MSC Sinfonia Reviews

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The cruise aboard MSC Sinfonia was the best holiday we have ever experienced. We usually holiday in Spain and France, but now we have been spoilt by MSC Cruises, we could never go on holiday in France again. The French simply don't know how to provide a holiday, but they know how to enjoy one, judging by the number of French people aboard. We have two children and they loved the holiday. If you want to, the Sinfonia will look after your children in a very professional, safe and secure manner. We kept our children with us for the first two days but soon gave in to their demands to join the Junior Club. There are four swimming pools, loads of activities throughout the day or you can just veg out with a book or sunbathe. There is a sunbed for everyone aboard. emergency drills for the crew are carried out every day which just goes to show how serious MSC is about their ships. The evening shows are full of energy and spectacular. The food is really healthy and good. Breakfast is a feast and lunch and dinner are 7- course feasts. The service is better than 5 star. Cabins are serviced TWICE per day. The Sinfonia deserves 7 stars for the sheer effort, professionalism, courtesy and service. the staff speak various languages - English mainly, but Italians, French, Spanish, Germans are catered for too. We can't wait to go again soon - very soon. The hotels in the South of France need to check out the cruising scene and take note. No 5-star hotel in France can compete with MSC Cruises. None - especially if you have children.

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My husband and 20 month old toddler cruised on the MSC Sinfonia last week and thoroughly enjoyed every moment. After reading all the negative reviews, we deceided to go with an open mind and deceide for ourselves. We were prepared for a lengthy embarkation process so knew what to expect. The waiting area though does not have sufficient airconditioning and was especially uncomfortable with a restless toddler. We arrived at 10h45, embarkation opened at 11h00 and we were in our cabins just after 12h30. When you arrive, you join a queue with your luggage in tow. You are given luggage tags and a number. Your drop off your luggage and then enter the holding area. Numbers are called and you queue accordingly - eg they started with 1 -250 and we were 428. We deceided to put our little one down for a nap as soon as we got to our cabins as she had a long day. We were scheduled to leave at 14h30 but left the harbour at 15h15. The pool deck is lovely and so are all the bars and restaurants on board. We chose the 1st dinner seating because of our little one. You are free to eat in which ever restaurant for breakfast and lunch but have a reserved table for dinner at a specific restaurant that you are not able to change. We were very happy with our table at the sit down restaurant Il Galeone. The tables are all for 5 people - 12 people per table and we were joined by a lovey family, mum and dad with two kids. The menu was all Italian for the entire trip which we enjoyed. it was a 6 course menu and We found it varied and not as bad as some have made it out to be. On the flipside, we found the food at the buffet La Terraza aweful - bland and tasteless. We didnt get to see much of the evening entertainment as they dont offer babysitting for kids under 4 which is a pity. We nonetheless made the best of each day relaxing by the pool and getting loads of rest which was exactly the aim of this cruise for us. The majority of the staff are Italian and are very surly and rude. However we found the Indonesian and Mauritian staff very friendly and courteous. All in all, it was a memorable and wonderful cruise with beautiul memories!

