Moray Firth Cruiser

Thank you FloatSome & JetSome and Solent Richard for answering the question asked.

As for Luckymal and Bigmike911, thank you but you did not answer the question asked.

Lady L1,

May I ask a favour of you seeing that you are at present on Queen Victoria and with some more sea days ahead, which may give you the opportunity to research and answer a question for me.

I posted a question on this board regarding the theatre boxes on Queen Victoria, but no one has truly answered it.   So, may I ask you, that if or when you have a spare moment, if you could go and look at all the boxes in the theatre and find out how they are numbered?   Probably a number or name on each box door.   If it is at all possible to get a photo of the boxes from the stage and superimpose on the photo the box number or identifying tag for each box, that would be great but a description would also be fine.

Perhaps the main desk might just have a box plan, especially when they can be booked for main shows.   They must have a way of allocating those passengers booked to a specific box.

Kind regards

Does anyone know how the theatre boxes on the Queen Victoria are numbered?

The reason I ask is to enable me to request a particular box when making a theatre booking.

The arrival/departure timings are:

Ship arrives from its India Cruise at 09:00 on Thursday 14th March

The Repositioning Cruise, our cruise, is set for boarding on Friday 15th March

The Ship sails from Dubai on Saturday 16th March at 20:00

Now MSC guidelines state that embarkation closes 2 hours before sailing time. That gives some 59 hours in which the ship is docked in Dubai. From say 10 am on Friday 15th which you indicated is the earliest that I might be able to board, following an overnight flight, which I detest, until 2 hours before sailing time at 20:00 on Saturday 16th allowing some 32 hours for possible embarkation.

BUT!!

Will there be staff on duty in the terminal to board you during the whole 32 hours or will there only be a set period of opening hours and if so how can you find out? MSC are notoriously bad at customer service reply’s and most of my contacts are ship based and none have sailed out of Dubai.

You see not such a simple problem to resolve, when to get good flight seats, you have to book early.

Thanks Preziosa, but you may have noticed that your solution was not one of my preferred options. Do you know anything about a late 8 to 10 pm check in following an evening arrival in Dubai?

As a retired travel writer I have been to Dubai several times so I do know my way around what I term as the middle eastern Las Vegas!! Dubai, like it's airline Emirates First Class Suites, can be a bit over the top and a wee bit too glitzy.

I am one of the minority of cruisers who much prefer to stay on the ship instead of going on extortionately pricey and over long shore trips. After all once the ship discharges its passengers onto port trips you can experience the shear pleasure of the ship all to yourself.

We are booked on a repositioning cruise, my favourite type of cruise, on-board MSC Lirica, also,my favourite MSC Ship, from Dubai back to Venice.

The booking states that our boarding date, in Dubai, is the Friday. No boarding time given until tickets are issued, which is months away. However,the ship is in Dubai for two days with departure late on the Saturday evening.

As with most repositioning cruises with MSC it is cruise only, so will have to organise our own flights.

Because of the time difference between the UK and the Emirates it poses several variations of flight/boarding configurations.

1. We could fly overnight Thursday arriving Friday morning and either go to the ship in the hope of early boarding. Not our favourite option.

2. Or again fly as above but arrange a hotel day room for Friday morning and board in the afternoon. Again, added expense.

3. We could fly on the morning flight from London on the Friday, arriving Dubai around 8pm and go directly to the port to board. This would be our preference.

The problem with scenarios 1 and 3 are:

Will the ship be able to board us if we arrive either early in the morning or late at night? With the last option I would hate to arrive off the evening flight to be refused to check onto the ship on the Friday evening!

Time will not allow us to stay in Dubai in advance of the cruise so that option is not on the cards. Any help on this subject would be most appreciated.

