We chose this cruise because of the itinerary and the exceptionally good pricing. We arrived in Venice 2 days prior to cruise embarkation to find the city Flooded. Embarkation process on 2 November was disappointing. We were asked to produce our passports by 4 different MSC personnel but we are not sure what valued added each person contributed if anything. Later when we were allowed to go to our cabins we got our cruise card. We had purchased a drinks package prior to embarkation(2 Months prior) but when we first tried to get a drink we were told our card was not annotated for a drinks package and so we made our first trip to the Reception Center where our cards were eventually corrected.

We were travelling as a group of 30 and to MSC credit we had 5 tables together on first sitting dinner as we had requested. Guisseppe (Head Waiter) and Indra (our waiter) provided excellent service throughout the cruise but there are not enough staff in the dining room to handle the amount of customers and therefore service tended to be slow to non existent often times. One trip to the Buffet was proof that we never wanted to see that facility aGAIN. The facility was over crowded resulting in long waits to get a table. For some reason MSC only open one side of the Buffet restaurant at a time. this results in long lineups, pushy customers, line jumpers and inevitably cold food. Bar service in the Buffet seemed to be non existent unless you horse collared a waiter. Waiters seemed to believe that their only job was to collect dirty dishes.

Cabins were small but well organized and clean. Cabin attendant reasonably responsive. My complaint with housekeeping is the inordinate amount of time that the housekeeping carts clogged up the narrow passageway. Read more