Having booked a Caribbean Cruise with CRUISE 1ST I would like to take this opportunity to flag up a few issues. I explained to the sales advisor @ Cruise 1st
it was a special cruise for my 80th Birthday & that of my wife who is 79 years young !!
I was strongly offered a cruise with MSC- on the SEASIDE, as this would include flying Business Class with B.A. We found out later that the SEASIDE was one of the biggest cruise liners at sea !!
A very colurful , glitzy ,flash ship, with many exciting opportunities particularly for young cruisers, problem was absolutely everything was charged extra for ,thus families must have really had to pay up over and over ,even ice cream was extra .We paid circa £8,000 for a balcony cabin ( 11123 -11th deck mid ship) .
Our cabin was probably an average size but with very little storage ,plus an under par toilet and shower from a cleanliness point of view with black mould all over the base of the shower. We found the soap container on the wash basin was completely broken , empty & just left on the side (where it stayed throughout the voyage !! Naturally I asked at reception for a replacement ,it was ignored and never replaced , all very concerning , it also leaked water all over the floor . The balcony was just about clean but had marks on the chairs .The carpets in the corridors were soiled in so many areas and in some cases ripped/coming away from the joins. Not a massive issue but it illustrates the ship is not looking it's best underneath all the glitz ,where it is so important .
The major issues which totally ruined our special trip was the fact that the ship docked in very large Industrial Ports miles from beaches, town ships, and markets ,with taxis queuing up to rip unsuspecting guests off ( one guy wanted 250 euros to take me to a beach -and the beach vendors looking for 38 euros EACH for a chair with NO UMBRELLA OR MATTRESS !! Hardly Cruise 1st's fault but maybe they should know how pricy it is likely to be & inform customers ,also to flag up the size of the ship with all it's ensuing issues of which there are many ,particularly the port situation . However the major problem is the appalling quality of the food on MSC , I have to say so strongly it was the worst food I have ever had the misfortune to be associated with in my lifetime bearing in mind the dozens of hotels and several Cruise Ships I have been on , NONE WERE ANYWHERE AS BAD AS THIS AWFUL EXPERIANCE ON MSC.!!!
The food was cooked so far in advance that it was always dry and tasteless & had no resemblance to the dishes advertised on the menu's. There were 600 guests eating in the main dining room ,three times each evening and I was told only 8 cooks for this number of guests !! I cannot in all fairness call them Chefs as they certainly were not , however in all fairness the Pastry items were much more acceptable as was the ice cream.
An example of how disgusting the food was :-
I ordered a CLUB SANDWICH on a port day thus at lunch time the numbers were so very much lower than the evenings - this sandwich arrived with all the toast sopping wet -unbelievable rubbish ,I had steaks so tough you couldn't eat th , Chicken Kiev, no garlic butter & dry as a bone , as were the fish dishes I ordered !! Every single sauce , jus ,or soup had the awful taste of SODIUM GLUTAMATE , & so salty thus these so called cooks couldn't even begin to make a decent sauce for the guests who paid as I did circa £8 Grand !! Sauces etc are so important and enhances any dish served anywhere -but MSC just cannot be bothered to even try to upmarket their food by creating a great accompaniment - I almost offered to demonstrate how to make Hollandaise To sum up, this was supposed to be a wonderful holiday to celebrate my 80 th- in honesty it was the VERY WORST holiday I have ever had & certainly the worst cruise it has ever been my misfortune to sail on !! I will NEVER GO ON MSC in the future should I live so long !! I also blame CRUISE 1ST for not explaining the issues with the SEASIDE , I guess as with all things in life once they have your money they move swiftly on, thus no more bookings with Cruise 1st either !! I would also like people to know that I am a Chef & was a member of the BRITISH TEAM OF CHEFS , with a good clutch of Gold Medals .3 won on my first outing with the British Team !! I also frequently was invited to Windsor Castle & Bucking Palace to help prepare food for the Royal Family and the late Queen. I was also in one of the best catering colleges in the U,K. teaching Haute Cuisine , I was the Senior Lecture in Haute Cuisine & Hospitality !! So I hope you will all trust in my judgements of the food on MSC , deffo 0 out of 100 !!!!!! Please take heed I would hate others to be so disappointed and waste so much money as my wife & I unfortunately did !! Try a smaller boat i.e. MARELLA ,cruised with them last year no problems what -so -ever ,and the food was really good too !!!!
