Over the past 12 months, my family has taken five cruises: we took the Carnival Pride from Rome to the Greek Isles & Turkey before returning to Rome via Sicily and Naples. Then we sailed twice in the Caribbean with the same Royal Caribbean offer, once during a peak school vacation week (and with kids sailing free both times). Then we cruised the Mediterranean again, this time on the MSC Orchestra to numerous points in France, Spain, and Portugal before most recently cruising Holland America to Alaska. I’ve written extensively about how anyone can make these cruises happen for a fraction of the cost (See: How to get free cruises by gaming casino status matches). Yesterday, my wife and I booked two more “free” MSC cruises and experience has taught me a few things about the booking process that you’ll find useful if you decide to find your sea legs.
How and why I’m taking another “free” MSC cruise (or two)
Regular readers may remember that I just took a “free” MSC cruise in July and sailed the Mediterranean, departing Genoa and stopping in Marseille, Alicante, Malaga, Cadiz, Lisbon and Mahon. See this post for more detail on that cruise.
That free cruise came from a short-lived Philadelphia casino status match that both my wife and I did. Unfortunately, that Philadelphia match is no longer an avenue to a free cruise. However, one can still get a free cruise of up to 10 nights in an ocean view cabin anywhere in the world on MSC through Atlantic City status matching, which anyone can do by starting with the Wyndham Earner Business credit card. Read full details here: How to get free cruises by gaming casino status matches.
Since my wife and I also both matched from Wyndham Diamond to Caesars Diamond to Hard Rock Rock Royalty/Icon to Ocean Prime (note: those last two steps require going to Atlantic City in-person), we each had another offer for a free MSC cruise of up to 10 nights anywhere in the world in an ocean view cabin. With the Ocean Prime offer, you must sail by the time your status is set to expire. Our Ocean Prime status will expire on July 1, 2024, so we had to book and sail by then.
I had mixed feelings about my recent MSC cruise. In short, I loved the port stops and entertainment and hated the food. Given how much I disliked the food, one might wonder why I would be in the market to sail with MSC again. There were a few reasons.
At a base level, this match is just a flat-out great deal. If you only have two people in your cabin, the MSC deal comes the closest to “free” of any of the free cruise offers since you don’t even pay port taxes, just a deposit that you get back as onboard credit (and in some cases a $59 free to choose your own cabin in advance). You’ll really only end up out of pocket for the daily gratuities (dubbed “service charges” on MSC) with this offer if you have double occupancy. We paid an additional fee to bring the kids along on the next couple of cruises we booked, but the bottom line is that transportation alone from one port to another is worth well more than the cost of the cruise. When you consider all that you get (lodging, unlimited free food, coffee/water, very good onboard entertainment, etc), it makes for a very good deal.
Beyond that, while MSC has a reputation at the lower end of the cruise industry hierarchy, I’ve heard good things about some MSC sailings. Quite a few people let me know that catering on MSC’s North American cruises such as those to the Caribbean is completely different than their European cruises (several people reported very good food on Caribbean routes). Along the same lines, I knew that I had picked a less desirable ship the first time around (we chose that cruise entirely based on port stops rather than ship amenities). This time around, I wanted to focus a bit more on choosing better ships (though I’m also still really excited about the itineraries we chose).
The good news is that even if you cruised recently under an offer from another casino (like the one that some of us were able to book courtesy of a match to Rivers Black before Rivers stopped offering a free cruise to status matchers), you can indeed still book your Ocean Prime free cruise offer and it is very easy to do so.
The cost of a “free” MSC cruise
In short, a “free” MSC cruise can have a net cost as low as just the service charges (what other cruise lines label as “gratuities”), but it gets a bit more complex depending on your situation.
I’ve written about the costs of “free” cruises before, but here is a quick recap of costs to book the “free” MSC cruise you can get with Ocean Prime status:
- You pay a deposit of $400 that you get back as onboard credit. It is very easy to use this. For example, you could use it in the casino by loading it to a slot machine. How long you play is up to you.
- There are no port taxes.
