Cruising with MSC Yacht Club: Everything's Included!
The MSC Yacht Club is their version of the ship-within-a-ship concept made popular by cruise lines in recent years. Cruise ships have gotten bigger and bigger, and consequently filled by more and more people. Royal Caribbean's Icon of the Seas, currently the largest operating cruise ship, has a gross tonnage of 248,663 and accommodates nearly 10,000 people between guests and staff. As you can imagine, this creates some level of chaos and crowding. For people like myself, introverts and those with sensory processing issues, that can be a nightmare. Enter the ship-within-a-ship idea. MSC cruise line actually pioneered this feature in 2008 on the MSC Fantasia. In the Yacht Club, you have a private area that cannot be accessed by the general population of the ship. Things are quieter. Staff are friendlier. Food is better. You get the idea. You still have full access to the features in the rest of the ship if you want to go to a show or enjoy some of the specialty dining, but you have the privacy and serenity of the Yacht Club to return to when you're done. I've cruised a few times on Norwegian in a suite, and twice in their ship-within-a-ship, the Haven, which I talked about in this post. But frankly, it's quite expensive. So when I learned that MSC's Yacht Club was a fraction of the price, I had to try it out for myself. I'll get into other things we enjoyed about the Yacht Club in a later post, but today I'd like to share with you one of the aspects I found most appealing - everything's included! On Norwegian, even though you've paid an exorbitant price to be in the Haven, you still have to pay for every little thing, from your drink package tips to your internet. Not on MSC! I was thrilled to find out that the price advertised for my suite in the Yacht Club included everything I wanted for my cruise, like a drink package, internet plan and access to the Thermal Suite.
Drink Package
I'm not one to party on a cruise ship, but I enjoy a glass of wine with dinner or an occasional cocktail. In addition, I like my coffee! I really don't like the idea of being nickel-and-dimed on my vacations, once I get there I want to relax and be able to order what I want without worrying about cost. That makes a drink package very attractive.
When staying in the NCL Haven last year, in addition to the cost of our suite, we opted for the drink package. It was right after my son's 21st birthday and he was looking forward to trying out some of the drinks his siblings had been telling him about. They like to advertise that this is included in their "More at Sea" promotion, but you do have to pay required 20% gratuities which equates to $30 per person per day. That means that for two people on a 7-day cruise, your average booking, you would be paying $420 for your "free" drink package. But here's the catch - that only covers some of your drinks! Much of what my son and I consumed on our cruise last week would not have been included in that price. You still have to pay for coffee drinks ($5-9 each), energy drinks ($6.25 each), bottled water, and top-shelf liquor. Bottled water on NCL will run you about $4 a bottle, for the same water you could pick up at Costco for $0.10 each, nothing fancy. If you want to order anything that carries a price tag above $15, you have to pay the difference + 20% gratuity. So, even though you have the drink package, you still have to think about what you're drinking and make choices about what additional costs you want to incur.
With MSC, when you stay in the Yacht Club, you get a premium drink package that includes anything they have on the ship. My son enjoyed some top shelf whiskeys that he would normally never consider price wise. When we were out in the ship, the bar tender warned us that we were ordering a "Premium cocktail" that would incur an additional charge, but we found out later that this was all included in our package and the charge was erased before it hit our account. I probably had at least 30 almond milk lattes (it was likely closer to 50) last week alone! Now, I certainly wouldn't have had so many if I was paying for them individually, but it was so nice to not have to worry about it and order what I felt like in the moment. In your room and at dinner on MSC they serve Aqua Panna (still) and San Pellegrino (sparkling) waters from glass bottles, even when just pouring you a glass of water at your table. When it was time to get off the ship they offered us plastic water bottles for our shore excursions - chilled and wiped down with a towel before handing them over. My son prefers Red Bull over coffee in the morning and would typically have one or two of these with breakfast and sometimes another in the afternoon. If you totaled up what all these drinks would have cost us on an NCL cruise you'd be looking at over $1,200 at least. Do they build the cost of their drink package into the price of the suite? Certainly! But it makes all the sense in the world to me that they would. The best part of this, was being able to order what we wanted, when we wanted it, where we wanted to, and never having to worry about what it would cost.
Internet
Some people like to go on vacation and disconnect. Others, like my husband, frequently work from a cruise ship. Me, I'm in the middle. I certainly scale back on my digital consumption, but I very much enjoy the opportunity to stay connected with family while I'm away and maintain my blog. I also like to play phone games that require internet 😉. Every cruise I've taken on NCL, I paid for the internet package. Now, I'm cheap so I usually only pay for one device and then we share. Today, this will run you between $30-40 per device per day, so for a seven-day cruise you'd be looking at $210-280 per device. As before, MSC includes this expense in the cost of your suite, giving you premium internet on two devices! We had excellent service anywhere in the ship and we were able to call and text over wifi with no additional cost to us. My son spent hours on the phone with his girlfriend and other friends in the evenings after I went to bed and had great service! On NCL, this would have run me about $560 in additional cost.
Thermal Suite
Wrist Band
A feature that MSC offers that NCL doesn't is the wristband. In the regular part of the ship you can buy one for very little (about $7-9 each?), but again, this is included in the Yacht Club. You can use your wristband on the ship just like your cruise card, but without having to keep track of one. It lets you into your room and enables you to make purchases in the shops, etc. They also have you use it when checking in to the restaurant. Here's the SUPER COOL thing about the Yacht Club wristbands, they give you priority on the elevators! If you've ever tried to take an elevator on a cruise ship, you've quickly learned that it's almost an Olympic-level sport. Watching for which elevator will open, trying to hop on board while there's still room (no small feat with a wheelchair!), and then waiting while it visits every. single. floor. With the Yacht Club wristband, you swipe it in the elevator bank, and you get priority for the next available elevator. It still might take a couple of minutes, but much less than otherwise. The best part, it goes straight to the floor you selected without stopping! I don't know how to put a price tag on this since you can't pay for it elsewhere even. I just know we REALLY appreciated this bonus on our trip!
Comments
Post a Comment