MSC Bellissima - Ship to Avoid
MSC Bellissima: Beautiful ship but a cruise to avoid
MSC Bellissima: Beautiful ship but a cruise to avoid
MSC Bellissima: Reasons to Avoid this Ship (Review)
MSC Bellissima: Reasons to Avoid this ShipDate: 2/11/2020MSC BellissimaEver wonder what is too big for a cruise ship ? Look no further, it’s the MSC Bellissima. While a beautiful new ship, it’s overcrowded without the staff to support the 4,500 passenger load. Antiquated card based POS systems only make things worse, especially when trying to incorporate the medallion RFID system.Unsure if it’s the Italian way of doing business, or the staff is overwhelmed, but the organization is fraught with problems, inefficiencies, and has the potential for very unsanitary operating conditions, especially in the buffet area (no soap or sanitary lotion many times).Management, staff, and ship designers need to get together and learn from the mistakes made on this ship. An easy fix is to them go on a Sky Princess Cruise, and see how it’s done right. If you want long lines, poor service, nonfunctioning medallion systems, lots of waiting, crowded conditions, then go on this ship. This is a poor value for the money, and may lead to an awful experience. Choose another ship, and another cruiseship line.PRODUCT: The hallmark of poor management and staff is if you have to spend time dealing with issues. On this ship, all the staff can do is listen. For some reason, they can’t do much to resolve issues.Take Action: Always keep track of your bill. Make notes, take photos, and document any idiosyncracies. It’s more profound when you are paying more than normal cruises. Visit guest experience and let them know what is wrong. Unfortunately, on this ship your concerns fall on deaf ears.Not enjoying your cruise ? Provide factual reviews online. This helps keep cruise lines accountable for their actions. It may not help you, but will help the next potential guest.PROFIT: Divide and Conquer: The ship is divided into the fancy Yacht Club (forward and upper decks). And the economy class back and lower. Expect a poor experience unless you are in the Yacht Club level.The ship is beautiful. Clearly some thought went into her design, but fails in the upper decks where most people congregate. Specifically the sun deck areas, and the buffet. Clearly, nobody ran computer flows to see where passengers would be the bottleneck. Problems compound, which makes life difficult for the staff.Unless you’re on the main promenade, it’s hard to navigate from forward to stern on the ship. Luckly, the elevators are plentiful.TIME: The worst point of sales system I’ve seen in the past 10 years. Not sure if it’s the Italian way, or just merging technologies that won’t blend.The medallion system works intermittently, but rarely when you need it (when purchasing anything). Expect to see a written receipt in triplicate every now and then. The Italians seem to like the antiquated, least efficient method, of delivering an experience.The bottom line is that you’ll spend more time trying to resolve simple issues, than the cruise itself. Avoid this ship.Long Lines: Crowded upper decks outside and buffet long lines, result in product/serivce shorting, and frustration.Poor Staff to Passenger Ratio: At full capacity, the ship is overcrowded, and the staff is unable to keep up. Yacht Club is empty. Book Yacht Club.Buffet Access and Cleanliness: Huge lines at the buffet overloads the system, result is lack of soap or sanitary lotion in many cases.Big Ship System Doesn’t Work: Without staff to manage the crowds, expect a ship that doesn’t work. Lots of core issues, that won’t be resolved.Top 10 Reasons To Avoid MSC Bellissima:1. Overcrowded ship capacity leads to cut corners. It’s a management problem . Cut corners leads to unclean conditions and poor service.2. Food Quality: Buffet good (super crowded). Free restaurants average to poor food quality. The paid upsell lobster dinner, was awful. Specialty restaurants were good to fantastic (Tepanyaki experience amazing). Your paid drink package doesn’t work in the specialty upsell restaurants. If you’re a couple, buy the specialty restaurant package to save money. If you’re trying to buy packages for more than two people, or pay for other people, good luck working with the system that has lots of problems when you want to buy something.3. Yacht Club: while you may get exceptional experience in this separate class, you are on the same crowded ship. I was in standard passenger class. If you go on this ship, only book Yacht Club level. At least you have a comfortable space to relax in.4. Long Wait: expect long lines. Made worse when ship is fully booked, since they don’t have the staff to keep up with the crowds. Expect nowhere to sit or layout on a sunny day on the upper decks. Poor food quality in the lower deck free restaurants, results in lots of people at the lunch and evening buffet, which results in the buffet running out of plates, dinnerware, or poor cleaning. The dinnerware was of so questionable cleanliness, that we typically would grap up to 5 sets each, because most were still dirty.5. Questionable Cleanliness: Overcrowded means limited (or no) soap or hand sanitizer in food areas.6. Unhappy Crew: Overcrowding and limited staff means existing crew was overworked. Lack of sleep and lack of rest, combined with poor management, results in a less than energetic crew. This results in product (or service) shorting. 