Mediterranean Shipping Cruises

SS Melody

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Operator:Mediterranean Shipping Cruises
Year Built / Last Refurbished: 1982 / 1997
Length / Tonnage: 672 / 36,500
Number of Cabins / Passengers: 586 / 1,076
Officers / Crew: Italian / Italian
Operating Area: Mediterranean, transAtlantic, Caribbean

I can't begin to tell you how many people came to cruising through Home Lines...that New York based organization run by a mix of Italian and Greek money, and crewed by Italy's famous Cosulich family, whose experienced hand brought the unmistakable measured touch of high class Italian food, service and ambience to the cruise lanes of the Caribbean. When Home Lines' principals decided the time had come to abandon cruise trade, some people wept, devastated in the knowledge that they would never see the likes of the Home Lines ships or enjoy the delights of Home Lines food, service and winning Italian ways again. After all, once Italian Line packed its bags and walked away from the passenger business, no other company but Home Lines offered that high class Italian style at sea.

It looks like we mourners were a tad premature, and although MSC may not be quite up to the heights of Home Lines and Italian Lines showmanship, MSC employs so many veterans of both lines that you could give these guys a go cart and they would come across with a pretty special experience for you. So take one ex Home Lines cruise ship....the ATLANTIC....the second ship ever built for Home Lines, and in our view far, far better than the third and last one to join the Home Lines clan, the second HOMERIC...and put MSC at the helm, and you have a pretty fair approximation of how things ought to be. In between her days as ATLANTIC and her 1997 incorporation into the MSC fleet as MELODY, this lovely ship passed nearly a decade as the STARSHIP ATLANTIC....one of the "big red boats"....and as laughable a seagoing commodity as we ever saw. And we saw her as STARSHIP ATLANTIC...and we both summed it up in one loud word....ATROCIOUS!!!

Even though we never sailed for more than a few days in her when she was Home Lines' ATLANTIC, our yearnings to see an old friend restored to the level she deserved were satisfied when we learned that MSC had bought her. And we have been even more pleased to see that in her first winter under her new owners, and apparently in her upcoming winter for them, the ship has been making the kind of cruises for which she is best suited....ten and eleven night jaunts under the Caribbean sun. We say yay, and welcome back, MELODY.

The MELODY has such a sensible arrangement of public rooms that I cannot fathom why other lines did not copy her plans for their own ships. There are plenty of places to visit....the large Club Universe, home for the nightly floor shows....the smaller Junkanoo Club and Bar, aftmost on the Lounge Deck....or the smaller Blue Riband Pub and Calypso Bar up near the aft pool on Pool Deck. Each room has been painstakingly remodelled to erase the nauseating decor heaped upon this ship during her incarceration with Premier Cruise Lines as a "Big Red Boat". The only problem with the design of the MELODY is her lack of deck space. Besides the very small area outside the Junkanoo Club, the only substantial outdoor areas are on the Pool Deck....and much of the room is taken up with the two pools and the tables and chairs needed for buffets. There are no promenades to speak of. While none of this makes much of a difference when the ship is doing her Mediterranean cruises....after all, those are very port intensive trips.....during her crossings and her Caribbean junkets, if there are large numbers of "sun-a-holics" aboard, getting an available deck chair might prove as frustrating as finding a free parking space for your car in Manhattan.

In her Galaxy Dining Room, the MELODY serves her passengers at two sittings...you can ask for the smoking section when you book. Because these ships are so heavily booked by Europeans who eat later than we Yankees, dinner sittings begin a few minutes later than many U.S. based cruise lines....so if you don't like getting your main course served to you after 9:30 at night, you may find second sitting...which starts at 8:45, a little too late for you. If you are reading this in English, you will probably want first sitting, because with a 7:00 start up time, you will get your main course around 7:45, and that's generally late enough for most of us, whether we are from the U.S., the U.K. or Canada. Because of this, first sitting attracts a larger quotient of English speakers, and second sitting will undoubtedly be the choice of all Latin Americans, Spaniards, Portuguese and most Italians on board, with the French, Dutch, Germans and Scandinavians divided on eating time preferences.

