LMaxwell

When we finally boarded both other ships were gone. There was over 1000 behind us waiting still. No, it was not a fabulous vacation. I posted a separate review. There are a number of issues with this ship that being YC might alleviate (might not?) but for standard category class, not up to par.

We just returned from the 6/25 Seascape cruise that included problems beyond MSC's control (for posterity: There as an early morning pleasure boat crash into the Fisher Island Ferry in Miami that shut down the port and also impacted Carnival and NCL, not just MSC), problems within MSC's control (customer service), and problems too far gone to really rectify (poor design decisions with the ship that noticeably negatively impact our vacation enjoyment). There are plenty of reviews talking about how glamorous and beautiful the ship is. I agree, it is glamorous and beautiful, but there are a number of issues and that's what I'm here to share my experience and opinions about. As far as the delayed boarding: MSC texted us at 330PM to arrive to port between 6pm-9:30pm for boarding. When we arrived right at 6 we were met with a steady stream of people debarking. No MSC employees were visible at either East or West entrances to Terminal C (this terminal is completely inadequate for a ship this size, which would lead to many issues). At 9:00PM MSC texted check in is extended until 11PM. Some notice between 3:30 and 9 would have been helpful as we had driven in and would have left for a while to get dinner. Not an option for everyone of course, but MSC dropped ball on communications. There was NO MSC employees anywhere, and around 10:30PM people were turning into more of a mob than anything, since there was no clear line, just 4 different lines of people feeding into a mass. There as no food or water provided, vending machines empty, and a single bathroom with 2 stalls. MSC has new terminals in Miami, why they were at this horrid old terminal that can't process 5000 people is beyond me. That MSC sent no one out, is MSC's fault. We finally made it into the terminal around midnight. The check in system crashed. We were finally checked in at 1:30AM and onboard a few minutes later where we were informed the restaurants had shut down but there was food in buffet. There was just the pizza corner with lines going out the back of the ship. MSC's fault on this. We spoke w people on Carnival this week and they handled it way better. You may be asking...was I in yacht club? OBVIOUSLY not. Muster happened around midnight, but there was still over 2000 people not checked in. Sailaway occurred between 3-4am. Our itinerary was revised and MSC made what I personally consider a foolish decision to keep Nassau. The ship was moving at 21+ knots from departure until arrival at Nassau, over 2.5 hours later than the revised estimate called for. The Nassau port call ended up being approximately 1:30PM-6:15PM Monday, most of it raining (they don't control the weather, but they know what is going on where they are headed). That's a very short day and, IMO, MSC should have skipped this so we could have earlier arrivals to Puerto Rico and DR later in the week. But I'm not on their Ops team, I just pay for the experience. We did enjoy PR and DR with shifted times (although about same total amount of port time), but with no real advance announcement vacated Ocean Cay a full hour early and so the "light show" was done at dusk and not at night. No explanation. Strange. As a Non Yacht-Club guest I can say this ship is one and done for us due to a number of bad design choices that can't really be overcome. We were told the advantages of booking "aft" as there are two panoramic elevators that don't get much use and take you to the adults pool as well as backside (less crowded) area of the buffet. This is true. If the elevators are working. Instead of up/down, you select what floor you are going to and an elevator car is assigned to you. Often times we were met with "Unable to allocate elevator" no matter what floor we selected...and there is no aft stair case. So you walk to the mid-ship elevators where you select a deck and more often than not it is 3-5 minute wait for an elevator. You can't just hop in any one that comes along, because there's no buttons inside to select other decks. Ah, but there are midship and front of ship staircases "Why not just use the steps Mr.Lazybones?", well, not always practical with a small child and elderly relatives when you want to go from the dining room on Deck 6 to the Kids club on Deck 18; kind of need that elevator. Have a cabin near rear of ship and want to get to Cabaret rouge? Go to midship then down to 7 and walk all the way back. Or take aft elevators down to 8, then walk to midship, take a set of steps down 1 deck, then walk all the way aft again since the rear elevators don't go to decks 7, 6, 5, 4. Far too often the system could not allocate an elevator at all, no matter which bank you were at; front, mid, or rear. The buffet is...who designed this?!? It is laid out like a 1950's Cafeteria style buffet. You have never seen such lines like on this ship. I don't recall lines like this on the Divina or Seaside. This is a really bad design with narrow passageways. The buffet food itself is highly repetitive and lots of carbs/starches. Hope you like rice, pasta, potatoes, bread. There is a daily salad bar, cheese, meats. Each day has a theme with 2-3 unique items, but overall just not much variety. AND THE LINES. Packed. ALL THE TIME. Drink stations quickly run out of ice, cups, coffee, coffee mugs...but not all at once. So you go to one station and can get a mug, but there's no coffee, so you go to the next station halfway across the buffet and there's coffee, but now you want a cup of water and the little blue cups are out. No problem, there was no ice anyways. I'm sure within 3 minutes of posting this, some absolutely loyal fanatic will tell me book YC or that none of this ever happened. Pizza....this ain't the Divina baby! No 8-10 varieties of pizza here. Plain, pepperoni (with max of 1 piece pepperoni per slice), and one specialty slice per day (white pizza....pizza with basil....forget about variety