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Oh No! They only speak english! |
| Reviewed By: McCarthy, Barry on 29th Nov 2008 |
| Cruise Line: MSC Cruises |
Times cruised before: 3-5 |
| Cruise Ship: MSC Sinfonia |
Sailed:
November,
2008 |
| Destination: South America |
Age: 56-65 |
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My wife and I have just returned from an MSC cruise aboard the Sinfonia cruising from Genoa to Brazil. The embarkation procedure was fairly efficient and friendly although the express check-in made via the internet 48 hours in advance seemed not to exist at the embarkation point and everyone queued as normal. The cabin was roomy and the cabin service quite good. The restaurant was quite good and the staff friendly and mostly efficient although they seemed to hurry us through each meal as if getting off shift was their priority. Nevertheless the food was okay but the size of the meals never quite filled one up until breakfast. Breakfast and lunch in the cafeteria sometimes meant sharing a table with 70 and 80 year old bikini-clad ladies and pot-bellied sweaty old men in small swimming trunks; not a pretty site and quite off-putting. There are rules and regulations about the standard of dress in all the restaurants but they are completely ignored and no one on the staff was prepared to challenge the offenders. Dinner sometimes required formal dress like a dj or suit, with ladies in long dresses of cocktail dresses but many of the customers wore jeans and t-shirts although they were expressely forbidden, and again none of the staff challenged them. The evening entertainment in the San Carlo theatre was quite entertaining bearing in mind that the performers were catering for a multi-nationality audience speaking different languages. Daytime entertainment was quite childish, like rolling a ball into a hula-hoop or bouncing a ball so that it would land on and stay on a chair. The prizes were t-shirts and key rings etc. Lots of the Brazilians joined in, as they did with great gusto with any event. There were also dancing classes and language and cooking classes etc which were quite good, along with live music performers in most of the bars throughout the day, all quite impressive. The cost of tours was extortianate as were the costs of photos and drinks. We usually either walked around the city or took a typical local tour bus at an absolute fraction of the ship's costs. Internet access was about £20 per hour, but we used internet cafes ashore for less than 5 euro per hour. We were not allowed to take on board any alcohol or water, which was removed from us and stored until the end of the cruise. Whenever we returned to the ship from a visit ashore our bags were scanned and any bottles removed. The biggest annoyance if all was the lack of english speaking staff at Reception and the Accounting desk staff and also those at the desk organising tours ashore immediately became akward and even rude once they had to tackle the english language. Strangely enough, the 'lower ranks' the cleaners and waiters etc were more efficient in languages and more friendly than their 'superiors.' If you speak Italian or Spanish or Portuguese, you are welcomed with open arms, but if you only speak english or practically any other language, the staff will avoid you and ignore you and in some cases ridicule you between themselves in their own language. Having said all that, we would cruise MSC again knowing the pit-falls. The ship is quite beautiful and the price of the trip very reasonable. We have cruised before and nothing yet has compared to Royal Caribbean, but you pays your money and you takes your choice The feeling with MSC is that you are welcomed aboard but not welcome onboard.
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| Quality of Food |  |
| Ate a bit of most national dishes and found each meal to be ok, but surprsingly for an Italian ship, the pasta was always either undercooked or overcooked. | | Entertainment |  |
| In the lounges throught the day and evening there was a very good opera singer, a violinist accompanied by a pianist and a smoothy Frank Sinatra type crooner. Plus the casino and bridge games and poolside games. The evening show in the theatre was very good. Least entertaining was the magician who endlessly made a scantily clad bimbo disappear and reappear. | | Shore Excursions | |
| Casablanca was dirty and noisy with nothing worth seeing. Same for Recife and Salvador. Lisbon and Barcelona are well worth visiting again and Tenerife was beautiful. | | Staff |  |
| Waiter service in the evening restaurant. Always polite, spoke good english and friendly and chatty and took good care of their diners. Reception staff and Accounting Desk staff were miserable and unfriendly. | | Children's Facilities | n/a |
| | Onboard Activities | |
| Lots of things to do on board if you had the energy but also plenty of places to relax and laze by the pool if desired. The Germans have a new one; they got up early and put towels on the sunbeds on each side of the ship, thus reserving 2 sunbeds each and moving from one to the other as the sun moved across the sky. Unfortunately the lack of english speaking staff made if a struggle and difficult to join in. | | Cabins | |
| yes, cabin was roomy and comfortable and the service very good. | | Overall Rating | |
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Happy HOLIDAY's
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