Just boarded Magnifica

We boarded in Southampton this morning. Arrived at the terminal around 11am, security opened at 11.50 and we were on the ship within 10 minutes.

This is our second time on MSC, sailed Musica in 2016 and did status match. We have a Fantastica balcony with all inclusive drink package. First impressions are very good. Sparkling wine, chocolate strawberries and fruit plate were waiting in the cabin along with 2 chocolate ships and 2 invites for a meal for 2 at the speciality restaurant.

All the staff we have encountered so far have been friendly and helpful. We went to the buffet for lunch, selection and taste were excellent.

We have muster drill shortly.

If anyone has questions let me know and I will try to answer.

Julie

Thank you Julie. Looking forward to your review! Have a great time!

Will be watching your post with interest!

We will be on Magnifica in September and this will be our first MSC cruise so we are not quite sure what to expect.

I see you were on the ship very early what time do you sail/ were you given an embarkation time? Did you have priority boarding?

We are staying in a Southampton hotel the night before so we are hoping to be able to get on board early because we will have to check out at 12pm but we dont sail until 8pm.

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We are following your post with interest as well as we are booked on Magnifica later in the year but are on the verge of cancelling due to the bad reviews since she has started cruising from the UK.

We hope you have a fabulous time and look forward to reading about your experiences.

I'm also following along with interest. We'll be on the Magnifica in about seven weeks from now. If you have a chance, I'd love to know what kind of tea is available. Thank you!

Have a wonderful cruise! :D

I’ve thought of a couple more questions...

What are the dinner seating times?

Is the MSC for Me app functioning?

Thanks, and bon voyage!

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Have a great cruise Julie, we will also be watching with interest as we board 30th April and are also status matched Black.

Will be watching your post with interest!

 

We will be on Magnifica in September and this will be our first MSC cruise so we are not quite sure what to expect.

I see you were on the ship very early what time do you sail/ were you given an embarkation time? Did you have priority boarding?

 

We are staying in a Southampton hotel the night before so we are hoping to be able to get on board early because we will have to check out at 12pm but we dont sail until 8pm.

 

 

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We stayed at the Holiday Inn and just walked over which is why we arrived so early. Our check in time was 2.30 but they were not sticking to those, in fact no one even checked. We also sailed at 8. We had priority boarding with Black card but they let everyone on at the same time, it was just a shorter line to the check in desk.

Julie

I’ve thought of a couple more questions...

What are the dinner seating times?

Is the MSC for Me app functioning?

Thanks, and bon voyage!

 

 

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The tea in the cabin is Yorkshire, Sir Winston de caffeinated and Mhai Diva green tea. We are going to the buffet for breakfast shortly so will get DH (the tea drinker) to look.

Dinner seating times are 6 and 8 .30. We are second seating, it was a bit chaotic last night but may have been just because it was the first night so will reserve judgement and post tomorrow!

Haven't seen anything about the MSC app so don't think it is available on this ship.

My iPad needs charging so will be back later, I'll also try and post some pics.

Julie

We are following your post with interest as well as we are booked on Magnifica later in the year but are on the verge of cancelling due to the bad reviews since she has started cruising from the UK.

 

We hope you have a fabulous time and look forward to reading about your experiences.

Based on our experience so far I wouldn't cancel. The ship itself is beautiful and well kept.

The staff are very friendly and try to be helpful. Not sure about the MDR yet but the food was OK and we'll see how it is tonight.

Julie

Many thanks for the quick replies! Have a wonderful cruise.

We stayed at the Holiday Inn and just walked over which is why we arrived so early. Our check in time was 2.30 but they were not sticking to those, in fact no one even checked. We also sailed at 8. We had priority boarding with Black card but they let everyone on at the same time, it was just a shorter line to the check in desk.

 

Julie

Have a great time.[emoji4]

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I just tried to upload a photo but it seems very slow and don't want to use all my allowance (have the 2 mb package) so will post when we get home.

We've had a nice day in Le Havre, it started out grey and a bit chilly this morning so we just decided to walk into town and look around. It takes about 30 mins walking to the centre, there is also a shuttle bus which costs 4 euros pp for a day pass if you don't want to walk. The town is not that exciting but we walked through the shopping area and out to the beach/ waterfront on the other side which is nicer.

