I’ve written quite a bit about “free” cruises lately, and over the past couple of days my wife and I have booked a couple of those offers. In this post, I wanted to share our experience booking the “free” MSC cruise offer from Rivers casino elite status and matching elite status to MSC for additional perks. I should note that I often have a hard time describing these cruise match offers well: the “free” cruises aren’t really free, but calling them “discounted” sounds to me like one of the many marketing emails you might receive saying “up to $650 off!” which we all know isn’t really a discount but just a marketing ploy. In this case, the hype seems mostly real: the free MSC cruise offers are truly pretty close to free – as you’ll see.
Gratuities are not included
With all of the free cruise offers I’ve written about, you’ll pay additional money for daily gratuities (or what MSC calls “hotel service charges”). Typically, gratuities are automatically added to your folio during the cruise at a cost of $14-$17 per person per day depending on the cruise line.
MSC lists their automatically billed service charges on this page. I booked a European cruise. At the time of writing, service charges for European cruises are:
- 12 Euro per day per adult (age 12 and older)
- 6 Euro per day per child (age 2-12)
- No service charge for children under 2 years old
Caribbean cruises bump the numbers up to $14.50 per adult per day / $7.25 per child per day. It is possible to get services charges removed from your bill and/or to change what you pay for these, though I just stick with the cruise line recommendations.
Booking the free MSC Cruise from Rivers Philadelphia status
Success with a balcony cabin on a European cruise
I previously wrote a guide to How to cruise for free by gaming status matches that explains the path to match from Caesars Diamond or MGM Gold to free cruises through status matches in Atlantic City and Philadelphia. See that post for more detail.
In Atlantic City, you can get a free Caribbean cruise of up to 7 nights with Ocean Prime status. I have that offer but have not yet booked that cruise.
In Philadelphia, it is possible to match to status with Rivers casino and get a complimentary cruise of up to 10 nights anywhere MSC sails. There are two matching paths, one of which could be done right away, and one which takes a few days:
- Match Caesars Diamond or MGM Gold to Rivers Platinum. This gives you a complimentary ocean view cabin on a cruise of up to 10 nights anywhere MSC sails.or
- Match Hard Rock Rock Royalty (which you can get in Atlantic City with a match from Caesars Diamond or MGM Gold) to Philadelphia Live Black. This match is not instant — the agent at the Philadelphia Live casino will take a picture of your Hard Rock Rock Royalty card and you will have to log in to your MyLiveRewards account a few days later (either on the website or app) to know when you have been upgraded to Black status. This typically takes 3-6 days. Then, go back to Philadelphia Live to pick up your physical Black card and bring that to Rivers to match to Rivers Black. Rivers Black gives you a complimentary balcony cabin instead of ocean view.
Again, there is more detail about all of the above in How to get free cruises by gaming status matches. We have had one report of someone who matched at another Rivers casino, but I don’t know whether all Rivers locations offer a match or what statuses they may match. We do know about the Philadelphia location.
My wife didn’t want to return to Philadelphia a second time, so she cut to the chase and matched Caesars Diamond to Rivers Platinum. I did the match to Philadelphia Live and returned to Philadelphia to match to Rivers Black just last week.
Our understanding based on data points from our Frequent Miler Insiders Facebook Group, the Miles Talk Facebook Group and Miles Talk’s Status Match Merry Go Round post was that:
- There are no port taxes on complimentary MSC cruises
- You must pay a $400 deposit that you get back as a $400 onboard credit. This onboard credit can be used for almost anything on board — drinks, upgraded dining, or even in the casino (you could load it to a slot machine for instance).
- The complimentary cruise is for 2 passengers
My wife and I had called about a month ago to inquire about an MSC cruise (from the Ocean Prime match). On that previous call, we had learned that if we wanted more than 2 passengers in the room, there was an additional person fee of $359 per additional person in the cabin beyond two people. Rather than pay an extra $718 to bring our kids, we decided to just book two rooms on the same cruise — my balcony room and my wife’s ocean view room. If I could book a balcony cabin for myself + one son but choose a balcony room that was capable of accommodating 4 passengers, then we could probably all sleep in one room (and I can use the ocean view room as a floating office during the trip!).
