Well after 73 cruises I can finally say never again on MSC. My pros were : Embarkation in Barcelona and disembarkation in Barcelona Our wait staff in main dining room (I use the term dining room loosely) Our cabin steward was good. Ship was beautiful. Our cabin was ok too, although closet placement was a poor design. Cons: Generally unfriendly staff on board (language problem?) Lifts (Elevators) slow and very crowded. Daily embark and debarkation, kind of like a local bus. We booked early dining but were assigned late dining, got it changed and was put into a , for lack of better words a SUB dining room. More like a warehouse, no décor at all. Daily activities were abysmal probably due to daily ports. NOW the food, I had read in previous reviews that the food was not good to just plain bad. I found them to be true, again after 73 cruises I feel somewhat qualified to judge the food. Also this is the only cruise my wife and I lost weight on. Main dining was usually cold or luke warm at its best. The buffet was only slightly better, but there you had to survive the rudeness of most of the southern European passengers. We have traveled in Europe for years and have never been faced with the rudeness we saw on this ship. As a travel advisor I will not recommend this line to my American or Canadian clients as I know the disappointment they will have. Read Less

The ship is beautiful but foods, both in restaurant and buffet, are terrible. Food in restaurant is far from enough and I had to eat again in buffet. Food quality, both in restaurant and buffet are far from tasty. We were originally arranged sitting in Silver Dolphin restaurant same table with strangers while many tables are still not occupied. Excursions are professional organized. We were charged twice for a shore excursion and had to deal with the excursion staff in last minute before disembarkation. One of itinerary destinations cancelled due to poor weather but we didn't get any compensation. All passengers attended the shore excursion in Florence got badly wet due to pouring rain and I got cold second day. Cabin service is bad. Bed sheets and towels in our cabin never got changed for 7 nights. We couldn't have a good sleep for all nights because vibrating from beds and noise from balcony door. Read Less

First things first the food is disgusting,the service is really bad, the workers disturb you 24/7 with food/drink packages even in a middle of your dinner... The cruise itself is cheap but everything else is expensive Me and my wife got a reserved table (which cannot be changed) near 6 other strangers we don’t know You have to wait for about 10 minutes for the lift to arrive We got a cancellation to one of our stops due to weather (I'm not blaming the crew) and didn’t get any compensation at all, crusing in the middle of the sea so we decided to buy an internet package for 34 euros FOR 24H!!! and the fun part its only suitable for 1 device!!!! We accidently bought it for our cellphone so we had to go to the reception to change it to our laptop, WE HAD TO ARGUE TO GET IT SWITCHED TO OUR LAPTOP! After 15 minutes arguing we got it to our laptop with no charge... And at the end we got a mandatory 140 euro “service charge” bill for 4 days This is the last time im cruising with msc Read Less

The ship is a wonderful modern ship with fantastic features, but the staff let it down with their priorities being maintaining the areas where they work forgetting the customers. The food quality is not what I expect from a ship of this size and quality/cost of cruise. The speciality restaurants are extremely expensive. We have been cruising for over 16 years with various cruise lines (some budget ones) and this was the worst we have experienced. The ship is extremely noisy everywhere in the entertainment bars and on deck during the day. If you have an issue and go to Guest Services your concerns will not be addressed or an apology give, or it was not in my or my sons cases. The shows on an evening lasts only 35 minutes and no drinks are served. Beware of the compulsory tips! they are extortionate! but you can ask for them not to be added, I think that because the tips are added the staff don’t really care if they give good service, sorry MSC but we will not be cruising with MSC again. Read Less

