Month: July 2024

A Nautical Nomad

Wednesday 24 July 2024

Well day 12 of my cruise and really in the going home mode now. Although today, we are in one of my favorite cities, Lisbon.

After the initial few days and my meeting with management, things have settled down and service immeasurably improved, to the point that it is getting embarrassing
I have an anytime dining allocation, in a restaurant that has set timings which means that they have to keep my table free throughout the whole dining timetable.
When I arrive I am escorted to my table by the restaurant manageress. The table is right at the stern of the ship with an uninterrupted sea view.

However, some of the drawbacks are still there, mainly the size of the ship. It is a small city hemmed into the confines of a ship.

The stops have been interesting although I have visited them all in the past.

The last stop, Valencia was interesting, as I decided to walk into the town. It turned out that the city was 3.5 miles away so a 7 mile round trip in high temperatures was probably not the best way to spend a day.

Barcelona, is always a pleasure to visit with a wander up La Ramble as eye opening and interesting as ever.

So today is Lisbon, the last port on the cruise, followed by two days at sea before disembarking at Southampton.

Lisbon always brings back good memories as I have sailed out of and visited this city many times. I am sitting in a small cafe I normally stop at when I am here. It sits on the hillside across from the port and after the climb, it is always most welcome to sit for a while and watch the world go by.

So, back to work next week and perhaps turn my thoughts to my next trip away.

Remember : sit in the same place for long enough and the whole world will eventually pass by you.
You will however probably be arrested for vagrancy

A Nautical Nomad

Well this is day 6 of my trip and it has been somewhat of a rollercoaster to date.
In my last blog I explained my opinion of the MSC ethos and it was not in any way complimentary. Up to yesterday I had made up
My mind to leave the ship today whilst docked in Malaga to the point of asking Moira( travel agent) to arrange flights back to Scotland.

So with this in mind I went to the customer services desk to inform them of my departure from the cruise.

The guy at the desk enquired as to the reason for my early departure and I suggested he read the notes of my misgivings which were no doubt attached to my registration.
He took a few minutes to read the concerns I had registered and then produced a form which he said required signing before I could leave the ship.

On reading the form it was apparent that I would be signing away any rights I had in law to claim recompense and damages due to the actions (or non actions) of MSC.

I told him that this was unacceptable and would only agree to the element concerning responsibility for having the necessary landing documents required for transit through Spain.
I also deleted the element concerning their responsibility in my costs and showed him what I was willing to sign, stating at the same time that there was no way they would be preventing me from leaving the ship.

At this point and after my insistence he agreed to consult senior management.

The upshot was that a meeting in one of the offices was set up with three managers.
There was a frank and open discussion of the issues I had raised and indeed of the general ethos of the operation of the cruise.

I was quite surprised at the level of agreement to some of the points I made. One of which was the general confusion and disorganisation prevalent on the cruise and indeed throughout the company. I made the point that the previous day I had written a travel blog which was highly critical of the company and had posted it on the MSC Facebook site. The blog was still there and had not been taken down. They seemed genuinely surprised.

The discussion was quite long and at the end of it the guy in charge asked, if I would reconsider, if they could perhaps address at least some of the issues I had highlighted.

I agreed and they came up with a range of changes.
My dining arrangements were changed to another restaurant where I had an open dining time. I could have any wine with my meal ( an offer I rejected).
I had the almost exclusive attention of a waiter( something I felt uncomfortable with, but at least there was no 45 minute delay between courses). I would receive a £100 on board spend allocation. I would receive a two device Wifi package for the same price as the single package I already have, which will allow me to switch between devices.

I had a very pleasant dining experience last night with good service and an excellent table looking out from the back of the ship.
Sometimes it is good to talk about concerns.
Malaga today and Valencia tomorrow.

One of my wee quotes :
Never be afraid to say what you honestly believe is the right thing to say, and never be afraid of listening, to what someone else believes is the right thing to say. Invariably the actual right thing, is somewhere in between.

A Nautical Nomad

Well, day three on my sojourn to southern climes in search of the allusive sun that has been a mark of the Scottish summer up to
now.

Today is our first land fall and it is La Caruna in northern Spain. A lovely, clean city which is a pleasure to wander through its well laid out grid formation of streets.

Just sitting at a streetside cafe having the obligatory capachino and having a long hard think about the cruise up to now.

I had my reservations about MSC based on two previous cruises on their ships some years ago but I had been swayed by several good reviews by seasoned cruisers, and therefore my present contemplation of the days ahead.

One thing I am at least sure of and that is that I won’t be on another MSC cruise. My present conundrum is whether to continue with this one in the hope that it might improve, or to make arrangements to head home when we reach Malaga on Thursday.

Several things have come together in the past couple of days which has made me reconsider the wisdom of once again trying MSC.

The Virtuoso is a huge ship with more than 6000 guests , it is a vacation factory and is run much in the same way as a factory with the guests the production line attendants, the products which come down the line , the components that go to make up a cruise vacation such as food, drink, entertainment.

The production line is designed to entice you to spend additional money on additional products , not to enhance your experience, but to make it more tolerable.

The whole ship is digitalised to the extreme, to the point that there are no menus or price lists and you have to be technologically savvy in order to function as a vacation participant.

It is as though the MSC management have employed AI software under instruction to design a cruise scenario to maximise profit without consideration for Age, digital savvy, good honest service , or indeed, good old fissioned one to one service.

A couple of examples of this are, I always purchase a full cruise internet package as I write a couple of blogs. I alternate this package between my phone and my laptop, so I always buy a single d device package and alternate between both devices. In this ship I can’t do that as I would have to buy two packages even although I would only be using the exact same amount of WiFi units. A single package costs £190.

Yesterday at lunch I ordered a main course and a desert. After a considerable time the desert arrived. I explained to the waiter that I had ordered a main course and he argued that I had not. I simply got up and walked out.

It is things like that that spoil a cruise and therefore why I am considering cutting short the trip and leaving the ship in Malaga and heading home.

I wouldn’t recommend MSC to anyone unless they are looking for an experience like entering the Matrix 🙂

A few photos of La Caruna including one if Joe Biden and Donald Trump . Guess which one.