We had read the mixed reviews and decided to book this cruise which was offered at a VERY good price. We made a decision to go with low expectations - what we were looking for was a week in the sunshine with some r and r.
The embarkation process was fairly painless and once we boarded we were very surprised by the ship, it is beautiful. The public rooms were lovely, the cabins VERY colourful, ours was red, the pool area looks amazing. BUT. We felt that there was always a but after everything apart from the shows which were absoluely incredible.
The food was ok but not very hot. We had read that there were 2 formal nights when we needed to dress up but there were about a dozen men in dinner suits, my husband felt like the woman in the red dress on a black and white night.
The majority of the passengers were young European families - there were a lot of children on board - so the average age was a lot lower than on most cruises. The announcements were a bit annoying due to the many languages.
On disembarkation day we needed to be out of the cabin by 7 am and were picked up before 9 for a 15 minute drive to the airport but our flight didn't leave until 14.15 so we couldn't even check in. There is a MSC lounge at Genoa airport but you couldn't get in because of the luggage in there. We were told nothing.
To conclude, we got what we paid for. We would have paid similar money for a hotel in a warm European country. But we won't be using MSC again.
