tnkgrl30 Cruise Review on MSC Opera on Jan 21, 2017

Item: MSC Opera
Rating: 1
Author: tnkgrl30

MSC Opera Cruise Review

tnkgrl30

Contributor Level: Purser

Reviews: 3

Helpful Votes: 37

Overall rating:

1 out of 5

Sail date: January 21, 2017

Ship: MSC Opera

Reviewed: 6 years ago

Review summary

If I could give this a zero I would! DON'T WASTE YOUR MONEY WITH MSC! Terrible terrible staff. First on the ship there is a line-up of sales staff soooo pushy to buy things. Well we just wanted to get to our room but did not know how. Staff not intetested. I asked so many staff - can I have my key please? Where is my room? I was very polite. I was not rude. Finally after being ignored by so many staff only interested in selling packages, I had to yell SOMEONE TELL ME HOW TO GET TO MY BLOODY ROOM!!! WHERE IS MY KEY FOR GOODNESS SAKE!!! Then one of them turned to me and rudely advised my key is on my bed in my room. Great privacy - room key embedded with all my personal information and credit card details is on my bed in my room which has the door open! But I still don't know where my room is!! Finally I got a map, but no help to work it out. We had only one week before gotten off a 7n cruise with Carnival which we loved and we were so pumped to get on a second cruise. However we immediately hated it and I'm a grown woman and I just wanted to cry. It did not get better. 7n cruise and it was DAY 5 before a staff member acknowledged our existence but I got the feeling it was just because it was getting closer to tip time. It wasn't genuine. Every single day we came back to the ship after being out, there was almost no food. There were at least 10 or more MSC staff grabbing the small amount of food and taking it for themselves. And then sitting at the tables wearing their ID in clear view of the paying passengers and we were all asking the chefs could they bring out more food as we wanted to eat. And they said no - that's all - you should have been here earlier - it's like 4pm when lots of ppl are returning to the ship and want food before going back to their cabin. We couldn't believe it! So we could perhaps share one piece of dessert the size of a spoon between 2 ppl. It was so bad. 1st morning at breakfast I was carrying a small plate with a pastry and a cup of coffee. A staff member slammed into me and my coffee went flying and she did not even acknowledge the fact that she almost broke my arm let alone help clean up - nothing. Again - unbelievable! So I stood there in shock with terrible pain in my arm and my back which I twisted cause she hit me so hard and I guess I was just shocked and waiting for something. Maybe an apology. Maybe the coffee that went flying neefed a mop? Nope. She walked off with nothing. So I went over to a male staff member and said there's coffee all over the floor there right in the middle of the floor - could you please help me clean it up because i was worried someone would slip. Well he looked at me like I was a giant turd and did nothing. Now before you tell me it's a language barrier, I speak fluent Italian so we could communicate with ease. So the coffee stayed on the floor and nobody cared. The same troll from day 1 banged into me again on day 3 when I was at the juice machine. That left orange juice all over the floor. A whole cup. So I poured another and went back to my table. Didn't bother telling anyone cause they do not care. So you get the picture re the staff. SHOCKING!! Don't waste your money. And don't bother asking for information at the information desk - like what is this "miscellaneous charge" on my bill? The answer will be rudely screamed at you so the best thimg to do right then and there is to remove all automatic tips from the bill, tell them you want to give them to individuals who deserve it then try really really hard to find someone, anyone, who deserves a tip. By day 7 you will leave the ship without finding even one person. That is if you can get off the ship because you will be in a scrum of hundreds of people killing each other to get off and the staff in senior uniforms will yell in your face and be soooo rude and after about 3hrs when you finally get your passport back, they will say something really nice as you walk off like none of that ever happened! I'm getting so worked up writing this, reliving the horror. And every day I said to my 14yr old son - let's just ignore the bad behavior, we are so lucky to be doing this, let's really enjoy it, we are going to lovely places - we had to work so hard to build ourselves back up from the staff behavior. Oh and at the day at sea, heaps of ppl were sitting on the edge of the pool smoking. One after the other after the other. In the no smoking area. Staff couldn't care less. Little children everywhere. Who cares. You can smoke. In front of the no smoking signs - that's the best place to smoke right? And in the formal restaurant, the service took soooo long for first course then in between each one as well. No ice water. And on the last day they did free photos as a goodbye gift but because we didn't purchase photos during the cruise, the photographer deliberately skipped over us. I didn't want to let that go, so I asked the wait staff to get him to come back over to us. He came back over to tell us he refused to take a photo because he had tp do it in order of table number. So what about our table? Don't care. Whatever. I was only trying to.prove a point. I didn't want that stupid photo but I would like the next course without waiting 30 minutes in between. Oh and in the hallways that go for miles and miles, they have the cleaning trolleys - seems like hindreds of them that are all too big for the hallways they sit in. Seems like the hallways are their storage area. So while you're walking an eternity to your room up these hallways, about every 3 metres you have to turn sideways to get past the oversized cleaning trolleys. The whole experience was just a zero out of 10. Don't waste your money. I flipped a bird at the ship as we were walking down the pier. The best thing about this cruise was the moment we stepped off it!

