P&O vs MSC review

[Vampiress88]

We are a family of 4.

So far we have sailed on Britannia and Azura for P&O. Both inside and balcony. 

With MSC it is the Virtuosa with balcony. 

 

The ships. 

For us the Virtuosa by far is the best ship. It is probably due to the fact that it’s more geared to our young children. They loved the water park and the slides. We also liked the layout better with the long gallery in the middle and easier to navigate with stairs, plus either they have more lifts or they are bigger or both as it wasn’t always as difficult to get one one as it is with P&O. 

But, they prefer the pools on P&O. They weren’t impressed with the pools being really salty. That put them off spending so much time in there and it put me off as it was ruining their hair, I was fed up of washing it. It had a “English type pub” bit like brodies so we always ended up in their these were on par, decor and feel was slightly better on the msc. The coffee shop was a chocolate shop, lovely with crepes and ice cream was much better, but you paid all extra for this. 

The pool towels had to be signed in and out which I found weird and difficult. I had to keep taking them to the room so that if we went to the water park we could take them with us. Then when they were socking wet I had to go back to the desk to change them. It’s easier on P&O to just grab some from the trolleys. We also had no idea how to get these towels as the daily planner had said they would be waiting in our rooms. Which they were not. 

But on azura there was a really bad smell of sewage when on the main deck near the pool. This was sorted after a few days. 

We encountered the same issue on Virtuosa at the back of the ship near the pool, bar and water park. These were both very off putting. 

 

The room

We have had both an inside cabin and balcony on P&O. We did not like the layout of the Britannia balcony with the two pullmans. It was difficult to get round. As they are above you then you bang into it a lot and it felt cramped. Same with the bathroom. 

The room on MSC was a balcony. It was laid out beautifully. The bed was nice, all I was missing was pillows that I like. It was the most comfortable bed we have been on in a cruise. There was plenty of space that we didn’t feel cramped. Plenty of drawers and wardrobe space and the bathroom was good too. 

I wouldn’t say that either P&O or MSC are brilliant at cleaning. Both we found things under the beds. 

 

The food. 

Now when I went on Britannia I moaned about the food quite a lot as I thought the food should have been better and I was wishing for that food this week. P&O is probably fair to good. I would class MSC as mediocre. The pizza was lovely. Everything not so much. Only the simple stuff they could get right and we found we were definitely missing things especially puddings (there was a banoffee pie one on P&O and I definitely had more than one of those). We mainly tried the buffet. We did go to the outside grill a few times. We also found that a lot of the times the food was cold or had been sat under the hot light waiting for opening times. 

We did pay for sindhu, glass house and beach house on P&O and it was only the beach house we found both good value and good food. The rest for us wasn’t worth paying for. 

On Virtuosa we did pay for butchers cut and hola tacos and cantina. Butchers cut was very expensive and I’ve had better cuts of steak from Aldi. The hola Mexican wasn’t rated good on other vlogs but we loved it. The nachos were the best I’ve had in years and the puddings were excellent too. So paid for meals I would say it’s a toss up really between the two lines. For the free food then P&O would win for us. 

We did also try MDR with both lines, P&O wasn’t really to my taste but there was nothing wrong with it, just nothing special etc. With Virtuosa we were left really annoyed. First night we were sat at a table for 8, I declined it and asked for it to be changed. Was told it would be done. It was never done. Went for lunch and we managed the starter and the kids mains in an hour. When it got to that time and the started plates hadn’t even been cleared I got fed up of waiting and left to go to the buffet instead. I think they were understaffed on the whole ship to be honest. 

With the bar staff I found lots more on P&O and they were a lot more aware of the guests, like coming to ask for drinks orders, paying attention to who’s just sat down. MSC had very little staff having us sometimes feel really sorry for them rushing about, like there was only one person serving drinks in the coffee shop on a sea day, if I was her I would have probably cried it was so overwhelming. 

 

Embarkation and disembarkation 

When we first arrived it was all a different way round but it took about the same time for both lines. Same with leaving the ship in Southampton. 

The muster drill was annoying though. 

With P&O you scanned in at your station when you got on the ship then when in your room watched the safety video. 

