Balcony

Suite

Inside

MSC Cruises

Southampton

Copenhagen

Kiel

Hamburg

Rotterdam

Europe - All

Baltic Sea

Germany

France

Europe - British Isles & Western

Europe River

Seine River

Belgium

Netherlands

Rhine River

Denmark

Norway

Europe - Western Mediterranean

Mediterranean

Italy

Spain

Norwegian Fjords

Portugal

Douro River

Very Good

Average

Excellent

Poor

Terrible

MSC Divina

MSC Seaside

MSC Meraviglia

MSC Sinfonia

MSC Musica

MSC Poesia

MSC Fantasia

MSC Orchestra

MSC Armonia

MSC Preziosa

MSC Splendida

MSC Magnifica

MSC Opera

MSC Lirica

MSC Virtuosa

MSC Seaview

MSC Seascape

MSC Bellissima

MSC Seashore

MSC Grandiosa

MSC World Europa

MSC Euribia

Big is not always better... 

Kusadasi

Got to say that for my first cruise it was an experience. The ship it's self is stunning, loads of amenities, staff where friendly an helpful, well most of them.

We ate at our designated restaurant, which was Fantastic. Our waiters, Parta and Etienne where amazing, their service and attentiveness was outstanding.

The pools and hot tubs/jacuzzis where on point.

My disappointments where the theatre and off ship visits, with the theatre, even though you book you are not guaranteed a seat and are just shoehorned in like sardines. The off ship visits we expected to see Christmas markets, as this cruise was advertised, out of 4 stops only one was open which was Bruges. Hamburg, Rotterdam and le harve where all closed only starting in December.

As this was advertised as a Christmas market cruise I found this really disappointing.

There is a casino on board, did not go there as we had children with us.

First ever cruise

Our cruise on MSC Euribia was not only our first time on this new ship, but also our first cruise with MSC.  This was our 19th cruise, past experiences have been with P & O, Marella, Princess and NCL.

We decided to book this cruise only two weeks before sailing.  This was mainly because we had been through quite a terrible period and I really wanted my Husband to have some time away. I took a deep breath before plunging into paying for yacht club. This was going to be a real treat, which we had talked about in the past, but had dismissed it as being a luxury which we could not really afford.  However, given the circumstances, I decided to go for it.

Our first impressions of the ship were very good. It really has the WOW factor. Gleaming, shiny and new, it is beautiful.  The Galleria itself is mesmerising. 

The Yacht Club did not disappoint, and it was not long before we realised that had we not booked this exclusive area, we would not have been so happy with the cruise itself. 

The layout of the ship means that most of the evening venues, bars and restaurants involve the majority of people moving through the same areas.  At night it becomes crammed.  Seats are difficult to find, getting a drink involves much patience and often you found frustrations amongst some passengers who were getting tired of waiting. The entertainment is great, but you are very lucky to get a seat in the Carousel Lounge (which is away from the Galleria) to see the brilliant orchestra.  Many people stay for both performances, meaning others stand no chance. There is just not enough seating for the number of passengers.  Most nights, we ended up scuttling back to the Yacht Club for some sanctuary, fast service and a calm atmosphere. We were surprised to hear that the ship was not at capacity as the crowds made it feel otherwise.

Word of warning. When you pay for a package for specialty dining, be aware that much of the menu will not be included. The Teppanyaki is not included in the package and the grill does not include most steaks. 

Staff in the Yacht Club were impeccable as was the service.  In the main so were staff found in the rest of the venue, however, many were obviously stretched to their limit and doing their best.

So, would we do it again? I doubt it. Not unless we won the lottery!

Yacht Club saved us

Its my wife's birthday on the 26th November, so we always like to take a short cruise to celebrate the occasion.

We are frequent cruisers (70+) with Cunard/Princess/P&O and others, but since experiencing the MSC Yacht Club on the Virtuosa, immediately after Covid in June 2021, we now mainly only cruise with MSC, but it has to be in the Yacht Club.

