hi myaelf and my husband are just back home today after our cruise with msc seaview we went ok the Mediterranean cruise it was amazing everything from start to finish the staff especially iklanas our cabin guy and thias on deck 7 both were amazing almond with everyone else xx it's was a 5star experience on a 5 star ship I would only have one possible recommendations that would be the swimming pool for myself and my husband were to deep as we can't swim but like to dip in the water there was an alternative of the jacuzzi pool which were amazing but I would have liked maybe to get in the pool but other Dan that I lt was amazing thank you all so much for making our honeymoon and our first but not last cruise the best experience ever I will be seeing you all again at some stage Read Less

Oh where to start??? I got on this cruise with high expectations as the ship was new and everything about it seemed to be brillant...couldn’t be further from the truth!! The ship itself is lovely and the staff are good but that’s where it ends!! The entertainment on the ship is laughable,the shows in theater are just repeating themselves,the shows out in the Atrium are the exact same,different costumes but same head melting dance music! The lack of entertainment on the ship is ridiculous,even if you didn’t like the show you still went to it as there was nothing else to do! The food is buffet was okay but the system is ridiculous,no lines or queues and people just barging,hated it! Our room was a suite which was nice but we were at back of the ship and every morning when ship was docking at half 6 the vibration woke us,we were absolutely shattered everyday! So many things on board cost extra aswell! It was just one thing after another and I for one will definitely not cruise with MSC again,Royal Caribbean is 1000 times the better cruise!! Read Less

Superb embarkation at Barcelona straight onto the ship, this ship like other newer MSC ships is fantastic it has a great feel to it & instantly relaxing. It started badly though due to rough weather we didn’t sail for Ajaccio and spent the night in Barcelona for me the right decision made However the ship during this weather where everyone had to stop inside was a little bit busy but ok when sunny the ship feels empty with 5000 people on board even late at night there are always seats available somewhere and we usually sat at a bar before moving on to the next etc. The bars were excellent with a couple of standout ones that became favourites snacks were given out and depending on which bar gave different snacks ie nachos & dips in sports bar. The entertainment was usual MSC this time there seamed to be a emphasis on jazz which isn’t my favourite kind of music but hey ho ....... there’s plenty of bars. The shows were again MSC singers, acrobats, dancers making a 1/2 hour show theme being greatest showman to be honest the whole week was brilliant & highly entertaining perhaps I’m getting old, I could have easily watched the shows twice. Food wise it was a step up from the usual fare on MSC fro the other 4 cruises with them it was better in the main dining rooms & the buffets the specialty restaurants we only did the pan Asian was amazing & certainly worth paying for we was going to go to butchers cut but I instead had a huge t bone steak in dining room for €20 with a glass of red!! Our cabin again very clean, tidy & decent size was a Seaview at the front of the ship No5038 it was well looked after by the maid I only seen her in the corridor to say hello but she did say if there was anything let her know and she will get it for us I don’t think you can ask anymore than that! The staff throughout the ship were great and friendly I think if you approach with attitude they reciprocate it I did see it a few times but they were always great with us perhaps a smile Read Less

Organization was chaotic, service generally poor! Staff gave misinformation all the time, on one occasion, because of desinformation, we had to go theough multiple queues and run around the ship for 90 mins to rent a stroller! The opening hours of the kids club were nonsense and hectic, not plannable! Weird that parents did not have access and insight to the room where we were supposed to leave our kids. Also it was seriously understaffed, there was mayhem and queing all the time. Consequently staff was overwhealmed and RUDE, exacerbated by poor English skills. The ship is nice but totally not child friedly. The buffet restaurants were way too crowded, understaffed and running under capacity, resulting in extremely bad dining experience. Food in the restaurants was variable quality, so not impressed at all. Wines we ordered were repeatedly and constantly out of stock. Bars were understaffed hence service was extremely slow and cumbersome. Despite we had Aurea and all incusive, we ran around thirsty all the time because of the slow service (had to wait up to 30 mins for a coffee etc) Our whole family was very disappointed and we definitely don't plan to come back to any of the MSC ships. Read Less

