MSC Magnifica picture heavy fun review -- 12 days British Isles incl. DIY port trips

[Kreuzfahrtneuling]

Ooops – I forgot a bar….so sorry. But it was sort of not really a bar for our age group anyway. I’m talking about the T32 Disco onboard. This was THE hang out spot for all teens. Tanja and I sat here only one night for two drinks while watching the bizarre flirting rituals of this age group.

Tarik never came here, since he was too shy to talk to any of them. Next summer we’re going to send him in a youth camp from the local sportsclub…he’s raging about it, but we think it’s important for him to finally communicate to people of his age.

Anyway, the disco is not a place for people over 20. At least that was the case during our cruise. The only other “elderly” people popping in were usually parents gathering up their young ones, when it got too late in their opinion. We ran into Yvonne and Ingo’s daughter Sarah (18) here…she didn’t seem to be humiliated by her two very ancient tablemates to show up and greeted us very politely. Oh, by the way, the drinking age for alcohol is 18 years on the Magnifica…however they do have an abundance of non alcoholic cocktails for the younger ones, so the disco was frequented from about 12 year olds to about 20 year olds. Our cruise was in the middle of the school holidays though, so it might be a completely different deal if you travel outside those dates.

 

 

 

 

 

They also had the bowling alley (against charge) and the 4D Cinema (also against charge – sorry no pics) here.

 

I loved one part of the disco… they have a balcony out back that connects with stairs to the outside area of the buffet restaurant. Since this restaurant would be insanely full sometimes, it was so much less hassle to walk up one set of steps, walk through the empty disco (at daytime) to get to the elevators instead of having to shuffle through a mad crowd at the buffet.

I don’t really have “bar” or “dance floor” pics of the disco. Sorry. But I did take these to catch the metal-shine-glitz décor of the place.

Stay tuned!

Stef

[cruisetrail]

It's interesting to see the difference between the Magnifica and her sister ships.

Thanks for the review.

[earn]

Stef,

 

Thank you for all of you tips on Hamburg! We fly in tomorrow so will spend Saturday seeing the sights.

 

I am female so will be banned from 'the street' thank goodness :).

[Kreuzfahrtneuling]

It's interesting to see the difference between the Magnifica and her sister ships.

Thanks for the review.

 

:)Welcome to the review! Can't really say anything about the differences, since this was our first MSC cruise --- but feel free to comment on stuff you experienced differently on their other ships.

 

Stef

[Kreuzfahrtneuling]

Stef,

 

Thank you for all of you tips on Hamburg! We fly in tomorrow so will spend Saturday seeing the sights.

 

I am female so will be banned from 'the street' thank goodness :).

 

:DLol ...yeah, I know, that street is something "special". Can't blame ya.

 

Hope you (and Mike as well) have a fantastic cruise! Would be happy if you both signed back on afterwards to tell us how you liked it!

 

Stef

[Kreuzfahrtneuling]

The weather is nasty outside right now, so I feel like talking about some outdoor stuff from the Magnifica to feel a little sunshine.

Let’s cover the sports court.

It’s located way up on deck 16 – two decks above the disco. The opening hours officially start at 9 am…but it’s open all the time. I’ve checked the deck plans and there are no cabins underneath, so no worries about disturbing anybody if you play outside the times. We knew they’d have a tennis court, so we brought our rackets (we all play). Lol – we didn’t realize it’s a shrunken minion court.

They did have a net (the thing curled around the post in the picture) which you could easily attach to the two posts…but the size of the court made for a rather interesting game…imagine playing volleyball in your living room. The net above was slanted to the back of the court, so if the balls came in a little high, they’d be caught by it.

Also did the soccer goals stand in the way like furniture. Sigh – and now to top all that imagine that you left a window open while playing inside…the tennis balls were too small to stay inside this court – to the front you had a gap underneath the net through which the balls neatly rolled undisturbed.

Good thing we have a slender kid with us, who can crawl between the zipped net-connection to retrieve them. This happened quite often.

We’d have been screwed if the balls would have flown through the gaps in the back…

Luckily this didn’t happen to us, but I think they would have flown straight into the ocean.

