MSC Review

This has been one of the worst cruises I’ve ever experienced. I planned this vacation with MSC as a “cruise of a lifetime”, considering this was my wife’s first cruise experience. My expectation was clearly not met, not to mention the ship is old and the decor is grossly outdated! What my wife and I experienced with MSC Orchestra has greatly reduced our interest in cruising. MSC failed on multiple levels and on several occasions in customer service to provide passenger satisfaction. Problems started when first boarding the ship with a pre-paid internet package we purchased. After boarding, even crew members said the package is useless and shouldn’t be offered/purchased. Rarely was any internet service available, especially in our cabin. Then, after 20+ hours of travel to South Africa from the United States, luggage was not delivered to our cabin until very late in the evening leaving us unable to shower and change clothes the first day on the ship. We boarded at 10 in then morning! Entertainment was practically non-existent, rotating between the same acts the entire cruise while spending 10 days at sea! If weather conditions were undesirable or you wanted to relax in your your cabin, the television had only ONE station with 5 movies being rotated everyday (ALL day) over and over and over with the remaining 10 stations playing advertisements for the cruise line! Your other option was to frequent the (smoke filled) casino if that’s your thing. We also pre-paid for the strange use of MSC Orchestra “drink ticket” packages. They didn’t offer typical all inclusive beverage packages. EVERY beverage required tickets…from water to soft drinks to a limited selection of alcoholic beverages at an additional cost. Water and coffee were made available during formal lunch and dinner. As not all beverages requiring tickets are equal in cost, alcohol cost more than soft drinks however, you don’t get a refund or credit for using a higher cost ticket for a soft drink. The process/line to retrieve ‘drink tickets’ was madness and extremely unorganized. Depending where you ordered drinks, the bar tender may or may not be able to make the beverage you ordered because it wasn’t on the drink ‘menu’.

The schedule of excursions cannot be trusted. After 3 days at sea the scheduled Mozambique port stop was cancelled, this occurred the morning of departure after we paid the required $150 for visas. Read more