Aixia

I noticed some strobes on a few shows/venues and without a warning at the entrance of the theatre, that's a recipe for disaster. It's customary to place warnings for various things in live shows and strobes is one of those things that can be incredibly dangerous to folks if they don't know it's coming and can't get away. It's just plain irresponsible not to have warnings. This particular light was one of the ones we noticed was having issues throughout the week- it's highly unlikely that it's supposed to be pointed that direction in the first place, let alone spinning that gobo (pattern) in that color. Technically it's not a strobe effect, but when looking at it from the direction you did, yep, that's gonna have a strobe effect to a viewer. Bad lighting design if it's working as designed, and a broken fixture if it's not as designed. There were a couple times that that particular light was just spinning in place. They aren't supposed to do that. Your video didn't catch us I'm afraid, we usually got there around 10 PM or so and stayed until the end of the last set. We clearly crossed paths a few times though I'm sure!

We just got off the beautiful MSC Seascape. Some background on us. We’re a mid-40’s Midwestern couple with no kids who has cruised on NCL (Sky, Pearl, Breakaway, Getaway, Escape), Royal (Allure), and MSC (Divina, Seashore). We both work in the entertainment industry. We were on Seashore last July in an aft balcony Aurea suite and absolutely adored it. Loved the ship, loved the cabin, and Ocean Cay is our favorite private island now. Sure, with MSC the product can be a little quirky, but we don’t mind rolling with the punches and we’re not particularly fussy or needy. We like the international flavor of MSC. In terms of comparing the various lines we’ve cruised with, we prefer the food on MSC, the spa on NCL, and the entertainment on Royal and NCL. MSC has the best private island. The ships themselves are all great. Overall service onboard is great with all three. I have multiple food allergies, and while all lines have accommodated me well, I prefer MSC’s handling of dietary things and we both prefer their menu options over the others. We prefer larger ships with all the bells and whistles, so these three lines in particular work well for us. We also like new ships; we’ve been on five ships within their first year of sailing. In looking for a summer vacation, we had one available week that worked with our schedules. I compared NCL, Royal, and MSC for the same week for a Caribbean cruise that left from a port we could drive to. (Didn’t want to fly, much cheaper to drive, and I had enough hotel points to cover all our stays on a multiple-day drive.) I did look at some other lines as well, but wasn’t impressed with the offerings. We weren’t picky on itinerary. For roughly the same price, we could get a spa balcony on NCL Escape, an oceanview balcony or junior suite on Royal’s Harmony of the Seas, or a Yacht Club Grand Suite on MSC Seascape. It was an easy decision. We were excited to try Yacht Club for the first time, having sailed Fantastica and Aurea before. We chose the Grand suite over the Deluxe because it was only a $40 difference total, so we figured we may as well get the extra closet space for the negligibly higher price. We did get the upgrade offer emails, but skipped trying for an upgrade. The prices they were asking were astronomical, and we could have had a whole additional cruise in YC for the upgrade cost alone. No thanks. The only real benefit to the Royal and Owners Suites over what we already had would have been extra space in the cabin and a reserved cabana on the sun deck, and we didn’t think that was worth the price. Besides, doing dummy bookings showed YC as sold out anyway. We decided to skip the upgrade attempt, and use my superpower of waking up obscenely early for no reason to snag a cabana instead. Embarkation was a breeze. We arrived, dropped off bags, got whisked past the crowds waiting to get in, and were zipped through security. A bit of a line at the actual check in room, but they brought in more agents right as we got there so it didn’t take terribly long. Got checked in and on the ship and our room was ready, so we dropped off our carry on bags and headed to the pool deck for lunch at the grill. Very tasty, and we couldn't believe how fast it all was. Disembarkation was equally quick. We met up at 7:30 in the lounge, hung out there for about 15 minutes, and were escorted right off. Even security wasn't that bad, and we found our suitcases quickly and got through the facial recognition speedily. We were in our car and driving away by 8! YC may be worth it solely for embarkation and disembarkation. The cabin is lovely! We were in 19011. Nice sized, and the walk-in closet meant our suitcases could be out of sight and out of traffic patterns. Plenty of space for hanging stuff, and lots of storage space outside the closet too. These rooms not only have the walk-in closet, but two regular closets within the room. No shortage of storage here! Nice sized bathroom. Larger balcony than the average balcony cabin, though not nearly the size of our fabulous aft wraparound balcony from Seashore last year. The curtains in front of the balcony are better than any other cabin on any other ship though. Talk about a total blackout! One of my biggest complaints about the ship is that only half the doors are touchless. With about half of them, just wave your hand at the sensor to open, or they’re automatic. With the rest, you actually need to open them manuallly. As a germophobe, especially when on a ship, I don’t want to touch ANYTHING anyone else has touched, especially doorknobs. NCL does mostly touchless doors, and this ship should be the same. I’ve noticed on more than a few reviews that many folks talk about how the butlers are ever-present and some don’t even let you walk to your cabin with a drink in your hand and want to carry it for you. Admittedly, I was pretty weirded out by that and it was a potential negative for us even doing YC. We’re just not those kind of people. We’re very self-sufficient and don’t need all that fawning. I’m happy to say that the butler team adjusts very quickly to the level of “neediness” from the guests. We were perfectly happy taking the stairs, wandering around without an escort, carrying things to our cabin, etc. and the butlers let us. But the instant we did need that escort or elevator override, reserved theatre seats, or extra care, the butlers were right there to give us a hand. If you’re like us and have the same fears, don’t sweat it. Our butler team of Arun and Abhishek were amazing! As far as the entertainment goes, being in the industry- well, we both had a lot of notes. The tech team in the main theatre did the performers a great disservice a few times, leaving folks in the dark by sometimes being in the wrong cue and by having lights not working properly. The lighting design for a few shows was simply terrible. The sound was not balanced correctly in many instances. The choreography for the West Side Story bit of the movie show was not the original choreography when it should have been. Dreamscape and Imaginocean were particularly good shows in the main theatre. The cast of all of the main theatre shows were wonderful. The Dueling Pianos musicians were lovely musicians, but clearly didn't have the cultural reference for many of the songs they played. They ended up singing the harmony as the melody for a very popular 80's song, and we suspect it was simply because the singer simply wasn't familiar enough with the song to know the difference. (Neither singer was American.) We greatly enjoyed the performers in the Cabaret Rouge, and ended up there pretty much every night. We wished their sets were a little more varied, especially the band, but the acts they did were solid. Now, as it happened, the first sea day, I did indeed go up to the pool deck early enough to get a cabana, but the folks who already had cabanas seemed to be fighting the wind pretty badly. It didn't seem like they were having much fun dealing with it. I got a lounger up by the very front of the ship near the hot tub with spectacular views of the ocean and was completely alone for hours. (Minus servers bringing me drinks of course!) Since there’s a wind break there, it wasn’t nearly as windy as everywhere else, and simply lovely. Highly recommend! We skipped even trying for cabanas after that and stuck with our awesome forward spot. I saw the review that mentioned people eating their Seafood Extravaganza lunch from their loungers as if that was a bad thing. Ha! That was us, and it was completely by choice. I didn't want to give up my view! 😄 My only real complaint about the YC food is that there isn’t a dedicated gluten-free galley in YC, so I can’t get the awesome pasta and fried calamari I had back in Aurea. Still, the dining room team took very good care of me and made sure I could eat something tasty at every meal. I didn’t have a bad meal the whole time. Not having pasta just meant I ate more risotto instead. No big loss! So many folks say that once you go Yacht Club, you can never go back. Our experience in the Aurea suites was plenty great though, so I’d say that while yes, YC is a terrific product and the attention from the staff is top notch, the Aurea suites are also terrific and well worth doing, even after YC. We're definitely planning to sail MSC again, and when we do, we'll look at both Aurea and YC suites and be perfectly happy either way.

