stoneman56

Well this is what it says on my booking and I'll be taking this with me when we sail in December

2 hours ago, mef_57 said:

How many are you?

I took the National Express bus that leaves from Heathrow to a few blocks from the ship.23pounds one way (which included a 5Pound added charge to change the booking within in a 24 hour window before or after time booked)...which helps with overseas flights in December.

Yes National Express run from Gatwick to Southampton Coach station. Then get an Uber from there to the terminal. Quite cheap if not a little long journey time.

The slides were not working while in any port when we sailed in December.

A real bummer because that's the only time we would have gotten near them. 

On 4/23/2019 at 7:01 PM, sidari said:

As far as I know Princess do not make a charge for food at Princess Cays.

The last time we sailed with NCL (3 years ago) they didn't charge for for on Great Stirrup Cay

On 4/8/2019 at 4:12 AM, goosemay said:

I’ve tried to get on the MSC USA site for two days. It claims that I live in a different country... I spent over an hour on hold trying to get help. MSC has the same problem. They cannot log on for me. Ugh.

I've been having that problem for a month now. Tried different browser, VPN, clear cookies and start again, used 4G, you name it I've tried it. If I don't get the "you need to log in from your home country, ", I get "your email has not been verified"

On 3/23/2019 at 2:42 PM, CruiseLand said:

Thank you so much for answering my questions. My son only 6 years old and still need milk do that need to pay too?

I think there is a little bit of over reaction going on here. Just image your scenario, you would like some hot milk for your 6 year old. You get a glass of it from the dispenser (homogenized/pasteurized) walk up to a member of staff and ask if you could please have it heated up. What do think their answer would be? 

MSC staff that we have encountered have always been as good as any one any line we have been on. 

There is even a button on your table to press and someone comes over right away and takes your drinks order. 

On 2/26/2019 at 6:39 PM, PTC DAWG said:

Thanks for the review, sailing Seaside in April....first timer on MSC...have The Easy drink package, if you had any experience with that, or saw any, any info appreciated.  Thinking of upgrading to Premium.  

 

How were dining times handled?  I'm used to NCL freestyle.  Or just HIT the buffet.  

Upgrade the drinks, no question about it. The buffet on Seaside is rubbish. Very little choice in the evening, basically what is put out for lunch. Do the MDR. 

44 minutes ago, CruzLover80 said:

So I will write a little diddy about attire. So my husband and I travelled in a carry on for 17 days.  So no, we did not pack for elegant nights, more for comfort and practicality, with pieces that could be dress casual. So we were always dressed appropriately. The Europeans do dress up a lot more but again it was mixed in attire. A little black dress and slacks for my husband was sufficient. Leave the rest at home. Both our AirBnB offered a washing machine and we had laundry service on the ship. Traveling light is the way to go, we have been on 2 planes, many trains, buses, and a lot of walking, so our little bags were perfect for navigating thru the cities. 

I’m sure he looked lovely in it😂😉

We got lousy post it notes as our gifts on the Seaside in December

14 hours ago, heatherb1958 said:

 

Sorry Lesley for jumping in on your review.

 

captainJohn-  To clarify , the nacho chips and salsa were on Seaview , not Bellissima. You can get free bowls of nuts,potato chips and what I call teeth breakers on Bellissima.Never saw , see photo, of what we had on Seaview . 

 

Never saw anything like that on Seaside in December

I think the promo is finished now

Tried all of the above and still not getting in. I can't see any of my bookings to make sure the 10% discount was taken off.

Anyone else unable to access their account? I'm in the UK, not using a VPN but get the message that I am not allowed to proceed to this site, please go to your site to proceed. 

But the addy is the co.uk one.

Tried using 4G as well on different devices and either get an error message or the prohibited from this country one.

23 hours ago, Captain-John said:

My TA has advised that this cannot be applied to existing bookings.

 

It was worth a shot!

But it can. I got it and several other people on this thread got it applied as well. 

1 minute ago, Captain-John said:

 

Good stuff, thank you. I do suspect (although haven't been monitoring) that prices would have been increased prior to this promotion going live, so to me there's more value in getting it added to an existing booking (that may have been booked at an 'un-inflated' price).