7. A La Carte Pricing: drink pre-paid packages don’t work at specialty restaurants. Skip the drink packages.8. Internet Access: Service is inconsistent, and sometimes very slow. Service only works with one device at a time (can’t tether or share). Expensive (I paid around 148 Euro - but then had to buy for our group since bracelets didn’t work for location services).9. Bracelets: prepare to spend hours with guest services to make them work. The don’t work with POS (point of sales) charge devices. POS still used paper receipt system. Antiquated system means more wait time, and less time enjoying your cruise.10. Passenger and Crowd Flow: There were a number of bottlenecks, which result in frustration and poor passenger experience. This is a super beautiful ship (probably the nicest big ship I’ve seen) but someone didn’t put the time into running the analytics for computational flow design in the original design stage (orr was not properly executed in the build stage). In either case, more wait time, less experience.Fixes: Lots of easy fixes, but in some cases, would reduce MSC profit. Easiest fix is more crew, to service increased capacity. The biggest fix is eliminating the legacy card system, and go straight to the medallion system which is used successfully on Princess Cruises. Eliminate the paper receipts altogether. Just a big waste of time and paperwork. These are real basic strategies that should have been employed along time ago by MSC management. Somebody isn’t doing their job in the top ranks. Cruising ReviewAbout: CruisingReview is now focussing on streamlining your travel experience, from developing the worlds most efficient luggage, to travel apps, that get you more time in your valuable experience. We believe in the ultimate seamless travel experience. With proper infrastructure, you can travel worry-free, and immerse yourself into the experience and out of your digital devices.Email: greg@cruisingreview.comStreamlining: The emerging common theme now is streamlining travel, business, and the way things are done. Seamless travel is the core thread of time to better your experience, while enhancing your time and money. Our focus (target) is to reduce time on your devices. Put the experience back into travel. Streamlining is now how I run my multiple businesses, and is the infrastructure which allows me to do more, with less. I apply this strategy from everything from packing and luggage hacks, to putting my entire office on my iPhone 11 Pro. The methodology allows me to quickly and efficiently build structured InstaGram and YouTube posts, while optimizing SEO keywords and ranking. The ultimate reward is higher views, content, and subscribers (all while saving time which gets me back into enjoying travel). This will all come together in multiple posts below, and into a new book I’m working on, which will turn your life around. Forget Artificial Intelligence, instead use Intelligent Reasoning. Your mind is most powerful thing in the universe. Use it.Purpose Driven: Travel is the reward, which also allows me to experiment with developing interesting concepts. The goal of any innovator is to make life better. For me, that has focused to hacking time, and making it work for you, instead of always being a barrier.Strategy: Have a strategy for the day, and for the year. It helps derive purpose, and gives meaning to your day.My Best Pro-Tips of All Time:1. The most productive hours of the day, are your first 6 hours, use them wisely. Make any important decisions during the morning. 2. The best calorie burn, and least insulin resistance, is eating the biggest meal prior noon, then light dinner.3. The best way to reduce age is to have calorie restriction, less protein, intermittent fasting, good sleep, and cold or hot temps (slightly uncomfortable), with short intensive workouts.4. If you’re a late night person, drop the vampire schedule for a morning early bird schedule. You will be more productive, alert, and come up with better ideas.5. Follow the Sun. Humans crave daylight. The same applies for your cell dynamics. Circadian rhythm is a valuable asset. Learn how to use it to your advantage.6. Have a plan and stick to it. You can always adjust as needed, but a ship needs to have a course.7. Develop a niche. Build your own ecosystem, and make everything you do concentric to that ecosystem.From Tagzgen App (fast content building for social media posting):#cruise #cruiseship #msc #mscbellissima #shipreviewgreg@cruisingreview.com
MSC Bellissima: Cruise to avoid (pdf)
MSC Bellissima: Beautiful ship but a cruise to avoid
MSC Bellissima: Beautiful ship but a cruise to avoid
Ever wonder what is too big for a cruise ship ? Look no further, it’s the MSC Bellissima. While a beautiful new ship, it’s overcrowded without the staff to support the 4,500 passenger load. Antiquated card based POS systems only make things worse, especially when trying to incorporate the medallion RFID system.Unsure if it’s the Italian way of doing business, or the staff is overwhelmed, but the organization is fraught with problems, inefficiencies, and has the potential for very unsanitary operating conditions, especially in the buffet area (no soap or sanitary lotion many times).
MSC Bellissima: Cruise to avoid (pdf)For More Info…
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