This was our 3 rd with MSC and we had not had very good experiences on the previous 2 but decided to try again, as the price for an all inclusive Xmas cruise was very attractive and indeed for what it was we had a good time. However the emabakation was a complete shambles, we had priority as my husband is in a wheel chair but after check in we were left wandering around the terminal in Genoa trying to find where to act sully get on the ship. When we did finally find where to be there were very long queues wirh a numbering system in place, after waiting 20 mins we were told to go to the front and that someone form the ship would come to assist me, after another 20 mins nobody had arrived and as my husband wasn't feeling too good, we had been travelling for 12 hours I in desperation asked to be let through the barrier and made my own way onto the ship with no help.

On the last day we had a flight home in the evening at 8.30 pm from Nice airport, to our surprise we were taken off the ship at 8.35 am and put on buses where we left at 9.10 am for Nice, a 2 and a half hour journey, arriving at the airport before noon. That is 8 and a half hours plus before our flight was due to leave, we felt we were just dumped at the airport by MSC some 100 plus passengers feel the same as us. We could not check in our case as BA said they couldn't do this until 6 pm in the evening which would be 2 and a half hours before departure so there we sat next to the check in desk for 6 hours. There were no restaurants for us to get lunch just a small cafe serving drinks and a shop with a few pre packed sandwiches, it was an awful end of our holiday.

Other passengers said they had tried to ask reception on the ship the day before when we were disembarking but the staff said they didn't know and it was only when we got the info to our cabins the night before,departure we realised the timings. We felt at this was a deliberate action by MSC because had it been apparent earlier passengers would have questioned why we were being taken so early. We appreciate that of course the cabins have to be vacated but considering we didn't get on the ship until after 6 pm on day 1 and we off so early on day 7 we actually had a 6 days cruise and not a 7. Read more