We booked this cruise for the great price. I then started reading reviews and began thinking we had made a mistake. People had stated poor food, poor service, awful waits for bar service etc... so my attitude going in became that any cruise is better than no cruise. We have cruised with Carnival, Princess and Royal Caribbean and always have had a great time on our cruises. Like I said earlier we chose MSC this time due to the great price for a balcony cabin. When we arrived at the port we had a small wait for security to begin letting us check in. We always arrive early so we can maximize our time onboard exploring and having lunch before we go to our room. Once through security we had another small wait to check in with MSC. This was when I really began to worry. Normally when we check in we register a credit card but we were told at check in we would do that on board the ship. They explained they had several kiosks to link a credit card to our cruise card. I of course immediately thought this would be another wait on board. More on that process later. After we completed check in we were assigned a number for boarding. We were in group 4. MSC has a beautiful terminal set up with fruit and cucumber infused water and nice music playing. We got water and read through the information they had gave us at check in. We then started watching the monitors that gave directions to activate the MSC and me app. I had already loaded the app at home but had not been impressed with the app. However once we had linked to the ships free wifi for the app it was an amazing tool for us(wifi is only free for using the app on board the ship)We could do everything with the app. It is by far the best app we have used with any cruise line by far!(learn something Royal Caribbean)

They then quickly began calling group numbers. Our group was called about 15 minutes in. We were very impressed how quick and smooth this process was for getting on the ship. In that 15 minute wait we had booked all of our shows for the week and booked 2 excursions on the app.( I know other companies offer excursions but I usually book through the ship incase we have an issue and have never had a problem) We then entered the ship and immediately were blown away by how beautiful everything was in the 4 story atrium. Once we got past the cruise staff up selling drink packages and specialty dinning options we saw a kiosk to link our credit card to our cruise card(I forgot to mention your card is immediately loaded for $1000 until you link your credit card which is how we booked our excursions in the waiting area). This kiosk had no wait and took only a couple minutes to complete the process. I had expected a long wait to do this but they seemed to have several kiosks and was really very easy. We then went to get our cruise wrists bands. Another small wait and we had our wrist bands.

After completing that last task we were ready to check out the buffet. We went to the Market Place buffet on deck 8. Our cruise came with the drinks on us package. I saw a bar to the left when we entered the buffet so I went and got 2 sodas. The drinks on us package requires a service fee which I was fine with but later in the day we discovered in the back of the buffet area they have a self service drink station for soda, draft beer and wine which you are not charged a service fee since you are making you on drinks. We found the buffet area to have a wide selection and everything we had was great. The pizza was the best we have ever had on any cruise ship. The buffet was one area I read lots of bad reviews for poor quality and not enough variety. We did not find this to be true. We enjoyed every meal we had in both buffets and another plus the buffet on the 8th floor was open late. This is an issue we had with Harmony of the Seas. Their buffet closes at 9 which is way too early. We always went for a late night snack after every show on MSC Seaside and the self service drink station I mentioned is available 24 hours a day. This review is getting way too long. We then went to check out our cabin. Our cabin was number 11014 on the front of the ship. We had a great room. On our previous cruises a highlight is always our room attendant. MSC is a little different. We didn't even meet our room attendant until day 3. I thought this was a little strange at first but was ok in the end. She seemed to know our schedule because she always had our bed made and fresh towels and we never saw her. Another plus is our pool towels were left in our room. If we needed more we just left them in the bathroom and 2 more would be waiting for us on our beds later in the day. They have a notice that if the towels are not in the room when you disembark you will be charged. Just make sure you keep up with it at the pools or if you take the towels with you on an excursion. Read more