Magnifica Cruise Review April 7-14 2018 - third time is (still) a charm!

Hello everyone,

I got off the ship yesterday and couldn't wait to start my review.

Some background on me: this was my 13th cruise (with a Friday the 13th on it) and my third with MSC, I'm a Canadian living and working in Egypt for the past 7 years and this was my first time visiting Northern Europe. I have cruised with Carnival, RCL and Princess as well.

Travelling with me was my best friend on his second cruise (both with MSC, first was last year- and he and his parents are joining me and my mum on an Alaska cruise this summer with Princess)

It was just the two of us, so no useful information on the kids club (other than I did see their parades before the shows), we saw every show, only ate in the buffet (our choice) and did not use the Spa, specialty dining, pools or casino (earlier part of this 2 week trip was a German Poker Tournament in Rozvadov, so I had spent more than enough money in casinos lol)

In summary we had a great time, there were some issues (some with the actual cruise/staff some just associated with the cruise/vacation in general, several with other people but such is life at times).

I did bring home all of the Daily Programs, so if anyone wanted to see those I can likely upload those (any suggestions on adding pictures are welcome) I promise I won't spend too much time on the Pre-Cruise week, and plan to wrap up everything before I leave for Amsterdam (again lol) on April 27.

I hope you enjoy my review!

Looking forward to this as we board a week tomorrow.

Julie

The first week (March 30-April 6)

So at the school I work at we had 2 weeks for Spring Break this year, and we split the trip up into 3 parts. From March 30-April 3 I went with a few friends first to Munich then drove to Rozvadov (King's Casino) for the German Poker Tour. This was my first time entering a tournament and it was a great time had by all. The food at the casino is also inclusive and basically a 24 hour buffet (alcohol is separate). I did not win any money, but I've been playing for the past 5 years and managed to place in the top 30-35% of players in each of the tournaments I entered (my goal was to finish in the top half at least) so I will definitely be entering another one (or more) in the future! (hoping for a WSOP next time)

On April 3 we drove from Rozvadov back to Munich airport (some were flying elsewhere) my friend and I just hung around the airport until we could go check in to our Munich hotel (check in started at 4 pm). I did not like the hotel we stayed at, we had issues with room temperature (too hot even with AC on) and water temperature (in the shower it would go from warm, to cold to scalding hot and I almost burned myself a few times). No WIFI, and although they advertised an airport shuttle they did not have one (there was another issue but I don't want to discuss it here, I did on the review I left on the hotel). In Munich itself we stayed 2 nights, the first we just wandered around a bit, the second day we did the Hop on Hop off tour, I found Munich to not really be my scene.

On April 5 we checked out and headed to the airport to fly to Hamburg. Once there, we again waited until taking a Taxi to our hotel. This hotel was awesome! it included breakfast and WIFI, and I would definitely stay there again. The room itself was a bit small, but for 2 nights we made it work. The first night we again just wandered around and relaxed. The second day we had made reservations for the Chocoversum (we booked online for an English tour) and this was possibly the best 13 Euros I've spent! the tour itself is 90 minutes long, taking you through the process of harvesting and making chocolate. The guide was fantastic (informative and humourous) also the amount of chocolate we got to taste was well worth it, we both spent a fair amount in the shop afterwards buying souvenirs for others (and some for myself). The entrance fee also includes making your own chocolate bar, and there is a wall of toppings you can add to personalize your own. If you have time in Hamburg go here! We then did the Hop on Hop off tour (though we didn't hop off, as we had major plans that night to go do laundry). It was a good tour about 90 minutes long and there are many interesting places to see and photograph in Hamburg. I would come back to this city in a heartbeat! So the night of the 6th we had help finding a laundry mat, and went and watched a movie while we washed and dried clothes (not exciting but was necessary otherwise I would have needed to bring twice as many clothes and I already felt I overpacked!)

The last morning in the Hotel - we woke up and went to breakfast, and checked out right at 11 am (suggested check out time) we then waited for a taxi and went to the cruise port (our hotel was right across the street from the Central Train Station and the taxi ride to the port was about 25 Euro)

The next post - Embarkation and the Cruise begins....

Yea, looking forward to a current review. We will be on the Magnifica in May. I was wondering if your cruise stopped in Le Verdon Sur Mer? It is my understanding you cannot leave this port unless you are on a MSC excursion. Did you experience this?

