MSC Magnifica picture heavy fun review -- 12 days British Isles incl. DIY port trips

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In the next installment I’ll tell you about why we chose this cruise and what we ended up packing for a northern European cruise.

Stay tuned.

Stef

Whoooo hooooo I'm in. Already grinning, :D

Hi Steph,I have been waiting patiently for this review, I am really looking forward to reading. I have enjoyed your last two reviews and I am sure this will be just as good. Can't wait for more. Thanks.

Checking in! Thank you for posting :)

Subscribed and happy!

I'm in too. Looking forward to seeing my home country through the eyes of another.

Thank you for taking the time to do this Stef. Will be following along.

Subscribed :)

Looking forward to yet another lovely review from you!

By the way, those pugs are very young, aren't they? We also have a grey pug-dog 9 years old, they're so cute! even if a bit messy sometimes! :D

WAHOOOOO and YIPPEEEE. Here we go. Might as well forget about my review as i'l be checking for updates here like continuously.

P.S Feel better soon Steffi

Excellent! Another review! I love reading reviews and looking at wonderful pictures!

PS. I know what you mean about grumpy teens! My son has just turned 13 but has been practicing for at least the last six months! :P

Can't wait to read more. I am sailing on Magnifica on the 14th of next month for the first time, and home is a village just south of Perth in Scotland, so lots of interest here.

Woo Hoo!! Can't wait to read more!!

After we returned from the Serenade of the Seas in 2013 it took me quite a while to write the review on that cruise. It was hard work, but also tons of fun. It seemed to draw the actual cruise experience into unbelievable lengths. I was almost high on having been on a cruise and feeling like still cruising months later. It was a rush. For me it was clear--- 2014 just HAD to be a cruise year again. Well, now I just needed to convince Tanja…Tarik wouldn’t be a problem.

We own a half-timbered house from 1838. There’s always something that needs fixing. We were on a budget for 2014. Mmhhh…how about a cruise, that would start from a port we could easily get to….without any flight costs?

First of all we looked at cruises from RCI, because that’s the company we cruised with twice before. The Legend of the Seas was scheduled to do the Norwegian Fjords during our summer holidays. It would only be a 7 day cruise, but it would leave from Hamburg, which is only 1 ½ hrs away from where we live.

Sounded pretty cool, although I felt a little odd for not having to plan way too much for that cruise…I figured: it’s nature. Stunningly beautiful, but that’s it. Finished. This might be wrong… as we didn’t end up taking this cruise, I didn’t look deeper into plannable stuff for it, so I might be completely underestimating the planners delight here.

I definitely want to do Norway in my lifetime, just a little later, when I ‘m ready to enjoy a relaxing cruise with not too much excitement.

What also turned us off was that the prices for kids in their cabins were just as high as if you’d travel with a third adult. Odd, this was different on our last two cruises. Maybe it’s a Norway cruise thing. Our budget wouldn’t be enough…even without a flight. Bummer.

But I kept on looking, since the thought about leaving out of Hamburg just didn’t let go of me anymore. That’s when I found OUR cruise. First I found the Norwegian route of the MSC Magnifica (already less pricey than the Legend, although longer cruise)…but after I scrolled down I saw the one British Isles cruise, that would fit neatly into our holiday plans. Tanja and I have been longing to see Scotland and Ireland for at least a decade. We never thought about cruising there, but heck this would be a wonderful way to get a first impression of both! And the price was --- let’s just say I did a little dance right there at the computer before I ran up to Tanja’s office to blabber something incoherently, squeeking all the time.

I believe it took me about two weeks to convince her -- well actually it was more like her saying…”aw, god just go ahead and book the damn thing and leave me alone.” I think I was quite the pest for those two weeks. But she was excited too (once I stopped constantly nagging her). We’ve never booked soooo early. It was October! Beginning of October even. How would I ever survive the wait till August 2014?

Answer: Easy! The planning drove me into unknown hights. As much as I wanted to see those countries I now realized how little I actually knew about them. So I started the cruise preparations slowly but steadily way before Christmas. And didn’t get done with it all until one month prior to cruising. Phew, I planned a lot. I’ll show you a picture of my gigantic binder in one of the next installments. I think I overdid it a bit. But I was giddy about all the stuff I would be able to tell my loved ones once we got there. Of course I plan to share some of it with you guys as well once we get there…patience.

Anyway, the cruise was getting nearer and while I started to pack stuff together Tarik and the other male members of this household chilled in the yard.

