MSC Meraviglia Review

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Review for the Western Caribbean Cruise on MSC Meraviglia
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Jemckay Lizzie123
6-10 Cruises • Age 30s

Rating by category

Cabin
Value for Money
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Dining
Public Rooms
Entertainment
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Additional details

Sail Date: Feb 2020
Cabin: Aurea Balcony Stateroom

This was my first and last time cruising with MSC. I travelled with my sister, and we were both super excited to try a new cruise line. We had an “Aurea” balcony room. I’m not very hard to please, and the room was ok despite having no storage space besides the closet. The first night on the ship the hot water went out, and was not fixed until the first stop at port over 24 hours later. After a couple of days I noticed the condition of the room wasn’t so great... there was a huge stain on the couch that took up half the couch’s seating area. The carpet also had multiple large stains in the entry way, it made us wonder what had happened there that they couldn’t clean it up. We had dinner in the complimentary restaurant all nights, and I would rate the food 2 out of 5 stars. Some nights I didn’t even finish dinner, which was disappointing as the food is usually one of the highlights of the cruise for me. I always look forward to returning to the cabin after dinner, when there is usually turn down service, chocolates, towel animals, etc... but not with this cruise line. There was no evening service or surprises in the room at all. The buffet was very unimpressive as well, I felt more like i was in a school cafeteria as far as quality of food. The service at dinner left a bit to be desired as well. My sister has an allergy to gluten, and the head waiter who is in charge of allergies on board didn’t show up at our table until the 5th night of a 7 night trip. Up to that point she had to guess what she could order and didn’t have any options for dessert which was disappointing for her. Also unless you buy a drink package for a couple hundred dollars per person, you don’t get anything to drink at dinner except water. My sister wanted a soda one night, which was $4 extra. I’ve never been on a cruise line where you cant get a soda or juice included with your dinner. Mid cruise in the dining room I asked the waiter if I could celebrate my birthday one of the nights at dinner, as it was the week after I got home from the cruise. He actually laughed at me and said I was funny, and then he said no we aren’t going to do that. I thought they were joking but turns out he actually meant it.

As far as the pools, it was always impossible to find a deck chair anywhere on the ship. It was acceptable for people to leave a towel on the chair and fold the top down, and it was “taken” for the day. When I went to the pools I had to sit on the deck to sunbathe. Excursions were ok, but there was quite a bit of confusion as to who was in what group as there are so many accommodations for different languages on board. All announcements are done in 5 different languages, even the ones that come into your cabin.

My sister and I usually love to attend shows on cruises, but after 2 shows on this ship we were done. The quality was equivalent to a high school or college music performance, with the exception of the Cirque Du Soleil show, which requires an upcharge of $20 per person to see it. We saw the show “sonor” which was good, but the cocktails that went with it were very watered down. Staff on board were sometimes helpful and friendly, but the most part I would say the service left a lot of room for improvement. Some staff in onboard shops wouldn’t even look at us or crack a smile from entering the store, to checking out and exiting. The fourth port call of the itinerary, to the private Bahamian island, was canceled due to wind The day of, which was a huge disappointment. My sister and I purchased a $200 photo package onboard the ship where we would receive digital downloads of all the photos from our whole cruise. When we got home we logged in to the website, and there were 31 of our 150+ photos we took onboard, but we couldn’t download them because we were never given a code which the website required... we are still trying to resolve the problem now, but it seems we lost most of our photos that we paid for already.

Cabin Review

Aurea Balcony Stateroom

The cabin was ok, but severely lacks storage space. We had to keep everything in our suitcases and then keep them under the bed. The couch had a huge stain on it that took up half the sitting space... the carpet also had dark stains on it. I can’t imagine what it could have been that they couldn’t clean it. Touch lamps by the beds kept turning on in the night and waking us up, I think it was due to humidity in the room. Couldn’t shower for 2 days as hot water went out.

Port Reviews

Costa Maya

Pools were nice to sit by, but if you stop here LEAVE the port tourist trap and go to the town 2 miles away. My sister and I got cheated at the poolside restaurant, I paid with card and she paid cash, they charged my card for both of us, and pocketed her cash. We didn’t notice till we were back on the ship unfortunately.

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