MSC Magnifica Review
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Ship was clean. Pools were fine. Hot tubs were almost always full with a life guard enforcing a time limit and line policy for hot tubs. We upgraded to the fantastica service because we wanted free room service. After we got on board, we found out that is not how it works. Normally, they charge for both food and service as separate line items on your bill. If you pay the up front cost, they don't charge for service but they still charge for food. The one upside of upgrading to fantastica service is that they normally charge 2 euro per liter of water in the restaurants. With the upgraded service at least you get free water. All in all, we felt like we were getting nickle and dimed at every turn.
We were also frustrated with the culture of line cutting on board. It didn't matter what line we were in, we were constantly frustrated with people pushing ahead of us to get in front of us. We've only been on US ships in the past so perhaps this is common in European (Italian) culture. For us American's, it was maddening. I'm not saying American's never cut but this ship was an all new level. The cutting was constant and aggressive. Often times they would physically push us aside to get in front. One time, we stood side by side, arm to arm, between the stanchions. They kept weaving and pushing trying to sneak past us. After a few minutes of failure, the the failed line cutters finally let loose in a verbal outburst on how entitled Americans are.
When we returned to Venice, the MSC ship in front of us collided with a docked boat. Apparently, this type of thing happens much more frequently than one would expect. Regardless, there are no contingency plans. We ended up hovering in the Venice harbor for more than five hours waiting for our ship to move to the dock. The one nice thing about this was that they did let us return to our rooms and they did give away free drinks and ice cream. Still, we ended up missing an activity in Venice that we had prepaid.
Cabin Review
Balcony Stateroom
Cabin was very standard compared to previous ships I've been on. The location was central and the view from the balcony was unobstructed.
Port Reviews
Venice
The embarkation and disembarkation was poorly organized and poorly implemented. It was very slow.
Bari
We were delayed arriving in port and leaving port. The city was beautiful. We rode bikes from the cruise ship to the city. That was great. After that we tried to walk to a beach but quickly realized we were way to far from the beach to easily walk so we just returned to the ship.
Katakolon (Olympia)
The ship docks very far from Olympia. We made private arrangements for a bus ride to Olympia and a private tour. This worked fantastic. We had a great time.
Santorini
The ship tenders here and once on shore you must either take a funicular, mule or walk to the top. We took the funicular without too much delay. We then made our own arrangements for a catamaran ride. We then saw the beautiful white buildings and then took a cab back to the port. The line to go down on the funicular was very long but moved pretty quickly.
Athens (Piraeus)
There are no sites near the dock. We made private arrangements for a tour of Athens. It worked out great.
Corfu
Immediately upon getting off the boat there are several speed boats waiting to take passengers. We did that and had a great time.
Kotor
When we got off the ship we had to walk a very long pier and then went into a building. Inside the building there was a very nice Irish woman working at a car rental agency. We rented a car and drove across the Island to an amazingly beautiful beach. We spent the day and drove back to the ship in the afternoon. This turned out to be cheaper and more flexible than hiring a driver. Driving on the island was pretty tame. We did not arrange this in advance but it all worked out perfectly.