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Do you believe all the negative reviews?


Stoffel1982
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Hi there

 

We will be sailing with the MSC Meraviglia in a few weeks. The ship looks absolutely stunning and I can't wait to explore and experience it myself!

 

Overall, the reviews are great, but some are negative. I read that some people even cancel a cruise (whatever cruiseline...) based on opinions of others. That's kind of sad, no? Everyone likes something different. What I do not appreciate is that someone totally defames a ship. A lady wrote that she didn't like anything about the ships: the decor, the food, service, etc. Some people do not like all the glitter and glamour. I hate it when they discourage a cruiseline when they don't even know what they're talking about.

 

What is your opinion on this matter?

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Would never book or cancel based on someone else's opinion. That is just ridiculous. Everyone like and dislikes are different. I read all the reviews on Seaside and went and had a wonderful time and will cruise MSC again.

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I could have written a really negative review of one cruise we did on MSC;  I could also have written quite a few glowing reviews of other cruises we've done on MSC.  Which would define whether MSC is a good product or not?  Having done 21 MSC cruises, I've learned to accept the negative elements and enjoy the best ones.

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3 hours ago, Stoffel1982 said:

Hi there

 

We will be sailing with the MSC Meraviglia in a few weeks. The ship looks absolutely stunning and I can't wait to explore and experience it myself!

 

Overall, the reviews are great, but some are negative. I read that some people even cancel a cruise (whatever cruiseline...) based on opinions of others. That's kind of sad, no? Everyone likes something different. What I do not appreciate is that someone totally defames a ship. A lady wrote that she didn't like anything about the ships: the decor, the food, service, etc. Some people do not like all the glitter and glamour. I hate it when they discourage a cruiseline when they don't even know what they're talking about.

 

What is your opinion on this matter?

Like the ships a lot!

But MSC customer service 😡😫😭.

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Each week MSC has tens of thousands embarking on their ships.  Pay no attention to the two or three sour apples.  Sometimes I wonder if some of these po’d people even went on the cruise!  I actually ran into one pax who insisted that his cruise was in ruins because he couldn’t get hot oatmeal for breakfast on the buffet...go figure!

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I read many many reviews,  Im a bit OCD when it comes to booking or buying anything 

I like to read the poor reviews  first, 9 times out of 10 the complaints/moans/negatives are not things that would bother me or lessen the enjoyment after the negative comments I read the positive ones and all the ones in between and I make up my own mind. 

I read many many negative reviews on the cruise line Pullmantur , we were looking at booking this for our Honeymoon  I probably read more negative than positive but it didnt stop us booking and we had a great cruise on that ship with  Pullmantur and would look to book again.

 

 

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I find that one thing both positive and negative reviews share is that there are some comments that I ignore and some that I find helpful. Two people can share the same experience and come away with totally different impressions.  I try to determine how like me the person writing the review is.  

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Reading some reviews I’m convinced people go on holiday to have as miserable a time as possible. 

 

With any review good or bad the truth can usually be found somewhere in between. 

 

The boards on this website are excellent, the information from other cruisers and their reviews I would tend to trust more than the actual review section. 

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I also research pretty extensively before committing to stumping up - be it for a new car, camera or holiday. I don't want to part with a significant chunk of cash on something I might not enjoy.

 

I have to say, I was almost dreading my first MSC cruise - but we took it because we were a large group celebrating a big birthday, with 3 kids, and there was a 'kids go free promo' - plus the itinerary appealed.

 

Turns out it was much better than the reviews would have me believe. That said, I do find myself agreeing with many points raised in reviews - but they either don't affect me to the same extent as the reviewer, or they do affect me this way, but I'm happy to accept this as a compromise for all the things that I do enjoy.

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I find that many of the negative reviews are from passengers who are unhappy the MSC doesn't do things like whatever cruise line they have cruised on umpteen times before (especially the entry level line whose ads include the statement "Leave home without leaving home).  They are shocked that there can be people from different cultures on the ship and that a crew can have a standard of professional service without the obsequiousness they are familiar with.  

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11 hours ago, CGTNORMANDIE said:

Each week MSC has tens of thousands embarking on their ships.  Pay no attention to the two or three sour apples.  

the thing is, we are not talking about 2-3 sour apples. Look at the review stats: 38 terrible vs. 52 excellent, with about the same 40-44 reviews per category in between. So, just about equal.