 

I may try my luck with my T/A on my existing booking - final payment due in July - nothing to lose! And I'll print another code should I see a new booking opportunity before the deadline in April.

 

 

The price for our cruise hasn't been inflated, in fact we could have changed to a week earlier (because the cabin we wanted wasnt available on our date) and it was a couple hundred cheaper. 

5 minutes ago, Captain-John said:

 

Seriously?! I'm not sure whether to waste the voucher on an existing booking or whether to make a new one. I didn't book directly with MSC - I'm presuming you did?

 

Is it only 1 voucher per person - i.e. if I managed the same trick as you could, I get another code and also make a new booking? Or I could get a code in DW's name and book her as the primary occupant on any new booking I suppose.

 

I thought it was pretty clear it was only for new bookings hence my surprise at existing bookings (both US and UK) being able to benefit from this.

 

 

Yes booked directly online. I thought I'd give it a go and just phoned and asked. She was really nice about it. I just said I have found a discount code and wondered if I could try it on my existing booking.

Yes you can use more than one. I made a booking online earlier today with a code. Then went back to the page where it came from and generated another code and phoned about having it applied to the booking I had already.  

Got it added to an existing booking for next year. Phoned UK number and spoke to a lovely lady named Jackie who added it no problem at all.

Just worked for me from the UK site. Using the Fantastica  premium drinks upgrade deal as well. Double bubble saved us over £400. THANKS OP!!

On 3/6/2019 at 9:46 PM, Até said:

I agree, the truly special Aurea suites are a more complicated decision.  But I think most people on this thread, at least myself, are talking Fantastica versus Aurea balcony cabins, the majority of Aurea cabins, where the only differences are the perks.  On the other side you have the Fantasia class forward facing Aurea suites with sealed panoramic windows which I would compare to ocean view cabins, those are usually still available late in bookings and my bet is they frequently get filled by upgrades from ocean view.

I can see your point now as I have just booked this offer going for a Balcony cabin and Fantastica with the free drinks upgrade. We usually only go for suites and we are booked for a week on the Grandiosa June 2020,  so after reading this thread I started looking (as you do)  and found a nice 2 week cruise on Seaside this December with the promotion. It was half the cost of an Aurea package. 

I'm sure we'll suffer the smaller cabin lol

Just now, Beamafar said:

The biggest draw for us to book Aurea is MyChoice dining.  Access to the thermal Spa and Solarium don't interest us and we only have massages when they're included, so wouldn't miss them either.  So the price difference between Fantastica and Aurea (which has also seen an increase) is no longer worth it - especially where Fantastica bookings are getting the Premium drinks package included.

But you can't book some of the better suites with Fantastica.

9 minutes ago, stoddaj1 said:

It really is a shame that the Aurea drink package benefit has been downgraded so much.  This change will probably make us choose another cruise line for our next cruises.  It's just too much more to pay for a private sundeck and anytime dining.  We have massage covered under our medical plans and the thermal area is not where we want to spend out time while in the sunny south. Too bad as we really enjoyed our Seaside cruise last year.

MSC prices are still a lot less than most cruise lines though. Where you gonna go NCL? The're a joke now with their pricing. 

We are in the UK and it cost us £8 a day each more to upgrade from Easy to Premium for our next Aurea booking. Hardly going to make us change lines now. We had the best cruise we ever had in December on the Seaside. 

I have today added Premium drinks to our June 2020 cruise on the Grandiosa and received updated T&C's, there is no mention at all of the DSC. If someone has a copy with it mentioned could they do a share via Google Docs?

Quite a good program. They seem to have gone through 3 captains since she launched not that long ago. 

21 hours ago, Valentina84 said:

at each port in the Mediterranean I bought wine and especially havana club rum back to the ship. every single time nobody ever said anything to me when my backpack made it through the security machines. I came home with lot's of havana club rum and the bottle of wine i drank on the ship. So unless it's a very expensive wine bottle I would definitely try to take one in your luggage, worst case scenario it wont make it through, if not, you can always buy one on the ship as well. 

We had the same experience. On the Seaside last month (wow is it that long ago already) I bought Rum back on board, even showed it to security before putting it through the scanner and no one batted an eyelid. 

Did this 3 times with the same result. 

That's not to say you're not supposed to be allowed,.

I thought that one could buy the non alcohol package.