a loyal to RCCL struggling btwn MSC or Costa

[millineumwoman]

Are you sure you have ever been on Costa? Smoking is only allowed on some places outside plus a smokers lounge on most ships.

So the policy doesn't differ much from Royal. What the passengers make of it ... (but that too can be said about Royal).

 

 

Yes I was on the costa fortuna and did a review of it a few years ago

 

 

Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

[MADflyer]

What are the smoking policies like on the European lines? I know that more Europeans smoke than Americans, so I wonder if the cigarette smoke would be a problem?

 

While MSC does allow smoking in their casinos in Europe and in one designated indoor lounge, the ship is 90% smoke free. MSC does not allow smoking on balconies. MSC adapts smoking policies for the ships deployed to the US market to restrict smoking even in the casino.

 

Costa is also non-smoking now. They only allow smoking in designated areas on outdoor decks and in the Cigar Lounge.

 

http://www.cruisecritic.com/articles.cfm?ID=225

[Iluvcruising2]

We sailed on the MSC Yacht Club on the MSC Preziosa in Dec 2015 and had a fabulous time! I have been writing about my trip on the MSC Boards - http://boards.cruisecritic.com/showthread.php?t=2288693

 

Here is a video of one of the seven dinners we had in the Yacht Club restaurant.

[YOUTUBE]2_DnkB_ubl0[/YOUTUBE]

 

And plenty more to eat & drink in the Top Sail Lounge for Yacht Club guests only.

[YOUTUBE]SzRgZHlWL9s[/YOUTUBE]

[LeoEdre]

I am Italian and I don't think there is much difference between European and American cruising style except for food and language. Most Italian cruisers who can speak English actually prefer Royal Caribbean over our lines (Costa and MSC), because ships and service are better, no one thinks they are "too American".

If you have kids, you will probably notice that Italian don't have the "adult only" concept, so teens have much more freedom and can do pretty much everything adults can do except for gambling and drinking alcohol under 18 (but they can drink on land in Italy!).

If you go during the very long Italian school holidays there will be A LOT of young kids on the ship, as they travel almost for free on Costa and MSC.

[Iluvcruising2]

I am Italian and I don't think there is much difference between European and American cruising style except for food and language. Most Italian cruisers who can speak English actually prefer Royal Caribbean over our lines (Costa and MSC), because ships and service are better, no one thinks they are "too American".

If you have kids, you will probably notice that Italian don't have the "adult only" concept, so teens have much more freedom and can do pretty much everything adults can do except for gambling and drinking alcohol under 18 (but they can drink on land in Italy!).

If you go during the very long Italian school holidays there will be A LOT of young kids on the ship, as they travel almost for free on Costa and MSC.

 

Good tip on the Italian school holidays. Could you tell me what are the dates of these holidays? (Hopefully we can plan around them...)

[LeoEdre]

Good tip on the Italian school holidays. Could you tell me what are the dates of these holidays? (Hopefully we can plan around them...)

They should be from 6/6 (or 9/6) to 12/9 (dates in European format dd/mm).

 

Regarding the main question of the topic (Costa vs MSC), probably MSC is currently slightly better on Italian market.

[mcatmcat]

We love MSC and there entertainment is top notch.

 

 

200%agree

[Clarea]

We love MSC and there entertainment is top notch.

Good to hear, we are seriously considering them.

[DEL67]

I have not been on Costa, but I did sail MSC a few years ago on their last Red Sea cruise To be fair, it was their oldest ship, but I was not impressed.

 

It would probably be different on a European cruise, but we were either the only Americans aboard or 1 of 2 families. However, there were a number of passengers from the UK, Australia and New Zealand.

 

They did make an effort to include everybody by holding different meetings by language and their trivia featured questions from most of the countries represented by the passengers.

 

Dining room Dinner took a while, but not 2 hours. In general, they sat the English speaking passengers together. However, perhaps because we booked late, we were seated with a young woman from Estonia and her grandmother. The young woman spoke English and translated for her grandmother so we actually enjoyed sitting with them, but it would have been awkward if we could not communicate.

 

Food: In general, I did not enjoy the food, especially the buffet. The pasta and risotto was good, but I found the meat overdone and dry. And I greatly objected to the fact hat they would not provide tap water so you had to pay for lukewarm bottled water. Desserts were good, however.

 

Shows: Nothing of interest to us.