I booked this cruise to be part of the Weight Watcher (WW) Mediterranean Cruise in July. My friend had never been to Europe so we thought this would be a great experience to see several different ports in Spain, France, and Italy and get to meet WW members from around the world. I have been on several different cruise lines over the past 6 years including: Norwegian, Holland America, and Oceania and the MSC cruise was a huge step down in the areas of Dining and Service. The ship is brand new, launched in 2018, and it's beautiful. It has 20 decks and holds up to 5,200 passengers. It's a floating apartment building, complete with their own app that was used to book theater showings, maps of the different decks, and a daily schedule for events. There were abundant activities for families like 3 pools, a water park, and even a zip line on top. There are several restaurants and a buffet. The theater holds almost a thousand guests per performance and there are three 30-35 minute performances each night. The dining experience was our greatest disappointment. The food that WW had specially prepared for us, was bland and boring. We decided to eat at the ship buffet and it was basic cafeteria food, with a heavy emphasis on pork and fish. The food was fresh, but not exciting at all. I was amazed at how many little extras were not included: such as ice cream and iced tea. The shows were the best part of the cruise and we went to every one of them. Nice scenery, interesting themes, colorful costumes, great singers and acrobatic acts. No stand up comedy, thank goodness. Entertainment in the lounges was fine too. Service was poor. On-boarding was confused at best. We were in a special group and they didn't really seem to know about it when we arrived. We got through the process and our luggage was delivered in a timely fashion. We NEVER met our steward. We never received ice, although we had an ice bucket, and the turn down-service didn't include the little chocolates and fun towel animals found on every other cruise line. Information desk staff were rather curt with people and seemed stressed most of the time. Long lines were found at the different service areas, such as Excursions and Front Desk Assistance. You were pretty much on your own to figure things out on the ship. If you asked a question, you were often referred to their app. Disembarkation was a terrible mess, the ship was late docking and everyone was asked to leave their rooms anyway and we were kept in lounges waiting to leave for almost two hours. We stood in line for almost an hour after we docked before we could leave the ship. By that time people were upset and getting impatient with very little staff helping to ease the situation. We booked tours for almost all of them through the ship. One of our tours was cancelled and no one let us know until the evening before. I happened to see were weren't booked on their app and went to inquire about it. I was told there wasn't enough interest so it was cancelled and thankfully found a different tour that still had space. Ports were as expected. They were ok to good. The half day tours were hurried with no time for shopping or really getting off the bus, except to take a few hasty photos. The day excursions to Florence and Rome were better. We had knowledgeable tour guides and were able to see as much as possible given the time constraints. The prices were average compared to other ships. I usually book my own excursions through Viator and you get more value for your money. I love to cruise, but I would not book with MSC again. They have a lovely ship, but the Service was not good and the Dining experience was just average. Read Less

