Consumer
USMSC Poesia sort of World Cruise MSC said the Poesia was refurbished in 2023 and they must be talking about the exterior of the ship. The public stairs lot dated with the teal and chocolate motif. The cabins are either navy or bordello red. The furniture in the cabin is worn, sun bleached and dated, think 90’s. Dining options are limited. There is the main dining room offering a selection of reoccurring average to say the best meals. The buffet offers a larger selection of the same quality but varies to a greater degree. The stand out is the pasta and pizzas. They are consistently good. But man cannot live on pizza and pasta alone. There is a sushi restaurant that no one frequents, seriously, it is empty every night. When you spend days at sea you know you’re not getting fresh seafood. Why they keep it open is beyond me. A steak house or Italian restaurant would serve the ship much better. Entertainment is also lacking. There is a house group who play classical music and offer some opera. They are terrific and unfortunately, greatly unappreciated. The other options are limited. An example at the same time we had two different comedic magicians. One was truly terrible and the other repeated each joke in five languages and with comedy, timing is everything. The dance company has improved greatly since they switched out the former troop who struggled to offer high school productions. Miniature golf, tennis, and shuffle board is offered unless you would like to try it during the hours of noon till 3pm when the equipment is locked away. The customer service is another area that is lacking. Granted the people who work there have a tough job with all passenger complaints. This is reflected in their attitude. 70% of passengers signed a petition sighting issues that were poorly addressed. I understand and do not fault MSC for canceling passing through the Red Sea at this time. This is another reason why 70% of people on board signed a petition expressing their displeasure with the quality of the new ports and the added number of days at sea. Some of the new ports were truly far less than desirable. Speaking of ports, the latest one, Nuuk Greenland, I put firmly on the shoulders of MSC. Today, I went to the captain's presentation of why we aren't going to Nuuk. He blamed it on the icebergs. This is not a new occurrence, it happens every year. We trusted MSC knew what they were doing, but no, they are acting like it's a big surprise. No other cruise ships have or are presently visiting Greenland at this time of the year because of icebergs. We are way out of season. Wish I had done research instead of trusting MSC, who just wanted to add an exciting port we won't be visiting. The captain took no questions and I was told the French contingent booed him off the stage. I and many others saved a lot of money for this cruise. I and many other prior World Cruise passengers feel MSC took our money without delivering. Many passengers including myself, have vowed not to travel on MSC again. Buyer Beware.
A. Kelly
IEMSC World Europa MSC World Europa, first time on a cruise. Read the reviews and was shocked at such bad reviews. The world europa the staff are so friendly, efficient and approachable, the food catered for all tastes, cabins lovely and clean, housekeeping on top of everything. The only downside are the passengers, can’t get over the rudeness and ignorance of the majority of them. Excursions excellent value for money, entertainment also very good.
Trinity Mack
USNEVER BOOK MSC If I could give no stars I would. I joined a world cruise with MSC and have had nothing but frustration and grievances. If you are a parent I highly suggest considering another cruise line. A child was assaulted by an adult passenger and when the parents filed a complaint after bringing him to the medical center, nothing was done but a warning. The baby pool on the cruise was under maintenance for over a week so I brought my son in the regular pool. He is just 9 months and I always double diaper him, one swim diaper and one reusable swim diaper, and then swim suit. I was told my son cannot go in the pool with me unless he is toilet trained, so to get around this I can take his diaper off and say he is. Another guest did this and surprise there was an accident in the pool and the other pool was shut down, In my opinion, with the appropriate swim diaper children should be allowed in the pool. Aside from the issues with children, the food is on most days not great. I have lost about 10 lbs on this cruise from not eating. The only thing that is always good is the pizza, but how can one person eat pizza everyday? There is excessive use of peas, even the pasta has peas in it. Another issue is safety. Many guests I’ve spoken to do not feel safe. There have been scenarios of fights breaking out. Men punching, and/or pushing women on multiple occasions and nothing is done. All that can be done is to file a report and the person receives a warning, I have a friend on this cruise who barley leaves her cabin because she is afraid and does not feel safe. Because she takes longer to get down the stairs she is afraid of being pushed, as one man was trying to push her until another woman went in between them and threaten the man. Lastly, why I will never spend my money on MSC again, MSC does not care at all about their customers and their satisfaction. Communication is severely lacking. On our cruise there were multiple itinerary changes, so many so that part of the cruise is completely unrecognizable and was given no option to cancel without forfeiting 100% of our money. (Over $20,000). Guests were very upset about this and began holding meetings and having discussions about what can be done. Eventually after being insulted by MSC over 900 passengers made a petition to show their frustrations and ask for adequate compensation. Instead of negotiating and caring about their passengers and being proactive MSC did the opposite. MSC made calls to peoples cabins, took advantage of the language barriers, exploited an elderly demographic who may not be as good with technology, to bully and intimidate them into accepting MSC’s offer for compensation, which frankly all of us found insulting, If someone spends over $20,000 on a cruise (and many people spent way more than that 40, 60k) and you are offered only 500 euros back per passenger when you were not given the right to cancel and a large portion of your sailing was changed I’m sure most people would be insulted. After sending multiple emails we were mostly brushed off and ignored until about two weeks later when we were given the response of “most people are happy there will be no increase in compensation.” I have never ever dealt with such poor customer service in my life. All of the staff on board have been amazing and go above and beyond to compensate for MSC’s corporate’s disappointing behavior. Frankly they should be paid and treated much better than they are.
