10/13 MSC Meraviglia total disaster

[Stockjock]

As someone who has been called a "whiner" as much as almost anyone here (MsDivina may have me beat), probably due to my MSC Comedy of Errors thread, I'll address that.

There's nothing wrong with sharing negative experiences.  For one thing, it's cathartic and also one wants to let folks know what to possibly anticipate so they can set their expectations accordingly.  Of course, I try to also let people know when things go right.  I wrote a mostly favorable review of my recent cruise on Grandiosa, which should be approved shortly.

With respect to the OP, I don't recommend posting with the sole intent of harming MSC's business. It's your call of course, but I would position it in more of an educational way.  While I have criticized some of my past experiences with MSC, I continue to sail with them and do recommend that folks try MSC.

Let me also suggest that you contact MSC Customer Service to inform them of your experience.  I often do this and have received no reply at times, a discount on a future cruise a couple of times, and a "blow off" reply yet other times.  But I think that MSC should want to know when they've dropped the ball in order to make it right and/or improve upon the situation in the future.  

As an example, while my recent sailing on Grandiosa was pretty solid, they blasted techno to an *empty* aft deck 14 at 2 in the morning.  Pitch black, no one there.  Just huge speakers blasting techno/disco.  I told MSC and frankly, I don't think they cared.  But I tried.

I'm not certain, but I think a good e-mail address to start with would be mscexistingreservations@msccruisesusa.com
 

Edited October 17, 2022 by Stockjock

[morpheusofthesea]

5 hours ago, JAGR said:

.  If you are not sailing the Meraviglia in the near future, and don't know where she was sailing,

I am not sailing the Meraviglia, but found this quite informative. One may just substitute Meraviglia for any ship sailing the world today. The Seascape is coming next month we will have to see if this occurs on its first sailing. The Seashore is taking on 100 new crew per week in Miami for the Brazilian repositioning (forgot to mention this in my postings).

[Gatordad1967]

4 minutes ago, Stockjock said:

As someone who has been called a "whiner" as much as almost anyone here (MsDivina may have me beat), probably mostly due to my MSC Comedy of Errors thread, I'll address that.

There's nothing wrong with sharing negative experiences.  For one thing, it's cathartic and also one wants to let folks know what to possibly anticipate so they can set their expectations accordingly.  Of course, I try to also let people know when things go right.  I wrote a mostly favorable review of my recent cruise on Grandiosa which should be approved shortly.

With respect to the OP, I don't recommend posting with the sole intent of harming MSC's business. It's your call of course, but I would position it in more of an educational way.  While I have criticized some of my past experiences with MSC, I continue to sail with them and do recommend that folks try MSC.

Let me also suggest that you contact MSC Customer Service to inform them of your experience.  I often do this and have received no reply at times, a discount on a future cruise a couple of times, and a "blow off" reply yet other times.

I'm not certain, but I think a good e-mail address to start with would be mscexistingreservations@msccruisesusa.com
 

You have valid complaints..... I wouldn't consider you a whiner.... and I enjoy your posts.

 

[rdslone]

2 minutes ago, Stockjock said:

As someone who has been called a "whiner" as much as almost anyone, probably mostly due to my MSC Comedy of Errors thread, I'll address that.

There's nothing wrong with sharing negative experiences.  For one thing, it's cathartic and also one wants to let folks know what to possibly anticipate so they can set their expectations accordingly.

With respect to the OP, I don't recommend posting with the sole intent of harming MSC's business. It's your call of course, but I would position it in more of an educational way.  While I have criticized some of my past experiences with MSC, I continue to sail with them and do recommend that folks try MSC.

Let me also suggest that you contact MSC Customer Service to inform them of your experience.  I often do this and have received no reply at times, a discount on a future cruise a couple of times, and a "blow off" reply yet other times.

I'm not certain, but I think a good e-mail address to start with would be mscexistingreservations@msccruisesusa.com
 

Thanks for the response and I was only providing an opinion and hopefully helping some people out. I have pursued all options you listed and given them opportunity to answer to their issues. I am not looking for money or another cruise, I honestly was pursuing change on their side for future guests. Based on one of the responses here I will just let people figure it out for themselves going forward. You can’t educate ignorance sometimes I guess.

[Stockjock]

13 minutes ago, Gatordad1967 said:

You have valid complaints..... I wouldn't consider you a whiner.... and I enjoy your posts.

 

Much appreciated! ☺️

[Stockjock]

14 minutes ago, rdslone said:

Thanks for the response and I was only providing an opinion and hopefully helping some people out. I have pursued all options you listed and given them opportunity to answer to their issues. I am not looking for money or another cruise, I honestly was pursuing change on their side for future guests. Based on one of the responses here I will just let people figure it out for themselves going forward. You can’t educate ignorance sometimes I guess.

