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Mediterranean Shipping Cruises

m/v MSC Orchestra

Your Rating:
Reviewed by:Joseph Gloss
# previous cruises: 2
Date of Trip: january 2, 2009
Itinerary: Bahamas

We arrived at the Terminal at 1 PM for boarding. There were approx. 500 people already in line to get in. They did not open the doors to the terminal until 2:30 PM and by this time there were approx. 1,000 people in the check-in line. We finally got on the ship at 4:50 PM. During all this time no announcements were made advising what the delay was. Later that day a letter was slipped under our cabin doors just telling us "Sorry for the inconviences."

The disembarkation procedure was also a disaster that was quite disorganized. We had priority disembarkation since we elected to take out own luggage ashore and it still took 3 hours. The first group that was announced for disembarkation, around 8:30 AM, had only moved about 10 feet when they announced for the 2nd group to disembark. We then stood in line for another hour.

The public areas were very elegant. It was a beautiful ship with a lot of art work and sculpture in the public areaas. There were many numerous lounges that were quite comfortable. Crew was unfamiliar with the ship and if you asked them where something as simple as to where the restrooms were they did not know.

Nothing spectacular about the food. No fancy presentations. It was just your basic food. Service was generally slow. We had the 8:30 PM Late Seating and arrived at the dining room at 8:50 PM only to find ourselves waiting in another line to get in. By the time we finished dinner and get to the 10:30 PM show it was 11:00 PM and therefore missed more than half the show.

The cabing were spacious and very nice. We had an Oceanview Room with a Balcony. The room had a king size bed and a larger than normal ship's bthroom. No complaints about the room.

The show that we did see was not too bad. It did have some good entertainers.

The pool and Health Club were very nice, but there were no organized activities or announcement while aboard the ship. The only good part about this was that they did not bombard the passengers, every 15 minutes, with announcements for Bingo Games.

Fellow passengers were nice and put up with most of the inconviences without too much complaints. We sat at a table for 4, but no one joined us for dinner. We had the table to ourselves.