I have been on many cruises over the years with many different cruise lines and never felt the need to review any of them as they all tend to be pretty similar but I really felt I should review MSC as the experience was so different from anything I have ever experienced.

This was our first encounter with MSC and as it was only for 3 nights we thought it would be a good taster of what to expect if we decided to book in future. We flew to Genoa the day before and did an overnight stay in a local hotel, the details we had received from MSC which were very limited stated the check in opened at 11.00 so we arrived at mid day. We were met by what could only be described as chaos, there were 1500 people being herded like cattle in to a tiny dilapidated terminal building with no one from MSC on hand to help. We were issued with a number and told to wait until our number was called, three and a half hours later! yes we stood there for three and a half hours! our number was called so we followed the crowds to an escalator but at the top of the escalator there was another huge queue which was so large it prevented people on the escalator from getting off, people were being crushed at the top and its amazing that no one was seriously hurt.

We finally made it on board at 16.00, the time the ship was supposed to sail at. it took a further hour to get everyone on board and we finally set sail at 17.10, there had to be two muster drills as most of the passengers had missed the original one scheduled for 15.45. The second one was done as we sailed out of port. We then had to go to accounts to register a credit card against our cabin as the shore staff didn't have time to do this at check in. Read more