We had some entertaining hours of “sort of” miniature tennis here…we laughed quite a lot because of the absurdity of the situation, but that was worth bringing the rackets already.

The court was very rarely used. I have no clue where and when you could have borrowed whatever sportsgear you required…there were no soccer or basketballs laying around in the open to use. Tarik thought that was sad, since he would have loved to throw some hoops once in a while.

Oh, and the doors were bizarre as well. They were easy to open from the outside…you had to lift a little lever to push down the handle…which I totally understand because it’s way windy up here and the doors should stay shut when not in use…..but to get out again was a little acrobatic. You couldn’t get this darn lever up from the inside of the door (the button to push didn't work)…and the handle can’t be moved unless you lift that darn thing…

so you had to fiddle your hand through the bars to get to the lever on the other side to lift it in order to open the darn door…sort of felt like turning a lamb, when it’s not laying correctly in her mother’s womb…fun stuff, but I didn’t want to be reminded of work while on vacation. I think they should do something about it. Rant over.

But overall we loved this funny little court. Playing here while passing the English Channel, with many huge containerships passing by, was quite an experience.

Stay tuned!

Stef

[Irish Cath]

going pale....Cath.....please tell me that was a joke!

 

Stef

 

Well i need to hear what is was you did before I can confirm that :p:D

 

sort of felt like turning a lamb, when it’s not laying correctly in her mother’s womb…fun stuff,

 

Did you actually just say that :eek::D

Edited September 12, 2014 by Irish Cath
because sometimes i can't spell a single word!

[Kreuzfahrtneuling]

Well i need to hear what is was you did before I can confirm that :p:D

 

lol- now I know you haven't heard anything, or you would have known they're talking about us. Excellent try -- but you'll have to wait like everybody else;)!

 

Did you actually just say that :eek::D

 

:DI did indeed!

[Kreuzfahrtneuling]

Since we started to look at the sporty stuff I’ll just stick to that and tell you about the ship’s gym.

The gym is located on deck 13 way up front – you have to walk through the spa to get to the gym…weird! Most of the times there was a lady dressed in a traditional Thai? outfit patrolling in front of the entrance of the gym. I didn’t like that feeling at all. I always felt like some intruder, not using the actual spa facilities, but only trotting the holy grounds to get to the “free” gym. The only time that lady talked to us was on the very first day, when we strolled around with Tarik, checking out all the locations. She didn’t want to let Tarik proceed into the gym, but when we told her that he is indeed 14 years old (the minimum age for access to the gym) she let go of us….although you could see that she didn’t believe us. Ack, I’m annoyed by the fact I let this lady downgrade my gym experience. Tarik didn’t have any intention on actually using the gym, so this was the only time he was in here…but I really doubt that she would have let him pass without us. But I’ll quit the whining now.

The gym itself was fine. It was the smallest gym on a ship we’ve sailed on so far, but still there was never any problem working out. What I really adored, was the spacious panoramic glass front. Usually the windows were a lot cleaner than on some of these pics.

 

An overview:

Treadmills (they were the favored work out machines)

Normal steppers and these funky machines stood next to each other…I have absolutely no clue what they’re called or what they are simulating…it felt like ice skating up hill :-)

. Kind of cool.

All the machines had multilingual touch-menus. Very nice and easy to handle.

The bikes all stood facing portside…I thought it sad not to have at least one facing the front…there would have been plenty of space to face at least two into that direction... I mean look at those weights

…do

they

really have to face the front? Although it does give the room a spacious and airy look, don’t you think? I guess sometimes luxury means to waste space, just because you can.

More gym pics coming up.

Stay tuned!

Stef

[Kreuzfahrtneuling]

Gym continued…

They had quite a bit of space for classes…but I didn’t see any free ones offered (I didn’t look in depth though --- so maybe you’ll spot some when I post the dailies in the the upcoming day to day sections).

They did have mats and steps. Bizarre that that bike excursion commercial is in German only – all other things on board pretty much always showed 5 translations of the most common tongues onboard. The only lady I met on board who was actually on one of those excursions was Italian. But these excursions were pretty popular in each and every port.

