It was the worst of times, it was the best of times

Item: MSC Meraviglia
Rating: 3.7
Author: k9nurse011

MSC Meraviglia Cruise Review

k9nurse011

Contributor Level: Second Mate

118 Days Till Next Cruise

Cruises: 7+ cruises

Reviews: 9

Helpful Votes: 109

Overall rating:

3.7 out of 5

7 Night Florida & Bahamas (New York Roundtrip)

Sail date: May 21, 2023

Ship: MSC Meraviglia

Cabin type: Balcony

Cabin number: 14165

Traveled as: Couple

Reviewed: 11 months ago

Review summary

Embarkation is rough. Once you make it through relax and enjoy your trip!

Embarkation

1 out of 5

If I could give less than zero I would. Evidently the embarkation process was “delayed”, which I understand. All documents said arrive at 12:30. So 6300 people all arrived at 12:30. However, they didn’t even open the doors to the building until 12:30. Then the port staff were rude and yelling at everyone to keep moving and move faster like it was somehow our fault that the line was so long. It took 4 hours to even step foot on the ship. Then all of the food was closed as it was “safety drill” time. Yet half the people weren’t on yet.

Ship experiences

Food and Dining

4 out of 5

MSc definitely still stands at having the best pizza at sea. The selection in the Buffet isn’t always the greatest, but MSC literally takes the cake in deserts!

L'Olive Doree & L'Olivo D'Oro

3 out of 5

Dinner just took too long. I’m not sure what happened exactly because we requested early dining and ended up at 830 dinner. Which is fine however, most nights we weren’t leaving dinner until 10 or after. Our waiter Newton was kind and friendly, but his assistant waiter just signed on the ship the day we embarked and so he had no training. So Newton was pretty much managing everything on his own. Which he did great at. We are just early risers so finishing dinner at 10pm is far too late.

TV Studio & Bar

3 out of 5

This is where they held trivia most days. It’s a cool atmosphere. However, we did have bad weather for 2 days and the Venue was not big enough for the amount of people that came to trivia that day. But that’s not the cruise lines fault they can’t control the weather.

Marketplace Buffet

4 out of 5

Shout out to the Buffett bar staff! This is the only place on the whole ship where the service was consistently good! Always less than a minute wait and always had a smile.

Brass Anchor Pub

3 out of 5

Nice place. Cute atmosphere. Most days it doesn’t open until about 7. They have live music as well. Service was good but it gets very loud in there.

Onboard Activities

4 out of 5

Casino Imperial

4 out of 5

Lost money like always but was fun while it lasted. They don’t have enough slot machines to cater to the crowd. There were some evenings when they were all occupied! Smells slightly of smoke but that’s mostly because the smokers would leave their area and come to the non smoking area.

Duty Free Shop

4 out of 5

Didn’t buy anything. I did enjoy the dome shows. The whole area reminds me of Royal Carribean’s promenade area.

Service and Staff

2 out of 5

The room steward was great! We didn’t see him at all the first 2 days but that was our own fault. Our waiter in the dining room was good and friendly but dinner was just taking too long most days. I had heard that there were service issues on this ship and I would say that to be true. Did it impede my experience at all? No. However, 2 nights in a row we went to the sky lounge and we were just obviously ignored. We sat there for over 20 minutes without even getting eye contact from a waiter/waitress. Ultimately we ended up leaving.

Ship Quality

4 out of 5

I love the “galleria” aka promenade design of this ship. It gave me Oasis of the Seas feels. Everything was always cleaned and seemed well maintained. I enjoyed the dome shows.

Cabin / Stateroom

4 out of 5

This would be the perfect cabin if it was one floor down. It was a shorter cabin so it stayed shady and dry. However it was one deck down from the buffet so you could hear carts and things rolling all day and night from the crew area. Also somehow even through it was 2 floors up you could hear the bowling and basketball court. That did quiet down by 10 most evenings. If you ever get the chance to do an “obstructed view” balcony do it! But not on floor 14.