of toppings). El Presidente would have been jaw dropped over the flop and grease. What happened? MSC pizza used to be like going to a real deal pizzeria. Now it's just barely average for a cruise ship. Meats, Fish, Chicken in buffet usually good quality, but again, very little variety and the lines discourage you from going sometimes. Since everyone walks in soaking wet, and there's not much room to navigate, people are constantly sliding/tripping/spilling/. Did anyone that designed this ship ever go on a cruise ship before? This isn't the first in the class, how did they mess up so bad? Pro Tip - There is soft serve ice cream served 1 Hour per day in the buffet. Marina Pool is a nice size, good layout, the round dance stage in center should have been another hot tub, not just a round nothingness, movie screen nice, lots of activities and dance classes out here during the day, but everything gets covered in soot. I had no problem getting one of those gorgeous sunbeds at 930AM one day (this ship wakes up late) and soon my swim gear, book, hat...all covered in greasy soot. The deck crew is out there power washing individual chairs all morning but you can already see the embedded soot stains all over the decks of this nearly new ship. Why not go to jungle pool instead? And sit where? And they never opened the top all week on the jungle pool so it was hotter than the thermal suite at the spa. How could this be? It's not air conditioned space, even when walking through here to go to kids club, it was like free sauna experience. The infinity hot tubs on the side of the ship are a nice design touch, and the aft adult pools are nice size. There is precious little shade to be found near these pools. Bluetooth speakers: This isn't an MSC only thing, but they do nothing about it. Plenty of bluetooth speakers and screeching cell phone speakers blaring out music incessantly. I don't mind a festive, fun vibe. But when 3 different screechy cell phones are competing with each others music within a few feet, that's quite a different thing. Inside the Aurea Spa thermal suite someone was using their phone to play music and when I went out to the spa sundeck...SAME THING! I left the spa and found that going to the spa early in the morning when they opened eliminated that because most people were not up yet. MSC does nothing about it so figure out how to avoid on your own. Same with the Technogym. Nice equipment, love the panoramic windows, but way undersized for the ship and they don't let you use the locker room or showers if you use the gym, which is a first for me on any cruise ship ever. Early in morning not bad, but by mid-morning this area is hit or miss because it is too crowded. Crowds. Everywhere. This ship is endless lines. Good ship for 3000 or 3500 people. 5000 no way. Dining room: Most of our meals were actually very good. I think MSC gets a bad rep for food quality, but our dinners were good to very good. Some dishes were excellent in fact. But despite our friendly servers, service is not great. You sit down and maybe you get water, maybe not. Maybe half your table gets water? Maybe 3/4 of you get silverware? Who knows. You've got a full 45 minutes to sort it out before the first appetizer arrives. We had lunch in the dining room 3x and the dishes were excellent and helped us avoid the lines in the buffet. Dining room lunch was an hour each time, dinners are 1.5 to 1.75 hours, without coffee or dessert some nights even. We had dining room breakfast once and it was good, but service was super spotty and food arrived at all different times for everyone. Strange. If they are going to make you bring your phone so you can scan a QR code for the menu...and the waiter takes your order and puts it into an iPad....let us just order through our phone and let the waiters and assistants run food? It would be way more efficient for the cruise line and the guests alike. Crowds. Everywhere. Lines getting off the ship in port are ridiculous. In Puerto Rico there were huge snaking lines around the ship and debarking took nearly an hour. Huh? We waited a full hour after clearance before even attempting to go and still took an hour. In DR, we got off the ship and realized we forgot something in the room....it was early in day so there was actually NOT a line to get on but security created one by not processing people coming back and trying to knock down the outbound line by using a second security agent to scan people off. It took us 25 minutes to get back on when there was NO LINE. You better forget something important if you need to go back, like your spleen or a kidney. This is my second visit to Ocean Cay. I see improvements from my first time there...it's very picturesque. But there is a lot that is like a construction zone, the family beach is shut down for unknown reason, and it's more like walking in a gravel pit than a tropical beach. Bring water shoes. The buffet lunch on the island had massive lines almost down to the bathrooms and they shut it down right at 2pm. Some people waited over an hour to get lunch. The snack trucks shut down early too despite the ship staying until 10pm, I mean 9pm, whatever time MSC randomly decides you will leave is still hours and hours after the food venues close down. CocoCay is vastly superior to OceanCay. OceanCay is superior to Disney, Holland America/Carnival stops, it's been a while since I went to GSC on NCL so can't say how the updates have done...OceanCay is above average for a cruise line beach day, but it's not the best. Shade on the island is at a huge premium. Royal Caribbean, Disney, and Virgin Voyages don't make Gen Pop rent umbrellas. Holland and Carnival beach is a joke compared to everyone elses. Like everything else, with one area shut down and one reserved for YC, and almost no shade to be had, long lines...it felt very crowded at the beach. Lighthouse beach has no lounge chairs at all, strange. Between the hard to get around ship, lousy buffet, spotty service, constant crowds, no-Wow Factor to ocean cay...it just wasn't a great vacation. Some of these items can't be fixed. I am sure Yacht Club is much better...but am I willing to gamble 3x the money to find out?

