petra75

20 hours ago, Lisichka said:

I am going on the Grandiosa in October.  Right now all I see for excursions is a

package of 3 tours for $110.  Are you saying more excursions will be available once you board?  Will they be available before then? What if I book the package but see something better later?

Hi Lisichka

I'm sure more excursions will be added soon even on MSC site. We usually book just a few weeks before departing, even before Covid, so I never experienced what you do now but as you might have seen in my lives there are even more excursions avaiable nowadays, obviosly because we all can only get off with them.

I don't know the itinerary of Grandiosa in October but I believe it will call ports not yet called since before Covid, so nothing would be ready at the moment, but it soon will. 

If you book the package you can later change for another excursion, so I was told on Grandiosa back in September, just paying the difference if the latter costs more.

I'm Italian and traveled on Costa and MSC, but even on Princess, HAL, Carnival and NCL. I can understand why people from UK and USA like MSC better, since it tries to be similar to American lines to please that market. One of my MSC cruise had home port in both Hamburg and Southampton and I can tell the most disappointed were the Western Europeans on board since more used to the entertainment on MSC on the Mediterranen, more towards them. On that cruise instead many activities were more of what I find on an American line, my fiancè and I enjoyed since we like that kind of entertainment and speaking english could take advantage since they were in English only.

Having said that I prefer Costa for food and mood!

If you can bear that actually buffet hours are usually fewer on Costa than every other line we tried, the quality of food is one of the best for us. And yes, no free pizza but delicious focaccia! And a drink package is necessary since when buffet is closed you don't get anything for free (already paid...), but even the cheaper one on Costa is good value, and as it is for you they usually have fares with that included.

Entertainment on paper is almost the same but in reality we always find Costa to do things better than MSC.  

On 5/31/2021 at 10:10 PM, Itchy&Scratchy said:

We have sailed on 3 cruise lines before, and we found Princess food to be excellent in both taste and variety, RCI's food to be consistently good - appropriate temp and sufficiently seasoned , but it was not diverse or outstanding at all, and we found NCL's food to be the worst of the three cruise

We love Princess for food and every other aspect, miss her!

Never been on RCL and just once on NCL a few years ago, but we remember their crepes, hit or miss!🙂

As said we liked the Seaside and we'd came back in an heartbeat. The major flaw of the ship itself is at the aft it get quite some soot during navigation, so be careful and check before sitting there!

The entertainment team was nice. During the day there was not much variety, some pool games, trivias and lots of dance lessons. We like to dance but unfortunately at these times only line dance is allowed during those lessons and we much prefer to dance together. For our dance fix they did some dj sets late in the afternoon, there you could dance obviously keeping masks and distance from other groups. As usual too many people do not understand and music was too often stopped to remind the rules and threaten to cut the dj set short.

After dinner there was always a game/show with the entertainment team. It was usually carried on at the haven lounge where at the end you could dance as well, with the music (and reminders to behave..), of a good band. Around the ship there were other bands performing softer music for every taste.

There was a different show at the theatre every other day, with dancers, singers and acrobats. Pretty sure we had already seen at least one of them on other MSC cruises but the performers were good and we enjoyed them. We just skipped the last show because it was a one man show of a singer we had already seen and didn't like it.

The rules at the theatre are like last year on Grandiosa, there is a do not seat sign every other seat but if you are a on the same group you can seat next to each other. Needless to say you have to keep your mask for the entire show and we found people complied better than on Grandiosa but, for the few that didn't, we've never seen anybody go and tell them anything.

Seats are really comfortable!

In attach a daily, sorry, it is in Italian but could be useful for restaurants and activities hours.

20210523_navigazione.pdf

Service at the different bars was mostly slow, especially at the buffet when we usually sit outside aft, so the most far from the bar and outside peek hours it was difficult to find a waiter, but we don't mind to go to the counter every now and then to grab our drinks ourselves. And then for us Italians our espressos have to be taken at the counter, we enjoy our three-hours seated lunch but then we need to have our coffee in less than a minute!   