Good and Bads: Good: *Ship looks very nice and clean, staffs were friendly *Able to book shows easily, shows are great but some acts are repeated. *Pools and hot tubes are not very crowed especially the kids area. *Kid's water park is great. Bads: *Buffet is terrible and your only choice if you don't want to sit and wait for your food. Breakfast is nice with the usual everyday (same stuff daily). Bacon, eggs, pastry, fruit, milk, tea, coffee, and juice. Juice is only available for breakfast (should be all day long). Youtube information is not correct. Coffee is diner style, water down and tasteless. *Main dinning food is also not very good. Most of the dishes are just like buffet food. You have to pay for plain water. The only thing good is you can have ice cream for desert. If you have time and wait to be serve, it's okay. For my children, they just want to eat the ice cream and go swimming. *Food is terrible unless you pay for it by going to a paying restaurant or paying for coffee. Free stuff which is included with your stay is below par compare to other ships. They are so cheap that only half a slice of cheese is on a cheese burger. Pizza is good, but full of dough like Papa Johns but with virtually no meat of cheese. Kiwi fruit are small and sour. What's the point of having things that no body will eat. They cut the watermelon and leave it in the fridge and won't put it out until late night with there are less people. Cheap food, no shrimp or steak. Everyday is chicken that's well done and dry. Same food everyday, burger, pizza, fries, pasta, and hot dog that looks like it cost them 10 cents to make. *Children program are terrible too. They advertise many things to do like Lego and video games. However, it's all on a schedule. One hour of Lego, if you miss it, you have to wait for the next Lego time. It's more of babysitting than fun. Don't pay for it, save the money and just buy a set of Lego for them. *Water slide, table tennis, and hockey table are run terribly. You have to ask the staff for everything. There is no sign of what to do and where to go. To do the water slide, you have to sign a wavier at the paying center. To get the ball for the hockey table you have to get it from the water slide registration center. We ask the staff and they either don't know or can't communicate well. *Communication is not done well. Elegant night were not promoted well. You have to read the daily news and states elegant photo with the crew staff. No photo taken at dining room. I guess they knew the food is not that good. Overall, it's a below par ship experience. Many youtuber stated that buffet is terrible and it is with the same cheap food everyday. They don't want to make it good, otherwise the restaurant will be empty. Expect to pay for good food or eat like your in a US public school. Entertainment and children's free Aqua Park is very good. Everything else not so. Definitely won't pick MSC again unless it's hundreds of dollar cheaper. Use the hundreds to buy better food and drink. Maybe the MSC Yacht Club is worth it. Front and top of ship are limited to the Yacht club. Read Less

Hi everybody, First, sorry for my english. I hope it'll be understandable. To make it easy i will highlight some importants points. Embarkation was good, faster than on my first MSC Poesia cruise. Ship is new but its qualities are like "Made in China" ship. The cabin was good, but always cold. I put the hot air at maximum with very poor results, but that was the same thing in all the ship emplacements. You have to wear a jacket or a sweater everywhere in the ship to keep your body temperature. The food was always the same, and the quality is average-low. There is only free water in the buffet restaurants, and you have to pay a 15% tax in all drinks apart from the tips of 70€ per adult and 35€ for kids. If you choose the restaurant included diner there's no free water and you have to pay for all drinks. They charged us 34.95€ for the welcome photo and we never received it and never claimed neither. We have to go to the photo shop to cancel the charge. Spectacles in the theater were awful and usually amateur singers, but that's my personal opinion. Captain invited us to a cocktail for the clients of two or more MSC cruises that consisted in a bunch of chips and nuts and a cup of extra sugary fruit juice (same that in breakfast) and a cup of cheap cider. No animation, no special show, only captain toasting for 1 minute and ciao bambino. The service was poor in general. They forget to clean our room one day, and we called several times to reception with no answer, and so on. Finally i do not recommend this cruise, but is my opinion and my experience. Next year we will travel with Royal Caribbean. Thanks for your time. manuel. Read Less

We were cruising with family and had booked 8 cabins at the Yacht Club. Overall, the experience was very dissapointing mainly due to the low level of restaurants and bars, as well as the service at those and the public areas. The positive part was the cabins which are very spacious and well decorated. Also,housekeeping did an overall great job. At the Yacht Club lounge and restaurant the quality of food and drinks was not as good even compared to Royal Carribean MDRs. Moreover, service was slow and often unatentive. On top of those, the shows, shops and public areas are very basic, and many things were not included in the Yacht Club package (such as milkshakes) which felt stupid and cheap given the things included and price paid. That said, if you are not picky with food and drink, or plan on taking a very sunny cruise which will allow you to enjoy the private deck - Yacht Club is definitley better than standard class, but in our opinion not worth it, and you are better off with a balcony cabin at Norwegian or Royal Carribean. Overall - Not recommended. Read Less

