I LOVED the on ship MSC experience. I doubt I will ever do another unless its cheap, last minute and the state of the world is settled because my cancellation experience was just *that* bad.
MSC wins for food for me. I didnt particularly care for the food on
DCL. There was something funky with the omlets, always tasted bitter no matter where I got them. Buffet scrambled eggs made me sick. How do you screw up eggs multiple ways? LOL On MSC the eggs were usually a consistent quality and edible. It was a pretty big PITA to get toast on MSC but by day 4 I had a groove. Getting tea on MSC was also a problem. One day when it was sufficiently stocked I took enough to get me through the rest of the cruise. Lunch buffets were good enough on both, DCL had a slightly better salad bar for vegetarians. I also loved being able to get a bowl of nuts to be able to snack on throughout the day. Dinner was comparable on both, as were dessrts. MSC Armonia has free gelato which just wins by a factor of 5 over DCL soft serve. MSC has soft serve as well.
My MSC room steward was great, my DCL one was horrible. I dont think MSC was a fluke here but DCL was. He was so bad had I known about an incident that happened with my cabin mate before we got off the ship, I would have had words with someone.
Entertainment, if you love Disney then there is only one clear winner here. But MSCs entertainment options were very good. The dancers were fabulous, the singers were horrid, the entertainment crew was fabulous. There were movies playing and always activities that we wanted to partake in or watch.
The gyms were comparable. We arent pool people so will leave that to someone else. MSCs private island has been my best cruising day ever, period. And it was even cut short.
A couple of things happened on our MSC cruise where it was just clear that MSC wasnt being transparent about the situation. Maybe in a more dire situation they would be more open with the guests. But when you are at sea you are 100% at the ships mercy. We had a cruise booked in Italy for May of this year. After our trial cruise last December I was both excited and hesitant for that May cruise. As the news of a new virus started to surface I became more uneasy given the transparency issues we had on our cruise. Would they come out right away and inform us if they had cases aboard and that kind of stuff started swirling in my mind. I decided to cancel our cruise. It was 3 weeks after PIF so I knew I would lose my deposit. That was fine with me. I was told 14 days for my refund. 14 days later MSC canceled our cruise altogether. I had not yet received a refund and as far as I could tell they didnt know I had cancelled two weeks prior so I filled out the on line form. I was told 60 days for a full refund. After 60 more days had lapsed I still had no refund from MSC so I disputed the charge with my CC company. MSC never responded to them either so it took another 60 days before I was actually refunded by the CC company. For all I know MSC hasnt made them whole yet.
So, 4.5 months and no refund when a lot of cruise lines are refunding most in about a months timeline means I wont ever let them hold a significant amount of my money again for a longer period of time. The quasi sketchy feeling I got from them about transparency in general means I wont sail with them unless things in the world are fairly settled. But when things are settled again, if MSC is still cruising out of FL I might consider a last minute cruise.