Musica and Preziosa Cancellations

[Bgwest]

It's about damned time. Nothing like waiting until the very last minute. 

 

https://mailchi.mp/a26b85bb6d54/test1-your-future-cruise-credit-is-ready-6629217?e=8245eae993

[DCGuy64]

Crap, I’m afraid our hopes of getting on the Splendida are about to be dashed, too! 

Edited June 12, 2021 by DCGuy64

[Bgwest]

2 minutes ago, DCGuy64 said:

Crap, I’m afraid our hopes of getting on the Splendida are about to be dashed, too! 

When are you scheduled to sail?

 

[DCGuy64]

2 minutes ago, Bgwest said:

When are you scheduled to sail?

 

August 28. Technically we haven’t even booked yet, we’re supposed to be on an August 29 Seaview cruise but we didn’t like the itinerary so we were about to switch to the Splendida. We just bought our plane tickets yesterday to Venice. 😔 

Originally we were supposed to go to Denmark and Norway on the Virtuosa, first they switched us to the Seaview because they repositioned the Virtuosa to the UK, then they switched the itineraries to Sweden and Estonia. Now it looks like the Splendida will suffer the same fate as Musica and Preziosa. Ironically, we had reservations on the MSC Preziosa for May last year but it was canceled due to Covid.

Edited June 12, 2021 by DCGuy64

[Bgwest]

2 minutes ago, DCGuy64 said:

August 28. Technically we haven’t even booked yet, we’re supposed to be on an August 29 Seaview cruise but we didn’t like the itinerary so we were about to switch to the Splendida. We just bought our plane tickets yesterday to Venice. 😔 

https://www.msccruisesusa.com/cruise-itinerary-changes-and-cancellations/msc-splendida

So far, so good for you it seems. 

 

We are booked on 6.20 and 6.27 Splendida sailings. We've still not received any official word from MSC on the status of these cruises.

 

VERY poor form MSC if you are listening!

[DCGuy64]

1 minute ago, Bgwest said:

https://www.msccruisesusa.com/cruise-itinerary-changes-and-cancellations/msc-splendida

So far, so good for you it seems. 

 

We are booked on 6.20 and 6.27 Splendida sailings. We've still not received any official word from MSC on the status of these cruises.

 

VERY poor form MSC if you are listening!

Yes, for now the Splendida is safe, but given what they just did to those other two ships, I can’t believe the Splendida is far behind. What were the itineraries for those two other ships? It might have more to do with that than Europe in general. The irony is that Europe is opening up more and more every day, in fact I think all of the countries we were scheduled to visit in August are open to Americans: Italy, Croatia, Montenegro and Greece. It’s crazy to think we could do a land based vacation to any of those countries, but a cruise is off-limits. 

[Bgwest]

1 minute ago, DCGuy64 said:

Yes, for now the Splendida is safe, but given what they just did to those other two ships, I can’t believe the Splendida is far behind. What were the itineraries for those two other ships? It might have more to do with that than Europe in general. The irony is that Europe is opening up more and more every day, in fact I think all of the countries we were scheduled to visit in August are open to Americans: Italy, Croatia, Montenegro and Greece. It’s crazy to think we could do a land based vacation to any of those countries, but a cruise is off-limits. 

Our 6.20 and 6.27 sailings on the Splendida were both in and out of Kiel. One was to have done the Norway route, the other the Russia swing to the east. 

 

Our 7.10 on the Musica (addressed in today's email) was a 21 day out of Copenhagen to Iceland and Greenland. 

[DCGuy64]

12 minutes ago, Bgwest said:

Our 6.20 and 6.27 sailings on the Splendida were both in and out of Kiel. One was to have done the Norway route, the other the Russia swing to the east. 

 

Our 7.10 on the Musica (addressed in today's email) was a 21 day out of Copenhagen to Iceland and Greenland. 

That doesn’t make sense, Denmark is opening up for non-Schengen residents and Iceland has for some time. Why are they canceling? Ugh. I’m sorry for you. I hope you find a good alternative. I just emailed our travel agent to warn him. Maybe we should start looking for an alternative cruise from somewhere in Europe. 

[Bgwest]

Just now, DCGuy64 said:

That doesn’t make sense, Denmark is opening up for non-Schengen residents and Iceland has for some time. Why are they canceling? Ugh. I’m sorry for you. I hope you find a good alternative. I just emailed our travel agent to warn him. Maybe we should start looking for an alternative cruise from somewhere in Europe. 

Thanks!

Knowing the cancellations were imminent despite MSC's "wall of silence", we went ahead and booked the exact same itinerary for July/Aug 2022. Slightly skewed times/dates but otherwise, enough the same to satisfy us. 

