Armonia July 29 Sailing Review

[mlbdude]

This will be a review of the MSC Armonia from the July 29 sailing.  It will focus on the ship itself and not the ports. For reference we have sailed on the Divina and SeaSide on MSC; Magic, Breeze and Liberty on Carnival; and on the Regal with Princess.  We sailed with the Easy drink plan.

 

Summary

This is a great small ship with the classic MSC elegance and flavor.  It is older so don’t expect it to match the newer ships but for the price it did not disappoint.  We had a great cruise, BUT there are a couple items that would make me pause booking the Armonia again.

 

Ship

The ship is laid out with decks 5 and 6 containing all the inside bars, lounges, and MDR restaurants.  The theater is at the front of the ship and requires reservations via the plentiful kiosks to guarantee a seat.  There is a casino on deck 6 and is either non-smoking or has a small smoking section. I never smelled anything walking through it.  There is a great coffee bar on the same floor. The Easy package covered most of the menu and we indulged frequently. The 5th floor had most of the shopping, customer services, and a pub with did smell of smoke.  We avoided due to this however MSC did a great job containing it. We noticed an abundance of servers taking our drink orders within the ship. Much more than we experienced on other MSC ships.

 

The 11th floor was the pool deck, kids splash pad, buffet, and gelato stand.  The pool deck was packed completely on sea days. Nowhere to sit in the shade.  We also witnessed several groups with their own music and speakers, first time we have seen that on MSC.  We easily avoided. Gelato was the same 3 flavors all week, but was very good and included.

 

The buffet, oh boy.  Food and selection was fine.  Seating? Nowhere near enough.  There is an outside seating section by the grill and pizza that MSC desperately needs to enclose and make part of the inside seating.  Was too hot to use and sat mostly empty. It has sections setup to block the wind, something that probably worked out great in the Mediterranean, but does not work in the Caribbean.  Food itself was good, with rarely a line for and of the food itself. Pizza was MSC Neapolitan and very good. We ate as much as possible in the MDR due to lack of seating at the buffet.

 

MDR and Food

We had a Fantastica suite and that gets you My Choice dining in the smaller restaurant.  We also traveled with another couple that had a regular inside stateroom. The Maitre D was gracious enough to uplift them to My Choice so we could dine together.

 

The food was good to above average for what we have experienced.  Only a couple dishes were not to our taste. Service was fantastic.  Cannot stress that enough. Good job MSC.

 

We ate in the MDR every breakfast and dinner and on 4 days for lunch.

 

Stateroom

As mentioned we stayed in a suite, room 1117.  The room was closer to a balcony room we have had on other ships but was on the large side and had a tub and shower and a walk in closet.  Major disappointment, the room was hot and muggy. A couple calls to reception had them look at it with no resolution. They gave us some OBC as compensation but honestly it was close to unbearable.  Sleeping was hard, and we had a fan. We noticed the whole hallway of our “section” was hot. I think they have an issue that will take a dry dock to fix.

 

It’s a shame the AC was not great, otherwise the room was.  Room cleaning was also fantastic.

 

Verdict

We had a great cruise.  For the right price I would sail her again, however, probably would go budget and just get an inside room to avoid AC issues.  If you want a good budget cruise with that classic MSC flair I would easily recommend.

Edited August 5, 2019 by mlbdude
Spelling

[CTurtlelvr]

Same cruise for us, but on the 7th floor. Same issues with A/C, we had a little fan, but purchased a large one on Roatan. Had technician in 4-times, never was cooler than 82-degrees F, according to my watch. We tried to stay in the cooler areas as much as possible. I agree, MDR was necessary to stay cool and get an available seat. Also loved Caffe San Marco, and had either almond milk or soy milk lattes on everyday, but one when they were out of non dairy. Wish gelato flavors had changed, but it was still very good, and we also loved the pizza. 

[Essiesmom]

What were the gelato flavors?  EM

[Beamafar]

We were in Fantastica suite, cabin # 1131 ... the cabin was really cold when we embarked and didn't warm up when upping the thermostat.  We contacted Guest Services and, that evening, it was sorted.  Sorry to hear that your situation wasn't.

[keywest1]

Thank you for the honest review!  We are sailing MSC for the first time next July on the Armonia.  Now I don't feel so bad about booking inside cabins for all of us 🙂

[mlbdude]

Gelato was raspberry, pistachio, vanilla with chocolate chip.

