MSC Virtuosa Norwegian cruise

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Looking for opinions really!

DH has a big birthday next year and it’s been his dream to visit the Norwegian fjords. I’ve found a great deal for next August on the MSC Virtuosa ( 1 week all-inclusive balcony suite and premium drinks for £2.7k)….but I’m just interested to see if anyone has done the same cruise and whether they’d recommend it.

We would have DS7, who loves the look of the waterslides. The other option I’m looking at is P&O Iona.

Have you travelled with MSC before?

The fjord cruises are amazing- just check your ship can get in. If it's too big you'll miss some. But I'm sure it will be amazing anyway. I mean, we loved Flamm, but if we hadn't gone there we'd not have known what we were missing, IYSWIM.

Never cruised before and I’m a complete novice. The itinerary is Haugesund, Maloya, Flam and Kristiansand.

Ok, we have been on quite a few now.
We like MSC because the food is interesting. It's a multi course meal, so you need to order lots of courses. The meat course is only served with a garnish, because you also have a salad course and a pasta course. Each element of the meal looks incomplete to people used to English food. All the courses build up to a balanced meal.
I am more inclined to try new foods, because there's always something else if you end up not liking it.

Puddings I'd say aren't great. European cake- all froth and sponge.
The restaurant's were always better than the buffets, the pool side food was great.

The Flam trip is great. We've never been on the excursions there, just walked around- there's a small beach area, a waterfall, and just generally nice scenery. It's so quiet and peaceful there, once all the passengers have gone wherever they are going!

The other places I don't know about.

Check out the MSC virtuosa fb page and other MSC pages. I've been following them since last summer, lots of people with complaints, lots of people singing its praises, which you get with any review page I reckon. It hasn't stopped me booking an MSC cruise this summer, my first one so can't give you any feedback.

You can also look at the ship in detail on YouTube. The fjords look incredible so I'm sure you'll enjoy your trip.

We did the fjords on Iona last year. Amazing trip altho some of the port days changed last minute due to non-specified operational issues. Iona doesn't have the pool flumes etc, but does have a good kids club, cinema and other activities to keep DS entertained. I would happily recommend it.

The fjords are amazing and you’ll love them whatever cruise line you choose to go with.
MSC are pretty marmite. The virtuosa is a stunning ship with lots of fun extras such as the water slides, high ropes and bowling. They were been quite disorganised when I travelled on it, with lots of queues for activities, restaurants and bars. A lack of seating in public areas and shows are a bit random with no real storyline. However, if you are quite chilled and appreciate it is a good value holiday then you should enjoy it.
p&o tend to have better reputation for service and food quality, but with expensive drinks package and no water slides etc.

I think as a first time cruiser you'll enjoy it.
People who don't like MSC tend to really like a different company.

Americans like American companies, Brits often like P&O.

One of the things that irritates people is the many languages in use on MSC. They give every announcement 3 or 4 times- English, Italian, Spanish, German, French...