Lirica in Khasab, Oman

On every cruise people will find things they like and don’t like about whatever ship they happen to be sailing on. These things will of course vary among passengers since different people like different things. This is my opinion of what I did and didn’t like about MSC Lirica.

We booked this cruise because of the port stop in Aqaba, Jordan so we could get to Petra

HITS

One of the biggest attractions to booking a cruise on the MSC Lirica is great itineraries at a good price. In fact this a ship that we booked specifically for the itinerary and price, not for the ship itself, though we did find plenty to like about the ship.

window seating on the Lirica

There are lots of places around the Lirica where people can find a place to sit with a view. Whether inside near a window or out on deck there’s quite a variety of different areas to watch the scenery go by.

relaxing on the back deck

Instead of having private cabins at the back of the ship, there are back decks with loungers on several levels available to anyone who wants to sit there. These are not nearly as crowded as the top decks. They also had stacks of chairs so if all the ones already set out were occupied (usually by towels rather than people) it was easy to just take a chair off the stack. There was also the option of going up or down the stairs that connected them all to a different deck if you couldn’t find a space you liked on the first one.

The Lirica also has open front balconies on multiple decks. There aren’t any loungers on the front balconies, but there is space for people to stand and see where the ship is going or take photos when sailing into port or through scenic places.

The cabins have lots of storage space. There’s a variety of drawers and cupboards to put things in as well as the closet, and plenty of room under the bed(s) to stash luggage.

piano bar – with violin

The ship has a variety of different music and dance venues with different types of music to appeal to different tastes.

mini golf

Although it is a smaller ship, it does have things to do. Besides pools and hot tubs, there’s also mini golf.

production show in the theater

This ship attracts multinational passengers speaking a variety of different languages. Their newsletter of the day’s events, which is called the Daily Planner, is available in a variety of different languages to accommodate their varied guests. Whatever language you receive your daily planner in lists scheduled activities available in that language so all the events you choose to go to will be in a language that you understand. Events and activities are held in different languages at different times or places.

The Daily Planner always had some sort of little blurb of interesting info about the port, or on sea days about MSC or a small tidbit about the ship.

Though not unlimited, wifi was by data used, not minutes, which is good because wifi on a ship is always slow. It takes a lot of minutes to load a little data so when they charge by the minute it costs a lot to accomplish a little.

Announcements on the ship are repeated in a bunch of different languages so that everyone can understand what is going on. Although MSC was originally founded in Italy and is based in Switzerland now the announcements were always given in English first before all the other languages. Probably because there are likely to be more people who understand English than any of the other individual languages even if English is not their first language.

The buffet usually had a good variety of stuff to choose from, and it wasn’t always the same things every day.

gelato stand

This ship didn’t have much in the way of specialty restaurants, but it did have a gelato place. Besides gelato they also served sorbet so there was something dairy free, which is a bonus for anyone with dairy issues. It would have been even better if the gelato and sorbet were free.

Being a European ship on an itinerary starting in Europe, I was afraid there might be many smoking areas throughout the interior, but the ship was not nearly as smokey as I feared it might be.

The crew and staff are multilingual. In the theater the same person would make announcements in more than 5 languages. Which took awhile to get through, but at least it included everybody. The main nightly shows themselves were generally done in English.

dhow boat excursion in Khasab, Oman

When booking excursions through the ship, they sent out a separate bus (or group when busses weren’t involved) for each language so they don’t have to repeat everything in a bunch of different languages. Sometimes there could be more if there weren’t enough speakers of a particular language to fill a bus, or a few leftovers of a couple languages combined if there were too many for one bus, but never as many languages as on the ship itself.

table in the dining room

They tried to assign dinner tables so that all the people at a particular table spoke the same language when they could, or at least have one in each party that could translate when that wasn’t possible. Which definitely helps in avoiding the awkward silences or separate conversations that occur with a language barrier.

couple’s massage tables

Spa services on this ship were not as expensive as what we’ve seen on some of the other lines.

They had some good quality stage shows, and a theater with mostly good seats.

MISSES

The ship has no guest laundries so on a long cruise the options for clean clothes are either buck up and pay the expense of having the crew wash it for you, or handwash in your cabin sink unless you want to bring an excessive amount of luggage.

