatment and enjoy the complimentary spa access with this to join the wife.

If a US passport holder talks to MSC USA and it is not a difficult thing that might can happen. This case involves a Chinese passport holder and Egypt and Saudi, totally impossible to get information from the cruise line hotline.

Totally understandable. Would have done the same if I would be anywhere close to Paris at that date 😄

Yes, no problem. I don´t think ANY European cruise line allows you to bring alcohol on board.

299 including the flights? I thought I have seen (and booked) quite some crazy good deals in my life, but that is absolutely amazing.

Did you ever try to do this? It is TOTALLY useless, MSC and the other cruise lines will REFUSE to give you any information, don´t know if the Americans are different, but I am pretty sure they will not answer anything expect "Please contact the relevant embassy" or recommend a visa agency they are working together. In this case I think a denied boarding is a quite high risk as it is a MSC flight and MSC probably instructs the airline to check the visas already in Europe.

Yes. And the other ships are from Ponant Cruises.

What I can tell you is that you can change a passenger name without any costs. That is why we booked Fantastica on a Meraviglia cruise because it was not sure if my dad can join. I called MSC before to ask if "free change" means this and it was confirmed and later it was no problem to change to my brother.

You´re welcome. And as you are from Dubai nobody needs to tell you that you should download and set up the Careem app before the cruise 😉

This will never happen. No need to worry at all. Go on board and make your bookings, by no means any of the speciality restaurants will be full on this cruise. That also should be absolutely no problem to board in Abi Dhabi at 11 or 12.

That is normal. Sometimes you get the email, sometimes not. Sometimes the email links to a proper page for updating, sometimes just to the normal webpage. You can call them, update via phone and hope for the 100 points. Did not work out on our last cruise a couple of weeks before. Did you follow the T&C exactly? This worked out perfect, we got the 700 points one week before the cruise. Apart from the 100 for updating we also did not get the 100 for 150€ spending before the cruise. My motivation to complain is limited as this 200 points wont help me much.

Genua is the biggest port by far with the longest waits. It all depends on the ship or better said ship class. From my experience on the newer (and bigger) ships, Aurea has the exactly same menu as the main dining. Only somebody who was recently on for example Armonia can answer the question.

Been on both, I really do not remember ANY difference. But surely there are some if one searches long enough🙂 On the other hand the differences between West Med and East Med cruises are gigantic. So really no use to think if the two ships are slightly different or not.

In January you could see all the menus for the whole cruise from Day 1 already. Now on the Virtuosa you can only see lunch and dinner for the day.

Yes, on all MSC ships the Spa is the Spa and there are no special areas.