Just arrived in Buenos Aires on the MSC Musica this morning after an 8 day cruise with 3 stops in Brazil and one stop in Uruguay. This was our 7th MSC cruise and 16th cruise overall.

EMBARKATION: Embarkation was pretty good. We were Aurea so had priority check in. The only problem with that is there was no priority line anywhere at any stage. We had to bring our negative Covid test, passport and since we are Americans living in Buenos Aires with a work Visa we had to bring our DNI’s and a mountain of paperwork to prove our son was our son and we were able to take him in and out of the country. It was really ridiculous and added about 30-40 minutes to the embarkation process. If we were just Americans without a Visa to live in Argentina then a birth certificate, marriage certificate and multiple other apostled documents were not required. But just to be safe if you’re traveling with kids I would ask and ask again. We got lucky. We weren’t told anything about this from MSC or our travel agent. But if you are in our situation you have to have all these documents or you can’t travel. Luckily my wife brought everything just in case or we would have been left behind. Once we got through all of that we were loaded on a bus for a 5 minute drive to the ship. Once at the ship they were unable to process people fast enough so we spent 10 minutes on the bus waiting to line up for the ship then another 30 minutes in and out of the hot summer sun inching our way onboard. (I noticed as we disembarked this morning they had everything covered including the stairs and waiting area) Normally everything is done in the port and you just walk to the ship with your card and check in. This was different. You did some things in the port but didn’t get your room cards until on the ship. Once on board we had to line up in a really crowded reception area and wait. Once it was our turn they took everyone’s passports or DNI’s (local I.D) and didn’t return them until the second to last day before we arrived in Montevideo. Very strange experience. We got our cards, dropped everything at our room and went to eat and walk around the ship. within an hour or so we realized our pre paid drink packages weren’t working. They said we don’t have a package. They said head to reception to talk with someone. When I went down I was told to come back later in the evening after we sailed away. So I did and when I did the line was 50 people deep. Guest services had only two people handling 50 or so people ahead of me in line. I waited over an hour only to be told when it was my turn that nothing prepaid was showing on my account. I was told that MSC land and MSC on the ship were separate and I needed to call MSC land to straighten it out. Luckily I live in Buenos Aires so I had a phone to call U.S. numbers inexpensively. MSC “land” told me there is no separation between the two and everything showed up that I paid for on their end. I was told to go back to guest reception and have a manager email MSC so they could straighten it out. I went back down, waited about 45 more minutes in line. Once it was my turn I told the man my situation and when he looked it up he saw everything we pre paid for. And everything was good to go. Wasting hours on this ship on things like this would happen a few more times.

The first two days were at sea so it was relaxing. The very next morning I went to the spa and schedule a pre paid massage and use the Sauna and steam room. I go and they tell me they have no record of my pre paid massage. So I say ok I’m here let’s use the sauna and steam because we are Aurea everything is included. They say sorry, you can’t just come in and use the steam, sauna and hot tub anytime you want like the old days. You have to schedule an appointment. You have to sign up for a time and you get 60 minutes to use the facilities. So I sign up for the next day at 9am. I get there and the saunas were not working. They were down for the whole 8 days. So I say no problem I’ll start in the hot tub. I change and get in the hot tub and it’s not hot just warm. Actually very dangerously warm. About 80 degrees the perfect temperature for bacteria to thrive. Also the hot tubs are in a room next to the gym with windows in between so there is no privacy anyone from the gym can look right in. I get out of the hot tub instantly and head to the steam room. There are two steam rooms and one isn’t on and the other one is on but barely any steam. I go in there and when I walked in the temp was 22 celcius and after 20 minutes of standing in the steam room I left and the temperature was 32. Very disappointing and I felt completely ripped off. We upgraded to Aurea for the spa experience and nothing was good. Since they would not let me schedule the massage I paid for I had to go bs k down to guest services and wait about 30 more minutes straightening this out. Once I did I walked all the way ba k up to the spa on deck 13 and booked my massage. I figure I’ll go up the the exclusive area on deck 16 (part of our Aurea experience) for Aurea members only and lay in the sun. I go up there and it’s closed due to high winds. I only saw it open on port days but I wasn’t really checking closely. The two sea days were relaxing. I had a decent Bali massage and when I was done I received a coupon for 50% off another massage. I did use the certificate and got a deep tissue massage that was adequate. All the people working at the spa were really nice and friendly. I found this to be true with the excursion staff, the photography and internet staff and pretty much everyone we interacted with.including the bar tenders and waiters in the dining room and buffet. Read more