Past MSC Cruisers Experience

I need input from past MSC cruisers. I just booked two different cruises on the MSC Seaside because it looks like a great ship and prices were low but now after doing some more ressearch I am running into a lot of very negative reviews about MSC including:

1) That their food buffet for lunch and dinner is not good with no variety and food is lukewarm

2) that service is no where near as good as Royal, Princess or even Carnival

3) that they don't pay attention to hand cleanliness like having all the staff you see all over the place on other ships asking you to sanitize your hands

Seven years ago I went on a three day cruise on the Poesia and it was not a good experience dinner buffet was closed some days and food variety was horrible but I decided after saying never again to MSC to give them a second chance based on the SEaside information and some things I've read that MSC is trying to make changes to ships and food.

So please honest opinions out there, have I made a mistake in giving g MSC a second chance? Have hey changed their shortcomings for the better?

Hi Admiral ... We have been on four MSC cruises so far, two transatlantics, one to Norway and one from Venice to Dubai.

All have had reviews written about them and are in the reviews section of CC, the reviews give information of how we found the ships and onboard offerings and some parts are in favour of MSC and some are not which certain people appear to claim are negative issues!

Many of the reviewers will like yourself have been on other lines and some want everyone to be as they are on the other lines, the servers on MSC will if you attract their attention come over and take your drinks order they will not hassle you.

With regards to food, well as you know we are all different and like various foods, sadly some people cannot get beyond eating as they do at home and expect to find the same food onboard MSC.

Yes MSC are different and certainly in Europe they are compared to how they appear to now run their operation within the USA.

We have also booked Seaside for the December 23rd sailing so despite what some claim to be negative reviews we are still happy to sail with them.

We have recently returned from the brand new Majestic Princess where the food in the Buffet one morning was cold and was mediocre on one evening in the MDR does that make the review on the Princess boards negative ? or telling it as it was.

Go on the Seaside and enjoy the ship, enjoy the cruise and make up your own mind as to how you think the food and service is, many on here are now fans of MSC having never heard of them prior to sailing.

On the Majestic we never saw anyone cleaning, On the Four MSC cruises there were people always cleaning and polishing the interior of the ship.

Go with an open mind, go with the flow and you decide if MSC are right for you.

I've been on 15 MSC cruises and can say that I've enjoyed them all, I've also been on RCI; NCL; P&O; Carnival

In answer to you concerns

1) Buffet food:- I've always found there to be a large variety of choices but having said that the same choices appear on many days with only the ethnic selection and daily special changing on a daily basis.

but the selection on salads and cold choices is large and so ringing the changes is not really feasible.

the pizzas do change daily usually a choice of four

Food on MSC is not their strongest point and I would rate it at 3 - 3.5 out of 5, but food is very subjective and I can only speak as a British cruiser who's tastes will be very different to those of a US cruiser.

I've never had an issue with the temperature of the food available

I certainly preferred the MSC food to the food served on P&O, which of course prides it self on being British despite being owned by Carnival

A map of the buffet stations on Splendida to give an idea of the range of choices; ie big enough to warrant a map

2) service:-

If you want to be pestered all day by bar staff then MSC is not for you,

It is the norm on MSC to attract the attention of bar waiting staff and they will come and take your order

I tend to stick to 2 or 3 venues for evening entertainment, based on the live music offerings, and make a point of befriending one or two of the waiting staff in each venue .they get to know your likes and are only to happy to keep an eye on when you may need serving again.

3) Hand santisation

I'm with you on this one in so far as I would like the approach I had on RCI where they had staff encouraging and ensuring the use of gels in a very friendly manner. MSC have the dispensers but not the really rigid enforcement regime that should be in place.

But I hardly ever aw cleaning staff on RCI whereas they are constantly cleaning on MSC and their ships sparkle. They even paint the anchors after each use

Pete

We have been on the Divina 7x and enjoyed them all.

I know some people love MSC. I'm not one of them. Don't get me wrong...it was vacation, a cruise, no cooking or cleaning, so it's not all bad.:D I'll give you my honest opinion and that's just want it is, my opinion.