- Two passengers are free. A fee of $359 each for passengers #3 and #4 applies for sailings of more than 6 nights should you wish to add more than two passengers in your cabin. Oddly, the fee is apparently higher for shorter sailings.
- Depending on availability on your cruise, you may pay $59 for the “Fantastica” experience. The free cruise includes the “Bella” experience, which is where the cruise line assigns your cabin and dining time at a later time. The Fantastica experience makes it possible to choose your cabin and dining time at the time of booking. In some cases, this “upgrade” is optional, but on the cruises we chose there was only availability for the “Fantastica” experience (which was fine with us as we’d have paid for it anyway).
- You may be told that you have to pay a “blackout date” fee of $259 per passenger if you book during major holiday periods (like Christmas / New Year’s Eve, Thanksgiving, Easter week, or July/August in Europe). YMMV on this (see more in this section).
- Daily service charges apply (what most cruise lines call “gratuities”). This varies based on cruise destination. In The Bahamas / Caribbean, the cost is $14.50 per adult (age 12+) per day or $7.25 per child (age 2-11) per day. In Europe, the cost is 12 Euro per adult per day or 6 Euro per child per day. More detail and the costs for other regions can be found here.
If you’re sailing with just two passengers, you may pay as little as just the $400 deposit (which you get back as onboard credit) plus daily service charges (which get charged on board and are due at the end of the cruise). In our case, we each booked our own cruise and are bringing our kids at a cost of $359 each, so we paid:
- $359 x 2
- $59 for the Fantastica experience
- $400 deposit
- Total: $1177
We’ll get back the $400 deposit, so that’s $777 net plus service charges of about $40 per day on each cruise for the four of us.
Cool things I’ve learned about booking free MSC cruises
Booking process is very quick
As an Ocean Prime member, you can book your MSC cruise beginning on the 15th of the month following the month in which you reach / match status with Ocean. In other words, if you matched to Ocean Prime today, you would be able to book the MSC cruise beginning on October 15th (note that I actually had success booking sooner than this, though it depends on the agent).
At this point, I have called MSC a number of times to ask questions or check on availability and I haven’t waited for more than a single ring to reach an agent after dialing 1-844-MSC-PLAY (1-844-672-7529) and selecting “1” to book my casino offer. Then you just give the agent your Ocean Prime number and they should see the offer.
Furthermore, actually booking the cruise really doesn’t take long at all provided you prep with knowing what you want. We simply searched available cruises at the MSC website to find the cruises we wanted and wrote down the ship name and departure date so we could feed that to the phone agent. We only needed to pay the $400 deposit and I believe the $59 upgrade fee — we could have paid the extra person fees later, though we paid it all at once (and before calling MSC, we opened a new credit card to use this spend toward a new credit card welcome bonus).
There was a little variance in the experience between my wife and I in terms of how much information the phone rep collected (I overheard my wife providing the states where each of us were born and the name and phone number of an emergency contact, but I didn’t provide any of that), but either way it is quite simple. Once I knew for sure what I wanted, my entire booking call was 14 minutes and 54 seconds.
There is wide availability
What has impressed me the most is the way MSC appears to be making almost every cabin available for the Ocean Prime free cruise offer (or at least every ocean view cabin). The “free” cruise only includes what MSC calls the “Bella” experience, which is where they assign your cabin and dining time sometime before the cruise takes off. You can pay $59 per cabin for the “Fantastica” experience, which includes selecting your cabin and preferred dining time at the time of booking. I have found that the “Bella” experience often isn’t available, so be prepared to pay the $59 fee for the Fantastica experience. The good news is that with that fee for the Fantastica experience, I think this free cruise offer may be valid even for last-cabin availability.
I’m basing that last statement on my personal experience. I booked a cruise that had 2 cabins left for sale on the entire ship on the website (both happened to be ocean view). Sometimes, there are more cabins available than what you see online — several times when I called to check availability, phone agents offered cabins on decks that didn’t show up when I had tried for a mock booking, indicating that the cruise line is holding inventory in reserve beyond what they show on the website (which makes sense for a lot of reasons).