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Sigh, I wish I’d have to pack only for this kind of weather. But especially Ireland scared me a bit weatherwise, so I packed all kinds of wet weather gear to take along. But wait -- can’t leave out our only female dog:

This is Lena and she’s actually Irish. She came over here to us through an organization that saves border collies from Irish shelters. She was dropped off at one of those when she was still not a full year old, but had two 8 week old puppies along already (I really don’t want to know what happened to the other ones…I just don’t believe it was only two to start with). Scary, isn’t it? Well, they waited until the puppies were big enough for the journey and castrated Lena. Don’t worry, the puppies found new homes right away. Lena moved in with us, and we love her dearly. We told her we’d be visiting her home country soon, but she didn’t seem to care too much. She’s 10 years old now and quite a princess.

When the packing actually started, all the dogs got quite nervous though and acted as if they were our shadows. Unlike this guy:

This is Tarik’s favorite cat (snoozing away on his PJ’s).

But let’s continue with the weather. I checked the forecast for the ports we would be in for the last two weeks prior to the cruise...it pretty much came down to this: it would start off warm, would be quite rocky on the sea and would get colder and wetter as the journey continues. For our day in Cobh it even predicted heavy rain. So we had to pack for all of it. Sun, wind, storm, rain – hot, mild, cold, f***ing cold.

Well, with this “weather”picture shot out of our living room window I’ll leave for now to return with the actual packing pictures soon.

Stay tuned.

Stef

:Dthanks for the warm welcome everybody!

I'm so happy to see so many names that grew dear to me. Welcome, welcome, welcome to all of you!

Jules.,

Loved your post about "Pip":).

Elmartellama,

The black pug is also 9 years old...the tan one is 4 years old (he looks a wee bit different because he's onefourth Pekinese. I LOVED the pictures of your pug in your last review! So cute!

IrishCath,

Don't you dare to quit your review because of me!!!!!! I love to read it way too much! Pleeaaase?

:pThanks again for stopping by everyone:p!

Stef

And I'm in and ready to read more, more, more :)

So sorry to hear you were ill but pleased you're recovered enough to start your review.

Looking forward to all the info and can't wait to hear all your stories.

Carol :)

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This is Lena and she’s actually Irish. She came over here to us through an organization that saves border collies from Irish shelters. She was dropped off at one of those when she was still not a full year old, but had two 8 week old puppies along already (I really don’t want to know what happened to the other ones…I just don’t believe it was only two to start with). Scary, isn’t it? Well, they waited until the puppies were big enough for the journey and castrated Lena. Don’t worry, the puppies found new homes right away. Lena moved in with us, and we love her dearly. We told her we’d be visiting her home country soon, but she didn’t seem to care too much. She’s 10 years old now and quite a princess.

Hi Lena,

Just wanted to say that your Irish cousins Sam and Patrick think you are a very pretty princess.

Your story about Lena really moved me, we are so grateful that there are people like yourself and Tanya who are willing to adopt beautiful creatures such as her. There are a lot of these collie type breed in Ireland looking for homes and many end up in shelters. Some shelters do amazing work but others of course are not so great. We spend some of our spare time helping out in one of our local run shelters.

Both of our dogs are rescues also. The bigger one Sam came to us when my husband over heard a conversation in our local town that the man that owned him was going to shoot him because he was no good for hunting. The second or smaller one Patrick ( on the right in the pic) was straying in our area and when it was obvious no one owned him my husband again arrived home with another dog unannounced ! Of course I was delighted and the fact that they are pretty much the same breed is incredible as Beagles are quiet rare in Ireland. We went through weeks of trying to reunite him with any owner but he was never claimed. How on earth could someone not want this guy !! Some times we joke that Patrick looks like a Deutsche Bracke (what do you think ?) and we pretend that he speaks with a German accent while Sam speaks with a very broad Irish accent. I know, we are pathetic and spend way too much time imaging that these two guys are human.

Anyway, sorry to bore you with this long post. I'm just trying to fill the time waiting on your next installment heehee. OK i'm off to work on my own review now as I know if I don;t get some done today the rest of the week is looking way too busy.

And I'm in and ready to read more, more, more :)

 

So sorry to hear you were ill but pleased you're recovered enough to start your review.

 

Looking forward to all the info and can't wait to hear all your stories.

 

Carol :)

Hi Carol!

Whoohoo, glad to have you along for the fun...too bad you didn't cruise with us....this way I had no other maniac planner to exchange with beforehand and during the cruise....bummer. Hope you approve of the stuff I looked up by myself.

Stef

Yay! You have started. Been looking forward to this review, Stef.

Subscribed......

Hi Carol!