Thanks, Alice

Sent from my iPad using Forums

Sorry all I wanted to post more tonight, but I only got home at 3:30 am and then got up for work at 6:45... so it's bed time for me but tomorrow I promise to write at least Embarkation and the first sea day to post :)

Yea, looking forward to a current review. We will be on the Magnifica in May. I was wondering if your cruise stopped in Le Verdon Sur Mer? It is my understanding you cannot leave this port unless you are on a MSC excursion. Did you experience this?

Thanks, Alice

 

 

Sent from my iPad using Forums

We did not stop there, so I have no information on that, sorry.

Thanks for the review.

Enjoying your review and will follow along.

Keith

Celandine - Could you please share the name of the hotel in Hamburg? We will be staying in Hamburg one night post cruise and I would love any good hotel suggestions. Also, the Chocoversum sounds like something we would love...I assume I can Google to get some more info? Thanks and looking forward to the rest of the review.

Very excited to read your review! We're sailing on the Magnifica in June. Hadn't planned any time for Hamburg, but now might have to reconsider! You embarked at the Altona cruise terminal, correct?

Looking forward to reading more! Thank you for sharing your thoughts.

Following ! Anxious to hear more !

Celandine - Could you please share the name of the hotel in Hamburg? We will be staying in Hamburg one night post cruise and I would love any good hotel suggestions. Also, the Chocoversum sounds like something we would love...I assume I can Google to get some more info? Thanks and looking forward to the rest of the review.

Yes you can Google the Chocoversum and it is so worth it! (it also took like 15 minutes to walk to it from our hotel)

The hotel was the Novum Hotel Grafe Moltke

Very excited to read your review! We're sailing on the Magnifica in June. Hadn't planned any time for Hamburg, but now might have to reconsider! You embarked at the Altona cruise terminal, correct?

 

Looking forward to reading more! Thank you for sharing your thoughts.

If you can spend some time in Hamburg I highly suggest it.

Yes the Altona terminal was where we embarked.

Embarkation and really the first day...

As I said we checked out right at 11 am, walked outside to catch a taxi (a stand was right outside the hotel) and in about 20 minutes (not really sure I wasn't really looking at the time) we arrived at the Altona terminal and saw the ship.

So it is now 11:30 am, our suggested boarding time was 16:45, but I discussed with my friend our options which were basically wait with luggage somewhere and we both decided to just go to the terminal and wait there. Boy were we wrong!

Our taxi pulled up right to some waiting MSC employees who happily stapled our luggage tags on and whisked our bags away while sending us up a short walk to the actual embarkation room, we walked right in (following what looked like a large line of people) we twisted through the ques and arrived at the end, each counter agent was full and remaining in front of us was 2 groups/families, in about 2 minutes we were checking in with an agent. Then was security, my carry on duffel bag was in the process of breaking and I needed a minute to regroup, then the zipper fell off completely, so it turned into about 5 minutes, we then walked through the security scanners and onto the ship about 5 steps onto the ship and the strap to my duffel bag gave out and it landed on the floor - luckily my best friend carried it for me after that. It was 12 pm and we were sitting in the Tiger Bar thinking - now what?

We had received some papers, our rooms would be ready at 2 pm, the welcome aboard buffet started at 11:30 am, but we had eaten a large breakfast anticipating a wait of some kind... so we sat in the bar and watched some shows on his laptop. At 1 we wandered up to the buffet to check out our first of many meals - we both found items that we enjoyed and at 2 headed to our room - 9119 a balcony (note we booked an interior Bella experience, but were thrilled to see the balcony room upgrade :) ) Also our luggage was already there so we unpacked - This was a first for me, being completely unpacked before the Emergency Drill which was scheduled to take place at 5:15 pm. We wandered around to explore the ship and then arrived promptly at 5:15 with our life jackets and with about 20-30 people with us we did the drill. It lasted about 30 minutes, then we had dinner in the buffet again (I will say we saw a common theme in the food but it was a theme we enjoyed - calamari and especially the non-breaded kind! It or cuttlefish was available at both lunch and dinner pretty much daily), I have read so many reviews and whenever I read that the buffet only had fried foods or burgers and hot dogs I have to wonder if they just showed up at the 'grill' section and never went beyond that? I made sure the circle the entire buffet before eating as there were always different selections on each side! I also ate almost no fried food on this cruise at all!!

We then continued to explore Deck 14, take some pictures, share them on my Facebook which incites both envy and happiness from my friends, and made plans to see the show at 9 pm. The show was Italiamore and we both enjoyed it (again we saw the shows every night) I think my friend went to work out in the gym between dinner and the show, but that's where we ended up. The theme tonight was the 60's, 70's and 80's and they had a Flower Glory Party scheduled.