In order to figure out which room(s) would accommodate 4 people, I did a dummy booking and looked at room layouts. More on selecting your free room in another section of this post. For this section, the key is that I had pre-selected balcony rooms on the cruise we wanted that would work for our needs.
I began by making a dummy booking (going through the booking steps online as if making a normal paid booking just to check prices and availability). There were three different kinds of balcony rooms: a “Deluxe” balcony that was included in the standard balcony price, a “Premium Balcony” category that cost an additional $40 per passenger and a second “Premium Balcony” category that cost an additional $80 per passenger. Again, this was when searching for a normal paid booking.
Only those “Premium Balcony” rooms costing an extra $80 per passenger seemed to have cabins available with both a pullman bed and a sofa bed on the ship we were considering. I assumed we were going to have to pay an extra $160 on top of the $400 deposit in order to get one of those rooms ($80 x 2 passengers officially in the room), so I expected my cost to book to be at least $560 — that’s the $400 deposit that would come back as onboard credit plus what I assumed would be a $160 upgrade fee (plus service charges).
Just a few days after matching at Rivers, I called MSC at 1-844-MSC-PLAY and booked my balcony cabin. There were a few interesting takeaways from my phone call.
First up, I booked a cruise in Europe — so while the Ocean Prime offer is only valid on a Caribbean cruise, it seems that the Rivers Platinum or Rivers Black offer is valid anywhere MSC sails (as advertised). There were a number of European itineraries that looked great.
Second, I was told that the Rivers free cruise offer had to be booked and sailed by February 1, 2024 (my rep seemed to be reading a script rather than telling me about the offer from memory, so I think this info is accurate).
As it turned out, this offer was basically as good as advertised: I could have booked a balcony room “to be assigned” for just the $400 deposit. That is to say that it was free to book a balcony room that the cruise line would assign later based on availability (this is what they call the “Bella experience”). If I wanted to choose my balcony cabin, I had to pay an additional supplement of $59 for the “Fantastica experience”. This experience also included a couple of other small benefits like being able to select your preferred dining time and free delivery for room service breakfast. Given that we have toddlers, we need early dining, so that seemed worthwhile.
After I agreed that I’d like the Fantastica experience, I asked about the specific cabin I wanted (one of the cabins that would have been +$80 per passenger). The agent confirmed that it was available — and to my pleasant surprise, she didn’t mention any additional charge beyond the $59 to select a room (the “Fantastica experience”) — in other words, no $160 upcharge. That sounded Fantastica to me.
Sure enough, I went through the rest of the booking process and it was smooth sailing. She asked for my MSC Voyagers number, which I gladly provided since I have MSC Diamond status from an MSC status match (more on that in another section below). You can read about it in a coming section, but you want to do this match if you currently have top tier Hyatt or Hilton elite status.
The entire call took 30 minutes and 25 seconds. I paid my $459 and received my email confirmation. The agent said that the initial confirmation would say that there is a balance due but not to worry about it as I would receive a second confirmation once the “back office” had processed it. I wondered a bit whether I would have an issue since I was booking so soon after matching. However, I have now received 3 confirmation emails and none of them say that I owe anything more, so I think I’m good to go.
I should also note that I had read some grumblings about the cruise benefit perhaps only being for players who had earned Rivers status through play rather than through matching. I don’t know for sure that MSC won’t pull my reservation later on, but so far so good.
Confusing customer service on ocean view booking
Later the same day, my wife called to book her ocean view offer and had a different experience.
First of all, at the time when my wife first called, we knew that there were no ocean view cabins available for sale, so she had intended to ask for an interior room instead. That was fine since we didn’t really plan on using that room much anyway.
My wife explained to the MSC rep that she had Rivers Philadelphia Platinum status and that she understood that would get her a complimentary cruise with MSC. The next few things that happened were odd.
The rep took my wife’s name and said that she didn’t see that my wife had the free cruise offer….but then the agent continued forward with asking questions to put together the booking anyway.
Update: The agent first searched for the offer by name. When she didn’t find the offer under my wife’s name, she searched by her Rivers account number and then found the offer. The same happened when we later helped a family member book a cruise. So if they aren’t seeing the offer for you, maybe try having them search by Rivers account number.
