MSC ORCHESTRA Reviews

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.

This was only our third cruise overall, and there were both pros and cons!

PROS In general the crew were polite and cheerful. a

Although small, with only a few dozen slot machines, the casino had enough variety for us. The waiting staff in the Main Dining Room were very friendly and helpful and most of the food there was very nice but sometimes the portion sizes were small!

CONS The buffet wasn’t very good, particularly the desserts which were bland and tasteless. On embarking the ship, a printed daily schedule was available in Spanish, Italian, French and German but none in English, we were advised we had to go to Guest services to find one. Not many fellow Brits onboard but a fair number of Americans. A lot of the entertainment was firmly aimed at the Italian and Spanish market, not much in the way of English songs and much of the lounge singers or groups were very mellow and low energy.

First time cruiser review.

I am doing this review as there were so many questions I had before cruising that I couldn’t find the answer to. I hope this helps some of you.

Embarkation at Valencia … we drove to Valencia port and used ParkVia. They met us right by the ship and took our car away for underground parking. It was very straightforward at the terminal. All posted well. We checked in and were onboard within about 45 mins. There was a bubbly/nibbles reception which was lovely. We went to find our cabin and we could drop off our hand luggage. By the time we had had lunch at the buffet restaurant and went back to the cabin our luggage was waiting outside for us.

Cabin … we were in Deluxe balcony. The cabin was lovely. Immaculately clean. Plenty of room with a king size bed and a small settee. The bathroom was plenty big enough. Lots of storage space and a safe. 2 chairs and a table on the balcony. We had a lovely cabin steward called Harrison who brought us some ice when we asked. He even asked if we wanted some every day!

Food … we were assigned a dining time of 6.45pm which was a little early for us so we mainly ate in the buffet restaurant.

The one evening we ate in the main restaurant (Villa Borghese) we found the food to be ok. Nothing special or photo worthy but the service was very good. The wine was included whether or not you had a drinks package by the look of it.

The buffet restaurant had a huge choice but depending on what time of day you went depended on the variety and there was no rhyme or reason to this. Sometimes half of it was shut, other times it was all open. Getting a table was sometimes a struggle, you had to walk round a couple of times before you got lucky. Other times it was only half full.

Food choices included everything from a vegan section to a full roast dinner. There was always pasta and pizza and always really good salad bars and fruit sections. Cheese and bread always plentiful. Also always a grill section with burgers, hot dogs, chips etc.

Breakfast had a huge choice from pastries and continental cold cuts/cheese to a full English breakfast. My issue with it was the temperature. It wasn’t hot enough but that didn’t bother my husband. We are all different I guess!

On occasion we took food from the buffet back to our room. No one questioned us about this.

Drinks package … we had the easy drinks package. Cocktails up to a certain price, house wine, spirits etc. All the bars were great, some with live piano music, some with singers/dancers etc. You showed your cruise card when you ordered and the limit was 15 alcoholic drinks per day. I like a drink or two, or three (!) but never went anywhere near the limit. We also took drinks back to our room. We took a flask and poured them into that. Again, no problem with that.

You could either order drinks at the bar or there was table service. We never waited more than a couple of minutes. At certain times of the day they also brought crisps/peanuts/olives with your drink.

Ship generally … I’m not sure what I was expecting as some reviews were saying that she’s a little tired, needs refurbing etc but she was absolutely beautiful. The decor was lovely, different in each area. Absolutely spotlessly clean. You constantly saw staff vacuuming/polishing. Never a queue for the lifts. Definitely something for everyone.

For anyone interested we saw a smoking area on deck 15 which had bars open even though the poor staff were pretty cold out there!

Where we went …

Barcelona. We took the ports shuttle bus into the City. It dropped you off at the bottom of La Rambla. We then walked up the rambla, dipping in and out of the Gothic Quarter on the way. There were Christmas markets everywhere. We passed the Cathedral and when we got to the top of La Rambla at the big square we got a taxi to the Sagrada Familia. Drinks not too expensive overlooking it and another Christmas market. Taxi back to the square and then we walked back to the meeting point for a shuttle bus back to the ship.

Marseille. We didn’t immediately see the ports shuttle bus so took MSC’s shuttle bus. It was €30 and dropped us off a 20 minute walk from the Old Port. Very disappointed! We went to the Cathedral where it dropped us off and then got the hop on/hop off bus. We wanted to go to the highest point (Notre Dame Cathedral) so we could look down over Marseille. It drove past the Cathedral and then stopped for the drop off much lower down. There was no point us getting off as we have mobility issues and could not have climbed back up! We got off at the Old Port and had a lovely wander round there and then walked back to the shuttle bus meeting point. Lots of wasted money that day! The hop on was €23 each.

Genoa. We did the MSC excursion to Portofino. Fantastic day. We went on the coach with a fantastic local guide and had free time at the town of Co….. then we got on a boat to Portofino and had free time there. It’s the most pretty place I think I’ve ever been to. Lunch wasn’t cheap but was worth every penny. We then took the boat to another town and then the coach back to the ship. I would thoroughly recommend this excursion.

Livorno. The ship’s excursion to Pisa was ridiculously expensive so we looked into getting a taxi which was still going to cost a lot. And then I found the app “Get your guide” and we got tickets from Livorno to Pisa for €20 each return. The shuttle bus from the ship drops you off right at the place the coach leaves.

Civitavecchia. We took the ship’s excursion to Rome which included the hop on/hop off bus tickets. Good value at €99 each I think. The problem with Rome is the traffic. We were dropped off at stop 4 and walked to the Colisseum. Then walked lots more (!) and got back on the bus for a couple of stops I think and got off for the Vatican. The tour guide had helped with where to eat so it wasn’t too expensive. After the Vatican we got back on the hop on with the intention of going to the Spanish steps and Trevi fountain. The traffic was horrendous. When we got to the stop for the fountain we had 1.5 hours to go to get back to the coach. We decided against getting off and got back to the meet up point with 10 mins to go! Right decision but we felt that it was a shame we couldn’t have seen more in the 6 hours we were in Rome.

Day at Sea. It was rough