Watch out when lunches or dinners are served in "open sitting"...get there early or you may just face a long wait for a table...of course you could take your food from the buffet...but American passengers, in particular, fond of breakfast and lunch buffets as they are...seem to shy away from dinner buffets when they are offered...The "outdoor dining" option here is in the Satellite Cafe, Sunrise Terrace and Riviera Terrace....there are plenty of tables both indoors and out, and there's a buffet line on each side of the ship to minimize line ups. That same MSC emphasis on quality is as evident here as in the dining rooms of her fleetmates. In general the food is very good and the Italian dishes were superb...Like each of the MSC ships, the MELODY's kitchens have specialties...but since I don't know if you plan to sail in her in Mediterranean or the Caribbean...I don't presume to suggest to tell you which dishes will please you most.

Almost all the outside cabins are a respectable 195 square feet....and even though they are long and skinny rooms, you'll be able to unpack everything, relax and enjoy your digs without bumping into each other at every turn. All the cabins, including the smaller 140 square foot inside grades, have a private bathroom with shower.....many outside rooms have a tub as well. There's a wide array of bedding arrangements on board, but unless you're going to have a third or fourth occupant in your cabin, no one will have to climb a ladder to get into a bunk. Most of the cabins were designed to be a living room by day and a bedroom at night....so you'll find many rooms fitted with sofas, easy chairs, and cocktail tables. The category two mini suites, for example, have a queen sized bed, a sitting area and a large bathroom with tub. The six suites on Premier Deck will give you 410 feet of very comfortable surroundings....they have a living room with two large sofas, a television, a long writing desk with two chairs for his and her pen strokes, a bedroom with two beds, a large walk in closet and a fully equipped bathroom with bidet.

In some measure depends on where she is going. On her voyages of greatest interest to us...the positioning trips between Europe and the United States, you will find a nice mix of nationalities and a big percentage of travelers having a common love of sea travel....that's why they are here....to make the crossing from one place to another. And these are people who require less organized entertainment than most other cruise passengers. Obviously, her Caribbean sailings will appeal to a lot of Americans and Canadians.....and these passengers know a good bargain when they see one....MSCs rates for these cruises are low! In Europe, the MELODY attracts large numbers of value seeking vacationers and her Mediterranean cruises draw lots of passengers from all of Western Europe. A fair number of Americans have begun to discover that cruising Europe with European passengers is not only a highly logical plan, but has allowed them a distinct view of Europe not so readily apparent to shiploads of passengers limited to American and Canadian citizens.

The MELODY is the only ship in the MSC fleet to call in North American ports. She will make a series of eleven night cruises from Pt. Everglades during the winter....one itinerary visits Key West, Grand Cayman, Ocho Rios, Puerto Limon and Cozumel....the other trip includes San Juan, St. Thomas, Antigua, Grenada, St. Lucia, Guadeloupe and Port Lucaya. As there are no overlapping ports on either of these trips, if you have three weeks, consider making back to back cruises.....this will be one of the most comprehensive Caribbean programs available. In early May, the MELODY will return to her home...Genoa...on a seventeen night crossing beginning from Pt. Everglades. She'll visit San Juan, St. Croix, Antigua, Guadeloupe, Funchal, Cadiz and Barcelona. Once home, if her 1999 itineraries are the same as this year's, the MELODY will run seven and eleven night trips in the Mediterranean. The week long journey includes Naples, Palermo, Tunis, Palma, Barcelona and Marseilles. One of the eleven night itineraries brings the MELODY to Salerno, Port Said, Beirut, Tartous in Syria, Crete and Capri. The other itinerary includes Malaga, Funchal, Tenerife, Casablanca, Cadiz and Barcelona.

No matter what I think of a specific ship, any ship operated by an Italian outfit is going to have a certain edge for me, and while there is no more Italian Line passenger service, and I know I will never encounter the likes of Italian Line again, the influences that line had on me for the first twenty seven years of my life are so strong....and my connections to Italy so real that I am unlikely to squawk about much of anything when I sail with an Italian crew. I think that no matter who you are, you can have a lot of fun in this ship. My caveat...you already know....she hasn't got much deck space...but that aside, the MELODY might be more than OK for you....you might love her. Very fairly priced, her cruises provide good value, and there's a lot I like about her. There isn't a lot of pretension here, but don't expect to rub elbows with the remnants of Italian royalty. Just revel in that Italian spirit of love of life. The food is fine, the itineraries good, and then there's that Italian charm... UNBEATABLE!