Former loyal to Royal - first impression of MSC

[RealNorwegianCruiser]

It is our 2nd day on MSC Meraviglia, and that leaves me with a quite good impression of MSC so far.

 

My wife and I got 7-8 cruises with Royal (grand suites incl.) 2 with Celebrity and 1 with NCL under my belt. 

 

In my opionion MSC delivers a equally good product. Yes it is some differences, but all in all a good cruise product.

 

Not «afraid» of our two next upcoming bookings with MSC in February and September next year.

 

Only negative with Meraviglia so far: slightly confusing to navigate around.

 

Will be fun to check out YC in Feb! :)

[RealNorwegianCruiser]

Then the cruise is over. All in all a good cruise. Some differences from Royal and NCL, but that I am mostly happy for. We dont need 7 cruise companies delivering the exactly the same produckt, do we?

 

A few negatives;

- less CHOICES in the breakfast and lunch buffet than Royal, Celebrity, and NCL.

- Do NOT book a stateroom on deck 14 under the pool deck on Meraviglia. NOISY! You could hear people running, loungers placed out by the crew every morning at 6, LOUD pool parties like the white party.. When I complained about this, I got the impression that the customer service was well aware of this, and gave me a B I G discount on my upcoming cruise in February.

- lack of visible crew during disembarkion/poor imformation. ( our case was maybe especially bad since disembarkion was very late due to really bad weather in Civitavecchia. Chaos.

- Lack of waiters during breakfast. Ordering drinks took forever.... getting them? Even longer.

 

Some positives;

- Value for money. Dont know about cruises in the Caribbean, but the prices on MSC cruises in Europa wins BIG time over Royal, Celebrity and NCL.

- Very good food in the Main Dining Room - and yes u can have several starters, mains and/or desserts. No need to go hungry. In my opinion, equally good as Royal, NCL, and Celebrity.

- Drinks. Better than on Royal and Celebrity. 

- Butchers Cut... oh.. the best filet mignon I ever tasted on sea.

- Best pizza. No discussion!

- Sunny in the Main Dining Room. A waiter that know what he was doing. Good recommendations through the whole cruise.

 

Some neutrals:

- the housekeeping is not there to befriend you, but to do a job. I got real friends, and I am fine with that. Im not trying to be a friend with my accountant, bus driver or my sons kindergarden teatcher either. They are doing their job.

- those noisy foreigners. I belive this is just cultural differences. I feel a ship out of Miami is equally “noisy” as from Genoa. The difference is that many cruisers are used to cruise with others with their own language. It sounds more noisy maybe. But since I am from Norway, if find those “foreigners” equally “noisy” as English speaking cruisers. Equally rude as well.. People push in the buffet everywhere - me too!

 

Im more than ready for my two next bookings with MSC! Royal and/or Celebrity needs to do some REAL effort to get me back..

 

just my two kroner.. from a normal cruiser - not paid or bribed from any cruise company............

 

[sidari]

Another convert and I agree that Princess, Royal and Celebrity are pricing themselves out of customers.

[CarrieAP]

Considering Miraviglia for TA in 2020 so appreciative of your perspective. Thanks for sharing! 

[riclop]

Thanks for your thoughts.

[champagne123]

Wow, I almost missed this post.  Thank you very much for sharing your opinion.  We will be on the Merviglia repositioning cruise and cannot wait!!!!

[portofrome]

Thanks for posting your opinion.

[ready2cruzagain]

Thank you for the review.  We will be on the Divina out of Miami next month so different than a Med cruise but I like that you enjoyed your cruise.  Our last 6 cruises have been with NCL but have 38 cruises total with NCL, Carnival, Princess and Celebrity.  MSC out of the Caribbean right now has such great pricing that we could not pass it up.  I have never been on a bad cruise so I am sure we will like it.

[cathep]

On 10/28/2018 at 5:59 PM, RealNorwegianCruiser said:

Some positives;

- Value for money. Dont know about cruises in the Caribbean, but the prices on MSC cruises in Europa wins BIG time over Royal, Celebrity and NCL.

- Very good food in the Main Dining Room - and yes u can have several starters, mains and/or desserts. No need to go hungry. In my opinion, equally good as Royal, NCL, and Celebrity.

- Drinks. Better than on Royal and Celebrity. 

- Butchers Cut... oh.. the best filet mignon I ever tasted on sea.

- Best pizza. No discussion!

- Sunny in the Main Dining Room. A waiter that know what he was doing. Good recommendations through the whole cruise.

 

We cruise Celebrity very much for the food and drinks.  This is great to know!

[RealNorwegianCruiser]

2 hours ago, cathep said:

We cruise Celebrity very much for the food and drinks.  This is great to know!

 

In MY opinion, the only thing I missed a bit was the amount of choice for breakfast and lunch. The QUALITY was equal with both the cruises I got with Celebrity. The speciality restaurant "The Butcher's Cut" by far the best steak house on sea.