I am always very reluctant to recommend particular cabins “ariellejesse” as everyone who cruises have various and different requirements. For example, some may want to be in the heart of the action and near to bars, entertainment and dining rooms. Others on the other hand may want to be as near the upper decks to take advantage of the open leisure and pool areas. There again some, like me, prefer piece and quiet, so look far a cabin as high as possible. Within as small a group as possible or with a stern or bow facing cabin. However,with diesel electric power plants rear cabins can at times be exposed to soot specs.

On Lirica,my preference is to book cabins 12003 or 12004 on Rossoni Deck 12. They are forward facing cabins located abovethe ships bridge with very private balconies. They are in a very quiet part of the ship being part of a group of only28 cabins. Above is the exclusivesolarium. Being in this selection ofcabins also give us the benefit of breakfast in our cabin at no extra charge. On one of the longer repositioning cruises,this is just a delight and a great way to start a sea day.

As to food,well MSC is an Italian/Swiss family owned company so the food has a distinctiveItalian slant although they do try to match the menus to include delicaciesfrom the sailing areas and ports of call. To be honest, I have sailed on ships with many speciality restaurants,some good and some not so good, but have found that Lirica’s MDR’s equate to ahigh standard. Probably due to thenumber of passengers that the ship can accommodate. Easier to control chefs and waiters.

With regardsto entertainment, well if you are looking for big brash Broadway musicals, thenchoose the biggest ships. Having saidthat, Lirica does have one of the better theatres in the MSC fleet. Again, preferred by many of the performersthat I have spoken to. The lounges willoffer simple small performance areas suitable for combo bands, instrumentalistsand singers. Again, this is perfect formy style of cruising.

A word ofwarning. Remember that MSC cruise shipscater mainly for a European Market and must contend with many different languages. So, if you are expecting English speakingcomedians and so forth then you will be disappointed. MSC is not a Butlin’s at sea cruise line.

I hope thatthis helps but please do not hesitate to ask questions.

I see that Lirica and Bellissima are repositioning through the Suez and the prices are reasonable without the high port/gov.tax charged by US lines. I do not find any recent reviews on Lirica and wonder what members think about the overall experience, food, day activities, etc. Bellissima will be coming later so no info yet, except the proposed itinerary. I would appreciate some thoughts. Thanks

Hi,

I have sailed on the Lirica several times. She was the first MSC ship that I sailed in and reviewed as a travel writer. I would not continue to go back again and again on her if she was not one of the best. It is her size. Not to big and not to small. MSC crew often remarked to me, whilst on other MSC ships, that she was their preferable ship. Now retired I am booked on Lirica's Dubai to Venice repositioning cruise March/April 2019.

Can anyoneadvise me, how long before embarkation day will MSC be able to tell me when my boardingtime will be.

The reason for asking is that I will be on a repositioning cruise, departing Dubai and will be on an independently booked overnight flight arriving 8am in the morning. As I will have to book my flights several months in advance, timings become critical.

It is several years since I last visited this web site and some five years since I cruised on an MSC ship. Then I travelled, with my dear lady, as a guest with a press pass and my last trip was with a great bunch of folk including “Skipper Tim,” on-board the Fantasia from Brazil to Venice.

Now, well and truly retired, I cruise for pleasure and so can avoid the over the top attention given to travel writers.

However, since then MSC have introduced add on experiences such as “Bella, Fantastica and Aurea.”

I am booked on an MSC Lirica Repositioning Cruise from Dubai to Venice, Tim knows my preference for these types of cruises. The booking states that as an Aurea, guest there will be an area of a dining room set aside for Aurea guests. My first question is: Which dining room and which area within that dining room?

My second question relates to boarding. As my flight is overnight, we will arrive in Dubai, terminal 3, at around 8am. Giving say an hour to clear immigration and customs and around thirty minutes to drive to the cruise terminal, arriving at around 9:30 to 10:00, will we be able to board straight away and then wait around, on-board, until our cabin is ready? Or will they keep us hanging around in the terminal until 12 noon?

Titanic to sail again!!

