MSC Magnifica 14-night Northern Europe Live Voyage Report

We’re joining MSC Cruises’ MSC Magnifica for a 14-night voyage around Northern Europe & the Mediterranean.

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For this trip, it is rather an unusual itinerary – which we love. Usually, when joining a ship in Southampton you either head South to the Mediterranean or North to explore the ports of Northern Europe. Well, with this trip we’re doing both!

Departure is on Monday 30th April, where we set sail across the channel from Southampton to Le Havre in France, a popular first-port for many cruise ships leaving Southampton. Then we head down to the Mediterranean, down the West coast of Spain and Portugal, before entering the Strait of Gibraltar and eventually reaching our furthest Southern port, Malaga.

We then retrace our steps, and, unlike most cruises that would do this route from Southampton, we sail straight past our homeport, through the English Channel and head for an overnight port visit to the beautiful city of Amsterdam. The next morning, we leave Amsterdam fairly early and spend a day at sea traversing the locks at IJmuiden, before entering the North Sea for a short while and then sailing the 100-miles trip up the River Elbe, inland, to the historic port of Hamburg.

We are especially lucky to be visiting Hamburg on May 12th as we will be witnessing the extremely popular Hamburg Port Anniversary which runs from the 10th-13th May this year. It will be the 829th Port Anniversary and over 1 million people will line the banks of the River Elbe and take to the waters to celebrate the occasion.

MSC Magnifica is the youngest of 4 Musica-class ships by MSC Cruises. At 95,128 GRT and carrying 3,605 passengers (max) with around 1,030 crew we’d class her as a Resort Ship. Her maiden voyage was in 2010 and you can read further details about her on her ship profile page.

As MSC Magnifica is based in Southampton for the Summer of 2018 we are interested to see what changes MSC Cruises have put in place to adapt their Italian-based heritage and European-style cruising to the UK market. We also going to show you that despite all the latest ships with countless bars, restaurants and activities, you’ll not only find some great deals on the slightly older ships but also plenty of fun and entertainment on them too.

So, what awaits us as we join MSC Magnifica shortly? We can’t wait to find out and we look forward to you travelling with us each day! Below is our itinerary and handy links to our live posts – check back each day for updates and don’t forget to follow us on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook and Youtube for all our live social media updates too!

MSC Magnifica 14-night Northern Europe & Mediterranean itinerary