This was our 7th cruise with MSC but the first on the Magnifica, which we choose because of the great itinerary to Casablanca, Santa Cruz, Madeira, Malaga, Marseilles and Genoa and the ability to spend 3 nights before the cruise in Barcelona a city we had not visited, but thoroughly enjoyed, a great start to the holiday.

Embarkation in Barcelona was swift, seemingly only 400+ passengers were joining here which probably helped. One of the attributes of MSC, is that you can join at various points along the cruise, it's not all on at one port.

We had a Bella balcony cabin with the Premium Extra Drinks package plus €50 each 'on board' credit all for £1.1k each, it was a real bargain and one reason why we perhaps don't go looking for potential issues! The cabin was fine for 11 nights, good storage, good size en-suite which had a shower curtain rather than the nicer glass doors found on the newer ships, but the cabin steward could have done a better job in replacing the drinks tray paper mat when it was obviously torn and had tea stains on it and he was not as good as many we have had. Read more