Do some itineraries have passengers boarding and disembarking throughout the cruise?

[Envelope21]

Seasoned cruiser here but new to MSC. We are interested in a Med cruise in the spring of next year and I keep seeing the same ship's beginning point at different ports a day or two apart. I can only assume that they have passengers starting and ending the cruise at different ports along the way. I've never seen that before and it seems like it would be a logistical nightmare for the staff and crew. 

 

The particular cruise we are interested begins and ends in Barcelona. I see it on my online travel agents website. But I also see the ship departing and ending from different ports and the Barcelona stop is in the middle of the itinerary. When I go to MSC's website, they don't show the Barcelona port as a starting point at all.

 

Is this a common thing with MSC?

 

 

[CruisingFox27]

Yes. Most of the Mediterranean cruises have multiple boarding ports. 

[elmsliebev]

we've had this on a Costa cruise. The only impact we saw were frequent safety drills annoucements. Some of the days we left quite late in the evening, which was an advantage! 

We are on MSC in March and our cruise officially starts in Hamburg, though we doing Southampton to Southampton. 

Edited December 16, 2022 by elmsliebev

[Nunagoras]

30 minutes ago, Envelope21 said:

Seasoned cruiser here but new to MSC. We are interested in a Med cruise in the spring of next year and I keep seeing the same ship's beginning point at different ports a day or two apart. I can only assume that they have passengers starting and ending the cruise at different ports along the way. I've never seen that before and it seems like it would be a logistical nightmare for the staff and crew. 

 

The particular cruise we are interested begins and ends in Barcelona. I see it on my online travel agents website. But I also see the ship departing and ending from different ports and the Barcelona stop is in the middle of the itinerary. When I go to MSC's website, they don't show the Barcelona port as a starting point at all.

 

Is this a common thing with MSC?

 

 

Yes,, that is common practice on MSC EU sailings! Ships are "divided" in sections, each one for each embarkation port. Crew will work around that schedule. Sometimes it seems like you're on a ferry service, but generally you won't even to notice it at all. The official MSC's website is a mess of its own. Maybe your sailing is now sold out for direct purchases? Who knows! Have a nice sailing!...

[8420PR]

I quite like the cruises where people embark and disembark at each stop - as the number of passengers boarding at each port is lower (i.e. not the full ship trying to get off or on) it is a much more efficient and relaxed boarding than Miami.

 

If you look at the itinerary maps on the MSC website you can identify the official start/finish port by the star, in case you are interested.  The show and dinner schedule will still be based on this, and I think the majority of passengers board there as it is typically a Saturday or Sunday.

[yellow-submarine]

It is not just in EU. On the South Caribbean you can board the MSC Seaside on Martinique or on Guadeloupe and some TA offers Barbados boarding too.

[travelberlin]

All cruises in the Mediterranean are hop on hop off with MSC.

Ivi

[Envelope21]

Thank you to everyone who responded. I appreciate it.

[sidari]

One drawback is that Gala nights for each boarding can be on different nights which can mean not so many will dress up.

[SirWolf]

2 hours ago, sidari said:

One drawback is that Gala nights for each boarding can be on different nights which can mean not so many will dress up.

 

? I don’t understand..

Are you saying that every boarding has its own Gala/Elegant Night ? .. meaning multiple Gala/Elegant Nights during a 7-day cruise ?

That’s not the case from my experience.

[sidari]

16 hours ago, SirWolf said:

 

? I don’t understand..

Are you saying that every boarding has its own Gala/Elegant Night ? .. meaning multiple Gala/Elegant Nights during a 7-day cruise ?

That’s not the case from my experience.

The last one we did some years ago worked in that way, it was odd for sure. Maybe things have changed now, though there would still have to be more than one per Seven day week.

[Nikita4]

No there ist one elegant night on den 7 day cruise. But when you embark in the first port, then ist the gala night perhaps on your last night, for other pax this ist the first night and for others the third. So the elegant night ist for the hole ship on the same night. Otherwise ist to complicated. Im cruising often in the med and Northern Europe with more than one embarking ports. I like this, so its also possible to make a short 3 day cruise from Naples to Genova or so.

[Nunagoras]

2 hours ago, Nikita4 said:

No there ist one elegant night on den 7 day cruise. But when you embark in the first port, then ist the gala night perhaps on your last night, for other pax this ist the first night and for others the third. So the elegant night ist for the hole ship on the same night. Otherwise ist to complicated. Im cruising often in the med and Northern Europe with more than one embarking ports. I like this, so its also possible to make a short 3 day cruise from Naples to Genova or so.

That's it. They only have one "formal" night out of 7 and they should to eliminate that and make the usual captain's welcome such a casual event (pool deck weather permitting). "Formal" night used to be the 2nd to the main port (the one marked with a star on the official itineraries), but hey: The ones embarking on said port might not even to have access to their luggage when going dinner that night, so it may to become odd. Things are what they are. Less people going too formal year after year. I believe nowadays formal means collared shirts and pants for men without jacket or tie by the most part...

