About upgrades

[Tillyanne]

Hello there, I have just received my cabin number for a cruise leaving on the 15th October on the Virtuosa expecting it to be an outside cabin but the allocated number seems to be a balcony cabin.  Is this likely to be an error and is it likely to be changed?  Or are we getting an upgrade?

[Essiesmom]

You got an upgrade.  I booked B2B both Fantastica inside gty and got balconies for both.  Not the same cabin, though.  EM

[Tillyanne]

Wow Essiesmom, I only booked last week and first time with MSC, I am so happy.  Congratulations on your upgrade too. 

[Essiesmom]

I’m developing a theory/strategy when booking with MSC.  But this only works if you just want to be on the boat and are not particular about cabin type and location.  When my sister traveled with me I booked balconies as she liked to sit out and read.  But as I am sailing solo again, type doesn’t matter.  Back in 2018 for a 2019 cruise on Seaside, I looked at the deckplans and realized there were only 80 OV cabins, equally split between Bella and Fantastica.  And 1300 balconies.  I gambled that if I booked a fantastica OV gty I had a good chance of an upgrade to a balcony.  And we were.  This time, again onSeaside, I booked Fantastica inside gty and got balconies.  On Virtuosa there are 120 OV cabins, and 1300+ balconies.  
 I am booked on Seashore for 10 days in December in a Fantastica OV.  Not offered a gty this time, so I have a chosen cabin, much further forward than I would like, but my Fitbit will be happy.  I’m way forward, all the food is way aft.  Since I chose my cabin, I don’t know if I will be given an upgrade, but if I am offered the opportunity to bid on an upgrade, the only class I would bid on is YC inside.  EM

 

Edited September 13, 2023 by Essiesmom

[joeyancho]

I recently bid on a yacht club interior room.  My original booking was a balcony.   We haven't heard back yet.  May question is:  is it worth giving up a standard balcony for an interior with the Yacht Club experience?  Thanks for your answers. 

  

[rikitikitavii]

8 hours ago, joeyancho said:

I recently bid on a yacht club interior room.  My original booking was a balcony.   We haven't heard back yet.  May question is:  is it worth giving up a standard balcony for an interior with the Yacht Club experience?  Thanks for your answers. 

  

The “worth” would depend on you. The YC interior is very similar to standard interior, small room, limited storage, small bathroom. BUT, it is in YC, with the benefits that come with it. 

 

[JamieLogical]

9 hours ago, joeyancho said:

I recently bid on a yacht club interior room.  My original booking was a balcony.   We haven't heard back yet.  May question is:  is it worth giving up a standard balcony for an interior with the Yacht Club experience?  Thanks for your answers. 

  

 

My husband and I have gone back and forth on this a LOT, because we currently have a YCI bid in for our cruise this Sunday and I keep debating canceling it. We are booked in a nice balcony on Deck 8 of the Meraviglia... one of the ones that is a deeper balcony on the bump out and is not obstructed by the lifeboats. It's a 10-day cruise and we have never done an interior before. I am apprehensive about the lack of storage, lack of space generally, and the lack of natural light. But, it does seem like a good opportunity to try out the YC benefits without paying a fortune. Ultimately, we decided to keep our bid in and leave it up to fate. I am sure we will have a wonderful cruise either way.

[DaKahuna]

@JamieLogical  Good luck with your YC upgrade bid.  I hope you get it.  

[JamieLogical]

2 minutes ago, DaKahuna said:

@JamieLogical  Good luck with your YC upgrade bid.  I hope you get it.  

 

I'm actually hoping we win the bid for the Aurea Balcony Suite with Whirpool. We had one of those on our April sailing and really loved it.

 

I have no idea when to expect our bid to be accepted if it is. I am sure they won't send rejection emails until t he bitter end, if at all, but I would hope they would send acceptances at least 48 hours out from sailing. We sail on Sunday.

[DaKahuna]

2 hours ago, JamieLogical said:

 

I'm actually hoping we win the bid for the Aurea Balcony Suite with Whirpool. We had one of those on our April sailing and really loved it.

 

I have no idea when to expect our bid to be accepted if it is. I am sure they won't send rejection emails until t he bitter end, if at all, but I would hope they would send acceptances at least 48 hours out from sailing. We sail on Sunday.

 

 We have no experience with MSC as February will be our first sailing but on the other two we have sailed on predominately we normally receive our rejection emails 48-hours prior to sailing.  

 

 So I would expect that you will hear something, one way or the other, by tomorrow afternoon. 

 

 I guess I have become spoiled and I simply book the room we want from the beginning.  

 

[JamieLogical]

4 minutes ago, DaKahuna said:

 

 We have no experience with MSC as February will be our first sailing but on the other two we have sailed on predominately we normally receive our rejection emails 48-hours prior to sailing.  

 

 

 

That was my experience with other lines as well, but I had read on these boards that some people don't get their MSC upgrade win emails until embarkation day. One person said they had already checked in at the terminal and were waiting to board when they got theirs.

[DaKahuna]

42 minutes ago, JamieLogical said:

 

That was my experience with other lines as well, but I had read on these boards that some people don't get their MSC upgrade win emails until embarkation day. One person said they had already checked in at the terminal and were waiting to board when they got theirs.