Sailaway was closer to 4AM. They had a muster around midnight but there was still some 2000+ guests not onboard. I never had muster this week.

We finally got inside the terminal about midnight and checked in approx 1:20AM.

Are they offering shuttles to Bayside for you?

I am waiting to board today, but live semi-local so waiting for more information before heading to port.

To say Carnival is doing a better job than MSC is an understatement. I received a text from MSC at 8:47, 9:06, and 9:08 AM, then a Robo-call around 11am. (Yes, all the texts within 20 mins of each other). Carnival I have gotten 7 updates since 9AM including 1 a few minutes ago when the salvage barge arrived. And even though I am not on their ship, yes, the $20 to cover lunch in Miami (I don't know where lunch is only $20 in Miami, but that's a gracious acknowledgement by CCL)

If you booked through a 3rd party agent they can go into the booking engine and tell you what inventory is still available. That's not to say others are not bidding to upgrade from currently occupied cabins, but will give you an idea of what you *may* get if you bid, and if the location is acceptable to you or not.

I ask for an a page on the TV or app to see a map, another agrees with the Captains corner thing, and only on Cruise Critic can you immediately smoke out opposing opinions to tell you that you are wrong? My 4 month breaks from the website are too short.

Nice observations and explanations of what worked for you and what did not work for you. Unfortunately, the 4 day experience is pretty typical across all cruise lines because it doesn't take a lot of time or money, and for 4 days people aren't looking for adventurous travel but just a fun getaway. Not sure I can hold that against MSC entirely. Although as a newer version of the Seaside I am skeptical of some of the improvements on Seascape enhancing vacations. I'll find out in a couple of weeks.

*IF* you are awarded Deep Blue Extras your arrival time can be ignored. When you get to the Terminal they will ask you to login to your VV App; under "Extras" it will show you have Deep Blue and they'll expedite you straight into terminal. We had a 4PM time and were in terminal by 1:20PM and on ship by 2PM

Miami has facial recognition in most terminals now; so less Customs agents are working. But if the system breaks down, it causes big delays. When it is working fine you literally walk off the ship and never stop walking until you are curbside.

What are some of the Specials offered for the attractions onboard? Thinking my child may want to do 2 or 3 of them, but isn't big into arcade games

Why so early?

Very helpful features and tips for Ocean Cay. I will be on Seascape soon, having been on Seaside previously, and was directed here for changes ship to ship but the Ocean Cay info is excellent! I'll search for your Seascape review

The burger bar was there when it was Sailing as Bahamas Paradise Grand Classica. When they rebranded as 5 O clock Somewhere they ditched the free burgers. Bringing them back isn't really something noteworthy for a dry dock; they are just offering something at the same spot they offered it previously.

