It was with some intrepidation that we finally decided to cruise with MSC. Several telephone calls were made to the MSC office in England in January & February but each time we were put on hold and could never get through to the reservations department. In desperation we went to our local travel agent to see if they could do any better. Unfortunately they could not. They eventually made contact the day following our booking enquiry only to find that flights from Gatwick in June were not available. We did not wish to travel to Heathrow. On checking the BA website ourselves we were able to select morning flights to Venice from Gatwick for the date required and for the return. Rather than book this ourselves we went back to the Agent who booked return flights for us. Eventually cruise was booked with separate BA flights. On checking out our cruise details some two weeks later we found that Gatwick flights were then available and the timing of these were identical to those booked with the Agent. We then requested bus transfer between airport and the Seaport but were advised by MSC that all seats were already booked. We then arranged a private taxi transfer for the return journeys. The e-mail and telephone service between customer & MSC office is very poor and urgently needs to be updated to cope with enquiries. Our travel agent agrees with this.

On arrival in Venice everything went smoothly although we could not check in to the ship until 2.00 p.m. We were able to put our luggage into a secure area and we set off to see some of Venice. The People Mover Monorail is about a 15 minute walk from the MSC check-in and well worth using for just a 1 Euro fare. There is a free bus from ship to Monorail but we were not advised of this.

Five minutes on the Monorail and you are not far from the Grand Canal. Well worth using this mode of transport. Read more