The WORST cabin onboard MSC Meraviglia…
In this post, I’m going to show you the cabin that I was allocated for my 10 night cruise onboard MSC Meraviglia, one of the huge cruise ships from MSC Cruises. I’m usually happy to allow the cruise line to allocate me whichever room is available - after all, this is the cheapest way of doing it. In short, the more money I save per cruise, the more cruises I can go on - simple, right?! On this occasion, that didn’t go to plan, and I arrived to be met with the worst cabin I’ve ever seen on a cruise ship (bold, I know…) - I couldn’t really believe that this room was a cabin.
Today, I’m going to show you the room, but also explain to you WHY this room exists - it’ll all make sense later in this post!
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So, let’s start with cabin details, and pricing. This room (10004) is classed as a ‘Studio’ cabin, and is the cheapest way for a solo cruiser (like me!) to get onboard Meraviglia for a vacation. You’ll find this cabin all the way at the front of the ship - it’s actually right at the very front, so you should probably expect a bit more movement in here, as the ship tends to rise and fall with the impact of the waves more towards the front.
Price-wise, I paid £1,450 for this cruise (which, at the point of writing this post, is about $1,840 USD), so £145 ($184 USD) per night. It’s key to note that this was a ‘cruise only’ fare, as I was already in the USA travelling on other cruise ships. This meant that I didn’t need to account for long-haul flights etc, which was a big WIN for me! So, how does this compare to other MSC Cruises that I’ve taken in the past? Well, to be honest, it’s a bit more expensive. Ti give some examples, I cruised onboard MSC Virtuosa (one of Meraviglia’s sister ships) twice the year before, and spent about £700 for these 7-night cruises. Yes, this cruise was 10 nights, so you’d expect it to be a little more, but I’d be expecting an equally as good cabin (or maybe even slightly better) for the fare increase!
So, why didn’t I choose my cabin to avoid the stress?
Well, as I mentioned above, the money I save when booking my cruises then goes into the pot for my next cruise, so it just doesn’t make sense for me to reserve specific rooms. I’m totally happy cruising ‘on the inside’, and spent most of last year doing just this, so I opted to save the cash and allow MSC to select for me… When you cruise with MSC, there are 3 ‘experiences’ to choose from at the point of booking: Bella, Fantastica and Aurea. Each of these ‘experiences’ will afford you different priviledges either at the point of booking, or once onboard the ship - you can find out more about there by clicking here. I usually book the ‘Bella’ experience when I cruise with MSC, simply due to the fact that I’m not fussed about some of the perks of upgrading, and it’s often really expensive for a solo traveller to do so, and so I save spending the cash!
Okay, let me show you the cabin now, and then we can talk about some of the key issues with this room…
Ok, some of my key frustrations with this room:
1) The bed - I’ve NEVER seen a cruise ship cabin where the primary bed is a sofa bed. This wouldn’t be ideal for a short cruise, never mind a 10-night cruise - no, thank you!
2) The storage - Ok, I’ll accept that there’s a good amount of storage in this cabin. Infact, the wardrobe and drawer storage is exactly the same amount as some of the cabins on this ship designed for 2-4 passengers, so it’s really well looked after in this regard. However, when the bed is set up as in the photos, you can’t open the wardrobe door, as they open outwards, rather than slide (d’oh!)
3) With the bed set up in this (the normal) way, how are you supposed to watch the TV? The ‘window’ at the bottom of the bed is a digital window, and not a TV, so you’d need to sit side-ways on the bed to watch the TV, which is against the other wall…
4) The adjoining doors… This is the key point, and we’ll come back to this in a second. This room has an adjoining door on BOTH sides, and so the sound-proofing in here is essentially zero - you can hear everything going on in the cabins on either side of this one.
So, is this cabin what you should expect from a solo cabin on an MSC cruise ship? Why does it have so many adjoining doors? Well, this one might surprise you…!
This cabin is actually part of a wider ‘group’ of cabins, which are often sold together as a ‘family cabin’. I’ve stayed in other solo cabins from MSC, and they were really different to this (they at least featured an actual bed…!). Cruise Mapper explains this really well on their website, with a full overview of all cabin grades available on this cruise ship. The picture below will help to make sense of this cabin type…
In the images above, the room that I’m showing you today is the little section with the red sofa and an ensuite bathroom. In reality, this room would be perfect if you were travelling with children, as it would offer you additional living space, and the all-important extra bathroom. On the other side of my single cabin would be another family room, which explains the strange shape of this room, and it also explains the adjoining doors on both sides of my room.
In short, this room would be a fantastic option to consider if cruising as a family, but I do find it a pretty ridiculous cabin for a solo traveller.
To finish off this post today, I did want to add that I’m usually a huge advocate of solo cruising with MSC - I’ve always thought they’re a cruise line that really care about their solo travellers - infact, you can read more about this on my other post by clicking here. However, what I saw on Meraviglia was terrible - I really do hope that this type of solo cabin doesn’t become ‘the norm’ on MSC ships - I simply can’t get onboard with solo travellers being made to feel like such second-class citizens, cruising inside a shoe box…!
Thanks so much for checking out this post - I hope it’s helped you to think about what to expect from this cabin type on MSC Meraviglia. If you’ve enjoyed, please do come over and support me on YouTube - you can do that by clicking here. If you’d like to receive my newsletters containing more useful tips, cruising advice, and some great offers I spot from time to time, SIGN UP now!
Check out my other MSC Cruises posts here.