MSC Opera Cruise Reviews - Reviews

This was cheapie cruise, and we enjoyed it. The weather could have made things better but hey it was February. I have read many MSC reviews which have not been great but I feel they are making a good effort to improve and we would have no hesitation sailing with them again

We had a very nice cruise. The ship was full but never felt crowded. Met very nice people. Great drinks from very professional barmen.

We enjoyed we have rebooked a diff ship as we now know what we want from cruising its perfect for first timers to try

The worst cruise we have ever been on! Have cruised with all major cruiselines but have never experienced a cruise as bad as this! Chose this one for the itinerary, but couldn’t wait to get off this dirty, overcrowded, tired, old ship with rude obnoxious staff who care nothing for their patrons. Have cruised all around the world and would recommend you choose a different cruise line. Don’t waste your hard earned money by cruising with MSC. NEVER AGAIN!

There's no a box big enough to do a brief description just don't ever sail MSc they should stick to just shipping

An absolute nightmare. If you are British, don't go. Treated like 2nd class citizens

A really big and awesome looking cruise ship. A lot of space for you to walk, a lot of decks and a lot of entertainment.

There must be a better choice of boat rather than MSC Opera

A smaller MSC ship but still shiny and clean in all the right places. Embarkation and disembarkation both very easy at Marseille. Cabin was a Fantastica balcony on the 9th floor. Bed was really nice with the 3rd bed a fold down bunk which was across the bottom of the bed - not roo much of an issue. The balcony was fine with 2 chairs and a table. The bathroom was as normal and the shower had a door rather than a curtain. Both the toilet position and the smallness of the shower took a little working out to use but not a problem when you get it. Our steward was very efficient and always smiley. We had no real need for him but he was always about. Food in the evening MDR was very nice and varied but the service was a little slow at times. No real complaints there. The buffet was a little small which meant peak times were the usual cattle market and tables a premium. Added to the continental dislike of queuing then we tried not use the buffet and kept to the MDR or room service. Buffet food wasn't great although we didn't go hungry so that may tell a different story. The MSC pizza station was as gorgeous as usual - no better pizza at sea! We had all inc drinks which means the cocktail menu was sampled from top to bottom - great value. Entertainment was better than expected for MSC with proper themes and not just a visual mish mash for a change. There is an outdated smoking policy aboard in that the pub allows smoking inside and the big drawback is that as it's a smaller ship then the smell permeates the whole of that part of the ship and up into the theatre. There were also plenty of people smoking in their cabin judging by the smell as you walked past. Excursions were handled well and we have some good memories of new places. All in all we would sail on her again with the right itinerary as long as we had the balcony on floor 9.

This cruise offered a nice selection of ports but was unorganized at every turn. The food was awful and many of the staff were just plain rude. The entertainment in the main theater was less than professional quality compared to other ships we've been on. The balcony cabin was very nice. We will not cruise MSC again.

The room attendant was very good but apart from him the Service was very poor , we struggled to try and get drinks from bars and the ice cream was so slow to get served we gave up . port excursions are very expensive ,

Generally a very pleasant first ever cruise. Due to the cleanliness and ambience of the ship and excellent service from all staff I would cruise again with MSC.

Quite a bit for my money. Quite a bit for my money. Quite a bit for my money. Quite a bit for my money. Quite a bit for my money. Quite a bit for my money.

I have been on many cruises on different cruise lines but I have never been on one this bad.  Staff at the reception desk, not very helpful.  My wife and I watched the reception desk from where we had a drink every afternoon and I could not beleive the amount of guests that had arguments with the desk personnel.  

When you order a drink in any of the lounges, as soon as it arrives you should order another, because you will be finished with your first and be trying to get the attention of a waiter for quite sometime,  There seemed to be a "rudeness" attitude coming from the staff and when I brought this up at dinner everyone seemed to agree.  

The food either on the 11th floor cafeteria or in the dining room was poorly cooked.  Fish was way over cooked.  Breakfast was always the same, boring breakfast every morning.

Entertainment was poor.  We ended up leaving most nights before half way through.

I was really up beat and looking forward to this cruise but was very disappointed with it over all.

Seriously, even if MSC said, here are two totally free tickets, try it again, I would not even consider for a second taking the tickets.  I was never so glad to get off a ship in all my cruising days.

I have a long list of complaints but I hope that you get the picture.

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!

