MSC Magnifica Review
Rating by category
Additional details
Apologies this review is huge (over 9000 words) please see section headings if you don't want to read everything!
Reasons for choosing this cruise:
I chose this cruise as I wanted to be able to take my two (grown-up) children for their first cruise and it was a bargain price which meant I could actually afford four adult fares for two cabins without breaking the bank or taking out a loan, ha-ha. I very quickly realised you get what you pay for. A pretty poor experience overall and had it been my first cruise would certainly have put me off cruising again! Thankfully I have far better experiences to compare with having previously travelled once each with Princess and Norwegian and twice with Royal Caribbean. So, it won’t put me off cruising again, but I would not book MSC in future unless I was convinced they had made radical improvements.
Cabin Review
Balcony Stateroom
On deck 8 we had an outside cabin for my son and daughter to share. On arrival this was setup with a double bed, despite having asked for twin beds (they did fix this quickly once we went to guest services, at least). This cabin was an outside partial view, with lifeboats outside the window, to be honest I don’t know why they bothered with the window, it seemed pointless as the view was fully obscured by the lifeboat. The cabin was clean, tidy and compact, nothing to get excited about but nothing to complain about either. On deck 12 we had a balcony cabin, again at first glance, clean tidy and compact. Later, we noticed that the sheet on the bed had stains that had not come out in the wash, and there was a rip in the quilt that had been concealed under the sheet. I was glad I hadn’t bought my usual big ballgown for the Gala/Elegant nights as there wouldn’t have been enough room for me to put it on in either of these cabins, so they were a bit smaller than others I have had. The cupboards and drawers did not have handles and most of the drawers were stiff to open. The showers were okay, pressure a bit low but I think that’s par for the course really, it just makes washing your shampoo out of thick hair a bit harder. As always power points were limited (and being European on this ship) and due to the shape and size of travel adapters you could only use one power point at a time as the two points available are very close together, so you can’t plug in two adapters at the same time. They were also too close to the desk making larger items such as camera battery chargers, impossible to plug in at all (we bought a European extension lead in a supermarket in Le Havre to enable us to use the power points more effectively). Having a kettle, with tea and coffee was a good addition that is growing in popularity on ships, milk rather than cream would be better here and just 2 milk cartons is not enough, we would have to pick up extras at the buffet to bring back to the room, but anything used did get replenished when the room attendant came by. The room attendant was not as attentive as we have experienced before, we did not see him more than once or twice, I don’t even recall his name. And no folded towel animals!? Every cruise I have been on these have been a feature I have grown to look forward to seeing, it was disappointing that there were none, and then they did a demonstration on the final sea day so it’s clear that these do happen on MSC too, so not sure why we didn’t see any?
Port Reviews
Southampton
This was our embarkation port. There isn't much to see here if you live in the UK. It's a large, industrial/freight and commercial port. If you are visiting here from abroad you may want to search local attractions before you come so you can book yourself in somewhere that interests you. Cruise excursions generally will take you quite a way from the port to London or even Stonehenge, both of which are not that close so you will spend a lot of time on your transport from the ship. Be prepared, research ahead of coming!
Le Havre
We didn't take a cruise excursion here. We booked a Segway tour that I had booked directly with the company Mobilboard. It was a short walk into Le Havre town centre from the port (another busy industrial/freight/commercial/fishing port) with some nice sights along the walk. The Segway tour took us up to the beach (which is also within walking distance of the port) and across the town, which has some nice sightseeing points. Again I recommend researching in advance so you can organise your own activity here rather than spend 6 hours on a coach visiting Paris for a couple of hours!
Amsterdam
It is about a 20-30 minute walk into Amsterdam, or you can get a taxi at the port. There are buses and trams but you need a card to use them (which you probably have to buy in the town) so not much use. We booked a visit to Ripleys I don't believe it museum via tripadvisor before travelling, which was really good. Then we went for a walk around the town, which was heaving with tourists and not quite what we had expected. Again I suggest booking your own activity before you travel, it's so much cheaper than booking with the cruise lines and you can get 'skip the line' tickets for most things.
Hamburg
We went to Hamburg dungeons (booked ourselves) which was brilliant, but all in German, as they only do English language tours at 10am Friday, Saturday and Sunday and we arrived too late for that, even without being able to understand everything it was still great, I'd love to go back and do it in English so I could get the full experience. As with each of my port reviews I recommend booking something yourself before you go!