8-Day Cruise To Adriatic Sea And Mediterranean On MSC ARMONIA

I took an Adriatic Cruise with MSC Armonia from 1-8 Aug 26. In general, I thought the ship and food were very good, but the customer service of the employees on the ship was extraordinary! They were helpful, engaging, happy (always smiling!), and even remembered my name. I upgraded to the Aurea suite and my cabin steward was Amiroucine (we called him Din). Fabulous attendant at our beck and call for 7 days, worked around our schedules, provided everything we needed, always there to help—kudos to such great service! Our waiter was Jonald and we had 2 assistant waiters (Fahmi & Karnish) and they were awesome as well, refilling wine, bring more amazing bread, quickly serving dinner, excellent food and service!

Overall, the ship was moderate size (~2500 guests), very clean, with an overabundance of personnel to help. The best food on the ship by far was the PIZZA!!! I tipped the regular pizza maker for the thankless job he does every day (failed to get his name though). Customer service center, tours desk, bars, restaurants, all clean and well serviced. I had a reaction to oil used during a massage that landed me in the Medical Center onboard and even they did a fabulous job. I need to call out some folks though for fantastic service: Bartender Lindokuhle for the best Bloody Mary I’ve had in a long time! Dining hostess Ana for remembering my name and always seating us quickly; Bar waitresses Nathifa & Patricia (from Brazil) for smiles and great service; Dance instructor Monier for keeping us moving; Café San Marco server Allan for attentive service with a smile; White Lion bartender Wesley for great drinks; and last but not least Effy employees Ana Clara and Manuel for helping me choose 2 diamond rings to remember my trip! I wish I could call out everyone, but one thing I did do was tip and tip and tip! So many on board, all great service. This was my first cruise in 12 years and my first in Europe, I will most definitely take an MSC cruise again! Kudos to everyone and highly recommend both the MSC cruise line and the ship!

Took an MSC tour at the Dubrovnik port: Dubrovnik caves & snorkeling adventure by boat. I was disappointed to see it was a little rubberized zodiac as our boat for the day, but Damien, our captain for the day, was a great companion and full of information. He provided historical and relevant info about every location we drove past/stopped at and assisted onboarding and disembarking. I could not jump off the boat and get back on due to a healing broken arm (disappointing), so I spent time on the boat talking about Dubrovnik and Croatia in general with Damien, great company. 10 stars for Damien, 4 stars for the boat since 2 things should really be told to folks before you book: 1) you must climb up a very rickety ladder at the back of the boat to get back onboard, and 2) there are no bathrooms available anywhere for the first 3 hours of the tour.

The food was bad enough that I feel obligated to warn others before they see the price and think the savings are worth it. The ports themselves are beautiful and absolutely worth visiting, but we found ourselves loading up on food ashore before returning to what MSC called a buffet and dining experience. Calling it disappointing would be generous.

The wait staff for paid items (coffee and alcohol) were genuinely pleasant. As for dinner service, don’t expect anything personalized, but don’t worry, you probably won’t be looking forward to dinner by day two anyway.

We booked a balcony room, yet still found ourselves shuffling around a space that felt cramped and dated. Oh, and conditioner isn’t included. My condolences if you have long hair. Boarding didn’t inspire much confidence either: a thrown-together welcome, forgotten room keys, and a rotating collection of mysterious smells throughout the common areas. We happened to be sailing over the Fourth of July, and the entertainment staff did a genuinely sweet job celebrating it for the American guests. It’s unfortunate that thoughtful moments like that are overshadowed by so many avoidable issues throughout the rest of the cruise.

One critique for the Venice port process, and some free advice for MSC. After taking many cruises, I’ve always found it incredibly clear how to get back to the ship. Here, we were dropped off and left to figure it out ourselves. (Dropped by a bus we weren’t told to load at port of Venice but no one said wether bus or shuttle would take us back/ if we needed to taxi) A simple map or one-page guide explaining how to get between the port and the city would have made all the difference. Ironically, I could generate one with AI in about 30 seconds, yet we were left relying on kind—but equally confused—Italian port staff who weren’t even affiliated with the cruise line.

All in all, spend the extra hundred dollars and book with a trusted cruise line like Holland America or Norwegian. The lower price wasn’t worth the tradeoff. This was my first experience with MSC, it will also be my last.

Let me begin by saying that overal we had a great time on this cruise despite the fact that Armonia is an old ship and the service is not great.

We saild second half of October starting from Athens Piraeus. Embarcation was quick and easy. Ship was in a great condition, very clean and everything is working fine. It was overcrowded (typical MSC cruise).

First sea day we had rough seas and the small and old Armonia was rocking a lot. That didn't stop us from having a good time since the capten did his best to avoid bad weather and soon enough we were cruising in sunny clear sky. Depite the ship being packed with 2600 passengers we always manage to find sun loungers and a free table at the buffet.

The second sea day (Bridisi --> Mykonos) was even better, with a lot of sun, good temperature and calm sea, eveone enjoed a great day with parties, activities and swimming in the pools!

The theater shows in the evening were very nice especially the Club Deco (it was the best!).

The itinerary itself was a little weird, the port stops in Split - Venice - Brindisi were very short, we managed to see a lot in each city but in my opinion more time was needed, after all we are on a cruise we don't want to rush between museums and attraction to get back on time.

With that said Mykonos was the highlight of our cruise.

The weather was perfect 24 oC shiny and a full day to spent in one o the most beautiful Greek islands we had the best time ever!

Finally i'll points out some of my complaints in this cruise.

Regarding the food:

The buffet was ok but very limited in variety compared to other msc ships (even compared to Costa Cruises). Breakfast in the sitting restaurant was a disappointment all of the 3 times we tried (slow and chaotic service, awful cooked dishies and limmited variety even compared to the buffet resetaurant).

The main dinning restaurant (Marko Polo):

We went there for our dinner every evening and even though the service was not good (with slow and wrong orders) we had a nice time since the food was great.

Every day you hear constantly anouncments in 5-6 deferent languages, we love MSC but this is ridiculous, there is just no point!

The worst thing that "almost" ruin our vacations was the following incident:

On the Venice day we had back to the ship around 14:30 after a long intence and tiring visit since we wanted to see as much as possible. We whent straight to the buffet to grab something to eat only to find out that the buffet along with the pizza and burger station were "closing", litterary the servers were grabing the plates and puting them away in front of us during the serving process, with no excuse or explanation. Withing 5 minutes the hole place was shut down even though the working hours in the daily program were clearly until 16:00 and it was only 15:00. The reason was thet the safty drill for all new guests embarking from Venice (1.700 new guests as they informed us) was tainkin place in that time and everything supposed to stop. Resulting for my wife and our 5 year child to stay hungry for over 1 hour like idiots with emply plates and me with one slice of Pizza and one plate of spaghetti that i manage to take befote every thing shut down in front of my eyes. It is unacceptable to limit access and services to already sailing guests due to safety drill. We and many other guests made our program to get back in time for the buffet and closing it withour a prior warning it's just ridiculous (typical MSC).

Overall we didn't let those bad experiences ruin our vacation and we enjoed our cruise to the max. We'll sure be sailing with them again.