Let me start by saying this was our second MSC cruise in the last year. We cruised on the Divina in November and loved it. That's why we chose to book our long yearly European cruise with MSC on the Opera. What a mistake. Check in was OK. Room was OK except worse bed and pillows ever. I travel every week for work and sleep in hotels 4 out of 7 nights a week. The bed was hard, flat, terrible bedding, pillows old and lumpy.

We booked our cruise directly with MSC and the MSC agent assured us that if we booked our excursions with her we would save 10 percent off the cost. She said if we booked on the ship it would be 10 percent more. Because of this we booked all our excursions with her. When we got on board, we realized the ships charges on board for the excursions were much less according to their tour brochure. We talked to three different MSC customer representatives included the man in charge. We showed them the notice in writing (an email) about the promised discount from the MSC representative. We were told that they aren't responsible for what other MSC representatives promise. We asked if we could cancel the excursions and rebook and were told NO. We were overcharged almost $300.00 from what the cost was on the ship. Another lie, while we were waiting to be processed on the ship, I was talked into buying a spa package. I was told it would be 20 percent less if I purchased then rather than on board. Well, that same package was half price during the cruise.

We asked for coffee and was told it was only available in the dining room at breakfast. We were told the same thing about milk. They even charged for water in the dining room. The food was horrible. Nothing special and not very appealing choices. When you went to the upper deck to get coffee, it was cold. The fruit machines on the upper deck were only on in the morning. The pizza in the pizzeria was like cardboard with very little topping. There was a notice in our cabin about MSC supporting UNICEF as well as a paper for you to fill out if you wanted or didn't want to provide a donation on your cabin bill. We didn't complete the form. We got a preliminary bill two nights prior to the end of the cruise and it was correct. We settled our account on the last night of the cruise and got a final receipt. The morning of disembarking we had a bill under our door and surprise, in the middle of the bill they had added two donations for UNICEF. I didn't mind donating, but it needs to be my decision, and I was appalled they had taken such liberty with my money. I called the service desk to ask them to take the charge off my bill and was told I would have to fill out the paper indicating I didn't want to donate and bring it to the service desk. I completed the paper and stood in line for 45 minutes to have it deleted, Read more