Review of family cruise on Fantasia - 21/8/10

[ajd1969]

We have just returned from a family cruise on the Fantasia and thought that some of the highs and lows may be useful to others.

 

BACKGROUND

This was the first time we had cruised with MSC (we have previously cruised with Island, Ocean Village, NCL and Celebrity), and in addition to my wife and me, we also had an 11 year old and a 5 year old in our party.

 

We were a little concerned by some of the previous posts we had read on this forum, but overall we found the cruise enjoyable and most (but not all) of the criticisms we had read about did not apply on our cruise. We did try and remember that we had paid substantially less for the cruise than similar itineraries with other lines, and took this into account when forming opinions of the holiday.

 

Check in was well organised and quick and we were soon on the ship (we had seen some posts where people had found this slow and disorganised, but this was not our experience, however this may have been because we were embarking in Barcelona where there were less passengers getting on and off compared to Genoa). We had a first look around the ship and were very impressed with everything we saw.

 

FOOD

All of our previous cruises had 'anytime' dining, so this was our first experience of set dinner times. We were on the 1st sitting at 7.15pm, which was a little earlier than we would normally sit down to dinner, but preferable to the 2nd sitting which at 9.45pm was much too late for us. We had a table for four in the Red Velvet restaurant. In our opinion the food at Dinner ranged from fairly good to very good with a varied selection available each evening (and just in case none of the featured dishes suit you, there are steak, chicken, salmon and spaghetti bolognese available each night - except for the two gala nights which were Barcelona and Tunisia).

 

The big disappointment was the night we decided to have a night off from the Red Velvet and ate in the Mexican instead, which had no atmosphere, poor service and bad food (and we paid nearly €60 for the privilege).

 

The buffet for breakfast and lunch was average but a little repetitive and we had some reasonable 'snack food' in the Sports Bar. We didn't eat in the French restaurant.

 

ENTERTAINMENT

The evening shows were:

 

• Barcelona - 'Tribute' - An opera based show - we expected to hate it (as it is not our type of music), but were quite impressed.

• Marseille - 'Starwalker' - A Michael Jackson tribute show. Pretty good fun, but a shame that half of it consisted of a dancer dressed as MJ miming to the music.

• Genoa - 'Excalibur' - Song and dance show loosely themed on 'sword in the stone', featuring Irish dancing. Above average, but not amazing.

• Naples - 'Bolero' - Songs, dance and ice-skating. A bit dull for our tastes, but watchable.

• Palermo - 'Fantasie' - Songs, dance and acrobats. Dull as dishwater for the first half, but a strong finish with some entertaining acrobats.

• Tunis - 'Odyssey' - Again, songs, dance and acrobats. Good fun.

• Majorca - No show, had music around the pool instead.

 

In summary, the shows were fairly good, but two criticisms would be that from Excalibur to Odyssey the shows were all quite similar (after a varied start with opera and MJ), and the second one is that the cruise director talked for far too long before each show (mostly pushing excursions, spa etc).

 

Live music was provided in a number of other bars including:

• L’Insolito Lounge – Soft Rock / Pop – Pretty good, but the guitarist needs to cheer up!

• Manhattan Bar – Jazz – Might have been good jazz, but I can’t tell (not my cup of tea).

• La Cantina Toscana – Swing – Loved it, not because I like the style of music, just because the performers (4 SeaSons Quartet) were so good.

• Il Transatlantico Pub – Piano /Guitar – pretty good.

 

PORTS OF CALL

We decided that the trips looked too expensive, so when we did get off the ship we ‘did it ourselves’:

• Marseille – Got the shuttle to the town centre, went on the tourist train to the top of the hillside and then had a wander round town. Our little ones got tired quickly, but had we spent more time in town, there was plenty to see and do.

• Genoa – Got a taxi to the fantastic Aquarium (much cheaper for a family than the official trip). If we had allowed more time, we may also have visited some of the other attractions in the vicinity of the Aquarium. Warning – whilst walking near the aquarium I was the victim of an attempted robbery, two women supposedly selling maps pushed one in my face, held an arm each and managed to get my wallet out, but luckily when I swung my arm free I knocked the wallet out of her hand on to the floor (a very close escape), the women quickly disappeared into the crowd.

