My first European cruise was very disappointing. This ship, the MSC Fantasia was absolutely beautiful. Our cabin was perfect. That's where the good news ends. The food was atrocious! The ship had only two special full service restaurants. French, mediocre at best, and a Mexican (why Mexican on an Italian cruise ship when they did not even have an Italian Restaurant??). The Mexican restaurant served a Caesar salad - iceberg lettuce with Italian dressing and some parmesan cheese. Their Fajita was decent and the steak was very good. We ate there 3 times. Breakfast buffet - scrambled, fried, and hard boiled egg. Cold white hard toast and some other breads and rolls. Raw bacon, a few meats and cheese and limited fruit, mostly canned. The same exact buffet every single day.

Day one - Genoa - the excursions were cancelled because of weather. Very little information. As a matter of fact, the staff gave us very little information on anything. The port of Gibraltar was also passed by and no information given. We were told we could not pull in and we would go straight to Malagar and arrive at 5 PM. We pulled into Malagar at 2 PM - no further announcement.

The food for lunch was boring, lots of stews, goulash, rice, pathetic pasta, more like a hospital cafeteria. Some sliced meats and cheeses, and extremely limited choice of desserts. The pizza was of the quality of supermarket frozen pizza (on an Italian cruise line) no salad bar unless you call iceberg lettuce, tomatoes and onions a salad bar. The fruit consisted of apples, bananas sliced melons and canned fruits. We spent an extra $800 going to the French and Mexican restaurants for something edible. Read more