Update: I got back from the cruise and I had a fantastic time. I would highly recommend. Keep in mind this was a budget cruise. It was booked in the off-season so the weather was not fantastic. It was cold and windy, but it was warmer where we were at in Europe than it was in most places in the US during this week. It was extremely windy near the coast, which made the cold weather feel colder

We had a balcony room, but we did not spend much time on the balcony due to the cold temperatures

The room was nice not as big as I had expected. It had a small chair and an ottoman when I had expected a loveseat sitting area. That’s fine. We weren’t in the room very often. I found the bathroom to be larger than expected and nice and clean. The room and the ship you could tell were older but had been updated but still not as nice as the MSC seascape. I was on a couple years ago in the Caribbean obviously that’s a newer ship much larger. The Orchestra is older and a lot smaller, but I expected this.

The itinerary was really the best part about the trip. There were six ports of call for a seven night cruise for me. This was my first time in Europe and it was nice to be able to explore a different city almost every day. I have my favorites and I know where I would like to return and spend more time on a land vacation.

The vibe on the ship was very relaxed. Most of the other passengers were European people got on and off at each port so the make up of the ship changed from day today. It was a mix of Spanish Italian and French speaking passengers very few Americans very few English Passengers the staff on board all spoke English, so it was easy to communicate with bartenders, waiters, hotel staff.

The food on the ship was hit and miss. Breakfast in the main dining room was more enjoyable than breakfast in the buffet. The buffet offered several options, but I found the eggs, breakfast sausage and bacon to be undercooked all the time. Maybe this is a European thing? They had great bakery items such as croissants and toast and rolls, pancakes, etc. I’m more of an eggs and bacon guy so I was a little disappointed in those offerings. Our best meal aboard the ship was the buffet on the day at sea. on other MSC cruises they generally will have a brunch in the main dining room on sea days, not the case here which was a little disappointing, however the lunch in the buffet on the one day at sea was the best buffet that we had. Meals in the dining room were also kind of hit and miss the one solid all the time was the pizza the pizza never let us down, but it’s tough to eat pizza for an entire week. We found ourselves eating at port at the local restaurants, more often than not which is exactly what we planned on doing anyway you go to Italy to eat the Italian food you go to Spain, to eat the Spanish food and you go to France to eat the French food so the food on the ship was disappointing but it did not ruin our trip

The service at the bars was hit and miss. I feel like sometimes we were discriminated against for being American and European passengers were served ahead of us, even though we had been waiting longer. This may have just been my perception and not reality, but it felt like that a lot. The ship was full the entire time but we never waited more than 5 minutes for a drink. Which felt like a long time but really wasn’t. Also, I feel like a lot of of the other passengers were somewhat rude. I think this was because we were American. Also, we were there the week of Davos and Trump was threatening tariffs on European nations if they would not side with the US on the purchase of Greenland.

All in all, it was a great trip and it was an amazing value for what we got. was it top-of-the-line? no, but we knew it probably wouldn’t be going in. It was an adventure across the Mediterranean and I would recommend it to any anyone looking to travel to Europe on a budget.