My family was so excited to be sailing on the Armonia for the Christmas cruise to Cuba. When I booked this cruise I advised the MSC ticket agent that my daughter suffers from Celiac Disease and would require a gluten free meal plan. At no point in the conversation did the rep advise me that accommodating my daughters dietary issues would be a problem. You see I have previously traveled with MSC and was aware that many of your ships have dedicated gluten free kitchens. My daughter's selections for meals were extremely limited; had this information been convened to me at the time of booking I would have selected another ship. You see my daughter is very fussy and there was no pasta, pancakes or even something as simple as individual containers of yogurt. I do believe the kitchen staff did there best to accommodate my daughter. Nevertheless, not conveying the information about how limited my daughter's options for food would be on Armonia is not acceptable. In many ways I feel that this cruise was sold to me fraudulently.

Additionally, another big issue was the disembarkation in Cuba. The crew made an announcement that people who booked third party excursions had to be off the ship by 12:20. As such, many of us who met this criteria disembarked from the ship early only to wait on a line for over an hour as Armonia crew allowed all of their excursions to go through Cuban customs prior to third party excursions. This experience made all of us feel like second class citizens. Why tell us to leave earlier only to force us to watch your excursions all go through first. We all had an agenda in Cuba.

A few other things were overlooked. I did advise that I would be celebrating my birthday on this cruise, and that was never even addressed. Also, failure of cabin stewards to introduce themselves at the beginning of cruise, all of these little details matter. One final note, the change of port to Ochos Rios was disappointing as we were never given a really good reason for why the destination was changed. Read more