My complaint:
Dear MSC,
I am deeply disappointed by last trip on MSC Virtuosa. Being a gold member and having spent a fortune on three cruises I did not expect the service from some of the staff at some of the bars. On the last two cruises I could go to the bar and order two drinks on my card, one for me and one for my Husband. This time it varied from bar to bar and dependant on who served you.
For example, on deck 15 in the buffet bar I could order two drinks on my card and my husband could order two drinks on his. Now, if you went to the poolside bar, i’m now being told it’s one card, one drink. I told them that that’s not true as if I go inside I can get two drinks. Then if I went back to the poolside bar at a different time and got a different member of staff they would serve me two drinks no question.
The bar next to the smoking room was the same, one minute it’s one drink and then another time it’s two! It got very stressful as you don’t know if you need to walk around with two cards or not when the other person might need their card for something else. On a few occasions where i would be served two drinks I would only then get one mixer. I was pretty sure one drink counts as one spirit one and one mixer, so then I would need to get my husband’s card to get the other mixer!! Sometimes when I asked for two they would say but I have given you a double, I would say I didn’t ask for a double I asked for two drinks.
I didn’t bother with deck six as it was always too busy.
The casino – I always got two drinks and they would even bring them to you.
Some of the staff in general were quite rude and I never experienced this before.
The staff in the restaurant I was told had been informed that I was lactose intolerant and so could not have anything with dairy in it. When I got to the restaurant I told the table attendant I can’t have anything with dairy in it and he seemed to have no knowledge of this. He had to check with the kitchen what was on the menu I could have and basically I could have soup and fish. My choice was very restricted so after that we decided just to go to the buffet.
When you picked your food and got back to the table it was stone cold. If I asked someone to heat it up for me I would get a confused look. It got to the point where the ship got busier and so did the staff and so I gave up asking my food to be heated up and just ate it cold. I cannot stand a warm dinner let alone a cold one, hot is meant to be hot.
As the ship got busier so did the queues at the bars. So you queue and queue for a drink to then be told you can only have one when the other one is saving the table and looking after our stuff.
Being on deck 14 so just below the market place buffet the sound of the chairs constantly moving around was relentless so I’m now hardly sleeping. In general, all of this made me very stressed and caused my seizures to be worse (as you are probably aware Chloe had to tend to me a few times). It also made me feel very unwell. I felt so Ill I barely leave the cabin for two days.
What should have been an enjoyable, pleasant experience turned into the complete opposite. For days I just wanted to get off the boat and go home but I had no choice but to stay and suffer it.
I feel like I paid £1000 for a really bad experience and I would rather have kept that money and stayed at home.
One upside is that Johnny, our room attendant was absolutely fantastic and I can’t thank him enough for his service.
I appreciate your reply.
Kind regards
Danielle Speed
Suggested solution:
When they offer some of kind of refund or compensation. I do not mean money off another cruise I will not be getting on that boat ever again.