Eventually, when they got to the specific cruise we had chosen, the representative said that the entire months of July and August were blackout dates for all European cruises and that my wife would have to pay an additional $500 to cruise during those months (which seems more like a green-out than a black-out, but who am I?). The MSC agent maintained that the $500 blackout date fee would apply even if my wife booked an interior room (alternatively, if my wife wanted a balcony cabin, there would be an additional supplement for a balcony upgrade on top of the blackout date fee).
The agent went on to cite a different blackout period for Caribbean cruises (sorry, didn’t catch what it was as we were already tuning her out) and blackout dates everywhere at Christmas & New Year’s. My wife explained that her husband had already booked a room with no such fee and the agent claimed that I would get charged the “blackout date fee” fee retroactively. I’m not buying it. That said, while I don’t really think the agent was right about that, MSC does have a poor customer service reputation. We’ll see what happens.
Needless to say, we politely thanked the agent and hung up without booking. I often say that I don’t take a single customer service agent’s word as law because agents are so frequently incorrect. We hadn’t heard of this blackout date fee from any other agent in a few calls to MSC, so either all of the previous agents failed to mention it or this last agent was wrong. It was worth another shot with someone else.
My wife called back again the next day to try again with a different agent. We had noticed that a single ocean view cabin had opened up on the sailing and hoped that she could perhaps snag that room (less because of the ocean view than the potential for upgrade. I’ve seen some reports of MSC Diamond members getting automatically upgraded to balcony rooms shortly before departure and I figured that having her one category below a balcony room positioned her for that if availability allows).
Much to our delight, the process was much simpler with the second agent. My wife had no choice about the $59 Fantastica experience — she had to pay for that if she wanted Ocean View (maybe MSC is smart enough to know that you’re kind of choosing your own room if there is only one left, so they’re going to charge you for it?). She could have booked an interior room for no “Fantastica” charge. but since we wanted the dining time choice and in the hopes of a later upgrade, she paid the $59 for the ocean view room (and of course the $400 deposit that she gets as onboard credit). There was no mention of blackout dates.
To be clear, my wife had called a couple of weeks ago when we first did the Rivers match just to price out the cost of additional passengers and an upgrade to a balcony and there had been no mention of blackout dates on that call (despite asking about the same summertime cruise) and there was no mention of it on my call. I had previously called a couple of times asking questions about the offer from Ocean Prime and nobody ever mentioned blackout dates. I’m generally not apt to believe something I’ve only heard from a single rep, so I think that the summertime blackout dates are fake news…though Christmas and New Year’s Eve being blacked out seems reasonable to me, so who knows?
At the end of the day, we each paid $59 to assign our cabins and each paid $400 for $400 in credit that we can essentially cash out in the casino (and I’m sure we’d have played some anyway).
In our case, MSC’s service charges work out to be not bad: they charge a service fee of 12 Euro per adult per night and 6 Euro per child (age 2-12) per night. That’s a total of 36 Euro per night for the four of us (less than $40 per night at today’s exchange rate). So that’ll be $400 all-in on gratuities.
For reference, the cabin that I booked would have been just under $4,000 (plus $200 in gratuities for two people) for the itinerary we selected:
My wife’s ocean view cabin would have been just under $3,000 (plus $200 in gratuities for 2 people). Had we booked four of us in a single cabin, it would have come to a total price of $5,019 + $400 in gratuities.
Getting $5,400 to $7400 worth of cruise (depending on whether you count one room or two) for what is effectively $400 in gratuities + $118 in the “Fantastica upgrade” fee seems like a slamming deal to me. We’ve also put down $800 in total deposits ($400 for each room), but since that could be loaded in the casino (and cashed out whenever you choose to stop playing), that money feels like spending cash that we could spend but don’t have to.
I know that MSC has a reputation as being poor at customer service and lower quality in some ways. I accept that the ship may disappoint, but Europe probably won’t….particularly at this price point for transportation from port to port, lodging, meals, and some entertainment.
MSC Status Match
If you have hotel elite status, you’ll want to match to MSC Voyagers Club before you try to book your cruise. You can request a status match here.
MSC’s status match is separate from the free cruise offers that you get with casino status but is rather elite status in MSC’s Voyagers Club loyalty program. See benefits of MSC elite levels here:
Note that my understanding is that you do not get the additional onboard credit when booking a “free” cruise offer, but you do get the other listed benefits (reports I’ve read indicate that the complimentary gift is usually a bottle of Prosecco).