Really enjoying this review! I'll be in YC on Seascape next week, so it's terrifically helpful!

From what I could tell when it happened to me, the issue was on Upgrade Advantage's end, not MSC. The customer service folks at MSC on the phone, at check-in, and onboard were all great, but there was nothing they could do. It can't hurt to call MSC and to ask them at check-in, but you might be in the same situation as me. So sorry! It sucks to get your hopes up and have it not happen. The ship is still going to be awesome though, so don't let it ruin an otherwise fabulous vacation!

Check to make sure the charge has actually gone through on your bank account and not just listed as "pending". I had the same problem on Seashore last year. Upgrade appeared to go through, credit card was charged, but it only ever went to pending and never fully went through. No new cabin number arrived. Calls to MSC had them assuring me that the cabin change was clearly coming. Interestingly, our cards said Yacht Club and Guest Services assured us that we had access to YC even with our Aurea cabin, but we very much did not. The charge never did go through in the end, and we didn't get the upgrade, but it sure seemed like it was trying to give it to us.

The same thing happened to me last year. The upgrade never went through, even though I had the same pending charge. My category had changed on the website to YC, and it even said YC on my keycard, but the room was never actually changed and I never had access to YC. Very annoying. It's a glitch on the upgrade company's side, and MSC can't do anything about it. Sorry this has happened to you too!

The buffet is about the same really, though the Indian food was surprisingly lacking. I love the various Indian options on other lines and was surprised I didn’t find any this time. Maybe I missed them? I was looking, but I did notice a few times that other folks had things on their plates I never saw when I was going through, so maybe they don’t put duplicates everywhere and I just missed stuff more than I thought I did. This one is laid out sort of like the Breakaway and Breakaway Plus classes on NCL, with stations for similar types of items and duplicates on the opposite side of the buffet. There’s more outdoor seating on those classes of NCL ships, however, we never had trouble finding outdoor seats. Few people were sitting outside though we almost always did.

You definitely won’t be alone. I’d say probably 5-10 percent of folks wore masks at least some of the time, especially in places like the theatre. You’ll be in the minority, but certainly not the only ones by any means.

I have had good experiences with MSC handling my wheat allergy. They’ve been wonderful about it as long as you’re willing to wait just a bit longer for the head waiter. For Aurea and anytime dining, I didn’t have a dedicated wait staff but they got to know me pretty quickly. When we sailed on Divina with set dining, I had my own allergy-specialist waiter at dinner. On NCL, I have to preorder every meal, and that gets annoying, not to mention tough when I want to dine at a specialty restaurant and have to remember to swing by the dining room and preorder for tomorrow. It’s a time suck. On Royal, I usually can only have one or two things on the menu each night. It’s usually something that’s good, but I don’t have a lot of choice. Luckily I’m not super picky, but if you are, you’re going to be stuck with the always available stuff every night. On MSC, there’s usually only one or two things I CAN’T eat on the entire menu. As you probably know, that’s a huge deal. From my understanding, Italy has one of the highest rates of celiac in the world, so they understand gluten free cooking better than a lot of other cuisines. It’s a big positive for me.

Excellent point about the shows, and I agree. They have to make something accessible to a wide variety of people from various cultures and languages, and that's a huge undertaking. For what they have to work with, I think they do an admirable job. Focusing on pretty music and acrobatics is smart. I'd probably personally prefer the Broadway-style musicals of NCL and RCCL, but for what it is, I'll take it. They tell you when to do the drill. The whole ship does it at the same time. Everything shuts down, so it's not like you really have anywhere else to be or anything else to do. They send everyone to their cabin at the same time, you make the call to the automated line at the same time, and then they send you in two groups to your muster stations, half the ship at a time. We were in the first group that went to muster stations, and the second group was called as we were heading back to our cabin.