Professor Clive Palmer, chairman of the Blue Star Line, signed a (MOU) Memorandum of Understanding on the 9th May 2014 to build Titanic II.

She will be an exact replica of the original Titanic, inside and out, but with totally up to date naval architectural safety features.

“Titanic II is scheduled to be launched from its construction base in China in 2018, before her maiden passenger voyage retracing its original journey from Southampton to New York.”

More information on the “Blue Star Line” web site.

So is this a good idea or simply a crass idea?

I find this thread fascinating.

My problem is the other way around. We will be disembarking Southampton early morning, in April next year, with four suit cases; however, our flight from Southampton airport is not until five in the afternoon.

What would you advise? Would it be better to take a taxi to the airport after disembarking and place our cases into left luggage, then take a bus back into the town centre, to do what?

I am sure that many of you will have encountered this before, so any rational suggestions would be most welcome.

Thanks for all your comments and please keep them coming.

No one is trying to bash the Royal or any other ship. Can you not see that, for some it may be an important factor in selecting their cruise ship?

Do you think that ‘Carnival’ bury their head in the sand as some CC members appear to do. They don’t!! Feedback is the life blood of the cruise industry. If someone changes their cruise plans due to an on-board factor on a particular ship, then they want to know why and hopefully address the problem.

What does not help is the, I’m all right Jack attitude.

Thank you GLC and Karen for you constructive comments.

It would appear that topics such as this bore some members, ‘ad nauseam’, (sorry about correcting your spelling SD :eek:) or is it that some folk have blinkered views and care little about the welfare of other people. :rolleyes:

I said at the start that I was looking for constructive views and opinions from those who have sailed on this class of ship, especially the 'Royal Princess'.

I have been watching several reviews about the ‘Royal Princess’ and there appears to be a recurring theme cropping up time and time again.

The problem is to do with the number and position of the stairwells. This may sound like a trifling problem but believe me waiting on lifts which at peak times are always full or have no apparent logic is a nightmare which makes passengers flaming mad and having to revert to the stairs. There are also passengers who do not like lifts.

On virtually all 2000 and 3000 plus passenger cruise ships there are normally at least three stairwells located forward, mid-ships and aft. On some ships like the MSC Fantasia class ships there are four stairwells.

I am sure that some bright spark will happily inform us that the mega monsters of Royal Caribbean and NCL only have two stairwells. However, they have a totally different layout, having a horizontal atrium or central promenade and all their stairwells are positioned much more centrally.

Your views on this and your experience of stair and lift usage, on-board the ‘Royal Princess’, specifically at peak times would be of great interest.

However a word of caution:

A post such as this will inevitably divide into two camps.

1. Those with rational experience of stair and lift usage on-board the ‘Royal Princess’.

2. Those who use sarcasm to answer posts and who have not sailed on this ship. To what end they put their oar in I do not know.

Back to reality:

The movement of people or in technical speak; ‘Passenger Transit’ throughout a ship is one of the most important design considerations in the design of passenger ships.

Threads like this are important to cruise lines in monitoring changes to transit layout. The complaints of passengers, their constructive comments and their views and opinions do matter.

A reply, such as just take the lifts, is a ‘non-answer’. Unless a lift system has a computer controlled logic, which few have,a user can find themselves going up and down several times at peak times to reach their destination. This becomes frustrating and annoying.

There are also many who do have a claustrophobic fear of lifts and for them stairs, no matter how long it takes to negotiate them, is the only solution.

Cabin location does have some bearing, but it can sometimes be a difficult decision to juggle cabin facilities likes and dislikes, with location.

I hope that this thread can develop into a practical and constructive debate.

This post appears to be dividing into two camps.

1. Those with rational experience of stair and lift usage on-board ships.

2. Those who use sarcasm to answer posts. To what end I do not know.

The movement of people or in technical speak; ‘Passenger Transit’ throughout a ship is one of the most important design considerations in the design of passenger ships.