• Naples – Had a ship day as we had been there twice before.

• Palermo – Roamed the town, looking at the shops and visited a park.

• Tunis – Another ship day (didn’t fancy doing Tunisia by ourselves).

• Majorca – Took a taxi to the beach resort of Palma Nova (adjacent to Magaluf), and visited an amazing mini golf park (3x 18 hole courses) called Golf Fantasia (!) and then spent some time on the beach. Taxi cost about €20 each way.

 

CABIN

We had a balcony cabin on deck 11; it was very spacious with plenty of room for four. The main bed was huge and the sofa bed was a good-sized double. There is also plenty of storage space for suitcases under the bed. If you have phone or battery chargers then take a UK four way with a European mains plug on it as there are only two power sockets and they are so close to the desk top that our mains charger would not fit in.

 

GOOD POINTS OF CRUISE

With the exception of the kid’s club staff (see below), we found the staff on the ship to be friendly and helpful. Our waiter (Putra) was excellent and the supervisors in the restaurant came and chatted to us on a regular basis. The cabin steward was excellent and helped us sort extra bedding out so that the kids could ‘top and tail’ in the large sofa bed.

 

In Genoa, Naples, Palermo and Palma the ship parked up in easy reach of the town centre (In Marseille a shuttle bus was provided, although at €15 per adult and €6 for kids, this seemed expensive for the short distance).

 

The spa had regular ‘special offers’ and we took advantage to have a Balinese massage with hot stones plus an hour in the sauna / steam room for €65 each.

 

The drinks seemed a reasonable price to me and this could be reduced further if you buy the packages (10 soft drinks or 14 beers etc).

 

The pool area was really good, with plenty of sun loungers, good drinks service. We had expected (based on what we had heard) that the ship would be really crowded, but that did not seem to be the case.

 

The 4D cinema was good fun and reasonably priced (€7.90 each), but we didn’t try the F1 simulator.

 

 

GRUMBLES ABOUT THE CRUISE

Sometimes we would tear our hair out over some of the lack of organisation of the crew. One example would be having four different gangways open, but not using some for 'in' and some for 'out' (resulting in queues of people trying to get on and off the ship through the same door with the same man trying to scan people on and off which was chaotic).

 

We are non-smokers, but are quite happy for areas of the ship to be available for smokers, as long as there are areas for us also. The area around the pool was split with the port side for smokers and the starboard side for non-smokers, this worked (as far as I can see) very well. Bizarrely, on the last night at the pool party, as we sat down on our usual side, we noticed ashtrays on every table with people smoking around us. I asked the waitress about it and she said that the whole pool party area was smoking for this night only, when I asked why she said that the captain had decided!!! I pointed out that there were still no smoking signs on each of the pillars in the area, a few minutes later a maintenance man was sent to remove them. Shortly afterwards one of the ships officers was checking that all of signs were gone, so I asked him to explain why there wasn’t a 'no smoking area', he replied that it was because it was a holiday! I told him that I would prefer to avoid cancer on my holiday, and he just shrugged his shoulders and walked off. Even more bizarre, ten minutes later the waitresses appeared with trays, collected all of the ashtrays on our side and told everybody who was smoking to put their cigarettes out or move (which rightly annoyed them) and a few minutes later the maintenance man was putting the signs back up.

 

Our biggest grumble was the kids club that was very poor. Each evening’s programme followed the same format:

• 8pm to 8.15pm - Meet in Polo Nord - Kids sat amusing themselves, staff dealing with signing kids in.

• 8.15 to 8.45 - Disco - Kids running around whilst music play, staff sat talking to themselves.

• 8.45 to 9.40 - Hamburger or Pizza or Chocolate Party in Buffet Restaurant - Kids sat eating junk food - staff sat talking to themselves.

• 9.40 to 11.00 - Kids taken to main show in theatre - staff sit and watch whilst whispering to themselves.

• 11.00 to 11.30 - Kids taken back to Polo Nord to wait to be picked up - staff sort signing out kids.