I got lots of great advice here before my recent Seashore cruise, so I wanted to give a review of our experience in hopes others find it useful. We (my husband and I, both in our 40's, seasoned cruisers) went into this trip knowing that we wanted to avoid people as much as possible. The pandemic isn't over, no matter how much some folks want to believe it is. I get tested as often as three times a week at my job, I've never had Covid, and I'm very careful. When we booked, things were looking pretty good overall. When we hit final payment, things were still ok, but not terrific. When we cruised, things were bad and I was pretty convinced we were completely stupid for doing this. We used KN95 masks anytime we went out in public indoor areas minus the spa. In the spa we avoided people as much as we could by going at off-peak times or enjoying the outdoor hot tub and loungers there. We did not get Covid on our trip. As some of you may have read in my previous thread, I had upgrade issues. Basically, I put in bids on a YC Deluxe Suite and a YC Deluxe Grand Suite. For about a month before sailing, every day they would cancel my bids and tell me to put in a new one, which I did every morning at 9 AM. They put a hold on my Amex for the Deluxe Suite about 10 days out from boarding, but the charge never completed and it dropped off. Things wavered between e-docs saying we had Yacht Club experience but in our regular cabin and having Aurea and our regular cabin but with YC as a Special Service. That’s not something they actually do, so it was weird. Going to the upgrade site said the upgrades were "Under Review" before turning to “Upgrade Unavailable”. On the Tuesday before boarding, a pending charge went on my card for the second bid. Again, it never resolved, and I never got a new cabin number. I called MSC, and they said first that it would come the next day, and when it didn't, to check when we got to the ship. Two customer service reps and two managers had been involved at this point. When we boarded, we asked at check-in about YC, and they said we'd have to ask onboard, but that we were in our original cabin. So we headed to Guest Services onboard and they said our cards clearly showed we had YC as a package, but not as a room. Going to the YC area gave us no access on the card scanners. We officially gave up at that point. The moral of the story is if PlusGrade cancels your bid for no reason, just give up. You're not getting it. You've been glitched in their system and there's no coming back from it. On the bright side, none of the upgrades actually went through as charges on my credit card, so I didn't pay twice for something I didn't get. We ended up spending about half as much onboard as we would have on an upgrade, so it's really MSC's loss here. They could have had much more from us and didn't. We booked a wraparound Aurea balcony on Deck 10, which gave us a guaranteed lounger directly above the adults-only infinity pool deck. All the ambiance of the pool deck with none of the interactions with people. It was divine! There is some lack of privacy on the balcony, but there’s good people watching of the pool below. The higher floors wouldn’t have the sound from the pool deck as clearly as us, and would lose privacy from above instead since the Bridge of Sighs is directly above. The bar and gelato stand were just a quick hop down the aft elevator whenever we wanted. The aft elevators were almost never crowded. The views are stunning, and the room was much larger than a standard balcony. Since we planned to spend a lot of time in the cabin and on the balcony, it was perfect. The shower is the best cruise ship shower I’ve ever used. So much space! The only downside to the cabin is the vibration from the azipods. It’s no joke! We had to take the hangers out of the closets on the last night since after we’d packed all our stuff, they just clattered against each other something awful and we couldn’t sleep. The room is a bit loud, and things move. It wasn’t problematic, but just something to be aware of. If you're considering one of these cabins, don't hesitate, do it! The safety drill was interesting. They have you watch a safety video in your cabin, then call an automated number on the phone to prove that you finished the video. Then, they call you to go to your muster station, where they scan your card to show you went. Then you’re immediately sent out into the rest of the ship to enjoy the cruise. I can definitely see the appeal here for the ship. With all the languages onboard, everyone gets the safety info in their own language, which is much clearer. You still go to your station in person, even if you don’t spend as much time there as the usual pre-pandemic way. You get double confirmation that people have at least heard the info and went in person (room call and card scan). The main downside is as my husband said later- he didn’t remember where our station was and would have been confused in a real emergency since he was there only for a few seconds. Now, ours was in our dining room and I remembered just fine. But still, it’s a valid point. Personally, I liked it and it felt much faster. Aurea sun deck is very nice, with a bar and cabanas with couches along with loungers and chairs. The cabanas are highly coveted of course, so go early to get one. We went up around 8:30 or 9 on Monday (sea day) and got one just fine, and stayed for an hour or so before handing it off to a waiting group in the chairs next to us. Couldn’t