2 Adults *Full Board* 7 Night - New MSC Euribia Cruise (£399pp) From Southampton 24th November based on 2 sharing

1, Generally no, it's usually a way of Cruise companies making money out of travellers disembarking, either by laying on a payable bus to get you out of the cruise terminal or by organising an excursion.
Some ports have walk off terminals that you'll find are easy to negotiate to find the nearest metro/Uber etc Worth doing a bit of research before you go.
2. Generally yes, certainly every cruise ship I have been on has, but worth checking out each individual boats specific setup.

Buy everything you want before you board via the app. It is a lot more expensive on board for drinks package and spa.

We booked spa and drinks package before we boarded and i think we spent £15 euro on the ship for the week.

Really enjoyed it

It soon adds up. A couple of cocktails, maybe a couple of glasses of fine over dinner...

Don't forget soft drinks and bottled water are NOT included as standard so that needs to be factored in.

I would say something like this is, yes. Not a big financial commitment, easy embarkation, etc.

There are a lot of groups on facebook with a world of advice and guidance in them too.

One thing i would say is - if you think it works for you DO get the drinks package at the time of booking as its around £30 a night, but the price goes up dramatically if you book it later

It’s international usage not European, be careful, unless your phone package includes international usage

I would be surprised if it gets that low this year. Costs have went up dramatically for them since then, but fingers crossed for you.

The Euribia is the first cruise ship to run on bio-LNG, a biofuel made by processing organic waste flows, such as organic household and industrial waste, manure, and sewage sludge. So yes, they can run it at net - zero if they want to (the engines have wide compatibility with other fuels).

It is a very modern ship, and the interiors are still in great condition (check out the YT videos). The issue with all MSC cruises in general is that they're packed to the gunwales with a low staffing ratio to passengers, compared to say P&O, Royal Caribbean and others. That is how they offer these crazy low prices - where else would you get 4-star accommodation, full board (full daily buffet with around 50 items for each meal plus free entry to a coupleof ala carte restaurants and pizzas and burghersfree poolside), your room cleaned and turned down at least once a day, visiting 4 countries, entertained in a 1000-capacity theatre with multiple other options for spending your time, for £57 per day? It boggles the mind.

The way they do it is mainly via low labour costs- cruise lines aren't bound by EU labour laws including minimum wage requirements, and recruit heavily from India, Mauritius, the Philippines etc.

Enjoy

Ah, thanks for reminding me of that. Updated the main desc.

I still think you're optimistic with a return to 2022 prices for these, given the big increases in costs for them, but time will tell... (edited)

Water, Coffee, Tea, Milk, Juices (at breakfast only) are available as standard. The drinks package offered here includes drinks up to a maximum price per drink (I think this is £13 so won't include some cocktails and other expensive drinks). Wine is by the glass rather than bottle etc.

It might. Or it might go up. I wouldn't be advising people either way.

A lot of the facebook links that pop up with that are just affiliate links to the cruise lines. Theres no actual "bargains" behind it.

Personally - i use seascanner (and sometimes iglu cruises) for the month, departure port, and duration of cruise i want and then sort by price. You can also chose a room type and sort by price on that too. I then factor in drinks package costs and any likely speciality restaurant costs (we do like to book those).

I went earlier in the year, Germany is closed on a Sunday, hopefully the markets will be open. Yes a short ride on the S or U Bahrn for some more interesting markets.

What's this?

Not completely but near on, you have to add them a minors drink package (3yrs+) if you have one however...pbv9cheaper at time of booking. Just an estimate but at a guess 2adults inside £800 with a child £900. 2 adults with drinks £1250, plus a child drinks £1350. 2 adults 2kids with drinks inside is about 1600

Christmas markets in Hamburg and Bruges. They're excellent.

Quite likely i'd have thought. Its been bouncing about a bit other the last few weeks. Do regular checks on Seascanner, Months = Nov and Dec, Departure = UK, then sort by price. You can add in number of nights and "MSC" if you want to be more specific.