The key benefits of Diamond status include a complimentary tasting menu at a specialty restaurant on board, the “Diamond party” (which I understand is like a cocktail reception with the crew) and priority embarkation / disembarkation. As noted above, I have also read some reports of Diamond members getting upgraded from ocean view to balcony rooms in the days before departure, though I wouldn’t count on balcony rooms being available (rather one should be pleasantly surprised if it happens).
The nice thing here is that MSC is matching hotel elite status from many different programs. It seems like MSC used to publish a chart showing what you’d get by matching from various hotel programs but they no longer do. This blog post points to some data points (including from 2023) indicating the following matches:
- Hilton Diamond –> MSC Diamond (my wife did this!)
- Hyatt Globalist –> MSC Diamond (not listed on that site, but I did this in February!)
- Hilton Gold –> MSC Gold
- Marriott Platinum / Titanium –> MSC Gold (seems low to me and DP is from 2020)
- IHG Diamond –> MSC Gold
- Wyndham Diamond –> MSC Gold
There are some other hotel statuses and a number of cruises statuses listed at that resource.
As noted above, my wife successfully matched from Hilton Diamond to MSC Diamond. That’s awesome news for Hilton Aspire cardholders. Additionally, I can report that on the last day before my Hyatt Globalist status expired in February, I matched Hyatt Globalist to MSC Diamond thanks to a reader reaching out and alerting me to this match while sharing information about the Atlantic City matching.
I think it was totally worth matching before booking because we should end up getting a tasting menu for the four of us in a specialty restaurant and I imagine that we’ll take advantage of the priority boarding and perhaps disembarkation. I have a sweet tooth, so a chocolate gift certainly won’t ruin my cruise :-). Overall, it seemed like a good deal.
I was pleasantly surprised with the speed of the match. In both my case and my wife’s case, the match came through same-day within a few hours. I’m sure that if they get a ton of requests that speed may slow down.
If anyone gets different data points than what is shown above, please let us know in the comments. I believe that the status match is a one-time deal, so you’ll want to submit your highest level of hotel or cruise line elite status. They do not match airline status.
I should add that I’ve read that it can be very difficult to attach your MSC number after booking a cruise, so you ideally want to match first so that you can attach your MSC number during the booking process.
Choosing a room on a free cruise
Anyone who has followed my posts about the free cruise offers knows that I am relatively new to cruising, but I have been on 3 cruises since last fall. If you’re new to the game like me, here are some tips on picking your cabin.
First of all, I start out by going through the motions of a dummy booking on the cruise line website, entering dates / locations to see which cruises are available that interest me. Once I narrow it down to one I’d like to book, I continue through the motions of a dummy booking, choosing my desired room category to find out which cabin numbers are available.
Once I know which cabin numbers are available, I usually Google the name of the ship and the words “deck plan”. This will yield search results where you can view the layout of each deck and see what is above and below any given floor. For instance, this is an example from CruiseMapper.com of a deck plan for a Carnival ship.
I use a deck plan like that to decide where I don’t want to be. For instance, in the Carnival deck layout above, the pool is on Deck 9. I know that deck will likely be noisy / high traffic, so I wouldn’t choose a cabin on Deck 8, where I assume we might hear some of that noise. Similarly, the forward part of Deck 4 has the main theater. I therefore wouldn’t want a cabin in the forward part of Deck 5 since I imagine we might get some noise from the music during the shows. I always pull up a deck plan while researching and then again before getting on the phone with a booking agent in case they don’t see the cabin I want but offer something else.
Keep in mind that in some cases, not every room will be available when booking a complimentary cabin. On some cruises you may be stuck with an obstructed view or only cabins in certain areas of the ship. I like to get an idea of which cabins are available so that I know what I might be able to request — but I keep that deck plan up on my computer for reference if need be. In our limited experience booking with MSC, anything that was available on the website was available to book with the casino offer.
