We cruise twice a year, and have been on almost every cruiseline out there. When our travel agent called and told us about a short, 2 night cruise on a European line attempting to break into the the American market, we jumped on the chance (as did about 30 of our friends) to take a quick getaway before Christmas break ended and the kids went back to school (our son is a junior in high school). We did some research on the MSC Orchestra and it looked like a beautiful ship, in the same class as Holland America or Celebrity. The only good thing that I will say about this cruise is that the ship was elegant and beautiful. It goes downhill from there.

We arrived at the port at about 12:15. We had no luggage to check, so we parked in the parking garage ($15 per day) and proceeded down the stairs to the terminal. We encountered a huge line, which was a bit surprising because the paperwork said that check in would begin at 11am. Looking into the open parking lot, we realized that people were just LEAVING the ship from the previous trip (a 21 day trip we later found out.) The terminal was completely filled with people waiting to check in, and the line began to grow outside waiting to get in the terminal. Employees of MSC were no where to be found, leaving the port security to attempt to answer questions. Over an hour later, check in had still not started. Once the check-in started, the computers were going down every 15 minutes or so, and it took some people over 30 minutes to check in. We finally checked in after over 3 hours in line.

The ship was just not ready for American passengers. Many of the crew was new and spoke little English. By 4:00 less than 500 people were on the ship, and looking down into the parking lot revealed an angry mob of over 1000 people trying to get into the terminal to check in. Little to no information was available to anyone. Crew members were unfamiliar with the ship and could answer almost no questions regarding where things were, or what time things were scheduled. They cancelled the lifeboat drill, and finally everyone was on board by 7pm. We had the late dinner seating, and again waited in a huge line to get into the dining room. Waiters had no idea where tables were, and groups of people were following waiters in circles around the dining room trying to find their tables. Once we were seated, it was 15 minutes before anyone came to the table. We were not offered water, and could not order drinks. To make a long story short, we walked out of the dining room 2 hours later with only half our table getting their meal. We had to go buy bottled water to have something to drink. It was just completely disastrous. Read more