By the time we were walking back it was brightening up and we were too warm in our jackets.

We went up to the buffet for a late lunch. Top tip for the buffet, walk right to the back, it is much quieter and there always seem to be lots of tables available. We are finding the buffet food very good, actually better than our last couple of cruises on RCL and Celebrity. Lots of choices, again make sure you walk right around as the sections do not repeat much. We never eat dinner in the buffet so can't comment on that.

By the time we had finished the sun had come out so we grabbed a gelato (included in the package and very good) and a glass of bubbly and took it back to enjoy on our sunny balcony! I packed sunscreen at the last minute never really expecting to need it but I've put some on for the last couple of hours.

Off to shower and get ready for the evening now, we're going to try and catch the 7pm show tonight.It's called Pura Pasion and features Spanish dancing.

Julie

Thank you so much for this thread. We too are booked on the Magnifica in May and will watch with interest how you get on. Our usual cruise lines are Princess and P&O but going with an open mind. If you can, would you be able to give a few examples of choices in MDR. Cheers and have a great cruise :)

I think dinner in the main dining room is probably the weakest part of the cruise. It was better last night than the first night but still not a nice relaxing experience with great service.

We are at a table for 8, us and 3 other couples who all embarked in Southampton. We are all getting along well so that is good at least. The strangest thing about the dining room is that there no longer appears to be any assistant waiters, our waiter does everything himself apart from the initial drinks orders. We all have the package so he does top up our wine during the meal. He seems pleasant enough but has no time to do anything apart from putting our food down and moving on to his next table. No interactions, no chat, I don't think he has even asked our names. I love the old style cruise waiters who you would get to know over the cruise so I really don't like this style.

The menu is now just 3 courses although I'm sure you could ask for several choices if you wanted them. We have to order all three courses (including dessert) at the beginning which I also don't like very much. The portion sizes are not bad so no complaints there.

Last night was Mediterranean, I did take a photo of the menu and will post it from home. I thought the food was quite nice, I had a Greek feta and spinach pastry( can't remember the name) to start followed by Moussaka and profiteroles. DH had Bouillabaisse, paella and wild berry cobbler.

Two of the men at our table ordered a t bone steak which was a special at a supplement of 18 euros. Both ordered medium rare, one was perfect, the other was well done and had to go back which took a long time and meant we had all finished eating by the time the replacement came. As far as I know he was still charged for it which seemed bad to me.

So my impression of the dining room so far is just OK, could be improved if you are reading MSC:)

Something interesting in the daily planner this morning, there is a notice to all Cruise Critic members that there will be a meet and mingle on Friday at 11 am. That is the first I've heard of meet and mingles on this ship so we will go along. If anyone has any questions they want asked let me know.

Julie

Thank you so much for your reply. Sounds like a few teething problems in MDR? Ordering all three courses is new to me :) But I will go with the flow and enjoy myself no matter what. Any other info would be gratefully received. Entertainment/Buffet options for breakfast/lunch. Interested in any further info thanks x

We are following. We have never sailed on MSC-but are interested, especially the Yacht Club. Would like to see how it compares to Celebrity and Royal-our two favorite cruise lines. Hope you include pictures. Have a great trip!

Thank you so much for your reply. Sounds like a few teething problems in MDR? Ordering all three courses is new to me :) But I will go with the flow and enjoy myself no matter what. Any other info would be gratefully received. Entertainment/Buffet options for breakfast/lunch. Interested in any further info thanks x

We went to the show last night before dinner, it was Spanish flamenco dancers, for us it was just so so, wouldn't want to go again. Tonight is formal night and the show is 'Elisir' which looks like it will be a variety type show. We keep saying we will go to the disco after dinner but it doesn't start until 11.30 and we always seem to miss it! Last night we bumped into a couple from our roll call as we were coming out of dinner and ended up going for drinks in the sports bar.

