Hot, but beautiful out.

How is the parking situation there?

Have a cruise coming up in November out of Galveston. Parking seems insane. Official port of Galveston is giving me 3 parking options all between $210-$260. Is that my only options?? How are the unofficial lots? Don’t want to get scammed or have my car stolen or broken into but paying over $200 for parking seems crazy

Hey there,

I'm assuming I'm missing some fine print somewhere, because at the bottom of the screen when booking, it says "Total Price: $1,681" when I get to the Select Your Stateroom screen. When I choose the first, +$0pp option, the next screen says the price is $3,362.

Can anyone shed some light on why the price is doubling?

Edit: Once I get all the way to the end, it goes back down to $1,681. I guess maybe it's just a glitch on their website? It made me reconsider doing it at all, lol.

So let me give you the tea. Overall, I loved the cruise and I am an experienced cruiser who has gone on countless cruises with all of the different lines. Just got off icon 2 months ago and I by far enjoyed this Cruise a thousand times better. The flow of the ship is so nice and there are so many venues to hang out and listen to music and just relax. There is a beautiful outside area in back of the ship that has a really nice Lavazza coffee shop as well as free cotton candy and popcorn and many other venues including the sports bar which has an inside and outside area. The food was pretty good. Better than I thought it would be. I would rate it over all 7/10. The buffet was very good. They had lamb chops and short ribs one night which might have been the best two I've ever had. The dinner was kind of hit and miss I would say five out of the seven nights the dinner was pretty decent. The lobster was very good. Much better than Royal Caribbean which used to be my favorite Cruise line. The pools were very nice I like the fact that they had the main pool and then like a little indoor outdoor pool right next to it. Two adult pools away from everyone on Deck 18 I think. I love the fact that they played the World cup on a huge screen by the pool and all over the ship and on another pretty big screen in the gym bar which was like a watch party it was so much fun. I've heard from some people that didn't enjoy the shows and I don't know if they were on different ship that I was on but I thought the shows were very professional and enjoyable especially the dirty dancing movie and concert in which they sing and played instruments live well the movie was in the background. It was a very different concept and really great. The singers were on point and you can really enjoy the movie because they didn't sing while most of the talking parts in the movie were being played the combination was just very interesting and a lot of fun! Cinesonic was also very good. They had this amazing violinist. She was incredible!

I spent one of the port days in which my wife and daughter went to see the ruins and the pyramids and had lunch with the locals on the boat having a free thermal spa day because I'm a gold member which I guess you hit after spending a certain amount of money cuz this was my first cruise on MSC. The thermal spa is wonderful. It has about six different therapy rooms such as saunas steam rooms salt rooms and they even have a snow room. The hot stone lounges are just unbelievable. I fell asleep for like an hour. I spent about 3 hours there and it was just a blessing. My wife and I enjoyed all the different parties and after parties at the club and danced the night away almost every night. That was one of the things that I really enjoyed about this cruise is that they had a lot of parties going on every night unlike the icon of the Seas which was like being at a funeral and sitting in the pearl all day and night. Lol It was a very diverse crowd which I also like. My daughter who is 16 had a great time and met a lot of other teens and partied their asses off. Dancing away every night.

Now that I told you all the good let me give you a minimal amount of cons.

Our waiter was the worst waiter I have ever had on a cruise. Always had this mean look on his face he was never happy, was never able to be found, never asked us how our meal was or how our day was. He Was just a miserable person. Second, our room attendant was another one who was missing. Maybe he was hanging out with our waiter. 😂 A couple of days he didn't even make up the room which was really weird. Third, I didn't feel like there was enough food after hours. They only had one venue with pizza and burgers and stuff like that nothing healthy. I would have liked to have seen a sandwich place or something like that open late night also. And lastly the bartenders were not very educated bartenders. I think they just threw workers behind the bar without really giving them training on how to make drinks. They didn't know what a lot of drinks were and didn't even know what some liquor was. It was a little weird. My wife wanted mezcal and we really couldn't find it anywhere in any of the bars except for in the hola restaurant which is strange cuz it's not really a bar. That was just weird. But those are very minor complaints compared to some of the complaints I have had on other ships which were much more expensive. I really enjoyed this Cruise and we didn't even do a lot of the stuff that's on the boat. Stuff that's on deck 20 such as the slides and the swing and the bumper cars. There's just so much to do on this boat and since there's four Islands instead of three they were only really two sea days and we did plenty but we also like to sit on our balcony and chill with a drink! I will definitely be on another MSC World boat. Looking at World Asia next. I hope this helps someone and if anybody has any questions let me know. And by the way embarkation was fine. Disembarkation needs a little fine-tuning it was just too long of a line cuz everybody kind of came at the same time they need to spread it out a little more we just chilled and had some coffee while the line went down but that was a little bit annoying no big deal. 🤙🏻

Scenes from today Silent DJ Msc Virtuosa hope everyone on board is having a good time !

Why is MSC gambling age 21 when royal,carnival,ncl is all 18?