Bottom line
I’ve written quite a bit about “free” cruise offers thanks to casino status matching. I think the Rivers Casino cruise offer is my favorite one to date since it appears to be possible to book any MSC sailing in the world of up to 10 nights. Given cruises in Europe, Asia, Australia, South America, and Africa/Middle East, MSC has a wide range of cruises that may be of interest. Again, I am setting expectations accordingly for the ship itself, but some of the itineraries that can be booked with this offer look pretty cool. Cooler still is the fact that there are no fees beyond a $59 fee if you want to choose your room and the deposit that you get back as onboard credit. Without even taxes to pay, this match is certainly worth the trip to Atlantic City and Philadelphia assuming that it continues to hold up as advertised.
Nick, Thanks a lot for the tips. I have yet to visit Ocean and get Prime for MSC, but was able to get comp offers from Carnival (Balcony), Princess (interior) and HAL (interior). They don’t match each others offers, but I had mgm gold and gave them proof of comp room offers from MGM and Caesars.
Do you know if Princess or HAL give balcony offers if we have the MSC Oceanview offer? Princess gives just 1 month to book (12 months to sail) so need to pull the trigger soon.
So i did the whole process to get Ocean status and it was very simple, that was back in April. I also booked a Mediterranean cruise but opted for the $3000 upgrade to Yach club. Still a good deal as cash price was $5500 for same room.
Question though, when i chatted with the MSC agent there was no mention of any casino credit? i wonder since i upgraded will i not get a credit? booked the cruise in July.
Does anyone know if the Rivers casino match to Caesars Diamond is still active? I am trying to get a complimentary Princess cruise, and they are no longer matching the Carnival Fun Match Free Balcony cruise offer, and the rep also said they wont match Holland or MSC cruise offers specifically obtained through Ocean Prime. Im hoping if I get Rivers Black and have a less restricted MSC cruise offer, that should work.
That died a LONG time ago.
I booked the free cruise with MSC for a oceanview room and payed the 400. I upgraded earlier and was charged 800 more! I went ahead with it because every agent and MSC directly for that matter said I had to do it this way. Did I make a mistake in how I went about upgrading? MSC normal booking is usually only 200 more.. any advice?
For the $400 on board credit, can you just load it to the casino and cash it out without any gambling?
Yes.
Thanks a lot.
Great post! Thanks for all the great info.
Both P1&P2 got the Ocean MSC casino offer. When we tried to book 2 rooms with certificates (we have two kids, so would be 1 adultx1kid per room). The agent told us we can not book 2 certificates from the same household for the same trip. Have you ever heard anything like that?
I was told the same thing. We wanted to bring some friends. The agent said we might get denied boarding at the gate if they find out. Don’t quite understand how.
Were you able to find a solution? We are in the same boat. Thank you.
No, we didn’t want to risk it and ended up booking 2 MSC cruises for ourselves. However, we did successfully book 2 free balcony cabins with Princess and brought our friends with us.
Thank you, Sylvia. I appreciate your helpful information. By saying two cruises, were you saying that you booked 2 MSC cruises with different dates? So, you added two kids by paying some additional money. Is that correct?
We just got off of a 10 day MSC that we were comped through Oceans. We were able to book both certificates and took our teenage sons. They never even questioned being the same household. Even acknowledged us wanting the rooms close as we would “most likely be rooming the boys together” instead of one parent in each. We had no issues at all. 🙂
We are preparing for our next one now. 🙂
That is very helpful info. Thank you.
We just got our certificates and want to do the same thing and now I was reading the fine print saying only one per household per sailing. Did yall book both rooms on the same call or did one call after?
We did, however, our cruise was booked off of the old certificates that had to be used by 30 June… I believe the verbiage has changed since then. It was not a restriction when we booked ours, but seems to be with the 24/25 certificates. 🙁
Dang I was hoping the let it slide. Guess I see what they say when I call next month to book em
I matched my status to Diamond using Hyatt Globalist. But I don’t understand is how you get almost free cruise .. MSC concierge(Send email ask me to call 786-482-6554) only offered me 10% discount cruise price plus Diamond benefits. Did I miss something here?
The match to MSC Diamond has nothing to do with getting a free cruise. I just mention matching to MSC Diamond to get some benefits, but that’s not the way to get the free cruise.