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I am back on land!! Thank goodness! It has taken a little while to adjust and I feel like I have not slept for a week. So here is a rundown of my first boat trip on the MSC Sinfonia... I hope this helps future travellers.. On Friday (10 Feb 2012) we left home at 9 am and headed down to the boat. Thanks to The Magic bus for providing us with a shuttle that dropped us right at the check in! We then went to get a... number for the check in, only to be told that we need tickets??? LOL. Luckily the lady gave us a number and off we went inside to get our handwritten ticket. We met some friends and had a good laugh chatting away. Time went pretty quickly and by 11 am we boarded the boat. Luckily the lady that gave us our key cards asked if she could activate our credit card for our room account, that saved us a lot of time. We stayed on the 10th floor and had a room with a balcony. The room was great. When we left Durban our friends joined us to watch as we left the harbour. We then booked our excursions as space was limited. We booked to go on the snorkeling adventure on Saturday morning at the Portugese Island. We then went for lunch at Le terracce restaurant. Nice buffet with a good selection of food and this meal was enjoyable. Then came the emergency drill! What a complete waste of time. When you do something, do it right! No one took this seriosly and if anything had to happen on board, this will result in chaos. The video in the room was extremely informative. I went down for the presentation by the entertainment director explaining what is going to happen on the cruise etc etc. This was very informative. We then decided to test drive the jacuzzi.. It was loads of fun. Our luggage only arrived at 6pm and thank goodness we had hard suitcases. It seemed like the staff are practising for a suitcase throwing competition. I saw a case fly nearly 3m and land on other suitcases. I found this unacceptable and thanks to MSC my suitcase has many more scratches on it. We got seated with a couple and a mother and daughter for dinner. As this was the Jakaranda Cruise (we did not know at the time of booking), Afrikaans was the choice of language. My poor wife... She can now communicate in Afrikaans. Service at dinner was sharp, drink and wine affordable ($2 a beer and $ 12 - $ 17 for a bottle of wine). Sorry to say, but the dinner was shocking. You order a number of courses. The presentation was not attractive at all. The clear soups - tasteless. The chicken starter was just bad. I do not know if anyone tastes the food before they send it out?? We went to watch a show that was pretty enjoyable and then joined our friends at the nightclub for a bit of dancing before heading to bed for an early night.. At night you get a newsletter with the daily program and events that was extremely helpfull. We got up early and went for breakfast. This was great! We did the plated breakfast option and this can be highly recommended. Service was good and food well presented and fresh. With our priority boarding passes in hand we went to wait for the rubberducks to transfer us to Portugese island for our snorkeling excursion. Any person that did not book and excursion had to get a number and wait to board. We managed to sit right at the front and thought we would be the first to board. Somehow a big group from Beachcomber got in front of us. Once on board, the trip went quickly to the island. The sea was a little choppy, but he staff extremely professional. Once we reached the beach, we proceeded to the Snorkelling station and a short while later, our host, Andre took us to the Reef. It take 30 min. On the way to the reef, we saw a lot of Jellyfish, but was told that we would not be affected as this was not common at the reef. They checked to see where the current was flowing and a guy was in the water with a kayak if someone needed assistance. What a dissapointment! No one told you that the reef was only 30 cm under the water. The current was washing you over the coral. A blue bottle stung me within the first 2 minutes and I was not the only casualty. I had to inflate my life jacket to try and stay above the coral, but this seemed to be harder than I thought. I had cuts in my hands and knees, but was not the worst affected. Blue bottles seemed to be the most painfull. The reef was amazing with many species of fish. I just felt bad as it got damaged badly with everyone was up on it. The locals said that is was not the normal wind and created this abnormal conditions. I was also a little surprised that little first aid was available on the catamaran that took us to the reef. Once back on the island, the fist aid officer treated our wounds and after discussing this with the next group that was about to go, they made a wise decision to cancel snorkeling for the day as it was not safe. The braai on the beach was also cancelled, so we decided to head home for lunch on the boat. We decided to have an informal lunch on the deck with Hamburger, Hotdogs and pizza. THe Hamburgers and pizza's are great. Do not eat the Chicken sausage on the Hotdog. It is the worst I have ever tasted! THe rest of the afternoon was spent lounging around the pool. Later in the afternoon we noticed a dark cloud approaching with speed. It seemed like it was from a movie. This dark cloud, with lighting and the cold air that came with it. I told me wife it is time to get undercover and then the storm hit. THe boat was still anchored and tilted to the right.Rain and wind came and you just saw staff running to save some of the electrical equipment. People ran to the cabins and many people came out with life jackets on. This is when I decided to have soem fun and put my diving equipment and life jacket on and grabbed a floating device and pretended I was in Baywatch. One guy with only 1 leg sat in the start with a buket of beer and did not move! Our room floaded a bit with the ship pitching and our sliding door having a slight leak. In the evening our show was before dinner, followed by Bingo and then dinner. Dinner was horrible once again. The steak was so tought, you could not eat it and as I eat with my eyes, some presentation skills would be needed. We partied the night away at the nightclub. I missed breakfast the next morning and my wife and friends went to the disembarkation prestation. Lunch we decided to try the set menu again and it was bad, but had a few good items. THe only good thing was the calamari starter and the pasta. THe meat looked like it was boiled and hard as a rock. For dinner we decided to join our friends and spoke to management, who arranged this and had a waiter Jerry serve us. He was great! He made recommendation on what we should eat and got it all right exept for the steak again!! We had to leave our suitcases out at 2am for them to collect. As you have to leave your cabin at 7am, we got up early and had breakfast. Breakfast was good as always. We had to sign our bill and wait for disembarkation by colour. Luckily this was a smooth and quick process. Now I am home and it feels a little strange being on land again. So did we enjoy it - YES was it good value - YES Would we go again - MAYBE (not sure right now and this is just because of the storm and rough seas) did anyone get sea sick - Not one person in our group. I was very surprised as my wife is normally the worst. Would you recommend this to others - YES , but go in a group. We would have liked to have more activities to do during the day. Everything seemed to start at 4 or 5pm. The service and staff are amazing! They really make a big difference! Hope this helps... This was my first MSC cruise.

