Picture heavy fun review - MSC Armonia - Canary Isles and Madeira - incl. DIY trips

[Crabmanstyle]

Enjoying the review Stef.

I'm not sure if it's a good thing but this year we had planned to go to Ukraine in September to visit the in-laws. Once we started reading this review we realised how much we loved the Armonia and MSC and our plans have changed. The in-laws can come to us-we are going cruising!

 

On the disco-I ventured up on two occasions but it was empty also (thankfully!)

[Kreuzfahrtneuling]

Enjoying the review Stef.

I'm not sure if it's a good thing but this year we had planned to go to Ukraine in September to visit the in-laws. Once we started reading this review we realised how much we loved the Armonia and MSC and our plans have changed. The in-laws can come to us-we are going cruising!

 

On the disco-I ventured up on two occasions but it was empty also (thankfully!)

 

sounds a lot safer anyway. ...and what a wonderful way to catch up on family business while sitting travelling on the ocean with the wind in your hair, the waves to watch and a cool drink in your hand. Perfect!

 

please don't grudge about my next post. We enjoyed the Armonia as well ... just some parts bugged us ... so the next post will be my only true negative one...promise.

 

Stef

[Kreuzfahrtneuling]

The Red bar

The last indoor bar left to talk about is the Red bar. This is the piano bar in the middle of the ship. I must admit, that we only sat here once on day one to meet up with the only other roll callers in a German-cruise-forum. Sadly on Cruise Critic there was no reply this time. Anyway, they were a couple from Graz, Austria and we had planned to share a cab together on the following day … but more about that when I tell you about the port visits.

Maybe the Red bar would have been wonderful during the times the piano was in use. In the dailies this was announced frequently … but somehow we never got around to checking it out. Without the music, it was a bit gloomy. I didn’t like the black chairs and in the middle of the bar was this gigantic chandelier-like beast hanging from the ceiling, which gave me the impression of being crushed any minute. Also the metal art sculpture on the bar table gave me the creeps. Personal impression: looked like a ripped out eyeball in a horror movie. But all this would have been meaningless, if the piano player rocked… I just don’t know if that was the case. You’ll have to find out yourselves.

Well, there are two more bars outside on the pooldeck. The one to the front of the ship is the lido bar, which represents your classical pool bar. The one in the back was the Il Girasole bar. It was the bar to cater to the two snack-isles behind it and the complete buffet restaurant following right after them.

The lido bar.

We tried getting a drink here on a couple of occations during our seaday without success. The lido bar was --- when it

was

open, completely understaffed. The bartenders worked frantically and whirled around like humming-birds, yet it was not possible to serve every thirsty passenger in a somewhat acceptable time. When you stretch a ship and add some 500 passengers, you simply have to add more pool bar personnel in high times as well … otherwise things like this happen. Two more things to bother me about this pool bar:

It closes at

18:00

every day!!!!! I already thought it a nuisance that on the Serenade of the Seas the pool bar closed around 21:00 …. But 18:00 is plainly unacceptable for the only outside bar besides the Il Girasole, which plays in another league because of its impossible task to cater to an unstretched, yet additionally loaded with passengers buffet.

And what also is annoying (the pool bar is actually again innocent here) is the fact of the HUGE amount of smokers occupying this area on the pool deck. Area? – no, it’s the entire portside half of the deck. Imagine the ship lengthwise split in two …starboard to the center of the ship and the center tables of the pool bar is non-smoking and the rest from the center of the pool bar to the portside is smokers …. And boy did they smoke…. It was amazing how stinky an OUTSIDE area can get if basically everybody on the lounges and the chairs had a burning cigarette in hand. It was so bad, that we left the elevators on deck 11 and intentionally paused for a while just to rethink about which way to go to pass the pool deck on the non-stinky side.

I have absolutely no clue why there was such an immense amount of heavy smokers onboard. We took a cruise out of a Spanish port before and although there also were more smokers, it in no way compared to this cruise. Maybe because it was such a bargain cruise … the clientele was a little … mhhh how do I put this semi-nicely… simpler.

