MSC Armonia Cruise Reviews - Reviews

I am from Switzerland and I moved to Brazil a year ago. My fiancee and I had booked this cruise several months before in order to show a little bit of Brazil to my family (coming from Switzerland to visit me).

When we arrived, we were offered a "welcome lunch" for which we had to wait 20 minutes in a queue to put food in our dirty plastic plates. Then, it was hardly possible to find a table to seat and in addition, the food was awful...

I took an hamburger at the buffet and the meat was literally green. At the beginning, there was no descent food for my fiancee who's vegetarian. Just a few waiters understood Portuguese and it wasn't better for English.

My family had already been on an 6 days MSC cruise in the United Arab Emirates (MSC Lirica) and my fiancee to a 5 days MSC cruise in South America (MSC Orchestra) so they expected a certain quality. Unfortunately, everyone was shocked by the service and, mostly, the food... It was eatable but not any special. It seemed that the crew didn't like brazilian guests so we began to speak in english and they were suddenly extremely kind with us. We later spoke about the food with the Food & Beverage Manager (who was vegetarian as well) and he took special care of my fiancee and things got a tiny bit better.

The trips offered were EXTREMELY EXPENSIVE!!! $60+ for a trip operated by MSC while you find the same trip on shore for less than a 90 réais (+/- $20). (prices per person)

It was a 4 days (3 nights) cruise but in fact, it was a 2.5 days cruise because we had to LEAVE the cabin at 7.00 AM and leave the ship at about 9.00 AM.

We expected to relax and rest on this ship, instead, we disembarked more exhausted than when we embarked.

CONCLUSION: your experience on this ship might be better in a cruise out of Brazil but I don't recommend you the MSC Armonia because there wasn't too much things to do onboard. I also recommend you to choose longer cruises (5 nights minimum) even if the price will be a little higher, I believe that the number of night has a lot of influence on the quality experienced onboard. (more night = better experience, less nights = stressful and no time to rest).

I hope my review will be useful. Feel free to ask me questions.

This ship was mine and my boyfriend's very first cruise. And I must say I'm very glad that we picked the MSC Armonia for our first experience. We will always have a fond memory of this ship, as it was the ship that got us hooked on cruises. The staff were wonderful. Loved the pools and the Deck, (the Splash Park was so much fun, for children and the kids like us.) The atmosphere on this ship was absolutely wonderful, would sail again.

The food is not good, it was very disappointing. I have been to 7 other cruises so feel I am qualified to judge. The entertainment was laughable, basically the same routine with different costumes. The dancers were terrible.

They make it very obvious that they just want your money for everything. If you enquire what to do at a port of call all they will suggest is to book an excursion. Other cruises I have been to have a much greater variety of food choices such as Mexican bar, sushi, unlimited ice cream, etc. Armonia you have to pay for ice cream, the juices dispenser is only available in the morning afterwards it is shut off and covered, the coffee at the pool cafeteria is horrible (probably to make you go to the cafes and pay for coffee), they do not offer coffee at dinner. Trying to eat at the cafeteria is very difficult since people are everywhere and then there is no place to sit. Not many activities onboard either and most are by the pool so you have to compete for a seat with all the pool goers. The ship is way too small and you are always bumping into people, waiting in line or looking for a place to sit. My cabin was not great either and was not well serviced. The hand soap dispenser did not work and even after mentioning to room steward he only replied he had already told his supervisor (seemed it had been that way for a while), he never filled the tissue dispenser, I had to go search for toilet paper several times because he did not change it, and the list goes on. They do not post anywhere where they are and what is around. We passed several islands that I would have loved to know what they were. I asked for an itinerary to know when we would arrive and leave each port and was given the run-around until another staff member showed up with the paper.

Will not be choosing MSC again will stick with bigger ships too and newer ones.

I cruised with MSC Armonia in 2015. It was a great experience. Really friendly staff, great shows, many party's and a lot more. But there are also downsides of this ship. And one of these is the buffet restaurant. I never had such a disgusting breakfast before. Luckily we soon saw that you can also breakfast in your main restaurant Wich really is great. The food in general (Á la carte) is really good.

