8-Day Cruise to the Adriatic Sea and Aegean Sea on MSC ORCHESTRA

Our family had a great experience during the Mediterranean cruise on MSC Orchestra from August 20th-27th. Fantastic entertainment, food, and staff, especially Rafael, and Arista at the l'Incontro bar on deck 5, and of course the charismatic cruise director, Alberto Sebastian! The kids club staff did an amazing job intertwining our 7-year-old while we explored the stops: thank you Natalia and Henry!! Although our experience wasn't completely perfect, as our luggage was damaged during delivery to cabin after embarkation; as well as we missed an excursion that we booked with the local Italian company due to late disembarkation in Genoa, overall MSC staff did a great job: thank you for your professionalism, dedication, and friendliness to everyone, and for always smiling. We found the food at the buffet very good, however, we found that they were opening for dinner a little late-at 6:30 or 7, which often overlapped with the first show timing..We are sorry that we were unable to properly say goodbye to Rafael at the bar on deck 5 he really took his best effort to care for all the guests at the bar!

If I compare this cruise with our earlier on RCCL, Costa, Oceania, Holland America, Oceania and NCL, we experienced better service on MSC, compared to most of the others. Food was si and so. But you could send out food you did not like. We had not drink packages, and though we drink a lot, this became cheaper in the end. Expensive port transfers. Balcony cabin was as expected. Noise from moving furnitures early morning. The drawers were hard to open. (Old surplus from IKEA?) I hope they were out on their last season. All sunbeds near the pools, of course, reserved early morning. But it was mostly towels who saw the sun. Surprisingly good and short shows. The only important thing I did not like with MSC was that they kept 600€ of our money for about 12 days after the cruise. No other ship have kept our money more than 2 days. Normally zero days. Therefore my rating 2 instead of 4.

We had very low expectations for our first cruise (a gift) and it still was so much worse. We will never Cruise again and can't recommend if for anyone.

Msc orcestra specific:

The crowd is everywhere, there is just to many people for the small space.

The Noice from music, crowd, ship and the constant announcements will get on you nervs the first few hours. There is no where to escape it.

The smell of the ship will make it hard to breathe. Every level will have a new smell of feces, from human, cow, pig to cat. In some places i guess they tried to clean it or hide it with perfume so strong it will water your eyes.

Don't go outside, as the tobacco smoke will hit you there. It will also enter your cabin from the balcony or the ventilation system.

Cabins, we had 3, are dirty with stains and scratches everywhere. The towels and bedding is stained, even after asking for new there are stains on them. Sofas, chairs and other places are the same, a table was missing a leg.

Food was mostly cold and tasteless. The ice-cream was good. Drinks taste to sweet and the alcohol like its going to make you blind.

They constantly take pictures of you to sell.

The prices for transport they sell are usually overpriced with 40-80eur compared to getting it you self on land.

There is nothing fun to do, regardless of age. The pools are over crowded and most other things are broken or missing space or parts.

We did not see any shows as we tried to escape the loudness.

Cruising over all:

Why?

You almost never have the time to see or experience anything genuine in the port you arrive to.

The ports are far from towns or centre.

To many people wants to go on shore at the same time so you will stand in ques alot.

The workers are extremely underpaid and work 8 months mostly stuck on the ship.

The waste it produces is staggering.

Had it not cost us alot of money to fly home from Ibiza we would have left then and there. (Flight home the same day or after was almost 2x the cruise cost that day.)

Don't go.