Looking at the menus attached we remember of those delicious Venchi Gelato Sticks we had, highly recommended!

QR_I_BUFFET-BAR-LIST_OTHER_DAYX_EN_1621689967.pdf QR_K_BAR-LIST-MED_OTHER_DAYX_EN_1621693443.pdf QR_KK_VENCHI-CHOCOLATE-BAR_OTHER_DAYX_EN_1621969764.pdf QR_UU_SPORTS-BAR-SE_OTHER_DAYX_EN_1622055451.pdf QR_LL_VENCHI-GELATO-CREPERIE_OTHER_DAYX_EN_1622116491.pdf

Specialty rstaurants looked nice but we didn't get the chance to try them, as always too many things to do in few time! 

Menus are in Italian but hope can be useful anyway.

QR_SS_TEPPANYAKI_OTHER_DAYX_IT_1622107519.pdf QR_RR_SUSHI_OTHER_DAYX_IT_1622116828.pdf QR_QQ_PAN-ASIAN_OTHER_DAYX_IT_1622107358.pdf QR_TT_OCEAN-CAY-SE_OTHER_DAYX_IT_1622107710.pdf QR_C_BUTCHERS-CUT_OTHER_DAYX_IT_1622221026.pdf

So, let's talk a little bit more about restaurant and food experience in general on Seaside. As mentioned in one of the first installment food at the buffet was of poor variety but mostly good even for the rest of the cruise. The major disappointment for us was that outside lunch and dinner hours you could only find pizza, and not good for our taste. On the others MSC we always found at least some sandwiches and sweets as well, not this time. Fortunately we are usually happy with our late breakfast and lunch and don't need other food before dinner, but it would have been difficult if we'd arrived from an excursion when lunch was over!

Anyway we loved the position of buffet at deck 8, close to the water.

We found there is another smaller buffet on deck 16, the pool deck, for this cruise was closed but it will be very convenient for sun lovers.

Dinner was MSC average, really nothing to write home about but mostly just eateble. Mind you, we are two spoilt Italians! As already wrote dining rooms are just for eating now, there's no more that good evening dinner mood. You sit every other table so the distance between couples/groups does nor encourage the usual pre covid chats.

At least at the side of the restaurant we ate tables were laid only when you arrived.

On 5/30/2021 at 1:50 AM, Itchy&Scratchy said:

What was NOT good about the food? 

I am also curious what was served in the Ethnic section of the buffet.

I am so happy for you, since you seem to be enjoying your cruise very much! I am considering MSC for next year (Caribbean), since my 2020 MSC maiden voyage was cancelled and we never got to try it.

Difficult to describe food and it is such a subjective matter, isn't it?

We just find food on MSC to be definitely not consistent among ships, sometimes is good, but never great, and too many times just not bad. We know when we choose MSC that we better not have too much expectations about food, but on some ships we found it to be much better than on others. Just to mention our latest two MSC cruises, both in covid times if it even matter, and I don't think so since we talk about food, Grandiosa wins hands down!

In the Ethnic section on Seaside every day they served a rice, a chicken, a fish and a vegetable dish of a different Country or part of the world. We had Caribbean, Chinese, Thai, Indonesian and Indian. Of course the list should be longer but we had two full day excursions so we didn't have lunch on the ship then and didn't find out the Ethnic of those days.

22 hours ago, Preziosa said:

Did you find out what They were looking for and Why you could not Go to your cabin...

No, we didn't even try though! Being the covid test day for most passenger and seeing the crew dressed like that we figured they were after someone who tested positive but it's just our assumption and didn't think about that further. 

After that we had around a 40 minutes break to eat the lunch box provided by MSC. Actually the excursion description read we would enjoy a lunch in Viterbo but so it was.

We went then to Viterbo, a 40 minutes drive from Bomarzo. It is called the city of Popes because it was the residence of the Pope for some time in the Middle-age. The walk was nice and mostly around the old city centre, we just went inside the “San Lorenzo” cathedral for a few minutes.