My husband and I sailed on the MSC Seaview cruise in the Western Mediterranean from April 17 to 24, 2019. We have enjoyed dozens of cruises around the world on other cruise lines. This was our first time with MSC Cruises, and by far, it was the absolute worst cruise we have ever been on. First, upon walking into our ocean view cabin (#5171) on the first day of the cruise, we were assaulted by the stench of the foulest sewer smell imaginable. The smell was inescapable - it permeated every corner of the room, it was on every piece of furniture, on the bedding, in the carpet, on the towels, it was everywhere. We reported this problem to customer service right away, but we were told there was nothing they could do, the ship was fully booked. We had to live with this stench for the entire length of our cruise. The cabin had no windows or doors that could be opened to bring in fresh air. It became a serious health hazard for me. I developed migraines, I was severely nauseated, I vomited several times. My husband and I could not breathe at night and we could not sleep. Every day we reported this situation to customer service and each time we were told they could not do anything. On the fifth day on our seven-day cruise, a customer service supervisor used a chemical spray in the bathroom, which did nothing to get rid of the sewer stench. It only added a strong chemical smell on top of the awful sewer stench and it worsened my already poor health. Second, MSC Seaview was woefully understaffed. With over five thousand passengers, the ship only had two customer service counters and a maximum of six staffers handling customer service requests. This created unbelievably long queues at the customer service counters and a lot of frustration among the passengers. Third, we have never been on a ship that charged its passengers for drinking water during dinner or forced its passengers to buy bottled water. I understand charging customers for alcoholic drinks, but to treat drinking water like a luxury amenity on a cruise is beyond ridiculous. We have never encountered such a "nickel and dime" company such as MSC Cruises. Fourth, for a ship that bills itself as "one the most innovative cruise ships touring the world," we found the onboard dining experience exceptionally subpar. At every meal, the food seemed to be jumbled together with no thought to presentation or organization. We've had better dining experience at our local McDonald's. The bottom line is, our experience onboard the MSC Seaview was the absolute worst we've ever had on a cruise. We will never recommend MSC Cruises to anyone and we will never take another MSC cruise ever again! Read Less

We embarked in Barcelona for the ships first visit round the med after its transatlantic sailing from Brazil. We arrived into Barcelona the day before so had plenty of time to explore and relax before boarding. MSC had allocated us a 1430-1600 check in time, so we caught the port shuttle to the ship around 1400 and were greeted by 2 of the longest lines. 1st line was for bag drop off, so we were in line around 1415 and we dropped our bag off at around 1510, we were then handed a boarding card and had to join another line to go through security to get into the terminal, once in the terminal luckily our boarding group had already been called, but we saw people hanging around with groups about 10 up from us so that would have been at least another hour. Checked in at 1615 we headed up to the ship for another hour wait to board, eventually on board at around 1730 we dumped our hand baggage and was pleased to see our cases waiting for us outside our cabin. Safety drill was due at around 1700 but as half the ship was yet to board this was delayed we headed to the buffet on deck 8 for some food and grabbed what we could before they pulled the shutters down ready for the drill. It was a long embarkation day, which i guess wouldn't normally be so bad had not the majority of the ship left, and a full ship was trying to board for Easter. The Seaview is an beautiful ship, and being less than a year old everything was still new and worked well. The main stair case is a amazing and great to see. Lifts can be a bit hit and miss sometimes, rather than calling for the lift you select what deck you are heading to and it will allocate you one from the bank. We waited for ages for lifts to come sometimes and when it showed up it was full then you had to go over the process again. We used the interactive screens dotted around the ship to book entertainment which needs to be done a couple of days before. With entertainment the singers/musicians in the main atrium where great to sit and listen to, we then only really bothered with the show in the evening, we booked onto the 2230 show every night and even though this was the 3rd show of the evening it was still full every show. The shows them selves were good mainly singing or variety acts, with little spoken word as would be hard on a ship so multi cultural. Our cabin was good, located on deck 12 mid ship with a balcony, big enough for 2 of us, with a sofa and big wardrobe. Cleanliness wasn't great as we found a bag of rubbish in the wardrobe, hairs on the cushions on the bed and nail clippings on the balcony. Bathroom was nice and modern with no dreaded shower curtain,just nice clean glass. Staff were friendly enough and everyone i spoke with was cheerful and helpful. On other cruises i have been on the cabin attendant will get to know you by name and is good for a chat, on the Seaview i am not sure if it is done differently but i had no idea who was looking after our cabin and saw the odd cleaner down the corridor. As others have said every announcement is done in 5 different languages so can take a while, we didn't hear or see the captain once during the cruise apart from in the theatre on formal night. Food was good majority of the time, we stuck to the main buffets on deck 8 and 16 and could always find something to eat, pizza's are amazing and best on ship pizza's i have had and they bake breakfast goods as needed in a morning which was nice. I did find it weird that the ship would run out of certain items during our cruise and considering we had no days at sea i would have thought it would be easy to source items. But we had no tomatoes on board for the 5 days and they ran out of fanta and sprite by day 2, so were left with non branded versions. We only took one excursion and that was at La Spezia to see the little towns in the hills, which was good value at EUR50 each and was a full day. At the other ports we did our own thing as you could easily pick up an open top bus tour for a fraction of the cost of the ships excursions. Overall i would go back on the Seaview again, we did have a great time and really enjoyed our holiday. Read Less

