great week on the Poesia

[ardt64]

We have been on 4 different cruise lines including MSC Orchestra 2 yrs ago (and had a great time). Of course I got concerned reading so many negative reviews especially since we were bringing our friends with us this time. But I am happy to say that overall we had a great cruise.

 

Childrens Program

Is not good at all from what we saw, if you are going on a cruise and hoping to have the kids in the program from early in the day until late at night this is not the cruise for you. The youngest child in our group is and 11 yo boy. He loved the program on Carnival last year. He was in the kids club for maybe 30 min on this cruise. The first day the program called for a makeup session followed by flower making, not something that little boy wanted to do. He ended up hanging out with my 13 yo and a friend that they made the rest of the cruise and had a great time.

My boys age 13 and 17 say they actually prefer MSC kids program since it is practically non existent and they can do whatever they want. They felt that the RC cruise last year had too many rules. Since it was a holiday cruise there were tons of kids and lots of opportunities to make friends. If my kids were younger and needed more supervision, I don't think I would choose MSC.

 

Food

We found it to be excellent! My friends have been on many other cruise lines and they thought it was certainly better than Carnival and as good if not better than many others. The service in the dining room was very laid back (ie slow). I loved breakfast- they had great smoked salmon.

Rooms

Spacious with lots of storage space. We had the aft balcony cabin and it was amazing. Saw the sunrise, sunset and lunar eclipse. It was warm with no wind. The only draw back was if the wind was wrong at night we would wake up with cigarette butts on the balcony floor, supposedly blowing in from the disco the night before. The cabin service was excellent.

But overall I had no big problem with cigarette smoke, I am very sensitive and was not bothered by it any worse than any other cruise. I just avoided the casino and walked quickly through the lounge just in front of the zebra lounge that we dubbed the "smoking lounge".

 

Staff

 

 

All were friendly and helpful, once again the only problem was the dining room staff was a little slow.

 

O.K. I am running out of steam, so I am just going to post. As you can see we had a great cruise and would certainly take MSC again. If you have any specific questions I can answer them. :):)

[camofwilliamsburg]

Please continue to post here to enlighten so many others about the wonderful experience you had. I try to do it all the time so people can know there are positive experiences. Pls join us and post please.

[desertrose64]

Hello ardt64,

 

We are first time cruisers and are booked next December on the Poesia.

 

We are traveling with a large family....lots of kids. I was sorry to hear about your experience regarding the kids club. I am not too worried about the teenagers but we have two 4 year old girls also with us.

 

We also are booked on the aft deck 8 and I have read many good but also negative reviews concerning smoking.

 

We chose the Poesia over other cruise lines as I don't want to be smelling cigarette smoke while I am on my deck.

 

Any other tips you can give would be greatly appreciated :)

 

Desertrose64

[Sharpe74]

We got off the Poesia after a two week cruise. We did not have a problem with cigarette smoke except in the Casino and smoking areas. We just avoided them.