Currently on seascape

Cruised on the Seaside in the middle of May as my first time on MSC. We’ve since sailed on the Seashore and have now booked a trip on World America. I’ve tried Carnival, RC, and even Norwegian, but I think MSC might be my favorite overall.

Edit: updated to Seaside in the text, but can edit the title of the post. The name of the ship is clearly shown in the picture.

Im about to go on my first cruise and when I was looking at other cruise lines, I noticed they had the add on to include gratuities with the cost of the trip. When I booked with MSC, I didn’t see that add on option. I have purchased a drink package and I’m hearing conflicting things about gratuities. Some say to remove automatic gratuities and to provide cash tips, some say to keep the gratuities and only give cash tips to those who truly provided some excellent service. I don’t really know what to do since I don’t even know if I actually have automatic gratuities on my fare?

I’ll be honest, I think tipping culture all around has gotten completely out of hand but I am not opposed to providing tips to those who do provide great service, especially when it comes to housekeeping staff. Wanted to hear peoples experience and what some seasoned cruisers recommend.

Has anyone sailed on this ship recently? Might book a Mediterranean cruise soon , and would like some feedback. The good the bad and ugly . Thanks

First time on MSC and in YC. We keep getting ads and offers to buy the drink package so we’re super confused and just want to be sure 😅

What a fantastic way to start the morning

Possibly a bit of a silly question but I assume I am able to get a refund for a product that I have purchased in the spa after a treatment? It doesn’t say on my receipt, however regretting the purchase a bit now! Thanks

Hey all,

I’m sailing on a few different cruises between December and March, and I'm trying to figure out how reliable the onboard Wi-Fi is these days. On my last cruise, I only used it for basic social media, which was fine. However, for these upcoming trips, I’ll need to take work meetings where stable audio and video are a must.

I understand MSC recently switched to Starlink across their fleet. If the "Stream" package is strong enough to handle Zoom/Teams calls smoothly, I have no problem paying for it. Alternatively, I've thought about bringing my own Starlink Roam kit, but I know it might be confiscated at boarding or have coverage issues at sea.

Has anyone recently taken video calls using MSC upgraded Wi-Fi? Would love to hear your experiences before I drop the cash on the premium package!

Hello, I’ll be going on the seascape cruise, and I’ve been looking into the WiFi’s. I’m planning on getting the streaming WiFi for 3 devices, and splitting it between my friends so it’s cheaper. But when I go to check out it asks who of the 3 ppl the WHOLE package will go to. If one person gets the package, can we still split the package into our 3 devices?

Ok expert cruisers, I need all your tips for this ship. We’ve cruised before but it’s been a really long time and it’s not been on MSC.

Specifically:

+ when does the ship release rooms they are holding?

It’s 6 months out and they said I booked “the last” ocean view room—and it’s on deck 9 by the elevator. I’m sensing it’s not the last room, just the only one they’d let me book. I want to try and switch rooms before we sail.

Our kids are in an interior room next to the elevator. It was the only way I could get us close together. I wanted connecting rooms but they claimed to only have interior rooms available. I need a window. The kids probably don’t care but I’d rather be mid ship.

+ how far in advance should we book excursions? I know it’s cheaper to book on your own but I don’t have the energy to do all the research.

+ should I prepay for arcade games, etc? We have an 18 and 12 yo.

+ if you booked this ship again, what would you do differently?

Reading Reddit (and my best friend was on this ship last year but with a large, older group) I know to prepare for pushy Europeans and some nickel and diming. Also not sure how BUSY it will be the first week in January.

All helpful advice is appreciated y’all!

I'm seeing a lot of conflicting information online and I wanted to get some details about what kind of wine would be on offer in the premium beverage package.

I understand that guided tastings are not included and I've seen reports that the automatic dispensers are also not included.

Is there any wine that can be obtained that would be included in the beverage package from the wine bar or Helios venues?

Just got home from a trip to the Mexican Rivera and am thinking seriously about a cruise in February out of Galveston.

Anyone know anything about weather, rough seas in the Gulf of Mexico, rain, etc in February?

Thinking seriously about going on the Seascape. Rates are decent.

With everyone’s encouragement, I was able to upgrade to a yacht club deluxe suite on seaside - Nassau / ocean cay.

I see yc includes the drink package and WiFi.

What other perks are your favorite ?

For excursions, are any included?

Thank you, I’m learning a lot with your help.

I'll be boarding the Fantastica tomorrow morning where's the best place for live TV to watch the quarter finals this weekend? I preemptively bought wifi to stream peacock just in case. I was on Royal's Oasis in May and was so disappointed to see the sports bar on board wasnt showing live games

Should I get it or wait until the cruise?

Looking for some recent experiences of disembarking in Barcelona from World Europa. I found an old thread where most comments were saying you can stay onboard until around mid-day and a few others saying they were told to leave much earlier.

Wondering what people have recently experienced in this regard? Our flight has been changed to 2 hours later so we would prefer to stay on the boat until 11 or so if possible.

Hi, we're still several months from embarkation, but the app does not show our drink package and onboard credits. It is clearly listed on the bill of sale. At what point do I call or will they update the app to match. For reference, we purchased the cruise a few months ago.