MSC Sinfonia in one read
MSC Sinfonia did not begin as an MSC ship. She was delivered from Chantiers de l'Atlantique on 18 April 2002 as MS European Stars, a flagship for Festival Cruises, and was christened under that name at Saint-Nazaire the following day. When Festival collapsed, MSC bought its two flagships outright — European Stars and European Vision — and renamed them MSC Sinfonia and MSC Armonia. She was acquired in 2004 and entered the MSC fleet in 2005.
That makes this class an unusual thing: half purpose-built MSC, half inherited Festival tonnage. MSC Lirica and MSC Opera were ordered into slots Festival cancelled at the same yard; Sinfonia and Armonia are the ships Festival actually got. All four were then cut in half at Fincantieri Palermo between 2014 and 2015 — Sinfonia between 12 January and 16 March 2015 — and stretched into the same 274.9-metre configuration. Two lineages, one class, and a visible difference at the stern if you know to look.
The reason she is the interesting one is the numbers. From 718 member reviews — the largest sample in her class by some distance — she returns 276 Excellent, 196 Very Good, 91 Average, 85 Poor and 70 Terrible. That is 65.7 per cent positive against 21.6 per cent negative, and she is the only one of the four with a published member average at all: 3.7. Her sisters run 31 to 38 per cent negative. Same class, same age, same maintenance backlog, dramatically different result.
Fit scores, not review scores — a lower value number means the base fare buys you less of the ship, not that she's a lesser ship.
Eastern Mediterranean and Greek-island travellers who want a small, sociable, everything-included ship that is genuinely well liked by the people who sail her — and who are choosing this class on evidence rather than hope.
You want a modern ship. She has no publicly documented refit since March 2015, her reviewers describe worn interiors and bathroom odour, and the good news on this page is relative to her sisters rather than to a new hull.
What Sinfonia was built to solve
She was built to be someone else's flagship, and that shows. Festival Cruises commissioned European Stars as the second of a pair intended to establish it as a serious European operator, and the ambition is legible in the ship — a generous public-room count, a considered bar programme, a layout that assumes people will sit and talk rather than queue for an attraction. When Festival failed, MSC did not commission a design; it bought one that had already been thought about.
What MSC then solved was capacity, at a price no newbuild could match. The €200 million Renaissance Programme took all four hulls through Palermo for a combined 38 weeks of drydock: a 2,400-tonne prefabricated midsection floated into a 24-metre gap, 193 new guest staterooms and 59 crew cabins per ship, beam out from 28.8 to 32 metres, roughly 58,625 tons becoming about 65,542.
The class-wide honesty check, which applies to her too. Guests rose 29.5 per cent and gross tonnage rose 9.3 per cent. Cabins rose 19.5, length 9.6. However you frame it, MSC added far more passengers than ship, and every crowding complaint about this class since has been partly a review of that decision. What makes Sinfonia worth a page of her own is that her guests appear to mind it considerably less than her sisters' guests do.
Read the distributions, not the averages, and this class stops being confusing. Cruise Critic's editor score is a flat 4.0 across three of these four ships — which tells you almost nothing, because it is the same number for very different vessels. The member distributions tell you everything: Armonia 37.6 per cent Poor or Terrible, Opera 37.0, Lirica 31.2, Sinfonia 21.6. She is not a different design and she has not had a different refit. What she has is a different result, from the largest sample in the class, and on a class this variable that is the most useful single fact available to a buyer.
Is Sinfonia your ship?
Four quick questions and we'll give you an honest read on whether she fits — not a sales pitch.
Best for: the report card
Fit grades with the reasoning attached — who she suits, not how good she is.
Here is the comparison that actually decides this booking. These four ships are the same design, roughly the same age, with roughly the same maintenance history, sold at roughly the same fares. On any given week the difference between them is essentially the difference between their crews and their condition — and the only external evidence you have about either is the review distribution. Sinfonia's is 65.7 per cent positive from 718 reviews, against 21.6 per cent negative. Her sisters run 31 to 38 per cent negative from samples between 250 and 410. If you are buying this class at all, buying the one with the best measured outcome at the same price is not a preference; it is arithmetic.
Where she sails
The widest working range in the class, and a genuine argument for small tonnage. Verify your specific sailing.
