I wanted to share our experience here in case it helps anyone else when considering MSC.
We just returned home from a 4 night sailing on the Meraviglia. A little background on us, we are experienced cruisers with 15 sailings(most 7-8 days) under our belt before we boarded this ship. We know what to expect from cruising. This was our first MSC. We booked with wifi and drinks included in our fare.
Embarkation was smooth. Our rental car company provided us a free shuttle to the cruise terminal. Our assigned embarkation time was 2-2:30pm, but we arrived around 12:30. There was hardly any lines and no one checked to see what our assigned time was. We checked in and were on board by about 1pm or so. First thoughts were the ship was very nice, modern, and clean.
We decided to try our luck with a room upgrade. We stood in guest services line for about 30 mins. We requested an upgrade and the staff said the manager was away so they could not assign us any upgrade at this time and told us to try again later. We called guest services from our room about 2 hours later and to our surprise, we were offered a complimentary balcony upgrade on deck 13 from our interior room on deck 5. We gladly accepted and went back to the desk for our new cards. The staterooms were fine, not much different than any other cruise i've been on. Our balcony was an "obstructed view" but still a very nice upgrade from our interior. This was the most positive experience of the whole cruise.
We did not like our 9pm dinner time and we were unable to change to the early seating after asking the staff. Overall the dining experience was fine and food was pretty good. We ate the dining room every night and were able to find something both of us could eat. It was frustrating that we were told we could not order drinks other than wine and soda while dining. Our waiter told us they don't offer full bar service in the dining room which is unlike any cruise I can remember.
The buffet was just okay and nothing more. The options are very limited and even though the buffet area is large, the food repeats over and over again around the buffet area. This is an area that definitely needs improvement.
The most disappointing part would probably have to be the bar service. We had the "easy-plus package". I have never seen a more disorganized bar staff. No two drinks ever really tasted the same unless you got the same bartender. Bartenders would ignore you and avoid eye contact. They had no idea who was next in line and many people were frustrated about it. I waited up to 20 minutes for a drink at times and other people had walked up and got served in the meantime. The number one complaint from anyone on the trip I spoke to was about the bar services. We are not heavy drinkers but while on vacation, we do enjoy having a few cocktails and we were really not able to do so.
Im going to start a second part so this isnt too long.