Not up to expectations
MSC Poesia Cruise Review to Caribbean
Martinique, Guadeloupe, Saint Lucia, Barbados
Sail date: January 21, 2017
Ship: MSC Poesia
Cabin type: Balcony
Cabin number: 9147
Traveled as: Couple
Reviewed: 7 years ago
Review summary
We took a 14 night Caribbean cruise in January 17 beginning from Barbados. Iglu arranged for us to arrive the night before and stay in a hotel and then a taxi to the ship. We arrived at the ship at noon and they kindly arranged for us to be met and taken on board earlier than the arranged arrival time.
Our cabin was nice and met our expectations, the restaurant, bar and cabin staff were also wonderful.
We did find the customer relations staff to not be too helpful, we are still unclear if this was a language/culture barrier or plain rudeness !
The ship is organised for a 7 day turnaround - so all shows and menu repeat every 7 days - which spoilt the experience for people on a longer trip. At every port there were passenger changes (which we had never experienced before) which meant frequent safety drills in numerous languages over the loudspeakers lasting 15-30 mins.
The food was mediocre, in most cases lacking flavour. 2nd sitting did not start until 9-9.15 which was later than informed at booking. Eating this late did not aid digestion.
Hygiene was poorer than previous cruises with hand wash gels limited, broken and rarely used . We were all ill at some point with a flu like stomach virus resulting in days where one of us stayed in the cabin missing days ashore.
As a result of this experience we would not use MSC again nor recommending them to others.
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