We have been on MSC cruises several times before. We have now sailed on seven of their ships. Since our first MSC cruise over six years ago,as the fleet has grown, we have seen a slow but steady decline in standards. We have persevered with the line because we love Italy and the Italian "feel" of the ships. However, this year will be our last trip with this company. The food in the main Restaurant was far from acceptable, in fact in all honesty it was pretty dire. The "buffet restaurant" was like a war-zone at times, the food was stone cold by the time you found somewhere to sit and eat it and I suspect it was only lukewarm to begin with. In addition to the actual seating problems, the tables were not cleared and cleaned as soon as they became vacant...as a consequence we found that on most occasions when we used this restaurant, we were sat at a table with mounds of dirty dishes left from the previous occupants....this was while staff meandered at a snails pace around the area, most of these staff wore a distinct lack of interest on their faces. I guess their wages are so low it is hard to motivate them.

Our cabin steward was really nice and helpful but he was probably the exception to the rule. The service in the bars was often slow, even though sometimes there were few customers. The entertainment in some of the bars was amateurish....in previous years we have enjoyed the extremely talented Los Paraquayos and on Splendida last year there was also an excellent classical trio. This years offerings was a pianist and a trio (all of whom, though good, were only average) and both played the same type of music. In the Piazza (or shall I call it the street market?) a Neopolitan type group endeavoured to be heard above the noise of the people passing through...we couldn`t say if they were good or bad as their voices and music could not be heard...did the entertainment manager not spot this and improve their amplification equipment....poor management. As for the show, well perhaps the least said on that subject the better....same acts all week, in different costumes....none very good....in fact the entertainment was utter rubbish...so bad you had to laugh.

The old complaint about having to buy water with meals and not being served coffee after dinner used to seem trivial to us, but over the years we have noticed that MSC seem to find more and more small things to charge you for. In addition to the daily service charge they now also put an additional service charge on all drinks in the bar and restaurants....this is a bit of a cheek when passengers already make a service payment. Read more