We were a family of four traveling for our first Mediterranean cruise with two teenagers. We have taken multiple cruises before on Princess, Royal Caribbean, Norwegian and Carnival, so we thought we would give the relatively new MSC Seaview a try. The price for our family was certainly enticing. In short, here is how we would grade our experience: Price: A Room size and cleanliness: A Food quality: D Entertainment quality: C Itinerary and Time at each port: B If you are looking for a cruise vacation, this is probably not it. If you are looking for a comfortable hotel room and transportation from point A to point B, this cruise would serve you fine. Let be begin with the good. We had a balcony cabin on the 10th floor of the port side. The balcony was great given the weather. We enjoyed sitting on it and watching the sights in and out of the ports. It also gave us extra room which was out of the way while others in our family were getting dressed. The cabin had a queen size bed and a sofa that converted into bunk beds rather than a pull out bed. The bunk beds were a lifesaver with two teenagers and avoided many arguments and complaints. The room was spacious for a cruise ship as was the bathroom and shower. The bathroom had fantastic water pressure which was a great surprise. Our room steward did a great job keeping us supplied with fresh towels and working around our time in the room. The room TV had plenty of stations with maybe 6-7 in each language. However, even the American programming in other languages did not have subtitle capabilities which would have been nice. The English language selections were all 24 hour news stations which included CNN, CNBC and 3-4 European news stations. It is hard to relax and unwind to that before bed. The common area was a bit plain but nice. The elevators utilized a system that directed you to a specific elevator based upon destination. It is meant to speed things up but always resulted in long waits at the elevators. So we ended up going up and down countless flights of stairs each day. The cruise was truly international with what seemed to be a passenger population made up of those speaking Italian, French, Russian, various Asian languages, English, German and Spanish. The staff did a great job being multi lingual, making announcements and communicating fluently in each of those languages. That was impressive. The entertainment encompassed all of those languages which was great. But the shows etc. on board could best be described as “low energy.” If you are doing a Tina Turner tribute show, having dancers and singers dragging through the show with a slow tempo and little smiling just seemed like they were going through the paces. Definitely not Tina Turner like. The other periodic entertainment was excessively campy and seemed like a continual loop of the Gong Show or Sabado Gigante. On our last night, we found a duo playing piano and drums singing in a lounge, and they alternated performance sets with a solo guitarist/vocalist. Both were really good and better than the more featured acts on the ship. I wish we had discovered them earlier... We also walked through a very small casino that was on board. It seemed very sparse and small. It did not have any craps tables which was a first for me in a casino. The cruise itinerary was good and generally allowed sufficient time in each port. There were no dedicated days at sea on this itinerary for which we were grateful. However, at Palma, Mallorca and Barcelona, Spain, the cruise ports were outside of the city so you were forced to take a taxi or a ship provided shuttle at an extra cost to go into the city. If the cruise line chooses to utilize these ports outside of the destination city, then they should provide transportation into the port city without nickel and diming their passengers for the costs of transportation on the cruise line’s shuttles into the city. My biggest concern about this cruise was the food quality. It was terrible. I tried to be very open minded given the multinational nature of the cruise but nothing I had of any cuisine was good. All of the food was edible but not good. The food was often cold and bland. We tried both the sit down dining option and the marketplace buffet. Those were the only options at night unless you paid for the three premium restaurant options which we did not. The same food, the same quality and the same temperature seemed to be served at both venues. The only difference is that the sit down dining had more limited options, and we had slow service with a lot of waiting with a waiter who did not even seem to understand her own menu. For those of you that love Pepsi, you are in luck as all of the soft drinks on board are Pepsi products. For those of us that don’t, there was always beer. In the dining room we were charged for still water. In the marketplace buffet, we were not charged for still water but they only had 1 working water dispenser for all of the passengers. The plastic cups for your water were limited to 6 ounce cups. It is hard to stay hydrated at that rate. The coffee on the cruise was generally above average. Most of the time we paid for premium coffee at the bars which was worth it to us coffee drinkers. The best we found was that made by “Don” at the Venchi Chocolate and Coffee Bar. It was great and worth the extra charge. Finally, the dining themes were ridiculous. Each night was a different theme in name only. The actual theme seemed to be “Sunday night clean out the household refrigerator”. The dishes were a hodge-podge of whatever seemed to be laying around. For example, the Bavarian theme night was the everyday items plus the addition of a roast pork loin and a cold potato salad. That made it Bavarian night. Nothing else Bavarian was served. On Mexican night, the usual items were supplemented by some puréed avocado and some very julienned pieces of beef mixed with julienned strips of peppers. They called that beef fajitas. That was the sum total of what made it Mexican night. I will give the ship credit that their breads and croissants were made well and tasty. But unfortunately my scale is going to reflect that I lived on mostly bread and coffee while onboard. The part that I find most interesting is that for an Italian cruise line, based in the Mediterranean with multinational passengers, the Italian dishes were the worst offerings. The pizza was bland, soggy and doughy; the pasta was over cooked and soaked in bland tomato or a watery white sauce; and the deserts were basic, unimaginative and tasteless. We could not wait to get off the ship each day to eat at a street vendor, market or restaurant. We were never disappointed with any of the food we found on land. In summary, if you are looking for a comfortable place to sleep and transportation from point A to point B, this cruise will serve you well. If you are looking for the whole cruise experience to include great food and entertainment, look elsewhere. 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

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

Food is terrible, this is the weakness point for sure. The food had no taste, no presentation, no talent. Service is a nightmare, it is clear for me that people had no training and its not prepare for the functions, there was no leadership, the managers were extremely arrogants and they spent their time talking each other instead of looking their team, I have never seen such attitude before in my previous crusies. The ship looks nice however it doesn’t work, the theater and the other areas are too small for the capacity of the chip 4300 passangers. We had to make a reservation for the theater but it never worked, we are oblied to seat on the floor, the theater has 03 presentations per night but the capacity is not enough to attend all passengers. It is a very ashamed situation for everyone. The restaurantes work in three shifts, so the last dinner is at 22hs45, my cruise was overbooked so I had bo other choice, that means my dinner started around 23hs15 everyday, crazy. I have already traveled with Costa and Royal Caribbean and had a nice experience! MSC never more!! Read Less

