Trouvailless

Hi.    Anyone cruising with CroisiEurope new year's day cruise m.s. Michelangelo to Venice 28/12/23-01/01/24?
I am arriving from Heathrow at 16.55 on 27th Dec and would be interested to share transport with other cruisers.  Going to Dosoduro hotel, but ok for other final destination.   Thanks. Gillian

Anyone spent New Year's Eve on Leonardo da Vinci. Need to know if hyper dressed or smart casual. Thanks

In this social media age, it is a sad fact of life that there are people who, one way or another, incentivised to write positive reviews of their experience and negative reviews of the competition. On top of the genuine complainers and nuts, there is often too much noise to make any sense of the reviews. Hence there is a trend towards peer-review in order to value the reputation of a reviewer before the content of any particular review - as evidenced on TripAdvisor after years of being plagued with untrusted negative reviews. This is not yet the case on CC, quite the reverse in fact. A few of the most posted CC members are the most negative. I find this behaviour highly suspicious to say the least. I would not be surprised at all if certain cruise companies employ people to constantly be negative about their competition in all forms of social media.

Sorry you have lost me. Is this a post on the wrong page or have I missed some thread?

Me again I'm afraid. We took the ipad mini which of course has the full kindle features and can be read in the same way, but has the added function of being able to Skype and a system called Facetime which enables the user to contact anyone with an email address and Skype (which is only a matter of signing up free) to avoid roaming charges from anywhere in the world. I also preloaded all the travel guides to places we were visiting to be read offline. More value for money than my kindle actually in the long run, especially with the offline translation facility.

Yes you are quite right Big M. I checked out another MSC site and their l'Olivio restaurant is now only available to Yacht Clubbers. CC have he same thing with their Aqua class, but they still have other dining options for lesser mortals!

Thanks for the compliment re Jersey's restaurants. Needless to say my dining experiences here are mainly in the non Michelin ones, but all of a good standard nevertheless. I note your remarks re the a la carte options on the Musica ships and should I go again on MSC i will certainly check these out, but really my remarks were just to indicate the lack of a less dedicated dining venue than the TexMex, and I am fairly sure I had read in MSC's own literature that there was another restaurant as well, but too much internetting might have made me delusional.

I have booked my first MSC on Fantasia for a winter Mediterranean cruise , the majority of reviews for MSC are very poor WHY???? is the food and service really all that bad ???????? what is the worst aspect of a MSC cruise in Europe ?

 

any insight would be truly appreciated as I have talked 3 others onto this MSC cruise too :confused:

Hi Glittergal. I have just returned from my first MSC Med cruise and have posted a very lengthy review which is still in the pending file with these forums, but I think as a regular Celebrity cruiser, although from The Channel. Islands of Great Britain myself I feel able to express views on both sides. The Splendida is very very large, miles of walking back to cabins, but adequate elevators. The service was excellent, and in keeping with a good class hotel/restaurant in Europe and, although I didn't think about it at the time, it was more relaxing in the restaurant not to have to constantly cope with refilling water and coffee service offers at breakfast, as when served the waiters wait a decent time until one could reasonably have consumed a drink before reoffering. We had the Allegrissimo package so had bottled water included, but whilst the iced water on CC is refreshing, it is not always quite as perfect as one Poster has implied. The food in the Buffet was of a very good standard, including carvery and every type of bread and cake, plus everything else CC offers and a special ethnic corner with daily choices. We didn't breakfast there after the first try as being half term holiday it was very very noisy with parents and kids, but did have relatively quiet lunches and there is no complaint with the quality of the food. I had seen a comment from some months ago that the waiting staff in the Buffet were little more than table clearers, but this was not the case. Drinks requirements were always met immediately by waiters in the general vicinity, not hovering to keep pressing you to have a drink. The food in the MDR was variable: good choices on the menus, mainly very good starters and desserts, but not necessarily good main dishes, but this depended on what one had chosen of course. The quality of the ingredients was not at fault just the finished product on a couple pf occasions, but certainly no more than we have had on CC or Princess when I have had to return dishes from time to time. The service in the MDR is very very good. Professional and swift. Maybe we had a good table location, and others may not have experienced the same, but unlike the US lines we did not have separate Sommeliers but our waiter was able to discuss and offer advice on any wines from considerable knowledge. No pressure to choose this or that, just their characteristics explained. Also, and this is more pertinent in this day and age surely, no over familiarity such as "my name is ... And I will be your waiter for tonight" rather they just relied on their name tags to give this information. After all in a top restaurant in Europe certainly, and in Jersey we have of course many top restaurants including Michelin starred ones, it is not expected to have this level of chumminess. Why should it be?

The lack on this boat for us was no real alternative eating place, other than The TexMex restaurant, which is certainly likely to appeal to many families, but for my money an alternative would be a good a la carte italian or French restaurant with many choices. I think those guests having withdrawal symptoms for large steaks might have to go there, but although I love large steaks, I am happy to have more fine dining.

The cabins were large, we had a balcony midships, and well maintained. Although I have read of them being very large we felt that they were much the same as Solstice class, and the bathrooms were definitely not as large.

The embarkation and disembarkation was remarkable, possibly because of all the getting on and off ports so there were never huge numbers going anywhere at one time. The shore excursions were well sorted out and on time, although the actual excursions were not that great for choices, but possibly limited by the short shore time on some destinations.

As aeveral Posters have said the attitude of the guest to the staff is a contributory factor in the response of the staff to him/her, but we found the reception and shore excursion staff to be welcoming, polite and efficient. There was a noticeable lack of cabin trolleys in the corridors and the cabin staff were not ingratiating themselves every time one stepped out of the cabin, which was a relief, as there are only so many times one can say hello to the same person in one day, and still sound sincere. The beds are very comfortable, not just from our own opinion, but most people we spoke to commented on this. You do have to pay extra for cabin service, except for Continental breakfast, but as the fares are so much lower than the US lines you are unlikely to be out of pocket, as the charges are very low anyway.

Rudeness of other passengers was apparent only on one or two occasions in our experience, but may of course have been different in the pool area when guarding one's chosen lounger! The demographic of these Italian ships is so different from the older age ranges of CC, HAL and Princess, it is not surprising in some ways. In short we love the US ships and will continue to cruise with them, but this had more of an atmosphere of holiday relaxation than a formal outing. The big gripe was the lack of daytime at sea entertainment, but again if poolside is your thing, this would not be a problem. Thankfully no pseudo art auctions however, and very genuine shopping facilities with good Italian lines.

Not going to be our first choice for future cruises, but certainly not in any way a bad experience. Speaking English we were seated with other English speakers and indeed had very good Welsh table companions, but we would have been happy to have shared with other nationalities to have got more from the cruise. Language is rarely a barrier if one is prepared to make the effort to communicate.