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Oh MSC does status matches to hotels, other cruise lines etc. If you have 6 cruises on Royal you can do a status match with MSC and get some extra perks.

Remember how much less you’re paying if you book with MSC and then set expectations to that level. if it blows you away then it’s a win. MSC seems to be filling ships with these low prices…even though technically they are higher priced than last year when we cruised with them, they’re still way below RCCL and NCL We cruised on MSC for 14 days over New Years in a great aft facing balcony room with drinks and WiFi included for less than what we’re paying for our upcoming 7 day on NCL without drinks. Our cruise on MSC was PACKED with people and I’ll never cruise during a major holiday like that again. But I say try it. You really have to experience it for yourself.

Personally I would not give up 9095 the balcony alone is awesome. HC rooms and their bathrooms are larger Thats a great room. The other room has sleeping for 3rd and 4th with a sofa and Pullman to make a bunk bed (that’s what the key says) I would take 9095 and give your daughter and family the room that sleeps 4.

I think like anything else it’s supply and demand. The ships are fuller now so the prices will creep up. MSC is still the lowest when I price match with other mass market lines (by a lot) That seems to be about right for YC. If you book months ahead you qualify for some discounts/OBC whatever they’re offering at the time.

Thank you! I hope you guys enjoy your cruise too! Can’t wait to hear about it!

Oh for sure everyone has had cuts. Honestly if the passengers on our New Years cruise weren’t so horribly rude it would have been a different experience for us. We love Divina and the crew and the dining room food was very good. It was just very hard to enjoy the ship. If we have the same experience in April on NCL, we will take a break and let the “wave” of folks getting comfortable with cruising again simmer down. Are you on a sailing from NY on Mera?

I couldn’t believe the carnival pricing either! We live in RI so we like to take advantage of the Boston to Bermuda cruises whenever we can. Pearl is our only option now (I miss HAL and RCCL from Boston) I hope your Japan cruise happens. That’s a bucket list cruise for us. Are you doing the crossing?

Yes I was referring to MSC. Our first two MSC cruises were very good. I’m happy to hear that you had a positive experience on NCL in December. We also had a positive experience in April 2022 with NCL and we just booked another for this April. The NCL 7 day cruise is costing us quite a bit more than our 14 day MSC cruise So I’m hoping the “get what you pay for” rings true. 🤞 *We will have our grandson with us this time but his fare was negligible (less than $500) for the week. I spent the last couple of weeks pricing cruises for April and was quite shocked to see Carnival come in higher than Celebrity and Royal and even Virgin on some itineraries. MSC was of course the lowest of all by far.

Completely agree. These companies are trying to bring in as much revenue as they can to make up for the Covid loss. On Divina our dining table was near one entrance of the main dining room so it was quite interesting to people watch lol More than a few times an evening at our seating the hostess didn’t want to let people in who were dressed like they had just come from the pool in shorts, flip flops and beach type hats. She would get the dining room manager who would speak to them for a while but in the end they seated all but one group the entire 14 nts

Saw lots of that on MSC earlier this month. Have seen it on Carnival, Royal and Princess as well.

MSC and other cruise lines don’t handle the upgrade bidding program. They contract that out. Ships are sailing pretty full if not full which explains the higher pricing.

This is what we received on Pearl 04/2022 in our Club Balcony Suite We had our 8 yr old grandson with us so the “treats” they provided on two days lasted about 30 seconds 😂 This is the sparkling wine…awful alone but later we brought some OJ back to the room and made mimosas that were tolerable. This last snack made the 3 of us lol our grandson said “why did they use such a big plate for such a small amount of food?” lol We enjoyed the robes and having a bag of laundry was helpful with an 8 yr old although they lost his hoodie sweatshirt. The one thing that we liked the most about having the club balcony suite was the early embarkation in Boston. That terminal is probably the least organized of any and we live an hour away so we use it a lot. It never improves. 😏

I’m sorry you had to eat your words but now you’ve experienced for yourself what I and others have reported (and we’ve gotten slammed for doing it by some) Unless people have cruised in the last 2 months they really have no idea how much it’s deteriorated. It has zero to do with the poor hardworking crew.