The drinking game was over in less than 5 minutes. No big deal. I wouldn't skip this restaurant over a little bit of interaction that you can opt out of.

I was on the Seaside a few years ago and will be on Seascape in 2 weeks. I had no part of the Seascape planning so I really am just starting my research now. I know the ships are the same class, but are there any significant changes/upgrades/features on Seascape that are not on Seaside? Fantastica Balcony level for both.

Are those more around service or the food itself? I feel like they are close on the service but currently it is more of a staff volume situation

I'm not trying to get them to move mountains; just for referring to everything as voyage, adventure, having sea creatures all over, many references to the ocean, etc., they could throw a single page into the app that shows where you are at on the ocean. I'm a PAX that lives 45 minutes from port with a ton of vacation time and means to enjoy, and go on many different cruise lines. The party crowd may not care, but for a cruise line seemingly obsessed with a curated experience, this would only enhance it, IMO. I had not even thought to try Google Maps; that's a good idea and I will def try that out!

Now that I see your avatar, I think I watched your videos before going on VV! Do you have a YT channel w food reviews? My wife sent it to me and I enjoyed it. If that's you...putting the menu on the screen and there long enough to read is a really nice touch. The video was helpful in our planning and knowing what to expect. I used to love putting my phone on airplane mode and throwing it in the safe; it was a highlight of cruising for me. But I recognize today's technology can really allow for improved experiences on vacation. I try to stay off the internet and still disconnect from the real world, but using my phone to get ship services like this is very cool to me. I think VV will adopt some of these ideas into their app. I could see phone-app ordering working at the Dock pretty well, the pizza place...and the coffee bar too. Overall I was pretty happy with Virgin Voyages food and options. Yes, it's easy to get nit picky about what doesn't work right, or what small tweaks could make a big difference. If my burger or chicken enchilada is bland, that's just my taste/preference and there's plenty of dishes I didn't have an opportunity to try yet, and I look forward to going back and doing things in a different order and different selections. Inconsistent service is on VV to fix, although they are not alone with this challenge in the travel and service industry. It was a couple of really negative experiences that stood out, while the majority of our experiences were seamless, pleasant, and efficient. I mean...no one is paying ME to design a cruise ship, so here I am on Cruise CRITIC with all the rest of us. Their standard coffee is offensive and obnoxiously bad though, lol. They must've got a deal.

Kind of a D-Level pet peeve; but several ships across multiple lines I have been on in recent years...there's no way to determine where you are, where you are going, how far into voyage, nautical/mariner type information. I recall cruise lines having a channel on TV with "the map" that would show your speed, heading, where along the itinerary you are at. I remember BIG light up map displays in years past with color changing light segments. Cruise lines used to deliver itinerary maps to your room with voyage information. Just neat stuff for ship geeks. Is there somewhere on Virgin VOYAGES I would have been able to find this? It was not in the app anywhere I could find, or TV. There's no interactive map/tv/display anywhere on the ship with this information. Also guilty is Holland America MARINERS and their NAVIGATOR app that contains none of these items; they had one display in the crows nest but it was non-functional. Just my opinion; but it's something that has fallen by the wayside and Virgin, in trying to differentiate themselves from the mainstream, first had to look at exactly what the mainstream is doing and then make changes. So that's why some of these things don't exist: No one at VV has even thought of them because the competition wasn't doing them. I may have missed an event, but I did not see it, for a Captains Corner type event to find out more about the ship operations, etc. Do they have one of those?

That would make a lot of sense. On Holland America, for their NY Pizza and Deli, and their Dive In (Burger, Chicken Sandwich, Hot Dog) you can access the app and order these items; then get a notification when they are ready. These quick serve places are adjacent to the pool, so they don't really have expedited runner service, but I'd watch people stand in line for 30 minutes just to ORDER, and I'd just open the app from my pool chair and, order, and pickup the food in 15-20 minutes when the app would say it was ready.

Didn't know there was a new menu coming out; perhaps they will rotate them to encourage more visits to this restaurant at night.

For me, I simply had to vacate because it got TOO hot. There are no fans or water misters around the seating areas; since it is tucked behind the hotel superstructure, it's in a naturally sheltered spot for wind. Sailing at slow speed produces no breeze in that area at all. It's a really nice area overall; I think they will end up expanding it or at least hopefully using those two side areas more frequently and expanding seating around the side.