 

 I watched a video the other day of a couple that got upgraded after they were already onboard and had unpacked. 

 

 I have my fingers crossed for you. 

 

[Slyfox16]

Meraviglia... one of the ones that is a deeper balcony on the bump out and is not obstructed by the lifeboats. We are the cabins with the deeper balcony? Hard to tell from the ship's deck plans.

[perakcruiser]

On 9/21/2023 at 10:59 AM, joeyancho said:

I recently bid on a yacht club interior room.  My original booking was a balcony.   We haven't heard back yet.  May question is:  is it worth giving up a standard balcony for an interior with the Yacht Club experience?  Thanks for your answers. 

Never been in YC, but I apart from the other YC advantages would guess that FOOD is quite important to answer this question. I would certainly give up a balcony to change the MDR menu to the YC menu. And I am not unhappy with the MDR at all, but what I read and see from YC food here that pushes me more and more into opening the purse on one of the next MSC cruises 😄

[JamieLogical]

9 hours ago, Slyfox16 said:

Meraviglia... one of the ones that is a deeper balcony on the bump out and is not obstructed by the lifeboats. We are the cabins with the deeper balcony? Hard to tell from the ship's deck plans.

 

 

All of the balconies in the darker green are the ones I am talking about. You can see in this photo looking along the railing that the balconies on deck 8 (where the photo was taken from) stick out further than the balconies above, because they are deeper, but there are no lifeboats directly outside of the baclony.

 

 

Here are a few more photos that show the depth of the balconies:

 

 

 

And in this one you can see that you can look straight down to the water without a lifeboat below the balcony:

[Sixtytwo]

Talking about upgrade offers, how long before cruise date does MSC stop offering upgrade bids? We are about 35 days out and wondered if there is still a possibility we could get an offer. 🤷‍♂️

[Stockjock]

MSC is probably the most liberal cruise line with respect to non-paid upgrades.  Less so since they started participating in the paid upgrade program, but more than any other cruise line that I am aware of.

[Fissues]

How does one go about getting an upgrade while boarding?

[LuckyStar]

On 9/12/2023 at 3:04 PM, Tillyanne said:

Hello there, I have just received my cabin number for a cruise leaving on the 15th October on the Virtuosa expecting it to be an outside cabin but the allocated number seems to be a balcony cabin.  Is this likely to be an error and is it likely to be changed?  Or are we getting an upgrade?

We booked an interior GTY and got upgraded to a Balcony.  it's way forward but it's the Mediterranian, so we're thrilled to have a balcony. 

[Tillyanne]

Hi LuckyStar, we are really thrilled too.  I have since had two emails offering paid upgrades, but I’m more than happy with my balcony. Not long now!

[Anastas617]

On 9/21/2023 at 11:27 AM, JamieLogical said:

 

I'm actually hoping we win the bid for the Aurea Balcony Suite with Whirpool. We had one of those on our April sailing and really loved it.

 

I have no idea when to expect our bid to be accepted if it is. I am sure they won't send rejection emails until t he bitter end, if at all, but I would hope they would send acceptances at least 48 hours out from sailing. We sail on Sunday.

When do the upgrade bid emails go out? I don't think I ever received one for my July cruise and I haven't received one for my October 23 cruise. Do they usually not send them to solo travelers?

[Essiesmom]

2 hours ago, Anastas617 said:

When do the upgrade bid emails go out? I don't think I ever received one for my July cruise and I haven't received one for my October 23 cruise. Do they usually not send them to solo travelers?

I have received them as a solo.  Did you book direct, or use a TA?  Some big box TAs don’t participate in the bidding program.  EM

[Anastas617]

1 minute ago, Essiesmom said:

I have received them as a solo.  Did you book direct, or use a TA?  Some big box TAs don’t participate in the bidding program.  EM

I booked direct with MSC. I searched through my emails and spam folder in case I missed something, but there was nothing.

[flsun]

5 hours ago, Anastas617 said:

When do the upgrade bid emails go out? I don't think I ever received one for my July cruise and I haven't received one for my October 23 cruise. Do they usually not send them to solo travelers?

The upgrade bid emails often go out after you check in online. I have clients sailing on Oct 6th, and they all received one yesterday. We bid an upgrade on Seaside last month and went to YC. We’ve sailed MSC 11 times, 3 times in YC, and it is well worth the bid. Our bid cost us about 25% of what retail YC would have.  

[Anastas617]

15 minutes ago, flsun said:

The upgrade bid emails often go out after you check in online. I have clients sailing on Oct 6th, and they all received one yesterday. We bid an upgrade on Seaside last month and went to YC. We’ve sailed MSC 11 times, 3 times in YC, and it is well worth the bid. Our bid cost us about 25% of what retail YC would have.  

Thanks. I don't think I did online check-in until a few days before my July cruise and I haven't done it for my October cruise yet. I guess I thought it was weird to check-in so far in advance.  I'll take care of that tonight.

 

EDIT: Sorry. I didn't mean to hijack the thread.

Edited September 25, 2023 by Anastas617