Her durable pattern is the Eastern Mediterranean — seven-day itineraries from Piraeus, the port for Athens — with Western Mediterranean sailings in the summer season and repositioning voyages planned across 2027 and 2028. Piraeus is the tell: a Greek-island season is built on ports with short berths, tight approaches and small harbours, and it is precisely the work a 215,000-ton ship cannot do.
She also displaced her own sister. MSC Sinfonia took the 2025–26 South America season that MSC Lirica had previously worked, which is worth knowing when you read about Lirica's schedule — the class is used as interchangeable tonnage, moved to wherever a small ship is needed, and that flexibility is the point of owning it.
Her post-stretch range is the strongest evidence for the whole class. Since 2015 she has worked Norway, Copenhagen, Helsinki, Stockholm, Saint Petersburg and Tallinn as well as the Mediterranean. Very few ships credibly work both the Baltic and the Aegean. At 65,542 gross tons she is less than a third the tonnage of MSC World Europa, and MSC's own executive chairman conceded the logic in reverse when he said the forthcoming, deliberately smaller New Frontier class “will enable us to design new and exclusive itineraries.” MSC is building smaller on purpose to get back what ships like this one never lost.
One thing she does not do. She does not sail from a US homeport, and no Lirica-class ship does or is scheduled to. Her sister MSC Opera runs the Caribbean — year-round Southern Caribbean from La Romana and Fort-de-France — but that is a Caribbean season without an American departure, which is a different product from the one most people mean.
Onboard: her features & standouts
An Irish pub, a Buddha Bar and a virtual golf simulator on the same 65,542-ton ship. Tap through.
Sinfonia's three character bars — Shelagh's House, the Buddha Bar and the Manhattan Bar — do not all fill at the same hour, and none of them is where the ship's centre of gravity sits at any given moment. Spend twenty minutes on the first evening walking all three and pick the one that is quietest at the time you like to drink. On a ship whose defining structural problem is that everybody arrives everywhere simultaneously, choosing your room in advance is the whole trick.
Deck plan logic: bottlenecks & where the dining clusters
Thirteen decks, nine passenger-accessible, five with cabins, 976 staterooms. She is the roomier configuration of this class: 33.6 gross tons per guest at double occupancy, against 30.6 on Opera, with the best crew ratio of the four at 2.70:1. On paper she is the most comfortably laid-out ship of the group, and her review distribution suggests that is not just paper.
The load-factor cliff is identical to her sisters', though. At her maximum of 2,646 guests the space ratio falls to about 24.8 gross tons per guest and the crew ratio to 3.67:1 — a 36 per cent degradation in service coverage. The class-wide complaint pattern about queues and understaffing corroborates that arithmetic rather than contradicting it. She is a spacious ship for 1,950 people and a busy one for 2,646, and the difference between those two ships is the school calendar.
Where the newer steel is. The 2015 midsection sits amidships and was built balcony-heavy, because the middle of a ship is where balconies sell. On a hull with no documented refurbishment since that drydock, amidships means the newest fittings, the shortest walk to the lifts and the least motion. It is the single most valuable thing to know when you pick a cabin here.
The dining logic is refreshingly short. Three restaurants low, a buffet high, no paid venues, no reservation system, no dining package to price at ninety days. Nothing about eating on this ship requires planning, which is a genuine feature and the exact opposite of how a week on MSC World Europa works. The cost is repetition — food repetition is the most corroborated criticism across MSC's entire older fleet — and on a seven-night Aegean sailing you will notice it.
Value strategy: what to pre-book, what to skip
Nothing aboard is gated and no restaurant carries a surcharge. That leaves three decisions worth thinking about.
Worth locking in
- The drinks package, pre-cruise. It prices below the onboard rate, and MSC states that all MSC Cruises' pre-paid and onboard beverage packages include gratuities — where several American lines add 18 to 20 per cent at the point of purchase. On a ship with three character bars, it also stops you rationing the interesting one.
- Fantastica, to choose your cabin. On a hull that is 2015 amidships and 2002 at both ends, with no refurbishment documented since, cabin choice is worth materially more than the upgrade costs. Bella means MSC assigns your stateroom shortly before departure.
- Your Greek-island shore plan. With no signature onboard attraction, the itinerary is the product on this class. The Eastern Mediterranean is the itinerary that rewards preparation most, and it is the one line item where spending more clearly buys more holiday.
Save your money
- A specialty dining package. None exists. Every restaurant aboard — Il Covo, Il Galeone, Caffè del Mare and the La Terrazza buffet — is included in your fare, which is structurally different from every newer MSC ship.
