MSC Magnifica Cruise Reviews - Reviews

Very luxery and service

The ship was nice, easy to navigate, and clean.

A great ship with a beatiful decoration. The common areas are beautiful and the shows are excellent.

An excellent and very comfortable ship.

The ship, service and itenerary were excellent. The food was good, though perhaps not great (although, there was an occasional dish that was outstanding!). The value for the money was very good.

We had to board at a diiferrent location due to the fog and it was a nightmare for about 4-5 hours once we arrived at the new embarking location.

MSC- Magnifica OVERALL Terrrible and Unpleasant experience. I will never, ever cruise with MSC again. I would like to caution any family and fellows cruiser to NOT go on any MSC cruise. Here are some of the problems: 1. You have to pay for everything (including water and coffee - even in the dining room at lunch or dinner!!!). It feels like they're nickel-and-diming you to death. Then, on the last night, they actually REMOVE all the water bottles from your room and LOCK the minibar - for fear that you will leave the cruise ship without paying for it. So from 9:00 p.m. onwards, you don't have ANY water in your room. You have to call the reception desk and ask someone to deliver water to your room and sign for them. 2. Staff are exceedingly rude and unhelpful. They don't treat you like customers at all. Rather, it's like you're a bother to them. Not once did I hear the word 'please', 'excuse me,' or 'thank you' coming out of their mouths, and they are prepared to argue every little point, or just outright ignore you. In talking with some of them (not Italians) it was explained to me that there is a lot of internal fighting going on among them. Simply put these non-Italian waiters, pool attendants, bar attendants etc. are underpaid, overworked and mistreated by their Italian supervisors. I was told that the average pay for them is about $ 1,800/months while an Italian coworker in the same capacity makes 3,000 Euros!!!. This internal fighting is then reflected on us, CUSTOMERS!!!! 3. We complained to the guest relation manager about our unhappiness, a very young and inexperienced guy. Instead of listening to our complaints and apologizing, the guy actually started to argument with us and justifying our complaints saying things like: "Well we are overworked, the ship is simply overcrowded and is impossible to please everyone." ONBOARD ACTIVITIES: Poorly organized and too crowded. The ship was at full capacity (almost 4,000 cruisers) but many of the venues are held in areas that could not accommodate that many people. The two swimming pools were very crowded and it was impossible to find a chair to sit. So unpleasant!!! Again, it would be a cultural thing, but I found people generally to not care about personal space. They tend to push their way through and parents tend not to discipline (or even take care of) their kids so they're going wild all over the ship, and what I considered as common decency was missing among many of the cruisers (e.g.: pressing the 'door close' button while people are still stepping into or out of the elevator, spitting into the swimming pools, letter toddlers go into the swimming pool with diapers on even though there are signs that clearly prohibit that, cutting into lines, etc.). Entertainment In the main (royal theatre) area the shows were good but very short (about 30-35 minutes at the best) so to push you out towards activities were the company can take more money out of our pockets (bingo)

Condiments such as water, sauna or Jacuzzi were not included in price. Moreover, charging us for so called Service Charge is unbelievable, when you already have 15% Service Charge. So many hidden costs at this cruise make me never want to choose this cruise line again. Also, in Egypt so called tour guides took us to best souvenir stores in Cairo. Where we (turists)quickly came to find out, it was severely overpriced and corrupted they make money when they bring certain number of tourists (more = better). It disgusts me when MSC allows such corruption to happen making.

Our cruise departed Dec 27 and included New Year's Eve. For a holiday cruise, I guess I'd expect some sort of an extra air of "joy" (or something). Instead, the entire cruise was a bit depressing. The staff didn't really want to be there and were caught snipping at each other. The air of discontent of the staff spilled over to the guests, and various tables at dinner and people on tours took out their discontent in rather brutish ways on the staff and guides. It was like a spiral of whining, yelling, snipping (think pre-teens on a long car ride to visit relatives they don't like). Holiday discontent aside, service was utterly random. Our dinner server was awesome, but the folks we got when randomly seated at lunch were random, and ranged from the typical 5 star server who puts your napkin in your lap and notices the moment you glass of water is at 80%, to people who failed to notice anything. Our room was clean, accept they didn't like to take away empty plates - which was just weird. We got breakfast delivered to our room, which was the only way we found to get enough coffee, but it arrived randomly, anywhere from an hour early to an hour late. There also weren't enough plans for kids. We don't have kids, and aren't generally against kids, but when the kids start self organizing races through the bar and spinning contests on the barstools because they are bored... Other random things to note: Dress is not enforced: on gala night, jeans were to be seen. Fresh fruit is in abundance, juice and coffee are not. Expect complete disorder when it comes queueing. These are not American/UK lines. Infact, there really aren't lines. Just crowds of people with elbows moving forward (if you've taken rush our transport in Italy, you know what I mean). The Good? They fed us far too much at every meal, and everything was kept utterly clean. The Spa was as good as stressed on the websites. The boat was well equipped for the cold weather, with indoor pool areas. All in all, I'm really not certain I'd go on a MSC cruise again. I'm willing to brush a lot of it off as the staff being upset they were trapped on a cruise ship over the holidays, but... For the amount we paid, I'm not sure I want to deal with "Meh" again.

