mixed feelings

My wife and I have taken over a dozen cruises, so I think we have enough to experience to compare this last trip.  Many of the reviews are two or three years old.  This one was just on June 4, 2016.  The ship was absolutely beautiful and clean.  There was always some attendant vacuming floors or wiping down railings.  Since it is a relatively new ship it was not worn out like several we have been on.  

The staff seemed to be mostly from Indonesia and were not as friendly as the Filipinos.  They did not really push drinks or service but were available if you needed them.  There was a lack of information from the time of embarkation to entering our rooms thru the time of leaving the ship.  The daily information sheets were very lacking and we had to ask receptionist a lot of questions.

Food was weak.  The dining room had a very cranky old  matre di,  that should have been retired years before.  He gave us a lot of grief.  The dining room had very limited choices compared to Carnival, Royal Caribbean or Norwegian, for instance at a lunch in the dining room, we ordered a Rubin sandwich and got two pieces of bread with a few grill marks, a thin piece of ham and a very thin piece of Swiss cheese (that is not what I am used to getting for a real Rubin).  The waiters were excellent and dining room elegant.  The  daily buffet on top had a lot of variety, but the food seemed to be very bland and tasteless and repeating each day.  

The cruise caters to the European Market.  They even said that they have a European product in an American market.  Unless you are use to the Italians and other EU people. They were absolutely without manners.  They would cut in line in front of you at every buffet station and God forbid if you are on an full elevator and a group of them together  decide to get  on an elevator. no matter what. They pushed and shoved to get on till  we had to yell out let us off we couldn't breathe.  That is not the fault of MSC cruise line, but just comes with the territory.

The cabins were immaculate and clean.  If you can get a cabin with a balcony, do it.  We just opened the sliders at night and listened to the waves breaking like a sea side  resort.

Over all it was well worth the reasonable fare.