I cruised with MSC Armonia in 2015. It was a great experience. Really friendly staff, great shows, many party's and a lot more. But there are also downsides of this ship. And one of these is the buffet restaurant. I never had such a disgusting breakfast before. Luckily we soon saw that you can also breakfast in your main restaurant Wich really is great. The food in general (Á la carte) is really good.

The ship had just come back into service after being stretched, there was a continual smell of sewerage and diesil fumes, the ship really needed a good clean as everything was very dirty

very pleasant first time cruise,friendley staff en helpfull diner was very good and the buffet also

The ship was old. The last night of the cruise we put our suitcases outside our door at midnight and when we picked them up once we got off the ship, one of the pockets was open and my glasses were STOLEN. I asked for them to look at the cameras, but I was told this would take several HOURS. I asked to fill out an incident report form, but after waiting for an hour, I was never brought the form. Staff were not willing to help and I left without my glasses, without filing a report.

Food was not great. The passenger from Europe were incredibly rude. The staff was rude. The smoke and excessive children made the trip an effort to enjoy. The room (suite) was nice and we stayed in a lot because of the problems with other guests. Our TV in the room did not work properly and it tood 4 days to have fixed, after repeatedly complaining.

Never could understand why we did not do this cruise before. The Greek island were beautiful, Santorni's white homes and blue roofs overlooking the deep blue sea. Mikonos, with their windmills and Athens - history, traffic and smog. One of the prettiest cities was Dubrovnik - the high walls that surrounded the city, great seafood and the oldest Pharmacy in the world. The Armonia was great, Italian waitstaff gave us some of the best service on the seven seas. This is a cruise I would do again.

Always love cruising on the Armonia. The ship is small enough to be friendly, where the staff in the restaurants and bars greet you by name, nut big enough to have plenty of entertainment venues. We always love the entertainment on MSC as they have really good bands playing a wide range of music. Also, the mix of Europeans on board means the dance floors at usually full. Not like us Brits who never want to be the first on the floor! Ok, so the announcements in half a dozen languages can get a bit wearing at times, but that's a small price to pay.

Overall we had a good time. We had a larger group so there was almost always someone to meet up with. I think that is key, the ship itself doesn’t have much going on, especially since it rained 2 days while we were on it and it was too cold to use the pools. One last thing, the gym area is (surprisingly) is fairly nice - good size and decent selection of equipment.

It was a great experience I will cherish forever. I hope MSC continues to improve their ships and service. Would take the Armonia again!

Never again on this ship, food not fit to eat, either raw or burnt to a crisp. Shrimp so tough could not eat it. Staff was rude as a US civil servant

Overall this was a good cruise, and we would definitely do it again.

We would consider sailing with MSC again, although they need to make their casino programs more competitive in the American market.

2nd cruise with MSC. Definitely a different experience to the Divina. However the buffet was much more manageable during breakfast, due to half the passengers on this smaller compact ship. Dining was 1st seating for us, 1915hrs. However we are always on Irish time.... So that can vary by an hour... it's grand though. I didn't like the starters most refund so I had two main courses 😁 The service was much the same, as you would expect. Pool bar service can get busy and Heugo works constantly at 100% steam ahead. The guy never stops. The shows, I personally found just ok. Still impressive, a little short and show times where's little late for the 2nd seating. During the day, at sea or at port a lot of the bars and more importantly, the coffee bar was closed. The coffee bar only opened at 1700hrs. Sometimes it seemed that there was too little staff and they were stretched thin. The gym was small but had everything you need to do a session. The pub on the 5th floor probably for me had the best music. Acoustic. The down side is this is the smoking area. Yes! Indoors but open plan. Unfortunately you can smell the stale smoke even out to the reception. To be honest smoking should be in a closed off area with extraction fans etc just like the cigar room is. The room, 8261, 8th floor outside with window was comfortable enough. The worst thing was the toilet needed fixing 5 times on the 2 week cruise and we were without Aircon for 2 days. We were compensated by means of caviare twice, a bottle of prosecco once and chocolate dipped strawberries once. 46°c in the Caribbean with no Aircon at night isn't ideal!!. I think we are finished with MSC now. This was my 12th cruise and 4th liner. I think from now if possible it will be NCL as I still think they are the best company to do with. But each to their own.