However, in the case of the cruise I booked, the agent remarked with surprise that she had never seen a cruise ship so full and she said confirmed that there were only 2 cabins left for sale on the entire ship. That’s a bit misleading because at least in some cases MSC sells tickets to embark from numerous stops along the cruise (almost like a hop-on hop-off bus tour), so it is doubtful that every cabin will be full simultaneously, but rather it seems that every cabin is probably now reserved for at least part of my cruise. I was impressed that a “free” casino offer would have access even when they have so few cabins left for sale.
It is worth adding that you can pay an additional fee to upgrade to a balcony cabin or suite. I called to check on that for one sailing and was quoted $850 to upgrade to a balcony cabin, which still would have been a solid deal compared to cash rates but it didn’t appeal to me. I am not sure if those upgrade fees are standardized or if they vary by cruise. On the flip side, if there is no ocean view available, you could take an interior cabin if you wanted.
Blackout dates may apply….or maybe not
A few months back, a few readers reported running into agents who told them that there was an additional ~$500 fee for two passengers on some “blackout dates”. I finally ran into this situation and I think this is entirely up to the booking agent to notice / add.
According to one rep with whom I spoke, blackout dates include Christmas, New Year’s, Thanksgiving, Easter week, and all of July and August for cruises in Europe. I have reason to believe that this is a highly YMMV (your mileage may vary) situation.
Earlier this year, I booked a cabin on our July cruise in Europe without any mention of blackout dates or fees from my agent. When my wife called to book a second cabin on the same cruise under her own offer, the first agent with whom she spoke said that July sailings were under blackout dates and thus required an additional fee of around $500 for two passengers. She HUCA’d (hung up, called again) and the next agent neither mentioned a fee nor added one — she booked a cabin on the same cruise with no additional “blackout” fee, which led me to believe that the first agent was incorrect or that it is up to the agent to determine that a fee applies and to add it.
During my most recent booking experience under the Ocean Prime offer, I attempted to book a cruise that starts right before a major holiday. The agent helping me was in the process of building the booking and then she seemed to think of the holiday and said to hold on while she checked something before mentioning the holiday. After what sounded like some searching, she asserted the blackout times noted above and said that sailing during any of those time periods would cost an additional $259 per passenger (which would have been another $1,036 for my family of four!). I did not get the impression that this was like a system-generated requirement but rather that she remembered it and decided that it applied based on the holiday occurring during my dates. I thanked her and said I would pass for now. I called back a little while later and booked a cabin on the same cruise, albeit embarking from a different stop just after the holiday (which I hadn’t previously realized was an option and the dates worked better for us). I was not quoted a blackout fee. It is possible that the departure date I chose (falling just after the holiday) meant no blackout, but my impression is that it’s a matter of “blackout dates” being up to the agent to assess that fee. At best, it is inconsistently enforced.
I would therefore advise trying to call again if you run into an additional fee for blackout dates. I could be wrong and perhaps those fees are real and more universal and unavoidable than I realize, but I’d give it a few calls to be sure.
Note that while blackout date fees seem variable / discretionary, extra person and Fantastica experience fees have been 100% consistent every time I’ve called.
You can change or cancel up until 91 days in advance of departure
During previous bookings, I hadn’t asked about cancellation policy. I was happy to learn that MSC’s standard cancellation policies apply. That is to say that you can change or cancel cruises of 5-14 nights without penalty up until 90 days before departure. Starting 89 days prior to departure, you’ll be hit with penalties.
While that obviously isn’t as flexible as many of my travel bookings, it made me comfortable locking in a cruise knowing that we could later change our minds.
How much can you save with a free MSC cruise offer?
Again, my wife and I both had free cruise offers.
For our sailing a couple of months ago, we booked two cabins on the same cruise under an offer that is no longer available from Rivers casino in Philadelphia. I’ve previously written about how we used that offer to book two cabins on the same cruise in order to avoid paying an additional fee for our kids (we assigned 1 adult and 1 child in each cabin on our July 2023 cruise so that each cabin would be based on double occupancy).