For those of you who have never experienced the YC it is quite different to what is offered by any other cruise line.

The YC  Moto is "you never have to stand in a queue" and that commences from the moment you arrive at the Dock Side, where you will find a Tent which says Yacht Club, your luggage is handed in and you are then taken to an exclusive waiting area, served with a drink, given all your ships documents and then escorted by a Butler all the way to your YC Suite, by passing all the queuing passengers. The YC Package includes all your drinks, WIFI which is quite fast, a Daily Newspaper, room service with whatever you ask for, unless you are Gluten Free, more about that later.

You get the same non-queue treatment when going on excursions, shopping in the ships shops, theater shows, special meals, or at dis-embarkation, believe me as you get older this service is invaluable, especially when there may be  6000+ passengers on board.

When you have entered the YC everything is Private for YC Members only, so the private lounge is large and the service is great, however we preferred the Virtuosa lounge, as on entering the Virtuosa there is an array of tasties/snacks, the Euribia only has wine cupboards (they need to revert this), the snacks are available but on the Top Deck.

The Executive Suites are quite good, but cannot match the content and size of the Cunard Grill Suites, or Princess, or P&O Suites.

The YC suites are adeqately furnished, with large TVs, a full fridge and excellent room service via your Butler, with champagne available, or any drink or snack, on request and the Euribia has an extra window onto your balcony.

We found the private YC restaurant to be identical to the Virtuosa, with possibly newer staff and slightly slower service.

Now we come to the choices of Gluten Free food. MSC do offer a GF Menu, but the choice of a GF meal selection is quite inferior, to that on the normal menu and GF Meals have to be ordered the day before, so it is difficult to change your mind, as the main cooking is done aft of the ship and of course the YC restaurant is Deck 18 forward, so the food has to travel at least 300 metres, which takes a while. 

Now I eat normal meals, but I always wait for my wife's GF meal to be served, so we often found that our meal times were lasting up to 2 hours.  One day we both ordered Battered Cod, of course we assumed they could do GF Batter, but no, my Cod was beautifully cooked in delicious batter, but my poor wife's Cod was in awful rice flour, they had no Gluten Free Flour on the ship. Basically the choice of GF Meals was below expectation and my wife began to dread trying to find something new or exciting to order and the choice of GF sweets was appalling. 

MSC really need to do something about this GF situation, Italy has DR Schar GF Factories, producing a full range of GF products, so the Coeliac Disease is well know in Italy and MSC is an original Italian based Shipping Company, so why not have fresh GF food?.  Cunard cook fresh daily Muffins and cakes, so do other cruise lines, so why is it that MSC don't do their own  cooking, do Italian Chefs not understand GF Cooking?, so why does MSC rely on plastic wrapped pre-cooked products?.

We stll love the Yacht Club, so we will continue to sail with MSC, we have already booked next year 2 cruises on the Virtuosa. 

We are just hoping that MSC will get the message and do something about it, before we change our minds.

Finally we hope this story will aid other Coeliac sufferers, who cruise with MSC.

The Yacht Club was great, but the Gluten Free food was almost non-existant.

We boarded MSC Euribia on the 24 th November , initially it didn’t disappoint , it certainly had the wow factor . The Glitzy stairs , the mall with its animated colourful ceiling . The staff were friendly and welcoming . 

    Before long our cabin was ready , we were on deck 13 and had an upgrade to a deluxe balcony cabin at no extra cost . Again we weren’t disappointed the cabin was clean , quite spacious with modern fixture & fittings . 

     We were allocated The Colorado River as our main dining room for evening meals . The dining room itself was lovely and we weren’t to tightly packed in where we were sat either . We were given a table for two and the staff were again very friendly and attentive. The meal itself though did leave a bit to be desired . The starter of a Greek salad type arrangement wasn’t too bad at all . The main course though minted leg of lamb looked very pale , had barely any veg , it tasted just about passable , the desert was a rasberry and chocolate cake which actually was the best thing I ate in there . 

