I booked this cruise to spend time with my two daughters, the youngest just graduated from college, and my sister-in-law. This was the first time we all cruised together, and was looking for a fun "girls' trip". We really wanted to do a Mediterranean trip, and the price, dates, ports fit our bill. We booked a "suite", cabin 9001 Aurea experience, because it was more cost effective if we all stayed in the same cabin.
After confirming our trip, I started to read reviews here about this ship, and started doubting my choice. This was my 17th cruise, but first on MSC. I started dreading my decision from all the negative reviews, but decided to suck it up, and since my family is pretty easy-going (I'm the spoiled one), and it was too late to back out.
My husband and I cruise usually twice a year, and a lot of my decision-making is on this site and other reviews. But, I'm going to say, for now on, I'm going to be taking future reviews with a grain of salt. I've never written a review, but here it goes...
Cabin was spacious, but I wouldn't call it a suite. I would never book front of the ship again because of the noise when approaching a port, but this cabin fit our needs nicely.
We walked into town, took lovely photos, bought some trinkets, and ate at a charming restaurant, Hotel de Ville. They were out of their specialty mussels, but their fried squid was amazing.
Another town we just walked around to take pics, drink and eat some local wine and food. The cruise ship offers a shuttle for about 12-15 euro r/t, at the ports where the city is around 20-30 min away. We took advantage of that.