I booked this cruise through Groupon about a week or so before departure date at a price I thought was quite reasonable. I won't go into the frustration from MSC Johannesburg offices of not answering their phones and giving incorrect information - that's another story.

Embarkation - We flew down from Johannesburg and I had booked a shuttle service from King Shaka airport to Durban port. When we arrived at the port, there were hundreds of people waiting in line and I thought we would be waiting for hours. As it turned out, shuttle service allowed us to 'jump' the queue into the terminal. However the terminal queues were also very long with some people skipping under the metal banners to get to 'someone' they knew. We got onto the ship at around 11:00 or so.

Once on the ship, we were guided to the outside area on Deck 12 where we bought some cold drinks and were told cabins would be ready at around 13:30. True to their word, it was 13:00 when an announcement was made that the cabins were ready. Read more