However, since we both matched to Ocean Prime status, we each had another offer for a “free” MSC cruise. This time, we decided that we would book two different cruises and pay the additional fees for the kids. That meant that for each cruise, we paid the following for our family of four:
- $359 per kid x 2
- $59 for the Fantastica experience
- $400 that we get back as onboard credit
That’s a total of $1177 (or a net $777 — let’s go!). My wife booked a 7-night Caribbean cruise and I booked a 10-night Mediterranean cruise and our cost was identical (service charges will be different). The cabin my wife booked on the 7-night Caribbean cruise was selling for $3,800 for 2 adults + 2 kids (before daily service charges). The 10-night Mediterranean cruise I booked would have been $2261.40 for the same cabin (yes, it would have been cheaper for the longer cruise — a number of things influence price, including port of departure, time of year, ship, etc). In either case, paying what feels like an effective ~$777 for each cruise seemed like a slamming deal.
Note that we will also pay $44.50 per day in service charges for the Caribbean cruise ($311.50) and about $40 per day (depending on the exchange rate) in service charges for the Mediterranean cruise (~$400). In total, we’ll be out of pocket for about $1100-$1200 for each cruise between the extra person fees and service charges.
I generally put the word “free” in quotation marks on cruises because of unavoidable fees like service charges, though in this case most of the out of pocket cost we are paying is the additional fees for our kids. Rather than booking two cruises, we could have alternatively booked two cabins on one cruise again and paid a net cost of $59 for each cabin for the Fantastica experience plus service charges for just that one cruise and been out of pocket (after accounting for the value of the onboard credit) for less than $500 for either a single 7-night or 10-night cruise for all four of us. Instead, we decided that it was worth the additional fees to bring the kids and book two cruises (YMMV).
Bottom line
The “free” MSC cruise from Ocean Prime status is a terrific deal. We’ve written quite a bit about free cruise offers this year, but based on a couple of recent bookings, I thought it was worth sharing more about the process and my experience with it. Despite what you may think based on the past year, cruises still aren’t our preferred method of travel, but I often say that you have to strike while the iron is hot in this game, and the free cruise iron has been smoking this year, so we are taking advantage of it while we can. While MSC has been my least favorite cruise line in some ways, there is no denying the fact that parlaying a $95 credit card into a 7-night or 10-night cruise for potentially as little as a few hundred bucks out of pocket is a great deal, particularly given the wide availability for booking the offer. In the end, between the two cruises, we will visit 7 cities we’ve never seen before (including stops in several countries we’ve never visited before) and return to several places we enjoy. Hopefully, the food will be better on these next couple of cruises, but I know I can count on good entertainment and a trip my family will enjoy — and I can’t help but enjoy the low cost thanks to the games we play.
Want to learn more about miles and points? Subscribe to email updates or check out our podcast on your favorite podcast platform.
MSC is now saying there is a $1400 fee for all non-U.S. based sailings. I’ve gotten the same response from 2 agents. This seems to make the cruise not at all free! Anyone else run into the same thing?
I just called and got the same message, so now I have to pick a cruise that’s U.S. based sailing.
Is it possible to book a cruise if both interior and ocean view are sold out by paying a fee, or there must be a room available?
Getting ready to book my ocean offer. The msc site is offering free drinks + WiFi on bookings. Does this offer apply to my casino booking?
I booked a cruise yesterday for my daughter’s spring break, so essentially 3 weeks in advance.
There was no ocean view availability on the ship, so I took an upgrade to balcony room for $850. $59 for Fantastica, and $359 for the 3rd person. They did not charge me $400 booking that would become a room credit. Wonder if they missed it, but the agent I spoke to felt knowledgeable.
Per a recent conversation with an MSC agent, if your package is $1000 or more (in your case $850 + $359 + $59), you are not required to put down the $400 deposit.
Got it, and good to know. I took that cruise in March and enjoyed it. We spent enough on board that ultimately it would not matter whether they take “sell” me onboard credit or not 🙂
Thanks for the detailed report Nick! Do you know after what date I should apply for a match to Ocean Prime so that the benefit expiration date will be June 30 2025 instead of 2024? My understanding is if I play this right I can take advantage of this offer twice (once per calendar year) during the benefit period.
I have the same question. Were you able to fins the answer?
