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This cruise was poorly organised

The ship itself is wonderful, well laid out, constant cleaning & maintenance daily.

 Very clean & fantastic staff in bars, pool area’s & toilets. 

The buffet has plenty of choices although food could be hotter at times. 

My biggest gripe are the reception & excursion staff. I’m not sure how they were employed as customer service should be first & fore within any company. 

Arrogant & ill informed.

Due to the Israeli conflict our itinerary was changed, (Egypt & Jordan cancelled)

The way they handled this is nothing short of a disgrace. 

We were offered a refund after we had sailed! 

MSC Uk had denied all knowledge of a change before we left for Trieste even though it was posted elsewhere on the web. 

They offered €57 as compensation per person (which has to be spent on the ship) although we since found out others were offered €200-€300. 

Most people booked this cruises solely for Egypt/Jordan so many were extremely disappointed. Safety is paramount but to offer one extra day in Mauritius & Reunion island is a poor substitute. 

We have spent 8 days at sea crossing through the Suez Canal to Oman with repetitive ‘entertainment’ which is very childlike. 

The nighttime ‘shows’ are so bad it’s entertaining to watch the passengers leave the theatre each evening. One can only hope the magician magically disappears for good in the coming days. 

They had a ‘film under the stars’ one night at 10.30pm which was Jurassic Park. Bear in mind this was for adults! 

Due to location internet access was poor so they promised movies each night on the tv.

Whoever chose them must have dug through the archives to find them as they are a pathetic choice. 

If one has a reason to approach reception with a complaint be prepared for an uphill battle. 

The staff are argumentative & rude.

I had quite a confrontation also with the excursion desk. 

Having sailed many times before with other companies I always found their reception staff to be excellent so MSC seriously needed to rethink their policy on customer service. 

The Pro’s-

Wonderful bar & dining staff 

Plenty of sunbeds 

Cabin staff are just superb. 

The Cons-

Doing pool maintenance while passengers lying beside it isn’t ideal.

Grouting tiles beside sunbathers isn’t a good look & most annoying. 

Surely this can be done at night? 

Reception & excursion staff-

Immediate retraining of reception staff or better again employ new ones. 

Lack of items to purchase! 

Surely on a ship this size with so many passengers it would be acceptable to have medium range priced items for sale.

The lack of swimsuits, leisure wear, etc is shocking. 

The swim shop magically opened on day eleven!!

And it didn’t sell swimwear!!

Improvements needed

Vancouver

Ship is nice, big with lots of spaces. Service is average. Onboard activities during extensive sea days is very poor. Communication on ports to self navigate and what is happening is non existant. In cabin TV has nothing to watch. Other than destinations we wanted to see was why we booked wouldn't travel again on this ship line. Unfortunately due to conflict we lost 3 ports in Egypt and no new ports added. Ship is clean. Food is nice. Most staff polite and look after you. Reception not a lot of help. Passports taken and not told when they will return. Nice areas to have a drink and listen to music. A variety  of bars with music is good. Gym staff very accommodating. Expensive spa treatments. Shops over priced and duty free is really not duty free compared to prices at home. Overall enjoying the trip, could be better if they listened to passenger needs.

Just Ok

Got this cruise for an excellent price a few years earlier. Ship was clean. Bar staff were friendly and chatty.

We've sailed quite a few Med cruises but the itinerary on this cruise had all new ports never been to before so that was a plus point. 

Food in buffet and MDR was very good. Better than what I had expected and much better than a Costa cruise I took in April.

So why 3 stars...

Our toilet flush didn't work when we got to the cabin. Reported it to the room steward who called someone. They came and "fixed it". Then broke again within a couple of hours. This was repeated throughout the whole 10 days making visits to reception every single day multiple times. Never any offers to move cabins, they knew it must have been broke when we arrived but still felt it OK to have 4 people on a cabin without a working toilet for 10 days. Awful service...

Only other negative is lack of variation in the entertainment. Same people doing the same things just in different costumes is how I would sum it up. Very talented but loses the magic when you see it every night.

All in all, would definitely do MSC again. This was our 2nd MSC cruise. Room issues were a big negative but there's bigger issues out there in the world so grateful for a lovely break to some fantastic places on a overall very good ship.

Excellent cruise but with a big negative!

San Diego

To be fair, my wife and i had a fine cruise. We had booked a cruise on MSC Splendida due to the route and we were not disappointed. For October the weather was excellent. It is a pity there is always a time constraint not allowing you to visited all the places you want to, however we knew the route and the timetable. 

Best part of the ship is the crew. Friendly and helpful, hard working, making long hours, no free days during contract term.

MSC Splendida is built in 2009 and renovated in 2017. The ship shows its age. The furniture is stained and worn out. For instance the chairs in the buffet should be replaced immediately. The carpet should be renewed or thoroughly cleaned.

The cabins are mediocre. Little storage space, few possibilities to connect electronics and the shower had a plastic curtain. The couch was stained and uncomfortable. However everything was working, nothing was broken or out of order. The cabin was daily cleaned and the towels were also changed daily.