Gary Taylor
CAWorst cruise line we have ever sailed. We have recently returned from MSC Poesia’s World Cruise, and as you can guess from our one-star review, we were not at all happy with the cruise. The most important reason for booking this cruise was the itinerary which was , initially, extraordinary. Sadly, due to the conflict in the Middle East, the itinerary was drastically changed. We were taken to MSC container ports, many in Africa which were dangerous and showcased extreme poverty. We were unable to walk around and absorb the culture of each port as we normally enjoy doing, as we felt unwelcome, unsafe, and were constantly looking over our shoulders. It was extremely disappointing for us, and as we had paid a lot of money for this cruise, we felt that MSC chose the cheapest and least expensive ports to take us to with the changed itinerary. The food on board the ship was ok, nothing special, but we are not too fussy about the food. The staff were mostly wonderful, other than the Excursion staff on board the ship. They had a very bad attitude towards the passengers, especially those paying for excursions. One excursion employee even went so far as to say to me “let’s admit that most of the passengers are big, unhealthy and should not be doing excursions”. I was flabbergasted at the audacity of this comment and we subsequently vowed not to do anymore ship excursions. Overall, our experience on this world cruise was definitely sub par. I would absolutely NOT recommend MSC Cruises.
Gary
GBMSC worst cruise company. We have just completed sailing on MSC Poesia world cruise 2024. January 7th to April 28th Sadly, this cruise was without doubt the worst we have ever sailed on. We have sailed previously on MSC world cruises and have enjoyed very positive experiences, but not in 2024. Before embarking the conflict in the Gulf area forced MSC to change the itinerary twice, but they totally failed to inform passengers. Even the day before we left to travel to Barcelona for embarkation MSC UK told us and our TA that we were still sailing through the Suez Canal. We knew we weren't from the passengers Facebook group! The iconic ports that we had signed up to but could not visit were replaced by 3rd rate venues. MSC refused to allow anybody to cancel or postpone their holiday without forfeit of 100% of the fare paid. Other cruise lines similarly affected were quick to offer their passengers good levels of compensation and a choice to cancel or defer. MSC initially refused anything. After considerable pressure from travellers some compensation was offered and a small cruise credit for a future sailing. Over 900 people and subsequently a further 400 passengers signed petitions to MSC saying the compensation was inadequate, barely covering the cost of no longer required visas etc. With the changes and subsequent further changes to the itinerary we ended up with 20% more sailing days and consequently less port visits. The voyage bore very little resemblance to what passengers had paid their money to enjoy. Further, later in the voyage we were scheduled to visit the North Atlantic in March, April. The weather was dreadful and the ports we did manage to visit in Canada, the locals all told us that never had they seen a cruise ship arrive so early in the year. We could not dock at Newport Rhode Island, too rough. Then we were supposed to sail to Nuuk Greenland, well the cruise season for Greenland on a non expedition ship is June through September. No surprise when we sailed right passed Greenland, well to the south to avoid ice and icebergs. On to Iceland, couldn't visit Isafjordur too windy to dock.Whoever planned this at MSC needed their heads examining. On a different point; the food was extremely poor. A lack of variety, no fresh produce, everything seemed to come out of the freezer. The preparation and cooking was awful, most served undercooked to raw or a burnt offering. Extraordinary as we'd sailed with the same executive chef 3 times previously without complaint. The ship ran out of basic produce, fruit, eggs were rationed, fruit juices, blue cheese, peanuts to name just a few. Plus they weren't replenished at the next port, incredible! The excursions were expensive and quite dull. For those of us who'd sailed previously the entertainment was the same as we'd already seen. Same theatre productions, guest entertainers doing exactly the same shows that we'd seen in 2019, 20 and 23. So boring. All in all MSC failed to deliver on many fronts. That said, the onboard crew as previously tried their best on the face of mounting issues, problems and increasingly frustrated passengers. Be very, very careful before choosing to sail MSC. Previously we held them in good regard, but now we would never sail with them again.