- Aurea bought for the drinks. Aurea's drinks package is discounted, not free. Buy the tier for the free-time dining, the adults-only thermal access and the priority boarding, or leave it.
- Upgrading for exclusivity. There is no exclusive part of this ship to reach. Her top accommodation runs about 248 square feet and opens onto exactly the same decks as an interior cabin.
Structuring a day
- Pick your bar on night one. Shelagh's House, Buddha Bar and Manhattan Bar fill at different hours. Twenty minutes of reconnaissance buys you a quiet seat for the whole week.
- Eat either side of the rush. The buffet is the documented pinch point across this class, and it is a timing problem far more than a quality one.
- Be ashore first. She is small enough to berth close in at Aegean ports where big ships anchor and tender. Being off the ship by nine is worth more on this class than on any newer one.
Reading “best of the class” as “good ship, no caveats.” Sinfonia's 65.7 per cent positive share is a real result from a large sample and we lead with it because it is the most decision-useful fact available — but it sits alongside 21.6 per cent negative and a set of criticisms that are not in dispute. Her reviewers say she “has seen better days,” describe her as one of the oldest ships in the fleet with “worn” interiors, and report bathroom odour. Across the class the maintenance criticism is heavier still — recurring sewage odour on Armonia, black mould from failed shower drainage and air-conditioning failures on Opera — and that is legitimate criticism of a ship, not an unkindness. She has had no publicly documented refit since March 2015. The correct reading is that she is the best-run ship of four ships that all need money spent on them.
Hidden gems
Eight things worth knowing before you fly to Athens.
She was christened by another cruise line
As MS European Stars, at Saint-Nazaire on 19 April 2002, under Festival Cruises ownership. She has never had an MSC christening and no MSC godmother has ever been named for her. That is a better fact than a godmother would have been.
The best-reviewed of the four, and it isn't close
65.7 per cent of her 718 members rate her Excellent or Very Good, against 21.6 per cent negative. Her sisters run 31 to 38 per cent negative. She is also the only one of the four with a published member average at all — 3.7.
An Irish pub on an Italian ship
Shelagh's House. It is a Festival Cruises decision rather than an MSC one, it is the most-cited room aboard, and it is the clearest illustration of why this class works socially in a way its amenity list does not predict.
She has worked the Baltic and the Aegean
Norway, Copenhagen, Helsinki, Stockholm, Saint Petersburg and Tallinn since the stretch, as well as the Mediterranean. Very few ships credibly do both, and only small ones do it comfortably.
Her tonnage is genuinely disputed
Sources give her as 65,542 or 65,591 gross tons — the same conflict that separates the two ex-Festival hulls from the two MSC newbuilds. Nobody outside the registry can resolve it and we are not going to pretend otherwise. Either way she is about 33.6 GT per guest at double occupancy.
She took her sister's South America season
MSC Sinfonia displaced MSC Lirica from the 2025-26 South America programme. This class is used as interchangeable tonnage, which is why any deployment on any of these four pages needs verifying against your own dates.
The aqua park is thirteen years younger than the ship
The outdoor water slides and water cannons, and the Chicco®, LEGO® and Namco® kids' spaces, all arrived with the 2015 stretch. The 2002 ship had none of it.
A virtual golf simulator, of all things
Specific to her within the class, unfashionable, and exactly the kind of amenity that turns out to be useful on a wet sea day in the Adriatic. Free, like everything else aboard.
No Yacht Club, and why that matters
MSC Sinfonia has no MSC Yacht Club. Verified against MSC's own ship page, her accommodation runs Interior, Ocean View, Balcony and Junior Suite Aurea. There is no butler, no private restaurant, no Top Sail Lounge, no gated pool and no separate sun deck. If you arrived here from our guide to the MSC Yacht Club, this is one of the ships that will not have one even after MSC's retrofit programme finishes across the older fleet in spring 2027.
The Aurea experience is what sits at the top instead, and it is a tier rather than a territory. A Junior Suite Aurea is a larger cabin bundled with the Aurea fare code: free-time dining in a dedicated restaurant, adults-only thermal-suite access at the MSC Aurea Spa, priority boarding, and a discounted drinks package. Discounted, not complimentary — MSC is explicit about it and people misread it constantly. Nothing about Aurea removes you from the ship the rest of the passengers are using.