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This review, which is rather long, will appeal to South Africans -- particularly those who have not cruised before and are looking for detailed information on what to expect -- as it covers a five night cruise on the MSC Sinfonia from Durban to Portuguese Island, Maputo, Inhambane and back to Durban. These cruises are extremely popular among South Africans and it appears as if about 80 to 90 percent of passengers are South Africans. They often travel in groups made up of friends or family, and it becomes quite affordable. We were a group of 6 "girls" all around the age of 60. We had two girls in one (inside) cabin and four in another sea-facing cabin. The use of the bathroom, and storage space was a challenge for us, but with patience, it was possible for us all to shower and dress in the confined area. The cabins are small, but comfortable. They were kept clean with regular changes of towels. As this was my first cruise, apart from a cruise from Cape Town to Durban about 45 years ago (which hardly counts), my views may be considered by many as biased as I do not have the advantage of comparison with other vessels and cruise lines. However, there has been a lot of criticism of the MSC Sinfonia and other MSC vessels, that I am not entirely convinced is justified. I read many reviews before departing, and decided to keep an open mind. I did not find the language issue much of a problem as most crew speak some English. The waiters in the restaurants are extremely friendly and accommodating, whereas the waiters in the buffet restaurant were less friendly. Cabin stewards were also quite friendly and helpful. In terms of the food, we found it very tasty, with more than ample variety. Occasionally, there was the odd dish that we did not like at all, but there is so much to choose from, it was not a problem. We fell into the pattern of having dinner in the assigned restaurant (there are two on the Sinfonia), as it is nice to be served and to dine with decent crockery etc. There are seven or more courses, which of course you don't have to work your way through, however the portions are fortunately fairly small. We preferred to have breakfast and lunch in the buffet restaurant on the pool deck as you can have more fruit, and less of whatever else, and at lunch you can enjoy plenty of salads. We missed the fact that there is no ice-cream at the buffet restaurant -- seems to be only at the "sit down" restaurants. Of course there is ice-cream to buy from the ice-cream parlour. There are also coffees of all types that you can order. The coffee at the buffet venue is only instant Nescafe (quite adequate if you make it strong).

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Having booked on the portugese islands 3 night cruise from durban we were looking forward to a relaxing cruise to celebrate an important birthday. our first queue was at the port of durban where after dropping our cases at just before 10:00 we had to wait 2.5 hours before embarking in what was little more than a warehouse with 3 toilets for 300+ people. Once on board we found the food very poor with service in the main restaurants from waiters who could not speak English and invariably got the orders wrong or if you wish to use the buffet facilities then the queues were normally 20+ people with the food being of a quality I have rarely experienced in even the lowest of staff canteens. we were hit by a 147k winds while docked in the Portuguese islands which had many people running around in panic as the boat tipped 8" on to its port side before being released. there was not one announcement to calm or advise passengers what to do and the pool deck where many were sitting became a war zone with tables tipped etc from the wind. luckily no-one was hurt during the storm. We had booked a balcony suite and were impressed with the room which was well laid out and clean. the spa was also exceptionally well managed and peaceful which was a saving grace for our trip. We met other passengers who had cruised before and were equally disappointed with the poor service and food having experienced exceptional service with other service providers outside south Africa.

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