Edited August 6, 2019 by mlbdude

[Essiesmom]

Okay, two out of three isn't bad.  Stracchiatella (chocolate ship) is my favorite, and I can handle raspberry.  EM

[scottamemnon]

We had no issues with the AC up in our Aurea Suite 1219.  Funny how cabins so close by had issues(deck 11) and we did not.  Only issue we had with our cabin was our hair dryer catching fire at one point!  At least they replaced it with one of the professional ones from the Spa.

 

I barely walked into the buffet, partially because of the seating issue, but also because of the absolute chaos that certain guests made it.  Its like none of them understood the point of a line.  Elevators were not much better.  We found that only about 1/3 of the elevators that could go to deck 12, would actually go there... on the others pressing the 12 button did nothing.

 

While we had a good time, I personally would not go on the Armonia again, its just too small.  I thought I was prepared with prior cruises on the NCL Spirit and Star, but those small ships felt much bigger than they were.

 

We did not send our daughter to the kids club.  The one time we tried, there were so many kids in there, compared to the staff numbers that I did not feel like it was safe.  Didn't bother trying again after that.  Our daughter was fine without it though since it was her first cruise.

 

If I were to try MSC again, I think it would be on the Meraviglia or Seaside class(or World class when done).

[spearnreel]

Great review. You mentioned gelato was included? As in free for all without any drink pack? We've sailed Davina and always either needed a drink pack/ vouchers or could purchase. Thanks

 

[Beamafar]

Gelato is free for everyone on Armonia - but flavours are limited (on our sailing in January, they changed daily).

[spearnreel]

15 hours ago, Beamafar said:

Gelato is free for everyone on Armonia - but flavours are limited (on our sailing in January, they changed daily).

This is super surpising and very welcomed news for us. Not drinkers of any sort so don't have any drink pack. 

[OceansOfTravels]

Thank you so much for your review! I cruised June 17-24 so I was interested in hearing what you had to say about it. I had an inside room on Deck 8 midship and I cannot say anything in regards to the temperature - it was always how we liked it. Never too cold, never too hot, and if we wanted it another way, we changed it and it was momentarily fixed. I'm sorry you had that experience, because it seems like it would've otherwise been a perfect cruise.

 

But you're right, for the price, the cruise is sosososo right. I hope when they go to redo schedules, they don't pull the ship from Miami ... I hope they can put it on an alternating 5 and 9 night schedule or 4 and 10 night schedule for the winter. A 9 night cruise to Ocean Cay, Tortola, St.Maarten, Antigua and Martinique followed by a 5 night to Grand Cayman and Ocho Rios would be so nice. However, I wouldn't be surprised if they end up sending it back to doing a 7 night rotation with embarkations in Havana and Montego Bay for the European clientele. Oh well.

[Beamafar]

3 hours ago, OceansOfTravels said:

I wouldn't be surprised if they end up sending it back to doing a 7 night rotation with embarkations in Havana and Montego Bay for the European clientele. Oh well.

 

I don't think that's likely, OOT ...  MSC has already pulled Opera from Cuba (pressure applied, perhaps?)

[NCTribeFan]

I sailed Armonia in May to Cuba and really liked the ship.  My first MSC was in December on Divina and while a beautiful ship, I prefer them smaller.

 

Had a message from my TA on Friday that she had some special fares for September only and I managed to convince the partners that they could manage without me for a week if I put in some extra hours before then.  I would've preferred the "alternate" itinerary because I ended up booking 9/16, which is basically the same itinerary as we had in May except instead of 1-1/2 days in Havana, we get a day in Costa Maya with an additional sea day.

 

Anyway, there was NO SOLO SUPPLEMENT so I jumped on it!  Staying in a Fantastica OV on 8.  Was in a Fantastica IS on 9 last time.

 

I personally enjoyed not having to creep along in a buffet line when the only things I wanted were at the end.  Why not just grab what you want and go instead of having to wait for the people who think they need something of everything offered?  I take the stairs so no worries for me as to elevator etiquette. 

 

It will be interesting to see what I think of this sailing as a solo.  I've done many solo cruises but wonder if I'll end up being seated at a table with non-English speakers.

 

On our sailing, the only gelato flavors I saw were Chocolate, Strawberry and Vanilla but I only had it a couple of days.

[SlickLittleGirl]

Double post.  Sorry!

 

Edited August 27, 2019 by SlickLittleGirl
Double post

[SlickLittleGirl]

We were on this cruise as well.  It was our first time sailing with MSC (having sailed RCCL in the past) and all I have to say is one and done with this company. 