 

image.png.d9155a11fa7ce0fd23c34071b6e19b17.png

 

and then look at Seaside:

image.png.22a88c63713387e0f95172dd5c415548.png

with 4x the reviews, Excellent category is 2.5x more than Terrible.

 

 

and then, just for giggles, let's look at the Allure of the Seas: do you see the difference?

 

image.png.730b621e14eb1f3bc1d15c7c931334d4.png

 

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Can't really compare. Allure of the seas was built 10 years ago. MSC Meraviglia and Seaside are brand new ships.

 

Cruise Critic Editor Rating for both Meraviglia and Allure of the Seas = 5/5. Seaside 4,5/5. They're cruise fanatics and can compare in my opinion.

Edited by Stoffel1982
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It is well known and proven that a dissatisfied customer is more likely to complain than a satisfied customer. 

The unhappy customer wants to vent and “take action” while the happy customer is content. 

Its like your local restaurant, do you or anyone you know make a point to write a positive review every time they dine out? Or do they only run to Yelp, for example, when they’re dissatisfied with a local establishment?

 

Look for a pattern and consistency in the complaints to see if there is a legitimate issue 

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1 hour ago, Itchy&Scratchy said:

the thing is, we are not talking about 2-3 sour apples. Look at the review stats: 38 terrible vs. 52 excellent, with about the same 40-44 reviews per category in between. So, just about equal.

 

and then look at Seaside:

image.png.22a88c63713387e0f95172dd5c415548.png

with 4x the reviews, Excellent category is 2.5x more than Terrible.

 

 

and then, just for giggles, let's look at the Allure of the Seas: do you see the difference?

 

image.png.730b621e14eb1f3bc1d15c7c931334d4.png

 

 

????? Perhaps you missed my point...The Seaside has had more than 200,000 pax onboard since her inaugural.  The Allure has had over 1 million pax since her inaugural.  Not to mention 4 times as many reviews.

 

MSC has tens of thousands of pax every week...I would say that the complaints are pretty minimal and we never know the real story on a lot of them.  I agree with Stoffel and Englyce...a lot of pax have a great time and never write about it. 

 

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A cruise is what you make it to be.  If you are set to find the negatives, you will.

 

When I first booked my first MSC cruise on Seaside back in February 2018, a lot of people were posting negative reviews.  Based on those reviews, customer service was horrible, ship had teething issues, food was bad, so and so forth.  I was a bit apprehensive about the cruise even on my embarkation date.  By the time I disembarked in December 2018, I am in love with MSC.

 

Don't let little things bother you because someone else mentioned them in their reviews.  You are on vacation.  Enjoy it!

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6 minutes ago, CGTNORMANDIE said:

 

????? Perhaps you missed my point...The Seaside has had more than 200,000 pax onboard since her inaugural.  The Allure has had over 1 million pax since her inaugural.  Not to mention 4 times as many reviews.

 

MSC has tens of thousands of pax every week...I would say that the complaints are pretty minimal and we never know the real story on a lot of them.  I agree with Stoffel and Englyce...a lot of pax have a great time and never write about it. 

 

Fine, forget the Allure. Look only at Meraviglia and Seaside stats... I look at proportions as well as read all reviews.

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Reviews are subjective.  Cruise Critics encourages honest reviews and they get them.  We do need to be careful when judging a review.  As a retired travel consultant, I always called my clients after their travels to find out how the trip went.  I once had a honeymooner write me a three page letter outlining how her honeymoon was ruined because one of the sticks was missing from the croquet set.  When I asked her about the food, service and room, she begrudgingly admitted that they were excellent. She gave the resort the lowest mark on Trip Advisor.  The manager of the resort called her personally to apologize and her response was that you could not give her back her honeymoon.  Methinks something else was wrong with that trip.  Perhaps, her expectations were so high that no resort could have met them.  When you read a review, you have no idea where that person's is coming from.   I am going on MSC next January.  The main reason we chose Divina is that we kept meeting different folks on a recent HAL cruise who loved their MSC experiences.  These were folks who we met on the sailing and enjoyed socializing with.  We compared travel experiences on other lines and agreed with their perceptions.  This will be our 45th cruise and we have only sailed on one cruise (Costa) that merited a 1 star.  I promise to write a review when we return.  

