TickledBlue

I would say to go ahead and try. If you can't use the reward, it remains in your wallet in the app and you can just return it there. I'm guessing that your friend buys betting points - bet big, lose big. I'm too cheap to do that.

There's a lot of terms and conditions, so read through them carefully. The % off discounts are limited to select ship and port combinations. Since the ships may be moved from one port to another, this limits the applicable sailings. It's likely that MSC will change the reward offerings on myVegas as time goes on.

I was just looking at a 7 night cruise on the Divina on Sep. 18 that they were offering. Was kind of thinking about it but little gun shy (and depressed) now that I had to cancel my Seashore cruise tomorrow due to a positive COVID test. MSC is going to refund the taxes/fees but I won't get back my MV rewards points back that I used to get it. They are trying fill up under-booked cruises so they most likely won't change dates. If you really wanted to try, you could buy the reward, call them and check, and return the reward after they deny it.

Regarding using MyVegas rewards, what @Heather1972said is correct. Regarding excursion costs, you can go to https://www.msccruisesusa.com/cruise/excursions to see the excursions but the prices aren't going to be available until you have a booking. For my upcoming cruise on the Seashore, the prices are reasonable (comparable to third party providers). I'm sure that there's a little MSC mark up, but not outrageous.

Buying trip insurance is a matter of your life circumstances and how much risk you are willing to take on. Buying any insurance is all about the offloading personal financial risk. There's no single right answer for anyone to buy it or not. When we were younger, I would purchase only medical insurance to cover out-of-country emergencies. Medical only insurance was pretty cheap and covered very expensive evacuations and on-ship medical expenditures. We never opted to buy medjet insurance that some swear by. Lately we've been buying comprehensive trip insurance to cover most aspects such as trip delay, lost baggage, etc. We are doing this now because of potential trip interruptions, death of family members (who aren't traveling with us), and medical. So if you are in the middle of the cruise, it would be pretty pricey to have to leave it in the middle due to family member death. I have made some claims against travel insurance that were all non-medical related and small. The insurance companies did pay out but it was a real pain to gather all the documentation for them.

I don't understand why MSC doesn't let you put the credit card on your account during web check in like every other cruise line (well, that I've been on). There's actually a button to do this but it doesn't work for the Seashore cruise I have coming up soon. I was aware of the machines, just something extra that you need to do on the first day...

myVegas slots

I haven't seen that at all. Doesn't seem to be any correlation between betting and the rewards bar filling. The rewards bar will fill at the same rate even when you are browsing through the rewards and not betting at all. Even if that was the case, I doubt it would be worth betting extra and running out of playing chips.

Tips on earning rewards: Get all of the apps (6 of them noted below) and play them everyday. Bet the bare minimum 'chips' in each slots game and get the daily bonus chips -- these actually build up gradually because you get more daily bonus chips than you lose. Resist the game's urging to bet more chips to win more, you'll lose them and they just want you to spend real $ to buy them. Stop playing each game after it stops paying off in the reward points (after about 1 hour for all except Bingo which takes about 2 hours). There's no point in playing if you aren't being 'paid'. Maximize reward points by playing each day after the 'rewards reset' when the rewards points start counting up again. MGM slots and Pop slots reset twice a day where you can earn more reward points. On DST, they reset at 8 AM and 8 PM. The other games reset only once per day - Konami at 1PM, MV slots at 12AM, Bingo at 8PM, and blackjack after 24 hours of last play. If you have more than 1 device, you can play 2 or more different games at the same time and earn the rewards. They all need to be linked to the same FB account. If you maximize the rewards as above, you should be able to earn around 20K+/day, it would take less than 10 days to get the 200K needed for the MSC 30% reward. Tips on spending reward points: Reward offers vary over time, for example, MSC didn't offer any until about 5-6 months ago. So, you can't count on the 30% discount until you actually have enough rewards to 'buy' it. Read all of the terms and conditions of the reward before you buy it -- it looks like your understanding is correct (to buy a future cruise within 30 days of purchasing the reward). Number of points needed for specific rewards tend to go up, guess there's inflation there. I particularly noticed this for RCL ones. If you buy a reward, it goes into your 'wallet'. You can also return rewards without redeeming them (and get your rewards points back). This particularly helps if the reward isn't always available -- you can buy it when it's available and return it before it needs to be redeemed if you decide against using it.

It will be our first time there as well next month so I wouldn't be able to answer your question. No one else will be able to answer your question either unless you provide more information because there's 2 ports, Amber Cove and Taino Bay, that are about 7 miles from each other. If you are arriving on a Carnival brand (e.g. Carnival, HAL, Princess) you'll be at Amber Cove, others you'll be at Taino Bay.

Haven't seen Carnival cruises at all in the apps. I've only used them for around a year so maybe Carnival stopped its MV program. The free Royal cruises are hard to come by -- you need to constantly check for them because they 'sell out' very quickly. Late last year there were quite a few but the cost of airline tickets to the port (e.g. Barbados) or to get to the lower-end cruise ships that were available wasn't worth it. I think MSC provided a great deal more opportunity to get a free cruise, especially now.

My experience with MSC and MV was great as well. Booked on the 8/6 Seashore sailing which was a 'free' booking for more MV points than the 30% discount reward on other cruises. Only had to pay the $150pp taxes/fees as was made known upfront. A couple of really great surprises: When I called the number in the emailed certificate, I immediately got a hold of a rep that walked me through the entire booking (no waiting on hold for a long time) The booking was good for a Fantastica balcony -- I was expecting to receive an Interior Bella (aka cheapest booking available) MSC landside customer support has impressed me thus far. It'll be interesting to see how the shipboard experience goes. We have cruised on MSC 4 times already but the last one was back in 2014 - we really liked the experiences but noting that the it seem to deteriorate as time went on while were adjusting for the USA market (which, I know is ironic). The earlier cruises seemed to have a bit better food and service than the later ones, albeit it was still very good.

I just booked a free Seashore cruise for Aug. 8. Was simple and easy by following the directions given in the award email. Here was my experience with MSC: Called number in email. Pressed option 2 where I am not a MSC Voyager's club member. Got a hold of a casino rep right away. Casino rep had trouble with finding the MV award, so had me forward on the email to him. From there, it was like booking any other cruise. I figured that they were offering the most basic accommodations - Inside Bella, but no -- pleasantly surprised, got a Deluxe balcony Fantastica. I've been playing MV apps for nearly a year hoping that they would pan out and pan out they did. Royal Caribbean had some selections recently but 'sold out' before I could even look at them. MSC has several selections right now.

I don't like coffee either but I might try this and tell them to hold the expresso 😁

The OP was asking about Summit (M class ship). M class ships have the MDR menu available even though they don't really tell you about it on ship. On the Summit last Nov., we were able to order from the MDR and had the wait staff replace the (IMO) horrible spreads for the bread with the creamier ones from the MDR as well.