This was out first cruise with MSC. We knew that this is quite an international ship and that everything is annoiunced in at least 6 languages, so we prepared for this. We chose this cruise because we really wanted to see St Petersburg, Tallin and Stockholm. We boarded in Kopenhagen which went extremely smooth as we discovered most guests boarded the day before in Kiel. We loved our inside cabin, spacious enough, very quiet, bathroom with shower offered more room than previous cruises with Princess. Service was good, cabin clean. Food was good, although buffet restaurant did not offer a lot of variation, restaurants offered good quality food with excellent service. We expected that getting in Port in St Petersburg would be difficult, as this was the only port where we all would have to go through customs. However, this was very well organised with minimum waiting times. We loved the excursion in St Petersburg, which we booked through the ship, as that precented us from having to apply for a visa for just the one day. We enjoyed all the places, especially the Hermitage, which was the highlight of the excursion. In Tallin, Stockholm and Kiel we did not book an excursion, it was easy to walk off the ship and explore on our own, either by Hop on Hop off or just walking. Every city was really worthwhile visiting, maybe except for Kiel, as it does not have a lot of historic buildings, it is really only interesting for some shopping. I would probably not bother next time to get off the ship there. The facilities on the ship were great and we enjoyed the different entertainment at night. Shows were good, taking into consideration that it caters for many nationalities. We loved the musical entertainment at night. The only negative I can think of is that we could not find a quiet spot on the ship, even the library was an open space with a lot of noise. I guess that is what you can expect on a ship with 3,500 passengers.We travelled on own own, but did see a lot of children and believe this would be a great ship for children with lots of entertainment for them, kids clubs etc.