Of course they had muscle-machines as well, yet a LOT less than what we were used to on the other ships…it didn’t matter, they were deserted almost all the time anyway.

Here you can pick up and dispose your towels and use the disinfection spray for the machines. On the very right of the picture there’s an indoor window towards the “extra fee” spa relax room with the extra indoor jacuzzis…I don’t know – if I’d pay extra to relax here, I wouldn’t want people from the gym watching me and having all the commotion behind that window … but maybe I’m just being picky.

To say goodbye to the gym one picture that made the gym one of a kind and actually my favourite gym so far yet:

I just adored the view and the fantastic, tall, open, slanted windows that presented it….(well okay in this picture we`re just returning to Hamburg and that building coming up on the right hand side is a very controversial atomic reactor – I guess you can’t block out politics completely – not even on a cruise).

Anyway --use the gym, it’s worth it!

Stay tuned!

Stef

[Jules.]

I like the way that the windows on this ship are held on by the funky tripod style metal rods, pretty cool :)

[sofsolnanny]

Hi Stef,

loving your review of the Magnifica, thanks for taking the time to write it.

 

A few weeks ago I booked a cruise on this ship, but for the life of me could not find any current reviews -and the one I did find was awful!!!!!!!! so glad I have found your comprehensive review.

 

I have sailed Princess,P&O and RCCL,and this will be the first time for myself,sister and parents on a MSC ship.Already I am loving the look of the Magnifica,so glitzy and sparkling--the more glitz and sparkles the better for me,I like it. Already I love the look of the tiger bar and that may say a lot about my taste:D.

Cant wait for you to post photo's of the food and entertainment..I very much like the look of the little bar on deck 5 where you can get coffee and chocolate--I have a feeling that this bar is not far from my cabin :)

I hope the coffee is good as I could not cope without my 5 cups a day!.

 

Regards.

Di

 

PS , we are sailing oct 8th from Southampton.

[Kreuzfahrtneuling]

Hi Stef,

loving your review of the Magnifica, thanks for taking the time to write it.

 

A few weeks ago I booked a cruise on this ship, but for the life of me could not find any current reviews -and the one I did find was awful!!!!!!!! so glad I have found your comprehensive review.

 

I have sailed Princess,P&O and RCCL,and this will be the first time for myself,sister and parents on a MSC ship.Already I am loving the look of the Magnifica,so glitzy and sparkling--the more glitz and sparkles the better for me,I like it. Already I love the look of the tiger bar and that may say a lot about my taste:D.

Cant wait for you to post photo's of the food and entertainment..I very much like the look of the little bar on deck 5 where you can get coffee and chocolate--I have a feeling that this bar is not far from my cabin :)

I hope the coffee is good as I could not cope without my 5 cups a day!.

 

Regards.

Di

 

PS , we are sailing oct 8th from Southampton.

Hi Di,

 

:)welcome to the review!

 

I probably won't be done with the entertainment and food review and pics until your sailing:(...but I'll dedicate the next post to the coffee onboard, okay:o? And who knows, if I hurry up, you might get to see at least the first food pictures before you leave.

 

Stef

[Kreuzfahrtneuling]

Upon popular demand … a little break from all the sporty stuff…

Let’s talk coffee!

 

The only other cruiseline we tried before was RCI. They have their own coffee brand which is called “Seattle’s best”. If I were Seattle, I’d be a bit insulted by that. It’s drinkable (although some of our fellow cruisers at the time would disagree with me here), but certainly not an experience to remember. I loved the “American” taste to it out of nostalgic reasons however.

Now – with MSC being an Italian cruiseline, I had very high expectations in regard to their coffee. Since we had the Allegrissimo package, we could order a huge variety of coffees…the classical selections…nothing fancy like you would get at Starbucks like weird flavours added to it, soymilk stuff and so forth…just plain old (wonderful) coffees in many combinations mixed with foamed milk like in cappuccinos etc. You’ll get to see their coffee selections later on, when I show you some bar menus.

But for now just let me tell you this:

it surely was the most wonderful coffee I ever tasted!

I’d get the Allegrissimo again and again JUST for the coffee again. We especially fell in love with the cappuccinos. I can’t even try to remember how many of those babies we enjoyed.