Been on of of MSC ships before back in 2012. We had a great time there This nov cruise from Barcelona it was not was we expected. The ship is very nice we have no complains about the design at all. But very little games or quiz. Missed that a lot! We went to one show,,but it was to loud for us,,its not the ships fault. The food was not good att all. Mostly ate in the buffet, once in the main dining room. We were thinking of do the specially restaurant but found it to price. The cabin was nice..the bathroom a bit small. Ports..well we hade been to all the ports before, but liked it. Mostly we did our own tour. At Malta we joined an organize tour,,guided through the old town in Malta and also the world heritage Hagar aim Also several of the staff was very unpolite. We ended up not paying the tips, because they didn deserve it!! I had no problems not being charge Just went to the guy who worked with it. Apparently he said he understood me!! So before this cruise I hade already book an other in jan 12 from Miami with MSC Seaside. I try not to feel negativ, but.. Cruise several times with RCC and Norweigen, planning to go back there again Read Less

We chose this cruise as the first cruise with our baby, as we enjoy cruising as a couple before, and we wanted a relaxed way of vacationing the first time as a family. We opted for a cruise to the Mediterranean Sea, as we have seen a few places already, so we wouldn't be sad, if we missed a place due to the baby's schedule. We picked MSC as children travel for free and the Seaview was the newest of their ships. We traveled with MSC before, were never superthrilled, but we thought we would give Seaview a shot. The ship itself was huge, housing more than 5000 passengers and 1500 staff with 13 decks. A lot of entertainment for kids and adults, however everything had to be paid extra (e.g. F1 simulator, bowling, 4D cinema, ice cream/chocolate shop, etc.). The elevators were always crowded, as were the buffet restaurants. It seemed like the people were eating after fasting for a week, eating while filling their plates at the same time and filling IKEA ziplog bags with food. The theatre was small for such a big ship, and you had to reserve a seat for a show. Every night was overbooked, and people were sitting on the stairs. Dining was mediocre. Although there were many food options, the same thing came over and over again in very similar ways. Prime rib was fatty, fish dry and overcooked. At breakfast everything you ordered came at once, leaving you with at least one cold and softened dish (e.g. omelet, pancakes, toast). At breakfast, you were always bombarded with waiters who wanted to "get rid of" their sweet or savory bread, juices or coffee, before you even sat down. We had to book an exterior cabin, as we travelled with our 9-month-old baby, and upgraded to a balcony cabin for an additional €160 (turned out 73% of all the cabins are balcony cabins). The cabin was just enough for us 3 with a queen bed, sofa(bed) and baby crib. We had to ask three times for a baby crib/bed, before housekeeping came and set it up, although I reserved it upfront with our travel agency. Embarkation in Barcelona went swiftly, but as soon as we stepped onboard, we were overwhelmed with staff that wanted to sell things. Pictures, drinks package, kids club, specialty restaurants, etc. and unfortunately that remained throughout the cruise. We were constantly asked whether we wanted a drinks package or "special" menu (e.g. lobster for a surcharge, while at NCL it is included). Waiters seemed disappointed when we wanted water only (not sure, if they get a commission when selling drinks). Service was okay-ish with a baby. A baby chair was brought quickly, however service could have been faster. You were not always greeted by staff when you saw them. It doesn't hurt to smile, guys! A woman slipped on the wet floor in front of us, not being able to get up again, and we asked them to get medical assistance, and they were hesitant about it claiming she is ok. In the US, they would have gotten sued already. Later, we saw that they put a wet floor sign. What we disliked was that people embarked/disembarked at every stop, which meant a lot of noise through the hallways of people putting their luggage out/staff removing the luggage, safety drills that were announced throughout the ship and people with trolleys in the elevators on a daily. The worst experience was that at night 3, in the middle of the night at frickin' 2am, construction started loudly in the area below us with hammering and drilling. It took more than an hour before it got checked out and we were moved to another room. This is not normal. Construction in the middle of the night. Our baby woke up, we woke up, we had to pack our stuff and move to another floor at 3am. Due to the unfortunate weather, we could hardly explore the outdoor areas. Our experience with MSC Seaview was unfortunately worse than expected. I don't think we will book again. Read Less