[Heartgrove]

One of the advantages I have noticed was for our MSC Splendida cruise in October. It was calling on both Civitavvechia and Genoa. The choice of staterooms in YC was better boarding in Genoa than boarding in Civitavvechia. We boarded in Genoa. According to a crew member, Marseille had the largest number boarding for our cruise.

 

 

 

 

Edited December 17, 2022 by Heartgrove

[JoLoca2208]

On 12/17/2022 at 6:24 PM, Nikita4 said:

No there ist one elegant night on den 7 day cruise. But when you embark in the first port, then ist the gala night perhaps on your last night, for other pax this ist the first night and for others the third. So the elegant night ist for the hole ship on the same night. Otherwise ist to complicated. Im cruising often in the med and Northern Europe with more than one embarking ports. I like this, so its also possible to make a short 3 day cruise from Naples to Genova or so.

I think with the gala night schedule they are working around MSC homeport Genoa. Same goes for Welcome Aboard and Farewell shows. We never board in Genoa, as travelling there doesn't suit us, so we are always out of sync with gala night and shows. But we don't mind. 

[sealynx]

On 12/16/2022 at 1:19 PM, Envelope21 said:

it seems like it would be a logistical nightmare for the staff and crew.

On the contrary. Since there are fewer passengers boarding at once, the logistics are way less complicated.

 

On 12/17/2022 at 9:48 PM, Nunagoras said:

(the one marked with a star on the official itineraries)

Where can we find that? On the website I don't see any stars on the maps.

I believe its often Genua though.

[8420PR]

1 hour ago, JoLoca2208 said:

I think with the gala night schedule they are working around MSC homeport Genoa. Same goes for Welcome Aboard and Farewell shows. We never board in Genoa, as travelling there doesn't suit us, so we are always out of sync with gala night and shows. But we don't mind. 

My experience has been the Gala night is planned around the homeport.  E.g. this summer on Bellissima the Gala night was the evening before Genoa, as the homeport was Valencia.

[Nunagoras]

15 minutes ago, sealynx said:

On the contrary. Since there are fewer passengers boarding at once, the logistics are way less complicated.

 

Where can we find that? On the website I don't see any stars on the maps.

I believe its often Genua though.

It used to be a star; maybe they have replaced with a larger circle on the international site? The Portuguese variation of their site is very outdated, so I can't help you more!...

[hamrag]

On 12/16/2022 at 5:09 PM, yellow-submarine said:

It is not just in EU. On the South Caribbean you can board the MSC Seaside on Martinique or on Guadeloupe and some TA offers Barbados boarding too.

And St Maarten fortnightly....just returned from a 14 night Barbados boarding.

[hamrag]

On 12/16/2022 at 9:34 PM, sidari said:

One drawback is that Gala nights for each boarding can be on different nights which can mean not so many will dress up.

Not so, on our 7 MSC cruises since 2019 in Med, N. Europe and Antilles Caribbean. Gala nights apply to full ship, once per week

Edited December 19, 2022 by hamrag

[sidari]

3 hours ago, hamrag said:

Not so, on our 7 MSC cruises since 2019 in Med, N. Europe and Antilles Caribbean. Gala nights apply to full ship, once per week

I did say it was some time back and certainly before 2019.

[sealynx]

19 hours ago, Nunagoras said:

It used to be a star; maybe they have replaced with a larger circle on the international site? The Portuguese variation of their site is very outdated, so I can't help you more!...

No star, no larger circle, no other difference from the other ports. Al ports have the same dot.

[peder]

One other annoying aspect of this is that some room types are not bookable from some cities. For instance, the YC Owners Suite on the Seashore is only bookable in Marseilles, and the Seashore YC Royal Suite is only bookable in Genoa.

 

Is there a way to see ahead of time which ports are mapped to which cabins/floors?

[hamrag]

21 hours ago, peder said:

One other annoying aspect of this is that some room types are not bookable from some cities. For instance, the YC Owners Suite on the Seashore is only bookable in Marseilles, and the Seashore YC Royal Suite is only bookable in Genoa.

 

Is there a way to see ahead of time which ports are mapped to which cabins/floors?

This is MSC, right?!

[peder]

4 hours ago, hamrag said:

This is MSC, right?!

 

I'm not sure I understand the question? Are you suggesting that of course MSC would make it difficult because their IT/customer service isn't great?

 

I just think it's frustrating that many of the unique stateroom options look "sold out" but it's only because you've selected the wrong starting port. I assume this impacts upgrade availability as well. And it wouldn't be specific to YC either, it would also impact Aurea availability, though less of an issue generally with Aurea because there tends to be more cabins in each category. However, even if there are 3 2-bedroom Aurea suites on the Seashore/Seascape, if there are 6 ports where passengers are picked up, that means at 3 or more of those port locations you wouldn't likely be able to select the 2-bedroom Aurea suite, it would always show as "Sold Out".