    Night two arrives and there’s really nothing that appealed to me at all so I thought I’d give the available every day option a try , chicken byriani , it was truly awful easily the worst thing I’ve ever been given in an MDR in 17 years of cruising . It wasn’t even presented well . My plate was overloaded with dry brown rice , a tiny bony piece of chicken & a tiny half of a boiled egg that looked like it had been sat for a week . I hardly touched it . 

    Fast forward the third night , nothing on the menu that appealed at all apart from the exact same dish I’d had the first night , only this time I had tomatoe soup as a starter . It’s hard to get soup wrong but MSc managed it . Thin watery with a kind of film sitting in the top . Time for my repeat meal of the first night only they gave me the wrong dish , I was given pork instead . Normally I’d have given that s try instead but one mouthful was enough it was horrible . So I asked the waiter to change it for what I’d actually ordered , half an hour later the pale unappealing lamb dinner turned up . After this we gave up on the MDR in the evenings it was actually better in the buffet !. 

     Breakfast was much better it had to be said , there was quite a good choice in the MDR and the food was of a much more decent quality compared to the evenings offerings !. 

    The market place buffet I have no problems with , the pizza in there is very tasty infact I ended up living mainly on the pizza for a week . The deserts were lovely in there with cheese cakes to die for . It got extremely busy though especially towards the end of the cruise when many Brits in particular had given up on the MDR in the evenings ! . 

     The entertainment was high and low , the theatre shows weren’t great , the singers couldn’t all sing neither could some of the dancers dance particularly well . 

  In the carousel lounge however it was first class , there was a live big band who were amazing , with singers who were equally as amazing . The only problem being you needed to be there two hours ( not an exaggeration! ) before the show started to even think of getting seats . If we’d have gone to our 7.30 MDR sitting every night we’d never have got in at all . The ship wasn’t full I think it had something like 4,500 passengers I believe at capacity it had over 6,000 I wouldn’t like to be on there at capacity I can tell you . 

     The other problem is everything is announced in about six different languages , when there are people boarding at every stop this can really start to get on your nerves . I don’t know how many times I heard the warning whistles too . 

       We actually did the same cruise on Virtuosa last year it didn’t seem as full and the food in the MDR was much better . The singers in the theatre could actually sing too ! . 

    The stops were good apart from Hamburg which outside of December MSc arrive at every Sunday when absolutely nothing is open . Last year for some reason the same week on a Sunday the Christmas markets were open they were lovely but alas  not this year . 

    I think it’ll be a while before I’d choose MSc again over all enjoyable but I think I’ll stick with p&o for a cruise at a similar price point . Their speciality restaurants are much better too , way cheaper with no service charge . Easier to get into the entertainment you want to see , you certainly don’t have to choose between a sit down meal or a show . Lovely ship but some things need improvement.

Beautiful ship but !!!!!

Mostly pleasant experience. The restaurants are well stocked with varieties of food options, both at the fine dining and buffet market place restaurants.

Loads of onboard activities and entertainments. Helpful and knowledgeable staff.

Modern amenities everywhere. The lifts, the booking system, the bar service are all automated.

The only complaint I have is the lack of live TV service. The available service is pre-recorded and it’s also by subscription.

I expect the TV to be free and live. Also to be able to monitor the journey route on a live map on TV.

The bars are well stocked with a variety of drinks. Most cuisine are catered for in the restaurant. The gym is well equipped with variety of body toning machines and it’s never crowded.

Great enjoyable performances at the theatre. Not crowded.

