Opera to Europe

MSC Opera is one of the four original purpose built cruise ships that the Italian company introduced into service in the last few years. She is a relatively mid sized ship compared to the company newbuilds and, as such, she offers a more intimate, pared down cruise experience to well over a thousand passengers.

That point made, MSC Opera still caters mainly towards families with children, and especially so in the school holidays. She is a smartly styled, bubbly, busy ship, with beautiful interiors that feature much use of marble, glass and polished brass. It all creates a refined, tasteful environment at any given time of day or night.

It's a very noisy environment, too. Though these ships typically carry many nationalities, it is Italians who dominate the numbers. Just as at home, families keep their children up late, and they can be found running through the ship at any time of the day or night. If peace and quiet is your driving mantra for a cruise, you might be best looking elsewhere.

The outdoor areas are perfectly set up for family fun, with two pools, hot tubs, and separate (in theory) areas for the children. Smoking is allowed on one side of the ship, but ashtrays seem to have the gift of teleporting to any given part of the upper deck, and the crew does precious little about it.

Again, the cabins are very family orientated. From comfortable insides and sea view cabins that can accommodate up to four people, through to balcony rooms and, at the top of the scale, a range of decent, expansive suites, the MSC Opera offers a wide range of choice foe everybody.

Food is served, casual style, in the upper deck Lido buffet, or there is the more formal option of a sit down, five course dinner in one of the two main restaurants. The food is fine quality on the whole, presented with flair, and usually has a good range of ingredients, but the service can run from indifferent to quite attentive. Best thing to do is go with an open mind, and enjoy what is on offer.