MSC Splendida Review

4.5 / 5.0
366 reviews

what a disaster-not at al Splendida!!

Review for the Western Mediterranean Cruise on MSC Splendida
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tyronefrecklestara
First Time Cruiser • Age 60s

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Sail Date: Sep 2009

I was an experienced cruiser but had persuaded my girlfriend to try cruising for the first time.we were both really looking forward to the trip, firstly because I had talked up my previous good experiences on other cruise ships and secondly because this was a brand new ship and supposed to be wonderful in every respect.It did not live up to our expectations however. Firstly the staff ratio was very poor and none of them seemed to be very well trained and they certainly did not know the ship at all well, for example we did not see our cabin steward all the time we were cruising and service at dinner was very slow. Another big problem was the food, very poor quality and little variety plus no 24 hour service in the buffet. In fact the buffet closed after teatime (only 45 minutes for 3000 passengers to get served, impossible) because in the design of the ship they hadn't made enough allowance for dinner seating so they had to use the buffet for some of the passengers. The system that the ship employs of embarking and disembarking passengers at nearly every port makes for a very uneven cruise experience, we were lucky because we boarded at Barcelona so the next day we had the welcome party but the farewell was before Messina halfway through the cruise, some people even had the farewell party before the welcome party. Very badly organised indeed, whoever is in charge had not thought out the practicalities of this at all.

On the plus side, our cabin was very well appointed although the inroom cinema was pay per view so no films to watch while relaxing in our cabin..Also the shows and the live musical entertainment were excellent. On the whole we did enjoy the cruise but mainly because of the company we kept and the ports we visited it would have been so much better if the ship had been up to standard. I personally will never sail with MSC again and will advise everyone I know to do the same.It was like a package holiday only cruise style!Very cheap.

Cabin Review

balcony cabin, very spacious plenty of room for storage and also to sit out on the balcony relaxing.one complaint, as we wanted 2 single beds they just seperated the double and as a result they were quite narrow.

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