MSC Magnifica Review

4.0 / 5.0
383 reviews

MSC Magnifica no more

Review for the Mediterranean Cruise on MSC Magnifica
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rmescola@gmail.com
2-5 Cruises • Age 70s

Rating by category

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Value for Money
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Dining
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Entertainment
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Additional details

Sail Date: Aug 2015
Cabin: Balcony Stateroom

There were too many families aboard the ship. You could pick from eating at 7.00 pm or 9.30, we picked the latter thinking there would be less children, we were wrong. Eating dinner was like eating in an elementary school cafeteria, so much noise that we couldn't hear the person next to us. The ship was charging us 8.50 euro a person for tips we had already prepaid, to which we were alerted by another couple at our table. There was no option to pay for the onboard expenses in dollars or euro or other monies, so now I will have to pay an extra charge to my bank to convert from euro to dollars. The embarcation was nice as they gave my husband priority because he uses a crutch, but not when we disembarked, he was left to his own resources. Our friends had ordered a beverage package, with wine, water, etc, but were not allowed to share a glass of their own wine, or water with us, it was not allowed. This should be made clear when one purchases a package. There were so many children that it was impossible to even get near the pool areas. The excursions were nice, but again too many people and difficult in hearing the guide, perhaps they should all invest in headsets. On one excursion, mine was the only one that didn't work and I was unable to hear a thing. Our balcony room was very nice, and the staff kept it clean, this is one of the few positive things we can say about this cruise. The buffet was nice, especially that it was open 20 hours, but it was the same food day in and day out. The bacon was simply thrown in a tub in the oven and baked, not in strips as it should be, it was horrible. This was our first and surely our last MSC cruise, and we are not the only ones to complain, many of those around us, and I see on the internet complain about the same things. We paid a bit more last year to cruise with Royal Caribbean but we were treated as if we were royalty.

They had us all put on our lifejackets and meet in one of the bars, where they went over the procedure of putting on our lifejackets etc, just like on a plane, but no one showed us where our lifeboats were or which ones we needed to wait by. The last cruise had each of us meet in front of our lifeboats with our lifejackets, so we knew where they were and how to get there. The theater was very plush and beautiful, the entertainment was average, and everything was scheduled around the theater. There were soft music groups in the various bars, but there was not a big variety of music. They have a library on board, that is open two hours in the morning and one in the afternoon, you have to CHECK OUT the books, and if you do not return them, they will charge you five euro a book. The last cruise we were on also had a library, but it was on the Honor System. You could go and take whatever book you wished and return it before the end of the cruise. I brought an extra ten books that I had read and did not wish to throw away and donated them to the library. The television channels were in various languages, and you could pay to view various movies, but they were 3-4 years old. All in all this was not a good criuse for us, the saving grace, for us, was our room with a balcony.

Oh, did I mention that we had a woman go overboard? She vanished somewhere after our second stop. The ship did turn around and go look for her, but lost so much time that we had to skip one of the stops and go on to the next. As far as I know she has not been found.

Cabin Review

Balcony Stateroom

Cabin B1

The cabin with a balcony was lovely, we were on the 12th deck, just behind the pilots...the staff kept it clean and tidy all day. Not sure if this is the category for our stateroom, but if the cabin details are OPTIONAL, I don't understand why I couldn't skip the cabin category.

Port Reviews

Katakolon (Olympia)

I walked along and got some souvenirs, there was a cafè with WI-Fi, but for some reason it didn't work with my phone. A lovely little street, very clean, nice shopkeepers.

Venice

We come to Venice often, so it is not a surprise to us to see it, there were a lot of people, which is typical for summer and it was very hot. Venice is, well, Venice...

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