The pros and cons of the MSC Meraviglia

Ship tip

Cruise review for MSC Meraviglia 19-day transatlantic cruise from Barcelona Spain to Port Canaveral (9/24/2022 to 10/13/2022) Inside stateroom #8073. Note: we only ate in the Market place buffet because the service in the dining rooms are so slow and the food choices in the dining room are very limited. Note that we spoke to many passengers on this very long cruise that agree with our opinions listed below. Like us, many of them will never sail on this ship again. This cruise review is divided into two major sections (PROS/CONS). PROS: ------------------------------------------------------------------- The MSC Meraviglia is a beautiful, clean ship. Our stateroom attendant (Nino) was the best that I have seen in my 10 years of cruising. Nino was always smiling, happy and kept our room in perfect order. Thank you Nino! Our stateroom had a very comfortable bed, good A/C control and great water pressure in the shower. The following ports of call were great: Malaga (Spain), Madiera/Funchal (Portugal), Saint Maarten (St. Martin) and Ocean Cay (private island). The two comedians (Ken Boyd and Tom Drake) were funny. The buffet served very good fresh fruit, vegetables and a nice selection of cheeses every day. We enjoyed the swing and disco party on the promenade (deck 6) because the DJ played the music and the promenade floor is danceable (see music and dance floor CONS below). CONS: ----------------------------------------------------------------- The cruise director (Monica) should be let go. Her only gift was to speak in five different languages at the beginning of every theater show. The stateroom TV is very slow to start and complicated to use. Note that in room movies cost 9 Euros each. Ouch! Carnival, Royal Caribbean and Norwegian cruise lines offer free in room movies. The stateroom key has your room number printed on it. This is a security issue if someone finds your key. Note enough closet space in the stateroom. Bottom bed sheets are old and stained in the stateroom. The pizza in the buffet is terrible (cold, soft, gummy and bland). This should be embarrassing for MSC. Why can't an Italian cruise line make good pizza? In my opinion, the best pizza at sea is made on Carnival cruise lines. MSC should send a spy to Carnival to investigate how to make a good pizza. The meat, fish and deserts available in the buffet are poor. Again, I must say that Carnival cruise lines makes better fish, desserts and hamburgers. There is no iced tea, lemonade or strawberry/kiwi juice in the buffet at anytime! The only drinks available in the buffet during lunch and dinner is water, hot tea and coffee. This is stupid! Even the MSC Divina had a better choice of drinks in the buffet. Again, see Carnival, Royal Caribbean and Norwegian Cruise lines for better drink selections in the buffet. Ice cream on the pool deck costs 3 to 4 Euros. This is not the specialty ice cream that is served on the promenade inside deck 6. This is just plain old ice cream. And there is no ice cream served in the buffet area (at least not until I complained and then they served ice cream on 3 nights out of 19). Note that the MSC Divina served ice cream in the buffet. So does Royal Caribbean. And Carnival has unlimited self serve soft ice cream. Note: the food quality and selection in the buffet is much better at lunch time than it is at dinner time. The cloth chair cushions in the buffet area look nasty (lots of stains). Many times, I took an extra cloth napkin and put in down before I sit on them. There is only one decent place to dance on the entire ship (deck 6 Meraviglia lounge). Note that the MSC Divina has at least 3 and up to 5 different places to dance on the ship. However, the dance floor in the Meraviglia lounge is made of hard sticky tile. I broke one pair of dance shoes on the Meraviglia lounge dance floor (luckily I brought a second pair). The promenade also has a hard tile floor but it is much smoother and easier to dance on. One couple danced the entire cruise in a hallway adjacent to the Meraviglia lounge that had the same kind of smooth tile floor used in the promenade. There are no wood dance floors on the MSC Meraviglia. The music played in the atrium/lobby is not dance music and the floor is carpet. The music played on deck #18 Sky Lounge is not dance music. The music played on deck 7 in the TV studio lounge is "sometimes" danceable Latin music but the dance floor is very small and sticky tile. That leaves only the Meraviglia lounge which has two differt bands. The Ocean 5 band is new and still learning how to play together. When asked, they didn't even know how to play a waltz. They did however attempt to learn one, but it's not very good. I will give them credit for trying. They played the same songs every night (boring). They were never given a night off. The acoustics in the Meraviglia lounge are terrible especially when the music is loud. We had to sit as far back as the chocolate factory (adjacent to the Meraviglia lounge) so as not to get a headache. Note to MSC: the chocolate factory is a waste of space. No one goes there. Why not start over and put in a real wood dance floor with real dance music from a DJ? The ship had two dance instructors that taught a wide variety of dances (but only line dancing not couples dancing). They taught waltz, tango, cha cha, etc..., but the bands didn't play waltz (until I asked them to learn) and they never figured out how to play a tango so I asked the cruise director (Monica) to have the DJ play some waltz/tango dance music while the band was on break. Well that never happened. The second band (Duo Versa) was a bit better than the first. They even played a country two step now and then. The third band (Duo Express) played Latin music (mostly in the TV studio and bar area) where no one ever shows up except the band that was on break. Note to MSC: the background music played on the ship information channel on the TV inside our stateroom was better for dancing than any of the bands on the ship. Suggestion: fire the bands and pipe in the music from the TV. Want to play a quick game of ping pong? Not so fast! Ping pong is time limited on MSC. First you wander over to the ping pong table to see if they are occupied (deck 16 FWD). Then you ask someone where to get the ping pong equipment. Then you hoof it outside, across deck 16 to the back of the ship to the sports equipment desk to find a crew member (but only between 10AM and 6PM). Then you sign your life away for two paddles and one ping pong ball and are told that you only have 20 minutes to play! So you run back across deck 16 to thr front of the ship to play before your time runs out. What a hassle! You won't find these issues on Carnival, Royal Caribbean or Norwegian Cruise lines as they leave their ping pong equipment on the table available anytime. If you use the elevator and push the button for your floor but find the elevator is going in the wrong direction or right past your floor, see if it says "priority" on the screen inside that elevator. If it does, that means one of the special Yacht club guests just overode your floor selection and your going for a ride. Also, don't expect to enjoy all of Ocean Cay because 1/4 of the island is off limits unless you are one of the "special" Yacht club elite. Snobs! When we were there. I saw 5 yacht club guests on the beach and 3 life guards. What a waste! Also, be careful of the elevators as they are three on each side of the hallway. Many times, when you press the button, the elevator across the room will open and you have to run across the room (sometimes around a large couch) to get there before it closes. I was hit twice by the door closing on me. This is a safety issue. The theater has only one entrance/exit to deck 6 promenade. This is a safety issue. It also prevents people sitting on the far left or right from being able to come in late or leave early without disturbing other guests. Watch out for overcharging on shore excursions. I was double billed and lucky I caught it and went to guest services to have it corrected. There is no water to drink available on the outside pool decks. If in your bathing suit, that means you have to put on some clothes and walk all the way into the buffet area just to get some water (or pay big bucks for a drink package).