Cruise Lines

The chiefs of MSC Cruises must have left Southampton after their hugely successful two-night visit with new ship MSC Magnifica this weekend with grins as large as the Cheshire Cat's.

Some 2,800 travel agents and top cruise journalists (and yes, yours truly was there) went down to see the ship over the two days and came away impressed with what we saw.

Words like "classy", "tasteful", "Italian" (well MSC is an Italian-owned company after all) were being bandied around with gay abandon.

And quite rightly. The hardware is impressive. Smart interior designs, rooms that flow well so it was easy to find your way around. There is no real "wow" - even the Tiger Bar was somewhat muted compared to its predecessor, the Zebra Bar on MSC Poesia - but I'm not sure that really matters if passengers come away liking what they saw.

Although this is a sister to Poesia, a few things have been changed. There are a couple of mini bowling alleys in the nightclub and one of the swimming pools has a roof that can be closed in bad weather. Very useful when you're in Southampton.

I was sorry to see the French-style wine bar on Poesia has been replaced with the Sporting (sic) Bar. It's very orange and not nearly as attractive, but it did give me a chance to pose in this bob sleigh!

Away from the design, however, there were service and food issues that need to be addressed if MSC wants to appeal more to the Brits. Which they do.They have MSC Opera sailing from Dover this year and it will be moving to Southampton in 2011, competing for the British pound with the likes of P&O Cruises, Royal Caribbean and Princess Cruises.

Service wasn't actually bad, but I felt the crew were going through the motions rather than giving that little bit extra. A cheery hello to acknowledge passengers, even if you just happen to be passing in the corridor, goes a long way. And you know, you can forgive a slightly haphazard service if you get plenty of smiles instead.

The cooked breakfast looked as if it had been sitting around a very long time and my dinner the first evening was poor, lacking in taste and served almost cold, which was disappointing. The second evening I was lucky enough to be in the Oriental Plaza Chinese restaurant (that's it pictured above), which was a much better experience.

Glasses still didn't get filled quite as quickly as they should have, but the waiter was a lot cheerier and helpfully produced a vegetarian option not on the menu when asked. And it was quite tasty too.

Having said all of that, I must acknowledge that the ship had only just come out of the shipyard in St Nazaire, so the crew were only just finding their feet. One has to be a little forgiving in those circumstances and hope that the shakiness was down to inexperience.

If it is, and they can get these issues resolved, this will be a great ship for the Brits. And just perfect for those cruises out of Southampton given it has that covered swimming pool and a lot more pizzazz than Opera.

MSC chiefs, take note!