Which produces the line we think is the real story of this class. The Lirica class is the last of MSC's fleet where every guest uses the same restaurants, the same pools and the same sun deck. By spring 2027 MSC will run a Yacht Club on 19 of its 24 ships; on Fantasia, Musica, Meraviglia, Seaside and World class the best real estate aboard sits behind a keycard. Here it does not exist. On a ship whose entire character is social — three character bars, a pub, an old-fashioned emphasis on public rooms — that is not an accident of age. It is the same ship philosophy expressed twice.
The dining follows exactly the same rule. No specialty surcharge restaurants exist on this class; Il Covo, Il Galeone, Caffè del Mare and La Terrazza are all included. On a modern MSC ship the paid dining estate is frequently the best food aboard, which quietly makes the quality of your holiday a function of a second budget. That mechanism is absent here. Be honest about the flip side, though: what is also absent is the good food it buys, and her reviewers describe hers as bland and insufficient.
What this means when you are actually booking. There is no tier decision to agonise over on this ship, because there is no tier that changes what you can reach. The only decisions that move your week are which cabin you get and when you eat — which is why every practical recommendation on this page comes back to booking Fantastica and avoiding the rush.
Two ways to sail her
She is the ship in this class where both of these answers come out better than you would expect. Here is why.
What families actually find
What works. The Pinocchio Playroom, the Chicco®, LEGO® and Namco® spaces, the teens area and the outdoor aqua park with slides and water cannons — all free, all delivered or expanded by the 2015 stretch. With no paid attractions and no specialty dining, a family's onboard spend on this ship is close to the lowest MSC offers anywhere.
What surprises parents. The accommodation. Interiors run about 129 square feet and the largest cabin aboard about 248, so four sharing is genuinely tight. And filling those upper berths is what takes the ship from 2.70 guests per crew member to 3.67 — a 36 per cent swing that lands squarely in the school holidays.
Which ages benefit most. Roughly four to twelve. A teenager who wants a ship rather than an itinerary will find her thin, and we would say so before you book rather than after.
What couples actually find
The good week, and it is genuinely good. Three distinct evening rooms — Shelagh's House, the Buddha Bar, the Manhattan Bar — a Balinese spa with adults-only thermal access on the Aurea tier, a power-walking track at sunrise, and a ship small enough to berth in the middle of Aegean towns the flagships have to skip. This is the demographic that produces her 276 Excellent reviews.
The bad week. Expecting a modern ship. Three restaurants over seven nights is repetitive, the food criticism across this class is universal, and the multilingual entertainment constraint is real. None of that is hidden and none of it is fixable by you — but all of it is knowable before you book, which is the point of this page.
The quiet places. The thermal suite before nine; whichever of the three bars is not the fashionable one that night; the aft decks during dinner service; and the whole ship on a port day, when a small hull with a close-in berth empties almost completely.
Cabins: 976 rooms, and one that is worth more than its category
976 staterooms across five cabin decks, in Interior, Ocean View, Balcony and Junior Suite Aurea. On this hull, where the cabin sits matters more than what it is called.
The 2015 midsection is the prize. Twenty-four metres of newer steel with 193 new staterooms was floated into the middle of this ship at Palermo, and MSC built it balcony-heavy on purpose. With no publicly documented refurbishment since that drydock, amidships means the newest fittings on the ship, the shortest walk to the lifts and the least motion in a swell. Forward and aft is 2002 accommodation that has been in service for over two decades.
Be realistic about the dimensions, because this is a class-wide constraint rather than a ship-specific one. Standard interiors run about 129 square feet and the largest accommodation aboard about 248. These are ships from an era when the cabin was where you slept between other things, and the floor area went into the public rooms instead. Her reviewers describe worn interiors and, on some sailings, bathroom odour — and with no refit documented since March 2015 that is a fair thing for them to report.
The tiers, ranked for this ship. Fantastica first, because it converts a cabin lottery into a cabin choice on a hull where that difference is a decade of age; it also adds free room-service delivery and one free booking change. Bella saves money and hands MSC the decision. Aurea adds free-time dining, adults-only thermal access, priority boarding and a discounted drinks package — worth it for the spa, not for the drinks. Avoid directly beneath the buffet and pool deck, and directly above the theatre.
Her sister ships
One ship that shared her Festival past, and two that MSC ordered into the gap Festival left.
