After years of saying we would never sail on MSC, and despite the fact that our travel agent tried to dissuade us, we finally decided to try it out.
We know it would be different, but we did not realize exactly HOW different. Probably most striking is the fact that all business on the ship is conducted in 6 languages: English, Portuguese, Spanish, French, German, and Italian.
In addition, every stop on the route is an embarkation and disembarkation port, meaning that the cruiser demographics are constantly changing. Most people you meet will not be on the ship for the duration of the 7 day cruise.
And speaking of demographics, we were surprised at the number of children on board, despite the fact that we were sailing while school is still in session. This is because children sail FREE on MSC. What a difference!
Elevators, quirky mealtime rules, the ability to abort your trip, show reservations, and the shows themselves were also very different. But perhaps the biggest difference of all is the mealtime assignment. When you walk on the ship, you are assigned a dining time, restaurant, AND specific table. We liked the option they gave us, but this is the polar opposite of ships like Norwegian. Wow!
In each case, I give a phrase to describe the uniqueness that uses the letters “MSC,” like “Many Silly Children.”
If you want to sail MSC in the Mediterranean, you need to know these things before you go.
Would love to have feedback in the comments.
Safe travels!
1 Comment
As an IT person, the managing of the multiple embarkation ports would be an interesting problem to solve. Unless a particular stateroom is reserved for a particular embarkation port, managing upgrades is a challenge. We upgraded our outside view cabin to a balcony for our upcoming Baltic/Norway cruise, which we are boarding in Stockholm, rather than the 'main' port of Kiel. So MSC would have to have an available balcony room that is dedicated to just passengers boarding in Stockholm (which may be only 5-10% of the passengers), in order to be able to accommodate any possible passengers from Stockholm desiring an upgrade. A challenge, certainly, since they have no way of knowing for certain what percent of their passengers from any of the alternate embarkation ports – Helsinki, Copenhagen – might want to do this.