 

Taking the entire Cuba issue out of the picture, here are my thoughts:

 

I felt that the disembarkation in Grand Cayman was an absolute disaster.  We sat and waited for over an hour and a half to disembark after arriving to port 15 minutes late.  By the time we got off the ship, we had 4 hours in port.  A majority of the shops in GC were shut down on Saturday.  Swatch, Diamonds International, Margaritaville, duty free, a couple of the high end jewelry shops that the cruise ship touted were all that was offered. It was disappointing as I had hoped we could do the beach for part of the day and then shopping for the rest.  Had we known the majority of the shops would be closed, we would have headed for the beach instead.  I figured that the area would be busy with vacationers staying on the island but it wasn't.    

 

The pool and jacuzzis closed at 9 pm and I did not understand that.  They also had the reclining deck chairs put away by 9pm as well.  Speaking of … the reclining deck chairs were not adjustable.  You could not raise or lower them and that was a turn off to me, personally.  Everyone was trying to come up with ways to make them more upright or to lower them flat to no avail. 

 

The days at sea could have had more things to do for the adults aside from pool games and bingo.  It would've been nice to do a wine tasting, or a chef cooking presentation, or a lecture on something like the history or culture of the islands. I don't know … there just wasn't much to do besides the shopping talk. 

The auditiorium where they had the nightly shows, was always cram packed.  Even when we'd show up early, there were so many people already there and seating was so limited.  We ended up not seeing a few shows because of that.  

 

The dining room left a lot to be desired and we decided not to go back after day 2.  We felt the food was better at the buffet as did two other couples who we had dined with and spotted at the buffet.  

 

All in all, the ports were great 

Edited August 27, 2019 by SlickLittleGirl
more info

[sfaaa]

Was your delay in GC weather related? Tendering can be tricky and a time consuming affair if the sea condition is not ideal. 

Edited August 27, 2019 by sfaaa

[SlickLittleGirl]

7 minutes ago, sfaaa said:

Was your delay in GC weather related? Tendering can be tricky and a time consuming affair if the sea condition is not ideal. 

 

Weather was fine the whole time.  Some rain in the morning that we arrived in Honduras but other than that, it was "smooth sailing".  They never stated that the delay was weather related, just that they were late in general.  I don't mind being 15 minutes.  That wasn't the main issue.  The issue was that this was not a port that you could walk off of and the wait for tenders was nuts.  They disembarked all the tour groups first, which is understandable as they are on a stricter time table.     

 

I do want to add that, for GC, we had to wait in line at 11:45 to get tender passes which gave us our position to disembark.  Then we had to all drag down to the 5th floor to disembark and everyone was gathered around the various clubs on that level.  It was very stuffy and nobody was happy.  They were very slow to call the tender boarding ticket letters.  I truly felt bad for the people who had the later end of the alphabet.  It had to have taken them a solid +2 hours to disembark.  I swear, I was waiting for people to mutiny!

[SlickLittleGirl]

On ‎8‎/‎6‎/‎2019 at 2:11 PM, scottamemnon said:

I barely walked into the buffet, partially because of the seating issue, but also because of the absolute chaos that certain guests made it.  Its like none of them understood the point of a line.  

 

 

 

That is the truth!  I was amazed at the amount of rudeness we saw on the ship.  At teh buffet, I had so many people stick their arms in front of me or just push their way in front of me to get food.  It was rather obnoxious. A family tried that at the Gelato stand.  He took his kids up to the front pretending to look at the Gelato then the second the Gelato server handed over a cone, he just started ordering all these cones.  We all looked at each other and could not believe the Gelato server just stood there and served him.

 

 We had an issue at the theatre as well.  We sat in the back of the theatre and there was an aisle separating our last row from the row in front of us.  All of these people came into the show late and they all stood in front of us, blocking the view of the entire row.  Everyone asked them to move or sit down and they all refused and stood there.  There were staff members watching the whole thing but did nothing to help even when asked. They should have either closed the door after the show filled or told those people to find a seat or leave.  We ended up leaving because we couldn't see.  Sad.    

 

And one night, we ordered the cocktail of the day which was supposed to be $7.50.  The bartender gave us the receipt and charged us full price for the drink.  We called it to his attention and he said he'd have to call the manager to find out.  Oddly, we went after the show where they had just announced the drink special and the price.  How do you not have that written down for employees or inform them of that?!  Ugh!!

