I read all the reviews and knew what we were going into. This cruise served our purposes of spending a week together as a family of 13 celebrating my 70th birthday. It was convenient for us, as we live near the Brooklyn port and didn't need to fly-but my overall impression was the reviews are correct-MSC needs some major improvements. We will not be sailing with them again.
Embarkation
4 out of 5
Better than I expected, considering the volume of people
Ship experiences
Food and Dining
2 out of 5
The waiters and servers are very hard working, but management in the main dining room needs much better training. Took way to much time on my part to try to settle a table seating issue and
no one seems to know what they are doing to help you. Buffet was good-just good. Specialty restaurant was very good (hibachi) but that I paid extra for.
Onboard Activities
2 out of 5
Aqua park was very good for the grandkids, but obstacle course was closed for entire week-no reason given. Not enough activities for my family on sea days . My biggest objection was the movies shown at night on pool deck were very violent and graphic. Not a good idea for a family oriented cruise. I had to shield my grandkids eyes and return to our rooms.
Entertainment
4 out of 5
Decent. Cruise director needs some training-some comments towards audience members were rude.
Children's Programs
3 out of 5
Not enough for them to do unless they were put in kids club-which we didn't want to do.
Expected more from a summer cruise full of children.
Service and Staff
4 out of 5
Every waiter, server, bartender and our room steward were outstanding and hardworking
Management-not so much.
Ship Quality
4 out of 5
Beautiful ship-pretty clean
Cabin / Stateroom
5 out of 5
Room was just right and our room steward-Joey was excellent
Ship tip
Do your research and read reviews..... I will not recommend MSC
I'm conflicted here-because we did love our excursion to
Blue Lagoon and the dolphin experience was wonderful, some of my family was split up (13 of us) on return to ship and my daughter, son-in-law and 3 and 5 year old grandsons were dropped off a mile from ship. They had to walk back to ship through dangerous neighborhood. When we spoke to excursion desk about this-they just said "so sorry". Not an excuse and not acceptable.
We Loved Meraviglia! We enjoyed the ship, the entertainment, the beautiful stairs and food was excellent. It seems we might have different expectations!
Thanks for the review. Thank you especially for the details. Sounds like MSC hasn’t changed much despite targeting North Americans since 2018. I think they just don’t want to change. Agreed that, other than the children’s program, cruises don’t offer much entertainment for children. So if we don’t want to put our kids in the kids club, expect to provide our own entertainment.
Too bad about your cruise. All MSC cruises (ships/routes) are not all the same. I noticed a major difference between the Bahamas route and the Bermuda route. And many of their international routes are great and some, like Brazil not so much, as the passengers are loud/party bunch. That's why you would seldom find an added drink package included in the cruise fare on any of their cruises.
We had a similar dining experience on the MSC Seaview with regards to service. On the first night we were shown to our seats in the MDR at a table with a large salsa dance group who were just as confused as us, considering we were told we had a table for 2 and also the other 2 members of their group were on their way and we had been given their seats! We weren’t bothered about the error, everyone makes mistakes, it was more the fact when we went back to the front desk and started to tell the guy we thought we’d been seated at the wrong table he cut us off every time we tried to speak and actually shouted at us to “just go and sit down where you were told to sit”. When the other 2 members of the dance group were shown to the seats we were in we were asked to leave those seats, but still weren’t told where to sit instead, so we were then left standing about for ages until someone else came to tell us where our correct table for 2 was. By contrast our waiter in the MDR was so lovely and friendly! And to be fair this was an isolated incident so maybe we got them on a bad night. Just still stands out to me as the only time I’ve encountered real rudeness from staff on a cruise.
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