Very bad shore excursion department

MSC Lirica Cruise Review to Europe - Mediterranean

Cruises: 7+ cruises
Review: 1
Helpful Votes: 8

Overall rating:

3.8 out of 5
MSC Lirica

11 Night Mediterranean (Rome Roundtrip)

Sail date: December 18, 2022

Ship: MSC Lirica

Cabin type: Oceanview

Cabin number: 7172

Traveled as: Couple

Reviewed: 1 year ago

Review summary

Recent cruise on MSC Lirica The shore excursions department was extremely frustrating to deal with. They need to reorganize the whole department. If there are not enough people on your shore excursion, they will cancel it, inform you are 8-9pm the night before and ask you to go to the desk to arrange for other excursions. By the time you scramble to the desk, the excursions that you want are already sold out. We booked online before the cruise and found that there were more options when you go onboard. E.g., you may have 4 choices of excursions online, then when you go onboard, you have 12 choices. What is the point of pre-booking online? MSC has to get its act together. They add stress to your vacation; not helping you enjoy your vacation!

Embarkation

4 out of 5
Fairly good

Ship experiences

Food and Dining

3 out of 5

Onboard Activities

3 out of 5

Entertainment

4 out of 5

Service and Staff

4 out of 5

Ship Quality

4 out of 5

Cabin / Stateroom

4 out of 5

Ship tip

Don't expect too much and you will not be disappointed.

Ports of call

Civitavecchia (Rome), Italy

4 out of 5

Messina, Sicily

3 out of 5

Rhodes, Greece

5 out of 5

Limassol, Cyprus

3 out of 5

HAIFA (JERUSALEM), ISRAEL

4 out of 5

HERAKLION, CRETE, GREECE

3 out of 5

Genoa, Italy

5 out of 5

Disembarkation

4 out of 5
Acceptable
Was this review helpful? 8

6 Comments

jletherbarrow    1 year ago

I'd say this is fairly common with all the other companies I've cruises with, p&I, Holland And America and Norwegian have all cancelled on me due to numbers and have all had more options on ship. My advice is to book what you want in advance and go to shore ex on board as soon as you can to see if there's anything else you want to do- and have plan bs in mind too.

4tanya    1 year ago

Many times as excursions book up they add other excursions to meet the demand .

Gwbigdog    1 year ago

Oops sorry 😞 thanks

javawoody    1 year ago

Appreciate your comments

AuntPinkie    1 year ago

Sorry you were disappointed.

CruzeFan    1 year ago

It’s usually better to book excursions independently rather than through the ship. The ship excursions usually require a relatively large number of people compared to independent excursions. If they don’t meet the minimum number, they cancel it.