We chose this transatlantic cruise to avoid a long flight back to New York City. We had just disembarked the Costa Favolosa cruise (12 days) on 11/20/22. The night prior to the MSC sailing we stayed at the Hotel Granvia which is a repurposed mansion converted to a hotel. The hotel was beautiful, clean, reasonably priced and centrally located.

We boarded the ship in Barcelona at 12:15 pm on 11/21/22. The boarding process was super smooth. We checked in two suitcases at the exterior of the terminal with only our cabin number. There was a glitch with the MSC website and we were not able to print our boarding passes. This was not an issue once we got to the MSC customer counter as we were able to get our boarding cards within 10 minutes. Since this cruise was an MSC Grand Voyage, full vaccination and Covid pre-test were required for boarding. However MSC staff checked our pretest but NOT our vaccination cards. Also, MSC's rules stated that people with a cough would not be allowed to board. As soon a we boarded there were people coughing throughout the ship including the buffet. I complained to MSC reception about requiring people with a cough to wear a face mask in public areas and was told they could not implement this requirement. As the cruise progressed the coughing became more wide spread everywhere (restaurants, entertainment venues, theater, jungle pool lounge, etc). I suspect many passenger had Covid, a Flu or a cold. I ended up having to wear a mask every where on the ship.

Once on the ship I ate a cold "medium rare" hamburger for lunch and got a stomach ache and diarrhea within hours. Cooked hamburger patties should be maintained above 140 degrees Fahrenheit and the burger I ate was not above 80. The buffet food was almost always cold for many dishes like eggs, potato hash, steaks, sautéed fish, brussel sprouts, pasta, etc. I spoke to the buffet and restaurant managers regarding cold buffet food and the problem was never corrected. I was told that I could ask the restaurant staff to heat my food in the salamander, but this became to much of a hassle to ask for at breakfast and lunch, so I reverted to eating cold food items like cereal, fruit, cold cuts, salads and hardboiled eggs. Read more