Aft Cabin advice on Magnifica Please

[Luxury For Less]

Hi All,

 

We are thinking of doing a December Mediterranean cruise on Magnifica. We have been offered an aft cabin on Panarae Deck (9223 and 9220). Are these good cabins?

Thanks in advance

:)

[Capricruiser]

I don't have any direct experience either with the Magnifica or with aft cabins, but generally, in an aft cabin you stand more risk of up and down motion when the sea is rough and vibrations/noise especially when maneuvering in port. I always seek a mid-ship cabin (for stability) with other cabins on the decks above and below mine (for minimum noise levels). There's nothing worse than having your cabin on an upper deck directly under the lido and having to hear the deck crew moving the sun loungers back and forth at 5 or 6 in the morning. Hope this helps.

[vijoge]

Hi All,

 

We are thinking of doing a December Mediterranean cruise on Magnifica. We have been offered an aft cabin on Panarae Deck (9223 and 9220). Are these good cabins?

Thanks in advance

:)

 

We had 9221 on the Poesia and we loved it. This is our preferred location on any ship that has rear-facing balconies. Others may not feel the same and some complain of excess vibration, noise, and/or motion, which is not an issue for us. Only you can decide if this is a good location for you and your family.

 

As far as the cabin itself goes, yes, these are very nice cabins.

[oceanbabe]

Hi: We usually like aft balconies. You dont have all the traffic of people walking back and forth in front of your cabin. It is more quiet. You get to walk off the calories. We will be on the Magnifica in cabin 9203 on May 22 from Venice. Havent yet found anyone on cc on our cruise. Guess we will be the only English-speaking people on that cruise. Elaine

[onthebalcony]

Hi Elaine,

Four from the US are aft on the Magnifica for the Dec. cruise, deck 8. We usually try for the middle for more stability, but this location looks good on the deck plan as being close to elevators/stairs and less traffic.

 

No one else has responded to my thread either. We may be the only English speakers also!!

 

Does your cruise stop at Trieste? I emailed MSC about the change I read in other threads that Ravenna was replaced for Trieste in 2011. I was told that there is no change of port for our cruise and would be notified if so.

Oh well, I guess we will just have to wait until we are closer to the cruise.

 

Sure is interesting reading about MSC!

 

Your cruise is coming up fast. Hope you get some responses.

Have fun!

Anne

[arlenez]

Hi: We usually like aft balconies. You dont have all the traffic of people walking back and forth in front of your cabin. It is more quiet. You get to walk off the calories. We will be on the Magnifica in cabin 9203 on May 22 from Venice. Havent yet found anyone on cc on our cruise. Guess we will be the only English-speaking people on that cruise. Elaine

 

Hi:

 

We like aft balconies too. We will be on the Orchestra on May 22 from Copenhagen in cabin 9223 and haven't found anyone on cc on our cruise either. MSC assures me that there are a lot of English speaking passengers on all their ships. Do I believe them? Not!

 

Have a great cruise.

 

Regards,

Arlene

[onthebalcony]

Hi Arlene,

The four of us are from CT, Hartford and Newington --- too bad you aren't on the Dec. 8 cruise because there would be 6 English speaking passengers all from CT!! I also wonder how many there will be on our cruise. Makes it hard to plan independent tours if there are no responses from other cc members to a thread relating to your cruise!

 

Have a wonderful cruise!

Anne

[onthebalcony]

Hi Arlene,

Just read all the cruises you have been on and we were just on the NCL Sun around the horn in March!!

 

We had a great trip even after reading about all the negative comments about NCL in cc. Not our favorite cruise line but certainly not as bad as cited here. Also very reasonable!!

 

Anne

[arlenez]

Hi Arlene,

The four of us are from CT, Hartford and Newington --- too bad you aren't on the Dec. 8 cruise because there would be 6 English speaking passengers all from CT!! I also wonder how many there will be on our cruise. Makes it hard to plan independent tours if there are no responses from other cc members to a thread relating to your cruise!

 

Have a wonderful cruise!

Anne

 

Thanks, I hope you all have a great cruise too.

 

Regards,

Arlene

[Luxury For Less]

Hi:

 

We like aft balconies too. We will be on the Orchestra on May 22 from Copenhagen in cabin 9223 and haven't found anyone on cc on our cruise either. MSC assures me that there are a lot of English speaking passengers on all their ships. Do I believe them? Not!

 

Have a great cruise.

 

Regards,

Arlene

 

Hi All,

 

We have booked cabin 9220 as we thought it may be quieter in the aft being as we are doing a Christmas cruise for our sins so the ship is bound to be packed to the gunnels. Does anyone have any pictures of the aft cabins on this MSC class? I was wondering how much sun they get, if any?

 

I can't find a roll call for our cruise so guess I may have to start one and see if there are any other "English Speakers" onboard. Mind you, Cruise Critic isn't as big in the UK as it is in the US and many cruisers don't know anything about it so don't lose hope.

