As much as I would like to begin on a positive note, I must start with the embarkation. We arrived at 1:15 PM (boarding to begin at 1 PM) to find a long line of passengers standing in the sun, doors to the terminal shut and locked! It seems that MSC chartered the ship to a group of young musicians who, besides trashing the ship, also partied long into the last night, sleeping in well past the time to depart the ship. They were still staggering off past 2 PM. The doors to the terminal were opened around 3 and we finally reached our cabin about 4. One man I met told me his wife was so disgusted that she took a cab home! I asked where she was and he said she stayed home in W. Palm Beach. Refused to come back. Not an entirely bad move. Debarkation was just as bad with no convenient excuses.

The food was appalling, especially in the beginning. Not even the ice cream, from MacArthur Dairy in Miami, was palatable. It gave a bad name to American ice cream since the staff kept telling people that the Italian ice cream from the Med was better. It seemed to be made of some kind of powdered flavoring. You could not detect any pineapple in the pineapple sorbet, for example. And lemon was the worst.

The pastry chef should be fired. We had a plain Italian roll on each plate every night whether we wanted bread or not. Lots of waste. Only one day of bread pudding! The pizza was typical of that in Italy (which we enjoyed) but many passengers complained because it was not like American pizza. Read more