MSC Cruises Reviews

The cruise was fine but it was oversold and understaffed in the yacht club some nights we couldn’t eat till 9 pm , way to many children on board we will never travel in the summer again. The food was fine the variety was limited, the help was wonderful couldn’t do enough for you

Our first inside cabin (Yacht Club) was excellent. The staff in Yacht Club all went above and beyond! I found I didn’t miss my balcony as much as I thought I would. This was my 3rd YC on MSC and second on the Seashore. Food was very good and drinks excellent in the lounge. They do however need to improve their wine selection. They never want to give you a wine list. The pool area and grill are top notch and my favorite place for breakfast. Can’t wait to sail again!

First time with MSC cruises. We had a great time and everyone was so friendly and helpful. We definitely would go on another one. Too short we should have gone a longer one!

Great experience and all 10 in our party thoroughly enjoyed it. We have sailed on 15+ mainstream cruises in the past on NCL, HAL, RC, and Carnival and we enjoyed this way more than HAL (their cruises tend to be boring and for the much older group (aka ‘heavens waiting room’), nicer than Carnival, and similar to NCL and RC. Meals were all great and on par for a mainstream cruise line. We had an Aurea Experience aft wraparound balcony suite and enjoyed the little extra perks like anytime dining and free spa area access (and we’re not typically spa people!). Entertainment was very good and the ship and venues were all very nice with more Italian flair than most other cruise lines. The show holds over 5,600 guests and our cruise had over 4,000 but the ship rarely felt too crowded during the week. Spreading people across 19 decks does a better job than most cruises with only 12-13 decks. Issues or concerns would be with the slow embarkation (3+ hours of waiting) and our cabin was always a bit warmer than we hoped for (but others in our group had the same type of aft wraparound balcony cabin without the same issue). A $10 USB fan from Amazon did a great job to help with this. The cruise also had more international guests than most cruises leaving from the US. Typical Cruises from the US are about as diverse as a trip to Omaha, NE with 85%+ being US citizens. On this cruise, that number was likely closer to 55%. No issues for us, but if you’re not use to hearing 3 different languages being spoken in the elevator at once, it’s a different experience. The main initial reason for booking this cruise over a NCL that also left from Miami on a comparable ship was value. Getting 3 nice suites is never cheap, but NCL’s ‘free’ offer doesn’t turn out to be a good value when you want the drink package and their cabin prices have gone way up. The gratuity on NCL was over $1,600 for 10 passengers for something ‘free’ whereas MSC had the free drink and WiFi package which was….free. Gratuity was built into the package and no additional charges. So comparing 3 NCL mini suites with drinks was $21k vs 3 MSC Aurea Experience suites (1 step down from Yacht Club top suites) was $15k. In no way did we ever feel like anything was missing from our experience to pay 40% more. I will definitely consider MSC again.

The cruise was wonderful, and the staff was amazing. We’ll book with them again. The very odd snag we hit though was when we were charged an unexpected service fee mid-way through the trip. That should be included in the payments for the trip if the company takes it directly rather than leaving it at the discretion of the clients. I left cash as anticipated, but was really not expecting to be charged $400 while on board. Please look into including the service fees into the upfront costs in the future to prevent issues.

MSC is very different than that traditional cruise lines (Royal Caribbean, Carnival, etc). That isn't to say it is bad, though. Customer service was the best we have EVER had at sea (although having a boat only 1/3 of capacity probably helped with that), the ship (Divina) was beautiful, embarkation/debarkation was the smoothest we have ever had (again, maybe the small numbers) and the private island at Ocean Cay is absolute paradise. On the flip side, their card system for purchasing on the boat needs work, there was no free ice cream (always a treat at sea), food was just ok (comparable to Carnival) and the shows were meh and all seemed about the same. Would we go again? Absolutely....if the price was right. I wouldn't put it on par with RCCL but it is a classier version than Carnival.

European cuisine was a set back. Most buffets were repeated daily. Excellent show itenary

The bed was hard and the food was average. Very disappointed with dinner menu and service. The dinner took FOREVER. Customer service was good, however, when we called room service two nights in a row for extra towels and pillows, they never came.. both times. Probably wouldn’t cruise with MSC again.

Our ship was beautiful. Food great. Wonderful dance lessons. And Jamie was an amazing agent.

This was the very best cruise we have ever been on. The staff was extremely friendly. The food was great. Looking forward to the next cruise.

Not great for my first cruise. Although we met a few different wonderful staff members, the overall service was not great. The time it took to get a drink was far too long, there was always a wait. On top of that, the night that we had our dinner plans we asked to have our time changed from 930 to earlier because we had small children and they could not accommodate that. Although we were understanding, we had to wait over an hour to get our food in which we ended up leaving early and not even eating because of it taking so long. I wish I could say it was an amazing experience, we did absolutely love the private island but it just wasn’t top-notch like we were hoping.

i was treated like a baby service was beyond of what you can expect, had a very good time

Excellent attentive service

Top notch crew, stunning ship and great food. Booked a future cruise with them.

The yacht club was wonderful the staff was great a simply amazing ship and impeccable service