perakcruiser

Yes, you can see all matches on the TV in your cabin, in the Sports bar of cause but also on the big screen at the pool.

For me the Preziosa is the best ship from MSC, at least before the Meraviglia and Seaside came. Been on the Magnifica also, definitely not a disappointment, but quite obvisious for a little bit older ship, not as modern and as fancy as the Preziosa.

Actually, a lot of MSC guests in Europe don't have any flight restrictions as many of them embark in ports in their home country. Italians can board at Genoa, Naples, Civitavecchia. Germans often drive/bus/train to board at Genoa. Spanish board in Barcelona and French at Marseilles.

Still many fly with Ryanair and Easyjet and have big luggage restrictions.

You will probably be able to get hot chocolate (though not the wonderful specialist ones) at some other venue onboard, but the introduction of these franchises where you get charged extra for what used to be included is the direction MSC is going in, unfortunately. Even the list of included drinks on the deluxe package has diminished, with quite a few items now in the "Super Premium" (newly introduced) category with 2 asterisks denoting that they're not covered by any drinks packages

The place for coffee on the Meraviglia now is the EDGE bar, there all non-alcoholic coffees including the ice coffees are included. I did not ask, but @ Jean Philippe probably not even a cappucino can be bought with the coupons. Well, let´s just hope people ignore this branded places so that the business finishes ;p

I’d love to hear something about the coffee they serve on board as well as the drinks included in the meal time drink package.

The free coffee is drinkable. But for me to enjoy a cruise with MSC a coffee package is definitely needed. Anyway it is very cheap.

There is 1 Elegant night for the 5 nights.

Sure? I think when start in Palermo and end in Genoa it will be 2.

I understand they are a budget line and my expectations are lower than compared to say RCCL.

MSC is definitely not a "budget line", it is just not a US company. Additional to your cruise you get a free holiday in Italy, maybe you not enjoy or appreciate this but as far as I know also their US catalogue makes this quite clear. And ice cream may not be free in that "Jean-Philippe" places (yes, they annoy me too), but it is still free in the MDR.

Sorry didn’t mean to say NO free food, just no free food in the sports bar. I kinda thought the sports bar would be the MSC’s O’Sheehans. It actually doesn’t seem like there will be food at all served.

If there is food served, it will be very limited, no matter free or not (probably not). I think I one time saw people eating sandwiches in the Sports Bar on the Meraviglia which should be similar to the one on Seaside. It is really a place to drink and watch sports.

And yes, bowling is expensive, but 1000s of other activities are free.

Huh, we had exactly the same cruise for the same reasons. Let me add a few things from my point to your excellent review!

this itinerary meant we could spend a few days in Naples before the start of the cruise and tick these destinations off our lists.

So did we. We also went South to the mountains, Gragnano and the Paths of the Gods above the Amalfi coast, breathtaking. And this is the heartland of pasta, the old fashioned small pasta companies in Gragnano are a destiny in itself. Which ended us up in carrying about 20 kg pasta to the ship.

Bad thing, driving a rental car in Naples and around is one of the worst things you could imagine. I drove rental cars all around the world, but this is another world!

The other reason for booking the cruise was to experience what the latest flagship of the MSC fleet had to offer. Being launched earlier in 2017, MSC Meraviglia was billed as the most technologically advanced ship at sea.

From the first news about this ship I wanted to board it as soon as possible.

Boarding at Naples was convenient, with the cruise terminal having decent facilities and a short and inexpensive taxi ride from our hotel helped us to relax. The signage within the terminal could have been better – luggage needed to be dropped off in one side of the terminal, with check-in / boarding being completed in the other. This could have been confusing had we not sought assistance early on.

Boarding at Naples was hell ;p First returning the car to the rental place at the harbour is somewhat ridiculous. I guess it is impossible to go there without taking a turn where it is illegal. Well, when in Naples drive like the locals drive (in theory).

Walking the 200 meters from the car rental station to the port in the rain with a baby and the lugguage and the pasta cartons produced a small family crises (WHY DID YOU BUY ALL THIS???). Then we just got a confusing information at port entrance from a MSC girl and after a long search in the rain we found the terminal just to get the information that we have to drop the lugguage on the other side of the road. And we could not drop quite a big part of our lugguage, the baby car seat, two cartons with pasta not easy to carry.

As we are Black Card members of the Voyagers club we were able to take advantage of the priority boarding

Only Silver, but our baby gained us priority also. Big, big plus point for MSC. Challenging part done, now we could enjoy the next seven days.

Accommodation

Once aboard we went to find our cabin, a Fantastica balcony, 14153. The cabin itself was up to the usual MSC standard. It was spotless.

Fully agreed, we loved our Fantastica interior on Deck 12.

Meraviglia boasts the longest LED dome at sea and WOW what an impression it made! The domed ceiling is the focal point of the central promenade, with the LED screen used to show a variety of vistas, from fireworks in London, Paris, Sydney, famous ceilings of the world, ‘under the sea’, in to space, dinosaurs…

Oh yes, that really rocks. Worth to go there at action times!

Dining

One of the reasons many people decide to book cruise holidays is the reputation that cruising has for providing plentiful high quality food. On various review sites MSC seem to take a beating over the food provided in the main dining rooms, with writers suggesting the food is not good.

 

Let me just say: Food is subjective.

 

Highlights of food throughout the week include the sparkling wine risotto and fillet of beef in marsala wine sauce on the first elegant night, the seafood mixed grill served on the Med night was also very well presented, consisting of a whole king prawn, swordfish and cuttlefish.

We slightly differ here. Of cause I also enjoyed the dishes you mentioned. I realized a big improvement on the fillet of beef, the king praws now have an adequat size, the years before they were not even princes. But the main draw for me is the pasta, from the eight dishes in this week, four were absolutely excellent, the rest also delicious. And of cause, MSC still has the best pizza on the seven seas. Their home well ship made mozzarella, we loved it!