The ship cater for disabled and made it easier to be able to access most areas. Well thought

My Euribia experience 

Hi, I'm an experienced cruiser who tried MSC for the first time Thanksgiving week out of Southampton, England.  MSC acknowledged Thanksgiving day in its daily program, but there was no celebration dinner in the main dining room or buffet.  I've read many negative things about MSC, most of which I did not experience.  One of the nice things about MSC is that they status match (I received Gold status).  This must be tempered by the fact that their frequent cruiser program isn't too great, as I put it on par with Holland America's (also not great).  MSC does some things differently, including assigning you a check-in time with no consultation and giving you no choice of your dining time at the lowest Bella level.  For this reason, we booked a Fantastica experience cabin, which allowed us to choose our dining time and gave us bottled water to drink in the dining room (if you are Bella and have not purchased a beverage package, you better not be thirsty).  Our large inside cabin was nice, but sparsely furnished with no drawers and little closet space (you should plan to live out of your suitcase).  The service that I received both in the cabin and in the main dining room was excellent (better that we have recently experienced on Celebrity and Holland America).  I also found MSC's entertainment excellent, though both of their main theater venues lacked sufficient seating, leaving you fighting for show space often (theater shows can be reserved late the night before, but there were no reservations for the Big Band/singer performances in the Carousel lounge, which lacked sufficient seating).  The main problem with MSC for me was their food.  The beef dishes in the main dining room were terrible.  The soups were poor.  Their pasta dishes were okay, but nothing special.  Some of the chicken, pork, and seafood dishes were good to excellent.  Their desserts were generally good to excellent.  In the buffet, breakfast lacked a few things that Americans like, like American bacon, cream cheese, biscuits and gravy, grits, grapefruit and other fresh cut fruit (they had canned fruit and a mixed bowl of fresh cut fruit).  Their omelets, cheese selection, and bread/pastry selection and juices were superior.  In general, while breakfast was fine, I found it monotonous after a few days.  Lunch was much the same, with some good choices, but a bit boring after a few days.  Their pizza and pasta and burgers were just okay.  The Asian section at breakfast, lunch, and dinner was poor.  Without a drink package, you are limited to coffee, tea, and water to drink in the buffet.  There was no soft-serve ice cream unless you paid for it.  In short, MSC's dining seems designed to motivate you to pay extra for alternate dining choices (those willing to pay extra will have a better time).  The Euribia ported in Hamburg on a Sunday, when there was no tourist information or public transportation available in the port.  MSC sold a bus transfer into the city center.  Rotterdam's port was within a half-hour walk of the edge of the central area.  Zeebruge is the port city for Brugge and is within walking distance of the train station (22 minutes to Zeebruge Dorp), or you can buy a tour or transfer from MSC.  We called on Zeebruge twice because of a port strike in Le Harve, France.  I found Blankenberge, Belgium a nice town on the sea to walk around during our second port day.  The Belle Epoque Museum was interesting and reasonable.  Brugge's Historium, churches, and chocolate shops were all worth a visit.  I will take another MSC cruise, but I will likely limit myself to a 7 day or less itinerary because the menus don't change enough to keep me interested for longer.  It is easy to catch a train from London's Victoria Station to Southampton Central to catch your cruise.  My cruise port was within walking distance of the train and bus stations (but there are 5 cruise piers, so do your research).  I bought my train tickets on Trainline.

First MSC Cruise

My review is written from the viewpoint of somebody who booked a very cheap cruise with the most basic of cabins.

We boarded it at Southampton which was an absolute dream. I have never boarded a ship so quickly and with the so little fuss and the cruise line as well as the onshore team should be congratulated, We had an 11:00 a.m. boarding time and returned up. Expecting to be hanging around but in fact were enjoying our first cocktail on board at 10:50.