This is the firsts time I’ve felt the need to review a cruise ship after almost 10 years, and 20+ cruises. Firstly, the ship is new, massive and very impressive. Well thought out, cabins are a good size (stayed in Aurea Suite 14001) and the onboard app leaves every other cruise lines attempt at such, sorely lacking. Unfortunately, that’s about it in terms of positives. This was our first time with MSC, and unfortunately, I think it will be our last. I understand that every line does things differently, but our experience of RCCL, NCL and Celebrity just makes them more attractive, if somewhat more expensive too. I dislike very long, wordy reviews, so I’ll just bullet point the issues we had below: - as other reviews have stated, almost to a man, the staff were surly, unfriendly and either unwilling or unable to help. A couple were really nice, but a couple were actually very rude. - the Aurea drinks package isn’t worth having. I’ve attached to this review a photo of the drinks menu available on the ship. The items with a star next to them are what is NOT included in the package. Laughable really, and was in fact the first instance of what quickly became apparent as a ‘penny pinching’ culture on the ship - children’s menus are appalling. The main menus offer pretty much the same stuff for kids every night and crazily, the buffets are all closed between 5pm and 7pm every day, which is when most kids would want to eat. The only food available at this time is burgers and pizza. - when we boarded, we had a letter in our suite saying that one of our pre-booked tours had changed and that it would now feature travel on a small boat instead of a coach. We are unable to do this as my youngest son gets really ill on small boats (we know this from bitter experience). When we went to the shore excursions on desk to sort it out, we were told that we couldn’t cancel but could swap to another tour, all of which were more expensive, and we would need to pay the difference. I couldn’t really care less about the extra €50 but I think this is bad form. I asked to speak to the Excursions Manager and was told that she was too busy to see me, so I asked for the Hotel Director and was told that he would not see me, but I could speak to the Guest Services Manager, who essentially did nothing. He sent me a bottle of sparkling wine as an apology, but didn’t correct the issue I had. - prior to sailing we pre-booked a speciality dining package. A bit of advice...don’t! The speciality restaurants are worth doing, but if you book the package in advance, you have to eat from a set menu, which I didn’t see. Perhaps I didn’t look hard enough when booking. In any event, you can eat from the a la carte options in the restaurants but they don’t credit your allowance and make you pay the extra, they just discount any a la carte dishes by 50%. This seems a crazy way to do things to me, but hey ho. - big issue for us was the TV in the suite. It has a really extensive list of films available and they are fairly reasonably priced. However, the entire menu, including some very niche titles (if you know what I mean) is available on the home screen, so your kids can navigate the entire menu. With titles including the word MILF available, I was not impressed that my kids could see the titles, and the accompanying artwork!! - the biggest issue by far however was the entertainment for us. I know this is a truly international cruise line and there were lots of Italians, Germans, Spanish and French amongst our fellow passengers, but the entertainment was very heavy in Italian music, Flamenco dancing and opera. There was one night when a Tina Turner tribute was on, but other than that, we were really let down by the entertainment across the ship. Unfortunately, an amazing ship was not the foundation for an amazing holiday on this occasion. We had actually booked 5 balcony cabins for the same week next year on this ship, to celebrate a 40th birthday in the family, but we have since contacted our travel agent to cancel it. It has cost me a fair bit in cancellation charges, but it’s better than wasting another week. I hope that the above comes across as even handed, and I am sure this ship and experience will suit some people, but as a well travelled family and veterans of the larger ‘American’ lines, it’s not for us. To finish, one of the big pluses people think of with MSC is that it’s relatively cheap compared to Royal Caribbean, NCL and Celebrity, but by the time you upgrade the drinks package, account for all of the extras you have to pay for (bowling, zip line etc) and take into account the really very poor service levels, I’d say it’s actually a lot worse value. Read Less

