Read this before you book MSC Cruises USA in 2021!

Update…

I spent an hour on the phone waiting for MSC USA Customer Service to answer this morning. And I cancelled our Halloween cruise because it was almost time to pay the full amount. After two weeks I hadn’t heard a word from MSC so I’m assuming that they want me to cancel because of the good price I got. They got their wish. All I can say is book MSC at your own risk, and keep an eye on your booking if you do. I will never book with them again. We’re now looking at either a Carnival Cruise or Disneyland in October.

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Finally cruising again…maybe….

We were finally going to go on a cruise…or so we thought. We booked a five day cruise in September 2020 on the MSC Divina, sailing out of Port Canaveral on Halloween day 2021. Stops were scheduled for Nassau and Ocean Cay. It was a good price with a free Balcony room upgrade and we thought it would be fun to do a Halloween cruise. We also had a $310 future cruise credit from our last MSC cruise on the Meraviglia that we wanted to use. We weren’t all that fond of the Meraviglia, but we figured with a good price it was worth it.

They moved our cruise date without telling us!

In January 2021 I checked my booking to see when the remainder of our payment was due. That’s when I found out that MSC had changed our sailing date to November 8, 2021 without letting us know. Since we wanted the Halloween cruise, this was unacceptable to us. I called and complained. MSC did change us back to the October 31 sailing after a couple of calls. After that I discovered that this new sailing was an eight day cruise, instead of a five day. Our fare remained the same as the five day. That was definitely a nice plus. For the moment.

And they raised our price!

Recently I sent in our future cruise credit certificate to be applied to our fare. That’s when the new problems started. After a month of waiting I looked at the MSC website to see if the credit had been applied, I discovered that our fare had risen by over $1000. When I called I was told that the credit had not been applied yet. When I tried to explain just how much the fare had risen, she said they’d take care of it. I should check back again in 48 hours. Every time I checked the website, the fare had changed, but not for the better, and not to the price that I had booked at. 48 hours passed with nothing good happening. And at this point I’m just tired of it.

I’ve put in a complaint to the Better Business Bureau. I think that MSC is trying to get us to cancel because we had a good rate. And they may get their wish. It’s almost time that our full payment is due, and I’m not going to pay a fare I didn’t agree to in the beginning. We weren’t that fond of the MSC Meraviglia when we were on her, and we’re not going to overpay for another MSC cruise. I consider this fraud. Since we really didn’t like the MSC Meraviglia, we’re not going to pay these kind of prices for a MSC cruise. I’d rather go with Carnival.

Be aware and check your booking often

I just want everyone out there to be aware of the practices that MSC is using before you put any money down on a cruise. I’ll keep you updated as to what happens in the end.