MSC Sinfonia Review
If you ever thought about embarking on a cruise from Capetown, just forget it
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We had a nice vacation planned, fly from Germany to Capetown, spend a few days there and then go on a short cruise to Durban to meet our guide there for a Safaritour. Well, the first and third part worked out well, but the cruise,,,
The itinerary said embarkation starts at 12:30, so we decided to get there at around two pm in the hope of avoiding the biggest rush. When we got to the cruiseterminal, there were still people coming off the ship, so naturally embarkation hadn´t even started. There were already long lines out in the rather hot sun because the terminal is much too small to handle a "regular size" cruiseship. Some of those waiting in line didn´t make it on board before six pm. We were lucky, because we had priority embarkation through our having gained "black" status via the statustransfer-program MSC is running currently (we are Elite Plus at Celebrity Cruises). Even so we had to wait one and a half hours, before we got on board. I think Capetown Harbor and MSC are about equally to blame for this. Like I said, the Terminal is very small and there were only three or four counters( of a possible ten or twelve) open when embarkation finally began. Then ther was the rather stupid setup by MSC having the commercial photos (those you can later buy) taken right after the security check and the onboard photos taken one by one after entering the ship single file on two gangways. It would make more sense taking the necessary photos right after the security check and position the voluntary photos somewhere later.
Well, when we finally had made it on board, the fun really started. At MSC the cabins are supposed to be open and you find your roomcard inside. Naturally our cabin was locked and it took another half hour until somebody came to open it for us The cabin itself was very nice,only the sofa is looking very old, but overall the cabin is nice and roomy. It even has a walkable closet. After some exploring in the cabin, we discovered that the safe was locked, so another trip to the reception and more time waiting in the cabin instead of exploring the ship.