Should you Sail on the MSC Euribia? - Cruise Ship Review
By Scarlett Shepherd
The Ship
The MSC Euribia is a brand new ship to the MSC fleet. It is an LNG powered ship, and it boats an array of environmental stewardship initiatives.
From the outside the ship is beautiful, with an artistically painted hull. Inside the beautify continues, because this ship is stunning on the inside.
At the heart of the ship is the Galleria Euribia. This boasts a massive domed LED screen with changes patterns and designs. Beneath the LED screen is the promenade whic hosts bars, restaurants, and shops. The fun on the promenade does not stop here though, as it is a great destination for fun and partying most evenings.
At the end of the promenade, you can find the beautiful crystal staircases, which span from deck 5 to deck 7. These staircases are stunning and great to get a picture taken by them.
Away from the main central area of the ship, the careful detail for design continues. The elevator banks are large and stylish, with modern seating and art work.
The main dining rooms are also attractive in design, with good use of windows and lighting. However, they did feel a little cramped in places due to the large volume of tables.
The pool areas have also been carefully designed, with a large central outdoor pool that is complemented by statues, a smaller pool which makes the most of the stunning views from the back of the ship, and an indoor pool which is accompanied by a lovely backdrop with coloured lighting.
Although the ship is aesthetically stunning, it does seriously lack guest spaces and staff. For the capacity of the ship (which was full during our cruise), there is not enough communal areas. For example, there would be 3 theatre shows per night but these would all be fully booked, the bars and lounges would always be full, and there would often be a very long queue at the bar for a drink, as there was just not enough staff to fulfil the volume of orders.
The Cabin / Room
We had a balcony cabin at the front of deck 11.
We found the cabin to be very nice inside, and with the ship being new it had a new modern feel. There was a decent size double bed, sofa which converted into a single bed, built in wardrobes with sliding doors, large desk, 2 large mirrors and large TV. The bathroom was also good, with a decent size shower (for a cruise ship) with hard screen door, sink, shelves, toilet, and cupboard.
Although we felt the cabin to be of a good size, it was a tight squeeze if you are travelling with a baby. We found the cabin to be narrow, which caused some issues with the travel cot and pram. We took our Maxi-Cosi travel cot with us, and once this was up it would only fit in the space between the sofa and the desk, however, it would take up this entire space and there was no room left to walk around the travel cot. This meant we had to keep collapsing the travel cot when not in use, and it was also difficult if you needed to get past while our baby was asleep.
The other issue was the pram, we have a mamas and papas Occaro pram, and if this was left up, it could not be wheeled past the edge of the desk as the gap was too small. This meant having to store the pram by the door, which made it a tight squeeze to get in and out.
Despite some of the issues that we had with moving around our room due to the baby equipment, our room was always clean and well looked after by our room attendant. He was a lovely, friendly gentleman, who always did an amazing job, and after being on many cruises, we felt that he was one of the best room attendants that we had ever had.
As we had a balcony cabin, at the end of the room there was a large sliding door that led out to a decent size balcony with 2 chairs and a footstall. We like to have a balcony cabin, as sometimes we find the air to be a little too dry in the room, and opening the door helps to prevent that. Also, it allows for some great views of the sea and ports. The balcony in our room was metal at the bottom below the rail, due to it being near the front of the ship. However, most of the balconies on board will be glass below the rail.
Overall, we felt that the room was very nice. It was modern, with a very good TV size, a shower screen (which we loved that there was no shower curtain), and good amount of storage. We felt that the size of the cabin would be good for 2 people, or maybe 2 adults and 1 child who could sleep on the single sofa bed. The room was probably a little too small if you have a baby, as there is nowhere to store a large pram, and not enough space to walk past a travel cot once it is up. We have previously stayed in an Aurea suite on the MSC Virtuosa, and we found this room type to have enough room to store the pram, and ample space to walk around the travel cot.
The Food
One of the best parts of a cruise is often the food. Unfortunately, this is not the case with MSC.
This was my 4th cruise with MSC, and my experience with the food has always been the same.
The food in the main dining room and the marketplace buffet is always substandard, and by far the worst of all the cruise lines I have sailed with (Royal Caribbean, P&O, Princess, Cunard).
In the Marketplace buffet, there is very little variation of the lunch and dinner food between the days. Also, the grill area always had a very long queue which I did not understand, because the burgers and hot dogs served there were often cold, undercooked, and of a very poor quality. The meat on offer was always very fatty. There were times that I had lamb on skewers, where there was more fat on the skewers than meat, the same was also the same for some of the lamb and beef curries.
