Not long ago the thought of going on a cruise made me shudder. I always assumed I would hate cruising quite frankly because of many false preconceived notions. Some of those including: someone else dictating my schedule, stereotypical tourism, forced social interactions, poor quality food, etc. However, MSC Cruises completely changed my mind and I even discovered a way to leverage their loyalty program.
It wasn’t until last year that an affordable price with MSC Cruises caught my attention ($469 per person for 7 nights). So we decided to give it a shot. From my perspective it was an incredible opportunity to visit several Caribbean countries for a low price and if I hated the experience I wasn’t out too much money.
We got incredibly lucky with my first ever cruise experience because MSC upgraded us to a balcony room for absolutely no reason. No travel hacking, no points, no status, NADA. We simply slipped our room key into the door and discovered this gorgeous stateroom with an incredible view.
View from our balcony in Jamaica
The majority of our friends never heard of MSC Cruises and were a bit worried we signed ourselves up for a week of torment since it wasn’t well known in the US/Caribbean market. You see, MSC Cruises is actually an Italian, family-owned cruise line which sails all around the world. At the time we took advantage of such an incredible deal because they were (are) expanding their presence in the US market.
Perhaps I ended up enjoying cruising because of the brand? It alleviated all my previous concerns about just getting on a ship full of North Americans who were only interested in buying cheap T-shirts from tourist traps in every port. From the moment we stepped on the MSC Divina, I felt like I was in the minority because I heard so many foreign languages spoken and didn’t hear one American accent until about 2 hours of being on the ship. We met such interesting people with incredible stories. The food was unique and definitely served with a Mediterranean flair. Think fresh mozzarella, prosciutto, fig jam, etc. at the buffet. It was truly way more of an international experience than any other trip I had previously taken to Caribbean islands.
We loved it so much that we booked two more cruises while on the ship! Of course I needed to figure out a way to optimize our cruising experiences and eventually discovered the MSC Cruises status match offer.
Our Christmas 2017 Route
Our Upcoming MSC Cruise!
How to Get Instant Elite Status with MSC Cruises
MSC Cruises is the only cruise line that will status match your elite hotel status–not just other cruise lines. So it’s great for people like us who are brand new to cruising, but not travel in general. The benefits aren’t earth-shattering, but they’re nice to have–especially like priority disembarkation at ports that require tendering. You can submit all necessary information and get status matched relatively quickly here.
Pro tip: If you don’t have a top tier Diamond or Platinum status with a hotel chain and are more in the mid-tier range, then match your Marriott Gold instead of the SPG Gold.
Although this is only relevant until the two brands merge on August 1, 2018, don’t match your SPG Gold or you’ll receive MSC Silver. Whereas Marriott Gold gets you MSC Gold. They’ll only do one status match in a lifetime, but status is easy to maintain as long as you cruise every 36 months. A quick way to obtain Marriott/SPG Gold status is by opening an American Express Platinum charge card. There are other MSC Cruises status matching data points listed on this FlyerTalk thread.