[abbflex]

Thanks. and as a fellow Norwegian (hei på deg), I Guess the "European style"  wont be any problem? Im also concidering trying the MSC with my Family mostly because if the price. Really enjoyed RCCL, so hope it wont be too much too miss.  How was the Queues for Family activities like the slides, bowling, F1 simulator , etc? is it bookable in advance?  

[CoupleUK]

We were VERY loyal to royal but wouldn't go looking for a cruise with them any more - OK so we did Navigator 3 times this year but those were charters and we'd have gone whichever line or ship it was.

 

We LOVE Celebrity - but waaayyy too expensive now.

 

Lured by the incredible Status Match at MSC, we went straight in at the highest Black tier - much to the upset of loyal MSC cruisers (and I do understand why).

 

We took our first MSC cruise in a Balcony and in the main dining room - it was "ok" but nothing special. The nightly shows were appalling and just rehashed efforts every night of what we had seen 2 nights previously. It is fair to say we were not "wowed" by MSC.

 

Problem was - we don't do things by halves and had booked 3 MSC cruises and couldn't easily cancel - we were dreading those forthcoming cruises.

 

HOWEVER, we had totally different experiences to that first MSC encounter.

 

We now try to book with MSC whenever we can - and we cruise a LOT.

 

Yacht Club is our No.1 cruising choice. Prices are rising so it's usually an inside cabin for us if we want the YC service. TBH I would probably sleep in the lift to enjoy everything Yacht Club - it is truly an amazing experience.

 

We do like OUR space and time on a cruise so being down with the masses of loud Italians is our worst nightmare - YC takes us away from all that.

 

Sadly, MSC customer service and their website are so annoyingly amateurish it has stopped us sailing MSC 100% of the time - we have booked on other lines as I refuse to give them my hard earned £££ unless they up their game to get it.

 

Emails to the UK head dont get a reply from someone who actually cares about his guests - the complaints are just filtered down the ranks to people who go through the motions day in day out and have little interest or authority to change anything.

 

If I treated my guests in the way they do, I wouldn't have a business left.

If you can work your way through all the issues and niggles, then choose YC and enjoy a great cruise - just dont expect shore side to do much if you need to raise any concerns later.

 

[RealNorwegianCruiser]

10 hours ago, abbflex said:

Thanks. and as a fellow Norwegian (hei på deg), I Guess the "European style"  wont be any problem? Im also concidering trying the MSC with my Family mostly because if the price. Really enjoyed RCCL, so hope it wont be too much too miss.  How was the Queues for Family activities like the slides, bowling, F1 simulator , etc? is it bookable in advance?  

 

Hei! "European Style" is only a problem for those who only wants to travel to only equal passengers as themselves.

 

Since my son is 1.8 years old, we didnt do those activities. All though I never saw any queues for the slides and the F1 simulator. Dont know if you can book it in advance either.

 

BUT one thing I would consider if I had kids in that age, is the "Fun Pass":

 

" 

Fun Pass

Buy in advance you will get the best deal: pay /$ 100 and get an extra /$ 80 (onboard currency) in FunPass credit for free.
The FunPass is your all access pass to the Amusement Area, the most thrilling place onboard.

Offer available only online!
The Fun Pass can be associated to 1 passenger only, but it can be used by all family. It's valid for the Formula 1 Simulator, Bowling, Interactive XD Cinema, Video Games, Zip Line or Flight Simulator*. F1, Zip Line Flight simulator, and Cinema admittance starting from 110 cm height. 

* Zip Line is offered on MSC Seaside and MSC Seaview, the Flight Simulator is on MSC Meraviglia only"

[RealNorwegianCruiser]

4 hours ago, CoupleUK said:

 

 

Sadly, MSC customer service and their website are so annoyingly amateurish it has stopped us sailing MSC 100% of the time - we have booked on other lines as I refuse to give them my hard earned £££ unless they up their game to get it.

 

Emails to the UK head dont get a reply from someone who actually cares about his guests - the complaints are just filtered down the ranks to people who go through the motions day in day out and have little interest or authority to change anything.

 

If I treated my guests in the way they do, I wouldn't have a business left.
 

 

 

The customer service office for Norway is in Sweden. That should normally be a reason to avoid the company. But personally I only got good things to say about the MSC customer service so far.. No issues. 

 

Royal managed to hold back aprox 1000 USD from me for two months after I had to cancel a cruise with them. Was not too impressed by that.. (Not the biggest amount, but just annoying)

[heatherb1958]

We recently sailed on Seaview, our 4th MSC cruise in the last 18 months and 3rd MSC ship, having been seduced by the Status Match programme. 

We have over 100 cruises with RCI but we have enjoyed our MSC cruises so much that they are now our go to line.

RCI prices are just silly money now , they keep having promotions that we do not want or need, e.g. ‘free’ drinks.  I tried to book a cruise yesterday because it was an itinerary we wanted to do , requested they remove the drinks promotion, no can do, what ?  At least with MSC they sell their cruises with ‘experiences’ and you pay for what you want and are going to use. 