We were assigned ‘My Choice’ dining in the Panorama restaurant and were waited on by Marcello and his team.

Lucky you, as the European Fantastica cruisers where kicked out of "My Choice" as it led to chaos at the first cruises of the Meraviglia. At least we got the time slot that we wanted, 7pm, so it was OK for me.

There are also three theatre shows per night, of two different shows, which allows passengers to perhaps see something they might have missed. We attended the Opera based around La Boheme which was very good indeed, with live opera singers.

Well, we missed it. Should have been announced much more active. As it is traditionally the big highlight of every cruise. The shows we saw were OK, "Virtual" was really entertaining.

There is far more to Meraviglia than I have mentioned so far – so many bars and lounges, waterslides, simulators, night clubs, sports parks – it would take weeks to write anything further in detail on all these aspects.

Oh yes, the Himalaya Bridge is much more challenging than you would expect :D

And let me add the excellent kids club, which led us to forget all minor issues that annoyed us. Even for 1 year old babies they offer this brillant Baby Care service, but my wife enjoyed also the Baby Time activities with our daughter. And kids cruise free on MSC, alone this fact makes it very difficult to choose another line now.

My conclusion

After cruising before a couple of times with Celebrity, TUI Cruises and of cause other MSC ships, this was overall the best we had. Yes, if you not focus on pasta and pizza Celebrity and especially TUI have the much bigger amount of "luxury products" in the meals, but the prices are much higher, so it would be ridiculous to complain MSC for this.

From the North American/British market, I don't believe there are.

Nowadays I see much more cruisers from USA and GB on board than 5 or 10 years before.

Congratulations on winning MasterChef. We were in the theatre watching and were cheering for you guys.

 

We too had a Fantastica balcony and where given MyChoice dining when we should not have. The dining team where confused as us but still honoured the MyChoice benefits.

We also saw you "cooking" in the theatre and cheered for the two non-italian couples, because almost nobody else did. Congrats also!

And nice you all enjoyed the MyChoice with Fantastica as ours was cancelled and we had to use the normal one. Nevertheless we totally loved this cruise and the ship.

I enjoyed reading your comments. We are first time MSC cruisers having cruised many times with all the main companies. We are looking forward to "entering Italy".

Many years ago we did a TA on the Costa Romantica. We loved it' date=' it was Italy afloat. We enjoyed it so much we booked a Caribbean cruise a few months later on the Costa Atlantica. So disappointed. It was not the same at all. It was obvious they were trying to emulate US cruise lines and cater to US passengers. They only succeeded in providing a second rate Princess /Celebrity /RCI experience. Bella Italia it wasn't! So when I read your comments I was delighted. We're going with high hopes and open minds[/quote']

 

Great to hear, I am sure you will have a wonderful time with this attitude. I have heard also that MSC and Costa try to adopt to the American market with their Carribean cruises. And they TOTALLY adopt to the asian market when sailing from China, nothing what I love is left there.

 

I have also cruised two times with Celebrity in Europe, yes, we liked it also alot, the service quality was so good, from a European perspective, this is already a little bit sick ;p. This experience I definitely also can recommend, I just don´t know if I am open minded enough to survive a Disney cruise ;) Well if my kids someday force me to do ...

I know they are trying to lure cruisers from other cruise lines but they are gonna have to up their game tremendously on all fronts. This is our first MSC cruise and for us to leave our other favorite cruise lines (NCL, Disney, Princess) for good or even for another cruise they have to be on par with those other 3.

Well, to avoid disappointment please don´t compare. MSC is the favourite cruise company in Europe not for it´s customer service, we all regular MSC cruisers know here it will be ranked last on the seven seas and we don´t care :cool:

This is a common rule not only for US pax, also for British, German, Chinese, whatever: If you are boarding MSC you are leaving your home country and enter Italy. And Italy lifestyle and Italy cuisine has a great reputation for a reason, I really love it. NCL or Disney sell the US-american lifestyle, this is not a question about being "on par", it is a different world.

perakcruiser, why do you hope something like that for??? Seems a little odd to me. Be happy.

There was a "not" missing in my sentence ...

It is San Benedetto (https://www.sanbenedetto.it/en/index/) and the waiter will always ask you "with or without gas".

Maybe different in different countries. I liked the stuff MSC sent by post some years before, but I can understand that this was too expensive and now we have to print out the PDF.

You're correct, BB. The 15% service charge is the gratuity added. On our last cruise, the barman in the cigar lounge expressed his displeasure about people purchasing packages before sailing as the crew lost out.

OK, I also talked to our waiter and he said that his income is not connected to this 15% service charge. Anyway, don´t worry, so far I have not met anybody working on a MSC ship who is unhappy with the salary.

2) It appears that pre-purchasing packages stiffs the hard working staff from their gratuities.

No, the Service Charge is not working in the way you think.

No, Tea and coffee only for breakfast. Orange juice for breakfast is available, but maybe not the kind you expect.

If you want to eat in the MDR, you better invest the 26 Euro for a water package with 14 bottles.

free, but only at the buffet.

Is this the same on the orchestra in the Mediterranean? I’m on the ship in January

Yes. Buy it online before. Also the harbour terminal is "onboard" and 15% will be added.

It was served on gala night a couple of years ago. But it stopped being served last October.

OK, I am cruising with MSC since 2010, one or two cruises a year, never saw a lobster :cool:

What they usually offered at gala nights is Nephrops norvegicus. Scampi in Italian, not too big ones unfortunately.

Hubby and I are sailing on the Diviana on Nov 11th. We were wondering if they serve lobster on a special night in the regular dining room.

This never happened and never will happen ;p