This sounds extremely arrogant, I know …

...but I just try to explain to myself the multiple occurrence of an overall inappropriate behavior. Jelling Hordes in the hot tubs with cocktail glasses, which they eventually abandoned half full so the glasses pretty much ended up rolling back and forth, of course spilling its contents everywhere, including the water of the hot tub. Many people in t-shirts for the formal dinners and… and …and. I’d rather cruise on a not-so grand-of-a-bargain- cruise and enjoy the company of somewhat civilized fellow passengers.

But this was just our impression … maybe it was a coincidence on only this cruise. I am a little wary about 7 day MSC cruises in the Med now though. The 11 day cruise last summer had a completely different clientele and therefore feeling of board-life especially during seadays. But of course not everybody was socially-challenged. We had nice table mates both German and Spanish at our dining table for instance.

But let’s continue with the Il Girasole Bar:

This bar has some nice tables up front. Outside of breakfast, lunch or dinner times one would have a good chance of enjoying a drink here. But during meals … forget it! Even if you approach the counter you’ll wait for ages … this is the only bar for the entire buffet restaurant. One to two waiters are constantly on the run … but completely overwhelmed by the sheer amount of people. Which sadly brings me to my least favorite subject onboard the Armonia:

the buffet restaurant.

It’s small … which would have been sort of okay before the stretching … but after an additional 500 or so people and no change of plans whatsoever for this restaurant …. It’s pure chaos. At least at breakfast and lunch times … we never ate here for dinner … so maybe it is better then… but picture every single seat taken and hordes of people roaming round after round in the desperate attempt to find a vacating seat, just to jump on it as soon as others show the slightest hint of leaving…… when you finally succeeded in sitting down, there will be no drinks, except the yucky ones from the free serve machines. The food on your plate will most likely be rather bland and pretty much the same each day. There is plenty of food and you will not starve … but I was definitely pampered by much more variety on all other ships before. I don’t even have a single picture of this venue … I chose to forget about it as fast as possible. Rant over!

The main dining room. Here it depends on what cabin category you booked. If you have a balcony cabin or suite, you get to dine in the nice and stylish looking La Pergola restaurant. All the cheaper cabins are being fed in the less elegant Marco Polo restaurant. These two restaurants have been enlarged because of the stretching.

Mhh, maybe it’s just jealousy speaking out of me … but I really didn’t like to be excluded from the “nice” fine dining. I wonder if they had men in t-shirts for formal dinners as well, but I somehow doubt it. Us of course, always booking inside cabins, where seated in the Marco Polo restaurant … and since we only had a cheap “Bella” cabin, we were notified about our time of dining no sooner than at embarkation. 2nd seating. Argh, just what we had feared. On the very first evening dinner wouldn’t start until 21:30 … and if you’ve ever cruised on MSC you’ll know that dinner

will

take no less than two hours … gulp. From the second day on, dinner would thankfully start at 20:45 … but that was still wwwaaayyy beyond our regular German dinner times (we finish eating at 19:30 at home). The Italian and Spanish didn’t have a problem with the late times. We even had tiny little kids still alive and kicking around 23:30 at a table close by. Well, if they’re up to it, so can we --- somehow.

The Marco Polo restaurant can be okay, if you manage to get a good seat … meaning not on a couch and not in the direct walkway of the waiters. Thank Goodness we got such a nice spot in the back close to a window. But on some other places we saw, we wouldn’t have been happy.

Altogether, the food in the Marco Polo was very good. As always the risottos and the pastas were excellent … they just have those down to perfection. We recognized most meals from our trip last year. Lol – we also recognized the exact same housewine again. “Lazolla” …. Lol, not like we’ve missed it, but heck it was wine. Since not all the guests at the table had the Allegrissimo, our waiter couldn’t just leave the bottle on our table… so he was kept busy by us, refilling our glasses. I’ll show you the pictures of the menus and the food in the daily sections after each port-report.