 

Spoke at some lengthy with our TA today. He advised that MSC would be announcing the June/July cancellations by the end of the day on Monday. It appears that for these two ships, they beat that timeline by a couple of days. 

 

The good news for us is that we are getting $200 (per cabin) OBC for each of the two 7 day cruises and $400 OBC (again, per cabin) for the 21 day cruise. Should be really easy to spend that. And, surprisingly, the fares for the 2022 sailings were nearly identical to what we paid for 2021. Since Aurea was available on each of the 2022 sailings, we booked that. Especially nice since Aurea wasn't available when we booked the 2021 cruises. So, all in all a win for us. 

 

Just wish MSC did a better job of keeping their customers in the loop IN A TIMELY FASHION!

[DCGuy64]

12 minutes ago, Bgwest said:

Thanks!

Knowing the cancellations were imminent despite MSC's "wall of silence", we went ahead and booked the exact same itinerary for July/Aug 2022. Slightly skewed times/dates but otherwise, enough the same to satisfy us. 

 

Spoke at some lengthy with our TA today. He advised that MSC would be announcing the June/July cancellations by the end of the day on Monday. It appears that for these two ships, they beat that timeline by a couple of days. 

 

The good news for us is that we are getting $200 (per cabin) OBC for each of the two 7 day cruises and $400 OBC (again, per cabin) for the 21 day cruise. Should be really easy to spend that. And, surprisingly, the fares for the 2022 sailings were nearly identical to what we paid for 2021. Since Aurea was available on each of the 2022 sailings, we booked that. Especially nice since Aurea wasn't available when we booked the 2021 cruises. So, all in all a win for us. 

 

Just wish MSC did a better job of keeping their customers in the loop IN A TIMELY FASHION!

That’s great, sounds like it’s going to work out for you. Not sure what we’ll do, since we already bought our plane tickets. I just checked and Costa has a cruise leaving the same day (Aug 28) so we might do that instead. Or we may just rebook our plane tickets for some time later. Or take a land-based trip to Italy. Anyway, yes I agree with you that MSC should do a better job of keeping its customers in the loop. Not happy with how they keep canceling. But we have FCC to spend and we’ll have to use it sometime. 

[drsel]

13 hours ago, DCGuy64 said:

That’s great, sounds like it’s going to work out for you. Not sure what we’ll do, since we already bought our plane tickets. I just checked and Costa has a cruise leaving the same day (Aug 28) so we might do that instead 

Do you want to spend 2000 dollars to fly to Europe just for one Costa Cruise???

[DCGuy64]

1 hour ago, drsel said:

Do you want to spend 2000 dollars to fly to Europe just for one Costa Cruise???

I’d rather it be MSC but we’ve done 2 cruises on Costa and absolutely loved it. So yes. 

[drsel]

41 minutes ago, DCGuy64 said:

I’d rather it be MSC but we’ve done 2 cruises on Costa and absolutely loved it. So yes. 

Same here, but I mean you could combine 1-2 Cruises with a land tour OR do 4-5 cruises, to make it worth your $2000 airfare.

Edited June 12, 2021 by drsel

[Bgwest]

3 hours ago, DCGuy64 said:

I’d rather it be MSC but we’ve done 2 cruises on Costa and absolutely loved it. So yes. 

Wife and I have watched many cruise shows on TV featuring Costa cruises. We've discussed booking a cruise with them but have been very concerned about our inability to speak Italian. From what we've seen, everything seems to be conducted in Italian. 

 

Your thoughts?

[DCGuy64]

5 hours ago, drsel said:

Same here, but I mean you could combine 1-2 Cruises with a land tour OR do 4-5 cruises, to make it worth your $2000 airfare.

Hi, I thought I’d replied earlier but don’t see what I posted. Anyway, we both work full time so doing more than one 7-day cruise at a time isn’t possible at the moment. Otherwise, I’d agree with you and we could do a land based vacation on top of the cruise. We hope to do things like that later on. 

[DCGuy64]

2 hours ago, Bgwest said:

Wife and I have watched many cruise shows on TV featuring Costa cruises. We've discussed booking a cruise with them but have been very concerned about our inability to speak Italian. From what we've seen, everything seems to be conducted in Italian. 

 

Your thoughts?

That’s a very good question. I’m not going to lie, being fluent in Italian would help a lot. We’ve sailed with Costa twice and both times they sort of got confused when it came to assigning us a dinner table, because we like to dine with other people and make friends. But the maitre d’ assumed we needed to be with other English speakers and there weren’t very many on our cruises. However, I am thoroughly fluent in Italian and my wife understands a lot so once that got straightened out, we had a wonderful time. There were definitely other non-native Italian speakers, to be sure. But it was very much Italian focused, which appeals to us. Hope that helps! 