MSC Armonia
Her true sister — Festival's European Vision, the first hull through the stretch, and the only one of the four with a substantial refit since.
2004 · La RomanaMSC Opera
MSC's second newbuild, Sophia Loren's godchild, and the only Lirica-class ship running the Caribbean — from La Romana, not Florida.
2003 · VeniceMSC Lirica
MSC's first-ever newbuild, and the one ship in the fleet whose deployment past 15 November 2026 has not been published.
The honest read
She is the best ship in a class that needs money spent on it, and both halves of that sentence are load-bearing. From 718 member reviews — the largest sample of the four by a wide margin — MSC Sinfonia returns 276 Excellent, 196 Very Good, 91 Average, 85 Poor and 70 Terrible. That is 65.7 per cent positive and 21.6 per cent negative, and she is the only one of the four with a published member average: 3.7. Her sisters run between 31.2 and 37.6 per cent negative. That gap is not a rounding artefact and it is the single most useful fact on this page.
The criticism against her is real and mostly about condition. Reviewers say she “has seen better days” and describe her as one of the oldest ships in the fleet with “worn” interiors; bathroom odour appears in her reviews as it does across the class. Food draws the usual verdict — “bland and not enough of it.” The factual spine underneath is that she has had no major publicly documented refit since March 2015, and she is one of three of the four in that position. Only MSC Armonia has had a substantial post-stretch refit, in November 2019.
The structural defence is genuine, sourced, and counterintuitive. At 33.6 gross tons per guest at double occupancy she is not a cramped ship — she essentially matches the 33.3 GT per guest MSC is marketing for its forthcoming New Frontier class as “the best space-per-guest ratio in the entire MSC fleet.” Older does not mean tighter. Her crew ratio at double occupancy, 2.70:1, is the best in the class. What collapses is the full-occupancy figure: about 24.8 GT per guest and 3.67 guests per crew member. That is a 36 per cent degradation, and it arrives exactly when families fill the upper berths.
What the stretch did, said plainly one more time. Across the class the 2014–15 Renaissance Programme raised guest capacity 29.5 per cent against a tonnage increase of 9.3 per cent. When the passenger count outruns the tonnage three to one, you have chosen a busier ship, and every review of this class since reads like that decision. A great deal of the crowding was drawn in Palermo before anyone boarded.
And there is a product here that new ships have deliberately built away from. Nothing gated, no dining surcharge, three character bars on a hull small enough to berth in the middle of Greek harbours, and a holiday in which the itinerary is the point because there is no signature attraction competing for your day. Avid Cruiser calls this class “an almost old-fashioned kind of cruise experience.” The qualifier we owe you is the one experienced reviewers make: on this class the low price is argued to “reflect reduced quality rather than value.” We think that is too absolute for this particular ship — her own guests disagree with it two to one — but it is a serious position from serious people and you should book with it in mind.
Who receives the most value from MSC Sinfonia? A couple or a small family doing the Aegean or the Eastern Mediterranean, who want the ports rather than the ship, who will book Fantastica and pick an amidships cabin, and who would rather have three good bars and no gated deck than a water park and a keycard. For that traveller she is the most defensible booking in this class by the numbers. Anyone who wants modern hardware should be reading a different page, and we would rather send you to the fleet guide now than have you find out on day two.
MSC Sinfonia at a glance
The numbers, stated once, with the basis named.
| Entered MSC fleet | 2005 — acquired 2004. Built for Festival Cruises, not MSC |
| Hull delivered | 18 April 2002 as MS European Stars, Chantiers de l'Atlantique, Saint-Nazaire |
| Godmother | None from MSC. Christened as European Stars on 19 April 2002 under Festival ownership; no MSC godmother has ever been named |
| Gross tonnage | 65,542 or 65,591 GT — sources conflict, and we cannot resolve it. Approximately 58,625 before the stretch |
| Length · beam | 274.9 m / 902 ft · 32 m — was 251.25 m · 28.8 m |
| Decks | 13 total, 9 passenger-accessible, 5 with cabins |
| Staterooms | 976 |
| Guests | ~1,950 double occupancy; 2,646 maximum per MSC |
| Crew | 721 |
| Guests per crew | 2.70:1 at double occupancy — best in the class; 3.67:1 at maximum |
| Space ratio | 33.6 gross tons per guest at double occupancy; 24.8 at maximum |
| Max speed | 21.7 knots |
| The stretch | Fincantieri Palermo, 12 Jan – 16 Mar 2015 — second of the four. 2,400-tonne section, +24 m, +193 guest cabins, +59 crew cabins |
| Refit history | None documented since March 2015 |
| Yacht Club | None. Interior, Ocean View, Balcony and Junior Suite Aurea only |
| Specialty dining | None. Il Covo, Il Galeone, Caffè del Mare and the La Terrazza buffet — all complimentary |
| Theatre | 557 seats |
| Deployment | Eastern Mediterranean, 7-day from Piraeus/Athens; Western Med in summer; repositioning voyages planned 2027–28. Took the 2025–26 South America season from MSC Lirica |
| Capacity conflict | CruiseMapper gives 2,340 maximum against MSC's 2,646; Wikipedia gives ~2,679. We publish MSC's figure and footnote the range |
| Cruise Critic | Editor 4.0 / 5; member 3.7 — the only published average in the class; 718 reviews, 65.7% Excellent or Very Good |
Ask Seabound about Sinfonia
Tell us about your trip.