Sorry if this post tended to be a bit naggy… but I really wanna show you the whole picture , or at least what the picture was like for us. Any other person might have had completely different impressions.

No worries, there are tons and tons of positive things yet to come … especially on the port trips.

Stay tuned!

Stef

[denisey]

Not to worry Stef, one of the great things about your reviews is that you tell all sides of the story. And you do it in a nice manner, telling us what you didn't like and why, and maybe what could have made it better.

 

And if we every get the wonderful opportunity to cruise with you, you will recognize us, we'll be the one's jumping up and down with joy! (my husband is practicing saying Kreuzfahrtneuling, just in case!)

[Kreuzfahrtneuling]

Not to worry Stef, one of the great things about your reviews is that you tell all sides of the story. And you do it in a nice manner, telling us what you didn't like and why, and maybe what could have made it better.

 

And if we every get the wonderful opportunity to cruise with you, you will recognize us, we'll be the one's jumping up and down with joy! (my husband is practicing saying Kreuzfahrtneuling, just in case!)

 

Thank you!:p

 

Lol -- okay, I'll keep an eye open for jumping people saying something that resembles my screenname:D:D:D. Can't wait!

 

Stef

[Kreuzfahrtneuling]

Food misc.

The pizza once again was exceptionally good and we basically enjoyed more than one slice every single day. The good thing on the Armonia is the fact that they have sort of outsourced the pizza , the fast food station and the pancakes section for breakfast. So if you don’t feel like entering the buffet restaurant out of reasons I have already talked about , you can get nicely fed out here…just that you need to wear a warm jacket in this weather, because it’s situated semi-outside and, at least on our cruise it was quite windy and cold at times.

Breakfast in the Marco Polo dining room

It was okay … we eventually got everything we ordered in weird time intervalls… but it did work. I found it strange that you can’t order an English muffin unless you order it as an Egg Benedikt. Breakfast is sort of split into a nicely arranged buffet in the middle of the room and additional stuff you order from a menu. It worked out well. I even got an omelet with the exact stuff in it which I ordered… this didn’t work on the Magnifica, so hoorrayyyy.

Here's the menu:

Lunch in the Marco Polo dining room.

We only did this twice because all the other times we were on shore. The first time I was impressed …. The menu had three sides… one with meat options, one with fish options and one vegetarian. 7 courses each as usual. You can choose any combination of the three. Sorry, I don’t have a picture. Well, when we came to eat lunch here again, we were a little shocked to find out that that menu is fixed all cruise long… no new dishes …. Unless you ask for the special of the day, which we didn’t know until another passenger asked a waiter about this. The food was very good however.

Gelato

The ship had a large Icecream parlor (sadly on the smoker’s side) on the pool deck. We only had some soft serve Ice here once … but they also have a dozen flavours of real gelato. If the weather would have been nicer, we would have used this much more. All icecream is included in the Allegrissimo.

Fresh juices:

The vitamin bar was on the pooldeck as well and I saw a bored looking staffmember on duty, but I never saw one single person getting a drink there. Sadly the fresh juices aren’t any longer included in the Allegrissimo and are way too expensive to buy on top of that. A shame. Lol – especially, since this place is in the non-smokers section.

Next up: Impressions of the pool deck and outside areas in general

Stay tuned,

Stef

[Elmartellama]

Thanks for the info. I don't really understand the logic of increasing the Allegrissimo 3€ per day this year and reducing the items included at the same time :confused: We won't be ordering Allegrissimo anytime soon

 

I would like to convince my partner to go civilized and use the main restaurant for lunch or breakfast, instead of the buffet, at least on sea days. He's sadly very keen on buffets though :eek: but sometimes from our experience they seem to be crazy in MSC...

[xhasox]

Hi Stef, and thank you for a wünderbar review! We are from Norway, sailing on with Armonia on April 4 th.

