Mark_T

Just when you think there can't be any more bad news like the double booking on the Japan cruises, they wilfully inflict another round of pain on their customers... Hard to have any confidence in future cruise bookings when they are making major changes like this within the 330 day window for airline reservations...

If anyone is using the app to review menus, it is better to select the current cruise for your ship rather than your cruise on the ship as you will generally see less oddities/missing data for the current sailing.

Most excursions can be cancelled without penalty as long as you do it at least 48 hours before the excursion, if you did that, and the excursion wasn't one of the exceptions, you should have got a credit to your onboard account while you were still on the ship?

Sounds like perfect use of OBC... I'm sure my wife will similarly solve the problem of how to spend all of our OBC 🙂

At least in Yacht Club the Future Cruise Consultant will come to meet you in the lounge, so it does make it a bit easier. Spent about 5 mins telling her what we wanted as we saw her in the lounge on our way to dinner, and she had a booking on hold for us with the printed details in our suite a couple of hours later. Confirming and paying the deposit took about 15 mins a couple of days later. ... but yes I can see it taking longer if you need to coordinate with others ashore and for multiple cruises.

Just be aware that MSC are aware of that tactic and current terms permit them to charge an additional single supplement for the remaining passenger and the cancelled 'ghost' forfeits their payment under the normal penalties for cancellation at that late stage.

There was a UK 'Onboard Credit Promo' at the time we booked, we got £780 OBC for booking Yacht Club on an 11 night cruise, then the extra $200 for booking onboard... Pure good fortune, had no idea the promo was on. We only have the one booked at the moment, and only $150 deposit so not much at risk. We won't do anything until after our 2nd MSC cruise though, as the Celebrity cruise is in April 2025 so we have plenty of time.

Airports can also be an easy place to buy a sim...

The quality of the resident musicians onboard, so many great complements to them from the featured entertainers, all well deserved.

We did ask that question, and the answer was that there is a long contract in place that would be expensive to cancel so we are stuck with it...

According to the app, the lobster tail is due to make an appearance on day 7 as a choice on the main menu, not just as an up-charge.(double cheeseburger is day 6). So it looks like it is still there for cruises over 6 days. The rest of the menu that night is not particularly inspiring though with roast lamb as the meat alternative if you do not favor lobster, and flank steak as the 'always available' beef option...

We also have a Japan itinerary booked in 2025 on Millennium, our plans include several visits to Sushi on 5, as we do enjoy sushi. Always worth checking the menu there as there are quite a few options that do not involve raw fish if that is what is putting you off.... I'd have to agree with the other comments though, the location and ambiance in Tuscan is very poor compared to the S class ships. It would have made a lot more sense to put a Murano in there, and LPC is not for us.

Which port? In general dropping of your bags then going elsewhere is possible, but at some ports there isn't really anywhere nearby...

It is hard to resist isn't it? 🙂 You are one step ahead of us, we booked another MSC cruise but we have not yet cancelled our Celebrity cruise to Japan as it is the following year, although it seems likely that we will do that.

Per stateroom. There was also an OBC promotion on all bookings at the time, so we got that as well. In total we will have around $1,200 OBC.

We did keep the promo card they had onboard a couple of weeks ago... The 'Flexibility' bit is where the Future Cruise rep made the comment about changing multiple times, and as presented it was not specifically a Yacht Club perk, just a direct consequence of booking onboard.

These days it is really your choice, as the E class ships have ended the concept of 'fixed' dining. Just go to whichever of the 4 you wish, whenever you wish (during dining hours) and you will be seated. If you chose to stay with one of them the odds are you will be seated in an area served by the same waiting team if possible. ... and you can order any of the specials from each of the 4 in any of the 4, so other than ambiance, there is no reason to prefer one of the others.

For us, on Divina, it continued... We left the ship with another cruise booked for Feb. Yacht Club is addictive 🙂

Are you talking about the 4 Main Dining Rooms, or have you booked a speciality dining package? If it is the MDR then you don't need to worry, as they are not using the advance reservations anyway, just go to the one that seems the least busy and you'll get seated with perhaps a short wait.

ignore.

We were on there a couple of weeks ago to try it out, very happy, have another cruise booked for February also in Yacht Club. Better than the Retreat for around Aqua prices. The entertainment on Celebrity is better than MSC, but the production shows don't change so it doesn't matter how good they are, once you've seen them a couple of times.

I think that would be 'AQ and below...' as AQ just gets classic alcohol and basic wifi.

Took a photo on my phone on a Sunday, uploaded it to a passport photo service online and got a link for a corrected and guaranteed acceptable image within 20 mins. Completed the online passport renewal application on the same day and included the photo link . Didn't actually mail my old passport in until the Tuesday as I was busy, sent it 1st Class signed for, tracking confirmed it was delivered on the Wednesday. Passport was printed by Friday and delivered on Saturday by TNT first thing in the morning.

If it helps, my recent UK passport renewal took less than 7 days from submission to new passport in my hand... You don't require a passport to enter the Channel Islands, but some cruise lines do still insist on you having one even for UK only cruises, no idea if MSC is one of those...

If you mean when making the reservation, then no.