In October/November 2022, we went on two cruises around the Mediterranean, back-to-back, spending a total of 24 nights on the two ships.

This post is a review of the two vessels.

Although October was well into the school year, we we still saw no decline in pricing for Italian lodging (and we saw plenty of families on vacation). Checking pricing, we decided it was a better idea to spend some time on cruise ships before leaving Europe for the year. We booked back-to-back cruises going from Civitavecchia (Rome) to Barcelona, and then a round-trip out of Barcelona.

In the first 19 months of our travel sabbatical (starting in April 2022), we spent around a third of our nights on cruise ships: 174 cruise nights over a total of 15 cruises. We are happy to share our experience!

These cruises were our “box checking” cruises, especially with regard to ports with historical sites. With limited time in each city, we wanted to make sure that we had gotten to the highlights, the places that people will ask us about. But there were also some repeat ports, where we tried to dig a little deeper.

Regal Princess

Regal Princess is a sister ship to the Discovery Princess. We sailed Discovery on one of its first voyages, and then later sailed it from Seattle to Alaska. Coming on Regal seemed like we were back on board.

We again enjoyed the Princess buffet food, especially their curry and stew selections. During buffet hours, it was always easy to find a good plate of food, and an open outdoor area to dine.

We were surprised that even though this was a cruise with a European homeport, a majority of the passengers were American. This is likely a product of Princess being an American-marketed cruise line. There are still many Americans using “work from home” to take longer vacations than U.S. jobs would usually allow for.

MSC Bellissima

This was our first time sailing on MSC. MSC is a European-focused line that has recently been attempting to market to an American audience. On-board announcements are made in six languages, which is interesting but also means announcements are rare. There is a “cruise director” who hosts the shows and some activities, but they are not constantly making their presence felt like on American lines. The captain does not make daily announcements, like we are used to. Most importantly for the passenger experience, on port days there are no announcements when the ship is cleared and passengers can leave the vessel. Overall, passengers are left to figure things out on their own: find entertainment via the program, and simply guess at ports if it is time to head down to the gangway to exit.

Our offer contained $500 USD in on-board credit, but Bellissima was a euro-denominated cruise. Even though the dollar was stronger than the euro (at the time of the cruise), we were only provided with €480 in credit. This basically amounts to MSC stealing $40 from us and any other Americans on this voyage. Multiply this by thousands of passengers and you have a very-profitable fraud. (We talked to guest services and called customer service, both of whom stuck to the false story that the euro was a stronger currency than the dollar. They could not tell us what day they use for the conversion, or how they obtain the conversion rates.)

$40 is not a huge amount of money, but it is a good example of MSC nickel-and-diming customers. Every non-luxury cruise line is out to extract revenue from passengers, but MSC was the worst we have seen. Every corner of the vessel was monetized, to the extent that the main concourse literally resembled a multi-level shopping mall. Most cruise lines have specialty restaurants, but MSC was the first line we have seen that has a specialty show (for an extra fee, of course). Mid-trip, we noticed that €2 were added to our bill as a “donation” to the MSC Foundation (which I am sure results in a tax deduction for MSC). To remove the charge, we had to request a paper form from our room steward, fill it out and sign it, and then wait in line at guest services to turn it in. Overall, the environment felt like everyone was trying to sell us timeshares.

The cleaning on the ship was simply unacceptable. The rear buffet area was infested with fruit flies. This is likely from a lack of labor devoted to maintenance items like emptying trash cans and filling hand sanitizer, soap, and paper towel dispensers. Trash seen on the floor one day remained in place the next day. Our room steward was inconsistent: we were introduced to a “new” cleaner the first day, but we only saw him twice after that, and we had then had three other employees cleaning the rooms. Overall people felt undertrained and overworked, with the more experienced employees picking up the slack.

It’s not all negative! They make fresh mozzarella on board daily! And the shows were the best I have ever seen on cruise ships: the need to be pan-language means the shows rely on strong costuming and performance over plotlines or talking. They need to be visual and they are extraordinary. We were upgraded to a balcony which was great for the Mediterranean views, although balconies were used by many passengers as smoking porches. Our room was modern and spacious. It felt similar to a Four Points by Sheraton with a mix of greys in the rooms and hallways.

We are scheduled to take another MSC ship in April 2024, and we will see how that experience compares to this one. We were not impressed by our first experience.

Overall, both of these ships were our “sea buses” as we cruised around the Mediterranean. Primarily it was transportation around the various ports and a comfortable bed to sleep in while the boat moved.

Click here to read about the Italian ports we visited, and click here to read about the various non-Italian ports!