alyssamma

So, if I use the app to try and get into Ocean Ready, it asks for my booking number. When I provide it, it says it's already taken. Doing it on a laptop lets me in, but every time I go in it moves me from Green lane to Blue and asks me to read the travel contract again. Is this a bug or am I doing something stupid? TIA

@Stockjock gave you a great answer. Let me just add, when you get onboard, you'll enjoy it. If you have to deal with customer service for anything, it may or may not be a pleasant experience. You may also, as @Stockjock said in his post experience a change to your itinerary - possibly without them letting you know - so you need to keep an eye on your booking. It sounds like a lot of trouble to go through for a cruise, and it is, but again, once onboard, you'll enjoy it. Especially if you said in the Yacht Club.

Wasn't laughing at you. Was making fun of MSC. You have over 2K posts...I assumed (incorrectly?) you were familiar with how horrible MSC is. If you re-read my post I think you'll realize I was sarcastic and anti-MSC, not anti-you.

LMAO, curious? Have you sailed MSC? This is how they work. Make it hard. Make it unusable. And god forbid if you need to change anything. Honestly, I was curious to see the prices, but I wouldn't trust MSC with my flights or hotels. Half the time they don't keep my cruise reservation straight.

How do you book it? I just see: If you have already booked an MSC Cruise online, MSC Hotels and Flights will provide the best available selection of hotels, flights and transfers at any moment.

I've found this to be the case also depending on the ship. The ability to make calls is blocked on some plans which effectively means turning on WiFi calling is useless. Whether or not you can use regular texting depends on your carrier and phone (Android vs iPhone). That being said, as @rubytuementioned, WhatsApp works fine, regardless.

How do threads like this get reopened after so long? The person who did so only has a handful of posts...did they really go back and read through 2yrs of posts? Did they use the search? Is it a troll who purposefully looks for old threads and then brings them back to life? Inquiring minds want to know 🙂

It isn't cheaper but you'll get perks (e.g., extra OBC) Also, MSC is really hard to deal with so a good TA can hide that trouble from you. As @Bgwest said, it's hard to xfer afterwards, but not impossible. Basically it is a manual process (you fill out a form, scan it, and email it) and it can take a while (1+ months), but it will eventually happen. If you see a great price/cabin and you want to grab it and then xfer, do it.

Well, as the OP I just wanted to update on my experience. After 2mo of emails and being told everything to "soon", "once final payment is made", "onboard", "a few weeks before the sailing", and some weird thing about the contract they had with my TA, I finally got them to add it. As always, persistence is the key with MSC and the struggle and hoops they make you jump through to get the basic stuff that is owed to you is why I love sailing them 🙂

This is the perfect and correct answer (for the US at least). FYI, the TA I normally use does the above based on the cruise line. So for MSC, it is always OBC. But, for example, for HAL, they always do a discount.

Thanks for this...something has definitely changed. I believe they are even more a**backwards than usual on this.

The above posters gave excellent and correct info. I will just add that sometimes HAL gives money specifically for shore excursions. Not sure if any of your OBC is this, but if it is, then you can use it immediately. I know you'll get it with Have It All, but not sure if you can get it other ways. You may also have dinner credits (i.e., free dinners)...these you can book/use right away also.

So, to be clear, you purchased the "bag"...was it $40 - 15% or were you charged some other rate?

As Diamond, you know MSC...this attitude surprised you? 🙂

Is this the policy for non-alcoholic packages? I'd believe it from MSC, but was just making sure that's what you meant...

Based on your signature I assume you aren't in the US...the rules are different by country. The OP seems to be in Canada also, so maybe it will work for them. Also, to be clear, you said price match, but I assume you mean you repriced it because of a price drop...correct? MSC - at least for the US - seems to have several new policies...not repricing seems to be one of them. But even before I've had problems and had to cancel and rebook to get lower fares. That being said, regardless of what is being done, "no trouble at all" isn't really something people say when they have to call MSC...

I would suggest renting a car for the day and seeing all of the waterfalls and other scenery. Very easy to drive, and relatively inexpensive (compared to the cost of a tour).

Excellent responses, but I will add/clarify one thing. I don't think they honor price drops. With YC, it's basically too bad 🙂 With other categories I believe you have to cancel and rebook. Of course, what you said about calling back several times is *always* true, so who knows. I have a YC cabin I've called probably 5 or 6 times and wasn't able to get it dropped. I have a non-YC cabin with the same thing...they made me cancel and rebook.

This was not the case with my drop or the OP's.

You also get upgraded within your cabin category and you get priority tender, which on your sailing may be a big plus.

LOL, sorry, cruise *fare*, not face 🙂

So, we had this happen too. We transferred our cruise to a TA and I noticed the price dropped. When I looked at the details, the actual cruise face went up, but the port charges and taxes dropped from $460pp to $206pp. Didn't ask why, and won't 🙂

Thanks. However the problem is on their end. I'm an MSC vet and understand what you have to do. They keep telling me I'll get it onboard (which is a lie), so I have to just keep pestering until they do their job.

Crap like this is why I *hate* MSC. I had stopped sailing them but a friend is getting married and going on Seascape for their honeymoon and asked us to join. I can emphatically say this is the absolute last MSC cruise I'll take. No amount of luxury on the ship is worth dealing with their customer service.

The OP has a passport. It's the person he's traveling with that doesn't. Your advice is correct, and I would recommend traveling with a passport instead of BC, but it doesn't answer the OP's question which was how to enter BC info...