Worst cruise ever

Cruises: 7+ cruises

Review: 1

Helpful Votes: 25

Review summary

I have been on multiple cruises in the US and Europe but I have never had such a horrible experience. We had never use MSC before, so I did my homework before we booked and read up on the company, including multiple reviews, which were generally good. Upon our embarkation we found our balcony state room to be poorly configured with the bed right at the closet. All of the storage for our personal items was in that closet and it was not easy to access. We had no washcloths or bar soap and no kleenex, but our steward did come by to introduce himself and he was able to get these for us. We began looking through the documentation and found it difficult to understand and there was no map of the ship to help us to orient. It was difficult to figure out how to use the phone to call the other members of our group to coordinate and the MSC for Me app that was supposed to help us connect using our smartphones with the onboard wifi hotspot didn’t work. The first real clue we had for what was in store was the totally chaotic and confusing muster drill. We were supposed to view the emergency video in our state room, which we did 4 or 5 times, then follow instructions to proceed to our muster station. The video said to wait for the signal then proceed to the station. They played a long shrill alert and we went to the door to the hall and asked what we needed to do. The people in the vests directed us down the stairs to the muster station, where we scanned our cards as directed and waited. Lots of others must have done the same as us because we were not alone. Turns out we were supposed to have waited until the captain directed us to go the the muster station. We were already there when he did. We were traveling with family. There were 9 of us. We had all tried to link our group together for the main dining through early online check-in and had enlisted the assistance of our travel agent. She told us she had difficulty with this, but thought she had it fixed. We discovered when we received our cruise cards that everyone was at the same table in the Seashore Restaurant at 7:30 except for us. We were scheduled at 9:30. I started by spending 20 minutes with my husband in the Guest Services line to correct this and to get connected to the onboard internet services we had paid for. When we got to the agent, he could fix either problem and sent us to stand in two more long lines. We decided to split up and I went to the restaurant, while he waited in the internet line. I stood in that line for 25 minutes and was told they couldn’t accommodate my request to be seated with our family until the next night. My husband had tried to call me to let me know they needed my phone to give him access to our stateroom internet account and he’d gone back to the room. I had to go to get him to do this and we waited in line one more time. Finally got the internet service on our phones, but we had to go through the complicated log-in process every time we stopped using if for an undefined length of time. We went to everyone’s state rooms to leave notes telling them we would just eat dinner in the buffet and they should just eat without us. Our in-laws had already gone to have cocktails at the bar before dinner, so they didn’t get the note. They wound up sitting at an 8 person table in the Seashore Restaurant by themselves. The others also opted for the Biscayne Bay buffet while we went to the Marketplace buffet. MSC did get the seating worked out beginning the next evening, but moved us to Ipanema. The food was good, but not anything special. The younger couples in our group tried the Sushi restaurant, which we opted out of because the ship had failed it sanitation inspection a couple of weeks before. They said the sushi was not very good. I could share more, but this is already too long. Needless to say I would not recommend MSC to anyone.

Embarkation

Ship experiences

Food and Dining

Onboard Activities

Service and Staff

Ship Quality

Cabin / Stateroom

Ports of call

Port Canaveral, Florida

Ocean Cay MSC Marine Reserve, Bahamas

Disembarkation

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