heatherb1958

Thank you for the info , I am also on Anthem B2B this year to the Fjiords but my understanding reading the OP's post fully is that they are looking at 2025 .

This is so so true. We had priority boarding of 11.45am for Iona for the NYE cruise because we had a mini suite , never able to use it because we were arriving by the coach that got in at approx 2.30pm. At least I will give Royal and Princess a thumbs up with that regard because in their app when checking in online you select an arrival time . Seems the fairest way of doing it , check in online early get an early time slot .

Hope you got home safely . Found out a cruise friend who lives in Spain joined Iona today, first time on Iona and I think for them first time with P&O . They have already posted on social media lots of photos . Hope they enjoy it as much as you did ..

Hi there, don't know where your MSC cruises have been sailing from but here in the Med all the lounges have live music with more than a solo artist , especially the older ships as they have more and bigger lounges , love Preziosa and Magnifica for that. It was one of the things we noticed on our first cruise on Splendida out of Barcelona , even the cafe had a live group playing fab music . Granted this was all before Covid and we have only sailed on Meraviglia class since start up and that class of ship has fewer venues for music , Pub has a guitar player/ singer, Galleria lounge has the party band and Sky lounge as a jazz set up of some sort . MSC don't have pool bands , at least we have never seen one , they do have great parties though , love their White night ..

Fab report @Eddie99, may I ask what is the name of the restaurant with the tux guy 😆. We have an overnight in Lisbon on a cruise , we usually take the train to Cascais and have dinner out there , might be nice to stay local for a change but not at a price ! 😄😄

Ignore the naysayers re you must only sail in YC if you do MSC . If you are cruising In the Med where people are getting on and off the ship at each port , which we love because it makes each day feel like a B2B change over day , the demographic changes constantly so it is refreshing. We have done 14 cruises with MSC and only one of them was in YC , we decided unless we got a fab deal like the one we had we would never book YC again. Yes the service was excellent, the enclave was a haven of peace , the pool deck area was gorgeous , we were on Grandiosa , but we have always been more than happy with 'Downtown ' as the YC director called the rest of the ship and didn't feel our experience exceeded expectations as the service has always been good in Downtown. We enjoy MSC food and they have the best pizza , crew are not in your face like on American lines but if you are friendly towards them they respond likewise. Having said all that I would still not cruise out of the USA with MSC , the company have dumbed down their Italian experience from what I have read on here to try and satisfy the market... 😔. MSC Cruise prices are excellent value , the ships are beautifully maintained , the shows we enjoy , the cabins are comfortable . I can't think of anything we don't like. We have done 5 cruises with Celebrity, last one was Silhouette to the Baltics September 23, we liked the ship, the entertainment , disliked the food in the dining room though our servers were very good and changing dishes out , the buffet was amazing . Celebrity prices are expensive , MSC wins for us .

No to the wine question , their drinks packages are very reasonable. There should be 2 formal nights on a 7 night cruise , they call them Gala nights on MSC , there will also be a white night, wear anything white ... the Italians are big into that . We have done quite a few MSC cruises and FYI just literally booked this cruise 20 mins ago 😆. 😆. We did the drinks included .. see ya there ..

When we arrived for Ventura by coach on 5th December us coach people were all given red cards with letters on and told to by pass all the queuing people who were stood in at least 3 lines A,B,C outside Ocean Terminal . Each queue had a stand at the beginning with a time period on it . When we got inside the building there were no long lines , check in was quick , the only slight hold up was at security ..couldn’t understand why people were being made to wait outside in the cold , it was already gone 3pm . We cruise with Royal and MSC too, much prefer security after check in than before , at least there is seating if check in is before and you can use that if there is a jam of people at security point . MSC's before point at security is the worst , far too small a foyer area though there are 2 entrances to the security line . Royal's is like a queue for a ride at Disney but at least they have the indoor covered space. I quite like Mayflower terminal, seems very spacious .

My Brother in law and wife are on Fuerteventura on holiday and sent me photos today one of which was Iona. I said if we had done a B2B we could have met up with them 😆. They live Taunton and we are Manchester and neither of us like the drive 😆.

We have friends on the Euribia who posted a pic of 'your' ship in Gran Canaria . They have been on Iona and Arvia previously but are enjoying Euribia more . We enjoy both lines and trying to fit a cruise on Euribia before she leaves Southampton .

Is your cruise departure day a weekend ?? We had a late pick up for us from Bolton on the New year cruise , left ship on 13th Jan , usually it is 7.45am this time it was 9.15am. Hubby deduced it was because it was a weekend and traffic lighter , the traffic certainly was lighter considering we were travelling on the 30th December... We arrived at the ship the same time as when we have left at 7.45am. Just a thought .