With MSCat 3pm it came on over the tannoy to watch the video then call a number to say this was done. So we did this. Buffet ended at 3.30 so luckily caught the last 15mins of it otherwise we would have been very hungry but then the tannoy went off saying our deck needed to go to the muster station at the casino. So we quick hopped it down there. It was chaos. Queue to scanned your card then had to queue again to get out. 

We did not have a smooth start at all with MSC. 

 

We did have an issue in Nordfjordeid. It was a floating walkway so we were called off one deck at a time. We only had the afternoon there from 3pm-8pm.So we waited nearly two hours to get called to be off the ship, we got off at 5pm then unfortunately had to wait one hour to get back on. We started to queue at 6pm. Not fun with little kids. We also missed a show and dinning reservation. We might have gotten cross and sent MSC a picture of how bad the line was. They realised how bad this was and gave everyone, even people who didn’t get off, £50 obc. 

 

The app and the website

Never thought I would think that P&O was better for this, but the website was far easier. Uploading credit cards, making the final payment and downloading the tickets. For MSC I had to call them or do this when we got there instead. 

Because I could not upload a credit card then I wanted to use cash. We went to a machine to top up and it ate my first £20 then broke. This resulted in me having an hour wait at the reception to explain the problem and upload money. It was then written on the daily planner we got at 6pm that it was already pre authorised to £250 and I could have put the cash on the next day instead. 

 

The app for MSC is ok. It has a chat function which is great but often doesn’t work. It uploads the menus for the MDR which I loved not having to go to find. But all the menus for the bars are using QR codes when you are there, with P&O it’s already on there to look at. Also you can book a table at a specialty restaurant on P&O. With MSC then you have to do it in person near the atrium. We had issues with this as we waited around 45 mins to book. Then an hour later when it loaded to the app the woman had gotten the wrong day, we wanted hola for Scarlett’s birthday so that was another trip down and another 30mins wait for me to correct this. 

So this is on par. Both have pros and cons. I think I prefer the P&O one because of the amount of time I wasted. 

 

The kids club. 

On P&O they were in cohorts last time. Not brilliant but the kids are in the same 5-8 group so they wanted to go every chance they could. Registration was easy. It was done online. Bands were in the room. Along with the times they could go. 

On MSC it was disorganised. We went up to register them again, after I had done it online twice, we got there with 10mins to spare before they closed but they had ran out of forms and weren’t going to print anymore till later so closing early. Told to come back at 9pm. So we came back at 9pm. We filled out the forms and handed them in. Was told we could just fetch the kids in the morning to play. 

The kids were in separate groups. Georgia 3yr-6yr and Scarlett 7yr-11yrs. 

On the kids planner we then got through the door late at night it says they needed wrist bands to scan in at the club and these were in the room, they were not, so it said to speak to reception. We get down to reception after queuing again to be told to go to kids club but they aren’t open till

9am. This was at 8am. We go back up, luckily they have uploaded the forms to the computer and they sort the bands out for the kids. 

The kids did not like the clubs. They said it was boring and unfortunately for us that meant not very many date nights. They went only 4 times despite having no time restrictions to go in. Most weren’t even for more than an hour. 

 

Daily planner, entertainment and dress wear

With P&O especially on Britannia I thought the entertainment was rather good. We went to a few shows, we had family discos, magician for the kids (even though we didn’t rate him) and a good rock tribute band too. 

Even though we are only 34 we quite like to dress up, we don’t get chance to do so in the everyday life so it’s always nice to do that and everyone makes a good effort to at least dress smart if not quite elegant. The girls always wear dresses at night. 

We only had one that we

On MSC there was a different show every night, we went to two of them and left early as we didn’t rate them at all, didn’t seem much for the children to do unless they were in the kids club and the music at night was duos or single singers as there wasn’t really a big venue for a good band etc. We did try to dress up but we felt out of place as everyone else was so dressed down. Lots of people were touching food with their hands and not the utensils, so many walking around bare foot even in the atrium. So many kids with iPads at dinner tables etc. I don’t know if it is generational or not but I just didn’t feel that a lot of people made any effort and some lacked manners too. 

We seems to be back at the cabin rather early on MSC rather than staying out as there wasn’t that much to do at night we didn’t think. 

 

The prices. 

It’s hard to compare the prices as we went with MSC in school holiday and P&O has always been during term time but they are about on par per week for what we would expect. 

The drinks however, on P&O were cheaper. We ranged from £4.50 to £6.95 for lots of different beers and cocktails with the soft drinks being £2.25-£3.15. Tea and coffee was around £2.50ish. 