get one on the second sea day, so we hung out at the upper level of the jungle pool instead before retreating back to the balcony. Food is good. Standard ship fare, but that’s not a bad thing. Hola Cantina was great for a sea day lunch, a perfect suggestion from the manager at Butcher’s Cut. The MDR (Manhattan for Aurea) is good. Lunch in the MDR (Central Park) is fine; they had some confusion about my gluten-free needs, but we had the same on Divina at lunches. When they’re expecting you and ready, it’s great. If you surprise them with it, they don’t know what to do with you. They had to call in the Head Waiter, but he was great and knew what to do. It’s so refreshing being able to just order off a normal menu with only a couple of “don’t have this”. Also, the rolls they gave me were wonderful! Some Italian brand I'm not familiar with, but I took a picture of the packaging so I can look it up. Pasta is as good as you’d expect on an Italian ship. They had fried calamari at dinner for Italian night, and they made it gluten-free! It was terrific too! I haven't had fried calamari since I had to go GF about a decade ago. Butcher’s Cut was very tasty. The steak itself wasn’t all that different from what we got on formal night, but the sauces were an added bonus. We went to Ocean Cay for our final night dinner. Very tasty! Probably my favorite meal on the ship. Buffet was pretty standard. Labels were hit and miss as others have said, though they were good about labeling stuff that had pork. If you're GF and can't handle cross-contamination, DON'T do the buffet. Stick to the MDR. I can handle a little bit of cross-contamination since I'm not celiac, so I found things I could eat ok in the buffet, but I still had to be careful. They blot the grease from the bacon by laying it on slices of bread, which you don't see on a full pan. On port days, the seagulls went divebombing for leftovers on the outside areas, and they were particularly vicious on St. Thomas and nearly attacked a little girl for her breakfast. The shows are ok. Nothing particularly exceptional, but not bad either. (I'm in the entertainment industry.) The women production dancers and singers are stronger than the men. The opera singers have a tough time with the pop songs. Not really their fault, it's just that the shows aren’t built for their voices. Mystic Forest was bizarre, and not in a good way. There was a steampunk Humpty Dumpty costume that was just over the top strange and didn’t add anything. No story to speak of, which isn’t a problem, but it was just a super bizarre afternoon show. No evening show that day because of the late port stop, so we saw the show at 4. Maybe you needed to be more drunk to appreciate it? Paris was our favorite show and our favorite costumes, but the That’s Amore show was strong too, and showcased the opera singers very well. The boy band and diva shows in the Cabaret Rouge were quite good. We didn’t know that it was Constitution Day in San Juan the day we were there. Ended up wonderful! There were a couple of tall ships in port right next to us, and one left while we were there to great fanfare. There was a concert happening just off the dock, so we found a comfy spot on a forward starboard deck and watched the concert from there. When it started raining we retreated to the cabin, but we could still hear it through the open balcony door, and watch from the forward bridge cam. Awesome! Getting off the ship was nuts, so we didn’t even bother. The concert was literally immediately off the pier, so there was no escaping the crowd once you got off the ship. We got into port about an hour late, and clearance came late, then the lines to get off were crazy long, and a ton of people ended up coming back early anyway since the crowds right off the gangway were so crazy with the concert. We made the absolute right decision staying on board. Snorkeling in St. Thomas was great as usual. We did a ship excursion this day, our only one. (Power Cat and Beach) Saw a turtle and a barracuda immediately after getting into the water! Did some more snorkeling off the beach on Ocean Cay and saw a ton of stuff there too on the two beaches went to. Chased a little flounder around, and one little fish came right up to me to check me out and lead me to a group of his friends. Super fun! Ocean Cay is lovely. Nicely laid out, lots of places to hang out, easy to access bars, and more shade than I was expecting thanks to all the trees. Might be our favorite private island of the ones we've been to- NCL, RCCL, and MSC. We didn't do much in Puerto Plata, we hung out at the port area pool for a while and walked the beach a bit, but then went back onboard to enjoy the mostly empty ship. The ship itself is easier to navigate than Divina was. Much better layout. I know some people complain bitterly about the elevators, but we never minded them. You enter in the floor before getting on, so it can send you to a faster car. The only issue we had was using the midship ones, when they sent us around the corner to a car in a different bank instead of the bank we were actually standing at. The aft glass elevators were much less busy and were our go to when we didn’t take the stairs. We did take the stairs most of the time. Overall, we had a wonderful time! The ship was great, our ports were fun, it was a terrifically relaxing time, and we emerged unscathed if a touch sunburned. I would absolutely sail on Seashore again, or any of her sisters. What a great cruise!

