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Mediterranean Shipping Cruises

m/v MSC Opera

Your Rating:
Reviewed by:Tez Handjekus
# previous cruises: 6
Date of Trip: December 18, 2004
Itinerary: Caribbean - Southern

This is not your "normal" cruise, but definitely worth trying out just for experience sake. The Italians do it different than other cruise ships, but I found them to be charming and interesting. I only wish they understood English a bit better. Having a piece of paper to write on comes in handy as they seem to understand that pretty well.

The ship was comfortable and we never felt cramped. Ample areas for sitting and relaxing before dinner or the show. The pool had plenty of places to sit near it and the lounge chairs were awesome having a little sun shade on them. They were also out on the back of the ship, which I loved to sit there during the day and/or night (especially going through the Panama Canal).

We were in the L'Apredo dining room and it was very nice and to me, it was cozy. The food was pretty good. The pasta's where very good as well as the soups and fruit. They only served iced tea in the dining room, so I had to make my own most of the time. Our waiter was not very good, nor his helper. I did however find a server that was an absolute delight and his name was Benny and his helper was Christophe. The two of them are very good and hard working. I ended up tipping Benny (too) because I got better service from him than my night waiter. These guys do work very hard, and very many hours, so I say tip them as you would on any other ship and never mind the "no tipping" policy. They work too hard for that. (Someone at our table broke a glass and it was left there the remaining hour that we were there.) Also, when ordering, be prepared to get the wrong thing on occasion, if you are ordering in English. I got the wrong thing several times, and learned to point to what I wanted, but still got the wrong thing at times. I had to mark this one up to growing pains. Also, if you want room service, it is limited to mostly sandwiches and things like that, no meals per se.

The cabin we had was very tiny compared to other ships we had been on. By the end of the cruise it didn't matter, we got use to it. There was plenty of space in the closet as well as drawers. The bathroom was quite small and I found the shower to be really small for any size other than a child maybe. The safe was behind the mirror which was hard to get to at times when someone was sitting at the mirror. Other than that, the cabin steward was pretty good at keeping the room clean and the room was efficient.

The shows were good, but I am not into this sort of thing too much. However, I did go to a seminar that was interesting. I would of liked for there to be a little more to do on the ship than what they had.

The itinerary was fun. I found Cartegena Colombia very interesting and Costa Rica was beautiful and probably the best tour I have ever taken (and on the nicest buses (Costa Flora)). The yacht club at Panama/Gatun Lake was a waste of money for me. I didn't last an hour there. Itinerary times changed frequently and excursions took an hour wait before leaving. They really need to work on leaving on time. When we were at Cristobal, Panama, I was never able to leave the ship. The waiting line was so long that after a half an hour, I gave up, as we were only there for like 45 minutes as it was, and I had to be at dinner in 15 minutes, so we never made it off the ship at that time.

There were from everywhere. My fellow table mates were from Canada and were very enjoyable. (We compared notes on this ship compared to others nightly.) Had we not had such great table mates, I would of changed dinner seating early in the cruise. I did meet a few people from the U.S.A, but it was very sparse as far as I could tell. I am sure that will change with time. All in all, the people I found to be very pleasant.