14 Comments

Gwbigdog 2 years ago

Thanks for sharing your cruise with us.

Thumbs Up 0

Flag

CatCREngland 5 years ago

Dump msc they are crap. Try Norwegian always has free open bar promotions.

Thumbs Up 0

Flag

Musthave1booked 6 years ago

Wow

Thumbs Up 0

Flag

tnkgrl30 6 years ago

Shaundalynn - have a look at Norwegian as well if you want a party. They have dedicated singles stuff as well which my friend thought was great

Thumbs Up 3

Flag

tnkgrl30 6 years ago

markcross I heard Carnival are big party zones during Spring Break. We went in January and there was nothing out of the ordinary. There was no excessive drinking that we saw anyway. It was ex Puerto Rico though. My friend has been on several Norwegian cruises in the last 12mths and all have been ex mainland US ports and they were all about drinking and partying. They had foam parties and blue parties and all sorts of stuff. I saw his videos around the pool during the day and the music was pumping. He loved it. He mostly didn't get off the ship at port as they started with a breakfast of Pina Coladas and went downhill from there!! He loved it. Not what I want though. I want to see the places we go. It's a long way from Australia and so I don't mind a drink or 2 but I would hate pumping music like that at the pool.

Thumbs Up 2

Flag

Shaundalynn 6 years ago

Okay thanks for that information. I'm 35 and like to party and have fun. I work in dementia care and love the elderly but yes I'd like to skip hoardes of them on vacation. Thanks

Thumbs Up 3

Flag

markcross 6 years ago

Shaundalynn, don't go on a Princess on the West Coast, I'm very fond of Princess but they are full with old people and scooters and canes, walkers and entertainment to match. It's what I prefer but probably not for you if your younger and like to party

Thumbs Up 2

Flag

Shaundalynn 6 years ago

I love carnival as well. The only one I've been on thus far but I'm looking into other lines just for variety. I'm a little scared. I would be so upset if my experience was like yours. I also worry that I'd unknowingly book a cruise on a old ppl cruise which i am definitely not interested in, too much like being at work.

Thumbs Up 1

Flag

markcross 6 years ago

I glad I've never cruised with MSC and glad you enjoy Carnival, Many yrs ago I went on Carnival and I didn't find it very enjoyable, it was to boozy for my taste, but I may try them again in the future.

Thumbs Up 1

Flag

tnkgrl30 6 years ago

Markcross because I only just found this app. I loaded my cruise coming up on it and saw you could add past cruises as well. Since I was so happy w Carnival, I gave them a review from JAN this year. And only fair since my experience was beyond bad with MSC, I gave them a review too. There are many others online not just this app that have given terrible reviews. If I had travelled with them as a first time cruiser, I would never do another cruise. Only that I went with Carnival a week before this one and had such a great experience or I would never have booked the 2 cruises I have coming up in the next few weeks.

Thumbs Up 0

Flag

jacquiert 6 years ago

Sounds like my TA experience in 2015 for 18 days. I'm so sorry.

Thumbs Up 1

Flag

lab341 6 years ago

YIKES!!!

Thumbs Up 0

Flag

markcross 6 years ago

This is a dumb question, but why did it take you 11 months to post your review? It would be more helpful to post your experience promptly to aid other future cruisers

Thumbs Up 3

Flag

gbrockm 6 years ago

This is horrible, sounds like the workers didn't care, on strike or something!! Yeah if I were you, I will not use them again

Thumbs Up 2

Flag