See this section of the post, which explains how I got the free cruise and links to the post with more detail (https://frequentmiler.com/how-to-get-53-free-nights-of-vacation-from-a-single-credit-card/). Note that the Philly Live Black / Rivers Black match no longer exists, but if you click through on the “How to cruise for free by gaming status matches” post, it explains how you can still get a free 10-night cruise:
Booking the free MSC Cruise from Rivers Philadelphia status
Success with a balcony cabin on a European cruise
I previously wrote a guide to How to cruise for free by gaming status matches that explains the path to match from Caesars Diamond or MGM Gold to free cruises through status matches in Atlantic City and Philadelphia. See that post for more detail.
In Atlantic City, you can get a free Caribbean cruise of up to 7 nights with Ocean Prime status. I have that offer but have not yet booked that cruise.
In Philadelphia, it is possible to match to status with Rivers casino and get a complimentary cruise of up to 10 nights anywhere MSC sails. There are two matching paths, one of which could be done right away, and one which takes a few days:
Again, there is more detail about all of the above in How to get free cruises by gaming status matches. We have had one report of someone who matched at another Rivers casino, but I don’t know whether all Rivers locations offer a match or what statuses they may match. We do know about the Philadelphia location.
Thank you so much for the information. I got what you said now. I do have Caesar Diamond and I will refer to your link to get almost free cruise from MSC.
Kudos to you!!
I booked the Ocean free cruise on MSC (E Mediterranean for 2024) a few days ago. My account shows on top how many days until the cruise and I can see both passengers under the “web check in.” But I can’t see anything else and adding the booking number doesn’t help. The agent said for Ocean it was a guaranteed room. In other words, I was not offered any other options. The question is, how long did it take for the cruise show up on your MSC account, to choose excursions, etc?
Replying to myself. After more research, apparently the website is not 100% and my experience is not unique (one is never alone on the internet) One suggestion was to go through an incognito window and find cruise with booking number and name, and that worked.
That was a great post! Thanks for all the info!
Hello Nick, I hope this message finds you well. I wanted to discuss the possibility of waiving the children’s fee for the 3rd and 4th passengers on the MSC cruise. Upon inquiring with MSC, I was informed that each child would be charged $359. Your review was great, and I appreciate any insight you may have on this matter. Thank you.
We are going in June on the MSC merivglia are gratuities included. It is a free cruise from ocean hotel casino. If not, could you tell me how much per person per day
Question for you Nick – I have been eligible for “free” or heavily discounted cruises but never took one since my understanding was that all that was free was the base rate and you still had to pay taxes and fees which could be up to half the advertised rate for the room. I always assumed gratuities had to be paid and that wasn’t a problem but paying all the taxes and fees then being stuck in a less desirable room (minimum we book is a balcony room and usually we book suites when we cruise) was a turn off.
Was I misinformed?
Are you only able to receive 1 free MSC cruise? Or does the Philadelphia and Atlantic City matching provide the opportunity for 1 free 7 night cruise and 1 free 10 day cruise?
Also, can you use the $400 in the casino but cash it out to gain the $400 back?
MCS agents might beat Turkish Airlines! It took me four long calls of conjoling, being firm, funny, to book. Every single time a different story. For me, a room specific room WASN’T possible, even with fantastica!
@Nick Reyes, I submitted my status match request (Hilton Honors Diamond Status screenshot saved as a PDF) at 10pm on Saturday and got the MSC Diamond match email at 8am Monday. Very quick turnaround time especially over the weekend.
How did you create / sign into your MSC account? I tried password reset but that didn’t work. I have my MSC number from the email.
EDIT: last sentence in the email said, “Stay tuned for a welcome email with further details about your membership, and in the meantime, we hope you’ll explore our worldwide cruises, where you’ll immediately enjoy all the privileges you’re used to —and then some. We look forward to welcoming you aboard!” – so I guess I just need to be more patient with the welcome email…
Response from MSC: “Thank you for contacting the MSC Voyagers club about account we are not showing that you are registered to view your account on our website. Please follow the link below, which will take you directly to the login page. When you are at the log-in page, please enter your email address and your password. If you do not have one, click the “sign up now” option. Once you are in your account you will be able to link your voyagers club ’ number, Please note, the name on your account must match the name on your profile settings, also, your email cannot be associated with any other accounts than yours.
https://www.msccruisesusa.com/manage-booking/manage-your-booking“