Beware though… if you intend to order a regular coffee you should order a café

Americano

--- because if you just order café …. You will end up with an espresso:D. It was very funny to see the confusion on some faces…but some of the bartenders got a hang of it and asked the English looking passengers when they ordered coffee, which kind they would like….lol—most of them looked confused then as well, probably asking themselves, why the guy would always ask them if they would like an Espresso when they had ordered coffee:o. But now you know and you can order your coffee properly.

Their espressos and regular coffees were absolutely excellent as well. Well – with one major downside. The coffees you had to

pay

for were all divine --- but they also had

free

coffee for the masses in the restaurants…both in the buffet and the regular ones… I tried it once, just to be able to tell you guys the difference. I didn’t even finish my one cup. I thought if I’d have a choice between Seattle’s best and this brew…I’d definitely go for Seattle. Tanja thought it wasn’t so bad, she even situated it a tiny bit above the RCI standard….but in any way it is not comparable to the “pay” coffees. If you don’t have the Allegrissimo, but you love coffee --- do yourself a favor and get the coffee coupons… I don’t think they’re that expensive and their coffees are soooo worth it. Oh – and I forgot to add, that the regular coffee dispensers were always overcrowded and usually at least one was broken and closed off for repair.

But of course tastes differ and you might just LOVE the free coffee…so please don’t let me stop you from trying it….just because I don’t like it doesn’t really mean it’s bad coffee – it just means I didn’t like it.

….so there – and now back to the sporty stuff.

Stay tuned!

Stef

[Mikesa1721]

Upon popular demand … a little break from all the sporty stuff…

Let’s talk coffee!

 

The only other cruiseline we tried before was RCI. They have their own coffee brand which is called “Seattle’s best”. If I were Seattle, I’d be a bit insulted by that. It’s drinkable (although some of our fellow cruisers at the time would disagree with me here), but certainly not an experience to remember. I loved the “American” taste to it out of nostalgic reasons however.

Now – with MSC being an Italian cruiseline, I had very high expectations in regard to their coffee. Since we had the Allegrissimo package, we could order a huge variety of coffees…the classical selections…nothing fancy like you would get at Starbucks like weird flavours added to it, soymilk stuff and so forth…just plain old (wonderful) coffees in many combinations mixed with foamed milk like in cappuccinos etc. You’ll get to see their coffee selections later on, when I show you some bar menus.

But for now just let me tell you this:

it surely was the most wonderful coffee I ever tasted!

I’d get the Allegrissimo again and again JUST for the coffee again. We especially fell in love with the cappuccinos. I can’t even try to remember how many of those babies we enjoyed.

Beware though… if you intend to order a regular coffee you should order a café

Americano

--- because if you just order café …. You will end up with an espresso:D. It was very funny to see the confusion on some faces…but some of the bartenders got a hang of it and asked the English looking passengers when they ordered coffee, which kind they would like….lol—most of them looked confused then as well, probably asking themselves, why the guy would always ask them if they would like an Espresso when they had ordered coffee:o. But now you know and you can order your coffee properly.

Their espressos and regular coffees were absolutely excellent as well. Well – with one major downside. The coffees you had to

pay

for were all divine --- but they also had

free

coffee for the masses in the restaurants…both in the buffet and the regular ones… I tried it once, just to be able to tell you guys the difference. I didn’t even finish my one cup. I thought if I’d have a choice between Seattle’s best and this brew…I’d definitely go for Seattle. Tanja thought it wasn’t so bad, she even situated it a tiny bit above the RCI standard….but in any way it is not comparable to the “pay” coffees. If you don’t have the Allegrissimo, but you love coffee --- do yourself a favor and get the coffee coupons… I don’t think they’re that expensive and their coffees are soooo worth it. Oh – and I forgot to add, that the regular coffee dispensers were always overcrowded and usually at least one was broken and closed off for repair.

But of course tastes differ and you might just LOVE the free coffee…so please don’t let me stop you from trying it….just because I don’t like it doesn’t really mean it’s bad coffee – it just means I didn’t like it.

….so there – and now back to the sporty stuff.

Stay tuned!