This cruise is not for American cruisers who are used to ships with big spaces. Having to listen to every announcements in 5 differenct languages(at first it was interesting...) wears you out after a few days. They charge you on juices, coffees and teas plus 15% service charge other than the "tab water". They even charge a 15% service charge for the waters you purchase on ship to take along on an excursion, how is that even possible??? Almost always we could not find any available chairs or chaise lounges to sit and relax around the pools or decks, it was always full of people. By the way, there are only two pools that are 5' 7'' or 6' 3" deep all around, not for the children.

Itinerario molto bello, staff molto gentile, procedure di sbarco lunghe e non gestite bene. Il buffet non era dei migliori. Nave molto pulita.

We had such a great time on this ship! Even though it was only 3 days we felt refreshed like it was longer! Ocean Cay was amazing and it was just an overall relaxing trip! The food at the buffet was so good, and the drinks were good too!

The cruise staff either onboard or off were partly gracious and others were, simply, ok.

I was trying to decide between this and Margaritaville cruise since it was going to be a short 3 night cruise. Even thought I had to travel further to get to this boat I’m happy I picked this option. I went the day after Milton so it did rain and they had to move entertainment around the boat. It does need a bit more diversity but I still had a great time. We boarded early and there were no crowds and picked to walk our bags off the boat and disembarked quickly. I’m already looking for my next cruise with them.

Wonderful experience anyone taking a cruise for the first time I would recommend this ship.Great overall experience.

Magnificient, we are already missing the cruise and are looking forward to plan another trip.

Worth the money but don’t expect much. Staff is 5 star

I dropped off my luggage to the porter and gave him a tip. Once I received my luggage it was already broken. I asked the room service person, he said it was already broken when he received it. If you can find out from the camera who broke my luggage, that would be great. It was very hard for us to bring the kids with broken luggage. I took the travel insurance and I called MSC to get my travel insurance insurance policy number. They don't have it. They didn't give me a policy number. Hope you can do something about it. Also every night there were loud noises (people laughing and talking) around 2- 2:30 am while we were resting. It woke up the kids and was so hard for them. I sent an email to MSC customer service but no one replied to my email.

I really hate to leave a bad review of anything but I feel it is warranted. This was my 17th cruise - I’ve been on Royal Caribbean, Norwegian, Celebrity, HAL, Cunard, Oceania, Carnival and Viking Ocean, this was my first cruise with MSC - and without comparison the worst cruise I’ve ever had. I’d heard mixed things about MSC so I set what I thought was basically bottom barrel expectations - and MSC failed to even meet those. The entire experience - both the “hard product” and the “soft product” - were unforgivably bad. The ship is not well maintained - dirty carpets, missing paint on the balcony, rust, dirty windows and tables, etc. The buffet was extremely overcrowded at breakfast, which isn’t unheard of but was worse than I’ve ever seen before. The service was typically friendly, but dinner service was slow, bar service was slow, and expectations that you set cruising with any other line - like that dirty plates will be taken away at dinner after you’re done - were not met. The food was fine, I had no problem with it, but when you have to push and shove for a table in a crowded buffet or spend 2.5(!) hours at dinner from seating until dessert, it really doesn’t matter how good the food is. I felt like the staff were trying their best but had not been trained in the same way that other cruise lines do. Most passengers were international, though nearly all were polite and respectful. The very few passengers of any nationality who were not acting appropriately were not asked to quiet down, behave themselves, etc. We were traveling in a group of couples, about half of whom had never cruised before, and I had to explain to my friends multiple times that this was (almost hilariously) worse than any other cruise line. When you’re with good friends, you can have a fun time anywhere, and we did - but I cannot possibly recommend MSC, at least not Magnifica, to anyone. You sometimes hear people say that 3 night “booze cruises” are hugely different from longer voyages, and that’s true, but beyond that, the service and ship maintenance were just awful. If you’ve ever stayed in a 2-star hotel off a highway exit that clearly hasn’t been renovated since 2008, with a staff that clearly hasn’t been trained, you’ll get a sense of what MSC Magnifica is like. Will not cruise with MSC again and I cannot recommend it to anyone!

Its good for singles,and families.They have a low supplement penalty.Everyone seems to get along.Not much co mingling.Each nationality seems to stay with their own.