A side note, a lot of our time in between activities was spent hanging out and talking, we were never bored on this trip but our involvement in cruise activities is minimal at best.

We stayed up until 12:30 to see what snacks were served then (we both love food, and are currently on a strict work out schedule which we maintained on this trip, but everyday was almost a cheat day lol)

We retired to the room around 1 am ready for bed only to find no power working in most of the cabin - the bathroom light worked, and we were tired so we went to bed and decided to talk to someone in the morning....

Up next Day 2 at sea

Day 2 - a relaxing day at sea

So around 6 am I wake up to see my friend already awake, and he's headed to the gym, I wish him well turn over and go back to sleep. When I wake up myself around 9 am, I see that at some point he came back and brought some pastries from breakfast :) he's very thoughtful. (side note the chocolate twists at breakfast are our absolute favourites, and we may have brought a ziploc bag to keep some and there may or may not still be some in my fridge... no comment ;););) ) He came back from both breakfast and working out, and I was ready, he got ready we both left the room at 10:30 am where I went and had breakfast and he joined. Oh, and our power was magically restored in the room, so no need to tell anyone and we had no further issues.

We then went with our appointed time to the UK Passport check (I read another review where someone said just skip it and do it the day of because who wants to waste their time on the cruise?) we arrived, walked right up to the front and was talking with the agent within 2 minutes. Now this part of the trip got a little weird, I travel a lot and in my experience custom agents just want the answers to their questions quickly and usually don't need to hear from everyone at the counter. This agent though seemed very annoyed that I was answering all of the questions, here's the thing my friend and I work at the same school, live in the same apartment building and both were on the same school trip to London in February (she saw that stamp in my passport and questioned it). So after I answered she looked at me and my friend said "you do a lot of talking (then looked at my friend) do you not talk? Do you speak English?" so he of course answered, and then I just let him respond to the rest of her questions - one of my weirdest customs experiences I have to say right up there with a guy in Rome who didn't even look at my passport, just stamped it while staring at me, and the USA once when we got pulled into secondary and the guy said he could make us sing our anthem to prove we are Canadian (if he wanted too).... but I digress...

About 8 minutes after arriving we had new passport stamps and the rest of the day to ourselves. We walked outside on deck and there we started to see my favourite cruise thing in the world - dolphins! we saw so many of them, every minute or so a new one would replace the one we sailed past. They just make me so happy.

At some point we stopped at Guest Services to put money on the account (I always settle my bill in cash) and overheard the most interesting exchange - a gentleman was at the agent next to us asking to have his daily service charge reinstated as the night before he had canceled it in anger - I of course wondered what had happened to make him so angry to cancel it and it reminded me of the saying that I try to follow - before acting, sleep on it - things often look better the next day and if they don't, then act. These were thoughts though, and I did not ask, just moved on with the day.

It was time to shop, I needed a new carry on bag to replace mine that was now already in the garbage somewhere in the inner workings of the ship (taken away by the room steward the previous night after unpacking). I found a neat MSC one that is canvas in a navy blue and cost 18.90 Euros perfect for my budget as I don't really NEED a new bag (I have my main one I used on trips, I just didn't bring it on this trip) I just needed something for this trip. After this exhausting day, we went for a nap. (vacation naps are the best, am I right?)

We got up at 6:30 to get ready for the first formal night, and after getting all dolled up we went for dinner and were definitely the most dressed up in the buffet LOL I had a rather unpleasent experience with a bartender this night when I asked for a coke he told me it wasn't included (no drink package) and I said "I know, I intend to pay for it" found this rather odd, luckily it was the exception rather than the rule for the staff on this ship.

We then attended the show C'est Magnifique! and this I think was my favourite of all of the shows we saw. Vegas style variety and just very entertaining. It was very enjoyable other than the screaming child seated behind us - After the show we went for a walk, and then earlier to bed as tomorrow holds our first port day - Southampton and another check off my bucket list... tune in tomorrow for the next installment...

Yes you can Google the Chocoversum and it is so worth it! (it also took like 15 minutes to walk to it from our hotel)

 

The hotel was the Novum Hotel Grafe Moltke

Excellent! Thank you so much!

Will follow along, enjoying your review.

Celandine - Could you please share the name of the hotel in Hamburg? We will be staying in Hamburg one night post cruise and I would love any good hotel suggestions. Also, the Chocoversum sounds like something we would love...I assume I can Google to get some more info? Thanks and looking forward to the rest of the review.

We stayed at the Curio by Hilton Reichshof. Highly recommended. Opposite Hauptbahnhof, and round the corner from Lange Reihe which is a Street full of restaurants. I also recommend Neumanns for dinner

.

Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

I'm really enjoying your report!

It sounds like you had a very quick embarkation and pretty painless muster drill. Did it seem that only a small group embarked at Hamburg?

We stayed at the Curio by Hilton Reichshof. Highly recommended. Opposite Hauptbahnhof, and round the corner from Lange Reihe which is a Street full of restaurants. I also recommend Neumanns for dinner.

 

 

Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

Thank you!! Maybe I can snag the Hilton on points for one night. And Neumanns is now on my list!

We stayed at the Curio by Hilton Reichshof. Highly recommended. Opposite Hauptbahnhof, and round the corner from Lange Reihe which is a Street full of restaurants. I also recommend Neumanns for dinner

.

 

 

 

Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

When I stayed there many years ago before the renovations the Restaurant was designed like a cruise ship restaurant and according to Wikipedia has been kept.

The heart of the hotel is the "Restaurant Classic" with elegant wood paneling and a revolving gallery. It is set up like a restaurant on a cruise ship and the dining room was designed by the ship outfitters Friese in the style of a luxury liner. However the real showpiece is the bar, which was built in the 1920s in the Art Deco style and carefully restored in the course of reopening in 2015.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reichshof_Hamburg

I'm really enjoying your report!

It sounds like you had a very quick embarkation and pretty painless muster drill. Did it seem that only a small group embarked at Hamburg?

I think we must have been among the first to board and we must have been scattered around the ship because when we got off the ship in Hamburg there were a lot more people (and luggage) and we were one of the later groups getting off (9:15 am)

I know I read stories of others waiting for hours, but we must have arrived before the crowds.

My apologies for not posting yesterday, I had no internet and could not fix that problem until after work today.

So on this beautiful cruise morning we were pulling into Southampton - and of course it was raining and I remembered packing my suitcase and looking at my one jacket thinking "do I need it? what will I do if it rains?" so of course I left it at home (I really think living in Egypt for 7 years has made me forget what rain is really like). I did decide that I would enjoy myself no matter what, and my friend and I got up went for breakfast then met our tour group at 9:45 am we were headed to Stonehenge and Salisbury.

(mildly interesting side note, the night before my friend and I had no idea what we were doing other than Stonehenge. We had pre-booked this excursion weeks ago and simply selected the one that read Stonehenge. So that morning on the bus we were trying to piece together what exactly Salisbury was...)

We boarded a coach, met our guide and driver. Our tour guide was rather odd (very nice mind you, but odd - she made a lot of jokes about marriage and men and women, like men hate when women shop and men aren't romantic.... it was just odd). We traveled to Stonehenge and the guide actually lent me her umbrella, and we explored the site. I had always wanted to go and it was as impressive as I imagined, though I would have enjoyed better weather. I did give up on the audio guide, and after some time in the cold wind and rain we headed to the visitor center to warm up and rest. Definitely enjoyed the free WiFi. After a rest and wander around the gift shop and museum it was about time to board the bus again and head to Salisbury.

We learned about the city and then as we got closer things got a little weirder. The guide was trying to instruct the driver to drive us through the city so she could show us around and set up the buildings before getting off to explore. This turned into the two of them almost arguing about it and the only way I could describe it was parents fighting in the front seat while the 'kids' were in the back listening. Well after all of this we did make it through the town, and drove past the ZiZi's restaurant that has been closed since some time in March (It's the one connected to the poisoning case of the ex-spy... my friend and I definitely found that interesting).

We got off the bus at one of the gates near the cathedral and then my friend and I kind of split off from the group to explore the cathedral on our own. It was lovely and we enjoyed seeing the Magna Carta as well. When we finished we headed back to the bus meeting point and got on and we both pretty much fell asleep until getting back to the ship.

Once on board we finally had some food (it was an 8 hour or so tour, and we didn't opt to have lunch during it). Then it was time for a work out before the show tonight which was Romeo and Giulietta (a story inspired by Romeo and Juliet with a slight twist) It was another enjoyable show. After the show we went up to the buffet for some water/tea and to chat, then off to get ready for bed.

Tonight's dress code was casual, and tomorrow is Le Havre. France. We had nothing immediately planned so hoped for a relaxing day.

Oh Le Havre, this was a day where things turned from good to not so good on a personal level - I got sick, likely sea-sick at this point (consider this the warning for future information in this post)

I woke up around 9 and did not feel well. We had nothing planned, we my friend worked out and we discussed ideas. It was once again wet, cold and dreary, so we opted to just stay on the ship. Niether of us were feeling 100% and decided we should rest.