[Bgwest]

3 hours ago, DCGuy64 said:

That’s a very good question. I’m not going to lie, being fluent in Italian would help a lot. We’ve sailed with Costa twice and both times they sort of got confused when it came to assigning us a dinner table, because we like to dine with other people and make friends. But the maitre d’ assumed we needed to be with other English speakers and there weren’t very many on our cruises. However, I am thoroughly fluent in Italian and my wife understands a lot so once that got straightened out, we had a wonderful time. There were definitely other non-native Italian speakers, to be sure. But it was very much Italian focused, which appeals to us. Hope that helps! 

Helps a lot. Thanks!! I hope you are able to get your travels straightened out and that you enjoy yourselves whatever you decide to do. 

[drsel]

5 hours ago, Bgwest said:

Wife and I have watched many cruise shows on TV featuring Costa cruises. We've discussed booking a cruise with them but have been very concerned about our inability to speak Italian. From what we've seen, everything seems to be conducted in Italian. 

 

Your thoughts?

You should read the many threads on MSC vs Costa.

On Costa, Italian is the first language, but its no problem at all because they repeat everything in English.

Whereas on MSC, English is the first language.

 

Costa is a low budget cruise line and there are some bargains available.

[drsel]

I received my Musica cancellation email cum 100% FCC with $200 OBC.

Any new booking using a FCC is not refundable but it is protected by CruiseFlex, which allows change of cruise upto 48  hours prior to sailing

Edited June 13, 2021 by drsel

[8420PR]

On 6/12/2021 at 5:23 AM, DCGuy64 said:

Crap, I’m afraid our hopes of getting on the Splendida are about to be dashed, too! 

MSC Splendida is currently sailing (currently in Dubrovnik), so it would need something extra-ordinary for July and August cruises to be cancelled.  

[DCGuy64]

2 hours ago, 8420PR said:

MSC Splendida is currently sailing (currently in Dubrovnik), so it would need something extra-ordinary for July and August cruises to be cancelled.  

Yes, I’m very excited to see the Splendida underway. I’m not so much worried about the sailings being cancelled as I am their being restricted to Schengen area residents as MSC policy currently stands. I’m a US resident. We have an existing reservation on the Seaview and it is also restricted to Schengen area residents. 

[sidari]

1 hour ago, DCGuy64 said:

Yes, I’m very excited to see the Splendida underway. I’m not so much worried about the sailings being cancelled as I am their being restricted to Schengen area residents as MSC policy currently stands. I’m a US resident. We have an existing reservation on the Seaview and it is also restricted to Schengen area residents. 

Current restart dates for the ships.

MSC Cruises Restart Plans Ship by Ship - Cruise Industry News | Cruise News

[DCGuy64]

11 minutes ago, sidari said:

Current restart dates for the ships.

MSC Cruises Restart Plans Ship by Ship - Cruise Industry News | Cruise News

Thanks, @sidari, I was looking at that article late last night. It still doesn’t address which residents are allowed to sail, though. Don’t get me wrong: I’m thrilled that MSC has restarted operations and even if they restrict their European sailings to Europeans, that’s a win for MSC. I believe they are not allowing US/Canadian residents until June 30, however that doesn’t guarantee the ban will be lifted on July 1, though I hope it will. They could just extend it. It’s more a matter of deciding if/where to travel for end of August since we’ve already bought our plane tickets and I have the approval to take time off work. 

Edited June 14, 2021 by DCGuy64

[Stockjock]

On 6/12/2021 at 12:17 PM, DCGuy64 said:

I’d rather it be MSC but we’ve done 2 cruises on Costa and absolutely loved it. So yes. 

I have a "Plan C" backup cruise on Costa out of Venice that I'll probably cancel.  Great deal actually.  Not a lot over $500 before tax and port for a 7 night balcony with drinks included.  Nice itinerary too, although the ship leaves from half of the ports around 2 pm and I don't love that.  More typical departures are around 6 pm.

Costa does scare me though.  I have read so many negative remarks.  The other day, one person who sailed on Costa described them as far and away "the worst cruise line in the western world".

[drsel]

2 hours ago, Stockjock said:

Costa does scare me though.  I have read so many negative remarks.  The other day, one person who sailed on Costa described them as far and away "the worst cruise line in the western world".

Its a budget cruise line, you get what you pay for.

If you are not too fussy, you may actually enjoy it.

Any Cruise is better than no Cruise.

Edited June 14, 2021 by drsel