 

When is the first seating? Our TA put all us scandinavians up on the early seating, so I called MSC to change to later since we like to sit in the sun until it sets. Sounds a little bit alarming to hear about the two-hour dinner though. We usually eat in one hour. When is the early evening performance? I dont want to miss out on that.

 

We usually eat at eight, but we have only cruised with Celebrity before, in which my-time-dining is a choice for everyone, also the cheapest cabins. I have a feeling that we will be eating a lot in the buffe and maybe some specialty resturant this cruise. :(

The food is not an priority for us, the sun(set) is, too bad we dont seem to be able to get them both. :(

[Kreuzfahrtneuling]

Thanks for the info. I don't really understand the logic of increasing the Allegrissimo 3€ per day this year and reducing the items included at the same time :confused: We won't be ordering Allegrissimo anytime soon

 

Yeah, the 3 Euros price enhancement per person per day was indeed a nuisance. It's now officially 26 Euros per person per day ... but even this way we save a bunch of money. We love our cappuccinos, cocktails, beer on tap and dinner-wine way too much ... not even to mention water, soft drinks, ice cream and juices. I do have all the receipts collected somewhere ... maybe one of those days I'll add them all up to see how much we saved ... but the fact that we did save is for sure.

 

Stef

 

 

[Kreuzfahrtneuling]

Hi Stef, and thank you for a wünderbar review! We are from Norway, sailing on with Armonia on April 4 th.

 

When is the first seating? Our TA put all us scandinavians up on the early seating, so I called MSC to change to later since we like to sit in the sun until it sets. Sounds a little bit alarming to hear about the two-hour dinner though. We usually eat in one hour. When is the early evening performance? I dont want to miss out on that.

 

We usually eat at eight, but we have only cruised with Celebrity before, in which my-time-dining is a choice for everyone, also the cheapest cabins. I have a feeling that we will be eating a lot in the buffe and maybe some specialty resturant this cruise. :(

The food is not an priority for us, the sun(set) is, too bad we dont seem to be able to get them both. :(

 

Hi to Norway!

 

Well, the la Pergola restaurant has my time dining ... but that'll only be yours if you have a balcony cabin or a suite. In the Marco Polo dining room first sitting was at 18:15 and second one at 20:45 (except on day one).

We missed almost every sunset this cruise because of the show and dining times. They had three show times each evening. Important: You need to prebook seats to attend! In the hallways there are touchscreens to do so. It's fairly easy. Anyway the show times were usually at 19:15, 21:15 and 22:45. I do have all the dailies and reports on each show, but sadly won't come to that part until you set sail. The one show which I'd say do not miss was the pura passion flamenco show.

 

Sorry to add that there are no specialty restaurants aboard the Armonia.

 

:oThe food in the Marco Polo really was very good though. And we liked the fact that it was celebrated each day for two hours ... even if it was past our bedtime.

 

Lol -- since we had the late seating, we went to the early shows (and thus no full sunsets:() ... on one occation we were asked about our nationalities ... when Germany got called we were pretty much the only ones hollering ... the guy on the stage laughed, looked at his watch and asked .... what are YOU doing here at this time of the day, shouldn't you be having dinner? So I guess it's a national trait:rolleyes:. This way we got to enjoy the shows with a load of Spanish and Italian guests though --- it was very lively and energetic this way --- we loved it:)!

 

Stef

[Plan B]

Early dinner is 18:30 and the second is 21:00. There are 3 shows per evening, which you need to book before hand, the most popular being 20:30. Even though the weather is quite warm at the moment, the wind is chilly and unless you can find a sheltered spot in the sun then by 16:00 it's cold. The aft section on most of the open decks is the best place for the sheltered sun for the trip to Madeira but there is limited space or deck 12 directly above the pool bar. Don't know about the trip back down to the Canaries - not yet experienced it! We are anchored off Funchal, having been thrown out the port by the P&O Brittania :( she gets preferential treatment! Absolutely massive ship!! Tendering, to be back on board for 13:00 is not for us. But, the sun is shining and the breeze is calm so all is good :D

[Kreuzfahrtneuling]

Outside pictures

 

 

... we'll start with the attempt to see a sunset:

 

 

 

 

no sunset, yet quite impressive lighting out there

 

 

 

 

 

 

no sunset still, yet the wind was fun (look at Tanja's hair)

 

 

 

 

 

 

rats ... too early

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

rats ... too late

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

almost there (this is on lounges in the very back of the ship -- they're not very frequented and are found from deck 7 to deck ummm 12? Perfect for inside cabin bookers)

 

 

 

 

 

 

whoohoooo --- finally ... a sunset!

