Another RCI loyalist cruises MSC , we loved it and will be back

[bilyclub]

What size cabin is that in the pics?

[Merly]

The status match lured us in to try it as well. We sail in September and are looking forward to it. Thanks for your review.

[Tee & Chilli]

What size cabin is that in the pics?

 

 

accessible

[funship freddy]

On Divina in October. Aft balcony. Very large balcony. Great cabin. They WILL accept tips.

 

 

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[heatherb1958]

Thank you for all the nice comments.

I have never done a review before, only answered or asked questions. I broke my duck,lol.:)

 

 

Another thing we noticed. DH is disabled but not in a wheelchair full time, mainly uses one for distance at home. We were lucky to grab the accessible cabin for both cruises. When we could see the room steward cleaning the other balcony cabins some of them had bathtubs not showers. On return I have looked at the deck plans and cannot see any marker to say if the cabin has a bathtub with shower over or shower only. If we had booked a standard balcony and got one with a bath DH would have been unable to use it.

[M13073]

We have Seaside booked next for April. We love the status match and have booked a Grand Suite. We could never afford that w RCL, but got a great deal on it. I'm excited to see their new ship and try them out.

 

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[LEtue]

What a great review and thanks for posting it!

 

I have been curious about MSC for a long time and the prices in the Med are outstanding - might have to give them a try on my trip. :)

[jamesboat]

Much appreciated review.

 

Is there any one specific area you think RCl does much better?

[riclop]

You can book 2-3 MSC cruises for 1 RCL.

[cruiselover04]

Great review Heather. Certainly sounds tempting to try MSC.

 

Jenni.

[maureencruiser]

You can book 2-3 MSC cruises for 1 RCL.

 

 

That's exactly what I have been doing. To the poster who said they can't book a solo, they're offering 2 for 1 in the Caribbean right now. I book a cabin with my niece's name and she is a no show. I pay 700 for the week.

 

 

To the OP, I don't know about the Musica, but, on Divina, they cook omelets out on the pool deck, they do not advertise this anywhere.

 

 

Thanks for the review, your pictures take me back....Oh, that pizza! :hearteyes::hearteyes:

[heatherb1958]

Much appreciated review.

 

Is there any one specific area you think RCl does much better?

 

 

Hi there,

I just asked my husband the question. He said the only thing he missed was a quiet lounge during the day. He sits in the DL or CL reading during the day.

For me. I just missed the free wifi perk we have with RCI.

 

The section re departure on RCI's online check in has the option to choose consecutive cruiser. MSC's doesn't have that so we did have a bit of chasing around to do on change over day even though I had been to Guest services at the start of cruise one to let them know we were B2B.

 

 

 

 

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[heatherb1958]

Buffet- I forgot to mention about busy days in the buffet.

They have a system where you wait to be seated like in the MDR. The buffet his huge, very long with the food stations separated.

On busy days a member of staff will greet you at the main entrance , ask how many in party and hold up a red reserved card and walk you through . There are crew members with headsets who see this and guide the member of staff to an empty table, puts your reserved sign on it and off you go to get your food knowing your table will still be there when you get back. They take the sign away once you are all back .

There are wireless push buttons on some tables to request bar service, brilliant idea. This service is for bar drinks only , not the free coffee,tea and water ( juices at breakfast only).

Another thing, there were lots of staff, tables were cleared quickly during rush hours.

When we were on Serenade at Christmas I had to find an officer one evening to complain about the lack of cleared tables in the Windjammer. The staff at the time were so lazy in one area and after my complaint I saw the two officers I complained to come by and watch the worker and the tables were still not being cleared quickly . Not good enough.

 

 

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[harz99]

One small word of warning for UK booked cruisers.

 

With RCL and Celebrity I often book an inside cabin and knowing we in the UK generally don't get price drops, wait until prices do drop or offers come available, and upgrade for a small amount to get both perks and a better grade cabin, for example inside booked on Solstice for 11 nights subsequently upgraded to OV with grats and OBC for £80pp.

 

MSC won't let you do that. The only way we can upgrade is to pay whatever the rate was for the new cabin type when you originally booked, and you only get any perks which were available at that time for that cabin. Offers for new bookings only really does mean what it says!

[scareyness]

Found your review brilliant as we are off on our 1st MSC cruise in just under 2 weeks. We have the algressimo drinks package so pleased I got that. Excellent tip re the stairs, I fell down a wet stair case in Tunisia 2 years ago and broke 5 ribs in my back and am paranoid about stairs now :( so glad of the advance warning. Fab pics too. Thanks very much for taking the time to do your 1st review!

[cruise47]

To the OP thanks for sharing your review with some awesome photos. Your balcony cabin looks very nice and larger than a balcony cabin on most RCI ships.

[harz99]

To the OP thanks for sharing your review with some awesome photos. Your balcony cabin looks very nice and larger than a balcony cabin on most RCI ships.

Larger because it's an accessible cabin.

 

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[maryann2]

That's exactly what I have been doing. To the poster who said they can't book a solo, they're offering 2 for 1 in the Caribbean right now. I book a cabin with my niece's name and she is a no show. I pay 700 for the week.

 

 

To the OP, I don't know about the Musica, but, on Divina, they cook omelets out on the pool deck, they do not advertise this anywhere.

 

 

Thanks for the review, your pictures take me back....Oh, that pizza! :hearteyes::hearteyes:

Thank you Maureen.

I prefer Europe and TAs now so wish the 2 for 1 would be for those too.

They used to give a break for solos.

[Tarponjeff]

Heather thanks for the review. We too have been loyal RCL cruisers and with the status match have decided to try MSC. We had heard if one likes Europe you will find MSC very nice. We have booked their new ship in January out of Miami We also have been told that there is no smoking in the casino. That may just be on some ships of course but that would be nice. Also for the status match one is supposed to get an extra 5% discount. I did not see that on our booking do you know when that appears and is deducted?