We used lunch and diner mainly in the restaurant. The food and wine were good, the service was enjoyable. Sometimes the food was luck warm, however this could be expected with so many people in the restaurant. The dishes were mostly a hit, sometimes a miss all due to your own taste. The restaurant was large, mostly full, making the place noisy, especially when you were seated next to an Italian family. Italians inherently talk loud, however when gathered as a family all talk at the same time and shout to be heard. In spite of those issues we were positive about the restaurant.

We had breakfast and a few lunches/diners in the buffet. The quality of the food was mediocre, less than the restaurant. Breakfast was ok, however everyday the same, simple with no surprises. Lunch and diner also showed few surprises. The buffet could be very busy and chaotic.

The ship had numerous bars. Service was attentive and quick. You could hardly taste the alcohol in the cocktails, however if you order a cocktail extra strong, the cocktail mostly improved.

In the evening artists would perform in the bars. The artists were mostly mediocre and tried to conceal their lack of talent by using tapes with background music and setting the speakers on the maximum. However with no avail. We even called the artists in the atrium “the duo out of tune”. The shows in the theater were reasonable. Some artists were even rather good (pianist, tenor).

Smoking is allowed on a restricted number of places. However many people ignored those rules. I never saw a crew member warning a smoking guest. You are allowed to smoke in the casino. If you wanted to visit the theater, you had to walk through a smoky casino inhaling unwanted smoke. If MSC really is interested in the health of their guest they should change this immediately.

MSC made a reservation of € 64,- on my credit card. This reservation was not for the bill we received on the last night on the boat. We didn't receive any explanation. We have no idea where the amount came from. I made an inquiry at MSC, however i got no response. It leaves you with an unsettling feeling after a nice holiday.

Update: The reservation has been removed from my credit card.

Nice cruise on a mediocre ship

Just stepped off a 9 day Med cruise on MSC Splendida. This was my 11th cruise but my first with MSC and it will definitely be my last.

 The positives; its not a bad looking ship, bars, resturaunts and theatre look attractive. Our balcony cabin, aft facing, was large and comfortable but that's about all I can say that's complimentary. 

The negatives; the food was, for the most part, atrocious and that was across the Buffet, Dining rooms and snack bars.

 In the Buffet the food was plentiful but choice was limited and repetitive, warm at best and often cold and the overwhelming smell of fish particularly in the morning was awful. Though it was very large it was always noisy and very overcrowded.

 The dining room, Villa Verde, was packed to capacity with barely enough room to move between tables, the food ranged from mediocre to inedible. 

The ships passengers are mainly Italian and thats who they cater for. The noise in the Buffet was sometimes overwhelming and like nothing I have ever experienced before it was the same around the pool areas which where loud, cramped and chaotic which basically was the general  atmosphere through out  this badly laid out ship. 

The entertainment was only ok and the same in every bar every night, we only went to one theatre show and it was good but not good enough to keep us coming back.

We traveled with family and our bookings where linked months before our cruise but the management on the ship did not know this and we where given separate tables in the dining room which was eventually sorted but this was the theme of our entire cruise, products and excursions we had pre booked and paid for did not appear on their system and we spent so much of our time at the guest relations desk trying to sort some problem or other.

Overall a bad experence and not one I would ever like to repeat.  

Definitely not up to the same standard as Royal Caribbean or Norwegian cruise ships.

Unbelievably Bad

Let me start by saying staff are FABULOUS however the rooms are very shabby, like a poor quality 3* hotel at best. They are kept as clean as possible by the staff but the carpets are grubby and stained, the sofa also stained and grubby from age not a lack of attention from staff.

Pool areas are really awful, like a bad version of a Butlins camp, overcrowded and horrible walking through tatty furniture and lots of smoke.

Buffet restaurant Bora Bora,  was such a bad experience, again staff doing their very best but totally overcrowded with people literally crossing and knocking into each other, too many people at the same time, not enough tables, just manic and chaotic. I felt for couples with babies, children and older people-absolute carnage and again food 3*hotel quality at best!

Queueing to disembark was a disorderly shambles -up to an hour at times, not great when the itinerary is a short half day stay at a destination. This is a ship that needs to have much better organisation when leaving for trips and desperately needs an overhaul of rooms and outdoor areas. Not a good experience overall I’m sad to say. MSC needs to do better. Not at all a splendid trip!

FABULOUS staff but AVOID this ship-grubby rooms more like a 2* hotel

We chose this cruise for its destinations. We were a family of three, booked a Balcony with Fantasia benefits.

It was our 29th cruise overall.

From the time we booked our cruise in January and confirmed it in March, this was not a good sign, that things were not going as we pleased..

Check-in in Trieste, Italy was okay!

We checked in at 10.30 a.m. Left our check-in luggage and witnessed the to bags been scanned on green light!!

