Royal vs Msc

[cruisefanatic16]

hi I never sailed on a royal Caribbean ship however will be sailing on symphony of the seas this September. how does royal compare to msc? 

 

in the meantime I am debating if i should book another royal cruise before trying in September. I was looking for Anthem of the seas from Southampton September 2024.

 

Any help please as I am confused. 

[A&L_Ont]

6 minutes ago, cruisefanatic16 said:

hi I never sailed on a royal Caribbean ship however will be sailing on symphony of the seas this September. how does royal compare to msc? 

 

in the meantime I am debating if i should book another royal cruise before trying in September. I was looking for Anthem of the seas from Southampton September 2024.

 

Any help please as I am confused. 

Some will say book it, other will suggest you stay with MSC because of cut backs at Royal. 

 

My suggestion, even though I like Royal, is to wait until you are onboard.  If you like your experience book Anthem while on Symphony.

[deliver42]

Wait till you're on board because if you like it and want to book the Anthem and the Next Cruise desk, you'll get reduced deposit and some OBC. How much depends on cabin choice. The deposit will be #100.00 pp. You can either take NRD or refundable.

[cruisefanatic16]

thank you for your feedback the thing is currently there is a good price for this sailing.... and I don't want to miss out 😊

 

[Tree_skier]

4 minutes ago, cruisefanatic16 said:

thank you for your feedback the thing is currently there is a good price for this sailing.... and I don't want to miss out 😊

 

Book now with a refundable fare.  Cancel if you are unhappy with your Symphony experience.

[Liljo22]

11 minutes ago, cruisefanatic16 said:

thank you for your feedback the thing is currently there is a good price for this sailing.... and I don't want to miss out 😊

 

If you can swing the extra for a refundable deposit, go that route.  

[loug1601]

Hi,
 

I would book it now as non-refundable if you are happy with the price. I find the refundable fares to be too pricey to even consider, but check it out. 
 

The Symphony and the Anthem are to totally different ships and very different experiences. Try them both and see for yourself. I don’t think you will be disappointed. 
 

Note: Royal Caribbean is not as good as it was pre pandemic, but still a very nice cruise line. I think you will be pleased. 

Edited June 30, 2023 by loug1601

[Rewind]

I have done many Royal cruises and only one MSC cruise.  In general, I think they are more alike than different.  But a quick comparison of our one cruise on MSC Seashore:

Food quality is a bit better on MSC (pizza hands down is better).
Trying to find complementary food on MSC is more difficult; Royal has a good handful of complementary venues and someplace open 24 hours to find food.  At least on the Seashore, only the MDR and the Buffet were complementary and everything else was an extra cost.
The MSC production show staff did a different show each night.  Royal's production cast will do at most two shows, but they also have the Ice Skating show, the Aqua Theater show, and a couple guest performers.

I can't compare ship design across fleets with my limited MSC knowledge, but I will say the MSC Seashore felt very much like Royal's Anthem - to me both felt cramped and did not manage crowds very well.  I do love Royal but I'm not a fan of the Quantum class design - not saying I had a bad cruise, just didn't like the ship.  Same with MSC's Seashore - drove me absolutely nuts that there wasn't a place that passengers who did not book into MSC's suite classes could see where the ship was headed (no public spaces look forward).

However, I do think you will be blown away by Symphony.  There is so much to do on the ship itself, you might miss a few thing - we did while we were on a 12 night transatlantic on a sister Oasis class.

[cruisefanatic16]

2 hours ago, loug1601 said:

Hi,
 

I would book it now as non-refundable if you are happy with the price. I find the refundable fares to be too pricey to even consider, but check it out. 
 

The Symphony and the Anthem are to totally different ships and very different experiences. Try them both and see for yourself. I don’t think you will be disappointed. 
 

Note: Royal Caribbean is not as good as it was pre pandemic, but still a very nice cruise line. I think you will be pleased. 

agree the refundable options are not worth it in my opinion as too pricey 

[George C]

Loved msc pizza , I will also prefer msc yacht club over rccl suites.

[RFerrington]

14 minutes ago, George C said:

I will also prefer msc yacht club over rccl suites.

What did you prefer about MSC YC over Royals Suites class ?

[cruisefanatic16]

39 minutes ago, George C said:

Loved msc pizza , I will also prefer msc yacht club over rccl suites.

msc pizza pasta and sweet items are to die for !

[DrProfessor]

We're in the exact opposite boat (no pun intended, but it works).  We have only been on Royal and have our first MSC cruise booked (YC) in Feb 2024.  We just made diamond and are looking forward to trying something new - mostly because of the skyrocketing Royal prices.  We still have 3 other RC's booked, but figured why not try another line that is a little more reasonable on pricing these days.

