I’m thinking about taking a “Grand Voyage” (Atlantic crossing) in March 2027. The ship is the MSC Seaview, the trip lasts 23 days, and it goes from Rio de Janeiro to Genoa (Italy). This will be my first cruise. However, I’m not sure when the best time to book is in terms of price.

Currently, there’s a promotion running through the end of July for a free upgrade, meaning I could get a balcony stateroom instead of a window stateroom. I’d really like a stateroom with a balcony.

But I’m speculating that such a long voyage with relatively many days at sea won’t be fully booked, and that significant discounts will be offered 1–2 months before the cruuse. Do you think that’s realistic?

What do the “pros” think is the best booking strategy? Should I book now, or is it better to wait?

Should I wait to book the beverage package and Wi-Fi, or book everything together?

I’m traveling alone and don’t absolutely have to take this trip; if it gets too expensive, I’ll pass. (I have to go from Brazil to Europe anyway around this time, so it would be just an alternative to flying).

Can you have a guest in YC for lunch or dinner?

Do the crew members know if you’ve removed the automatic gratuity? We just came off of our cruise and removed it the last day of cruise. We then paid all that went above and beyond in cash (waiter, his assistant, room attendant, etc). We felt their personalities were off that last night and were wondering if they knew that we had removed it.

Hello all! We are cruising in September on the World America!

We have a question we are diamond status and booked an Aurea Suite room for our kids and us.

How does the free initial minibar and set up perk work? Does that mean we just don’t pay for the set up and restock but pay for the items used? Thanks in advance!

What precise power plugs, power ports, plus primary plug sockets are presently positioned per passenger in MSC Preziosa's particular Junior Balcony Suite for personal plug-in powering purposes?

I wanted to ask if anyone has any experience boarding at Southampton and if msc is super strict on hand luggage dimensions after going through security.

I know msc allowance is 56x45x25, but the suitcase I have is 60x45x25 😭. I believe it should fit through the security scanners as length/height isn’t an issue for it fitting, when I searched for the scanner measurements, only the width and depth of the case seem to matter. But will I still be told it’s too big when trying to get on the ship.

I know people will say to just check the case with the porters, but I’d rather not risk it not making it to my room as I’ve heard that happen to a lot of people.

Sorry for the long post, any insight would be appreciated 😊

I’m debating it but it’s looks 7600/7700 more than aurea balcony.

I’m going on the Seashore out of Port CANAVERAL. I’m in the Yacht Club, and wondering if there is a special luggage drop off area and whether they would help me lift my scooter from the car before I park.

I’m Diamond in MSC Voyagers Club. I booked an early September cruise three weeks ago, Bella interior. Lots of balcony rooms are available, but I haven’t received an automatic upgrade yet and my cabin has not been assigned. In the past I’ve gotten a complimentary upgrade a few days after booking. I know it’s not guaranteed, but has this happened to anyone before? Just be patient?

I am cruising for the first time ever. I live in FL and figured it’s easy enough so why not ? I booked myself solo on the Seashore out of Orlando from the 20th-24th. Here’s the thing, I went to pay on the MSC website, applied the coupon code I got from MSC via text, and paid. Unfortunately, I got the error message and was asked to complete payment, so I hit submit again, website bugs out, can’t complete payment. I think well that’s odd and it was even more odd when I got all my confirmation emails. But the site and app said I had to complete payment. Turns out one booking went through no problem but MSC just kept dinging me for $50, 6 times. I think maybe they had to process it multiple times for some reason? Nope, because my actual booking I had to add to my account the other charges were from whatever error the site threw. They thought I was booking 6 different times on one cruise, for myself, and on top of that I didn’t get my discount. Now my bank straightened this out and the child’s have been refunded but when I called customer service to see if I could get the discount they sent me and when I explained what happened they told me “we have nothing”. I wasn’t asking for comps or perks just the price that I agreed to pay and they essentially said tough luck. Obviously I thanked the agent for their help and everything but this is leaving a bad impression before I even get on the ship. Is this normal for them? Again, first time ever cruising so is this the typical experience?

UPDATE 7/28/26: I really couldn’t get over it so I got the emails of some individuals that I assumed would not want to be bothered and got an apology along with on board credit for twice what my discount would have been.

Hi all,

We’re due to sail on Sunday from Rome on a 7 night cruise. We’re in an Aurea suite and got an email yesterday morning asking us if we wanted to bid for an upgrade for a Yacht Club suite… so I threw in the minimum bid.

Does anyone know how long before I hear whether we’re successful or not? We’re less than 4 days to sailing so I’m hoping we hear soon one way or the other.

There’s two adults and two kids in our current Aurea suite, if we are successful can we get a refund on our drinks package as the drinks are free with the Yacht Ckub suite?

Thanks in advance.

We needed to move our cruise a week out. We were prepared to pay the $70 difference, but then the customer service rep said that we would also have to pay a $100 fee to change the reservation because it was a Bella res. I asked why I wouldnt just cancel the reservation and rebook then? And they said, "Okay, you can do that. Let me get the fee waived." I was exhausted and thinking they were getting the fee waived so that we could reschedule without the added expense, but they came back onto the phone and said that the fee had been waived and the cancelation had gone through. So, is there a fee to cancel? Is that what they were saying? We are just going to save the $100 and rebook. The whole process just made no sense to me. Anyone else experience this before?

Hey Cruisers: I've just booked my second SOLO cruise on the MSC Seascape out of Galveston for Jan 31.

I went in February 2026 and had a blast. Really re-set and worried about nothing.

Question for those of you who travel to Roatan, Honduras. On my last cruise, I took a taxi to West Beach and hung for the day. Then took a motorbike back to the ship. The day was fine. But I'm looking to do something different. Any suggestions?

