Frogmill0

Thanks for the information. I'll book before we go.

I've just submitted (in the last hour) quite a detailed review of my recent Preziosa cruise which was my first with MSC. It will be waiting to be approved so keep an eye open for it. At this stage, though, I can say that, not unusually, it contains a mixture of the good and not so good.

We are doing a 14 night Italian Med cruise from Southampton on 9 June and are wondering whether to pre-book the 5 night speciality dining package at £96.25 pp (approx $122) before we go. 

We've used the speciality restaurants on previous RCL cruises but have never really thought about booking in advance because when on board they always seem to push a 'special offer' dining package on the first day and subsequently.

My question to anyone who has recently been on Explorer or similar ship and can comment on the prices is: Should I book the package now or wait till we get on board in the hope that we can get a better deal?

Thanks in anticipation.

Thanks for the info.' It's much appreciated.

We're doing a Med cruise on Preziosa at the end of the month which will be our first with MSC. We have the benefit of the loyalty program match with our RC Diamond Plus status which gives us Black on Preziosa.

Q1. Are there any bars/lounges exclusive to Black members as there are on RC ships?

Q2 (not related to loyalty status). Are there any areas inside the ship where smoking is allowed?

Thanks in anticipation 

Thanks for taking the trouble to look it up, Bea. That terminal is near the bridge although it's somewhat more downstream (further away from the city centre and towards the sea) than the ones we've visited in the past.

I've looked at the itinerary again and I can see the mistake I made. On the map showing the cruise route it says Lisbon (Cascals) but it also shows other places in brackets, e.g. Cadiz (Seville) so it's now clear that the places in brackets are the recommended excursions from the docking port.

Doh! For my stupidity I've sentenced myself to learning MSC's T&Cs off by heart.

We've just booked our first MSC cruise which is on Preziosa next April and we're really looking forward to it.

One of the ports of call is Lisbon where we've been many times on other ships. The ships have docked either very close to the city centre or almost underneath the suspension bridge but the itinerary for our Preziosa trip refers to 'Lisbon Cascals - docked.' I've been to Cascals which is a very nice seaside town about 30 mins along the coast from Lisbon by train but I don't think it has facilities for handling cruise ships so I'm puzzled.

Can anyone who has been to Lisbon with MSC confirm where the ship docks? Am I barking up the wrong tree by thinking of a different Cascals?

All comments appreciated.

In reply to Sandebeach, Navigator will not be sailing from Southampton next year after its refit. Its place will be taken by Explorer which is in the same class of ship and, as far as I know, still has its Connoisseur Club.

The situation is now that RC seem to be working towards banning smoking inside all their ships, no doubt with the aim of ultimately banning it altogether, and I'm very disappointed by this continuing insidious crackdown on smokers. I've taken up the matter with RC and received the usual platitudes about this is what the majority of their customers want but in an age when society (including RC) seems to want to bend over backwards to support other minority groups it seems ironic that smokers are the one group that are constantly targetted.

Yes, smoking on designated areas of outside decks is permitted (at the moment) but good weather on cruises is not guaranteed and when the weather is bad access to the outside decks is prohibited (this happened twice on our recent Baltic cruise) so there will nowhere at all to smoke on the ship. Moreover, my wife is disabled and she finds it quite difficult to get out to the smoking areas and anyway, apart from on Deck 11, it's difficult to get a drink and nowhere convenient to put one because there are no tables. Surely it's not unreasonable to expect one indoor venue where one can have a drink and a cigarette in comfort?

My wife and I feel so strongly about this that we would like to cancel our forthcoming cruise on Independence. We consider that we should be allowed to do so without financial penalty on the grounds that, when we booked, RC's terms and conditions specifically said that smoking is allowed in the Casino and in the Connoisseur Club. In fact, the T&Cs still say that so my argument is that to move the goalposts without prior notification is a breach of contract. I have raised this aspect with RC and their response is that the changes are not sufficient to make it a breach.

So my question to the legal experts out there is, can we cancel the cruise and receive a refund (we have already paid in full)?

Irrespective of whether we cancel or not, we have decided to transfer our long term allegiance (we are RC Diamond Plus members) to a cruise line that is more smoking friendly - there are still some around!

I realise that this post will probably arouse the wrath of the anti smoking brigade but I would point out that RC's ships are already 95% non-smoking so for anyone who really does find the smell of smoke obnoxious it is not difficult to avoid it. Live and let live!

Thanks to everyone for your replies.

Yes, plus smoked salmon, cold meats, cheese etc in an environment totally different from the Windjammer.

We are booked on Indy for a Canaries cruise in October and we understand that, following the refurbishment of the ship, the Connoisseur Club is now the Library and RC Online. I guess this means that smoking will no longer be allowed in there and hence there will be no indoor venues on the ship where one can smoke.

RCI's website still indicates that smoking is allowed in the Casino but that policy dates back to 2013 and on a recent cruise on Navigator it was not until we boarded that we found that smoking in the Casino was banned. I assume it will be the same on Indy?

Can someone who has cruised on the refurbished Indy confirm what the smoking policy on the ship actually is, please?

OP has disappeared. Guess he realized he was being a . . . .

No, I haven't disappeared. I've been assimilating the comments.

Thanks to everyone else who replied. I know the whole question of gratuities seems to polarise opinions but because it hasn't in relation to my question I guess we have to hold our hands up and concede that we should pay up with a smile.

I feel, though, I should point out that my wife and I are experienced cruisers (Diamond members with RCL) and we are well aware that cruise companies do everything they can to get every last cent out of their customers. And in reply to LHT28 and cheeseclan it is not the case that we can't afford it. This cruise is costing nearly £16K and for RCL to charge gratuities for the kids as well seemed to be taking the mickey.

We have just booked a RCL cruise for next year on the 'Navigator.' Our party will be my wife and myself, my stepdaughter, her husband and their 5 year old twins. We have booked adjoining Junior Suites - one for my wife and I and the other for my stepdaughter and her family. The twins will use the sofa bed.

We prefer Mytime Dining and to do this we had to pre-pay our gratuities. We don't have a problem with this in principle as it's what my wife and I always do when we cruise on our own (and we always give extra tips to those who deserve it) but we're not happy that we had to pay gratuities for the twins. The cruise overall is costing a lot of money and we didn't get, in our opinion, much of a discount for the twins (about 25%). Also, because of RCL's current pricing structure, we were obliged to take the so called 'free' drinks package which is not of any great benefit to us. On top of all this, my stepdaughter will have to pay Kids' Club and babysitting charges. So, it goes against the grain to have to pay gratuities for the twins.

Our travel agent says that nothing can be done about the twins' gratuities at this stage and we should take it up with Guest Services when we're on board. My question is: has anyone done this and, if so, what was the outcome? Or are we being unreasonable in our views?

I'm sure that there must have been previous comments on this topic in these boards but the search facility isn't detailed enough to narrow down the results to avoid having to trawl through many, many posts.