This was a 7 night cruise and not 5 as stated above. Having been on Royal Caribbean and Princess I was expecting a similar experience on MSC but with more sparkle. The ship was beautifully decorated and very sparkly but I would not choose MSC over other cruise lines again. Embarkation was quite chaotic. It wasn't clear where to drop bags and people were queuing for ages outside in the boiling sun. I was lucky to get in the cruise terminal but had to sit on the floor for 2 hours to await boarding. Our room was a bit smaller than on other cruises we had been on, despite having a balcony, and we were given bunk beds for our children despite stating when we booked these were not suitable. We were told there was nothing that could be done so we made do. Our son was old enough to use the top bunk but to our horror the beds collapsed with him on top and the top bunk fell down. He was very shaken. We were lucky our daughter hadn't climbed in the bottom bunk. We complained but were told there were no other rooms for us. Our only option was for our son to sleep on a mattress on the floor and our daughter slept in our bed. There was no way we were going to use the bunk beds. We discovered later that there was a lock on the side and this had obviously not been put in place. The beds were also left out the whole time so we had no settee to sit on. On other ships the bed settee was always converted back and set up again in the evening. Our room felt very cramped because of this especially for 4 of us. We also had no shower door. Water went everywhere in the bathroom and we had to mop up before our children could go in there every day. We were told it had broken and that a new one would be fitted. This never happened. My brother had no shower door in his room either. On day 3 reception sent for us. We were excited as we thought we would finally get a room with a standard sofa bed. We got to reception only for them to tell us there was nothing they could do. What a waste of our time! We felt that they couldn't have cared less about our grievance. The buffet food was pretty good, if a little repetitive, but the full night buffet didn't open until 7 so before this only pizza, hotdogs, burgers and chips were available. There were often big queues. Afternoon snacks were nice though between 4.30 and 5.30. Cream tea and hot puddings. We only went to the dining room once. The staff were clearly flustered and struggling to cope. I ordered chicken breast. It arrived just stuck on top of some chips. No garnish, sauce or vegetables. For an a la carte restaurant it was a joke. The other dishes weren't great and choice was limited. You couldn't see the menu until you were at your table. We waited ages between courses and despite starting at 6 only just got to the show in time for 8. My daughter's burger arrived with the cheese but without the burger! By this time we were all laughing and thinking of Fawlty Towers. The buffet offers no gluten free options. My brother was told to eat in the restaurant only but obviously this was very inconvenient. My parents complained and the buffet staff miraculously came up with some gluten free rolls. My brother resorted to buying his own food whilst on shore every day as he felt he had no other options. A ridiculous situation when you've paid a lot of money for a cruise. In the buffet you get free water and tea and coffee but not any other squashes like on other cruise lines. In the restaurant you can only buy bottled water. There's no free water. There are also no water machines around the ship other than in the 2 buffet areas. We thought this was very poor. You can have tea and coffee and juice for breakfast but only in the buffet areas. On day 5 after going off the ship for a look around we got back on only to find all our cruise cards had been cancelled so we had to queue at reception for new ones. On day 6 we briefly got stuck in one of the glass lifts at the back of the ship. We also discovered that we were charged €34.99 for our embarkation photo even though we never received it and didn't want it. We had to ask 3 times for it to be taken off our account. Other things we liked on other cruise lines was movies on the big screen at night and free ice cream. None of this with MSC. The basic problem with this ship is that they are just cramming too many people on to cope with. Staff and facilities are stretched. We enjoyed the ports and most of the buffet food. The themed evenings were nice on floor 16 and the entertainment was a better standard than on other ships but our overall impression of MSC is not good. We feel that they only care about how much money they can make from you at every available opportunity and that customer service is very lacking. We are planning on taking the issue of the bunk beds up with MSC as we are very concerned that this can happen so please check that the beds are locked in place if you use them. Read Less