The food on P&O were cheaper. 

Sindhu was about £45 for two starts, two mains and two desserts. 

Glass house was about £25 one starter, two mains and one dessert. 

Beach house was £19-£25 for flat fee plus starter and main upgrades. 

Ice creams were £2.50-£3.50ish. 

 

With MSC it wasn’t cheap. The beer mainly Guinness and Heineken ranged from £6-£7 per 40cl or bottle 33cl. Hubby did find a 1lt, 100cl for £10 in the pub masters of the sea so we mostly drank in there as he was begrudged to pay more elsewhere. There was also cocktails he wanted to try. These were £8-£14. 

The sofa drinks were all £3. Coffee and hot chocolate was £4.10-£5.40. 

Butchers cut was £78 for two salads, two steak and two desserts. 

Hola tacos and cantina was £54 for two all you can eat then two kids nachos, two quesadillas,1 taco and 1 dessert. 

Masters of the sea was £12 for two burgers and one fish and chips. 

Ice creams were from £3-£6

Crepes were £6.50. 

 

Unfortunately p*** up in a brewery is the saying that tends to spring to mind for me. We are with MSC again in October holidays this time on the older ship Preziosa so I’m not sure if I will like the ship as much. 

So apart from the ship, cabin, water slides and the crepes then everything else was better on P&O. 

 

But all in all if the deal was right then we would go again, we would just change our expectations. 
We are always so grateful that we have chance to go and do these kinds of things. I may moan a lot but we still had a wonderful time. 
Also excited to see how iona will differ and maybe arvia if we book. 

[Leomins]

Thank you for this, direct comparisons are always helpful.

[Sarah1974]

thanks for your review - it's good to hear about the differences

[grapau27]

3 hours ago, Vampiress88 said:

We are a family of 4.

So far we have sailed on Britannia and Azura for P&O. Both inside and balcony. 

With MSC it is the Virtuosa with balcony. 

 

The ships. 

For us the Virtuosa by far is the best ship. It is probably due to the fact that it’s more geared to our young children. They loved the water park and the slides. We also liked the layout better with the long gallery in the middle and easier to navigate with stairs, plus either they have more lifts or they are bigger or both as it wasn’t always as difficult to get one one as it is with P&O. 

But, they prefer the pools on P&O. They weren’t impressed with the pools being really salty. That put them off spending so much time in there and it put me off as it was ruining their hair, I was fed up of washing it. It had a “English type pub” bit like brodies so we always ended up in their these were on par, decor and feel was slightly better on the msc. The coffee shop was a chocolate shop, lovely with crepes and ice cream was much better, but you paid all extra for this. 

The pool towels had to be signed in and out which I found weird and difficult. I had to keep taking them to the room so that if we went to the water park we could take them with us. Then when they were socking wet I had to go back to the desk to change them. It’s easier on P&O to just grab some from the trolleys. We also had no idea how to get these towels as the daily planner had said they would be waiting in our rooms. Which they were not. 

But on azura there was a really bad smell of sewage when on the main deck near the pool. This was sorted after a few days. 

We encountered the same issue on Virtuosa at the back of the ship near the pool, bar and water park. These were both very off putting. 

 

The room

We have had both an inside cabin and balcony on P&O. We did not like the layout of the Britannia balcony with the two pullmans. It was difficult to get round. As they are above you then you bang into it a lot and it felt cramped. Same with the bathroom. 

The room on MSC was a balcony. It was laid out beautifully. The bed was nice, all I was missing was pillows that I like. It was the most comfortable bed we have been on in a cruise. There was plenty of space that we didn’t feel cramped. Plenty of drawers and wardrobe space and the bathroom was good too. 

I wouldn’t say that either P&O or MSC are brilliant at cleaning. Both we found things under the beds. 

 

The food. 

Now when I went on Britannia I moaned about the food quite a lot as I thought the food should have been better and I was wishing for that food this week. P&O is probably fair to good. I would class MSC as mediocre. The pizza was lovely. Everything not so much. Only the simple stuff they could get right and we found we were definitely missing things especially puddings (there was a banoffee pie one on P&O and I definitely had more than one of those). We mainly tried the buffet. We did go to the outside grill a few times. We also found that a lot of the times the food was cold or had been sat under the hot light waiting for opening times. 

