Bogof1

Unless you have your medallion delivered to your home you will be in blue lane. The lanes have changed…..green for those who have filled it all in and have a medallion, blue for those who collect medallion at port and yellow fort hoses who need assistance. This changed the beginning of the month. Turn up when you like no booking of arrival times……prepare for carnage at embarkation!!!!

Princess includes robes in every stateroom . May not be there on arrival as will be being laundered but should be there by the evening. Just mention to room steward when he introduces himself as a gentle reminder if not there.

Got off the Regal Saturday after a fantastic cruise round the British Isles. The ship is amazing crew…especially in Bellini bar were outstanding. Food was superb,,,too much of it 🤣enjoy she is a great ship.

That’s because all cruises taken on P£O before the cut of date think it was 2013ish were and are still honoured, it’s only the ones Tharen after the cut off that aren’t.

They used to use P&O but no not any more.

Today we have just rebooked our med cruise May 2024 saving 2 grand with the £1 deposit and 50% of princess plus. So yes you van as long as 3 months out

Would just like to say we did this tour in 2013 10 years later our plush dressing gowns still look like new, they were $99 in the ships shop. The photo frames sold for $30 in the camera shop, we had 8 photos, didn’t get the chefs jacket but got an apron…much more useful, notepaper, mimosa and chocolate strawberries in the kitchens, and finished of after visiting the bridge with champagne and nibbles. The extras were certainly not tat and no way would I have left them behind. Best $150 spent compared to some of the land excursions, would do it again in a heartbeat, our tour lasted over 5 hours.

I’ve been on 4 cruises this year and this was the only one where we had such a badly organised and awful disembarkation. Never have gone through a personal face to face on ship immigration check. Or in 15 years of cruising!

MSC give you a boarding time which they say you have to stick to, didn’t occur last week however our time was 11am. I think everyone is expected to board by 4pm as there are drills that have to be done before the ship can sail and with a capacity of 6000 passengers it takes time!

We sailed on the 4th Nov on a round trip Southampton to Southampton. What we were not told was that the ship actually starts all its cruises in Hamburg! So the first few days were OKish then every stop from Hamburg on new passengers got on, and Also many got off!! We’ve never sailed MSC before, and sad to say will never cruise with them again. The menu repeated…only a 4 day choice, very limited, a lot of the time the meat had to be sent back, the only “dress up night” was a bit of deep fried Brie as a starter (that’s all that appealed) and chicken Kiev…Lidls frozen beat it hands down. We did eat in the butchers cut as was included in our status match…the best meal In 8 days. The ship is amazing, glitzy, clean, staff wonderful and helpful. Entertainment I would say is personal, 2 shows were really good but not prepared to pay €17 to see ones in the carousel lounge. Quizzes few and far between, craft only a sea day and I got fed up of sticking bits of paper on to other bits of paper. The final straw that broke the camels back was disembarkation. I think that due to picking passengers up throughout the voyage was the reason we had to have a face to face immigration check before we could leave the ship. On visiting the bathroom at 2am on the morning of disembarking a pice of paper was under the door telling us we had to report to the carousel lounge at 8:30 for this check!!!! 1 and a half hours later after queuing the whole length of the ship we had our passports checked, cruise cards scanned and a sticky dot put on it to say we had been. Another2 hours In Another queue we finally got off the ship! This was a health and safety nightmare 2000 passengers in close proximity queuing, no water or anything offered…cruise cards shut down at 8 am..so I was told…and no staff telling you what was happening, 3 hours is a long time to stand!!!!! hopefully they may have learned something with this cruise so it will be better for any other travelling over the next few months

We sailed on the 4th Nov on a round trip Southampton to Southampton. What we were not told was that the ship actually starts all its cruises in Hamburg! So the first few days were OKish then every stop from Hamburg on new passengers got on, and Also many got off!! We’ve never sailed MSC before, and sad to say will never cruise with them again. The menu repeated…only a 4 day choice, very limited, a lot of the time the meat had to be sent back, the only “dress up night” was a bit of deep fried Brie as a starter (that’s all that appealed) and chicken Kiev…Lidls frozen beat it hands down. We did eat in the butchers cut as was included in our status match…the best meal In 8 days. The ship is amazing, glitzy, clean, staff wonderful and helpful. Entertainment I would say is personal, 2 shows were really good but not prepared to pay €17 to see ones in the carousel lounge. Quizzes few and far between, craft only a sea day and I got fed up of sticking bits of paper on to other bits of paper. The final straw that broke the camels back was disembarkation. I think that due to picking passengers up throughout the voyage was the reason we had to have a face to face immigration check before we could leave the ship. On visiting the bathroom at 2am on the morning of disembarking a pice of paper was under the door telling us we had to report to the carousel lounge at 8:30 for this check!!!! 1 and a half hours later after queuing the whole length of the ship we had our passports checked, cruise cards scanned and a sticky dot put on it to say we had been. Another2 hours In Another queue we finally got off the ship! This was a health and safety nightmare 2000 passengers in close proximity queuing, no water or anything offered…cruise cards shut down at 8 am..so I was told…and no staff telling you what was happening, 3 hours is a long time to stand!!!!! hopefully they may have learned something with this cruise so it will be better for any other travelling over the next few months

Thanks for the info. We too are new to MSC and travel next week. I. Very confused with the wording of testing for covid for embarking. One line says you have to have a certificate to say covid free then the next says if fully vaccinated LFT not needed??? Anyone been since the beginning of oct who can say what it is from Southampton. Thanks,

Virtuoso starts in UK on the 4th November we on it!!