The MSC Opera was my 16th cruise on various lines. The ship is very new and very well laid out. That is about the only thing good I can say about it.
The captain and crew did a bad job. Always late entering and leaving ports, not by a few minutes but by hours. Three hours late leaving Ft. Lauderdale because of wind. Five hours late returning to Ft. Lauderdale causing hundreds to miss flights.
The food was disappointing and the service even more disappointing. The deck 11 buffet was pathetic with constant lines and very few choices of food and the food there was of cheap quality, such as canned sliced pineapple and servers who allowed food to run out constantly. Two choices of drinks at the buffet water or coffee plus only orange juice at breakfast. Much of the food was inedible. It was like a school lunchroom. It was always hard to find a vacant table. At the outdoor grille the hamburgers were awful and the hot dogs sitting in hot water barely cooked, but the fries were good. And at the pizza grille you would think Italians could fix great pizza---wrong---One pizza maker and he was slow and no cook.