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From what I have seen, most (not all) of the negative reviews were just after it started sailing til around spring of last year.  I believe for entertainment they only seemed to have opera. and they switched the lower level buffet to a dinner area for bella guests which bothered both the bella guests and those who prefer to eat at the buffets for dinner and an odor coming from somewhere( again no 1st hand knowledge just what I've read/surmised) .  It appears since enough people gave negative reviews that the seaside took notice, updated the entertainment, changed to 3 dining times to accomodate all passengers in the regular dining rooms, updated the food in the buffets and found and fixed the odor issue.  and since then the majority of the reviews have been very positive. so if your worried about the reviews. Id suggest looking at reviews from about June 2018 and forward, that seems to be about the time they fixed all the quirks in the ship.  You will still get a few negative reviews but probably more inline with the comparison of the other lines. and I'm sure in the long run they will be far more positive than negative.

 

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13 hours ago, glittergal1 said:

I read many many reviews,  Im a bit OCD when it comes to booking or buying anything 

I like to read the poor reviews  first, 9 times out of 10 the complaints/moans/negatives are not things that would bother me or lessen the enjoyment after the negative comments I read the positive ones and all the ones in between and I make up my own mind. 

I read many many negative reviews on the cruise line Pullmantur , we were looking at booking this for our Honeymoon  I probably read more negative than positive but it didnt stop us booking and we had a great cruise on that ship with  Pullmantur and would look to book again.

 

 

 

Thank you for expressing my thoughts on the matter so well that there is no need for me to repeat.

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1 hour ago, Itchy&Scratchy said:

Fine, forget the Allure. Look only at Meraviglia and Seaside stats... I look at proportions as well as read all reviews.

 

But with MSC you also need to look at the itinerary and how that effects the pax mix.  Seaside, as far as I can tell has been sailing Caribbean itineraries where the pax are predominantly American, while Meraviglia does a lot of Europe and has much more of a multinational pax mix.  And a lot of the bad reviews for Meraviglia are from Americans who blame MSC and the cruise for a lot of the cultural differences you see in a cruise with a lot of non-Americans - where Americans might even be, gasp, the minority.  Some people feel uncomfortable in that environment and they let it color the whole experience.  That wouldn't happen as much on Seaside with its more American oriented itineraries.

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54 minutes ago, Toofarfromthesea said:

 

But with MSC you also need to look at the itinerary and how that effects the pax mix.  Seaside, as far as I can tell has been sailing Caribbean itineraries where the pax are predominantly American, while Meraviglia does a lot of Europe and has much more of a multinational pax mix.  And a lot of the bad reviews for Meraviglia are from Americans who blame MSC and the cruise for a lot of the cultural differences you see in a cruise with a lot of non-Americans - where Americans might even be, gasp, the minority.  Some people feel uncomfortable in that environment and they let it color the whole experience.  That wouldn't happen as much on Seaside with its more American oriented itineraries.

This!

I have been 5 MSC cruises, I am about to go on number 6 in 2 weeks, all in Europe.  The the thing I love about them is that when I'm on the ship I still feel like I am in Europe. 

This seems to be what most people complain about, too many languages, food not " Meat and potatoes" , entertainment like opera, culture of fellow passengers, service not over the top friendly. 

So pretty much it is not American enough.

the European feel is why I love MSC and why I'm reluctant to sail with them  in North America because I'm afraid they will cater too much to the American style.

 

Edited by electro
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1 hour ago, Toofarfromthesea said:

 

But with MSC you also need to look at the itinerary and how that effects the pax mix.  Seaside, as far as I can tell has been sailing Caribbean itineraries where the pax are predominantly American, while Meraviglia does a lot of Europe and has much more of a multinational pax mix.  And a lot of the bad reviews for Meraviglia are from Americans who blame MSC and the cruise for a lot of the cultural differences you see in a cruise with a lot of non-Americans - where Americans might even be, gasp, the minority.  Some people feel uncomfortable in that environment and they let it color the whole experience.  That wouldn't happen as much on Seaside with its more American oriented itineraries.

also,  a lot of Americans are saying that the customer service is so lacking on both European and Caribbean cruises, that MSC would really need to step up with the CS quality if they really want to get a chunk of the US market.

 

the European feel is why I love MSC and why I'm reluctant to sail with them  in North America because I'm afraid they will cater too much to the American style.

yeah, maybe, like "the customer is always right"... That would be nice.

Edited by Itchy&Scratchy
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