There are some really good things about MSC and areas where they could improve.  But at least I do see improvement, although slow improvement to be sure.

I hope they take criticisms to heart.  I work for a big Wall Street firm, and every now and then, I get criticized by a client.  It's uncommon, but it happens.  My initial reaction is usually negative or defensive.  But then, I take a step back and try to see if there is some legitimacy in their complaint or comment, and I find that there often is.  And I try to use their comments to improve my/our customer service going forward.  I figure, for every client/customer who complains, there are a number of others who keep it to theirselves.  

That's exactly what I hope MSC does with our critiques when things don't go according to plan.  And where reasonable to do so, they should take some action on a future cruise to help make things right.  Little things like OBC or a small future discount can be nice and make the customer feel as if they actually care and that the concerns expressed are received and validated.

Edited October 17, 2022 by Stockjock

[JAGR]

1 hour ago, morpheusofthesea said:

I am not sailing the Meraviglia, but found this quite informative. One may just substitute Meraviglia for any ship sailing the world today. The Seascape is coming next month we will have to see if this occurs on its first sailing. The Seashore is taking on 100 new crew per week in Miami for the Brazilian repositioning (forgot to mention this in my postings).

You are an erudite person, so I must ask why you deliberately edit my original message?  It would be of interest to many people, but as I said it would be especially important to a Meravglia passenger.  Yest, it would also be of interest to anyone embarking on a ship arriving into US waters from a foreign base, but the person I was responding to the person that had no clue about the sailing or the international situation.

[HughMann]

On 10/16/2022 at 3:49 PM, Georgia_Peaches said:

It has been our experience (on NCL) that the first cruise in the US after repositioning from Europe is a charlie foxtrot....every...single...time...The coast guard inspection takes hours and the extra legwork for customs coupled with the boarding of new crew makes for a lot of the issues you experienced.  When we sailed on the NCL Epic after repositioning (also out of Canaveral) we received an e-mail from NCL indicating that our boarding time would be delayed until 3 PM and that we shouldn't show up early.  We ignored the e-mail and ran smack into the very lines described by the OP.  It took hours in the hot sun with no bathroom, water, or shade.  I will never again take a cruise that immediately follows a repositioning.  I blame in part the cruise line and the other part on how things are handled at the port itself.

 

We are on Meravilgia next month for a 4 nighter.  I hope I can report that things have settled down by then.  YC or not, nobody should have the kind of service described here!  

 

 

I'm curious how the MSC Seascape will be handled. It sails Barcelona to NYC, but then repositions to Port Miami. I hope they have the inspections done prior to Port Miami for the 12/11 cruise.

[fsualum05]

This was our first cruise on MSC, third overall. Our travel companions had been on 5 previous cruises. We have experience on NCL, RC, & Carnival. 
 

I’ll try to add only in places that haven’t been addressed. Obviously embarkation and disembarkation were terrible. We were told a passenger died during the cruise. Prior to letting the passengers off the ship in Port Canaveral, a detective arrived and there was a fire truck and ambulance waiting. 
 

Ocean Cay is a beautiful place and has lots of potential. Unfortunately the service and strategy there is off. We went to the northernmost beach which had 2 bars. One bar had no ice and the other had no cups. So as a guest I had to babysit my cup. I’m used to the ship’s bar staff walking the beach to take your drink order and collect empties. 
 

All aboard time was supposed to be 6:30 with a 7pm lighthouse show and cast off. At 3:30 the bars started closing and at 4:30 we were asked to leave the north “bimini” beach. Then we received an updated all aboard time of 5:30. The lighthouse show ended up running at 7:15 and we departed shortly thereafter. The show is nice, nothing spectacular. (Rumor was the times were moved up because of weather)

 

ok, drinks onboard. We found that when you went to a bar, basically any bar, except by the pool, that the bartenders had no idea what they were doing. For instance, the champagne bar has 7, $9 drink that were part of our package. We were told that we could only order 4 of them because they didn’t have supplies to make the other. We returned an hour later and asked a different bartender and voila the drink was made. 
 

At dinner we couldn’t get cocktails in the main dining room. My wife ordered a glass of NZ sauv blanc. Someone else ordered moscato. Nope, can’t get either of those wines. However the second night our waiter had a bottle of the sauv blanc on ice waiting for us and said he had to go find it that day for us. 
 

I could go on and on. You can tell it’s an Italian company. And as they say in Italy “it is not possible”

[morpheusofthesea]

38 minutes ago, JAGR said:

You are an erudite person, so I must ask why you deliberately edit my original message?  It would be of interest to many people, but as I said it would be especially important to a Meravglia passenger.  Yest, it would also be of interest to anyone embarking on a ship arriving into US waters from a foreign base, but the person I was responding to the person that had no clue about the sailing or the international situation.

