This would be the last day for us on the ship. This would be the last day that we could leave our towels on the floor and have them replaced with clean ones by the room steward. This would be the day where we would have to pack our suitcases and leave them by the door, so that we could pick them up at the pier. And this would be the day that I'd start itemizing what the cruise line did right and did wrong, preparing to write an email to the cruise line's customer service department.
But what would I write about?
Well, the first thing that comes to mind is the questionable service in the main dining room for breakfast, brunch, and lunch. Unlike dinner service (where you sit at the same table, at the same time, and are served by the same staff), breakfast, brunch and lunch service has people sitting at random tables, at random times during the meal's dining schedule, and has multiple servers providing uncoordinated service. One could place a meal order with one person, have a bar order taken by a second person, and food delivered by a third. It seems like no one is talking to each other during morning and afternoon meals, leaving many cruisers unhappy. To make things worse, our lunch server reached over the table next to us to hand us our dessert plates. If I were running a restaurant, this would be unacceptable service.
Like the closet in my studio cabin on my first cruise with this line, the closet in our cabin has hinged doors. This is not a problem when a cabin has enough space for doors to open, like our current interior cabin. But this is a big problem for the line's studio cabins, as the opened sofa-bed blocks the doors, and limits access to the closet. Unlike other cruise lines, the space in this cabin is not designed to store much. In my interior cabin on last year's California Trip, I had at least twice as much space to store things than I have on this cruise - in a similarly sized cabin. I will likely suggest that they retrofit the closets in their studio cabins to use sliding doors, as this would be a great benefit to future cruisers.
Yet, there are good things I can say as well. The comedians on both of my most recent cruises were good, and made us want to see them more than once. We were both Food served in the main dining room was plentiful, albeit under-spiced to many Americans' tastes. (It's easier to add salt to a dish than to take it away.) Dinner service in the main dining room was very good, and everyone there was very attentive to our needs. We didn't need to dine at any of the specialty restaurants, and we were glad we made the choice not to do so.
Readers may notice the scooter in the hallway at the top of this entry. Our steward said that MSC doesn't have a policy against scooters being left in the hall. This can be a big problem in case of an emergency. There is not enough room for a wheelchair to roll through the hall when a scooter takes up more than half the hall's width. I'll be sure to note this as a major risk factor in my email, even though I didn't want to complain while onboard the ship - why make things harder for people who need these scooters and ruin their cruises?
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Back to our day....
After breakfast, we had to pack. So we both loaded up our suitcases and readied them for the transport from the ship to the pier. Then came our last lunch and dinner in the main dining rooms. We said farewell to our waiter, then it was back to the cabin to finish packing. We were mildly disturbed by the steward when he came for the beach towels. Yet, this was the perfect opportunity for us to hand him a tip in person.
Both of us felt as if our belongings had grown while we were on the ship. As I write this, I'm hoping that I packed my large suitcase to its capacity and left enough room in my backpack and carry-on to handle the rest of my stuff.
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