We chose this cruise since we were going with a group of 22 people. Now the issues started since half the group was booked in Aurea and the other half in Yacht club. We booked far in advance so the difference in price was nominal but knowing what we know now, it would have been worth the upgrade to Yacht club. The biggest differences we noted was the priority elevator on the ship for Yacht club guests. Of course this is not all elevators but it helps when you are on a ship as frequent cruisers know on busy evenings. Priority exit and entry off the ship at most ports and when you exit your butler brings you down via a separate exit so you do not have to be jammed in line with everyone else. Slides are included in Yacht club not in Aurea. A larger selection of alcoholic beverages. The list just goes on and on. It would be nice if MSC would give travel agents all these details when they book the trip to avoid negative reviews OR at least post it on your website. We did check the online difference and all we saw was frivolous differences that were noted such as the quality of the pillows which for us was not important since we did not plan on spending our holiday sleeping. Now this is definitely not a cruise for kids. We had kids on the cruise ranging from ages 10-16. All of them agreed that this cruise does not stand up to Norwegian or Royal Caribbean standards. Every time they went to join an activity such as basketball. The ball was never there and nobody was there to help them get a ball. Activities in teen/kids club were minimal and were not always done since staff would always have a poor excuse. Plus customer service is definitely not a high priority throughout the ship. We had 2 occasions where we ending up having to yell at onboard staff just to get issues they caused addressed. For example, our prepaid tour tickets were missing from our cabin the night before so we went down to retrieve them ourselves from the ticket counter. However, we pulled up to the counter at 11:00pm on the nose and the lady behind the counter did not even ask what our issue was. Immediately she said we are closed!! My husband said no you are not since we are missing tickets for our offshore excursion tomorrow morning. After a lot of back and forth someone finally took ownership of the situation and wrote us tickets for the next morning! We are so glad we insisted because of course every where we went the next morning they asked us for the tickets! Issue number 2, on our one sea day I was too ill in the morning to leave the cabin so we left late in the afternoon. We were going to enjoy some sun in the Aurea Lounge. However, little did we know the sun loungers in the Aurea section can be sold until they are full. This means if you prepaid for Aurea do not count on a seat unless you get out there early in the morning. Yacht club members access can also be bought same day but it is done so in smaller numbers. Any way once this happened to us in Aurea the guest services manager could not apologize enough. Really she was the only person onboard who cared about what image we would be left with. However, really it should not come down to this. You only get one chance to make a first impression and MSC failed us!! MSC ships sparkle but customer service is horrible in all areas. "All that glitters isn't gold!" Read Less

We chose this cruise so that we could see parts of Italy. It was not cheap for the all inclusive package that was included when we booked with travel agent. I have never been made to feel like a second class citizen on any other cruise as I was on this one. Drinks options were very limited, trying to get a glass of wine with dinner was a nightmare. There are only two options available for all inclusive package, but waiting staff only went round with one bottle to top up your glass. They did not like it when asked for the other one, when it was finally produced the meal was almost over. Cabins are very basic, don’t expect any little luxuries as there are none. Pump dispensers provide body wash, shampoo and soap. Never once saw cabin steward, on three consecutive nights had to actually make my own bed as duvet had only been spread over. Again for our package drinks at the bars are very limited. If you drink bottled beer you can only have Heineken, with spirits you can have Gordon’s gin, Smirnoff vodka. Anything else you need to pay for. The whole cruise involved them trying to get more money out of you. We had an additional £600 bill at the end of our cruise. This was we chose to dine in speciality restaurants with wine in a more relaxed environment. Please check your account daily, if you do not spend, they will add money on saying you made a donation to charity even if you didn’t. I’m sorry to say there are very little positives. The transfers, embarkation and disembarkation were very smooth. Overall, this cruise had far to many passengers on board resulting in the personal touch in making every passenger feel special was sadly missing. Read Less

