Originally Posted by
Global Adventurer
I finally decided to just book a 20 night cruise from Dubai to Venice. It goes through the Suez Canal, Muscat, Petra, Athens, Dubrovnik (2nd visit), and several other coastal cities and of course Venice(2nd visit).
It's through MSC, one of the lowest ranking cruise lines
.....but, I'm going for the port stops... don't much care about the reported passenger issues or rooms. But, I did book a oceanview room considering the number of days at sea. Otherwise, an interior room would have been sufficient.
Great cruise! The port stops do make it well worth it. Mrs K has mild claustrophobia so no interior or even ocean view cabins for us. From cruise #1 20+ years ago we’ve always had a verandah. I share your concern about MSC though I’ve read they are doing better with their Caribbean cruises with staff, meals, entertainment, etc., better suited for the typical demographics of a Caribbean cruise. Still some mixed reviews but better than they were years ago. Maybe some of those improvements are spilling over to their other itineraries.
Hopefully flying into Dubai is better than flying out. It is huge and busy. Didn’t help that our flight was a 1:30 AM departure. We’d paid for and kept our hotel room until 10:30 PM so not totally beat but not great either. I probably wouldn’t do it again unless it was another spectacular itinerary.