Even if the places we visited were worth the trip, that was the worst excursion we had in Covid time. Our guide was little informative, we expected at least some notes and story telling about the whereabouts during the various long trip on the bus but little to nothing was said. Moreover she couldn't care less about the famous Covid bubble, she didn't remind the rules as other guides have done at the start of the trip and never reminded to the good share of no mask-no vax-Covid denier there were to comply with the rules. In Viterbo she even lost a member for at least a half of an hour. She told us her agency and MSC had been warned but what we know is that the person waited for us near the bus and could come with us to the port of Civitavecchia.

This last trip lasted around 40 minutes.

Our last excursion was “Bomarzo Park and Viterbo”. We went first to Bomarzo, that is a 90 minutes drive from Civitavecchia. The park is beautiful and full of odd sculptures built during the

16th century, we roamed there for around one and an half hour and the time flew.

The following is a crooked house, not picture!

During the morning of the second sea day unfortunately the weather was cloudy and cool, but we were well entertained by the captain that gave us a scenic navigation through the strait of Messina and near the vulcanic island of Stromboli.

The afternoon was instead really sunny and hot so we could enjoy some pool deck activities.

That was the day for our third Covid test, every deck had its time slot and we had the last, 4 to 6 pm. We went at around 5:30 and then back to pool deck to enjoy the navigation and the jacuzzi. It was a couple of hours later that we decided it was time to prepare for the evening but it was not, when we arrived in the nearby of our cabin we saw same crew members, we believe part of security but we are not sure because they were covered with protective suits. They asked what cabin number we had and told us we could not reach it in that moment and to come back after some time. Having made sure it was not us they were looking for we came back to the pool and after a half hour or so we tried and succeded to go to our cabin.

Hello everybody,

we are back home again (noooooo) and we promise we'll finish the not so live anymore but the last days were eventful and couldn't get in touch!

So, on Wednesday we were in Taranto where we choose a walking tour of the town since it was the first time we went there. Actually the excursion's description read “bus and walking tour” but the trip by bus, a city bus, was just five minutes to exit and enter the port since the town centre is really close.

We started from a medieval castle by the sea, then it was time for greek ruins and the cathedral. Every place was a short walk far from another, inside the narrow streets of the city centre, and the weather was great but thanks to a gentle wind not too hot.

The highlight was the little but full of treasures chapel of the church, with several statues made by the same sculptor of the “Cristo Velato” in Naples.

The last stop was an ecclesiastical museum where we didn't have much time left so we couldn't see everything we would have liked, but the other stop where long enough to enjoy what they offer and the guide was good and passionate in explaining what we were seeing.

The excursion was about three hours long.

On 5/28/2021 at 2:42 PM, MarkusToe said:

May I ask what type of Covid test is needed?

PCR or the cheap ones?

Hi Marcus, I saw you had the correct answers. We did the antigen one as well!

On 5/28/2021 at 5:31 PM, portofrome said:

Just boarded today and the antigen (rapid) is fine.

Hi portofrome, enjoy your cruise!

On 5/24/2021 at 3:36 PM, shipgeeks said:

Petra, Which tour are you taking today in Valletta?  We are watching the port webcam, with the comings and goings of passengers and crew.  Maybe we will see you!

221 people are watching!

We didn't take any tour in Valletta, the only port we decided to stay on the ship for this cruise, not really fans. And doing so we maybe avoid one more swab. 

On 5/24/2021 at 10:18 PM, Preziosa said:

On our cruice one week ago We We thinking that the diningrooms where very sad to see. Nothing on the tables Normaly the tables Are very beautyful covered. 

Definitely, in these days we find dining room are really just for eating

On 5/24/2021 at 3:23 PM, Nunagoras said:

Many thanks Petra for the wonderful review!...

