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Linked 3 staterooms together and had no issues doing everything for everyone including the COVID stuff. Pictures of them and I had their passport and vaccine cards for the check-in is all I needed to get everyone checked in and a port arrival time.

The promo ends next week and I have never really looked at MSC before so I am not sure if I am good to just wait for my September cruise as they typically just repeat sales consistently. The main thing for us would be $500 for a YC room and the room price itself. With Royal/NCL/Celebrity/Disney they basically just "end" their sale but start another one that is pretty much exactly the same it seems other than possibly kids cruise free going away.

I have been looking and one of the rooms I see is 19046 which is closer to the elevators/stairs which seems like a good benefit. Also seems like the deck noise should be minimal since its off in the corner of the sun deck and not next to the main pool area that might get more foot traffic above your room. Do YC rooms get access to the Top 19 location or just Aurea? There are rooms on 16/18 but they are fairly far forward making it less convenient to get to the top deck. I might be over thinking all of this though.

Wondering when they charge you at end of cruise is it settled in Geneva Switzerland? Or is it based in the US? Heard someone say it was Europe on their cruise recap and they cruised out of the US.

Ya I was trying to search and normally I have google-fu but it was failing me likely because while the first long term ship in NA was in 2013 they were visiting routinely back to the early 2000's.

Interesting and its funny how it kept going back a little further and further on each response so far. If I end up cruising MSC in September I might ask them on the ship as well if they know.

When was the first MSC cruise out of the US? What about its first full "season"? I tried looking it up but couldn't come across anything but from my understanding MSC is "newer" compared to other cruise lines for the US/Caribbean.

I want to add the Haven area is great but step outside of that area and it can be interesting. I had the worst "buffalo" sauce I have tasted in my life in one of their pub areas on the Encore. Haven was amazing though and at the time even though they had capacity restrictions for the ship there was not capacity limit on the Haven so all the rooms were full. I will say though Haven is a little overpriced typically but you can get some good "deals" if flexible when traveling. Plus Haven > Royal suites since Haven has its own pool and hot tubs.

I am not attacking you for this comment I just wanted to call out I see this excuse a lot. Its never an acceptable excuse in the service industry in my opinion though (not saying you are saying it is). I see something similar with Disney World as well where people try to place it on employee shortages. Thing is when I cruised in Sept '21 or visited WDW in Jan '21 it was still an amazing experience because of the capacity restrictions. I think the issue many have is they are only now visiting and don't realize having shortages doesn't need to diminish the experience if managing capacity correctly. Heck most of the OPs complaints likely wouldn't happen if the ship was held to 50% capacity. More room in pools (even with part of it closed), less stress on server with less people in restaurant (so they could follow up and correct issue), better quality food (don't need to pass of poor ingredients as acceptable because of supply chain issues since they don't need to make as much food), ect. This is also one of the big hesitations I have with jumping in to an Allure or Symphony cruise in September vs going elsewhere for a "ship within a ship" suite.

How late is the buffet open typically? Also if we stay Yacht Club it sounds like there is no charge for the pizza delivery (other than optional tip).

And????? I outlined some of the reasoning and very very little of it has to do with a very small part of the population choosing to take "free money" as was suggested up thread. You are looking at a workforce that is equal to 2019 as far as size. Businesses can adapt or die just like they have for the past 10, 100, 1000 years. Are certain businesses lacking employees? Yes and the easiest way to plug that gap is to raise the pay to lure employees from competitors or from other industries. A harder option is to automate or streamline processes to reduce the required worker count. But sure its those "free loaders" who are just taking "Free housing, food, spending money, phones, unemployment, healthcare, etc." that completely make up that gap (look at the numbers its not because again we are at 2019 levels of working individuals in the US). It comes down to people finally getting a living wage and not needing to work multiple jobs. As an example in 2019 you had between 8.5%-9% of working Americans holding multiple jobs that plummeted to 4.6% at the end of 2021. That is between 6-7m "missing" workers which causes roughly a 4% shortage of workforce. In 2019 there were 7m-7.2m job opening we are sitting at roughly 11.4m job openings right now. That means you are short an additional 4m employees which is less than the "missing" workers. Force everyone who was working two jobs before the pandemic to take up a 2nd job again and you would eliminate the job gap plus some. To note I am not saying to force anyone to take a 2nd job I am happy people can live of a single job instead of needing 2 or 3 jobs to make ends meet. Business will adapt or die and better business models will replace them (restaurants as an example are not going anywhere).