 

We were very surprised how quickly they processed the status match. I did it while we were on Oasis in December and the next morning it was done and we were black. The only deal breaker we may have is internet. Appears they only offer 1.5g vs RCL unlimited and I need to work while on the ship. I have not been able to get a response on availability of additional internet or if there is an unlimited package and the cost.

[Gilpet]

Wow Heather, what a great review, thanks for posting it. We're booked on Preziosa for September and this has given us a very good idea of what to expect.

 

We wanted to try something new and I've always liked the look of the MSC ships but as we only cruise from Southampton we've not really had the opportunity until now. The status match was a bonus that our TA told us about, they sorted that out for us before putting the booking through so we were able to take advantage of the 5% discount, we were told that they wouldn't apply it retrospectively so the status match needed to be done first. Tarponjeff, did you do the status match before you booked? If not that could be the reason you haven't received the discount.

 

We've booked the Fantastica Experience and at the time that included a drinks package.............silly question time now lol - I understand that this will be in the form of 12 drinks vouchers, is that for the whole cruise or per day?

 

I agree with everybody else, RCI really are pricing themselves out of the market, we now just need MSC to vary the itineraries a bit.

 

Gill

[Tarponjeff]

Gill yes did the status match first and booked about a month later actually. Not sure where the 5% is supposed to show up. Initially their customer service appeared to be pretty amazing. We had a status match person contact us right away and then assigned a cruise specialist to us. They were great on a few questions but after that no response or help. (we had inquired about sailing out of of Havana now that we can fly there, but were told NO could not do that as a US citizen) Funny as we flew there last week and saw the ship in port MSC Opera.

 

 

In any case we ended up booking online as our agent does not do MSC and so far have not heard a word back from our cruise "specialist" . As I mentioned in my other post the internet will actually be a deal breaker but again no reply from them on it.

 

 

Wow Heather, what a great review, thanks for posting it. We're booked on Preziosa for September and this has given us a very good idea of what to expect.

 

We wanted to try something new and I've always liked the look of the MSC ships but as we only cruise from Southampton we've not really had the opportunity until now. The status match was a bonus that our TA told us about, they sorted that out for us before putting the booking through so we were able to take advantage of the 5% discount, we were told that they wouldn't apply it retrospectively so the status match needed to be done first. Tarponjeff, did you do the status match before you booked? If not that could be the reason you haven't received the discount.

 

We've booked the Fantastica Experience and at the time that included a drinks package.............silly question time now lol - I understand that this will be in the form of 12 drinks vouchers, is that for the whole cruise or per day?

 

I agree with everybody else, RCI really are pricing themselves out of the market, we now just need MSC to vary the itineraries a bit.

 

Gill

[heatherb1958]

Heather thanks for the review. We too have been loyal RCL cruisers and with the status match have decided to try MSC. We had heard if one likes Europe you will find MSC very nice. We have booked their new ship in January out of Miami We also have been told that there is no smoking in the casino. That may just be on some ships of course but that would be nice. Also for the status match one is supposed to get an extra 5% discount. I did not see that on our booking do you know when that appears and is deducted?

 

We were very surprised how quickly they processed the status match. I did it while we were on Oasis in December and the next morning it was done and we were black. The only deal breaker we may have is internet. Appears they only offer 1.5g vs RCL unlimited and I need to work while on the ship. I have not been able to get a response on availability of additional internet or if there is an unlimited package and the cost.

 

 

There were 3 packages for Internet. Pricing for us was in Euros. 22.90 per day for full surfing and streaming . We did not purchase any as we managed to pick up port wifi from our balcony.

 

In Europe smoking is allowed in the Casino, half of it was closed off to non smokers but you could still smell it.

 

We booked both cruises online and when we put in our Black card number the prices were adjusted automatically

 

 

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[Tarponjeff]

Thanks will look into it more. As far as smoking in the casino they told me on the USA ship only on one deck one side and in the cigar room. If so that is great.

 

 

There were 3 packages for Internet. Pricing for us was in Euros. 22.90 per day for full surfing and streaming . We did not purchase any as we managed to pick up port wifi from our balcony.

 

In Europe smoking is allowed in the Casino, half of it was closed off to non smokers but you could still smell it.

 

We booked both cruises online and when we put in our Black card number the prices were adjusted automatically

 

 

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[JPR61]

Thanks will look into it more. As far as smoking in the casino they told me on the USA ship only on one deck one side and in the cigar room. If so that is great.

This is correct there is no smoking in the casino. You can only smoke in either the Garden Bar on deck 15, outside on deck 7 or in the cigar lounge.

[chinita415]

Heather thanks for the review. We too have been loyal RCL cruisers and with the status match have decided to try MSC. We had heard if one likes Europe you will find MSC very nice. We have booked their new ship in January out of Miami We also have been told that there is no smoking in the casino. That may just be on some ships of course but that would be nice. Also for the status match one is supposed to get an extra 5% discount. I did not see that on our booking do you know when that appears and is deducted?

 

We were very surprised how quickly they processed the status match. I did it while we were on Oasis in December and the next morning it was done and we were black. The only deal breaker we may have is internet. Appears they only offer 1.5g vs RCL unlimited and I need to work while on the ship. I have not been able to get a response on availability of additional internet or if there is an unlimited package and the cost.

Yes you can top off internet as you went along. They do a very good job on the sign in page alerting you of your usage and giving you options to add more MB. Go ask on the MSC forum for details.

 

 

Just checked my screen shots. I got the surfer medium package on a 7 night Med cruise. It was €9 to top off another 500MB. Not sure the price for the streamer package.

Edited March 7, 2017 by chinita415