MSC Cruises, MSC Virtuosa, Northern Europe Review

We booked apprehensively as last minute unbelivably cheap deal. We are seasoned cruisers over 20 years but had not tried MSC purely down to poor reviews we had seen, but having had very poor experiences on both P&O and Princess recently we thought we'd give this a go, and we were not disappointed! This is a beautiful ship with a fabulous main promenade, its changing ceiling is quite something. The ship being half full was definitely a bonus, meaning no queues anywhere and (almost) no issue getting a seat in the bars. The MDR staff were entertaining & welcoming and the menu was varied and extensive. We have recently been on a so-called 'premium' ship where the food was so poor that we actually cancelled another upcoming holiday with them. However, the food on MSC was delicious & generous and including the buffet there was always food available. The only disappointment was the burgers - what has happened to ships burgers?
Our room was spacious enough, very modern, big balcony & how lovely to have a ketttle hurrah! We had room service breakfast m0st days or only £3.50 service charge. We paid for the easy drinks package & a few times we were tols we couldn't have a certain drink but they also found an alternative ie: ask for sparkling wine not prosecco!!
We paid to attend to the Cirque du Soleil type shows (15pp) which were well worth it, the performers were just amazing, I would highly recommend it. We don't do ship excursions, but the buses offered to take you to town in Bilbao & Le Havre were good value & there was no hanging about. My only criticism would be the Spa, thefacilities were cramped & I couldn't access the very small pools as there were no steps - swinging my legs over is not for me!! But I have to say we are now converts to MSC & look forward to sailng with her again.