We did pay for sindhu, glass house and beach house on P&O and it was only the beach house we found both good value and good food. The rest for us wasn’t worth paying for. 

On Virtuosa we did pay for butchers cut and hola tacos and cantina. Butchers cut was very expensive and I’ve had better cuts of steak from Aldi. The hola Mexican wasn’t rated good on other vlogs but we loved it. The nachos were the best I’ve had in years and the puddings were excellent too. So paid for meals I would say it’s a toss up really between the two lines. For the free food then P&O would win for us. 

We did also try MDR with both lines, P&O wasn’t really to my taste but there was nothing wrong with it, just nothing special etc. With Virtuosa we were left really annoyed. First night we were sat at a table for 8, I declined it and asked for it to be changed. Was told it would be done. It was never done. Went for lunch and we managed the starter and the kids mains in an hour. When it got to that time and the started plates hadn’t even been cleared I got fed up of waiting and left to go to the buffet instead. I think they were understaffed on the whole ship to be honest. 

With the bar staff I found lots more on P&O and they were a lot more aware of the guests, like coming to ask for drinks orders, paying attention to who’s just sat down. MSC had very little staff having us sometimes feel really sorry for them rushing about, like there was only one person serving drinks in the coffee shop on a sea day, if I was her I would have probably cried it was so overwhelming. 

 

Embarkation and disembarkation 

When we first arrived it was all a different way round but it took about the same time for both lines. Same with leaving the ship in Southampton. 

The muster drill was annoying though. 

With P&O you scanned in at your station when you got on the ship then when in your room watched the safety video. 

With MSCat 3pm it came on over the tannoy to watch the video then call a number to say this was done. So we did this. Buffet ended at 3.30 so luckily caught the last 15mins of it otherwise we would have been very hungry but then the tannoy went off saying our deck needed to go to the muster station at the casino. So we quick hopped it down there. It was chaos. Queue to scanned your card then had to queue again to get out. 

We did not have a smooth start at all with MSC. 

 

We did have an issue in Nordfjordeid. It was a floating walkway so we were called off one deck at a time. We only had the afternoon there from 3pm-8pm.So we waited nearly two hours to get called to be off the ship, we got off at 5pm then unfortunately had to wait one hour to get back on. We started to queue at 6pm. Not fun with little kids. We also missed a show and dinning reservation. We might have gotten cross and sent MSC a picture of how bad the line was. They realised how bad this was and gave everyone, even people who didn’t get off, £50 obc. 

 

The app and the website

Never thought I would think that P&O was better for this, but the website was far easier. Uploading credit cards, making the final payment and downloading the tickets. For MSC I had to call them or do this when we got there instead. 

Because I could not upload a credit card then I wanted to use cash. We went to a machine to top up and it ate my first £20 then broke. This resulted in me having an hour wait at the reception to explain the problem and upload money. It was then written on the daily planner we got at 6pm that it was already pre authorised to £250 and I could have put the cash on the next day instead. 

 

The app for MSC is ok. It has a chat function which is great but often doesn’t work. It uploads the menus for the MDR which I loved not having to go to find. But all the menus for the bars are using QR codes when you are there, with P&O it’s already on there to look at. Also you can book a table at a specialty restaurant on P&O. With MSC then you have to do it in person near the atrium. We had issues with this as we waited around 45 mins to book. Then an hour later when it loaded to the app the woman had gotten the wrong day, we wanted hola for Scarlett’s birthday so that was another trip down and another 30mins wait for me to correct this. 

So this is on par. Both have pros and cons. I think I prefer the P&O one because of the amount of time I wasted. 

 

The kids club. 

On P&O they were in cohorts last time. Not brilliant but the kids are in the same 5-8 group so they wanted to go every chance they could. Registration was easy. It was done online. Bands were in the room. Along with the times they could go. 

On MSC it was disorganised. We went up to register them again, after I had done it online twice, we got there with 10mins to spare before they closed but they had ran out of forms and weren’t going to print anymore till later so closing early. Told to come back at 9pm. So we came back at 9pm. We filled out the forms and handed them in. Was told we could just fetch the kids in the morning to play. 

The kids were in separate groups. Georgia 3yr-6yr and Scarlett 7yr-11yrs. 

