The MSC Fantasia is an 18 deck ship that holds 4500 passengers and has a staff of 1500. As a result when it is full public areas can become very crowded and extremely noisy.
The cabins are well appointed with two single or one double bed, sufficient wardrobe space and bathroom with toilet and shower. There is a TV in the room but programmes in English are limited. There is a movie channel but you have to pay 7 euros per movie.
There are two free restaurants and one that has to be paid. The Tex Mex serving steaks and Mexican food is a paid restaurant which we did not try so cannot comment. The Red Velvet Restaurant is on the 6th and 7th floors and offers a two or three course menu each day. We only ate here once. The service was good and the food was well cooked but in the main the choice of foods at this restaurant was not to our liking. The Zanzibar Restaurant on the 14th floor is a self-service buffet restaurant that offers a selection of foods throughout the day. This restaurant is used by more people and is often frenetic and noisy.
There are three swimming pools on the ship: one indoor and two outdoor. All are clean and of a reasonable size. There are also a number of hot tubs by each pool. There are two sundecks on floors 14 and 15. There are a lot of sunbeds but on the ship at sea days there wasn’t enough sunbeds and if there had have been there wouldn’t have been enough space for them.
The evening entertainment in the theatre comprises a show with a theme. The performers – singers, dancers and acrobats are very good and professional, however, it is often difficult to make sense of the shows as there is no story to hold the different acts together.
During the day the animation team run a range of audience-participation activities on the sun deck. Accompanied by over loud music, the animation team shout loudly into their microphones making it impossible to escape the cacophony of sound.
Overall, the ship is too big, too noisy and not one I would choose to return to.