It was 03:00 on a cold, dark, September morning and I had already been awake for an hour having only had two hours sleep, there was a knock at the door, I said my goodbyes to my wife, and walked to the waiting taxi.
The two hour drive to Heathrow airport was uneventful and whilst struggling to stay awake, I looked forward to the cup of coffee that I had promised myself on arrival at the airport. As it happens I complimented the coffee with a Danish pastry (well I deserved it), whilst I waited for the rest of my group, and the allocated check in time.
We were booked on a British Airways flight to Hamburg due to depart at 07:55. We had no problems checking in, and boarding was quick and efficient with our plane leaving promptly and arriving on time in Hamburg. From the airport we were taken by coach to the northern German port of Kiel where we were to board the MSC Opera for a two night cruise to Dover England, unfortunately not through the Kiel canal as I had first thought but around Germany and Denmark, passing Sweden, Norway and Holland.
The MSC Opera is a large resort cruise ship of 59,058 tons, she is Italian registered and the Officers are Italian with the other crew members being of various nationalities, some eastern European. The MSC Opera entered service in March 2004 at a cost of $266 million. There are ten passenger decks accommodating up to 2,150 passengers in a total of 878 cabins, of which about 200 have a private balcony. Total crew is 701 which gives a crew to passenger ratio of 3.1 which is about average within the cruise industry.
The amenities on board are very good with two indoor swimming pools, a casino with both gaming tables and slot machines, two whirlpools, a library, mini golf course, disco, video games, cyber café, photo shop and gallery, shops, a theatre and spa. The spa features a beauty saloon, several treatment rooms which offer massages and body pampering treatments, there is also a gymnasium with great ocean views and all the equipment you could want to keep in shape whilst at sea.
There are various bars and eating places to choose from although at the time that I sailed with them MSC were still allowing smoking in some of the bars so if you are a non smoker like myself then you will want to establish which ones are smoke free, unfortunately the most popular bar, and the one we tended to meet up in, was a smoking bar.
The main Restaurant is La Caravella and has large ocean view picture windows at the rear of the ship giving good views and adding to the ambiance of the room. There are two sittings for dinner as with most cruise ships and table sizes are for two, four, six or eight and there is waiter service. L’Approdo Restaurant is assigned to those passengers in suites and any other passengers who make a reservation, food in this restaurant is far superior to the rest of the ship although all the meals that I had on board were of a good standard. Casual self serve buffet meals can be taken in Le Vele Cafeteria.
The Entertainment on board was good although not up to the standards of many cruise lines, it tends to be amateurish and tends to lean more towards a visual or classical style as most of the passengers are continental Europeans (apart from my group I only heard two other English accents throughout the two days) English normally takes a back seat, with announcements being made first in Italian, and then German, as these two countries made up the bulk of the clientele.
The 713 sea Theatre dell Opera is the main place to go to see a show, it has tiered seating and good all round vision . The Opera Lounge is the place for social dancing and has a live band whereas the music in the theatre tends to be recorded. For the young and young at heart you can while away the small hours strutting your stuff in the Byblos Discotheque.
As we were sailing around north Germany, Denmark and through the North Sea to England during some cold and blustery September weather we would not be making use of the swimming pools or other outside activities, although I did have several walks around the deck which proved pleasant and bracing.
As we would not be outside much, it was a good opportunity to take in a couple of shows and enjoy the bars and restaurants, this usually followed a similar pattern, dinner, show then bar.
Our only full day at sea was rather a rough one which doesn’t bother me as (touch wood) I am a perfect sailor and have never felt sea sick even in the roughest of seas, however, many of our group as well as many other passengers seemed to be confined to their cabins during the worst of it. This was a shame as we had a quiz arranged with prizes, still on a brighter note it meant less competition and I walked away with first prize (I knew my sea legs would pay off one day).
After the excitement of winning the quiz and after a hearty lunch I spent the afternoon in the spa and then relaxing in my cabin. Tonight there was to be a Gala evening but this was cancelled due to the bad weather so instead we started the evening off in the bar before an excellent meal in the restaurant and a rather high brow classical evening in the theatre before meeting up with friends in the bar to finish the evening off.
The next day consisted of breakfast, walking around ship, lunch and then disembarking at Dover at 13:30. It was a most enjoyable cruise, the MSC Opera is a lovely ship and one I would like to return to, but in warmer times in order to take full advantage of everything this ship has to offer.
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