 

 

 

 

stay tuned!

 

Stef

[Kreuzfahrtneuling]

We are anchored off Funchal, having been thrown out the port by the P&O Brittania :( she gets preferential treatment!

 

Oh no ! Especially in Funchal where one wants to be off and on a couple of times ... what a bugger. Will you be able to pull into port after the Brittania leaves? We were in port with an Aida ship, however that one only stayed for day one ... and since we still had the night and half of the next day, we ended up being the only cruise ship in port. Have fun on Madeira!

 

Stef

[xhasox]

Thank you for the information, it prevented me from making a huge mistake. I have now called MSC again and changed my request to early seating. We are in Fantastica, so I think it will be ok.

 

It looks a bit cold and cloudy on you pictures, and in that case I'll rather eat early. However, we have the Morocco- itinerary, so it might be less cloudy.

[Plan B]

I was in Funchal yesterday until 06:00 this morning - so it wasn't too bad - but we shared the port with an Aida ship, a SilverSea ship, the Costa Fortuna and a ferry - 4 cruise ships! Today there is the Brittania and a tiny Saga ship so it seems ludicrous that the Armonía is at anchor. The sea looks calm ish but we've heard lots of reports of people being sick in the tenders which are bobbing about alarmingly :eek:

 

Just seen your photos of the sunset - determined to see it tonight! Cheers

[Kreuzfahrtneuling]

The very back of the ship

I already told you about the nice lounges here:

These stairs lead from one deck to the next …

See the beige tent like cover down there?

That’s the sunroof for the very back of deck 6. This (in my humble opinion) is the very best spot to watch sailaways.

 

See, no lounges on deck 6, but hardly any people either.

The only drawback is that right behind those tinted glass windows is the La Pergola restaurant … so either you can watch the nice restaurant from out here and drule … or the noble diners from within can watch you stumble around out here.

Either way … not the best solution. Still – sailaways from down here rock! I have pictures of one of those later on. The only way to get down here is by those stairs from the back of deck 7.

Lol – and now after having shown you the very back --- let’s head to the very front!

Stay tuned!

Stef

[AnnMR]

I did like that about the Armonia, that you could wander around at the back on several different levels.

Think on Splendida it was cordoned off for yacht club or balconies.

[Kreuzfahrtneuling]

I did like that about the Armonia, that you could wander around at the back on several different levels.

Think on Splendida it was cordoned off for yacht club or balconies.

 

It really was a pretty part of the ship.

 

I am starting to develop some personal rejections against the growing popularity of segregation on ships. If I wanna have luxury or extravagance, I 'd personally choose another line where this is true for EVERY passenger... lol .... just for the record: my three most wanted ships if I ever have enough money:

 

1. Seacloud II

2. Chronos

3. MS Europa 2

 

But I don't have that kinda money and I really like to cruise with MSC for what it is ... but I don't like the feeling of being downgraded and excluded from parts of the ship ... I have yet to sail on a ship that has a yacht club, but I don't think I'll be too pleased to be excluded from even more sections of the ship. But to pay twice as much ... just to use the whole ship ... with the knowledge that most of the other passengers are excluded? No, that wouldn't feel quite right either. Tempting -- definitely -- Luxurious and less crowded -- absolutely -- but not politically correct. Rant over.

 

Stef

[AnnMR]

The only thing I envied yacht club for was the priority queue to get back on board quickly, but that's partly a disadvantage of doing MSC excursions. Everyone arrives back at the same time with massive queues.