 

As we were booked on the 1st seating for dinner at 7.15 and the kids club did not open until 8pm, the kids had to eat with us. We could take them to the kids club when we had finished eating around 8.30, however because the kids club goes to the buffet restaurant for nearly an hour at 8.45, they were not going to have much fun. The result was that if they wanted to use the kids club (which they were looking forwards to after Ocean Village and NCL), their evening consisted of 75 minutes in a restaurant with us, 55 minutes in a restaurant with kids club and then just going to the show - total play time = 0 minutes. This was a real shame when you looked at the excellent facility they had in the Polo Nord, which was only used on an evening for signing people in or out.

 

The other annoying thing with the kids club was that the staff made little effort to make sure our English speaking children understood what they wanted them to do or where they wanted to go, instead they just grabbed them and dragged them everywhere. After I raised an issue with them over this, it did improve. Overall, the staff in the kids club were lazy, surly and disorganised. Because our kids enjoy using a good kids club so much, this experience probably rules out another MSC cruise, which is a shame.

 

SUMMARY

Putting the kids club issues to one side, I would say the MSC Fantasia exceeded our expectations when you take into account the amount we paid for the cruise. If you have not got children, or if you have children who are not fussed about kids clubs then I would recommend MSC Fantasia as excellent value for money and a very enjoyable experience.

[MTL=CRUISEFAMILY]

SUMMARY

Putting the kids club issues to one side, I would say the MSC Fantasia exceeded our expectations when you take into account the amount we paid for the cruise. If you have not got children, or if you have children who are not fussed about kids clubs then I would recommend MSC Fantasia as excellent value for money and a very enjoyable experience.

 

THANKS FOR THE REVIEW

We are starting to look at MED cruises and this review helps.

 

What was the passenger mix? American? European?

[ajd1969]

Hi

 

Thanks for your comments.

 

The majority of guests were south european (Italy / Spain etc), perhaps as much as 80%. The other 20% seemed to be a mixture of Germans, Scandinavians, Brits and Americans.

 

Hope this helps.

 

Andy

[MTL=CRUISEFAMILY]

Hi

 

Thanks for your comments.

 

The majority of guests were south european (Italy / Spain etc), perhaps as much as 80%. The other 20% seemed to be a mixture of Germans, Scandinavians, Brits and Americans.

 

Hope this helps.

 

Andy

 

 

Yes it does, we are of italian descent and love to meet other nationalities.

 

You make reference to having done Naples a few times, Is there an absolute MUST to do in Naples?

 

Would like to get your preferences (must see ) as well, as it will be our first in that region, therefor having a hard time finding the perfect itinerary..thanks in advance for your comments.

[ajd1969]

Hi

 

Personally, my 'must see' when in Naples is the nearby island of Capri. The hydrofoils and boats sail from the harbour next to the cruise berths, so you do not have to do an official trip (but make sure you allow enough time to get back to Naples before your ship leaves).

 

My second choice in Naples would be a visit to Pompeii. Again we gave the official trip a miss and just agreed a fee with a taxi driver after getting off the ship (€80 to take four of us to Pompeii, leave us there for two or three hours and then pick us up and take us on a tour of Naples).

 

Andy

[MalNZ]

I know that this is months after your trip, but thanks for the great review.

We are a family with kids aged 8 and 9. Our grand daughters love to cruise and love the kids clubs.

Have been thinking of doing two European Cruises in 2012 but a bit worried now re the kids club.

They have cruised Costa and HAL - they prefer HAL, as both times have only had a few kids on board and they had a lot of one on one and got to do things that you could not do in a big group. Costa - picked wrong time - easter cruise and there were over 800 kids aboard. They went to every session but found the language difficult and there were a few out of control kids that they did not feel comfortable with.

Was it a school holiday time that you cruised?

We would like to cruise when kids are still in school.

Might have to double think MSC.:confused:

Thanks again

[ajd1969]

Hi

 

Yes, our cruise on MSC was in the (August) school holidays.

 

Andy

[MalNZ]

Hi Andy

Thanks for your reply. You must of had a lot of kids on board then like we did with Costa?

I think because our girls first cruise was with only 5 other kids and it was a really one on one experience the Costa cruise was quite an ordeal.

What is May/June or September/October like for cruising in Europe?

Is this school holiday period?

Thanks again

Mal NZ

[zangjuf]

Hey there

 

In europe september/oktober is off-season there's one week holliday in the month of may, loved by cruisers. High season july/august

 

we did an transatlantic in may and had also only a few kids.

 

greetings Lea