The food in the main dining room was also nothing special. It would be better than the offerings of the Marketplace buffet, but very substandard to other cruise lines. All the beef that I had in the main dining room was very fatty, dry, and incredibly tough to chew. Furthermore, the service in the main dining room was unfortunately very subpar too. I don’t feel that the poor service was due to the staff, as they all seemed to be trying their best. However, they seemed very understaffed for the number of guests, and this led to very slow service, with no time for pleasantries. On all other cruise lines we have found our waiters at dinner to be amazing, as they would be quick with orders, get food out as fast or slow as you wanted, and also take the time to laugh and joke with you, none of this happened on the MSC Euribia, as each member of staff was just too busy. On the 2 days that we went to the main dining room, it took over 30 minutes for our order to be taken, and over 2 hours for us to complete our meal. This was a big problem for us, as we had a 9 month old baby who we could not keep entertained at a table for that long.
However, where the main dining room lacked in flavour and service, the speciality restaurants made up for this. As we were expecting a poor main dining room experience based upon our previous experiences with MSC, we opted to pre-book the finest four dining package, which gave us a meal at each one of the four speciality restaurants onboard. These meals were AMAZING, and I would highly recommend any of these restaurants. The food was always fast, fresh, and of a good quality. Also there was a much better ratio of passengers to staff in these restaurants, and so the service was a much better experience.
Below are some image of our meal at Hola Tacos. This is an uncharge speciality dining restaurant, but for £16.99 per person you order as much food as you like from the menu. This restaurant is a must try! The food was fresh, there was LOADS of flavour, and the service was quick.
The Entertainment and Activities
The entertainment on MSC Euribia is a tale of two halves.
The daytime entertainment on the MSC Euribia is very substandard compared to other cruise lines. The activities team puts on a few quizzes and activities here and there, but we felt that there was not much happening from the activity team, especially when we compare our experience to what we have experienced with Royal Caribbean, who always offer a fantastic array of daytime activities. Due to this lack of daytime activities, we did find the sea days to be a little boring at times, which was something we have never experienced before on a cruise ship.
The ship itself does have some good activities which you can do at your leisure. These include the Himalayan bridge, which is included in the fare price, and is great fun to go on, and there is also the small waterpark at the back of the ship. This has 2 tube slides and 1 body slide. This is another area that is included and also great fun, but only if the weather is warm. There is also a selection of pools onboard, but the outside pools are only good if the weather is warm.
There are also upcharge activities including bowling, F1 simulator, 4D Cinema, and VR experiences. These are all very fun and worth doing if you have pre-bought the fun pass (as this will give you more credit for a lower price). However, you do need to book these early, especially the bowling on sea days, as they can get booked up quickly.
The evening entertainment onboard was much better. The shows in the theatre were of a good quality and very enjoyable. However, due to the large number of guests on board it was very difficult to get reservations for some of the shows, despite them being repeated 2 or 3 times per night. What this ship was lacking was the carousel production shows which are available on the MSC Virtuosa. We watched both of carousel production shows on the Virtuosa, and although they were an upcharge, we still thought that they were amazing.
Summary
In summary, the MSC Euribia is a beautifully ship with modern cabins. However, the size of this ship is just not suitable for the massive number of guests that MSC had on board each cruise, and this significantly impacts upon the experience.
The important thing to remember with MSC is that the fare prices are much cheaper than other cruise lines, and they seem to be achieving this though having much higher capacity ships. However, having such a large number of guests on a ship the size of the MSC Euribia leads to an overall poor experience in regard to service, which is noticed in a lack of activities, shows being fully booked, slow main dining service and long waits at bars.
There are ways which you can enjoy this cheaper price cruise and still have a good time, and if you go onboard the MSC Euribia prepared, then you may be able to avoid some of the issues. A key thing to do is to book all your shows early so you get a seat, and if you can afford the extra cost, then it is worth eating as the speciality restaurants due to the food being subpar in the buffet and main dining room.
Overall, we would cruise with MSC again, however, we would only do this if the price was cheap enough (as we go onboard expecting a lower quality of service), there was lots of port days (as the onboard daytime activities are lacking), and we were going to eat at a speciality restaurant every night (as the main dining experience is very slow with poor quality food).
To check out the review of our Northern Europe Cruise on the MSC Euribia click here.