Stef

 

Did you happen to notice the brand of coffee they were using Kreuz?? We love the coffee onboard The Divina and found out they use the "Segafredo" brand. I'm wondering if MSC may use the same brand on The Magnifica??

[sofsolnanny]

Oh Stef-you are a mind reader!!

 

I have been wondering if MSC did coffee tokens,but could not find out anything from their website. I will definately be buying these :D.

 

I would have liked to have booked the Alegrissimo package,but I was told that all 4 of us would have to book it as otherwise we could not sit together in the dining room. Algrissimo would be brilliant for myself and my sister -but not for my parents who are not big drinkers--age 83 and 78 :) .Anyway my parents already have a drink package -14 bottles of beer and 7 bottles of water from the booking agent ,and for some reason MSC has given them the Cheers package as well---perhaps MSC do not mind drunken pensioners on their ships!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!.

 

Di

[Kreuzfahrtneuling]

Did you happen to notice the brand of coffee they were using Kreuz?? We love the coffee onboard The Divina and found out they use the "Segafredo" brand. I'm wondering if MSC may use the same brand on The Magnifica??

 

 

I'm so sorry, but I haven't payed attention to a brand...Segafredo does ring a bell somewhere deep in my subconcious...maybe I read that sometime during the cruise without really noticing....but I'm not sure about that...Sorry.

 

Stef

[Kreuzfahrtneuling]

Oh Stef-you are a mind reader!!

 

I have been wondering if MSC did coffee tokens,but could not find out anything from their website. I will definately be buying these :D.

 

I would have liked to have booked the Alegrissimo package,but I was told that all 4 of us would have to book it as otherwise we could not sit together in the dining room. Algrissimo would be brilliant for myself and my sister -but not for my parents who are not big drinkers--age 83 and 78 :) .Anyway my parents already have a drink package -14 bottles of beer and 7 bottles of water from the booking agent ,and for some reason MSC has given them the Cheers package as well---perhaps MSC do not mind drunken pensioners on their ships!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!.

 

Di

 

lol -- you'll love the coffee...and the drunken pensioners will be quite happy too I presume:D. So sorry I don't remember the price for the coffee coupons...but I think to remember you could buy them for 10 coffees each. A LOT of the Italians onboard (and I just assume they know good coffee) came up to the bars with coffee coupons all the time:).

 

Stef

[Kreuzfahrtneuling]

Well, swimming does sort of count to the sporty stuff, right? So why not cover the pools next? Let’s start with the indoor pool. Since we were travelling in northern spheres, this pool made it possible to swim without freezing your butt off…well – except for that one time, when they apparently had just refilled it with fresh sea water from the North Atlantic ----brrrrr.

As you can see, this pool is surrounded by two stories, all packed with chairs…no lounges in here at all. So you could swim in okay temperatures, but laying down on a lounge afterwards wasn’t possible. They only had lounges in the outside areas…not too practical, if it’s cold and windy there. Also, you had to be okay with being on display while using the pool and jacuzzis in here. The gallery on top surrounds the entire pool. I didn’t have the feeling actually being watched though.

The gelato station is right next to the pool…see?

16 yummy flavors of Italian gelato --- all inclusive in the Allegrissimo. Sheer delight!

They additionally had this crepe station and the cotton candy machine in here...but we only saw them in use once...most of the times they were closed down.

The pools were filled with sea water, the Jacuzzis with fresh water.What I really liked on the Magnifica was that we frequently saw staff check the quality of the water.

Oh, in this picture you can actually spot the sliding glass door to the smokers enclave…way down on the left on the ground floor…see it? And those two sets of tables, which can hardly be seen close to it underneath the gallery? Those are the ones with the mean windgusts, that I was telling you about. Try to stay away from those. All the other ones are fine. You never had a problem finding available chairs on either level.

Tanja and I used this pool for when it was too windy to use the one outside…a fun little game we enjoyed was playing “cork”. Since the sea was a bit rocky, the water in the pool would be swapping back and forth and when you just let yourself drift in the middle of the pool, you’d be moved back and forth with each wave --- like a cork. Lol – okay, maybe we’re a little weird sometimes, but heck we had fun!