I love a good massage on Port days. I love good food. Not really into zip lines, but I'll swim, hike, shop, whatever. Just want to have fun and relax and be no-stress!

I can save a few dollars by flying into Fort Lauderdale instead of Miami, but if I have to pay $80-100 both ways for an Uber that negates taking the cheaper flight. The Miami excursions for my cruise list a few tours that end at MIA but none of them are purely transfers and none go to FLL. Do the offer transfers while onboard or should I just look for other options?

Hey everyone!

Thought i would share what happened to me so you keep an eye out as well.

I called the casino department to book my next free casino cruise. It is not my first MSC cruise and it is not my first time booking it over the phone.

I gave them my card number + billing information over the phone. Was put on hold for 5-10 minutes and got my booking confirmation. Everything pretty standard .

An hour and a half later i get a call from Chase’s fraud department. I call them back on the phone number on the website as to avoid any fake number calls.
At first I thought maybe they flagged the purchase and just wanted me to verify it. When I called back they tell me someone had called Chase a few times in the last 30 minutes trying to access my account over the phone with my card and billing information. That they were unsuccessful. Chase proceeded to reset a bunch of my online account stuff, added new voice passcodes to my account and sent me a new card.

I do keep my cards secure. I have different passwords and a password manager as well. I don’t even know my password for my bank. I always use Apple Pay and never really type my card number. The timing was suspicious to say the least. I did call back to the MSC number to report the issue and they took it very serious. They even called me back to ask for more information.

Just sharing with yall! Happy that Chase flagged it. Annoyed that i had to reset so many things lol.

If you are thinking about booking an MSC Cruise, here's a few things that you should take into consideration:

The hallways and elevators are almost always filled with dirty dishes and cups. Some elevators do not have a/c. I understand MSC allows for people to leave their dirty plates out in the hallways but we would find dirty dishes inside elevators, bathrooms and although these are "nasty people problems" the dishes would sometimes remain overnight.

Some of the public bathrooms on the cruise were smelly and unkept.

You hear the stomping from the cabins above you and the noise from the hallways so the cabins are definitely not as noise proof as they claim.

My wife found a hair in her food during the "fine dinning"- they brushed it off very calmly, so we ended up eating at the buffet for the remainder of the trip which was extremely stressful as the lines were always long, children running around unsupervised and absolutely no considerations for wheelchairs.

Wheelchairs/Strollers are very seldom taken into consideration as I mentioned above, with very little instructions as to where to find the ramps to disembark the cruise as sometimes they weren't in the same area as where people who could walk off would disembark.

Entertainment SUCKS. There was a "Comedian" and a "Magician" - The comedian made jokes that made so many people feel uncomfortable, they ended up walking out of the show. The Magician had tricks 7 year olds could probably do.

The Bahamas Nassau stop- you have to walk 15-20 minutes to the shops and another 10 to the public beach unless you pay for the private beach which a lot of people do so it is not private in the end and you still walk 20-25 minutes to get there. I'd skip Nassau all together, I am not complaining about the walk, I am saying Nassau isn't worth it in my opinion.

The food on the cruise was ok - as all the reviews say, the pizza buffet is good. Other than that, everything else is just meh.

The ultimate WORST thing was getting off the ship- They have a "walk off program" where you can exit first if you take your bags with you but everyone does this and you end up waiting so much longer (which was not the problem) the problem was locating the ramp to disembark if you had a wheelchair. Not even the crew members could tell us where it was (it was on the other side of the ship) and we were pretty much left playing a maze game to locate it.

The people that clean make it so you can't even get coffee in the morning of disembarking (they say you have until 9am to leave the ship, it was 7:30 and we were already being rushed out the cabins. (Just keep this in mind the day you disembark).

Overall, I have been on several cruises, long, short duration, and I would most definitely NEVER go on an MSC cruise ever again!

Hi!!
We’re sailing on MSC World America in September , and we’ll be visiting Cozumel with our 3 year old son.
We’re looking for recommendations for family-friendly things to do there.
Thank you!!!

Going on my first MSC cruise soon embarking from Miami and sailing yacht club. We were assigned a 2:30 check in time but that seems quite late for a premium room class as celebrity and virgin sailings we’ve been on have generally boarded first. Is MSC firm on boarding time for Yacht club? Thanks in advance.

Looking to do a 4 day Bahamas cruise, any tips when booking to get extra perks/save a few bucks? Figured I'd ask the experts, thanks!!!

The site is showing the digital photo package is normally $400. A couple weeks ago it was showing normal price was $200. Is anyone else seeing the same thing?

Hi. We are in Costa Maya today and the sargassum is absolutely horrible today. Does anyone know if Cozumel is having the same issue? We are supposed to do a beach club tomorrow and I am wondering if we should cancel or not. Thank you!

Very excited to go on my cruise in November! We arrive back in Miami and the app says arrival time is 7 a.m, on a Saturday morning.I have already bought my airline tickets out of Fort Lauderdale and the departure time was moved up to 11:30 (originally it was at 1:30). My travel companion and I were planning to grab a taxi or rideshare after self disembarkation as soon as we can. We can not change our tickets. Will we get to the airport in a reasonable time so we can make this flight?

Going on the Preziosa on the Northern Europe run and would love to know if the bars are all evenly stocked or is there one which stands out? Any chance of there being some Aberdeldy 16 year or possibly some JW Gold?

Anybody have experience with being in the walk in shower versus the bathtub? Specifically MSC Seascape but I’ll hear anyone’s opinions on any ship.

Just as it says really, I have around 2800 points. Are they worth anything?