MSC cruise was offered in trip package with many lines as options. I thought new ship would be nice change and decided on MSC. This was a big mistake. Had read reviews that was really negative after I had sign up for the cruise. I like sports so I thought I would review my cruise like football game review. Embarkment: A Very easy to get on, but first staff person took my picture and totally missed my head. Registering credit cards: C Machine gave you options for using two cards, which was kind of confusing.. Received memo after two days on boeard that one of the cards never cleared. Why did I need two in the first place. Cabin: C The cabin was nice, but just as I read there was not much room for your clothes and luggage. Had to stick my bags under the desk and under the bed. Bathroom had a tub. Been on several cruises and never had a tub before. Had a balcony and had nice view. My cabin person accused us of taking a bottle of water out of the wet bar that we brought from the bar and tried to charge us $1.75. The wet bar never had that type of water in it. Food: C- First meal in the dining hall was steak and fries. It was like I was eating. Concur steak and McDonald’s fries. After complaining they gave me two plates every night, but it just lack the “boom” you expect on cruise. Packages: F Wanted purchase a liguor package for myself, but was told that every person in the cabin must purchase one too. Cost over $600 and more, so I decided not to buy one. Even if you wanted water the same policy....crazy. Excursions: B+ I never been on a cruise where the excursions was handled perfectly. The process of tags and numbers and transportation they used were great. Entertainment: F- They had shows every night they had four good singers that performed in every show. And the show lasted from 20-35 mins....who does that? Baby Disney production....CHEAP, Pools and after dinner: F The pools were small and was crowded. People was smoking everywhere and the young people was jus standing or holding on the sides. My wife and I never got into pool or hot tub the whole cruise. Nightlife: There was nothing to do at night for anyone over 50.The music was European electronic rock. Being black, by Wednesday I was paid money to stop hearing that hard base music. Overall: C- MSC yo’re the CHEAPEST line we had ever been on. Every aspect other then your excursions were cheap....baby Disney. Was on the ship for a week and never really understood the ship. To many mirrors and no place for your older crowd to go and band in the Haven was poor. RC you have nothing to fear from the cheap organization. Read Less

We normally cruise with Royal Caribbean or Princess. We thought we would try this new ship and that our experience which was more expensive would be on par with these other companies but sadly we were mistaken. Pros - really nice balcony cabin which was kept very clean by our steward - deck 8 is great for sitting out eating, sunbathing etc at any time of day - overall look of the ship and decor (except the brown stairwells!) is nice - plenty pool areas Cons - staff not properly trained and overall customer service is very very poor! Overall staff were not very friendly like our experience on other ships - embarkation at Barcelona took well over an hour and no one seemed to know what they were doing. Never queued this long with other companies. - we had the Fantastica package and our dinning staff knew nothing about this. They wouldn’t give us the ‘free’ water or coffee on 1st night. - dinning food is poor. First night I ordered grilled chicken, it was dry piece of chicken with chips! No gravy veg etc. They didn’t seem to want to offer extras, different sauces etc which is never a problem on other shops. Baked Alaska was a joke, thought it has been sliced in a ham cutter and cans with sprinkles like a kid had made it. - dinning staff would take away plates before we were all finished. - overall dinning experience very poor compared to other cruise lines - most security staff were unpleasant, no niceites “welcome onboard etc”, no water on quay side terminals which other cruise lines offer in hot weather - theatre entertainment was pretty much same every night, no variety like other ships etc musicians, comedians. They do love the greatest showman songs and It felt like they sang these every night. - deck 15 balcony cabin in rear section really noisy with music, parties etc late at night Whilst we had a good holiday and enjoyed the ports, we won’t travel with MSC again, £1800 for our week and it was worst valve for money we’ve experienced on a cruise. We spoke to other Brits on the ship who had been with other companies and their thoughts were the same. Read Less

