We’ve just come back from our first cruise experience with MSC Cruises; a taster cruise starting and ending in Southampton with a day spent in the French port of Cherbourg in the middle. MSC have earned themselves a reputation for value for money but at the cost of lacking in certain other areas, and they’re a cruise line that appears to polarise people into the love or hate class. The price was right, the timing was right, so we decided to give them a go and see whether MSC might be a good fit for us on future cruises.
A couple of points before starting.
There may be people who say that a taster cruise of this duration isn’t going to offer up a fair comparison with the cruise line’s longer offerings, and we accept that and agree with that to a point, but taking out the people aboard – the hen parties, the younger crowd, the families – we should still get some idea about what MSC are like. That was our reckoning, anyway.
And we wanted to compare as much like-for-like as possible with the typical way we cruise so we opted for a balcony, used the on-board credit that was part of the booking deal to bump us up to the top drinks package, and had one speciality meal and one main dining room meal on the two nights.
Embarkation At Southampton
For us, this was an absolute breeze. It probably took us no more than five minutes from arrival at the terminal to boarding the ship.
Two things may have affected this: firstly, we only had carry-on luggage with us so didn’t have to look around to drop off big cases; secondly, we’d spent close to two hours stuck on the M27 waiting for a car crash to be cleared up and thus arrived during a quiet period in the middle of the afternoon. Virtuosa’s departure wasn’t due until eight in the evening so we hadn’t panicked during that wait. Much. Talking with the lovely person in the terminal we heard that some people had forgotten their passports and needed to quickly return to Leighton Buzzard to fetch them, so a good thing that the ship would likely still be there for them on their return.
The only oddity about boarding was passing through security first. I’m sure there’s a good reason why that appears to be the opposite way to every other cruise line we’re been with.
MSC Virtuosa Cruise Ship
Some thoughts about the ship.
We’d not been sure what to think of the Galleria Virtuosa – the long, two-level street-like arrangement on these MSC ships with its fancy curved displays overhead – because it was such a different concept to the typical atriums or piazzas that other cruise ships we’ve sailed on have. We had some preconceived ideas that the display would be gimmicky – and it was – and that it would be noisy and crowded and, yes, to an extent that was true, but we hadn’t considered that we’d actually really like it. And we did. Particularly once we found “our bar” – L’Atelier, in case you’re wondering – which offered us a great people-watching spot that really worked because there were locations either end of it that people wanted to move to. This did a great job of simulating that outdoors café on a Mediterranean evening feel.
The variety of bar types in this area was quite nice too: the pub, the Mediterranean café, the champagne bar, the futuristic bar. However, service was a problem. Table service only seemed to exist in the champagne bar. L’Atelier was fine because it was never crowded so getting a drink was the work of minutes. The Masters of the Sea pub, though: yeah, forget it. Absolute mad scrum across the entire length of the bar with no concept of queueing in place. It’ll probably appeal to the Wetherspoon crowd because there was the general selfish attitude on show there that I associate with that craphole of a pub chain.
We also headed up to the Sky Lounge at one point just after the ship had departed and found seats easy enough. We saw someone approach the bar and get told to sit down as someone would serve them so we sat down too, and on the table adjacent as well. Table service, we thought. At last. That’s better. And then we watched the waiting staff go around all the other tables, then go to the table next to us with the people who’d been told to sit down, then look across at our table and our cards ready to show and ask for a drink, and then walk off, ignoring us. Probably need to serve drinks and then they’ll sort us out, I suggested to my wife. But, as you’ve probably guessed, that wasn’t the case at all. We walked out of there without any drinks after half an hour of fruitlessly trying to catch the eye of literally anybody at all.