Upon arrival to the ship. We were guided to an area where we could deposit our hand luggage and directed to places where we could eat and relax. Even though a constant stream of announcements told us that are cabin would not be ready until 2:00 p.m.. given the size of the passenger list, I was quite surprised that they would have all the cabins ready this early. But actually this was exactly the case and 2:00 p.m. and announcement was made

Our cabin was, as expected, small and compact, but with absolutely excellent wardrobe space that puts other ships to shame the addition of a mini fridge in the cabin as well as the usual tea and coffee facilities made the whole experience better than expected

Entertainment on the ship is everywhere but unfortunately unless you are prepared to book ahead or stand in line waiting for a seat on a standby basis,, you are unlikely to enjoy many shows in the main theatre, a second musical venue at the back of the ship , the carousel, offers a. A live music show twice nightly mostly from the big band, this

Is generally a very high standard but unfortunately the seating in this theatre is inadequate and also the ships staff do not close the venue when it is full, at one point I became concerned that with only one main exit from the function suite and two very small ones to the deck that if an evacuation were ever needed, mayhem would follow it is moudly annoying as well. That access to the carousel lounge is through the casino where smoking is allowed, and whilst this is rarely a problem in the early evening, walking past the central bar in the casino later on is quite unpleasant for non-smokers

On more than one occasion, we approached this lounge, the carousel, 90 minutes before the start of the show to ensure getting a seat only to have guests turn up 5 minutes into the show to stand in front of us and talk loudly throughout the event

This cruise in Northern Europe is very much run like a circular bus route with passengers being picked up and dropped off at every port and whilst this is excellent for embarcasian and disembarkation times, it is rather annoying at every port to have the same messages repeated in five languages over the entire ships. Tanoy/ regarding safety drills and Kevin availability, minor I know, but hardly relaxing

As a rule, we very rarely eat in the restaurant and my mistake in ordering an early dining time of 6:00 p.m. would normally mean that we never eat in the ships restaurant, however, we  ventured there on the very first night, were seated with another couple adventured back to the dining room every evening of the cruise where both the food and the service were absolutely exemplary.

Having read a few reviews about the cruise company not being able to deal with even the most common of special diets, we were a little bit worried as my travelling partner is gluten free with an unusual garlic allergy, in fact, not only did she have her own menu every night, but she had her own waiter every night who could not do enough to make sure that she was happy and her needs were c catered well for, indeed we even had a message and a call from the office on board to ensure that everything was going well for her.

With a few minor exceptions which I shall detail in a moment, I have to say that the drinks service on board and the food service on board was somewhat better than we expected actually it was probably the best I have seen  at sea

Of course, being a very full ship and a very large ship, there will always be crowd control problems in busy areas, however, I feel that the cruise company will soon sort out the traffic flow problems which are mainly in the Galleria and the self-service restaurant and the negative reviews of these crowds should not put you off enjoying your holiday

I have a few very minor niggles which I think the company should deal with, as a hospitality planner myself. I feel that these things should be dealt with by such an established company before they even think of taking on passengers

My first tiny! Niggle is as follows, if you have a ship with over 6,000 passengers on board, at least get 6000 coffee mugs so that they can enjoy a drink at the breakfast buffet, buffet vVisits we're always accompanied by lots of walking. Looking for a clean mug as the racks were always empty, when the trolley came out of the service area full of mugs. It rarely made it as far as the mug racks before being empted by passengers 

Another minor issue is that having purchased a thermal area pass for the week at some £80 per person, I decided that one of the better ideas on board is a little rubber wristband that you can purchase, which contains all of the information on your cruise card, this means of course that you don't need to carry the cruise card with you as your wristband will get you into your room, allow you to order drinks, etc the stupidity of this is that the team in the spa cannot read the transponder in the band so you still need to take your cruise card to the one place where you really don't want to miss lay it, but are most likely to do so, this was the same when I tried to borrow Pool towels, the helpful chap in the cabin could not read my band and insisted on a cruise card, which of course I did not have with me. Whilst this band is readable by everybody serving at tables, most of the bars do not have a roaming reader. So you end up taking the band off to hand it to the bar stuff to scam. It is a shame because this is such a great idea otherwise.

Regarding the spa area, I have just one tip for passengers and that is to buy yourself a small scuba bag to take with you into the spa area because the most common conversation heard on ship was regarding the lockers and guests inability to get back into them. Having locked everything in them. The ship policy seems to be that you get one chance to have the spa manager open a locker and after that you have to go back at 9:00 p.m. when they open all of them. I spoke to one chap who had put his cabin key in the locker with all his clothes and from 1:00 p.m. was unable to get back into his cabin and had to visit the reception desk wearing nothing but swimming trunks and a towel to ask for a duplicate key.