On the kids planner we then got through the door late at night it says they needed wrist bands to scan in at the club and these were in the room, they were not, so it said to speak to reception. We get down to reception after queuing again to be told to go to kids club but they aren’t open till

9am. This was at 8am. We go back up, luckily they have uploaded the forms to the computer and they sort the bands out for the kids. 

The kids did not like the clubs. They said it was boring and unfortunately for us that meant not very many date nights. They went only 4 times despite having no time restrictions to go in. Most weren’t even for more than an hour. 

 

Daily planner, entertainment and dress wear

With P&O especially on Britannia I thought the entertainment was rather good. We went to a few shows, we had family discos, magician for the kids (even though we didn’t rate him) and a good rock tribute band too. 

Even though we are only 34 we quite like to dress up, we don’t get chance to do so in the everyday life so it’s always nice to do that and everyone makes a good effort to at least dress smart if not quite elegant. The girls always wear dresses at night. 

We only had one that we

On MSC there was a different show every night, we went to two of them and left early as we didn’t rate them at all, didn’t seem much for the children to do unless they were in the kids club and the music at night was duos or single singers as there wasn’t really a big venue for a good band etc. We did try to dress up but we felt out of place as everyone else was so dressed down. Lots of people were touching food with their hands and not the utensils, so many walking around bare foot even in the atrium. So many kids with iPads at dinner tables etc. I don’t know if it is generational or not but I just didn’t feel that a lot of people made any effort and some lacked manners too. 

We seems to be back at the cabin rather early on MSC rather than staying out as there wasn’t that much to do at night we didn’t think. 

 

The prices. 

It’s hard to compare the prices as we went with MSC in school holiday and P&O has always been during term time but they are about on par per week for what we would expect. 

The drinks however, on P&O were cheaper. We ranged from £4.50 to £6.95 for lots of different beers and cocktails with the soft drinks being £2.25-£3.15. Tea and coffee was around £2.50ish. 

The food on P&O were cheaper. 

Sindhu was about £45 for two starts, two mains and two desserts. 

Glass house was about £25 one starter, two mains and one dessert. 

Beach house was £19-£25 for flat fee plus starter and main upgrades. 

Ice creams were £2.50-£3.50ish. 

 

With MSC it wasn’t cheap. The beer mainly Guinness and Heineken ranged from £6-£7 per 40cl or bottle 33cl. Hubby did find a 1lt, 100cl for £10 in the pub masters of the sea so we mostly drank in there as he was begrudged to pay more elsewhere. There was also cocktails he wanted to try. These were £8-£14. 

The sofa drinks were all £3. Coffee and hot chocolate was £4.10-£5.40. 

Butchers cut was £78 for two salads, two steak and two desserts. 

Hola tacos and cantina was £54 for two all you can eat then two kids nachos, two quesadillas,1 taco and 1 dessert. 

Masters of the sea was £12 for two burgers and one fish and chips. 

Ice creams were from £3-£6

Crepes were £6.50. 

 

Unfortunately p*** up in a brewery is the saying that tends to spring to mind for me. We are with MSC again in October holidays this time on the older ship Preziosa so I’m not sure if I will like the ship as much. 

So apart from the ship, cabin, water slides and the crepes then everything else was better on P&O. 

 

But all in all if the deal was right then we would go again, we would just change our expectations. 
We are always so grateful that we have chance to go and do these kinds of things. I may moan a lot but we still had a wonderful time. 
Also excited to see how iona will differ and maybe arvia if we book. 

Excellent comparison review.

I enjoyed reading your post.

Graham.

[Bazrat]

Really enjoyed reading your review, we was not really interested in doing MSC your review as put us off trying it.

[Orianababes]

What a good review. Balanced.

 

To me it shows also that cruise companies are different and rightly so - one size does not fit all

[Vampiress88]

1 hour ago, Bazrat said:

Really enjoyed reading your review, we was not really interested in doing MSC your review as put us off trying it.

