Turkey, Greece & Italy from Istanbul with Stay, 31 August 2024 (11 nights)

This was my first cruise and my wife’s second, and was for our honeymoon. We had a Bella outside cabin on the 5th deck. The room was larger than expected and was well set out. The TV had no English language channels, and films cost $8 each. The view was nice from the room. We were told everything was included with our booking, so it was an unwelcome surprise to get a $12.50 per day service charge each. We had the easy drinks package, but were unable to upgrade as we had prepaid when purchasing the cruise. The programme of day activities was not particularly full or appealing, especially on at sea days, and so more time was spent in the cabin than anticipated. The descriptions were misleading in some cases. “Romeo and Juliet” was more of a competition game show style event. Entertaining, but not what was expected. The ports of call were interesting (Nagasaki, Busan) and reading other reviews we were fortunate to have a free shuttle to town in Busan. Excursions seemed well over priced. Prior planning enabled us to do similar at a fraction of the cost. An at sea tour of the off limits areas of the ship sounded interesting, but not at $50 per person. The food was ok, but not a fine dining standard. The waiters were nice. The performances were really good, but didn’t make up the lack of other entertainment throughout the day. Everything was presented in English, Japanese and Chinese. It felt like the cruise was geared towards the Japanese guests. There were some language barriers. The ship was visibly, frequently cleaned. I forgot to pack toothpaste. That cost me $12.50 from the onboard shop which seemed expensive. MSC haven’t done enough to convince me to return. Too little to do at sea, and too costly unexpectedly which soured the experience for me.

We went on this ship for a month in April. Firstly Captain not that friendly and NO welcome from him or cocktail night.. So disappointed. The food was boring lunchtime buffet.. pizza, salad and chef carving meat or fish. Which was good to start with but bored after the first week. Evening dinner in dining room was hugely disappointing. What ever you ordered for main meal it DIDN’T come with vegetables each night we asked for these and got carrots and courgettes. Twice got lovely veg but that was it twice in 28 days. Breakfast we enjoyed the best. Evening shows we enjoyed and were varied. Staff.. we loved the staff on this ship where ever we were they were excellent, friendly, kind and helpful. Cabin.. very tried.. and our cabin was dam disgraceful.. not cleaned properly and bedding was disappointing to say the least, we reported this and the manager came and he sorted it .. so we thought only to it still happening .. bedding looked like it had come from charity shop and was ripped and torn in many places..we have photos. And worse thing was leaving the ship as I am disabled and called front desk 5 times for help over an hour and still NO one came, as our taxi call to say it was waiting it put stress on us and in the end my husband pushed me to reception then went back twice to room to get baggage before complaining to staff and then they got someone to help us and not before time.. we left the ship to cross and saying we wouldn’t go back on M.S.C. The lad who helped was lovely but all to late. Maybe for short holiday but never again.. OH AND BE AWHERE we were charged for water..not had that before on other companies. I hope this has helped you.

Undertook the MSC Grand Voyage from Abu Dhabi to Yokohama. This cruise was selected as it visited places I had been to before and wanted to see again. Better than expected The ship could carry more than 4000 passengers but that was not evident with the unexpected space in bars and restaurants on-board. I expected the service levels to be good but all the staff were engaging to ensure all passengers had a good time The itinerary gave most people the right amount of time in each port The embarkation and disembark - both in under 30 minutes. Wish the airlines were as organized. What could have been better very little to criticize, most issues were due to passengers not knowing what to expect would I book again with MSC - yes, they had the right balance of relaxation and entertainment for me. If I wanted a floating night show, I would have booked another cruise line

Had a fantastic week on the MSC Splendida, there were positives and negatives regarding this holiday. The organisation of joining the ship was fantastic compared with our experience of two other cruises. The ship it’s self was lovely but we never felt that the higher ranking staff did anything for the passengers. The entertainment was a real let down without any variation within any of the bars, it was the same people in the same bars every night. The buffet food was ok but nothing was ever hot but this was the same in the main restaurant too and very average. We booked through igloo to take all the worry about organising flights and transfers. Couldn’t fault the company that did the transfers and we flew with gulf air who I couldn’t fault however the travelling was very tiring and wished I had looked into the flights myself. We flew from Heathrow to Bahrain and then Bahrain to Dubai, bad idea when we could have had a direct flight to Dubai. The return journey was not thought through and was a nightmare. We had to be off of the ship by 9am and our transfers were arranged to take us to the airport at 10am but our first flight wasn’t until 11.35 pm!!!! As we had already had two days in Dubai before the cruise and there wasn’t really anything else we wanted to do or see in Dubai this ended up a very long tiring day then we had to change again at Bahrain. Finally arriving at Heathrow at 6.35 am. The one thing that really did disappoint us overall was the fact we had purchased a premium inclusive package back in November but when we joined the ship we was asked if we would like to upgrade our package as ours wasn’t worth what we thought as they had put their drinks prices up in January therefore ours didn’t include what it should have originally, I was annoyed as neither igloo or msc notified us of this in advance therefore we paid another 140 Eros just to have the package we had already paid for, there were so many people who were also in the same situation