[Russ Lomas]

3 hours ago, cruisefanatic16 said:

agree the refundable options are not worth it in my opinion as too pricey 

Booking through our travel agent, he almost always can get us the refundable cruise through him for the same price others pay for the non-refundable deposits through the cruise lines.

[toxicfairy]

We've done 8 royal caribbean,  1 with HAL , 1with MSC.

 We didn't like much of anything about the MSC. The main dinning room we were in looked like someone's family room from the 70's all brown wood panel. We were trying very hard to like it but we all decided never again. I guess we're just too use to Royal. 

The one HAL cruise we did was in 2006 and it was just not for us. We did that one because our friend got a group rate and we got some extra perks. But there was not much to do in the evenings and the entire hall way looked like a scooter parking lot. Lol I think at the time it was just geared towards a bit older crowd.

For us we'll stick to Royal.

[George C]

3 hours ago, RFerrington said:

What did you prefer about MSC YC over Royals Suites class ?

We, normally book grand suites on royal and definitely prefer MSc yacht club, yacht club offers butler , entertainment from 5 to 11 in suite lounge , great outdoor area with restaurant pool and bar , butler escorts you to shows , suite lounge has free drinks all day , much nicer private island suite area with waiter service for food.

[renza]

9 hours ago, cruisefanatic16 said:

hi I never sailed on a royal Caribbean ship however will be sailing on symphony of the seas this September. how does royal compare to msc? 

 

in the meantime I am debating if i should book another royal cruise before trying in September. I was looking for Anthem of the seas from Southampton September 2024.

 

Any help please as I am confused. 

MSC is horrible in so many ways. They don’t care is your trip was bad. They food is terrible, nothing like listening to 100 different languages to start a show. I can go on and on. There is no comparison, Royal is 1,000 times better. 

[Ourusualbeach]

8 hours ago, loug1601 said:

Hi,
 

I would book it now as non-refundable if you are happy with the price. I find the refundable fares to be too pricey to even consider, but check it out. 
 

The Symphony and the Anthem are to totally different ships and very different experiences. Try them both and see for yourself. I don’t think you will be disappointed. 
 

Note: Royal Caribbean is not as good as it was pre pandemic, but still a very nice cruise line. I think you will be pleased. 

 

6 hours ago, cruisefanatic16 said:

agree the refundable options are not worth it in my opinion as too pricey 

Find yourself a TA with access to group rates and you will get refundable rates for less and sometimes a lot less than Royals NRD rates.  

[cublet]

Hello,

 

The most frequent complaint I hear about MSC MDR food is: No lobster and few filet mignon offerings. Well that's less to do with MSC in particular, that's more to do with Italian cuisine in general. If you don't like it then the solution is simple.

 

Regards,

 

Cublet

[Giantfan13]

We are Diamond on Royal but we have done 3 MSC cruises and another booked for October. The first thing about MSC. If you booked them in the States it is so different cruising MSC in Europe. They deal with an entirely different clientele and, while we feel like strangers sometimes, as most of the passengers are European, we enjoyed those cruises. Their shows are well done and the cast of their shows, at least the women, are simply gorgeous.

Royal has been nickel and diming its passengers to death and continually taking away things that brought many of us to Royal in the first place. We still cruise with Rpyal but we are now exploring other options.

 

Cheers

Len

[ink76]

It seem to me that the reviews for MSC are getting better maybe they are finally got they North American sailing dial in to fit this market ? 

[SUgwoz]

The most common complaint I have seen is their handling of smoking. It's much more lax due to catering to European guests. Essentially they won't enforce rules, just strongly encourage for those to comply. 

[FamilyCruiserUK]

Having done both Royal and MSC this year its hard to compare them. 

All i would say is dont expect the service, decor, food and clientele to be the same across the two companies. 

 

I liked both cruises i went on for different reasons.

 

Free food: MSC

Extra paid food:, Royal but too expensive.

Decor: MSC

Customer service: Royal

Shows: Royal

Value for money: MSC.

Clientele: Draw, both had nice people and complete 🔔 wackers. 

 

But they both good in their own ways. 

 

[George C]

MSc also gives veterans a ten percent discount on cruise and will match status for most other lines to give you a 5 percent discount.

[Galveston Cruiser]

22 hours ago, renza said:

MSC is horrible in so many ways. They don’t care is your trip was bad. They food is terrible, nothing like listening to 100 different languages to start a show. I can go on and on. There is no comparison, Royal is 1,000 times better. 

WOW

The beauty of travel is different food.  Much prefer international cuisine to the typical fast food fare most Americans crave.  

Languages - the majority of the world speak something else than English.  Again the beauty of traveling

 

Having sailed MSC, the worst guests were Americans - rude, nasty and whiny.  Basically demanding a U S love boat cruise in English only with hot dogs and hamburgers.