MSC Magnifica Review
Rating by category
Additional details
We cruised MSC, actually on Magnifica, 3 years ago, and were not impressed. THe itinerary for this ship was interesting and fit our tight schedule, so I reluctantly tried it again. I won't be fooled a third time.
MSC is a budget line. That's fine. But the food was inedible. While our servers were very good, the food routinely came out cold. Sometimes it was cold food on a hot plate (how is that even possible?), often cold food on a cold plate. The flavor was.. absent or bad. Some things were ok, which was an achievement. My group of 3 felt that, for the whole cruise,k there were 2-3 things we would order again. Otherwise, it was edible at best, often not edible. It's a European line, ok, but all of our servers except one spke basically no English. Communication was very difficult.
I purchased the higher speed "streaming" interent package. It usually could load an email. Usually. Very frequently (ie evert 1-3 minutes) it would drop the connection to the ships router, forcimg me to reconnect. Who knows if the speed was better from ship to satellite if they had adequare router coverage? The internet support person in the photo area was surly at best. They force some settings which look to decrease security.
Cabin Review
Deluxe Balcony
Port Reviews
Genoa
The terminus of our cruise. Easy enough 8 minute walk to the train statin, over standard cobbled sidewalks.
Malaga
Very much enjoyed Funchal. Booked a private jeep tour to be covid safe, used Viator - booked conservatively to be sure we were back on time. 4 hour tour, dropped us off at the top of the cable car. Then rode it doen and had some time for shopping and walk back to ship. That took the whole 8 hour port day, so if you want enough time for a 4 hour tour plus the botanical gardens (*an actual visit), either its zero shopping or you need a longer port call than MSC provides.
Marseille
MSC docks very far from the old town, so we took their shuttle for e15. REgretted that, as from the port entrance there is a free port shuttle to old toan. Not exactly sure where it drops off, but NSC dropped off just NW of the NW corner of the old port. WE had time to ride the little train, and expected to stay at Notre Dame for 50 minutes, but completed our visit to the cathedral, viewpoints, and a bathroom break in time to barely catch the same train back - it makes a "20 minutes" stop that was actually 25 minutes. Then walked around the old port, had lunch in the Christmas market, and a crepe.