27-Day Mediterranean and Southern Europe Cruise aboard MSC MERAVIGLIA

Our family of 8 recently took a cruise onboard the MSC Meraviglia from Naples for a 7-day cruise. Our overall experience was less than we had expected from this cruise line.

From our initial check-in at Naples the staff were the rudest people we have ever encountered. My guess is that they are 3rd party vendors who had zero customer service experience and should not be at the jobs of welcoming people on board.

The cruise ship itself was nice with a relatively modern ship but their configuration of restaurants were extremely limited. They have one buffet for the entire ship which holds over 5,000 passengers. It was absolute chaos trying to get a meal with various stations serving a variety of food but it was the same food every single day of our trip. Our dinners were classified as “complimentary” dinner (they have a number of different restaurants onboard but all of them were $$$ extra). During dinner, the waiter said we had to pay for water service which is the most basic of necessities for a meal. After complaining about the water, they eventually gave us water at the table but had charged us for our first night at dinner.

They have no Live TV stations and if you wanted to watch a movie it was €10. They charge for absolutely everything and their prices for things like excursions are outrageous for what you get.

They know they have a captive audience (especially the days at sea). Everything was overpriced and not worth the money. They did have free shows at night which were (for the most part) quite good.

The one thing that stood out were the staff. From our housekeeping to our waiters, the staff were amazing. Always very polite and helpful with anything that you needed or wanted.

We felt completely ripped off at the end of the cruise and would not choose MSC Cruises again. It was similar to taking a low end Carnival Cruise with tons of kids running around (even in the Adult Only sections).

Just reading some other reviews and would have to agree that it was just not worth it. We selected the cruise as we wanted a round trip from Marseille to fit in with our other magnificent Europe travels and wanted to end with a cruise, so MSC it was.

We started by getting a drinks package, which we were not going to do, but was hit with a deal as soon as we opened the app after boarding and getting online. It was US$42 per day and had to find a bar person as there was no other way to purchase, once we found someone, all of a sudden (due to the change to Euro pending the next day.. it was now 47 Euro per day. When asked to make sense of that we were actually laughed at by the Bar Manager (one of the ships executive), but didn't make sense of it. Saying that, it was the only executive officer we saw or interacted with... been on other cruises and they are happy to be amongst it... we generally exercise daily but the facilities were very underwhelming and often used by a handful of bored teenagers. A ship this size really did not have much to offer. The activities list was a bit drab, no life next to the pool and limited sized venues for shows, which were booked out quick. Specialty restaurants did not have inviting menus and were quite often empty. So complimentary menus seemed to be the go. Food was OK. Waiters were rushed and rushed us. Positive points were embarkation, mainly cos we wheeled our own bags on and off. The room was great, we had a large porthole room. Bar staff were good, but probably waited ages, 30% of the time (so still positive)