We sailed in Yacht Club in MSC Seaview just two days after doing a week cruise in MSC Fantasia YC. Yacht club is probably the most affordable way to get an executive experience in the cruise but unfortunately bigger ship made it almost less luxurious experience. The embarkation in Barcelona went smoothly. Once again we did not even have time to finish a glass of sparkling wine when a butler was ready to accompany us to the ship. The YC cabin in Seaview is bigger than in Fantasia and the space divider between the sofa and the bed gives a nice touch to the cabin. There seemed to be though less room for the clothes and other stuff while there is no more a separate walk-in closet. The bathroom is better than in older ships while we prefer the shower to the bathtub. The YC restaurant in Seaview is upstairs of the Top sail lounge. It is nice if you do not wish to leave the YC premises but to us it really made no difference. You can enter the restaurant either from lounge or the cabin corridor. The crew still needs to improve the way receiving guests and giving them a table. Some evenings there seemed to be lack of tables. The restaurant has not really bad tables but some are still better than others. We needed to ask for one every night as we did not want to sit in the last corner of the restaurant. The food is no special and it resamples to the one of the main restaurant. The menu was total the same as in Fantasia a week before although the presentation was a bit better. There are always a couple of wines available and sadly the most common question was only “red or white”. The sommelier performed a pretty ridiculous show to those buying a bottle from the list. One evening I requested a wine from the YC normal wine list that caused the sommelier to explain to me that they know better that I should drink. He made the same speech to the neighbor table who wanted to buy a “wrong” bottle. I found this rather rude considering that the menu and the (open) wines had really nothing to do with wine pairing. Otherwise the waiters managed to tackle through the dinner but that´s it. The service in public areas were extremely slow. Some of the drink waiters did not even know the cocktail list (which is practically the same in every venue) and ordering something else caused confusion. I think that an appletini (or apple martini) is quite a common drink but it was impossible to get one even in the Top sail lounge. Getting Miami Vice (once again rather common drink) took ages even in One pool while they really had to find a person who knew what that is. Good was still that they really worked to find somebody recognizing this. The One pool buffet was a chaos in the breakfast and even worse in lunch time. At lunch they probably had a good selection of dishes but I still do not know what they are. First you had to make it through to the buffet and then you should figure it out what they could do from the ingredients. Same in the mornings. Ordering a salmon meant that you got five minutes later a peace of grilled salmon but nothing else. When you needed to take the plate and tried to get the sides from the buffet. The sides meant overcooked vegetables. The salad bar was so minimal that I would not even call it a joke. The buffet had some general fruits but it was strange to notice that the public buffet had much better selection offering even “specialties” like cherries and strawberries. The lay out of the One pool is much worse than in the older ships. The lounge chairs and tables are mixed. The pool area is rather crowded. A small pool and two whirlpools are situated in the different sides of the area. There are no lounge chairs that would have some shadow. I have nothing against children in the YC but I still think that the whole YC is no playground for the children and some behavior is awaited. All we needed from the concierge was to make a reservation to the Butcher cut. She made that but when we went for a dinner there was no reservation. In Seaview where are some special restaurant as the older ships have practically none. We tried the Butcher cut and have never felt us so unwelcome as in that restaurant. We were seated in a table made for four people and it took 3 crew members to understand that we are not waiting any company and we were allowed to make an order. The food was nothing special and it was total overpriced. The service was hurried and nonchalant compared to what you usually get when eating in a special restaurant on a cruise. We really felt no need to test the other special restaurants after the first experience. The public buffet had always a lot of empty tables. Unfortunately the guests made it very chaotic. Some people do not know what a queue means and some were even eating from the buffet. The food is nothing special. The different dishes are on different stations which are situated quite far from each other so collecting a plate means a lot of walking. The shows were rather strange. MSC had visited the other cruise lines and have updated their shows compared to the older style. The result is a strange mix of Celebrity style feature shows with Italian flare. This means dancers with feathers and peculiar outfits, second class acrobats (all of them in the same show), 5 singers singing everything from opera to pop hits. And all this, all together in 30 minutes. Disembarkation is one of the best parts of YC experience. You can have your breakfast and when you are ready your butler will walk you out from the ship. In the terminal one of our bags were missing. The butler did all he could to find out what have happened. Probably another guest have left the ship before us and have taken our bag instead of his. They tried to reach the passenger but did not manage. After a week our bag has not been found. The rules of MSC they say that the handling company in the harbor is responsible for the bags. The handling agent made us fill in a form that we could give to our insurance company. It feels that nobody is even trying to get the bag back to us. After doing Fantasia (and Divina before) I would consider recommending YC to my friends but I have doubt if I would still do it. Bigger is not always better and to our experience this certainly is so in a cruise as well, no matter if it is RCCL, NCL or MSC. A bigger ship seems to mean lack of personal service. Read Less