Stay tuned!

Stef

[Elmartellama]

Maybe they were checking water temperature? I read somewhere that water temperature in northern itineraries was kept at 26ºC? Was that so? Don't know if I'm making it up.

 

It may seem silly but in our next year Norway cruise we don't have a covered pool, and I think I'll miss swimming and using the jacuzzi very much.

[Jules.]

The cork game sounds fun, I'll give that a go!

[Kreuzfahrtneuling]

Hi Elmartellama,

 

well, the sign in front of the pool said 22 °C. That's about the temp it felt like --- just when they refill it, I guess it takes a couple of hours to heat up to that.

 

:oDefinitely far from 26 °C!

 

We saw them taking water samples all the time, sometimes they had a suitcase with chemicals? with them and they did some mixing and scribbling right there or sometimes they would just take the sample along with them. We thought they're checking the chlorine and or water hygiene (however you measure that).

 

Yeah, I can see how one would miss an indoor pool on the way to Norway. For us a cruise isn't a cruise if we don't get to use the pools. We also used the outdoor pool on this journey -- and I think the weather won't be so much different for a Norway cruise (with any luck at least) -- so maybe you can try the outdoor pool as well:o.

 

Stef

[Kreuzfahrtneuling]

The outdoor pool

Looking towards the back of the ship:

You can see some people actually using the jogging track --I must say, in my opinion, it was the worst track ever – I never ran here. Too small of a round, no floor markings and to the side of the glass walls in the back the wind was so fierce you felt like being physically pushed. I did see some people alternatively running down on deck 7 -- anyway -- back to the pool now.

Picture facing the front:

The pool itself was nice and spacious. What I liked about both pools was that they had different heights on both sides. One side it would be 1,90 m deep and the other “only” 1,70 (or was it 1,60?) …anyway I could stand on tiptoes there….and I loved that! The outdoor pool was only useable on the days when the wind wasn’t too furious. But as you can see on the following picture, we did have blue skies once in a while.

One thing that was always fun were the two jacuzzis. Only on one occasion they covered them with a net when the wind got too bad, otherwise they were a steaming, bubbly place of bliss all cruise long.

Okay – it was a task to undress in the cold, throw all your clothing onto a chair and run over there with a towel to get into the hot water before freezing to death --- but it was so worth it. Except for two days (the stormy one and Dublin) we were found in here. Lol – pictures of proof coming up in the daily sec.This button at the side of the tub is to turn the bubbles on :-).

Because of the weather, usually you had lots of space in them...

okay, okay,… sometimes a little less.

But it was never soo crowded to not snatch a place to sit, whenever you felt like it. I forgot to add, that the indoor jacuzzis were very crowded in peak hours (usually occupied with at least 6 Italian kids at a time).

The older kids preferred to take over the outdoor pool. They had a blast running and jumping in, creating the best “Arschbombe” possible. Lol – bellyflop --- just with your behind…what do you call that in English? Anyway, they had a blast, we didn’t mind but some older folks thought this to be bit dangerous and / or a nuisance…hard to say.

There was a smaller pool for real small kids right next to the main pool but it was always covered, since the temperatures didn’t allow for the little ones to sit in the water anyway…The only way to not freeze out here was to be sporty…So either jumping and “Arschbombing” or athletic swimming…if you didn’t work out, the outdoor pool was just too cold. But the jacuzzis next to it always were a great way to warm up afterwards again.

Everybody can sit in a jacuzzi during warm weather…but you should really try it one time with cold, sprinkly weather while dark clouds move rapidly in the sky above your heads…Quite an experience. Loved it!

Stay tuned!

Stef

[Kreuzfahrtneuling]

Something completely different……

The cabin / stateroom (part one of three)

Heck it’s my review, so I can hop around wildly. Right now I would like to tell you about our cabin. We always have inside cabins. Cheap, closer to the axis of the ship (I tended to seasickness on earlier cruises) and completely dark at night. They just work for us.

So again, we booked an inside stateroom for this cruise. Strangely, with a third person along, we weren’t able to book the very cheapest category…no idea why – there were still loads of those cabins with extra beds available. Sigh, well, we booked the next highest category, which was a fantastica inside cabin on deck 11.