Definitely don’t let it, it’s not put us off. Hubby has just booked another for 2023! 
it’s more about changing your expectations. It’s not like p&o also I’ve just seen there were 1700 kids on board so I assume it could not have been run as well as it could if sailing in the term time like I do with p&o and with the price I just got compared to what p&o were offering me i am willing to compromise. I will just change what I do. To returning customers I’ve gotten 10% off and £80 obc.
I know now what I am getting into. I won’t take lots of dresses to dress up, I won’t bother with the mdr and I will stick to the things that they are good at like the pizza etc. it’s a different ship so I hope the smell goes but the cabins should still be good. I will add my cash on the second day not the first. I will also register the kids on the first morning instead. Plus this time they are in the same class in ‘23 so should be better for them. I know how much money I need for my drinks prices. I’ll only go back to hola. I also know that I am probably not going to go to much entertainment. 
 

But I have 12 nights in the canaries for £2500 with £80obc. It’s mostly in school holidays. With a balcony cabin. 
P&o wanted the same price for 7 nights in the fjords. 

[CCFC]

I did MSC in June for the first time and found the food to be dreadful, school dinners were better. Never again

[FamilyCruiserUK]

Always good to read a comparison of two different companies..the salt water pool would be a deffo no for us, even if rest of ship better. 

[yorkshirephil]

1 hour ago, Vampiress88 said:

Definitely don’t let it, it’s not put us off. Hubby has just booked another for 2023! 
it’s more about changing your expectations. It’s not like p&o also I’ve just seen there were 1700 kids on board so I assume it could not have been run as well as it could if sailing in the term time like I do with p&o and with the price I just got compared to what p&o were offering me i am willing to compromise. I will just change what I do. To returning customers I’ve gotten 10% off and £80 obc.
I know now what I am getting into. I won’t take lots of dresses to dress up, I won’t bother with the mdr and I will stick to the things that they are good at like the pizza etc. it’s a different ship so I hope the smell goes but the cabins should still be good. I will add my cash on the second day not the first. I will also register the kids on the first morning instead. Plus this time they are in the same class in ‘23 so should be better for them. I know how much money I need for my drinks prices. I’ll only go back to hola. I also know that I am probably not going to go to much entertainment. 
 

But I have 12 nights in the canaries for £2500 with £80obc. It’s mostly in school holidays. With a balcony cabin. 
P&o wanted the same price for 7 nights in the fjords. 

We have just booked a 15 night MSC cruise in Oct for £51 per night which is great value. We have enjoyed both our MSC cruises to date, horses for courses.

[pennib]

We have done around 5 MSC cruises. They are OK but you have got to be happy being surrounded by mainly excitable Italians and screaming Italian kids. Wouldn’t go on MSC again unless it is in the yacht club which was excellent with excellent food and free drinks.

[Vampiress88]

38 minutes ago, pennib said:

We have done around 5 MSC cruises. They are OK but you have got to be happy being surrounded by mainly excitable Italians and screaming Italian kids. Wouldn’t go on MSC again unless it is in the yacht club which was excellent with excellent food and free drinks.

i would say more than 80% of the people on the cruise I was on were British. Didn’t do announcements in any other language or anything. It was just screaming English kids this time. 

[annarack]

Really enjoyed your review and your comparisons.  We sailed on Britannia at the same time as you this year and then on Virtuosa for 12 nights to the Canaries last month.  Many of our findings were the same and we had the same issues - lifts and navigating the ship on Britannia with areas closed for quarantine - and chaos on MSC.

 

Our children were also split between minis and juniors this year on Virtuosa however they did enjoy the kids clubs.  There was usually an 8.30pm activity each evening which both groups went to such as a disco or games which both enjoyed.  We didn't think the care and security of the kids area was anywhere near as good as we are used to on P&O.  There were 1800 children on the Canaries cruise and no limits on how many could go into kids club at once!

 

As a family we enjoyed the facilities on Virtuosa such as the sky ropes, waterslides, bowling etc plus used the tropical pool a lot however also didn't like the salt water.  The ship itself is stunning.

 

We had 5.30 dining which really didn't suit so we only used the MDR about half the time whereas on P&O we have always gone every night.  We didn't use the speciality restaurants at all, mainly the buffet which we thought was generally good.  We liked having photographers on MSC as missed having the chance to have a family photo done on P&O this year.

 

We also had a balcony cabin with bunk beds which was fine, a better layout than Britannia.  We were however in a poor position on deck 8 with an obstructed view and loud music from the Virtuosa Bar (I think) at night.

