Having read reviews on the MSC Poesia we were prepared for a beautiful ship with substandard service but our cruise to Stockholm, Tallin, Sankt Petersburg and Kiel by far exceeded our expectations. It is true that food is not available 24/7, that water is not free of charge for dinner, that coffee and tea is not an option for dinner either and that the layout of the buffet needs rethinking but these were minor issues that were by far offset by the excellent service provided by all staff members including our head waiter Suatra.
We never experienced any language problems with any members of the staff and found the multi-cultural passenger list to be quite refreshing. Unlike on our previous cruises, all ports seemed to be ports of embarkation/disembarkation which meant a far smaller number of people "fighting" to get on and off the ship in each port.Embarkation in Copenhagen went very smoothly and we had instant access to our cabin at 2 pm and got our luggage about an hour later.
We did not go to see more than a few of the shows in the theatre, but what we saw was not very impressive. We did not participate in any of the other activities organized onboard.