"Drawing on my fine command of language, I said nothing." Mark Twain

Edited October 17, 2022 by morpheusofthesea

[mawvkysc]

23 hours ago, GA Dave said:

I was also on this cruise.  I normally cruise in YC but decided to make this my "retirement experiment" cruise.  I booked a basic interior cabin on deck 11, no wifi, but I did buy the drink package once I boarded (Easy Plus).  I also waited three hours and forty minutes in the lines to board.  It was not pleasant, but I think I may be immune at this point to any "pain" people find doing this as I am also a huge Universal Orlando fan and find 2-3 hour waits on top attractions all the time.  I did also think the $50 OBC should have come sooner, but I just used it to offset part of my drink package charge. 

Overall, I had a pretty good time.  Obviously, it was nowhere near as wonderful as all of my previous YC cruises, but I went in with very low expectations and came out pretty happy.  I learned to avoid the front area in the buffet and always went straight to the back for my food and sat out on the outdoor deck behind the buffet to eat (usually pretty much alone).  The diversity of food was more than I thought it would be, and I had things like Prime Rib, Pork Loin Roast, many grilled vegetables, etc. that I never expected.  I also found the bars on decks 6 and 15 to be packed all the time, so I just went up to the Sky Lounge on deck 18 when it opened and enjoyed a mostly empty lounge every evening.  Knowing that the ship was at lifeboat capacity, I got off at first announcement for Ocean Cay and got a wonderful spot with an Adirondack chair, table and umbrella right by the bar at the Lighthouse Beach.  For disembarkation this morning, I was at the buffet for a quick muffin and coffee at 6:00 AM and got onto the line to disembark at 6:20 AM.  Spent the waiting time talking with many wonderful people, and I was off the ship, in my car and traveling down A1A/FL528 by 7:50AM.

Sometimes when everyone else is zigging, you need to zag.  😁

Thanks for the buffet tip. Is there a pizza station back there too, or is there just one?

[Georgia_Peaches]

25 minutes ago, HughMann said:

I'm curious how the MSC Seascape will be handled. It sails Barcelona to NYC, but then repositions to Port Miami. I hope they have the inspections done prior to Port Miami for the 12/11 cruise.

My understanding is that the initial coast guard inspection is done in the port of re-entry.  If there is one in MIA, it will likely not be as extensive or take as long.

[GA Dave]

6 minutes ago, mawvkysc said:

Thanks for the buffet tip. Is there a pizza station back there too, or is there just one?

I only saw the one at the front.  I grabbed a slice one evening, then headed to the back.  So much quieter back there.  And the outside eating area is wonderful.

Edited October 17, 2022 by GA Dave

[Georgia_Peaches]

20 minutes ago, fsualum05 said:

You can tell it’s an Italian company.

Kinda curious about this comment...do the Italians have a reputation for bad service like the French do for being rude?  I've known many French people and they weren't rude and had nothing but great service when we visited Italy.  

[blueslily]

6 hours ago, mt234 said:

everything i’ve ever heard about MSC is bad. our TA will not even book this line and neither will many others. 🤮

I've enjoyed sailing on MSC and will sail on the new Seascape in February. I usually book directly with cruise lines. No major issues so far. I guess I've been lucky. Cant wait to check out the Seascape. 

[Stockjock]

46 minutes ago, Georgia_Peaches said:

Kinda curious about this comment...do the Italians have a reputation for bad service like the French do for being rude?  I've known many French people and they weren't rude and had nothing but great service when we visited Italy.  

From an article called "Doing business with Italians"...

 

Punctuality

This explains a lot to me personally. Punctuality is not a priority for Italians.  When conducting business with Italians, be patient, expect delays, and be flexible.  Italians do not generally take work plans as absolute deadlines.  Italians tend to “multitask” and do many things at one which often shifts their priorities.  When dealing with an Italian partner or businessperson, communication in this area is of paramount importance.

Also...

The Italians have a term for doing nothing, or doing things slowly, which, I believe can be a part of the culture.
 

Dolce far niente
[ˌdōlCHā ˌfär nēˈentā]

NOUN

1. pleasant idleness: 

   "Henry hastened to explain about the joys of dolce far niente"

   synonyms:

   idleness · indolence · laziness · lifelessness · slothfulness · shiftlessness · lethargy · inertia · slowness · sluggishness · stagnancy · doziness · listlessness · immobility

Edited October 17, 2022 by Stockjock

[fsualum05]

38 minutes ago, Georgia_Peaches said:

Kinda curious about this comment...do the Italians have a reputation for bad service like the French do for being rude?  I've known many French people and they weren't rude and had nothing but great service when we visited Italy.  