[champagne123]

I don’t ever recall RC with a drink package promotion.  Where did you see this?

[ready2cruzagain]

21 minutes ago, champagne123 said:

I don’t ever recall RC with a drink package promotion.  Where did you see this?

I agree.  I went over and was checking out RC thinking oh goody.

[heatherb1958]

On 11/2/2018 at 8:31 PM, champagne123 said:

I don’t ever recall RC with a drink package promotion.  Where did you see this?

 

On 11/2/2018 at 8:54 PM, ready2cruzagain said:

I agree.  I went over and was checking out RC thinking oh goody.

 

Well guys if you were looking on the American RCI site you wouldn’t see it anywhere no matter how hard you looked, here in the UK we are always having free drinks promotions with RCI UK. 

 

 

 

Edited November 4, 2018 by heatherb1958

[heatherb1958]

On 10/22/2018 at 2:32 PM, RealNorwegianCruiser said:

It is our 2nd day on MSC Meraviglia, and that leaves me with a quite good impression of MSC so far.

 

My wife and I got 7-8 cruises with Royal (grand suites incl.) 2 with Celebrity and 1 with NCL under my belt. 

 

In my opionion MSC delivers a equally good product. Yes it is some differences, but all in all a good cruise product.

 

Not «afraid» of our two next upcoming bookings with MSC in February and September next year.

 

Only negative with Meraviglia so far: slightly confusing to navigate around.

 

Will be fun to check out YC in Feb! 🙂

 

We booked Meraviglia yesterday for January as there was a fab deal from the UK including flights and an overnight hotel in Barcelona . 

Thank you for your insight in to what to expect. We have sailed on all Oasis class ships so size is not a worry for us. 

[ready2cruzagain]

39 minutes ago, heatherb1958 said:

 

 

Well guys if you were looking on the American RCI site you wouldn’t see it anywhere no matter how hard you looked, here in the UK we are always having free drinks promotions with RCI UK. 

 

 

 

That is why, they never do that in US that I have seen.  Thanks for answering.

[April42749]

Thanks for the review.  I have a cruise booked for Oct 2019 (NY-Canada) that I'm really not too sure about (itinerary to Canada in Oct could be brrrrr....plus MSC website).

The point of that cruise would be for the ship, and silly as it sounds, the pizza so I'm relying on fair and balanced reviews.

[Happy Cruiser 6143]

On 10/28/2018 at 5:59 PM, RealNorwegianCruiser said:

Then the cruise is over. All in all a good cruise. Some differences from Royal and NCL, but that I am mostly happy for. We dont need 7 cruise companies delivering the exactly the same produckt, do we?

 

A few negatives;

- less CHOICES in the breakfast and lunch buffet than Royal, Celebrity, and NCL.

- Do NOT book a stateroom on deck 14 under the pool deck on Meraviglia. NOISY! You could hear people running, loungers placed out by the crew every morning at 6, LOUD pool parties like the white party.. When I complained about this, I got the impression that the customer service was well aware of this, and gave me a B I G discount on my upcoming cruise in February.

- lack of visible crew during disembarkion/poor imformation. ( our case was maybe especially bad since disembarkion was very late due to really bad weather in Civitavecchia. Chaos.

- Lack of waiters during breakfast. Ordering drinks took forever.... getting them? Even longer.

 

Some positives;

- Value for money. Dont know about cruises in the Caribbean, but the prices on MSC cruises in Europa wins BIG time over Royal, Celebrity and NCL.

- Very good food in the Main Dining Room - and yes u can have several starters, mains and/or desserts. No need to go hungry. In my opinion, equally good as Royal, NCL, and Celebrity.

- Drinks. Better than on Royal and Celebrity. 

- Butchers Cut... oh.. the best filet mignon I ever tasted on sea.

- Best pizza. No discussion!

- Sunny in the Main Dining Room. A waiter that know what he was doing. Good recommendations through the whole cruise.

 

Some neutrals:

- the housekeeping is not there to befriend you, but to do a job. I got real friends, and I am fine with that. Im not trying to be a friend with my accountant, bus driver or my sons kindergarden teatcher either. They are doing their job.

- those noisy foreigners. I belive this is just cultural differences. I feel a ship out of Miami is equally “noisy” as from Genoa. The difference is that many cruisers are used to cruise with others with their own language. It sounds more noisy maybe. But since I am from Norway, if find those “foreigners” equally “noisy” as English speaking cruisers. Equally rude as well.. People push in the buffet everywhere - me too!

 

Im more than ready for my two next bookings with MSC! Royal and/or Celebrity needs to do some REAL effort to get me back..

 

just my two kroner.. from a normal cruiser - not paid or bribed from any cruise company............

 

 

I'm SO with you on the housekeeping staff!  Ours was so busy trying to hug us every 5 minutes she forgot hand towels one night.