I THINK I MADE A BIG MISTAKE. The Virtuosa hasn’t even left port and there’s talk of mutiny. Some of the passengers boarded in Barcelona so they’ve had more time to pile up grievances. They skipped Marseilles entirely and couldn’t go ashore unescorted in Genoa or Rome. As for us, visiting Saudi Arabia was one of the reasons we chose this cruise and we just learned that our stop in Jeddah has been canceled. Likewise, Abu Dhabi has been replaced by an extra day in Dubai, generally not such a bad thing but we were due to leave the cruise in Abu Dhabi. Now we will have to get from there from Dubai to catch our flight to Cairo.
Upgrade to a balcony
On the plus side, the Virtuosa is luxurious. It’s all chrome and sparkles and we’ve been upgraded to a balcony cabin on deck 12. Already we notice that the higher up you are the more you notice the motion of the ocean. Virtuosa can carry 6000 passengers but with Covid restrictions there are only 2500 aboard this cruise!
Everything has a price onboard, even time
What seemed a first like a bargain, ain’t—you still gets what you pays for! MSC charges for every extra. Water and coffee are complimentary but you even pay for iced-tea at lunch. And there’s no free ice cream, either! It appears that, except for Greece, the only way to leave the ship is with an MSC excursion. We don’t know if it’s an MSC or EU thing and now that Jeddah is off the table we may just stay on board.