Threads like this are important to cruise lines in monitoring changes to transit layout. The complaints of passengers, their constructive comments and their views and opinions do matter.

A reply, such as just take the lifts, is a ‘non-answer’. Unless a lift system has a computer controlled logic, which few have, user can find themselves going up and down several times at peak times to reach their destination.

There are also many who do have a claustrophobic fear of lifts and for them stairs, no matter how long it takes to negotiate them, is the only answer.

Cabin location does have some bearing, but it can sometimes be a difficult decision to juggle cabin facilities with location.

I have been watching several reviews about the ‘Royal Princess’, which is the same basic design as ‘Britannia’ and there appears to be a recurring theme cropping up time and time again.

The problem is to do with the number and position of the stairwells. This may sound like a trifling problem but believe me waiting on lifts which at peak times are always full or have no apparent logic is a nightmare which makes passengers flaming mad and having to revert to the stairs.

On virtually all 2000 and 3000 plus passenger cruise ships there are normally at least three stairwells located forward, mid-ships and aft. On some ships like the MSC Fantasia class ships there are four stairwells.

I have asked the P&O/Carnival press office about these recurring reports and have requested that they ask their senior managers about this. I shall await their reply and report back when and if I get a reply.

I am sure that some bright spark will happily inform us that the mega monsters of Royal Caribbean and NCL only have two stairwells. However, they have a totally different layout, having a horizontal atrium or central promenade and all their stairwells are positioned much more centrally.

Your views on this and your experience of stair and lift usage, specifically at peak times would be of great interest.

Hi Joan and Pat,

Yes A107 and A108 cabins are to have the same layout as M107-M108 and L107-L108 cabins on the Royal Princess, according to Richmond the interior designers, although they will have different fittings and décor. On the Princess they are classed as “Mini Suites” and on the Britannia they are classed as “Superior Deluxe Balcony Cabins” grade DC.

My dear lady and I have booked cabin A107 for the back to back B605/B606 cruises. They are the last cruises of the advertised season. I will be on a 28 day press junket doing follow up articles on Britannia’s first year of cruising and all about her Caribbean debut.

Regards

John

According to the deckplans Britannia has 10 cabin categories, most of which have several grades within them. As I understand it purchasers of a saver fare will only be eligible for upgrades within the category they booked. Select fare bookers will, if they wish, have the opportunity to be upgraded to a different cabin category.

 

not sure how it works for an early saver.

Davecttr, The following is an extract from a Carnival Corp. press release in October 2013.

“Cunard Line and P&O Cruises are doing away with their 'Vantage' and 'Getaway' fares in 2014, less than a year after rolling out the fare structure.

The lines have replaced Vantage fares with 'P&O Cruises Select Price' and 'Cunard Fare' rates, which will allow passengers to pick their cabins as well as dining times and table sizes. The new fares also offer the possibility of cabin upgrades if higher-tier cabins become available prior to the cruise sail date, and include a choice of one of the following: onboard credit, car parking or coach transfers to Southampton. These two new fares will be available on all cruises, according to Cunard and P&O.

Getaway fares have been scrapped altogether, although both lines are introducing a new 'Early Saver' fare. These fares, like guarantee cabin fares, come at a reduced price, but don't allow passengers to choose a specific cabin, only the cabin category and general location on the ship. Unlike guarantee cabins, however, Early Saver fares don't offer the possibility of an upgrade, and mean that passengers will have lower priority when selecting dining times and tables.

The new fare types are bookable beginning 4 November, 2013, and apply to cruises from the spring of 2014 and beyond. All bookings on Getaway and Vantage fares before 4 November will be honoured, according to the lines. 100,000 cabins will be sold on the Select Price and Cunard Fares across 200 cruises, while 90,000 cabins will be available on the Early Saver fares across 178 cruises.”

I hope this helps clarify the situation.

