Also going on this cruise and delighted with the replies

English is always one of the languages spoken aboard MSC. There may not be lots of English speaking passengers onboard but you will be seated at dinner with English speaking people. You will not have any difficulties communicating with the crew. They may be from the 4 corners of the globe but most have a reasonable comand of English as long as you don't say anything too complicated. As far as pizza goes, it is only available at the pizza bar normally, but never at any of the other meals, so it will be easily avoided. pasta is always one of the 5 courses available in the dining room at luch and one of the 6 available at dinner, so I'm sure you won't starve by skipping it. The Italians don't serve pasta as the main course, so you won't be missing out. It is an Italian line so the food is mainly Italian. On the longer voyages on some of the ships they do feature the cuisine from another country eg french, german, asian etc. At breakfast there is a wide range available including an english breakfast (albeit the bacon is not that similar to what we'd normally have). Lunch tends to be a mixture of differnet styles and there will ofetn be more Britiish style food such as fish and chips or the like (but not every day) At dinner they don't really do "English" food although if there is nothing that you like on the main menu, they alwways have a grilled, steak, chicken fillet or salmon fillet available. One aspect of the Italina food that you may enjoy is the ice cream - it is very ggod and there is a different flavour every da

You're going to South Africa for 22 nights! I wouldn't care if the language spoken was from outer space. You lucky thing, just enjoy. As for food there is always a variety. PS can I stow away in your suitcase?