Cruise 14 september 2016 to 28 september 2016 from Copenhagen to Genua calling at Warnemuende, Gothenburg, Amsterdam, Le Havre, La Coruña (instead of Ferrol which was closed by fog), Lissabon, Cadiz, Gibraltar, Palma de Mallorca and Genua with bus transfer to Milan with nice stay there before flying to Copenhagen with SAS in the evening. Fine Cruise with fine food and excellent ports of call. The Fish and food market in Cadiz is very interesting. Very fine excursion from La Coruña to Santiago de Compostella with very experienced german lady as guide.

Fine Cruise from Copenhagen to Bergen, Hellesylt, Geiranger, Flaam and Copenhagen. A lot of rain in Bergen, so remained on board the fine ship with good facilities and food. 30 July to 6 August 2016. Tender service in Geiranger as the new Sea Walk was not built at that time.

If you're an experienced cruiser, you will be greatly disappointed. If its your first cruise, you will be unfairly turned off. If you are expecting great food, excellent service, outstanding entertainment.....don't choose European MSC. They are a HUGE disappointment. Food is cold, bland, poorly cooked/served in buffet. Seated meals are VERY slow, as in 45 min one day to get breakfast. Took 20+ min to flag someone/anyone down for drinks and another 20 to actually receive. If you go to bar to get drinks (due to lack of service) you get poor attitudes. Entertainment is very poor...one duo the male played polka music on a elec keyboard while the female played mariachi?? WHAT?

The MSC Opera is a lovely cruise liner. The balcony room is very nice, but the shower is really small. The staff on the pool deck was excellent. The entertainment team and singers/bands spoke or sang mainly in Italian. It was sometimes difficult to follow what was going on.  

Before MSC Opera I was on MSC Fantasia which is a bigger (and better) ship. Overall impresion of this cruise is great! Itineraries are great, time spent on shore excellent and everyone are so nice and kind. If this had been my first cruise I would have probably been thrilled, but since this is my third cruise I couldn't help myself but to compare it with previous ones. We were the first passengers since the ship was renovated last year, and one could say that this was a test cruise. There were a lot of oversights: mugs and cups in buffet restaurant were often dirty - every second cup was clean so it became tiresome to check every cup. Juices in the self serving restaurant were available only in the morning not in the evening and hot chocolate wasn't available at all although it was included in the price. Later we found out that staff don't bring out bags of hot chocolate or they rarely do and sometimes they make a hot chocolate in the thermos which is not warm and which has very little cocoa (color was dirty white, not brown!).

Food for breakfast was the same every day; muesli was already prepared on the milk-it looked disgusting to me and I would prefer to prepare it by myself in yogurt. I drink a lot of tea (which was available all day) but I could find honey only in the morning and lemon was even harder to find. The food was often greasy (even fish!) and dinner in the restaurant was taking too long, every single day (from 9pm till 11pm!). Although maître d'hôtel came to us one evening asking us how is everything, are we satisfied and promised us faster service, nothing has actually changed.

The midnight buffet was very poor: mostly vegetarian sandwiches and desserts from previous days.

Air Conditioner made being inside the ship very uncomfortable because it was very cold in bars and lobbies. Inside temperature was around 20 C, which is low considering outside temperature is much higher. I regret not bringing more long sleeve blouses, jackets etc.

I had situation by the pool when pool attendant told me I can't eat fruits by the pool (which is OK, because it was said on the warning board that it is forbidden). But I was disappointed he didn't say anything to other people eating around or even worse: children diving and jumping in the pool that is not in children area (it is clearly stated that it is forbidden to dive and jump in the pool and to run around the pool) ! When I asked him about that his answer was that they are children. I don't care if they are children or not, but because of that children I couldn't swim, or sit by the pool because they splashed water a lot and got me and my expensive camera wet even on the sunbed. Not to mention that children were diving and jumping in the whirlpools! So I didn't use those either. Deck No.11 has 2 pools deep 1.8m and one big part of the deck for children (that is new). But 30% children were in children area, and the rest of them around other 2 pools. It was very noisy on 11th deck. The best part to rest is the back of the ship.

Most people have spoken english perfectly, but it happened that woman on reception (from Kyrgyzstan) didn't speak it very well (or almost at all) and we couldn't understand each other which was very frustrating. Except that situation (and situation on the deck by the pool) all stuff was very polite, friendly, helpful... I'm not complaining on staff, I am disappointed with the ship and a lot of oversights which now I can't remember all.

I don't regret going on this cruise, I just think that MSC can offer a much better experience then this.