Prior to leaving, we had read so many reviews of this ship. I have never seen so many hyper-negative reviews of any ship. Most negative reviews were brief or so hyper-focused on one issue that they lack any substance. While on the other hand, some positive reviews seemed to be too positive. Nevertheless, we decided to try MSC. We were looking for a unique experience that was not your typical American cruise line experience. We have sailed on Norwegian, Carnival and Royal Caribbean. Though i don't doubt all these negative experiences that people have had on MSC, i do question whether they are putting things into perspective.
Let me be as objective as possible. No doubt everything wasn't perfect and nor has any previous cruise we've been on. That is all part of going on a vacation -- you need to sometimes take the good with the bad and make your own experience out of it. Also, it appears many people simply lack researching.
Embarkation: No doubt that this was by far the worst embarkation experience we have encountered (and a main reason why i can't give the overall cruise an excellent rating). In fairness to the cruise line, it appears a lot of the embarkation issues stem from the people running the check/in terminal (which don't appear to actually be MSC employees). It was the first time on a cruise that we truly felt like cattle being herded onto a boat. The terminal is simply not designed to accomaoate 4,000 people. The loudspeaker does not work well so you have a guy walking up and down the terminal verbally yelling what number is ready to board. That definitely was not a good start/impression. Also, when we checked in we were given a paper saying they had moved embarkation up to noon. However the guy then said it wouldn't be until 1:30, while other family members we were traveling with were told 1. I understand they can't know for sure when they would start embarkation, but then please don't give us a paper telling us one time when that clearly is not true.
Was only here the day of the embarkation but overall appeared find.