Christmas ornament model of Royal Caribbean Explorer of the Seas

One of the first things I always do after the ship leaves port and the shops open is look for a Christmas ornament model of whatever ship I happen to be on in the gift shop. It’s always a disappointment if there aren’t any. Especially since we did not get off this ship until shortly before Christmas and the store clerk just said they wouldn’t be putting any out until the next cruise.

women’s steam room

The thermal suite has no pool or ceramic chairs. We were initially happy to see how cheap it was compared to thermal suites on other lines for that length of cruise, and booked pre-cruise, which saves money over the onboard price. When we got there we found their thermal suite consisted of saunas and steam rooms and a couple relaxation areas, and that was all. Plus the saunas and steam rooms were not co-ed. Apparently European men like to use them without clothing. The women’s had a sign saying proper swimwear was required, but even there someone showed up occasionally in nothing but a towel. I guess the lesson here is wait for the spa tour to book the thermal suite if you don’t know what that particular ship includes. At least it was cheap, and there was a nice view from the front relaxation area, which was never crowded.

There was indoor smoking allowed in a pub at the bottom of a stairway, and the door was not kept shut to keep the smoke from spreading beyond the confines of that particular room. It tended to waft up the stairs, and that was the stairway closest to our room.

there was a nice coffee bar – and it wasn’t open in the morning

The ship had a nice coffee bar. I don’t drink coffee, but my husband John was disappointed that the coffee bar was not open in the morning when he would have sometimes liked to have a specialty coffee. The only place open to get that in the morning was the stinky smoking pub. He also wants decaf, and there wasn’t any available at the buffet unless you order from bar service and pay for it. Instant decaf packets were free in the dining room, but when he ordered one they didn’t actually bring it to the table in time for him to have it with his breakfast so he just ended up having that packet to bring to the buffet later. Ordering one at dinner for the next day’s breakfast turned out to be the best solution – but that involves remembering to do so.

dining room on the Lirica

Service in the dining room was excruciatingly slow. Our waiter blamed it on the kitchen, but people sitting in a nearby waiter’s section were always onto dinner and sometimes even dessert before we ever got the appetizer. Instead of freely providing tapwater to everyone in the dining room they only served bottled water. This was free to passengers who booked through MSC USA as we did, but not to people who booked through their European site like our dinner time table mates had. (The water bottles they brought us were big enough to share with our dinner companions, but people at a table with nobody who booked through MSC USA had to pay for water if they wanted any.)

desserts at the buffet

Except for a few things like desserts, rather than having different stations for different items the buffet was sort of all one line, but people would cut in so as not to have to wait through whole thing for something further down. Which makes sense if you are the person who just wants to grab one thing quick, but not so much if you are the one trying to get through the line while numerous other people keep cutting in to get this or that.

The drink station at the buffet had an issue with passengers sticking their personal water bottles right onto the water or juice spigots and contaminating them.

This ship had no specific gluten free items at the buffet, no gluten free buns at the grill, and no gluten free pizza or pasta. The only gluten free stuff  they had is limited items in the dining room – and if you ask for one thing at breakfast like just a croissant or a muffin they bring out a plate of 3 things which they have to defrost to serve so it dries out and goes to waste if you don’t eat it within a short time period. Instead of serving just the one item you want, it’s a bun, a muffin, and a croissant all three. It would have been nice if they’d sent those buns up to the grill instead.

The Lirica lacked any specialty restaurants other than the gelato place and some sort of pop-up sushi place at the disco lounge in the evening. We did not check that one out. That wasn’t really a problem for us since we rarely go to the specialty restaurants anyway, but for some people it would be a drawback.

the pool deck on most cruise ships is called the Lido deck, but on the Lirica it is Vivaldi or just deck 11

There’s not a whole lot to do on your own on sea days. Europeans mainly just lounge around the pool deck – and typical of cruise ships even though it’s against the rules they put their towels and stuff out first thing in the morning to reserve “their” chairs all day long whether they actually use said chairs or not. Also typical of cruise ships, the crew never does anything about it even though there are signs posted saying that they will pick up any items left unattended for more than half an hour. We always managed to keep ourselves entertained though. There are scheduled activities for people who need someone else to provide their entertainment so it isn’t that there’s nothing for people to do.

sports equipment was only available when the outdoor stage was staffed

Sports equipment for things like the mini golf course and ping pong tables was not at the venue. You had to check the items out with the entertainment crew by the stage on the pool deck during their working hours, which is the only time those games are available for use. Other ships we have been on always have the sports equipment at the venue and people can use it whenever they want.

Trieste, Italy from the promenade deck

The promenade deck does not go around the entire ship so it’s not a good option for walking or jogging to get some exercise.

pool and hot tubs

We tried out the hot tubs up on deck one day and found they were barely warm. Which was a disappointment because hot tubs ought to be hot.

The cabin had a very tiny shower. Our shower curtain was missing several key hooks which meant that instead of curving around the outline of the shower pad it went straight across, cutting an already very small space in half.

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