No, not at all. Italians and French are wonderful people and on a personal level have provided wonderful customer service in my personal experience. However, Italian corporations are known for wanting to maintain strong centralized control instead of empowering the customer facing employees and management to correct issues. The Ritz Carlton was a famous business case for empowering all employees to provide excellent customer service, Disney too. 

[Georgia_Peaches]

10 minutes ago, fsualum05 said:

However, Italian corporations are known for wanting to maintain strong centralized control instead of empowering the customer facing employees and management to correct issues.

Ahh...thank you.  I understand.  And yes, MSC has quite the corporate reputation for exactly what you describe.

[Georgia_Peaches]

21 minutes ago, Stockjock said:

The Italians have a term for doing nothing, or doing things slowly, which, I believe can be a part of the culture.

Very interesting.  Wish I could get away with that...lol. ☺️

[no1talks]

41 minutes ago, Stockjock said:

Dolce far niente
[ˌdōlCHā ˌfär nēˈentā]

NOUN

This brings to mind the producer of two excellent wines, a Napa Chardonnay and an Oakville Cabernet. I strongly recommend both. 😀

[blueslily]

3 hours ago, rdslone said:

Thanks for the response and I was only providing an opinion and hopefully helping some people out. I have pursued all options you listed and given them opportunity to answer to their issues. I am not looking for money or another cruise, I honestly was pursuing change on their side for future guests. Based on one of the responses here I will just let people figure it out for themselves going forward. You can’t educate ignorance sometimes I guess.

Sorry that you had an unpleasant cruise experience. I'm sure you don't want to hear this, but that cruise experience does not represent every experience that everyone will have. I sail MSC and have not had the experiences you report. I learned from this thread not to choose the sailing you all were on. I will certainly take that into consideration when planning, like other people have also stated on here. But, I'm not giving up on MSC totally. That doesn't make sense to me since I've never had a horrible experience on land or on sea with them.

 

I sail with various cruise lines and have seen really bad experiences from time to time posted here about those lines as well. I would never cruise if I chose not to cruise on a certain line based on postings on here. I just learn what to do different.

 

Hope your next cruise is much better. Enjoy! 

[travelberlin]

On 10/16/2022 at 6:59 PM, eagletwo said:

We are booked on Meraviglia with a Fantastica experience, aft balcony on deck 12 leaving on October 23rd.  Have been on two MSC cruises, both in the YC on Meraviglia and Divina.  With the reviews we have seen, I hope we don't have the issues with check-in, food and service. I am a Diamond member, but that does not mean much during check-in.  Any advice?

Diamond member means priority at check in, so you go straight in front the line. More or less as if you were on yacht club.

Ivi

[travelberlin]

1 hour ago, Stockjock said:

From an article called "Doing business with Italians"...

 

Punctuality

This explains a lot to me personally. Punctuality is not a priority for Italians.  When conducting business with Italians, be patient, expect delays, and be flexible.  Italians do not generally take work plans as absolute deadlines.  Italians tend to “multitask” and do many things at one which often shifts their priorities.  When dealing with an Italian partner or businessperson, communication in this area is of paramount importance.

Also...

The Italians have a term for doing nothing, or doing things slowly, which, I believe can be a part of the culture.
 

Dolce far niente
[ˌdōlCHā ˌfär nēˈentā]

NOUN

1. pleasant idleness: 

   "Henry hastened to explain about the joys of dolce far niente"

   synonyms:

   idleness · indolence · laziness · lifelessness · slothfulness · shiftlessness · lethargy · inertia · slowness · sluggishness · stagnancy · doziness · listlessness · immobility

Dolce far niente does not have to do with inefficiency. Dolce far niente means to be able to enjoy life without the pressure of always having to do something. All those synonyms you wrote, mean that who ever tried to explained Dolce far niente using those terms does not understand Italians and has missed the point.

Ivi

[HughMann]

17 minutes ago, travelberlin said:

Diamond member means priority at check in, so you go straight in front the line. More or less as if you were on yacht club.

Ivi

Does diamond have more priority over aurea? Or is everyone with "priority" mixed together?

[solorzanorafael]

I was on This Ship Too!   My experience was even Worst! I would write off MSC for good. Mainly because of the incompetence of the crew and major missmanagment from corporate. Complete disregard for basic human decency and treatment of clients like Cattle. We waited 3 hours to get off even though they kicked us out of the room at 8am we werent suposed to disembark by 9:45. People were yelling, screaming it got so Bad that the Sheriff Department had to get involved to help the crew open up the exits to let people off. In case on any emergency your As Good As Dead!