 

 

[NCTribeFan]

Again, what people from one culture consider to be rude isn't an issue for people from another culture.  "Manners" are not universal, despite what many think.

 

As for tender ports, it may be sunny and calm but that doesn't mean the port call won't be delayed or even missed.  Currents can make it unsafe.  It's not MSC's fault that shops close early!

 

Never had a problem getting a seat for the shows and didn't arrive especially early.  Our ship was full, since we were one of the sailings to Cuba just a week before they were suspended.   Yes, the buffet area is crowded.  We usually just took our food out and sat in the bar area.

 

No problem with reclining deck chairs.  I don't spend much time at the pool, certainly not at night, but there were activities on the pool deck in the evenings so maybe that's why the chairs were put away (so people could dance).

 

I've sailed >30 times and rarely have there been presentations onboard for the ports.  Hawaii on HAL was an exception.  Haven't had this even on Med sailings.  The CD on Armonia did give a good presentation on Cuba.  One can always Google and find plenty of info about the ports you'll be visiting.  I don't want to spend my valuable vacation time sitting and listening to someone talk about something that I can research myself.  But that's me.  I'm a planner and research the ports, the ship, the cruiseline, read reviews, etc. before I sail.

 

So, things that bother some folks don't bother others.  What's important to some isn't important to others.  People on the same sailing can have vastly different impressions depending on the choices they make on board, their expectations, their preparation, etc.

 

I'm looking foward to sailing Armonia again in a couple of weeks!  If my experience is drastically different from what I had in May, I'll post about it.

[SlickLittleGirl]

First off, I stated that I didn't care that we were 15 mins late to port.  I stayed that the issue was with getting us off the ship. I have never had such a long wait nor had to deal with the process that we dealt with on a cruise. 

 

Second, the shops didn’t close early.  As I stated , the majority weren’t open at all.  We were told that cruise ships don’t arrive to GC on Saturdays and only a few shops chose to open.  It was a replacement for Cuba and it showed.  It was disappointing as I have heard and read that GC had excellent shopping. 

 

Finally, the point about having a presentation on culture (or any other topic for that matter or even any other activity besides dance lessons) was more about offering passengers things to do besides sitting poolside or taking dance lessons on an at-sea day.  Do something for your guests that might interest them ... wine tasting, anything. 

 

Have a great upcoming trip.  I hope your experience is better than mine.  As for me, never again with MSC. 

Edited August 28, 2019 by SlickLittleGirl

[dexddd]

20 hours ago, SlickLittleGirl said:

First off, I stated that I didn't care that we were 15 mins late to port.  I stayed that the issue was with getting us off the ship. I have never had such a long wait nor had to deal with the process that we dealt with on a cruise. 

 

Second, the shops didn’t close early.  As I stated , the majority weren’t open at all.  We were told that cruise ships don’t arrive to GC on Saturdays and only a few shops chose to open.  It was a replacement for Cuba and it showed.  It was disappointing as I have heard and read that GC had excellent shopping. 

 

Finally, the point about having a presentation on culture (or any other topic for that matter or even any other activity besides dance lessons) was more about offering passengers things to do besides sitting poolside or taking dance lessons on an at-sea day.  Do something for your guests that might interest them ... wine tasting, anything. 

 

Have a great upcoming trip.  I hope your experience is better than mine.  As for me, never again with MSC. 

Welcome to CC.

[Captain-John]

Thanks for your review. The hot cabin would be an absolute deal breaker for me - as far as to ruin the trip. I cannot abide any hotel or other setting where you can't adjust your room to a comfortable (for you) temperature. It's a basic need and amenity - like running water. I get really irritable when it's too hot indoors!

 

Glad overall you had a good trip.

 

[Mattnvick]

On 8/5/2019 at 7:20 PM, mlbdude said:

We also witnessed several groups with their own music and speakers, first time we have seen that on MSC. 

 

Nice review . Thank you. The above i highlighted as we came across it for the first time on Seaside.

 

While im all for people enjoying themselves i think MSC needs to stamp on this bringing their own speakers and music.

 

 The group on Seaside had it so loud i actually thought it was coming from the ships speakers.  

 

Personlly i think it may lead to issues. What one person enjoys others may not and i dont think you should have to move away to a different area which some people may say is the answer. Everyone has a right to enjoy their cruise.

[SandyFromMiami]

Thank you for the great information!

Were there any theme nights? how many formal nights?