Mediterranean

We felt that Global Journeys was simply a booking agent, who passed on little knowledge of the cruise/ship we had selected. This might seem unfair, but I think a travel agent could offer a bit more information. Anyway, this is what we learnt about the cruise on World Europa, which your operators might take on board.

1. We didn't know that we could ...read more have arranged a shuttle pickup at the airport to the ship. We would have preferred this to trying to find a taxi and explaining our destination.
2. The cruise package included 4 complimentary restaurants, which we assumed we could choose as we like. But what we didn't know is that we were allocated a dedicated table to a specific restaurant each night for dinner.
3. To provide something different we asked to move restaurants, which was allowed, but then discovered that each complimentary restaurant had exactly the same menu each night, although it changed daily.
4. The quality of the food at the complimentary restaurants was only fair and on one night poor. In the end we upgraded to some of the speciality restaurants to provide something different and better. This was a much better option.
5. For us, the ship was too big and it took at least 4 days to be confident about where you were going and where our cabin was.
6. In light of the ship being too big, there were simply too many people (6,500 guests and 2,500 staff) and most areas were crowded from early morning. Booking a show or a speciality restaurant had to be done very early else they were full.
7. The breakfast buffet was pretty unpleasant with people jostling all over the place. But, in the end we found an alternative menu driven, table service breakfast venue, which was much nicer.
8. The cabin (1408) was very good. Spacious with most facilities we needed.
9. Cabin housekeeping was excellent. In fact all the ship staff were extremely helpful.
10. Ship logistics in coordinating dining; excursions; theatre shows etc was also excellent. Anyone not phone literate would be completely lost as everything was phone based, even the dining menus.
11. The ships wifi was excellent, but in hindsight we should have upgraded our internet package to include more than 1 device.
12. The excursions (we did one at every port) were pretty good offering a good tase of the cities we visited.

The ship itself was mind blowing, with multiple choices for shops; fast food; adult entertainment; kids entertainment and swimming pools. We would recommend the “back of ship tour” as this provided a real insight into how a ship of this size operates. Finally, whilst we might choose MSC again, it certainly would not be on the World Europa.