We polled our YouTube subscribers what they most wanted to see from MSC World America. Food was the clear winner and so we’re sharing the first-ever meal we enjoyed on board MSC World America. Below, you’ll find both the Night 1 menu, along with photos and our thoughts of the meal. Let’s take a look at the MSC World America dining room menu and food!

MSC Dinner Restaurants and Times

Before we jump into photos of the food, I want to share a little bit about MSC World America’s dining room experience. There are more main dining rooms on World America than we’ve ever experienced on a cruise ship! There are 3 main dining rooms all housed together at the aft of deck 6, another one at the aft of deck 5, plus Aurea Suite guests have access to a 5th main dining room on deck 8 in the World Galleria.

MSC offered 3 dining options on board MSC World America for our sailing:

• 1st Seating – 5:30pm
• 2nd Seating – 7:30pm
• My Choice Dining – 5:45pm-9:00pm

We dined in the Bubbles Restaurant at the very aft of deck 6. Our dining time was the second seating at 7:30pm.

Ordering Experience

When you sit down, you’ll find a plastic stand that features QR Codes for the dining menu, the drinks menu, and a third QR code that provides information on the various drinks packages MSC offers.

Simply scan the menu QR code, select your language, and then choose the Dinner Menu to see what the evening’s options are. One of the things we find neat about MSC is that when you scan the QR code, it brings you to a page where you select your menu (breakfast, lunch, dinner). We like this as it allows you to see all of the menus of the day from one screen.

The menu is broken up into five sections:

• Starters
• Entrées
• Steakhouse Selection (additional charge)
• Desserts
• Sommelier’s Recommendations

Both the Starters and Entrées have “Daily Specials” that rotate each day (called out in a Daily Specials box on the menu), along with standard dishes you can order each day. We love this as it gives you an option to try something new each day, or stick with a classic dish you love.

Let’s take a look at what we ordered night one – with photos!

Starters

I ordered the Mozzarella-Stuffed Meatball, of course! I had to see how MSC World America’s meatball compared to Carnival Firenze – another Italian-themed ship. You know, scientific comparison purposes. 🙂

The meatball’s appearance looked fantastic with plenty of sauce and great color. Unfortunately, when I cut into the dish, it was clear that it had sat for an extended period of time under a warmer. The meatball itself was dry and the mozzarella had all but hardened and leaked out. The sauce was the STAR of this dish by a mile.

2 out of 5 ships.

I also ordered the Fire-Roasted Tomato Cream Soup. I love a good soup on a cruise, so I couldn’t pass it up. What I will say is the name didn’t fit the description. It was more of a tomato broth soup. It was a bit oily and not all that hot. Thankfully, MSC World America offers bread service at each table. We had an assortment of breads that I was able to use to dunk in my soup. The combination was much better than the soup alone.

3 out of 5 ships.

Entrées

I was so excited to try MSC World America’s lasagna. I’m a huge fan of this dish, and with MSC having Italian-roots, I knew I couldn’t go wrong.

Unfortunately, the Lasagna was just not good. Like the meatball, the sauce had a vibrant color and was delicious. But the actual lasagna had either overcooked or sat under a warmer for an extended period of time. The top layer, as you can see in the photo, was just hard as rock. And the noodles were mushy like they were undercooked. Weirdly, even with the sauce, the overall dish was dry even with the mushy noodles. The flavor of the sauce once again was the star.

1 out of 5 ships.

Thankfully, our server noticed this and kindly asked if he could replace my dish with another option. I chose the Chef’s Indian Vegetarian.

Thankfully, this dish redeemed the entire meal for me! Every bite of food on this dish was amazing. So appreciative of our server offering to replace the lasagna at no cost.

5 out of 5 ships.

Steakhouse Selection

No one in our party tried an item from the Steakhouse Selection portion of the menu. There are two items in this section and both come with an additional $19.99 charge. You can choose from either the Broiled Cold Water Lobster Tail or the Linz Heritage Angus. We did meet a couple folks who ordered the steak and they said it was just as good as the steakhouse. In fact, one said “it was the best dish we had in the main dining room all week.”

If you like to splurge occasionally in the main dining room, $19.99 isn’t a terrible price point. Plus, you have a variety of Side Dishes to choose from.

Desserts

I ordered the Coconut Pistachio Dacquoise for dessert. I’m still not sure what a Dacquoise is, but I’m glad I tried it! The presentation was really pretty and the dessert had really nice layers to it. The cake part was a bit dry and – believe it or not – those little drops of sauce didn’t really help. The coconut flavor came through really nicely, but each bite left me wanting a glass of water.

Presentation: 5 out of 5 ships
Dessert itself: 3 out of 5 ships

Sommelier’s Recommendations

While there are several items listed on the menu, our servers never once spoke about them or recommended them. As a result, we stuck with Martini Rossi Asti Spumante. Asti wine is sweet and low-alcohol. It was a perfect compliment to our meal – and with its lower alcohol content, we didn’t have to worry about a hangover.

5 out of 5 ships!

Overall Thoughts

Truthfully, it was a bit of a rough start on board MSC World America. Everything seemed to have sat for an extended period of time under warmers. I was super excited to give MSC’s “mozzarella-stuffed” meatball a try! Unfortunately, due to it sitting, the mozzarella had all but absorbed or leaked out of the meatball. With how long it must have sat, it was a dry meatball – but the sauce was absolutely fantastic!

The soup was good, but I’m glad MSC includes a bread basket on the table as it definitely needed a little something for dunking.

Thankfully, our server realized the lasagna had hardened to a point that it was just not good and quickly brought out the Chef’s Indian Vegetarian for me. It was clearly prepared on-the-fly and was fresh, hot, and perfect. I ate every single drop of the dish! Definitely a 5 out of 5 entrée if you enjoy Indian food.

The dessert was interesting, but a bit dry. I enjoyed the flavor and ate it all, but it left me needing more champagne!

Overall, our first night dinner took almost 2 hours and there were several misses. Keep in mind, this was the first-ever dinner on the inaugural sailing, so we weren’t frustrated in any way. We just took it all in, took lots of pictures, and enjoyed champagne as we waited.

I give this first dinner 2 out of 5 ships. It wasn’t a great start, but thankfully, Pizza & Burger was open until 2am. We enjoyed that a lot more than dinner the first night.

Kudos to our dining team that made the best out of the experience. It was clear the team was still learning and we’re excited to see how the dining room experience continues to improve in time.

Night 1 Menu

Here is the full Night 1 Dinner Menu from MSC World America. Let us know in the comments what you would order!

Hungry for more MSC Cruises content? Check out our Yacht Club Menus to see all of the delicious food you’ll find inside MSC’s ship-within-a-ship concept!