They said the luggage should be in our room no later than 4.30 p.m.

7 p.m. the ship is sailing and no luggage

7.30 p.m. There was NO luggage  and we were in rage 

8 p.m. no luggage

8.10 - went to the guest services and they said it should be coming

8.15 I walked all over starting from deck 7 up and found one my luggage on Deck 10..no claim..

8.30 I went to the luggage holding area to see if security had held the other luggage and found out that it was sitting in security.

I asked them why and no one could give me a valid answer.!!!! I asked them if the holding my luggage, they said no..

STATEROOM

The beds and the couch was not done the we we requested.

SET TIME FOR DINNER

The 7 p.m. dinner was moved to 9.30p.m.

It took me almost 1.30hrs to fix it around 8.45 p.m. and we had dinner the first night.

The Main dining Room service was good.

NO Entertainment, NO The Casino was empty

MSC Charges for coffee, Tea and even WATER in the dining room--SHAME on YO(U..

So, we decided NO MORE MSC..

Thank you for the experience.

Worst experience 

Chose this cruise for the value and destinations. 5th cruise we’ve been on. Beautiful boat but plenty of things let it down. 

Things to do: in one word BORING. Lack of activities, terrible music and shows, and not one place you can go without kids. Casino full of kids running around and even the nightclub is run by 15 year olds drinking mock tails by the bar. When I asked the staff where I could go to not be around kids they said there is nowhere. 

I asked the desk what their duty of care was when allowing 15yo old, unsupervised girls in a nightclub with drunken men and they shrugged their shoulders. I bet a judge would have a different opinion. So bad…

Food is average. Definitely no Princess Cruise. Cheap bacon and meats, cheap fish and boring menus. Fruit is nice and fresh. 

Not sure what it is with people on this cruise, but they attack the buffet like it’s their last meal on earth! 

On the positive, Staff are always friendly and room and amenities are all very good and clean and it’s a nice boat. Pity about the  management. 

Won’t be back.

If you’re not a kid, don’t bother 

The very first reason I chose MSC Splendida was because it was departing the city I lived İstanbul. I did the trip in a balcony cabin with my wife and 2 daughters (6-9 years) and would like to write my observations briefly from this 8-night  trip. 

* Cabin was big enough for our family and the service was very good in the room.  

* Dining in the open buffet was a little crushed during the lunch, but in the dining restaurant the service was good and fast. 

* My  daughters were quite happy even though they sometime had hard time to understand the activities which took place in Italian. There are at least 4 personal who are able to speak English, Spanish, Italian, Russian and maybe some other languages. Kids could eat their dinner together with the kids club if we preferred so. 

* Gym was a lot bigger than expected and there were many activities like yoga, zumba, plates (with charges), 

* In Bari the Cruise stayed from 8.30-13.30 so we could not have enough time to visit the city. 

* The night shows and all the music with bands were good.

Fantastic service, fun/chill journey with just a little missing. 

I was offered 50% discount on a future cruise after breaking my fibula on MSC Seaview- chose a 7-nt Med cruise. 

•MSC changed the itinerary before departure, no longer visiting Croatia (added 2 nts by way of compensation)

•embarkation was chaos

•room was ‘tired’ & needs a refurb

•bathroom sink water didn’t drain, called plumber to fix

•connecting balcony door rattled all the time (I squashed some cardboard in it to stop it rattling!)

•buffet restaurant was a horrible experience every day - rude Europeans pushing in (you know who you are) not enough seating so you walk around with your plate of food going colder than it already was, to find a seat - reminiscent of a school canteen.

• complimentary coffee only available at breakfast

• theatre shows terrible (but they obviously think they’re West End stars!)

•excursions too expensive - we did 2 beach days, but would go independently in future (on other cruise line!)

•restaurant staff verging on rude - I asked for coffee at the end of our meal & the waiter tutted & rolled his eyes.

• out on deck, I asked a member of security where our belongings had been moved to after a rain storm-he said “it’s nothing to do with me, I’m security”! ( funny that, I thought that WAS what security was for!)

•photos were poor - just ‘snapped’ with bad lighting & not cheap either.

•ordered in-cabin breakfast on our last day, but it didn’t arrive, when I phoned we were told it isn’t available on disembarkation day - not informed when we placed our order!

• both got sick in the 2nd half of our week, as did many guests. (reading other reviews, this seems to be a theme) No surprise as food wasn’t kept at the right temp in buffet, no matter what time we went for food it was always just warm.

•casino, a machine took our €10 with no credit - had to call an engineer who retrieved our money. On the roulette table, a guest was cheated out of his win, until he asked for the camera to review the ‘play’, manager grudgingly came over to concur & said ‘pay him’ to the croupier. 

•Sun deck ‘sun-lounger wars’ was common place - guests ‘saving’ loungers with a towel & never coming back to use them. Staff not pro-active to stop it.

Money grabbing MSC, didn’t feel relaxed or special, very poor experience.

Avoid MSC Splendida

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