The only other very slightly negative comment I have is really very petty but important to a few passengers and that is that until we sailed indeed even after departure itself.  we had no idea if there were to be themed nights on board, we had decided before we left that we would take formal attire and if they're was not a formal night on board we would have our own and I knew from xperience that there is often a white night on board. For the sake of seven lines on the 20 page email they sent me before departure, I feel that MSC are slightly under selling their own experience on board

0 We both felt that this is a magnificent vessel with lots of.

Generally excellent staff and facilities and a very well appointed ship, which I am sure in the summer months or in a warmer climate will be an absolute joy for families and couples alike

One more comment regarding the thermal spar experience is that at no point do they tell you that you need to pre-book on sea days until you turn up on such a day to be refused entry

Shiny new ship with a few very minor glitches

We chose this cruise as it represented very good value and convenient from Southampton. We also liked the idea of sailing on a brand new mega ship. All in all we had an excellent time and enjoyed the facilities and service on board very much. It does get busy at times especially in the buffet restaurant but this is to be expected on a big boat and to be honest it was not that bad and we did not have to wait long to get a table, even at peak times. The food quality was good and we found the layout of the buffet area much better on may ships we have been on. The balcony room was excellent, well laid out with plenty of storage. The bathroom is not the biggest we have encountered but it had everything we needed. Our Cabin Steward Orlando was excellent and he went above and beyond to make us feel welcome and looked after. Likewise our waiters in the Aurora Borealis restaurant were first classed and kept us well fed and entertained with the occasional guitar solo and Ed Sheeran impression. We encountered the Carousel lounge big band on the third day and then went every night. For anyone that has the slightest love of music this is a must see with great instrumental sound and first class singers in the evening sessions. It gets busy so get there early but you must see at least one of these shows if you can.

Wonderful Time

We had sailed previously on MSC Preziosa in the Caribbean which was just a glorified bus service picking up and dropping off people at each port which we found odd as no other cruise line seems to do this. This caused congestion at every port getting on and off.

  The food on board was at best average and the portions in the main restaurants very small. And once the staff found out that you were not French, Italian or Spanish their service levels dropped.

   Move forward to our trip on the Euriba.

Lovely ship clean and elegant.

  But that's where it ends. Same bus routine drop off get on at every stop. Once again if you are not of Latin or Eastern European extraction the level of service, which was already really slow gets worse they seem more interested in tickets coming  through the till than face to face service.

   Again the food is only average. But I do have to say they served the best attempt at at full English breakfast I have had on any cruise l have been on so credit where credit is due.

  Balcony cabins are very small.

    The entertainment left a lot to be desired.  There were no English singers on board and as they were all trying to sing  English or American songs they could not pronouce the songs properly or understand what they were singing about.

   All in all only an average trip.

          I will stick to Royal Caribbean/Celebrity.  Princess or Ncl in future as they are far better.

Not for the English speaking!

Done over 40 cruises over 5 cruise lines MSC up there with the best.

We had 4 days of bad weather over the 7 nights even that couldn’t dampen our enjoyment. You can’t do much about the weather cruising North Europe in the winter but we had a wonderful day in Brugge as well as Hamburg.

Tried to do Rouen from la Havre but got washed out on the way to the station.

Already done this port several times plenty to do from there, Normandy beaches Mont St Michel  Honfleur to name a few.

The shows in the 2 main venues were fantastic especially the band and singers in the carousel lounge.

The food was of a good standard always hot in the main dining room.

We also ate at the la’telier grill best French onion soup ever.

Overall 5 stars for this ship and staff.

Going on the World Europa next can’t wait ,all their ships are so beautiful I don’t understand how people complain.

Outstanding

Filters

1-10 of 29