fungooleyruley Cruise Review on MSC Splendida on Mar 10, 2019

Reviews: 3

Helpful Votes: 29

Review summary

A business is only as good as it’s employees! A ship is only as good as it’s crew! I’ve chalked up 3 cruises now, each with a different cruise line, so I now have something to compare my experiences with. MSC Splendida is a lovely ship, that’s for sure, and she’s quite easy to negotiate. Our Aurea Experience balcony stateroom was nice and spacious and kept well by our housekeeping steward. I enjoyed having a larger bathroom than the standard balcony rooms have. Both embarkation and disembarkation went without a hitch. The food choices in the buffet and main dining room restaurants was very hit and miss. I would have loved being offered the opportunity to try some better quality seafood and a nice piece of steak. Quality salad options were few and far between. Desserts were mostly cake style. Where were the tarts, puddings and cheesecakes? We did not attend any of the shows, the casino or the disco as we were usually too tired from the day touring we did. We enjoyed the tours, in particular the Jeep Safari one on Sir Bani Yas Island and the Dhow Fjord one in Khasab. Finally, the staff! Most just got on with their jobs and came across reasonably pleasant BUT there were a handful of them who were just downright obnoxious or plain rude and arrogant. On one occasion when we were headed off the ship I asked a young Russian sounding staff member a question about taxis and the tone of his response was incredibly rude and disrespectful. This type of experience happened a couple of times during our cruise. The Asian staff were all wonderful. The culprits were always Russian sounding. These are NOT people who should be working in hospitality! Would we sail with MSC again? Probably not I’m afraid! We’ll be continuing to cruise but will be trying out the other cruise lines to see what they can offer. Hopefully better food choices with more polite crew!