Great news! I’m happy for you! Enjoy your cruise and let us know how it was when you get back! ~Deb

Yes

Right it has to come from the TA not MSC @phissy for the first time we just used a TA for our upcoming NCL cruise because of the “perks”. We are receiving “cash back” in the form or a check or prepaid Visa card (our choice) after we cruise plus a couple of other things. I never saw that before however I never used a TA so there’s that lol I wonder if this cash back thing is new?

I completely agree that it was the off putting behaviour of most of the passengers on our cruise that made the cruise so disappointing. Also the ship was packed over New Year's, although I see you have 3500 on your sailing which is only 300 less than we had. I really think that MSC's lower pricing is playing a part in this. Here's an example: we are paying more for 7 days on NCL in April (without the drink package) than we paid for 14 days on Divina with drinks and wifi included. It's a significant amount more too and our room and balcony on Divina were better. I think with that kind of price difference MSC ships will continue to be pretty full. Add unlimited alcohol and chances are you end up with something like our experience and like the OP is describing on this and other threads today. So if you aren't eating in the MDR and the buffet where are you eating? Are you in the YC. Edit to add: we had positive interactions with 99% of the crew...I'd never blame the crew for what happened on our cruise. I do place that blame on the companies that are over selling when they know they aren't staffed to handle it. It's not fair for the crew or the passengers.

I’ve started scrolling right past the “slammers” on here. I’m so tired of their rants it seems that’s the only thing they post. Not helpful at all. There’s a lot of walking on some of these larger ships and it can be really difficult so I completely understand your frustration at being moved. After all of the thousands of steps we racked up on Divina a few weeks ago we think it’s time for us to look at the smaller ships. I’ve had multiple spine surgeries and it’s getting harder and harder to walk a lot. It’s taken me a few weeks to get back to normal. Good luck I hope someone can help you get a room closer to your original location. ~Deb

Exactly what we all say lol The room we had chosen could accommodate 4 people so I’m thinking maybe they needed it for a new booking

Yes we booked Fantastica too. They can change your room anytime they want unfortunately. We boarded our cruise 12/30 before 11:30a.m. so it is possible if the ship clears immigration early enough that you can get on earlier. By 3:00 you’ve missed a few hours of your first day on the ship. Our boarding times always change multiple times before we cruise. It’s crazy MSC stuff.

@Envelope21You don’t have to wait for your boarding time they don’t look at that. If you can, get to the port earlier and request the change. If you can get a doctor’s note mentioning the mobility issue that may help

Yes our first MSC cruise we received an unsolicited upgrade We were already in Rome when I noticed the email the day before our cruise In our case we went from a Fantastica aft facing balcony that we really wanted to a balcony room in the YC. The YC balcony was a lot smaller than the balcony that came with room we originally booked so at first I wasn’t happy. I quickly got over that once I realized what the YC was. lol I hadn’t spent enough time on the MSC boards here so it was a surprise. I can understand why you aren’t thrilled with being moved to another location. We walk at least 8-10k steps a day when we have aft room.

You can bring packaged snacks. We always bring nuts and power bars etc for excursions.

Oh no I’m sorry he’s not feeling well. I hope the meds kick in and he starts getting better soon. We had a lot of casino people on our cruise. We got pretty friendly with a lady and her daughter who had a table for 2 near us at dinner. She was doing something like 6 weeks in a row on different ships all from casino credits. My husband jokingly said “wow you must have gambled in the 5 figures to get that many days free” and her 21 yr old daughter said “yes she did…she has a little problem” 🙃

That makes me so sad to see this is happening. Divina’s crew has been pushed beyond their limit since Christmas, these poor people need a break. Add that to them having to deal with rude passengers ugh I don’t know how they do what they do. I’m fb friends with our server from our Jan Divina cruise. She posts pictures of her and her husband (also a server on Divina) and they both look exhausted. I feel so sorry for them. I know how you feel about not booking another cruise with them. I was going to book MSC Mera from PC to NY transitioning cruise and my husband said no way. He’s just not ready to give MSC more of our money at this point. (He’s never said no when I mention a cruise) So we just booked a Norwegian cruise for April with our little grandson again and I can’t wait to see if we notice as big a decline as we experienced on Divina recently. (last Norwegian cruise was last April)