MSC Euribia Cruise Review

After our final port stop in Norway, we had one more "day at sea" aboard the MSC Euribia. Because both of us weren't feeling well, it was great to have a free day to rest and try to recover from the flu. As we prepared to repack our suitcases, we made a list of the differences between the cruises we had taken from American ports, and this European cruise on the Italian MSC cruise line.

First of all, Euribia was beautiful! Built in 2023, it was new and sparkly and probably the nicest ship we've ever sailed on.

We had passengers on this cruise from 55 different countries. That leads to all kinds of interesting situations. Announcements were made in eight different languages, but we had to be on our toes to listen fast because English was always first. We were amazed at the woman that made announcements in all those languages fluently. During our seven days of sailing, we were often in large crowds of people; but we were unable to understand anything that was being said around us. We found that we became hungry to hear English conversation again! We found two other families from the United States, but both were in the military and stationed in Europe.

The evening entertainment was very good, but we realized that it included almost no spoken language. We had acrobats and magicians and musicians, all performing without talking. The few songs that were sung were done in English. Being in a European crowd, we found that they applauded as soon as the lights dimmed before the program even started. In fact, they play a clapping song that gets the audience warmed up before the entertainers start. Passengers had to make reservations for a seat at the evening entertainment, but on this Italian ship reservations couldn't be made until that day. We had to be fast to reserve a spot each morning before they were all gone. Every performance was packed every evening, with people lined up hoping that all the reservations didn't show up.

Our inside cabin was bigger than other ships we have sailed, and our room steward did a great job of keeping it tidy. He spoke no English, so it was hard to communicate. Once again, getting towel animals in your cabin seems to be a cruise standard that most ships have left behind. Tips were automatically charged to our credit card for the service of our steward and waiter. But this European ship charged a smaller per-day tip amount than was charged on our U.S. cruises.

The elevators on the Euribia were very efficient. When waiting for the elevator, you must put in the floor you want to ride to. Then it groups passengers so you don't have to stop at all the floors. Smart! While we have seen long lines at elevators on other ships, we never saw that happening on the Euribia. We have always stayed away from cruise ship elevators, choosing to take the stairs so we didn't feel guilty for all the extra desserts we were eating. But because we didn't always feel well on this cruise, we enjoyed these fast and smart elevators.

We noticed that the buffet line and the dinner menus included more pasta than usual. We also found that you could eat pizza for free at all hours of the day or night on this Italian ship. But we were sorely disappointed to find that there was no free ice cream at the buffet. Passengers could buy it at the ice cream shop on the promenade, but Mark really missed his nightly free ice cream on this ship. Trying to feed so many people from so many ethnic groups is challenging for a ship this size. Denisa found that she loved the Asian roasted vegetables and fried rice on the breakfast buffet, as well as the baked beans on the English breakfast.

 

We enjoy the evening meals in the dining room, and this ship had the traditional seating where passengers go to the same dining room and the same table with the same waiter at the same time every evening. But we were a party of two seated by ourselves instead of at a bigger table. Of course, most people weren't speaking English so it would have been difficult to have regular table conversation anyway. We really liked our waiter, who communicated very well even though English was obviously not his first language. If we didn't clean our plates, he was always asking what was wrong and offering to bring us something different.

We got plenty of exercise at our port stops, but we still like walking around on the ship deck. We found that there was no place to walk outside except around the pool, and it was even enclosed with glass walls. MSC has used those delightful outdoor walkways to build more rooms with balconies to jam 6,000 people onto this ship. Also, one of our biggest complaints was that there was no place at all to view outside from the front of the ship. All of those best front-facing areas were taken up by the yacht club rooms, where commoners couldn't enter. Considering that we took this cruise to see the Norwegian fjords, it was frustrating that there wasn't a good open place to do that.

One problem with walking around the pool was that one side was the smoking section. That was a big change from sailing in the United States. People were allowed to smoke in more places on this European ship. Like all over Europe, there were more smokers on the passenger list. Some of the clubs allowed smoking, but it was interesting that smoking was not allowed in the casino. That's the one place that always smells smoky on cruises we have sailed out of the United States.

This cruise was definitely different than the dozen or so cruises that we have taken in the United States. But we think different is interesting. As the sun was setting on our last night on the MSC Euribia, we will give it very positive ratings as long as American passengers understand that it will be different.