julieNmike Cruise Review on MSC Musica on Oct 14, 2018

Reviews: 14

Helpful Votes: 418

Review summary

Food Portions in the main restaurants are very small - not a bad thing when you’re on a 24 night Cruise. The standard of what we had was pretty average though. Anyway, You’ve always got the bistro if you’re really hungry but the quality of the food isn’t as ‘good’ as in the main restaurants. We did like the fact that there were many evenings focussed on specific regions - Mediterranean Night; Asian night, and on countries too, China, Brazil,, Greece etc. Astonishingly though, water in the main dining room is only available if paid for! Not a Cruise to book if you’re looking for steak or lobster... or something to wash your meal down with. Staff We found the MSC staff to be universally excellent, all went above be and beyond and delivered everything and more that we asked for. We really like that MSC allow their crew to bring family on board when in their home port. Says staff actively looked to introduce children etc to their ‘customers’ which was really nice for both sides. Entertainment Very average. Only two acts (in 24 nights) we could really say we enjoyed, a classical quartet and three tenors from South Africa. Theres only one real band who were quite good, but no ships orchestra. The several examples of a singer and a guitarist noodling along to recorded backing tracks wore a bit thin after about 10 days. Ships dancers were fair, but only to recorded music, but the male - and especially the female - lead singers were very disappointing indeed. Wonderland in the main theatre was an extravaganza based on Alice in Wonderland which was good - if different - and featured jugglers, acrobats and other types of entertainers. Ok if you like that sort of thing. Drinks package Very limited, though it always was going to be at about £21 per day. Heineken beer, two whites, two reds and a rose wine ‘carefully selected by our sommelier’. They will be the cheapest then. Good selection of standard sprits and a dozen or so cocktails plus bottled water, teas and coffees and proper scooped ice cream with about 12 varying varieties made on board to choose from. Service. Bar service generally very good, but on the pool deck bars it could be annoying when waiting staff took your order, put it through the till and then passed it to ‘bar staff’. It was often difficult to know who was getting your drinks, and of course, the bar staff were serving their own customers too. Wifi Utterly pathetic. The staff blamed the satellite - the usual excuse when at sea, but it was the same when in port. We’ve been in this part of the world before with no major internet issues. To quantity this, the best WiFi we had over the entire 24 nights was on a coach to Petra! Other points We did like the pool deck sun beds that incorporate a ‘sun visor’ and the pool area in general is very nice apart from a large smoking area on the port side. Also, speaking as something of an old fart, I particularly liked the fact that there was no constant ‘boom boom’ rubbish music on the pool deck! There is an exclusive top16 deck area for suite guests at the front of the ship that was always empty. This was opened up to us peasants - at a daily cost. It stayed empty. For the more energetic: the gym is small and there is no specific running track anywhere on the ship. Conclusions Nice ship, great itinerary, superb staff, poor food and average (but cheap) drinks package. If you’re on a budget, MSC might well tick the boxes. If you want quality, you’ll have to spend more, I’m afraid...