Wonderful start to your cruise.. included drinks , wow. We got off Iona's New year cruise yesterday , had a great cruise, my advice is if you don't do dining room breakfast head to the Quays on deck 8 , so much better than the zoo on deck 16 even with the plastic plates. Have a great cruise .

Wow, cannot believe I am reading this , no MDR lunch. I used to love going for a girls only lunch with friends on the TAs leaving hubby to do his own thing . RCI never opened for lunch on port days in all the years we have cruised with them but not even on sea days now? What was that salad buffet called , began with a T 😆 , used to love that . We have started cruising more with other lines and believe it or not even on port days the dining room is open for lunch with them , MSC and P&O. I even had sushi last week on Iona on the lunch menu 😋.

Thank you for taking the time to write an indepth review , sorry to read it didn’t live up to your expectations . We spent 24 nights round trip out of the UK on Sky to Canada and New England in September this year and had the best MDR experience ever with excellent service and food. Nothing was too much trouble for Antonio and George . Our worst meal and service was in Catch so you never can tell , food I can put down to the choices we made but service was abysmal. We went there for my birthday but wished we had stayed at our assigned table in the MDR with our excellent waiters.

On the Independence cruise in question they had oversold balcony and JS GTYs , friends onboard had 2 JSs side by side and were offered the Presidential suite for free as an incentive to give up the JSs which they did . We visited with them in the PS which no longer exists now on the ship after the drydock when they added the slides .. Other friends had booked the balcony gty and lucky for them they got a JS , we also visited with them in their cabin. Us? We booked the balcony GTY and got a D1 on deck 6 😆. Now , here is the thing , we were B2B and still waiting on our cabin assignment at 2pm on the last day of the first cruise , the Diamond lounge Concierge didn’t even know what cabin we were scheduled to be in and kept asking us on that last day if we had heard anything yet . I am going to be constantly checking after final payment our Anthem cruises for cabin assignments.

May I ask what is wrong with a British accent ?? . Unless you are talking about regional accents like Scouse or Brum .... I'd be more wary of sub continent accents where most of our scam calls come from .

As others have said so long as you are out of your cabin by 8AM you can stay onboard an MSC ship in Europe as long as you want , we have done it many times out of Barcelona . We keep our luggage with us , find a comfortable place to hang out , usually the indoor Solarium . We have to take it in turns to grab any food but it is much better doing that than hanging around at the airport for a late departure ..

The situation in Australia was extremely unfortunate to happen on a sold out ship , hopefully RCI have learned from it but I doubt it as it wasn't the first time GTYs have been oversold . We personally have been on 2 RCI cruises where they oversold GTY cabins , one was a Brilliance TA and the other was on Independence , both with the balcony GTYs. On the Brilliance folks were being contacted to give up their cabins and move to insides with great incentives , we had an inside cabin so weren't able to take advantage . We currently have 2 RCI cruises , a B2B , both GTY cabins ... I am not even thinking about them until near final payment date , thankfully we don't have flights involved. It pays to book flexible travel plans these days , you just never know what is going to happen .

Transatlantics used to be very very cheap with relatively low numbers for high tier C&A members not the case now . Now they are heavy loaded with lots of C&A members entitled to 'free' stuff. Got to recoup the money somehow .

A lady who was able to walk off onto the pilot boat was medically evacuated. We watched from our balcony. I would be more concerned about the noro onboard. Crew were serving the food in the buffet this morning. Entertainment crew not currently allowed to use the buffet, cushions removed from cabin last night.

I find those photos of Serenade quite shocking but not surprising , we were on Brilliance one time and she looked exactly like that , felt ashamed to say we were on the ship ! All other lines we have been on with ships just as old as Serenade were in much better condition .

@kernow, aw that is a shame about your tour and I bet not cheap as RCI excursions aren't!. Cartagena old walled city is a gem of a place to explore on your own , an easy taxi ride from the port. I went with Sheenagh and Joan though our ride out in a shared mini bus was a bit of a nightmare start. There were guys in lime green tshirts in the city who would approach you asking if you wanted guided tours and one said he could show us where the sloths were in the park. They work for tips and he delivered. Our taxi ride back was cheap in 2018 .

Had to laugh at this . Reminds me of when they sneakily hid kettles in all the cabins on Brilliance for us Brits , think it was when she wintered out of Barcelona before going to Dubai . There is a panel next to the fridge which can be removed , we could see through the gap the kettle and all the gubbins and the room steward miraculously had a tea tray of supplies appear on their cart . This was a loooong time ago . I would need to look at my cruise history but we were B2B , saw the hidden kettle first cruise then it appeared next cruise like magic 😆 🤣

I use ship dressing gowns for when getting out of the shower until ready to get my glad rags on ...

Friends I know from over the pond get off and new ones get on , how cool is that... look forward to the continuing adventure vicariously.