I have just been going through all the posts and I noticed that (Alvin moondust) made a comment that he had noticed some forward facing suites above the bridge.

I know that Cabins A107 and A108 look like suites and that the same cabins on Royal Princess are graded as “Mini Suites” but they are Infact DC class “!Superior Deluxe Cabins”

This highlights a point I posted about in the Cabin Selection Tips Forum under the thread “Confusing Cabin Color Codes”. With a video at: http://cruiseforums.cruisecritic.com/showthread.php?t=2016534

I have read numerous posts, on CC and other forums, from people who are finding it more difficult as time passes to differentiate the cabin colour codes from the on-line deck plans.

The reason for this is that as cruise ships get larger and more cabin grades are being offered, it should be obvious that the natural colour spectrum is starting to merge into a colour wash.

There is, however, a very simple way to overcome this.

All colours used in online graphics have a unique code. There are several different formats, but the best one to use is what is called the “Hexadecimal Colour Code”. It is normally written in this manner, #3A6552 Every colour used in graphics has a unique code, so here’s how to differentiate, those close to call colours, on an online deck plan.

What you need is to have a little program sitting on your computer desktop called a colour picker. The one I use, which is for windows, is called ( Color Cop ). It is free and can be downloaded from http://www.colorcop.net If you are using a Mac or any other operating system, there will be a colour picker designed for them. There are literally hundreds of them out there, but be careful and only download from a reputable source to avoid “PUPS” being planted on your computer.

To use it, once it is on your desktop, just click on it to open and it will sit on top of any program you have open, even pdf files can be picked. These are commonly used for deck plans.

Click the picker and drag it over to the cabin colour, from the chart you want to identify, then click it and the code will be displayed, for example #3A6552

Then go over to the deck plan and click on the cabin colours until you match the code. You have then identified the unique cabin colour, or vice a versa.

I have created a video here to show how to do it: [YOUTUBE]oAWxdVFq4pQ[/YOUTUBE]

Hi everyone,

At last I have managed to get a copy of Britannia’s complete deck plans.

You can view them on this website. www.tich.co by scrolling down the home page and clicking on the picture which says “Britannia Accommodation Plans”

Alternatively, use this is a direct link to the pdf file.

http://www.tich.co/images/Deckplans.pdf

Hi all,

Again there are a lot of assumptions being made!

“daiB” has identified that the suites appear different between the “Royal Princess/Regal Princess” and the “Britannia” and they are.

There will no doubt be some similarities in areas as the naval architecture between the ships is the same, but the fitting out is different. This means that there will be differences in cabins and public areas.

As an example, consider the cost comparison of the aft facing cabins on “Britannia” against those on “Royal Princess”. On “Britannia”, both the suites and balcony cabins on decks “A and G” are cheaper than those on decks “B, C, D, E and F” and they have a different specification. This is not the same as those on the “Royal Princess”, however, the reason according to P&O is their proximity to public areas. This will no doubt allow P&O, a get out of jail card if there are complaints about noise and privacy from those stern facing cabins on “A and G decks”.

Personally I can see no difference as on the “Royal Princess” the “Horizon Terrace” is immediately above what would be the equivalent of “A Deck” and the “Vista Lounge” is directly below what would be equivalent to “G Deck”.

I asked Carnival to explain why there was this difference, but they stick to the party line and state that “the ships are different”!!

In case someone can’t work out what the discrepancy is, let me explain.

The animation clearly shows eight stern balcony separating bulkheads whilst the published cabin deck plans show six on all decks except Deck B which should only have four.

Clearly the animation is not original but has been based on the “Royal Princess” animation.

This should be a warning for not taking anything to literally at this point in time.

Back again,

Just another cautionary note for those who appear to accept the pre-sales computer aided animation as fact.

Take a close look at the stern of Britannia in the animation and see if you can spot the discrepancies between the animation and the deck plans.