I was looking for a fun way to spend a weekend and found a 3-day cruise with an overnight at a private island. Never being able to stay overnight nor ever on MSC before, I read a good number of reviews, got a tier loyalty recognition from MSC via RCI, the European differences were expected to be refreshing. I have no idea what the tier was to include, it said a gift but maybe my gift was the joy of living another day.

This ship reminded me of Royal’s Grandeur with a somewhat unimpressive and dated centrum area, although nothing that a couple glasses of champaign couldn’t fix. Onboarding was smooth at 1:30 and our two parties of two headed down to the dining room to adjoin our tables. Nope, later seating was already full, couldn’t sit together alone or with others, my-time dining was reserved for suites, but we could show up and wait for the dining room doors to close for the evening, at which time they would then re-open and feed the latecomers. We tried it, it was strange and felt exactly how you’d expect to feel being one of the last seated tables at a re-opened restaurant for dinner. In true European style, it took forever, we didn’t stay for dessert.

Breakfast in the cabin would have been the best if we would have had anywhere to eat. I didn’t think about that when I hung the tag at 2am. We had breakfast in the dining room on the second day. I attempted to make a special request but quickly found myself lost in translation, mission aborted. The eggs benedict (no meat) was fine, just fine though. Nothing special, minimal effort. I heard the bacon was gross. Speaking of food, the rest of our meals, with the exception of one lucky burger, was from the buffet. I ate salad, cookies, pizza and fries for the most part. The vegetarian selections were limited to a pan of sautéed veg, cream of soup, possibly a pasta salad or pilaf, otherwise it was the fast food standards. I never witnessed the special buffet sections in operation that I typically count on (pasta, vegetarian, Mediterranean, etc.) but heard that they were open on the one day we were at the beach. Indoors and out, the buffet lines were always long, even the pizza line. For some reason everyone queued up in a line instead of walking up. I think that was European. Read more