We had booked a fly-cruise package with MSC in March just before the 30% healthcare workers discount offer ended. It was a 7 night cruise aboard MSC Splendida starting from Rome and visiting Genoa, Marseille, Siracusa (Sicily), Taranto and back to Rome with 2 sea days in between.

On the day of cruise (23/9/22), we flew from London Heathrow to Rome via British Airways. The flight departed on time at 7am and got to Rome well before our scheduled arrival time of 10.30am. We went through immigration very swiftly and after picking up our bags, we met up with MSC Rep in the arrivals Hall. We were expecting a bus transfer with many other passengers to the port of Civitavecchia. However to our surprise there were no other passengers from our flight. Hence we were paired up with a German couple and sent to port via a private van transfer.

We got to the port by 11.45am. There were no queues at security or check in. Hence after showing our required covid paperwork, we were handed our Gold cabin cards and were asked to proceed into the beautiful ship. We were also advised that although cabins are not normally ready till after 1pm, today we could proceed straight to our cabins if we wanted to. Read more