Homeport, group size, kids' ages, budget and length — and we'll tell you honestly whether Sinfonia is your ship or another MSC ship fits better.
Instant answers from our guides · always verified against current MSC information before you book.
Quick answers
Is MSC Sinfonia a good ship?
By the only external evidence available, she is the best of her class by a clear margin. From 718 member reviews she returns 276 Excellent, 196 Very Good, 91 Average, 85 Poor and 70 Terrible — 65.7 per cent positive against 21.6 per cent negative — and she is the only one of the four Lirica-class ships with a published member average, at 3.7. Her sisters run between 31 and 38 per cent negative. That said, the comparison is within the class: she has no publicly documented refit since March 2015, her reviewers describe worn interiors and bathroom odour, and the food criticism that applies across this class applies to her too.
Where does MSC Sinfonia sail?
Her durable pattern is the Eastern Mediterranean, on seven-day itineraries from Piraeus, the port for Athens, with Western Mediterranean sailings in the summer season and repositioning voyages planned across 2027 and 2028. She also took the 2025-26 South America season previously worked by MSC Lirica. Since her 2015 stretch she has additionally operated Norway, Copenhagen, Helsinki, Stockholm, Saint Petersburg and Tallinn. She does not sail from a US homeport and no Lirica-class ship does. Verify your specific sailing before booking.
Does MSC Sinfonia have a Yacht Club?
No. Verified against MSC's own ship page, her accommodation runs Interior, Ocean View, Balcony and Junior Suite Aurea. There is no butler, no private restaurant, no Top Sail Lounge and no gated pool or sun deck. The Junior Suite Aurea is a larger cabin attached to the Aurea fare tier, which buys free-time dining, adults-only thermal-suite access, priority boarding and a discounted — not free — drinks package. None of the four Lirica-class ships has a Yacht Club, which makes this the last part of MSC's fleet where every guest uses the same restaurants, pools and sun deck.
Was MSC Sinfonia built for MSC?
No. She was built for Festival Cruises and delivered from Chantiers de l'Atlantique on 18 April 2002 as MS European Stars, christened under that name at Saint-Nazaire the following day. When Festival collapsed, MSC bought its two flagships — European Stars and European Vision — and renamed them MSC Sinfonia and MSC Armonia. She was acquired in 2004 and entered the MSC fleet in 2005. She has never received an MSC christening and no MSC godmother has ever been named for her.
Was MSC Sinfonia made bigger?
Yes. She was cut in half and stretched at Fincantieri's Palermo yard between 12 January and 16 March 2015, the second of four ships through MSC's 200 million euro Renaissance Programme. A 2,400-tonne prefabricated midsection was floated into a 24-metre gap, adding 193 guest staterooms and 59 crew cabins and widening the beam from 28.8 to 32 metres. Across the class the stretch raised guest capacity 29.5 per cent against a tonnage rise of only 9.3 per cent, which is the structural reason crowding recurs in reviews of these ships.
Are there extra-cost restaurants on MSC Sinfonia?
No. All dining aboard is complimentary — Il Covo, Il Galeone, Caffè del Mare and the La Terrazza buffet — with no specialty surcharge venues at all. That is structurally different from every newer MSC ship, where the paid dining estate is often the best food aboard. The honest trade is that you cannot buy a better dinner than your neighbour's, and her reviewers describe the food as bland and insufficient.