MSC MAGNIFICA RETURNED 10th JULY

[sally10]

We have just returned from our cruise on the Magnifica. We found the ship absolutely fantastic, it was so clean and the staff were always cleaning some part of it every day. Our cabin was on the 10th floor we had a balcony which was fantastic as it was very hot every day. We found it a little bit small when the sofa bed was out for our daughter at night, it was hard to get around her bed and out to the balcony. They supplied soap and shampoo in the shower but I'd recommend bringing your own conditioner and shampoo as the shampoo was a bit harsh. The hairdryer was in the drawer a bit of a nuisance as you had to hold the button down and the cord was a bit short.

The crew were fantastic nothing was too difficult for them to make our holiday great. We asked for ice the first evening and never had to ask for it again it was put into our cabin every day.

We bought the water package and the soft drinks package the day we arrived, we didn't buy any of the alcohol packages, we just thought we'd buy as we needed.

We had read all the reviews about the food and this is our opinion only, the food was not great at all, we knew that it would be a bit cold and were prepared for that, the only nights that the food was reasonable was on the two formal nights. We went to the Asian speciality restaurant one night and the food was very nice there, portions a little bit small but good.

We arrived in Bari and did the open bus tour which we thoroughly enjoyed as we thought we wouldn't be able to see Bari just walking. There is a duty free shop just as you are getting on board and they have bottles of water small ones for 20c and larger ones for 50c so we bought quite a lot of water, enough to do us for a few days. We thought they might stop us with the water and minerals we we had brought a bottle of vodka and gin with us from Ireland in plastic containers and purchased the minerals in Bari, Tonic & Lemon.

We found the breakfast and lunches very nice but the same food every day, we enjoyed the lunch and breakfasts more than the evening meal. We had great company at dinner in the evening which made up for the food not being too good.

 

We enjoyed all our ports of call, found Istanbul a little bit hard sometimes with people trying to sell you things or get you into their carpet shops, but a beautiful city. Dubrovnik was our favourite but felt we didn't have too much time there it would have been nice to have about 5 or 6 hours there. We walked the walls of the city and had a lovely lunch there and then back to the ship.

 

There was two formal evenings, my husband had brought his monkey suit but there was no need to wear it as there was only one man in the dining room with one on. It was just a shirt and jacket no need for a tie either.

 

Our daughter is 13 and we thought there would be more entertainment for her more organised stuff for her to do, she went every evening to see if things were on but found no one there, maybe she was in the wrong place who knows, but we found RCL better for organising things for teenagers to do.

 

If anyone has any questions about any part of this wonderful trip, feel free to ask.

:)

[onthebalcony]

Thanks for your review. We are on the Magnifica in Dec. and are going with an open mind with all the comments I have been reading. If we don't expect much we will be ahead of the game if things turn out well!!!

 

When you mentioned the tour bus in Bari, is that one of those on and off bus tours around the city? We have done others in Europe and find them very good.

 

Did you use the ship's tours or did you do independent ones.

 

There are no CC members in the thread for the Dec. 8 cruise. I am hoping we get some members who would be interested in some independent tours. Never been in a CC roll call with no other members!!!

[sally10]

We went with an open mind too, and really enjoyed ourselves. Yes in Bari we did the open tour bus independently of the ship, we always find them great wherever we go, we also did one in Istanbul too which was great too. We didn't do any of the ships tours did everything on our own, we always find it works out better value. Our friends on the ship did the tour to Ephesus and really enjoyed it, we just went around Izmir ourselves.

[onthebalcony]

Thanks for the info on the tour bus. I hope it will be running in Dec!! We use them whenever we can also. On our last cruise "around the horn" of S. America we did all independent tours and they were great!! Trying to plan the same types of tours for this cruise. I sure hope we get some responses in the Dec. 8 thread so we can get more cruisers to join our tours.