Is this the same pizza as whats in the buffet area? What free options for pizza are there around the ship?

No issue come September correct? Based on the comment above seems to be a now issue but will not be a later issue.

The "issue" is that people in various service jobs are being paid more, are more likely to have access to healthcare, and can avoid working 2/3 jobs as they can afford (at least for now) the ability to work 1 job. Everyone always loves "oh you think they will give up free money". People are still working and we are back to pre-pandemic total employee levels. This is as new worker entry slows (population growth has been on the decline since 1994) and retirement age population explodes (almost doubling from 2010 to 2030). This all adds up to less working hours to spread around to jobs. I would also say quite a few businesses were bailed out by COVID that should have closed or went bankrupt as well since they could get loans they normally wouldn't have access to or they shut their doors extending their closure date out in to the future further since they would not run out of capital as quickly. Businesses are just way behind in streamlining their service jobs but Walmart is taking strides as an example as they increase the number of self service registers across the US. McDonlads has put in self ordering kiosks in more places is another example of little things to reduce the requirement for workforce letting them pay more to fewer employees.

I was wondering for the Yacht Club meals is it all you care to enjoy. I don't eat like I used to but I do at times order a couple of apps or possibly a 2nd entre so we can try it. From my understanding there is no limit but just checking. My status was matched to Diamond as well and from what I understand we might get 1 meal in a specialty restaurant is that accurate? We haven't booked yet but the more I read the more I am leaning towards taking the dive. We really loved the Haven on NCL but they don't have anything in the Caribbean in September that works for us. Its coming down between this and a couple other options for a September trip.

Honestly we had no issues thought there was a good number of plugs in the room. You could check out a youtube video room tour as well if you wanted to make sure. We brought our euro adapters as well but never needed them.

Luckily the longer cruises still have testing otherwise I wouldn't be looking to travel with Royal in September. Yes COVID will still get on the ship but this does help cut it down some. Plus the big benefit of testing being a thing is that Royal will let you cancel last moment. Maybe they keep this around with testing being dropped though. I will say as well I am good if they let unvaccinated guests travel of any age as well. Since the shutdown for me its always been testing was the best, then masking to an extent, and anything with unvaccinated never made that much sense.

They are saying to test the kids before you leave home just to see if they have COVID. If they are negative they likely will be negative when they get the actual test that Royal is going to accept a couple days later.

You could have avoided this simply by testing though back in June and you can test within 5-10+ days after the exposure. If you have health insurance you can also claim free tests monthly up to 8 of them if I am not mistaken so using a couple here or there isn't that big of a deal especially if you have any symptoms even if you think you have a cold. Then if you tested positive call up your doctor and ask how they want to handle it so you can get a certificate of recovery as you will be going on a cruise in X days.

I don't understand? You can get packed now and not wait? With the kids you have pre-school so on the way there or home simply schedule the test around that so you can swing by to do the test. Separately you can get tests from emed and just do it online at any time you want. We went with emed last time and it was super easy. If you are not sure watch some videos on it first on youtube as they show you how it works. Getting tested at this point is fairly easy IMO unless the cruise line requires specific testing like they do for Kids who can't be vaccinated.

So on a cruise I am looking at they have a Suite Guarantee where its where they select your room. Thing is when I go to choose rooms myself its not listed there and there is no mention of Jr Suite either as a category to choose to guarantee option. The lowest category under "you choose" is the Grand Suite. Is there an extra good chance of getting a better suite category than Jr. Suite? I know nothing is for sure. Never have come across it this way before as normally I will see a Jr Suite Guarantee but possibly that category is sold out and the reason why they don't list it? Cruise is in just over a month.

Submitted last night at like 11PM in the US and got the email today about status match about 12 hours later. Hilton Diamond -> MSC Diamond

Where did I say it was the ships choice? Also where did I say I was correct or had superior knowledge? I was stating my view on if I were in that situation or someone I cared about. Maybe I am different though because I have had a medical situation where two medical professionals ended up with different conclusions and the "normal" way things worked caused big issues. Thats fine they can likely be correct.

Since shutdown 2 of my 3 cruises have been booked with a week to go. I typically don't have time to countdown. Longest I ever booked out a cruise was like 4 months when I took my parents to Alaska. I am right now thinking about a cruise in September without a clue what ship I might go on (not even sure if RCI, NCL, DCL).

They are not going to change anything? In that article it said the CEO even said the precruise testing will be around for a couple months at least. So likely they will wait see if other cruise lines implode after removing the requirement and go from there possibly?