 

Service: Customer Service in general was greatly lacking. We had fewer issues than some. other passengers because they generally just said no to almost any request, For example, the internet was either so slow that it could tale 10+ minutes to get to your email and kept dropping. I have experienced this on other cruise lines and been given credit. They would not do so. You had to stand in line the last night to confirm the credit card for your onboard account. It took our cabin attendant over 3 hours to split and remake our beds the first night even though we called several times. Since we were exhausted from the flight and time change, we were making up the beds ourselves by the time she came in at 10 PM.

 

Bottom line: Would I sail MSC again? Yes, if the itinerary and price were right. Otherwise, no.

[Clarea]

I have not been on Costa, but I did sail MSC a few years ago on their last Red Sea cruise To be fair, it was their oldest ship, but I was not impressed.

 

It would probably be different on a European cruise, but we were either the only Americans aboard or 1 of 2 families. However, there were a number of passengers from the UK, Australia and New Zealand.

 

They did make an effort to include everybody by holding different meetings by language and their trivia featured questions from most of the countries represented by the passengers.

 

Dining room Dinner took a while, but not 2 hours. In general, they sat the English speaking passengers together. However, perhaps because we booked late, we were seated with a young woman from Estonia and her grandmother. The young woman spoke English and translated for her grandmother so we actually enjoyed sitting with them, but it would have been awkward if we could not communicate.

 

Food: In general, I did not enjoy the food, especially the buffet. The pasta and risotto was good, but I found the meat overdone and dry. And I greatly objected to the fact hat they would not provide tap water so you had to pay for lukewarm bottled water. Desserts were good, however.

 

Shows: Nothing of interest to us.

 

Service: Customer Service in general was greatly lacking. We had fewer issues than some. other passengers because they generally just said no to almost any request, For example, the internet was either so slow that it could tale 10+ minutes to get to your email and kept dropping. I have experienced this on other cruise lines and been given credit. They would not do so. You had to stand in line the last night to confirm the credit card for your onboard account. It took our cabin attendant over 3 hours to split and remake our beds the first night even though we called several times. Since we were exhausted from the flight and time change, we were making up the beds ourselves by the time she came in at 10 PM.

 

Bottom line: Would I sail MSC again? Yes, if the itinerary and price were right. Otherwise, no.

Appreciate the feedback.:)

[George C]

Have not cruised either recently, but enjoyed both, however have been getting e-mails from Costa saying kids cruise free and we try to avoid ships with children .

[brookie848]

I really hate to post this on this board, but have you looked at NCL? They offer cruises on one of their older ships (three different itineraries) starting in Copenhagen.

 

And if you are willing to put off the trip until next year, the Getaway (NCL's second-newest ship) will be sailing from Germany in the summer.

[molsonschooner]

Good to hear, we are seriously considering them.

 

I wonder how crowded MSC ships are compared to Royals ships. I just did a quick comparison between the Divina and Navigator. They are roughly the same size but Divina carries about 500 more passengers

[Clarea]

I wonder how crowded MSC ships are compared to Royals ships. I just did a quick comparison between the Divina and Navigator. They are roughly the same size but Divina carries about 500 more passengers

That's one of the things I like about Royal's ship designs, they usually do a good job of distributing guests about the ship.

[cruise1804]

I'm probably wrong but a few years ago we were going book an MSC cruise as they did free kids places....we wanted to book two interconnecting cabins but both MSC and travel agent informed me MSC DO NOT allocate cabin numbers until you board so cannot guarantee the cabins we wanted. Obviously didn't go ahead as couldn't risk kids not being next door to us.

[rance]

We went on MSc divinia 2 years ago...I've only done 10 cruises but that was our worst. Food and service were bad. The ship was nice though.

[LMaxwell]

I'm probably wrong but a few years ago we were going book an MSC cruise as they did free kids places....we wanted to book two interconnecting cabins but both MSC and travel agent informed me MSC DO NOT allocate cabin numbers until you board so cannot guarantee the cabins we wanted. Obviously didn't go ahead as couldn't risk kids not being next door to us.

They run things different with US bookings. I leave in a month. Picked my room number and "experience" level.

 

Deals are so good I know a group of 17 going in 2 weeks, many with balconies, all with all inclusive drink packages, and a bunch of kids, for less than all interior and no drink pack on either Freedom or Oasis class ships.

[matj2000]

We did the MSC Orchestra back in 2009 and had a great time.

 

It was different but who wants to do the same thing over & over?

 

I would like to do the Divina however the new itineraries really are lacking for the weeks I can go...