Melody questions

Looking at a possible cruise on the Melody at the end of May. It is an 11-nighter from Civitavecchia. Great itinerary and price for our family of three including a 14-year-old.

We have been to a lot of these ports before but was intrigued by some new ones like Malta, Turkey and Cypress.

What can you all tell me about the Melody? I realize that she is older and smaller but I like the fact that she is able to get to ports where bigger ships cannot. A few years ago, we were on Holland America's Prinsendam and loved that she was a smaller vessel.

Are you allowed to bring wine onboard and pay a corkage fee?

Finally, any recommendations on cabins?

Thank you!

114 views and no comments whatsoever?

114 views and no comments whatsoever?

http://www.cruisecritic.com/memberreviews/memberreview.cfm?EntryID=101032

Looking at a possible cruise on the Melody at the end of May. It is an 11-nighter from Civitavecchia. Great itinerary and price for our family of three including a 14-year-old.

We have been to a lot of these ports before but was intrigued by some new ones like Malta, Turkey and Cypress.

What can you all tell me about the Melody? I realize that she is older and smaller but I like the fact that she is able to get to ports where bigger ships cannot. A few years ago, we were on Holland America's Prinsendam and loved that she was a smaller vessel.

Are you allowed to bring wine onboard and pay a corkage fee?

Finally, any recommendations on cabins?

Thank you!

avoid bahamas deck,below restaurant.can't sleep at night,incredibly noisy.can take drink on board if descreet.

She's small and old but has character.

There is no theatre for the evening shows, they have those in a lounge. Nor is there a spa but you can book a massage. Biggest disappointment for me was there was no fridge in the cabin - only the suites have them.

On the plus side, the staff were attentive and far more friendlier than on the larger ship's in the fleet. This goes a long way to make up for the lack of some facilities. Being smaller, she can get in to ports that the new behemoths can't so tends to have very interesting and unusual itineraries.

See this review: http://www.cruisecritic.com/memberreviews/memberreview.cfm?EntryID=84851

I was on the Melody last year and really did not like it, but I became ill halfway through so that could have effected my judgement. If you look at the cruise reveiws then you will see that it has a very low rating, only 43%.

The food is terrible, really it is. For an Italian company I expected much better, often cold esp in the buffet. The seating area for the buffet gets really crowed and you are not allowed to take your plate to another area of the ship. Whilst it was old it really was not looked after, there was mold in our bath room and the panels in out cabin were coming away from the wall. Plus our bed had a scratchy old blanket instead of a duvet.

There was very little entertain on board ship, the TV's in public area were generally set to German or Italian channels, one time I changed the channel to BBC as no one was watching it, 5 mins later a woman came through turned it onto a German channel and then read her book, I tried to change it back and she started yelling at me. Yes beware of the rude German passangers!

The entertainment, with the exception of the Piano Bar, was awful, really cheesy butlins style games which was very intrusive and took up most of the pool deck. The Piano Bar was great and the musicians top notch. The other shows were bland at best.

Melody is able to go to some great ports because of her size, but check the itinary, we usually got a half day at most ports arriving very early and leaving around lunch time, so if you want a lie in forget it.

I would not recommend this ship whatsoever, nor would I cruise on her again, even if it was free!

I forgot to add, if you do decide to go on the Melody, arrange your own flights. We opted to have MSC book them and were meant to fly out to Genoa and back from Genoa. 2 weeks before we left they changed it (and there was not enough time to arrange our own flights) so we flew out to Nice (in the wrong country!) we had to wait for 2 1/2 hour for people to arrive off another flight, then nearly a 4 hour coach trip to the port. On the way back MSC decide we should fly from Milan so by 9am (after having us crammed in the disused theatre for an hour)they put us on a coach, we arrived at Milan around 12pm, however the flight MSC had booked for us was at 9pm!!! Seriously the dropped a coach full of people off and expected the to wait around for 9 hrs! it was disgusting the way we were treated, but by that point they had all the money they would get from us.

Here is my reveiw if you would like to read it http://www.cruisecritic.co.uk/memberreviews/memberreview.cfm?EntryID=94335

My first MSC cruise was on the Melody and I have to agree with everything mintypixie has said - even down to the bus ride from Nice airport.

MSC would have to pay me to travel on her again. She should really be retired as she is not at all representative of the rest of their fleet.

I am saying this as one who has nothing against older smaller ships having sailed on the MV Discovery and on the Marco Polo.

MSC has a pretty strict "no alcohol to be taken on board" policy and so have no corkage system unlike Cunard where you can take on as much as you like and enjoy your bottle openly in the restaurants for a $20 corkage fee. On MSc it's more a matter of arrivng in the restuarant with your glass of wine which you "got from the bar" if you get my drift.

Do you have at sea days? We barely had anything to do on the splendida, let alone a smaller MSC ship. Take something with you to pass the time...or you'll feel like jumping into the sea just for a little action.