We went during probably maximum capacity time, which made most of my issues worse. It was spring break and Easter week. I heard from one staff person that there were over 1000 kids on board and 4300 pax total. This was dh and my 34th cruise and our six year old dd's 7th. We've been on just about every major cruise line except Costa and Disney. Here are some of the things I liked about MSC and some I didn't. They may not be big deals to you, so take them with a grain of salt. Some are personal preferences for the way another lines does something. I think if you're in Yacht Club it would be totally different. We are booked on the NCL Jade for a 10 day next spring break and I'm actually looking forward to a smaller ship. I'm not saying we'll never cruise MSC again, but it would have to be a really good deal.

Pros:

-Unbeatable price and our dd is free. (This is what got us on MSC.)

-The best shows I've ever seen in all of our cruises and not just on formal nights...every night. Fantastic and worth making an effort to see.

-Room was comfortable and fairly large. We were in an inside, Fantastica level.

-Embarkation and disembarkation in Miami was smooth. I liked that you went to a kiosk to link your credit card to the ship card. I'm sure that must speed up embarkation lines.

-Dining room was fine. Our wait staff was good and made a nice connection with our dd. It's been a long time since we've done traditional dining since Oceania and NCL don't have it and we've chosen anytime dining on Princess and RC. I forgot how much I don't like it. But, we knew that going in and it was a new experience for our dd.

-The Divina is a beautiful ship.

Cons:

-I'm not sure that MSC has figured out how to handle very large crowds efficiently. We did all MSC excursions and the average time from meeting time to actually beginning the tour was at least an hour. Some of that may be the island's issue, but this was the worst we've ever seen. Seemed like we were a little short changed on excursion time.

-Embarkation on every island took an extremely long time. We didn't always wait until the last minute either. Not sure why the lines were long, but they went down the pier. We were in Cayman so there was tendering involved. Lines always seem to be long in Cayman so we decided to go right back after our tour so we'd be about an hour before last tender. Hundreds and hundreds of people in line. They only used life boats and they needed some of the Cayman's double deckers to transport all of those people. It was about 75 minutes in the blazing sun before we got on a tender. We kept putting sunscreen on but my husband actually burned through his t-shirt. We talked to people on board that were leaving on their own so they needed a tender ticket. There tender letter was never called and it got so late that they never got off.

-There doesn't seem to be enough staff in the common areas. The packed ship didn't help but there weren't deck staff constantly picking up plates and glasses from food and drinks so there was a lot of dirty dishes around for a looong time.

-I understand that it's not their style to have bar staff roaming the deck, but if you have to go get your drinks at the bar then they need more bartenders. Most people had some sort of coupon from their cabin package or a drink package and maybe they don't feel well tipped but those were the slowest, crabbiest bartenders and servers I've ever seen on a ship.

-We usually ate breakfast and lunch in the buffet and I'm not sure if it was the incredibly long layout for the food or if it was everyone eating at once, but every single time I went in there it seemed like disembarkation day breakfast...wall to wall people pushing and not waiting their turn. I detested the buffet. Food was ok, but didn't love it.

-With the exception of the adults only pool in the back, every part of the ship was sooooo loud. I mean loud enough to not hear the person sitting next to you without shouting. The main pool deck had exercise classes throughout the day with very loud music. There were so many people in the indoor pool and they were mostly kids, so you get that picture. The buffet was packed so that was loud. It was the first cruise where I really felt like cattle, and this wasn't our first big ship.

-I was most disappointed by the kids' club. My dd is an only child and she looks forward to the kids' club on ships. To be fair, this is our first spring break experience since we mostly avoided that time until now, but with kindergarten this year, that was her break. If she had been 3 or 4 I don't think I would have felt safe leaving her there. Now she knows enough to not wander off or go with people other than us. Security on the other ships required both my card and hers to be swiped at drop off and pick up. MSC just had us sign a log book and say a name. No id, no cards, no security. I thought that was weird, especially with so many kids at the club. Since we had late dining, dd got screwed out of the evening hour play time, which is usually her favorite. The evening time seems to be set up for people dumping kids there for the whole night. If you are not signed up to have the club take them to the buffet at 6:30, then you can't drop the kids off until later. All of the fun events/parties/parades started at 8:30, which is when our dinner began. I didn't take her on vacation to ditch her every night for dinner and she loves dressing up and going to the dining room but that meant she missed out on the kids' club.