 

Tadahhh – our temporary home.

The cabin was all ready by the time we embarked (which was quite early, as you might remember). I liked that very much. The luggage however took forever to arrive. Our tablemates as well as ourselves were still in our travel clothes for dinner because no suitcases had arrived yet. But after our (as always) 2 hour dinner they finally stood neatly arranged in front of our cabin door. Our room attendant was very nice but spoke neither English or German…we got along though. On the first day I asked him (which is hard if you can’t use a language) if he could bring us the Dailys in English as well as in German…Miraculously we managed to succeed. Each day from now on, we had two copies waiting in our room (which spared us from having to get them at guest services every day for this review).

He was also the most invisible room attendant we ever had. We haven’t seen him ONCE in our cabin during the entire cruise, yet he always managed to keep everything neat and clean – it felt like having an invisible house elf. We even TRIED to catch him at least once, but he was quicker and smarter than us.

Anyone else here a fan of “Downton Abbey”? In the documentary on their DVD (I think it was season one or two) they say how the service personnel of those times always tried to work around the aristocratic inhabitants of the castle as invisibly as possible….I thought it hard to believe that they could manage that so well --- Anyway -- loved to experience this in real life on this cruise (without having to belong to the High Society) – tipped him generously at the end.

 

First thing we noticed when we stepped in our cabin for the first time was the running TV.

They showed the mandatory “what to do in an emergency evacuation situation” video. – in our case – in German.

But you could get all kinds of other programs as well…regular TV programs in more than the 5 standard board languages. They also had Portuguese and Russian and some other ones, which I couldn’t identify. There were no extra movie or comedy channels. I don’t know about pay movies…Haven’t paid too much attention to that (sorry).

I only used the channel, where you can see the two board web cams (lol – I already knew those well from checking them online for weeks before). Although I must say that I prefer the equivalent RCI channel. On MSC they had the two pictures, followed by a list showing the current local time, wind (km/h) and the current position as a GPS code…I don’t know about you, but I can’t really say where we are just by reading that number. RCI had actual maps with a red line and an arrow up front, showing the current ship position and the route it took so far…in three different map sizes…Now THAT gave me a pretty good impression on where we were at.

Also annoying was that MSC showed all their major officers on this channel in each single repeat. This was our captain:

… I don’t mind seeing them a couple of times…but having to wait forever until their pictures passed by to finally see the pictures of the weather outside and get a feel for the wind intensity (and therefore choice of clothing) day after day was really quite annoying. I guess here’s a big plus for booking a balcony cabin on an MSC ship.

One more rant about the TV…and I promise to finish with this topic for good then.

When you turned on the TV, all you got was this screen:

Mhhh—is this where you could check out your board account? We didn’t find any other way to do so.

???

nothing changed all cruise long, but then again --we didn’t report it either – just not worth the trouble. Just out of curiosity --what’s it supposed to look like when it’s not broken, anybody know? To get to the actual channels you just had to zap upwards.

Sigh, I just realize I haven’t shown you

one

pic of the actual cabin… Sorry… here you go:

Lol – that’s us in our “Italian” theme night outfit by the way.

You got into the cabin and stood right in the middle of it already --- boy was it small. No couch area, nothing. We liked the cabin size on RCI ships much better. But this was nothing that would turn us away from MSC. It was our choice to book a cheap cabin and since we only slept in here and used the restroom to freshen up, it was enough not to be upset – but it certainly didn’t make us shout hooray either.

Stay tuned!

Stef

[denisey]

Upon popular demand … a little break from all the sporty stuff…

Let’s talk coffee!

 

The only other cruiseline we tried before was RCI. They have their own coffee brand which is called “Seattle’s best”. If I were Seattle, I’d be a bit insulted by that. It’s drinkable (although some of our fellow cruisers at the time would disagree with me here), but certainly not an experience to remember. I loved the “American” taste to it out of nostalgic reasons however.

 

Seattle's Best is an actual coffee brand, and not just on RCI. They used to be competitors to Starbucks until Starbucks bought them! People are pretty passionate around here about one or the other!