My wife and I have been on a number of cruises, but this was to be a first with MSC.

Boarding on the 28th April in Cape Town was a shambles - no porters to assist the elderly with heavy bags, no trolleys, 3 hours of queuing, and when finally aboard, told that cabins not ready.

We had an Ocean View (no.3086, just below the balcony cabin deck), which was considerably smaller than on any other cruise ship we've been on - a two bed cabin, but with two more bunk beds folded back against the bulkhead, further reducing the space therein. Cupboard space was well planned, allowing everything to be put away after unpacking. A safe for valuables was provided, as was a small fridge stocked with limited supplies. The television was of the old square boxy type (why no flat screen wall mounted TV..?), taking up unnecessary cupboard top space. No CNN or BBC news channels until we reached the Canary Islands and others - from experience we know that mid-Atlantic there is a "blind spot" for a day or so, but all African countries have satellite reception, and we were never that far away (we called at Walvis Bay & Dakar), so we should have had these programmes... The en-suite constantly had an aroma of sewage, the toilet was of the vacuum type, but a fault (reported but never rectified) meant that the toilet bowl constantly filled up with water almost to the rim, which was alarming. It never overflowed, but had to be constantly flushed... Read more