One thing I really like about this ship is that there are lots of nice bars and they all seem to have singers/ duos/ music on at different times throughout the evening. One of the complaints that I'd read about this ship was slow bar service , I think that's a bit unfair. The only time this happened to us was before dinner in the Tiger bar. It is the biggest bar on the ship and does get very busy. The waiter took our order and we had to wait nearly 15 minutes. He did come back a couple of times and apologise for the wait but we could see the people behind the bar were racing around trying to clear the backlog. It wasn't a problem for us but if it had of been we could have just walked a few yards to the next (much quieter) bar and bought our drink back ourselves.Apart from that time all the bar service has been great and the bar staff are really friendly.

To answer your question about the buffet, I'm not usually a buffet fan but I'm enjoying it on here. Breakfast is the usual, cereal,fruits, yogurt, cold meats and cheeses,breads, pastries etc plus lots of hot items including English bacon, sausages, beans, fried bread etc. I don't think there is anywhere that they cook eggs to order but I could have missed it.

Lunch is a really nice selection, fabulous pizza and pasta, salads, a carved joint, several hot dishes (DH had a lovely cottage pie yesterday), some Asian dishes, burgers, hot dogs etc plus lots more I've forgotten!

Julie

We are following. We have never sailed on MSC-but are interested, especially the Yacht Club. Would like to see how it compares to Celebrity and Royal-our two favorite cruise lines. Hope you include pictures. Have a great trip!

There is no Yacht Club on this ship but we too would like to try it on one of the bigger ships, think that is what we will look at for our next time on MSC.

The internet is quite slow onboard so I'll save the pictures until we get home but we (well mostly DH) are taking them!

Julie

Ahhh thank you Julie, all great to hear. enjoy your cruise x

Good to hear that so far so good! ( and considerably better than ours!!) xx

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Good to hear that so far so good! ( and considerably better than ours!!) xx

 

 

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Yes, just in case anyone hasn't realised we are enjoying the cruise:D

MSC do somethings a bit differently but go with an open mind and I think there is no reason not to have a good time.

Julie

Last night was Elegant (formal) night. The dress code onboard seemed to cover just about everything but there were plenty of people including us, who dressed up. I even saw several long dresses, to anyone going soon, you won't feel out of place in formal clothes.

The food in the dining room was nice last night, I had smoked salmon, duck and cheese. DH had fillet of beef main and thre was also a very nice king prawn dish that several people on our table had that looked lovely. They did the baked Alaska parade and all the chefs came out, the head chef is actually British which was a surprise as despite the way the cruise has been sold in the UK, there are absolutely no British influences on the MDR menu so far.

Before we came we were a bit worried about everything being 'too British'. It's the reason we don't cruise P and O very often, we just prefer a more international feel. MSC seemed to be marketing this as a British cruise but there is very little evidence of this onboard, I think you see more nods to the UK market on RCLs Indy and Navigator when they sail from Southampton than there is on here.

I will try and find out the actual numbers at some point but the passenger mix seems to be predominantly British and German with lots of other Europeans and a few Americans thrown in for good measure. Announcements are in about 5 languages with English first followed by German. Passengers seem to cover all ages, quite a few young families (all well behaved that I have seen) and lots of couples of all ages. Understandably not many school age children at this time of year.

Today we are in Amsterdam, we've just docked so we're heading up for breakfast shortly. I haven't been putting much about the ports as we've been to them all before and are just wandering around but if anyone wants any info let me know.

Julie

Thanks for all your updates, we are sailing on Magnifica in September. Like you we have stopped sailing with P&O and was a little concerned MSC might become to British this season. We are a little concerned they have cut dinner down to three courses, used to love the 6/7 courses especially their risotto. Are they still producing the best Pizza at sea?

Thanks for all your updates, we are sailing on Magnifica in September. Like you we have stopped sailing with P&O and was a little concerned MSC might become to British this season. We are a little concerned they have cut dinner down to three courses, used to love the 6/7 courses especially their risotto. Are they still producing the best Pizza at sea?

The menu is now laid out as 3 courses, starter, main & dessert with but if you want to have starter, soup, pasta/risotto, main & dessert you can, you just order them. We did plenty of mixing courses on our cruise just past. Pizza was still delicious :D