Nobody knows for sure, but last year Ocean put in the match offer materials on their website that those matched after 3/1/23 would automatically get extended on 7/1/23 to expire on 6/30/24. So if you matched after 3/1/23, you got a card with an expiration date of 6/30/23 but then status automatically renewed on 7/1/24. You didn’t need to do anything or go get a new card, it was just automatically extended in the system.
If that happens again this year, you’d want to match after 3/1 — and at this point, I’d probably gamble on waiting until 3/1, otherwise your status will only be valid until 6/30/24.
The one thing to consider is that we don’t know whether they will continue to match. They currently have a special offer for those with Caesars Diamond Plus / Diamond Elite (which are both higher levels than Diamond) to match to Prime status through 2/29/24 — they are specifically ending the match from those statuses before 3/1. We don’t know what that means or if it means anything, but it is obviously possible that they might stop matching at all after 3/1 or might not match the statuses you can get easily after 2/29 so that they don’t have to continue to offer the benefits. Or maybe they just wanted to encourage as many people as possible to match before 3/1 to pressure them to earn the points necessary to maintain Prime status. Nobody knows.
And that’s the moral of the story: Nobody knows for sure because none of this is guaranteed to continue and they haven’t published anything about people matching after 3/1 and they probably won’t until 3/1 o2 later.
I wanted to add another datapoint for booking the casino comped MSC cruise. I went to Atlantic City middle of Sept and did the status match outlined here.
I called MSC on Oct 17th, and was told that my cruise offer wasn’t updated yet – the agent could see it only after digging around a bit. My Ocean Prime # didn’t pull anything up, but the agent was able to see that I had an offer using my name & DOB. The agent said I couldn’t book online, but needed to send an email and the back office.
I decided to wait a few more days, and when I called again, my info was in the system. I booked a Norway Fjord cruise for next summer. I had picked a cruise with premium ocean view room availability, but the agent said I had to pay the upgrade fee from the base ocean view room (obstructed junior OV room). It ended up being $360 extra. The premium OV is effectively a mini-suite located at the front of the boat, 270 sf vs 180 sf. A regular balcony room is ~$20 more vs the premium OV, but after looking at various youtube room walk-throughs, I’d prefer the extra space vs a balcony. Looking over this post again, maybe I should have HUACA since I don’t see any other reports of room upgrade charges for picking a nicer ocean view room. However, $419 ($360 +$59 for the fantastica experience) is still a great deal for something that would otherwise cost at least $2K for a basic interior room.
I might try to book another cruise for this December, but not sure if I will have the time/energy. I’d probably wait to book the cruise until a few weeks beforehand.
I also called up Resorts World to book the 2 free nights in Vegas. This is only good for Sun-Thurs nights, and only if there is availability, eg don’t expect to use the comped rooms when Vegas is busy. (I chose dates that had ultra low cash rates since it worked best with my schedule, so I knew availability wouldn’t be an issue). You are booked at the Conrad, and all taxes and fees are covered. The $100 restaurant credit needs to be used all at once, and the restaurant should apply it right away when you give them your Genting rewards #. I’ve stayed at the Conrad previously on a cheap FHR rate and the hotel is fine, especially if it is 100% comped. 🙂
Finally, a big thank you to Nick, for so clearly detailing these free cruise offers!
Just wanted to add data point for the Resorts World rooms. I booked a Friday to Sunday with no issues, then also had a friend use his for a Saturday to Monday stay. So does work on weekends.
does rematching from wyndham to caesars to Ocean gives this “free” cruise and resort world room again ?
Yes, i just went there yesterday. I think you need to match caesars to hard rock to ocean.
when did you last match to ocean? when was last time you ised all you ocean benefits and put your ocean card in a slot machine to play?
It was my very first time matching ocean. I did it yesterday dec 22, 2023 I didnt and never used a slot machine while i was there
thanks. my question was for re-matching.
Hi Nick,
Thanks for posting this! I have a couple of questions about some of the perks. Would appreciate any insights you can provide 🙂
Thanks!!
Has anyone had any success booking an MSC cruise past June 30? (either for 2024 or 2025). I’m trying to figure out if it makes sense to go to AC to do the match, because the trips I’m interested in aren’t until Sept 2025.
