peder

It's been said repeatedly that the two lines will operate independently from each other because MSC wants Explora to consistently deliver better service, and I think that makes sense. But from a corporate strategy perspective, I assume a big reason for operating as two companies is that it makes an eventual sale (full or partial) of Explora or MSC easier. MSC is doing a ton of the heavy lifting to get Explora off the ground, and they probably want to eventually see the benefit of that work. As an example, they may be able to later sell something like 10-20% of the business, then take those proceeds to fund the next round of ship expansion under the MSC label. Of course, they may not ever do that, but typically from a strategy perspective, you'd want to leave as many of those types of options open.

The aft outdoor lounge space is new

At this rate, they'll mass-market Explora so much they'll just re-merge operations with MSC

I had wondered if they were going to end up in the fjords after the Virtuosa had some itineraries modified, but now it's clear the scheduling changes across the two lines are unrelated.

I believe it's just the Virtuosa, but I find it all a bit odd TBH. From where I sit, I don't understand how they couldn't have anticipated the "port congestion", and why that would only impact 1 ship.

I wonder if there are reasons they don't simply jack up the port fees and taxes in these towns. Seems like that would be an effective tool to limit demand.

I just think it's weird that the cruising/travel community treats the fjords differently than everywhere else with respect to cruise traffic and pollution. For some reason, it's rarely mentioned that Alaskan or Chilean fjord cruises should be limited, but the Norwegian fjords are held to a completely different standard. Also, there's a more persistent belief that visiting Norway by sea is somehow less legitimate than by land.

Sure, that itinerary wasn't changed too much, but the June 15th one was completely changed, and MSC isn't offering any kind of price-matching or onboard cruise credits to make up for the change.

Someone on Facebook received an email with their updated itinerary for the August 31st sailing on the Virtuosa:

We don't know the reason yet. Maybe sales for these 4 Virtuosa sailings are coming in low because of the launch of the Euribia. It's not as if MSC is the only one that's sending ships to Geiranger, and I haven't seen any indication that the Celebrity Apex is avoiding the fjords in 2024, for instance.

I mean, I confirmed it directly with MSC, it's not going to the fjords. It remains to be seen if the Euribia fjords sailing will be impacted. Emails will be going out tomorrow.

There are 4 impacted sailings, sounds like 2 in June, and 2 in August?

I just called and can confirm. New ports will be: Copenhagen, Oslo, Zeebrugge

I believe OP's post was tongue in cheek, so the laughing emoji was appropriate

We're limited in total number of vacation days and timeframes that we can take per year, so we wouldn't prioritize an "average" cruise (and I hate to use that term) over other vacation types/destinations. But it's a great time for us to get into cruises when there's a million new ships coming online at the same time, and not all of them solely fill cookie-cutter itineraries. Also, I'd say that "interesting" itinerary is really subjective and based on a lot of factors. For instance, we chose a cruise itinerary based on an embarkation location that would allow us to do a "sea to sky" type of sea+land vacation. So for us, that's really interesting, even if it's not optimal in terms of each port stop.

We only book at the intersection of both newer ship + interesting itinerary

Stayed in 14001 on the Seascape, felt very little movement. Seemed much worse in the aft of the ship as we were walking around.

Somewhat tangential here, but on our Seascape cruise at Aurea level, we simply walked in maybe 5 minutes before a show started and found plenty of front row seats for our family. There were empty seats everywhere. Also the reservations on the app usually suggested that not many people were going to the shows. Maybe the shows' reputation are catching up and demand is waning overall?

Right, I personally would not consider Bella or Fantastica given the crowd levels I saw on the Seascape. For me the question isn't whether YC is worth it over Bella or Fantastica, it's more of a question of the value compared to Aurea, which has exclusive areas, priority embarkation, and of course, larger rooms. Basically, they market Aurea as a "Lite" version of Yacht Club, but then the staterooms tend to be unique and larger in Aurea, so it's not just that Aurea is "lesser" it's actually a set of trade-offs. The net effect is that MSC probably leaves revenue on the table by selling Aurea as a separate tier instead of simply combining the two (and they already converted the Duplex suites on the Meraviglia class of ships to Yacht Club, so there's some evidence that MSC felt they had an incorrect supply mix).

On the Seascape, I believe there were two different heights depending on the slide type. I believe they were 40" (for the racing and swirly slide) and 48" (for the tubing slide)

You're not even the 1st person in this thread to have this unoriginal comment. MSC is a family-friendly line (even MSC's luxury line Explora is intended to be family-friendly). Probably not the right tree to be barking up given the company's market positioning.

I believe it's just a handful of the forward-most cabins on the Seaside-class ships (the 2-bedroom grand suite). There are only 3 of these on this class of ship.

It probably just results in families zooming up and down the hallways more rather than staying in their private enclave. I'm still booking multigenerational travel with MSC, but now we'll be spread out all over the YC, even across floors. We'll probably use the Royal and Duplex Suites as hangout spots, but it'll be extra traffic just between cabins that would be avoided if they had proper YC family suites/villas.

Oh I know it! The Haven pricing is absurd. The advantage of their family and villa staterooms is that there's a common living space that serves as a private enclave. Great for family get-togethers. If not so prohibitively expensive, we would have strongly considered even their 3-bedroom option for a multi-generational / family-reunion type of cruise.

@Nashna maybe when comparing YC to Bella and Fantastica (or when comparing experience levels across ships), the differences seem more stark, but we were pleasantly surprised with how empty the Top 19 solarium was in the Aurea experience on the Seascape, and we had very short lines anywhere (during embarkation, we actually saw folks in the Yacht Club room waiting for butlers, while we zipped up to the ship quickly). We travel with our 3 kids, so our situation is probably a bit different. We would probably book the 2-bedroom Aurea suite anytime it's available. If Yacht Club had a Family Suite--like every other cruiseline seems to offer these days--we would probably always book YC. But the cabin configurations in YC are really not conducive for larger families. It seems weird to me that NCL will have maybe 1/2 of their cabins in the Prima/Viva Haven suitable for larger/multigenerational families traveling together, but MSC has effectively zero.