 

Staff were overstretched and the first 24 hours on board were awful - no suitcases until 11pm, huge queues and no plates/mugs/cutlery at breakfast the first morning.  Things evened out after this as everyone found their way around the ship and their own space but it was still busy and areas such as the arcade felt crazy the whole holiday with teenagers hanging out etc.  We loved the scavenger hunts organised by the entertainment team on sea days.  We missed the P&O family entertainment such as magician, family discos etc and did not enjoy the show we went to (The Big Apple).

 

Despite the higher numbers on board though we had a better experience than last year's seacation on Virtuosa as we could get off independently in ports this time and didn't have to queue to book slots for water park nor was kids club limited to certain hours this year.

 

We loved the ports we visit and did so much - Lisbon zoo, cable car and toboggan in Madeira, beach in Gran Canaria and lido in Tenerife.  Vigo was the only port we hadn't visited before so didn't know and was very steep and incredibly hot.  I think if we were to go there again we would be more organised and head to a beach or on a boat trip rather than the town/park as we did this time.  I hope you really enjoy the itinerary next year, we thought it was great for children this sort of age.

 

Last year we had an aurea cabin and really missed this this time - we had a poorer location this time, fixed instead of flexible dining, no access to deck 19.  We would definitely book aurea if we sailed with MSC again, or yacht club if we could possibly afford it as it would be so much calmer.  We are however going on P&O twice next year and I think will probably look at Royal Caribbean for 2024 as the children will be ready for the more high octane entertainment by then.

[Red Ray]

15 hours ago, Vampiress88 said:

Definitely don’t let it, it’s not put us off. Hubby has just booked another for 2023! 
it’s more about changing your expectations. It’s not like p&o also I’ve just seen there were 1700 kids on board so I assume it could not have been run as well as it could if sailing in the term time like I do with p&o and with the price I just got compared to what p&o were offering me i am willing to compromise. I will just change what I do. To returning customers I’ve gotten 10% off and £80 obc.
I know now what I am getting into. I won’t take lots of dresses to dress up, I won’t bother with the mdr and I will stick to the things that they are good at like the pizza etc. it’s a different ship so I hope the smell goes but the cabins should still be good. I will add my cash on the second day not the first. I will also register the kids on the first morning instead. Plus this time they are in the same class in ‘23 so should be better for them. I know how much money I need for my drinks prices. I’ll only go back to hola. I also know that I am probably not going to go to much entertainment. 
 

But I have 12 nights in the canaries for £2500 with £80obc. It’s mostly in school holidays. With a balcony cabin. 
P&o wanted the same price for 7 nights in the fjords. 

1700 kids....shudder 

[Bazrat]

16 hours ago, Vampiress88 said:

Definitely don’t let it, it’s not put us off. Hubby has just booked another for 2023! 
it’s more about changing your expectations. It’s not like p&o also I’ve just seen there were 1700 kids on board so I assume it could not have been run as well as it could if sailing in the term time like I do with p&o and with the price I just got compared to what p&o were offering me i am willing to compromise. I will just change what I do. To returning customers I’ve gotten 10% off and £80 obc.
I know now what I am getting into. I won’t take lots of dresses to dress up, I won’t bother with the mdr and I will stick to the things that they are good at like the pizza etc. it’s a different ship so I hope the smell goes but the cabins should still be good. I will add my cash on the second day not the first. I will also register the kids on the first morning instead. Plus this time they are in the same class in ‘23 so should be better for them. I know how much money I need for my drinks prices. I’ll only go back to hola. I also know that I am probably not going to go to much entertainment. 
 

But I have 12 nights in the canaries for £2500 with £80obc. It’s mostly in school holidays. With a balcony cabin. 
P&o wanted the same price for 7 nights in the fjords. 

Sorry I shouldn't have said your review put us off, what I ment was that we would not want to compromise to that extent, we don't really need to at our age our kids have grown up and left, we changed the locks so they could not return.

[Yorkypete]

1 hour ago, Bazrat said:

Sorry I shouldn't have said your review put us off, what I ment was that we would not want to compromise to that extent, we don't really need to at our age our kids have grown up and left, we changed the locks so they could not return.

We moved house and didn't tell them where!

 

[Vampiress88]

8 hours ago, Bazrat said:

Sorry I shouldn't have said your review put us off, what I ment was that we would not want to compromise to that extent, we don't really need to at our age our kids have grown up and left, we changed the locks so they could not return.

My youngest keeps saying she will live with us forever 😂 

Edited September 6, 2022 by Vampiress88