C.A. Pedder
Itinerary: Eastern
Mediterranean
Sailing Date: June 12th, 2010
Age: 60
Occupation: Instructional Officer
Number of Cruises: 7
MSC Melody - Out of tune with its English Speaking Guests
Where does one start?
Holidaying in Italy regularly
and being a big Cruise fan cruising with an Italian Cruise
Company seemed the Ideal Holiday.
Day One Lifeboat Drill, complete and utter mayhem. No one
appeared to be taking any notice, kids were running riot,
nobody taking charge and the hub bub was at such a high
level that no one could here the announcements which were in
four different languages.
After that a sit down on the sun deck as we sailed away from
Genoa seemed to be in order but no, at 6.30 pm (and every
day thereafter) we were told rather curtly that the sun deck
was closed. Because of the design of the ship there were
very few outside spaces and if you wanted to take the early
evening air it was either remain on your feet or unstack
some plastic patio furniture which along with the sun
loungers had been stacked up between 6.30 – 7 pm.
Dinner, had it not been for
some superb dinner companions, then sitting down to dinner
would have been like volunteering to be tortured, however
there was no evening buffet, so it was dinner or nothing if
you wanted to eat between 3pm and the laughable special
midnight buffet every night. In the mis-appropriately named
Galaxy Restaurant ('End of the Universe' would have been
better) I could only liken the food to the poorest of school
dinners, main courses and accompanying vegetables were
served already plated up and where food should have been hot
it was either merely warm or even cold. Cold food such as
Ice Cream was served warm / melting ( I actually had to tell
the waiter not to bring me Ice Cream orders if they had
started to melt).
If you
wanted to drink water with your meal you had to buy a 1
litre bottle at €1.80 + 15% service charge, total €2.07 and
if you wanted an after dinner coffee you had to pay for that
also.
Being an Italian Ship we were looking forward to some real
Italian Cooking and fresh food, no such luck, with the
exception of Fresh melon and Pineapple and Apples Oranges
and Bananas (which they ran out of 6 or 7 days into our 11
day cruise) everything appeared to come out of a tin.
Breakfast and Lunch were not much better, some of the
waiters seemed incapable of getting orders right, I wonder
how much the companies policy of charging each passenger €6
per day for staff gratuities and outlawing tipping (making
it a disciplinary offence to accept cash from guests) had to
do with it. There is no incentive to go that extra mile if
you know you are going to get a share of the pot at the end
of the cruise regardless of your performance.
Entertainment was to a big extent non existent. There was a
troupe of fairly good dancers but they were somewhat out on
a limb as the other alleged entertainers were to put it
bluntly hopeless, the two singers, Mr and Miss Melody
couldn't hold a tune if it had been put in a paper bag. The
magician/quick change artist I wouldn't have employed to
entertain at a 7yr olds birthday party. The majority of the
entertainment consisted of the Cruise Director conning the
passengers up to get involved in Generation Game style games
which in the most part were demeaning. Overall I would
describe the entertainment program as Amateurish, Banal and
not worthy of a Channel Ferry.
There was an almost total lack of information, certainly in
regards to the English Speaking guests aboard, we were nine
days into our eleven day cruise before I found out that
there was a dedicated English Speaking host, 'Daniel'. I had
not met anybody that was informed he existed before then
either.
There was a ships daily
newspaper but on shore days there was no useful information
about the place being visited. When asked why such
information was not included, the guest reception stated
that you could get city plans if you asked but they didn't
make it freely available as it might put people off buying
excursions if found out they could do it for themselves.
In Limassol and Antalya we were told that it was impractical
to walk into the town and we should buy shuttle bus tickets
from the excursion desk for the long journey at a cost of €8
and €12 per person respectively, the journey wasn't so long
as implied and many felt they were conned into buying rides
they could have got cheaper in a taxi.
Drinks prices on board were grossly inflated, e.g. a 4cl tot
of Jack Daniels was €6.50 and to this they added a 15%
service charge even if you stood at the bar and collected it
yourself. That makes the cost of a 1 litre bottle €186.88, a
clear profit of €163.88 against the price of €23 in the duty
free.
We are all adult enough to know that the whole purpose of
these cruise ships is to separate you from your
Dollars/Pounds/Euro etc but it appeared to me and many of my
fellow passengers that MSC has made it an art form. They may
have shot themselves in the foot over their pricing policy
as, considering there was about 1300 guests aboard, not many
could be found spending their hard earned cash in the bars
of an evening. Using my limited business sense surely it is
better to sell 10 items at 1 Euro profit each than 1 item at
6 Euro profit.
The cabin stewards and waiting staff on the whole were
always happy, polite and eager to serve however that is
where it stopped. All other crew members appeared to not
care less, officers, guest reception staff and seaman etc
looked down their noses at the guests and it appeared to me
that they thought the ship was being run for their benefit
and not the fare paying passengers. I know of several
instances where staff were rude or snubbed guests. Staff
would not give way to guests in tight corridors or through
doors etc. and in some instances expected the doors to be
held open for them.
Throughout my 11 days aboard not one of the Officers smiled
or spoke to my wife or me without either of us speaking
first and we generally found their behavior rude. We were
left with the distinct impression that the crew from the top
down considered the English Speaking guests
(Americans/Australians/New Zealanders/British etc) as second
class citizens. A prime example of this was special
arrangements were made for eating when Italy was appearing
in the World Cup across meal times. No such arrangements
were made for any other nationality (unless they were
playing Italy of course).
On the plus side the shower in our Cabin was the best aboard
any cruise ship we have been on with as much pressure as you
can take and the water always as hot as you could stand.
Would I cruise with MSC again? Not even in an Urn after my
cremation when I die.
