A review for MSC Meraviglia 3 night cruise from Port Canavaral
Upon boarding, the ship smelled and looked great. Clean and well laid out. We boarded around 3pm, so no real lines. My friend and I walked around the ship to get our bearings and things looked pretty good! Nice pool areas. One thing is the deck chairs are laid out in a way on the upper deck there isnt much space to move. As the day progressed, we checkout out our separate rooms and my buddy was missing his robe and slippers from the AUREA experience. Mine were in the room. My room had a few carpet stains and no wash rags. We went to the Sushi place for dinner, the waiter was really cool and the food was good. After, we went to the casino. This is where I started to notice some service issues. When we first arrived, it was hard to get a drink, didnt seem like drink service was on. Then, when our main drink server arrived, it was amazing. She was so good, she made the other servers look like they werent even working. I wish I could recall her name, but she was awesome. the next day we went to the Private island, which is really cool! Lots of chairs, spaces and activities. A few suggestions for the island; Dedicated lanes for golf cart transport. Seemed like people were almost hit by the carts. The grab and go food was almost unedidible. The lines to get either food or drink were atrocious and that was at any bar. 10+ minutes and rarely a drink server walking around that I noticed. Around 4:30pm we went to the casino. I asked for drink service, the server came 30-40 minutes later and didnt even service our table, we had to call him back over. Until the best service started her shift, the service was awful. Once she started, absolutely amazing service with a smile (which I noticed a lot of employees didnt smile) We then tried to go to a couple different specialty dining rooms for dinner, all were completely sold out. Great! However, A ton of empty tabes. Your cruise line is whoa-fully understaffed. We then went to the main dining room, seated instantly. However, no one bothered to greet us. We sat there for around 10 minutes and finally got up and left. Very disappointing. We then went to the PUB. We told the person that greeted us we were going to order food, she said "ok sit down please" and then never bothered to come over. I had to go to the barman ask for a menu and a waiter. She then came over, took my friend's order and walked off. I had to call her back to order mine. Once she brought our food, no silverware was given. We had to go back to the counter to ask for that, she said we declined it because we didnt get placemats. Made no sense. The food was pretty good, we had the fish and chips. I refused to eat in the buffet as the food was sub par and the lines were awful. I wish the ship stayed at the Island till around 2 the following day, rather than 12. Would give a bit more time to rest and enjoy the island before having to crawl back to the port. The Houdini show was pretty good, although, not sure it is worth $12 to $18 for a ticket. The music around the ship was really good and had a nice vibe. The ship looks and feels nice, but takes some getting use to in terms of layout. All in all, I was pretty sour on the overall MSC cruise experience, however it does have some bright spots. I would probably recommend MSC if you are looking for a "value" vacation and you are willing to compromise on your expectations of service.