Whoohoo, glad to have you along for the fun...too bad you didn't cruise with us....this way I had no other maniac planner to exchange with beforehand and during the cruise....bummer. Hope you approve of the stuff I looked up by myself.

 

Stef

It was certainly strange planning for our Indy trip without bouncing ideas off you!!

I'm sure you made some very fine decisions :p and can't wait to read all about it :D

Carol

I head to the computer every morning with my cup of tea, hoping for the next installment of your review. Thanks, Steph, for taking the time to let us all enjoy your trip with you.

Subscribed! Hope you enjoyed your first MSC experience as much as we did ours! We also book early - I mean, you just have to have a cruise booked so you have something to look forward to! We're back with Royal Caribbean next July - can't wait!!

I'm also looking forward to following along with your review! And I think your cat is the twin of ours. :)

The packing was tricky out of various reasons.

1. The weather.

Like I wrote before, we would have to expect a wide variety of different weather. We took shorts as well as warm windproof vests, light shirts as well as knitted woolen pullovers, light sleeveless vests as well as rain jackets with a hood and all three of us would carry an umbrella --- just in case. We took extra many undies and socks in case we would get soaked, so we’d have stuff to change into. It’s amazing how much more a whole stock of woolen pullovers weighs opposed to the equivalent n of t-shirts for our last cruise. Thank God we didn’t have to care about the weight too much, since we wouldn’t have to fly to port. As long as we would be able to move the trolleys, we were free to pack as much as our hearts desired. I’ll tell you (much!) later what proofed useful and what we just dragged along.

2. The fear of boredom.

I know this might sound strange. I have yet to find the cruise that manages to bore me. But after we booked our first MSC cruise and before I started the actual planning phase, I surfed around the net to find some stuff out about our ship to be. Well, I was expecting MSC to be somewhat different from RCI. It is an Italian cruiseline and the audience would be multinational and what might be even more important -- multilingual. Of course I believed such things as multiple trivias to proof …challenging.

I also knew that -- because of Hamburg being the embarkation port, many passengers would be my fellow German countrymen. I’ve never cruised with those before….to be frank, I was more afraid of them than any other nationality onboard. We can be …a handful. Sometimes not very outgoing, pretty stubborn and serious, naggy or boring as hell…at least that was what I thought.

To make matters worse I made the mistake to read a gazillion ship reviews…I was shocked. There were sooo many negative beyond belief reviews out there! Very few English ones, but literally thousands of German ones. Did we make a mistake to decide on MSC … or the Magnifica specifically? Granted, some positive reviews were sprinkled in as well, but they were pretty much drowned by the bashing ones. That got to me for a while. But only a little while. I booked it, there was no way around it, the ports would be beautiful and all else we would just have to find out for ourselves. But still I wanted to take stuff along, just to entertain ourselves, in case MSC should fail to do so, especially on the sea days. That’s why we brought our tennis gear and tabletennis gear along. Also I brought plenty of books --- but I’ll get to those once I start telling about the carry on.

3. The dinner themes.

We would have not one, not two, but THREE formal nights. Additionally to that there’d be theme party nights. I knew of two of them. One being the usual “white party” which wouldn’t be a problem, but the other being “Italian flag” theme night…So red, green and white…I don’t know about you, but that’s a combination I don’t find in my wardrobe, or Tanja’s…or Tarik’s…..that meant shopping for all of us. There would even be a third motto night, but I wasn’t sure what it would be. I heard rumors of it being either 60’s, 70’s or 80’s theme….but I refused to buy stuff, if I wasn’t sure it would happen. But even packing for the above mentioned themes plus the three formals…..it took quite a bit of additional space.

Here’s our packing room again

lol – the followers from the last review will notice that we haven’t proceeded with our renovation work here one bit…there was always stuff to do that was --or seemed to be, more important at the time….oh well. This is just Tanja’s and my stuff…Tarik’s heap was a lot smaller

yay – looks like room in a trolley to snatch

Here we have the “weather vests and jackets for the three of us and the “self-entertainment” sports stuff.

Would we get everything to fit?

Mhhh, all looking good besides the fact that hardly any shoes are in it yet.

Good that Tanja’s trolley is enormous…we actually managed to fit all shoes (okay --we decided not to bring extra tennis shoes afterall…the running shoes would have to do).

All packed.

But would we be able to close those monsters, get them downstairs and be able to move them at all --- they looked like they would weigh a ton. Well – I had the scale downstairs. If we would get them down, we could check the weight. I had inkling that at least Tanja’s trolley (the red one) was a teeney bit over the 23kg from last year.

Stay tuned

Stef