We did have a nap later (well it started as a meditation) and after the nap I felt even worse. We at some point went for dinner but between dinner and the show I was sick, pretty much as soon as the ship started moving it did not agree with me and I was sick. I thought it passed and went to the show, I even had a 'snack' after the show (thinking I was better) and then in the cabin it got worse... the ship was moving so much my stomach was so upset, nothing was staying down and it was a really rough night... I was up every few hours as we sailed onwards to Belgium....

After the show we did stop at the Tiger Bar as I was seeking a Ginger Ale, and the bar tender put on the most amazing spectacle while serving it to me (much to the delight of myself and other guests). He threw the ice in the air and caught it, he did something with the can so it stuck to his hand and was like a vacuum effect, even in my upset stomach state this had me smiling and laughing. To cap it off, he said he took care of the cost for me.... definitely a high light for me, and much needed on this day.

Note the dress code tonight was Casual, and the show was Pura Pasion, featuring Spanish dancers. Not my favourite show, but I was not feeling well that could have made me dislike it a bit more.

The next morning - Belgium,

My friend was up early and asked if I wanted anything for breakfast I said maybe some bread, he came back later with a roll and some cantelope for me. He is so thoughtful. I did manage to eat that and settle a bit, so we got ready and discussed plans for the day. We had once again not made and plans in town, and with my rough night and more wet rainy weather we again chose to rest as we had a big day planned for Amsterdam.

My friend worked out and I relaxed, he ended up pulling a muscle in his workout so later in the day he rested and napped and I took my book to go read somewhere else on the ship (just needed to get out of the cabin). During my time reading I was in the Tiger Bar and I also watched some Dance lessons, a trivia session and a stretching session. I did not participate in any activities, but they looked really well run and everyone seemed to be enjoying themselves. This definitely seemed better than my first MSC cruise a few years ago where the activities seemed less organised.

When I came back he was up and feeling a little better, tonight was elegant night again and we decided to dress up and enjoy ourselves.

We had made plans to go for dinner and see the 19:45 comedian show (John Evans) and then the 9:15 pm show Elisir (another show I loved, not quite as much as C'est Magnifique but still close)

Let's talk about the comedian first though.... I love live comedy, and was excited to see the show. I did not care for the comedian though. His jokes were old and this made his entire set completely predictable. The other problem with old (over used) jokes was that some of them were a bit sexist/inappropriate. I wasn't offended, and I do know that humour is subjective, I just didn't enjoy it at all (niether did my friend).

The show Elisir though was another very enjoyable show. I do like dancing and acrobatics (Cirque du Soleil is one of my favourite experiences). After the show we did our nightly wander, I think my friend might have checked out the 12:30 am snack offerings, then we went to bed.

The next day was Amsterdam and we had big plans.... I will post more tomorrow (maybe try to finish the report tomorrow even)

Thank you all for reading so far :)

Amsterdam day....

We woke up and luckily our tour wasn't too early, meeting at 9:30 am for our trip to the Keukenhof gardens - I mentioned earlier that I am going back to Amsterdam (and leave this Friday) and this was the reason we wanted to go at this time of year, the fact that the cruise stopped here for a day was just a pleasant coincidence.

We got our tickets, then outside to the bus and drove the almost 50 minutes to the gardens - the parking lot looked packed, but the actual gardens didn't feel too crowded. We discovered that the Romantic Roses event had just started this day and roses happen to be one of our favourite flowers, so we enjoyed that area a lot, and wandered around a few more areas. It was almost time to leave and we had seen about 1/2 of the garden, we decided to return on our upcoming trip (so hopefully will make it back this weekend). These gardens are beautiful and only open about 2 months a year and I highly encourage you all to visit.

The different variety of tulips were amazing, and some of them were over 2 feet high! It was incredible, on a more personal note I was still not feeling 100% but was definitely better than the previous day. After our time ended we decided instead of going back to the ship we would go downtown to explore a little bit. Just before it started to pour rain we hopped into a cafe to relax...

after the rain we headed back to the ship - the ship was spending the night in amsterdam, but since we were coming back in 2 weeks we decided to spend a quiet night on the ship. We had an early dinner and decided to hit the first show at 7 pm - tonight's show was The Young Master - inspired by Harry Potter, we decided if we liked it we'd see both shows.... well, the show was weird. I won't say it was bad, but it was definitely weird.... Tonight was also the White Party, though we did not partake (I don't actually own any white clothing).

After enjoying the night out a bit, we watched a movie in our room and slept early. The next day leaving Amsterdam and sailing back to Hamburg.