Yes, but also not really.
I originally booked a cruise for this month (April 2024), but they cancelled that cruise altogether (moved the ship to a different area). When they did that (many months ago), I got an email inviting me to call and change to any cruise that sailed by the end of May 2024 (theoretically, with the Ocean Prime offer, any cruise through the end of June 2024 should have worked without issue, but their email said through the end of May 2024).
The email was worded in such a way that basically said “We invite you to book something that sails by the end of May 2024”, but the wording didn’t say “you must sail by May 2024”. We found something we wanted that sails in August 2024 (after our Ocean Prime status would run out in June) and so I planned to call and lean on the “but it doesn’t say we “must” sail by the end of May” and “You guys canceled this, not me, and now I have flight cancellations to deal with and yadda yadda”. As it turned out, none of that was necessary. I called and explained to the agent that MSC cancelled the cruise we had booked and so I was calling to rebook and I wanted this cruise on August such and such and they just changed it, no fuss.
That, combined with a lot of other small things I’ve picked up on in the course of booking these, leads me to believe that the MSC agents have wide latitude. It’s hard even for me to believe this, but it seems to me like one of the casino agents has the power to just build out the free cruise and not charge anything for it. It’s like the computer system has notes on what you get with your Ocean Prime status, but it’s up to the agent to read that and follow what it says. My gut instinct is that a phone agent probably can book a cruise for whenever — but if they read what it says on the Ocean Prime offer, it’s clearly worded that you must sail by the end of June (I’ve heard plenty of agents read the offer details out loud as they look up the details).
So I think it’s probably possible that they could book a September cruise (just like they did with my August cruise) — I don’t think the computer system is hard-coded for this — but I think it’s probably very unlikely that you’ll get an agent who ignores like the headline of the Ocean Prime offer, which has the expiration date within that one sentence snippet that they always seem to read.
This is super helpful. Thank you. Also, I realized that I double posted this question to your other thread. Sorry about that!
Do you think most would interpret “sail by June 30th” as the cruise starts by June 30th? We would like to get the ocean prime status now and book for the very end of June 2025 after our son finishes school. We would likely start the cruise in June but finish the first few days of July.
You may have found the answer by now, but I discovered that the requirement is that you board your cruise by the June 30th end date. At least that’s what the MSC phone rep told me.
Hey, I’m looking into booking a cruise on MSC using the Oceans Prime free cruise. We were deciding on possibly taking our 10 day ocean view and upgrading to a yacht Club suite. Where you offered the option to bid on upgrades when you booked using the offer? Not sure if I should just book the ocean view and see if we get lucky bidding or just pay the upgrade fee at booking
I don’t remember seeing an option to bid on an upgrade, but the sailing we did was just about sold out entirely. You can upgrade at the time of booking. I can’t recall how much Yacht Club was, but it was quite a bit, though quite a bit less than what they charge for it straight up.
It’s $3000 for a deluxe balcony suite, but includes the drink premium drink package, the Internet, the thermal spa package, and all the bells and whistles of the yacht club. Seven or 10 nights it’s still 3000. Guests who reserve normally are emailed bid options for upgrades. The Meravilia out of New York City has many empty cabins. I have a baby and was told I can email requesting that the third person taxes be waived. 350 or 500 for a yacht club cabin.
Did you end up paying the $3k and doing the Yacht Club Deluxe Balcony suite? Thoughts? Was it worth it to you? Considering this myself.
I actually paid 3799 because I booked a 11 night. Only 10 nights was covered by the 3000 the extra day cost me 799. I sail on 1/15/24. I’ll let you know after the cruise. Def looking forward to it and feel like the value paid is worth it. Booked outright asking price is 9k
Yes please do. We are torn…probably wont drink enough to make that part of it work it AND we are cruising with a 5 year old and 9 year old who will probably be at the children’s pool/splash area most so we probably wont use the Yacht club pool and facilities much. But still up in the air due to the food and spa ad ons.