 

Enjoy your cruises and I look forward to your reviews.

Helen

:)

[Satincruz]

Hi All,

 

We have booked cabin 9220 as we thought it may be quieter in the aft being as we are doing a Christmas cruise for our sins so the ship is bound to be packed to the gunnels. Does anyone have any pictures of the aft cabins on this MSC class? I was wondering how much sun they get, if any?

 

:)

 

 

 

Hi Helen,

 

I found you some nice pictures from flickr that show Magnifica's aft cabins (the first one is VERY close-up!):

 

 

 

 

 

 

As far as getting sun on your balcony, you should definitely get some during the 2nd half of the cruise, starting right after Alexandria. Not before that, just based upon the itinerary--the ship will be heading mainly south up until then, so the bow areas will get the most sun at the beginning of that cruise.

[Luxury For Less]

Thanks so much Satincruz for the pics. All the aft pics I have found have been taken too far away to show the balconies properly. I must say the balcony furniture looks reasonable. Flikr looks like a good site for pics. We will certainly take your advice and plan to use our balcony for some winter sun during the second half of our cruise.

Helen

:)

[summer66]

We just got back from the Magnifica and though we had one of the suites on deck 14, after touring the ship, we decided that the very choice spot is the rear facing cabins. If we book again, and we'd be happy to do so, these are the cabins we'd pick. Although ours was very spacious and lovely, it was a little noisy (#14033) and the views in the back can't be beat!

[Satincruz]

Thanks so much Satincruz for the pics. All the aft pics I have found have been taken too far away to show the balconies properly. I must say the balcony furniture looks reasonable. Flikr looks like a good site for pics. We will certainly take your advice and plan to use our balcony for some winter sun during the second half of our cruise.

Helen

:)

 

 

Hi Helen,

 

Here's a link to the web page I'm looking at the itinerary on:

 

http://www.msccruises.co.uk/crociere/cruise.asp?id=45332&page_id=

 

I just realized that you also should get sun on the afternoon of your first sea day, right after you make the turn towards Rhodes.

 

I have friends in UK, and I know how especially important the sun is to you guys ;)

 

You should see nice sunsets from your balcony on Tues, Fri, Sat, and Sun (hopefully you will have all sunny days!)

 

These are some more photos of many different parts of the ship that were taken by someone who went to the christening in Germany (they put a link on the boards back in March):

 

http://www.schiffgiganten.de/schiffe/kreuzfahrtschiffe/msc/magnifica.html

 

And if you want to watch the original video that MSC made of it:

 

http://static.msccruises.tv/msc-magnifica/en/

 

Sometimes I don't like to spoil the surprise for myself, but if you look at the pictures now, you may forget them by December :)

[Luxury For Less]

Thanks again Satincruz for links. Yes, us English certainly enjoy a bit of sun, even our summers are hit and miss here. Hopefully the weather will be in our favour. We have chosen MSC mainly because they don't allow smoking on the balconies. On our last Princess cruise we couldn't enjoy our balcony without having the pleasure of our neighbours cigar smoke. Reading Magnifica reviews, it looks as though tolerance is going to have to be employed at the Trough (buffet) as pushing in seems to be the order of he day on the MSC ships. Oh well, when in Rome etc. etc......

Happy cruising

Helen

:)

[Satincruz]

Thanks again Satincruz for links. Yes, us English certainly enjoy a bit of sun, even our summers are hit and miss here. Hopefully the weather will be in our favour. We have chosen MSC mainly because they don't allow smoking on the balconies. On our last Princess cruise we couldn't enjoy our balcony without having the pleasure of our neighbours cigar smoke. Reading Magnifica reviews, it looks as though tolerance is going to have to be employed at the Trough (buffet) as pushing in seems to be the order of he day on the MSC ships. Oh well, when in Rome etc. etc......

Happy cruising

Helen

:)

 

 

Hi Helen,

 

You're welcome. Hopefully you won't experience too much pushing at the buffet (some cruises are better than others). But it looks like Magnifica's buffet will be set up exactly like Poesia's was, so there's one tip that has been on the boards for a little while that may help you: Go to the 2nd set of buffet lines (at the very back of the ship, on either side), as they tend to have much shorter waits than the buffets that are closer to the pools (many people never realize that there are extra lines). The very back of the ship is also usually a less crowded place to sit and eat :)

[crazymom107]

We had 9221 on the Poesia and we loved it. This is our preferred location on any ship that has rear-facing balconies. Others may not feel the same and some complain of excess vibration, noise, and/or motion, which is not an issue for us. Only you can decide if this is a good location for you and your family.

 

As far as the cabin itself goes, yes, these are very nice cabins.

i am booked in cabin 9221 on Poesia next month. I have been reading that there is a lot of smoking in the stairwell next to us. Is this true?

I too love the aft balconies but the smoking would be an issue.

I would love to hear about your experience with this.