But I didn't like having sections that were off limits, made Splendida look small even though it's huge overall.

[Kreuzfahrtneuling]

The very front of the ship

There are two possibilities to see the front of the ship … the sundeck way on top --- but this is the top 13 or 18 section and one would have to pay extra to enter. You might have guessed that we didn’t do that.

Another spot where one can see the nose of the ship ahead is a balcony like structure on deck 8. You just walk along the starboard or portside cabin isle on deck 8 to the very front …. Tadahhhh a door, which will hopefully lead you outside. When we got here for the first time, it was locked off because of strong winds … but wait, mhhhhh … I had an idea. MSC wouldn’t be MSC however if not maybe …… let’s check the hallway on the other side of the ship to see if they’re both locked … and tadahhhh – just like I expected: an open door to that windy balcony! We love this line!

Lol – our pitiful attempts to take “Titanic” – like pictues:

Lol – hard to stretch out arms when you’re taking a selfie in strong winds.

Here at least Tanja’s got the arms out … but we screwed up anyway …. Shouldn’t be Tanja facing the front of the ship as if she’s flying? Oh well, we’ll try better on the next cruise (whenever that will be).

One nice fact about this balcony:

Right next to this sign is a little hole:

And guess what?

We found not one but four improvised mini-ashtrays right behind it. Sheesh.

Anyway, we liked the balcony none the less. Gives me a feeling of freedom to be able to watch the front in fresh air … sailing on a ship where this is not possible would be a complete dealbreaker for me.

Stay tuned!

Stef

[Pluto_fan]

When we were on the Opera, we had oceanview cabins right up at the front of deck 9. Loved the door out to the front balcony! There was never anyone else out there. It was like we had our own huge, private balcony, just not attached to our cabin. :)

[Babyeddiedog]

Stef

 

Loving your review. It's so balanced, no rose tinted specs just the truth as you see it.

 

Your comment on the very front of the ship got me thinking....We've got an inside on deck 10 soon, which I was getting rather 'twitchy' about as I love a balcony, but if Magnifica is the same (and I think it might be from the plan) we don't have far to go to be outside by the sounds of things. So thanks ;)

[Norwegian Cruiser 73]

A great review and lovely photos from the MSC Armonia :) Thank you.

 

I agree with you about the disco, why not use it as a viewing lounge with a barservice and quiet lounge music during daytime. Would be a perfect place on bad weather days too. The Red Bar is lovely, it became our favourite place during the evenings with it's live music and cozy atmosphere. Totally agree with you regarding the barservice on the outer decks, they are understaffed and it takes too long time to order something to drink and the buffet is not designed for the extra passengers after the lengthening. A big plus is that the Il Girasole is open until midnight.

 

We had a balcony cabin and had our meals in the La Pergola, a great restaurant with lovely food and service, could not have been better. The Bistro Lunch Menu was also excellent.

 

We loved the MSC Armonia and with some small adjustments the experience can be even better.

[Kreuzfahrtneuling]

When we were on the Opera, we had oceanview cabins right up at the front of deck 9. Loved the door out to the front balcony! There was never anyone else out there. It was like we had our own huge, private balcony, just not attached to our cabin. :)

 

:) sounds like the perfect cabin location:)

 

gotta look into this for future cruises. Thanks!

 

Stef

[Kreuzfahrtneuling]

Stef

 

Loving your review. It's so balanced, no rose tinted specs just the truth as you see it.

 

Your comment on the very front of the ship got me thinking....We've got an inside on deck 10 soon, which I was getting rather 'twitchy' about as I love a balcony, but if Magnifica is the same (and I think it might be from the plan) we don't have far to go to be outside by the sounds of things. So thanks ;)

 

:)An Italian! How cool! Welcome to the review!

 

The Magnifica has a front balcony as well ...feel free to check out my Magnifica review for the location, directions and pictures:). We loved that one as well!

 

Stef