Are you certain that is the correct number to call to book? When I called the number in this article, they wanted to give me a “free” $100 gift card for a $3.95 fee and had me jumping through so many hoops before even discussing a cruise. I hung up and called the number on the MSC website and it was a totally different experience. TBH I’m a little worried I may have been scammed calling that number. 🙁
Oh my goodness no! It was off by a digit! I can’t believe nobody else caught that before you did. It should be 1-844-MSC-PLAY. The “MSC” should be 672, but I had mis-typed 673. I have fixed it and updated. I am so sorry!
It’s very strange. My family and I recently did an 18 day transatlantic cruise with MSC and thought the food was great. The bread was phenomenal.
Hi – the earliest I could take one of these cruises is Jan 2025. I assume these matches won’t last forever; with a target date of cruising in Jan 2025, what is the soonest I could do the status match? Esp. interested in Holland America cruises
The Holland America offer expires 12/31/23. To my knowledge, they’ve never offered it before, so I’m not even confident that it’ll be offered again next year never mind 2025. Based on my brief research, free cruise match opportunities weren’t a thing before the pandemic. I think we’ve seen a bunch of them in large part because ships weren’t full. Maybe these matches will continue that long, but I would consider it a pleasant surprise rather than something you could plan for at this point.
That said, if things continue next year as this year, some things that might work for you:
1) Carnival Fun Match. This has allowed booking cruises about a year out. The initial offer says it expires in like a month, but I kept receiving new offers about a week after the previous one expired for a year. If you matched that now, you’d probably continue to get the offers for long enough to book into 2025.
2) Match to Ocean Prime after 3/1/24. Again, this assumes that next year operates the same as this year. We don’t know that will be the case, but if it did then that would position you for the Ocean Prime match to get extended for the membership year from 7/1/24 to 6/30/25. Again, we don’t know that they will maintain the MSC cruise benefit, but if they do then you could do that during the first half of 2025.
No idea whether the Holland America or Princess offers will come back. The Royal Caribbean one hasn’t come back since it died out during the first half of this year.
You can save even more by canceling the gratuities before the end of the cruise YES, YOU CAN!
In the event that major issues occurred with service throughout the cruise, and given that it were escalated with onboard management and still occurred, then yes remove it. But to remove service charges for no other reason than saving money, is very shortsighted to be honest. You literally taking money away from another humans livelihood. That’s just beyond pathetic… If your service was great or good overall, pay the service fees due. I’m proudly serving in hospitality for over 25 years, I’ve also been a waiter and done the job. There is nothing more disheartening than when service fees are removed for simply saving a buck or two… Then one should not travel or make use of restaurants or bar or dining experiences.
cheap and tackyyyyy
@Nick Reyes That ugly face is back in places it shouldn’t be.
Nick, Are we positive that sailing must be done prior to status expiring? As we have booked previously and sailing in several weeks with Status expired in July. Thoughts…
Well, no, I wouldn’t say I’m positive. I’m positive that each of the last several reps with whom I spoke looked up my Ocean Prime number and then read the offer as if they were looking what it said on the screen and each one read the line “Must book and sail by July 1, 2024”, so it seems highly likely that the rep will see that. On the other hand, given my experience with the blackout fee, I wouldn’t be surprised if it’s just up to the rep to enforce the rules — maybe they just manually build these at a $0 casino rate and it is possible for them to miss the terms. Interesting data point.
Appreciate your insights…Yes I don’t recall the rep reading that disclosure during my booking…hope they don’t back charge us…will report back anything unusual. Thanks again
While I know this conversation is old, I just spoke with an MSC phone rep to ask questions in preparation for an Oceans Prime-based booking. I asked if there’s any possibility of booking beyond the July 1 deadline. They said I could email MSC guest service and ask. I did. They replied to say they could extend it one month, hence requiring departure by Aug. 1. In my case, that was helpful as dates in July worked better.
Is Drink and internet package included in the price you paid with the casino offer?
Nope. I paid for both. I am not much of a drinker — I probably had maybe 4 total glasses of wine over the 10 night cruise and a few sodas, so buying them individually was fine. Internet was pricey — I think I paid something like $250 for two devices so that my wife would also have access. I put it on my phone and her phone and then hotspotted off of my phone to use my laptop.
Did you buy the non alcoholic drink package?