We thought we’d check out the sail away party on the top deck for a change. We don’t normally, but new ship, new line and all that. It was average. Some dancing, some waving of flags, an attempt to form a conga around the top deck. We mostly tried to find spots to stand in that were marginally less sticky than other spots around. Naval folk who have fond memories of Joanna’s nightclub in Portsmouth and who want to relive that sticky carpet sensation we all associate with it might want to cruise on MSC Virtuosa and walk around the top deck for a bit. Why not see who can generate the loudest suction cup popping sound? How about recreating that Michael Jackson lean trick?
That stickiness was one facet of what we saw to be a generally filthy environment on the top deck with food and drink littered everywhere. A lot of that you can point to the passengers on board and say that’s not on MSC. But there weren’t enough people obviously cleaning up, and that general stickiness suggests that’s a lot of build-up of spilt liquids not being properly cleaned over a lot of time at work there.
However, top deck and nightclub aside – yeah, we went to the nightclub to dance (briefly) and chat (for ages) with some fellow cruise blogger people (hi Sabrina and mum!) – we generally found MSC Virtuosa to be very clean.
Food And Drink On MSC Virtuosa
The drinks on MSC Virtuosa were great. We loved the variety, the quality, the strength, and the drinks package was great for unchaining the bar staff and allowing them to conjure up anything they felt like giving you depending on how nice you were to them. Again, hats off to the L’Atelier bar staff here because they were absolutely superb.
Food on MSC cruise ships has been something we’ve heard a lot about with a lot of bad tales being most prominent. Sadly, we’re going to have to add to that collection.
On the positive side, the food range in the buffet was very good and desserts we ate were tasty.
Yep, I think that’s covered all the positive aspects of food on Virtuosa.
A burger at the pool grill was stone cold. Maybe it’s something that stays warm under the heat lamp in the Caribbean or Mediterranean when there’s not a strong wind blowing across the deck, but in the UK when the wind has a bite to it that food has a warm-life measured in seconds. At least the food in the buffet will be warm, we thought. Wrong. Nothing we managed to pick up was a good temperature with some of it being that way as soon as we picked it up and some of it getting that way thanks to the worst layout of a buffet we’ve ever seen on any ship leading to enormous queues all around it and no ability to keep the one or two warmish things that way before getting everything you want to eat on the same plate and back to a table. That happened for both breakfast and lunch. Terrible.
On the first night we managed to get into the Butcher’s Cut steakhouse speciality restaurant because our loyalty match status allowed us one free speciality meal. More on that later. The location was lovely, the service was great, the staff were friendly. The fillet mignon steaks that we both had looked gorgeous, were perhaps a smidge overcooked (but nothing worth complaining about), and were so tender to cut. If I’d closed my eyes, though, and you’d told me I was eating textured water then I might have believed you because, unfortunately, they were utterly lacking in flavour. Like: is this meat at all? We wondered whether any meat heathens who have their steaks done well would notice because, obviously, well-done steaks remove all the flavour anyway. We’d asked for rare, and we always ask for rare specifically so we can taste the meat and know we’re getting the good quality stuff they can’t burn and disguise. My wife described the texture of the prawns she had for her starter as vile, like rubber. Had we paid for this meal then we’d have been upset.
On the second night we tried out the main dining room. We’d been assigned late seating (not a fan of assigned times, but so be it) and joined a couple of women on our allocated table for six who were surprised that they weren’t dining alone on this night. They were also absolutely shit-faced but friendly and entertaining for it. None of us were impressed by the menu and we asked whether it had been any better the night before. No. Nevertheless, we ordered and our waiter was great and the company was great. The service was all over the place with half of us getting plates and others waiting ages with lots of “No, don’t wait, please start, yours will only get cold, well colder” pleas, naturally. The food was generally considered abysmal. Texture was wrong, temperature was wrong, soups were watery.
In addition, we have to conclude that someone high up in MSC once remarked that he or she quite liked tough, dry, chewy bread and that it’s been company policy since then to only serve it that way.
Virtuosa Likes And Dislikes
I’ve already said we liked the drinks and drinking venues in general but we’d love to see a lot more table service.
The Bluetooth speaker in our room was fabulous. That’s something we’d love to see on more cruise ships. Great for sticking on music from the phones.
