MSC Fantasia Review
Discriminating Cruise Line with No Customer Service
Rating by category
Additional details
1. Unprofessional crews are undertrained, ruled, and disrespectful. One crew even threaten to call the police when I asked him questions about my passport status. (They send someone very unprofessional to collect customers' passports).
2. Don't get on the cruise in the first place. And don't purchase any excursions with them!! I booked a shore excursion with the MSC excursion desk. I was informed that the trip will be in English. However, when I went on the trip, the tour guide stated that the trip was in Italian and that we can ask questions in English.
3. The dining room schedule and seating were extremely unreasonable. The dining room staff were disrespectful and discriminated against English speakers. We were only allowed to enter the dining room from 7 pm-7:30 pm. On the first day, we went to the dining room, the staff assigned us to 10 people round table with two other English speakers. We were forced to sit right next to them without any seats between us while other seats were empty at around 7:15 pm. So we went to speak to the manager regarding our seat change, he first ignored us when we were in the line waiting for him and dealt with guests who spoke Italian, then when there was no line at all, he spoke to us. Before us, he just changed the tables for the two groups ahead of us. We asked politely that we'd like to change our table, but he refused. He said we will have to go back to the dining room at 9:30 pm for a different table while there are more than 20 tables empty in the dining room. Moreover, there are "rules" that we have to enter the dining room from 7 pm -7:30 pm in order to dine in the dining room. If they are enforcing the rules, there will be at least some tables at 7:30 pm as there are no other people coming to the dining room. However, the manager was unwilling to change the table for us but was willing to change tables for other guests who spoke Italy. In the end, they made us sit at the 10 people table with 2 other guests, without any seats between us at 7:35 pm, and said that's because in case someone else will join the dining table later in the evening. This discriminating behavior is unacceptable by all means.
Cabin Review
The lifeboat blocked half of our balcony view. No advance information was given when we booked.
Port Reviews
Athens (Piraeus)
The port was in a decent location. The embarkation was extremely disorganized. Even the manager doesn't have any idea about forming a line. We were told to arrive by 9 am but weren't able to embark until 11 am for unknown reasons. The embark started by taking people who were not in the line first, and we asked where's the line, The manager stated:" If you could all set down and I guarantee you all will embark within 30 mins. After 1 hour, we are still there with no information about where we should form a line. How unprofessional.