-I thought it was a little weird that we never saw our cabin steward. Usually they know us by name the first night and greet us in the hallway. That's not a deal breaker, but just another difference.

To your specific questions:

1) That their food buffet for lunch and dinner is not good with no variety and food is lukewarm.

**I never think buffet good is that great, but it's edible. The food is really stretched out so by the time you sit down it's probably cooled considerably. The pizza is great, probably the best thing in the buffet.

2) that service is no where near as good as Royal, Princess or even Carnival

**I agree. Maybe the service people on other ships are not being genuine with their smiles and ass-kissing, but they make you feel appreciated and welcomed in a festive environment. Except for our dining room servers, I mostly felt like an annoyance to every other staff person...and I don't complain about anything while on board or ask for anything special. We just go with the flow and observe, so I can imagine if you complained or asked for anything out of the ordinary that you'd have a problem.

3) that they don't pay attention to hand cleanliness like having all the staff you see all over the place on other ships asking you to sanitize your hands

**That's true. Coming from NCL where they actually sing a washy-washy song as you enter the buffet, this was different. Sometimes it was hard to find the sanitizers and I rarely saw anyone use them. They certainly didn't ask you to use them. Other than not picking up dirty dishes around the pool though, I didn't think the ship was dirty.

If I were you and had two cruises booked, I'd still take the first one for sure. The Seaside looks like a nice ship with some fun features. You'll never know if you don't try it. I'm assuming they aren't back to back and if you really don't like it when you return, hopefully you'll be within cancellation time and you can refund the second sailing.

It has been a few years since we cruised the Davina, so my memory is hazy. I do remember being impressed with their lunch buffet soups, which changed daily. No memories of bad meals, but was a bit disappointed with escargot, as it wasn't super garlic y, the way I like it.

We were on the Davina in February. Loved it. By far. the cleanest ship we've ever been on.

We found the food in the buffet to be hot. The problem is the buffet is so spread out that by the time you get back to your seat, things have cooled. Pick up your hot food last

Service was outstanding on our cruise. We have no complaints. All staff we came in contact with were fluent in English and could not do enough to please us.

Hand washing isn't emphasized like it is on Royal or other ships but we noticed we didn't hear anyone coughing or sneezing and all 4 of us returned home healthy. Possibly there would have been more emphasis on hand cleaning if they noticed sick passengers on board.

We enjoyed our cruise and hope to cruise MSC again. Not crazy about their current itineraries in the US right now. May try one of their European cruises in the future.

I'd echo Pete's comments to all of the points, never experienced cold food, however if you plan to eat in the buffet, if it is a similar lay out to Fantasia class ships I'd advise you to take smaller plates at a time to ensure you find a table and sit down to eat rather than wondering round all of the different stations

Our only cruise with MSC was on the Splendida in December of 2016. We read all the 'bad' reviews but we were not deterred because we keep our cruising expectations really low. We are not gourmands and rarely dine in 'fine' restaurants, so the food aboard was more than OK. We found the entertainment aboard to be a refreshing change from the usual entertainment on Carnival, Royal Caribbean, Celebrity, NCL and the like. The ship was super clean and we were happy with our balcony stateroom.

The only off-putting thing was the lack of men's urinals in the public restrooms. This was not really a a big issue, but as a retired architect, I feel that the provision of men's urinals in public restrooms is an almost universal standard of practice which most every other cruise line has adopted. I hope that the new ship, the Seaside, has addressed this plumbing issue.

But we hope to cruise again & again on MSC, men's urinals or no men's urinals.

It's funny you mention the urinals. I had forgotten that but after one of the shows my husband used the public restroom and it took forever for him to come out. Then he said there were only stalls and he had to wait a bit for the other guys to come vacate the stalls. I said, "Now you know why the women's line is so long.":D