The bed was the best bed we’ve ever slept on at sea. Beautifully firm. Just an absolute joy of a bed.
Sitting in L’Atelier and watching people walk along the Galleria Virtuosa was excellent; a very good evolution of the piazza concept on a cruise ship.
The base price for MSC is extremely competitive. Now, naturally, a lot of people have mentioned that some of the issues we faced might be rectified by upgrading to MSC’s Yacht Club tier but that price increase negates the main selling point of MSC in the first place. And, besides, it’s a bit classist. We don’t mind a little bit of snobbery here and there, but we have our limits.
Just to drive the point home: the food was appalling.
The MSC app was so bad I wanted to cry. Using it prior to sailing was fine. Logging in once aboard, though. Oh boy. The killer here was that you needed to enter your month and year of birth. But you couldn’t just enter the year, you had to use their list of years to select the year. The scrollable list has years in the future in it to start with. Why are MSC allowing people who haven’t been born yet book cruises? Okay, that’s silly, but not as bad as having all the years you want to reach – those being years in the past – up the list from where it starts and therefore requiring you to scroll the list down. Except you can’t. Because a drag down with your finger triggers a page refresh which resets the other information you’ve entered. The only way to get to the year was to scroll up and down quickly enough to just show a tiny portion of the year before. 2023. Click. Scroll up then down. 2022. Click. Scroll up then down. 2021. Click. We are not young people. This was torture.
There was not enough seating in venues. MSC Virtuosa is a big ship, capable of cruising with over six thousand people. The location for game shows and quizzes looked like it could accommodate about four percent of that number at a squeeze. We love trivia and wanted to join in, but not if it meant standing thirty deep, twenty metres out in the corridor.
Information was lacking. This isn’t unique to MSC Cruises but it needs mentioning. We loyalty-matched prior to the cruise and that meant we had Diamond Level cards. Ooh! That meant we had perks such as free speciality dining, plus a bottle of Prosecco and some macarons and chocolate, plus priority embarkation and disembarkation, and the option of a late check-out from our room. Allegedly. Quite how any of this was supposed to be redeemed or requested was not communicated to us. The bottle and nibbles arrived the second day, and were very nice. The speciality dining was something we had to walk up to a restaurant aboard and ask about; there’s no way to pre-book and no indication whether it’s your steward, a phone number, guest services, or the restaurants when they actually open that are where you need to enquire, but it’s the latter just so you know. Embarkation and disembarkation was irrelevant on this cruise, and staying in our room later than the 7:30 they wanted everyone out by might have been nice if we’d known who or how to ask about it.
Cherbourg
A quick mention about the port of call on this taster cruise aboard MSC Virtuosa while I’m here.
Cherbourg is a terrible, terrible port that shouldn’t be on any cruise line’s itineraries ever.
If you don’t head off on an excursion and you’ve been to the Cité de la Mer before (which is actually well worth a visit) then there is almost nothing to do at all to do or see in Cherbourg while a cruise ship is visiting. Nothing will be open until the ship’s about to leave. We turned up on the Sunday but it was the same on a Saturday when we visited before. The French people in Cherbourg do not want to adjust their lives in any way to embrace or encourage visitors – which is their right, and we love that attitude about France – but cruise lines should honour that and not subject their passengers to this very unwelcoming port.
MSC Virtuosa Cruise Conclusion
Would we cruise with MSC Cruises again? Out of the UK with a mainly British crowd? Absolutely not. The laid-back attitude aboard that would be great to experience with an international crowd would most likely start to feel like the clichéed “Butlins at sea” slur bandied about by anti-cruise dullards in that case. But, we would never rule out something further afield, definitely of a longer duration, and ideally while children were still at school. It’s a mix that could appeal given MSC’s pricing and interesting itineraries away from UK waters.
Us on an MSC Cruises trip in the future is therefore not a firm no, but a teeth-sucking perhaps.