 

While I have never gone on both the Mera (Grandiosa) and the Seaside class of ships, and while ironically all the Seaside class ship concept was entirely designed with the American market in mind and the Mera with the rest of the world in mind, me thinks that Seaside is incredibly more identifiable with the whole MSC concept from the beginning than exactly the Mera one!... Eventually the Mera ship class seems for me like such a white branded RCI Oasis Class experience... While I may one day to book a Mera cruise, I can see myself more comfortable on a Seaside Class... If I want the original Oasis Experience, I know where to search for it!...

 

May I ask you if you can publish, even if at return home, the PDF for the continental Europe sailings to compare with the ones for the UK sailing actually being shown on the Virtuosa live thread, please?

 

Have a nice day and a nice sailing!... Enjoy well your cruise!... 🙂

I didn't know about the market they were built for but I definitely quote you everithing you said about MSC vs RCL.

Ok, we will publish some pdf we kept when at home.

Then it was time for Modica, known for its chocolate, were we had a chocolate tasting and time to buy in the same place chocolate or other Sicilian food and wine. The place is the one you can see at bottom left of the following picture and it's the same place where we had our lunch later. Sorry, no food porn, we forgot, too busy eating. We had an entrée with salami and cheese, pasta and one of the best cannoli we have ever eaten!

Before lunch we visited the church that was just in front of the restaurant.

Last stop was in Ragusa where we had just an hour or so to walk around. No visit inside any church this time since it was closed at the time we where there.

It was a quick visit in every town but they seem really worth coming back one day.

Yesterday we went to our first excursion to Sicily country. It was a long one and involved long trip by bus but we were aware of that since it was well described by MSC and it was between sea and hills, so nice to see.

First we went to Scicli and we had a walk around the town visiting a couple of churches and from outside some places you could know if you watch the Montalbano TV serie, well, so we were told by our guide! Anyway she told us in those places they are grateful to Montalbano, or better to Camilleri, the Italian writer of the books the TV serie was written after, since being in the Sicilian country they were mostly unknown before, at least definitely less visited than the towns by the sea!

On 5/22/2021 at 6:18 PM, shipgeeks said:

Petra, I'm so happy for you that you are on another cruise, and I'm happy for me that I'll get to read them!  I greatly enjoyed your past posts.

And I saw your post just in time.  I looked at the Genoa webcam, and there you go.

Bon Voyage!

On 5/22/2021 at 7:50 PM, portofrome said:

Bon Voyage, Petra. Looking forward to reading more about your cruise.

Have a wonderful cruise!

On 5/22/2021 at 9:32 PM, Preziosa said:

We were on Seaside from the 8. Th to 15 th of May 2021. So now I Can Dream back. We had a great Cruise. Have a wonderful cruise

Happy to hear from you all again!

Preziosa, if there is something you wish to add about your experience on Seaside here please do!  

Beside the zip line, that we were told it will not open at least during this cruise, everything outside is open, like waterslides, baby aqua park, sports arena, etc. And every swimming pool and whirpool we were able to find are as well, there are really a good number and we could see there are others at top19, aurea spa as well.

Buffet is divided in small isles and is of course served. We find for this kind of service the one with a unique long line better, since here when you reach every different one is often a problem to understand what way the others are going to walk. The variety of food is not great but of good quality.

Even if we are about two thousands, so less than half of the ship capacity, at peek hours both the two identical lines of the buffet are opened so no waiting at all for food, just at the entrance since at breakfast and lunch there is the mandatory temperature check and the stop at sink to wash your hands.

Hello from a sunny La Valletta, being from North Italy were this year spring has not yet arrived we're really enjoying today's weather.

Yesterday we were at sea so we had the time to explore the ship. It's the first time on this class for us and so far we like it better than the Grandiosa class. I'd say that inside is a more classical style, at least compared to the kind of ship we are used to, with a big Piazza and some smallish venues where you can find different type of entertainment.

Civitavecchia (ours is “Bomarzo Park and Viterbo”)