Agreed! My second bid is now in limbo. Pending charge on the credit card again this morning, new booking confirmation from MSC that very clearly states YC as the experience, but no new cabin number. It's deja vu all over again. I do not have any confidence that it will work out this time.

Oh wow! It looks like all of my luggage tags in the assorted versions they've sent have said Aurea, even when they had my experience as YC elsewhere. Interesting that you used Amex too. I wonder if that's where the issue is coming from?

Not on deck 8. My luggage tags definitely still have my booked cabin on them and say Aurea, the only thing that says YC is that is says "Special Service" and the EXPYCB-Yacht Club description in the Purchased Services section on the e-ticket. That's crazy what happened to you. Especially since you paid for it in the first place! Did you by any chance use American Express? I've been putting everything for this trip on that card since it doesn't have foreign transaction fees, but it's the only other thing I can think of that could have sent this sideways.

I put this in my roll call too, but in case it’s relevant to anyone else dealing with this. Basically every morning around 9 AM my bids would be canceled and I’d redo them. I mostly did Fair and Good bids, but wasn’t always consistent with amounts. I almost got an upgrade. They put a hold on my card for the amount of my Deluxe Grand bid, emailed that they’d canceled my other bid, and sent me new docs that had my same cabin number but Yacht Club as the experience. I figured they’d update the cabin once the charge went through. The charge never went through on my card, just stayed pending until it fell off. (Though strangely, my available funds haven’t came back.) The upgrade status page now says “Upgrade Unavailable”. I’ve literally gotten new e-tickets every day, some with Yacht Club as the experience and some with Aurea, but always in my original cabin. On the latest one, I’m in my original cabin with original Aurea experience, but on the Special Services page it has Yacht Club listed. Interestingly, it also let me put in a new upgrade bid, for the Deluxe Grand Suite that had been canceled when I got charged for the Deluxe Suite. I guess we’ll see in the coming days if I get that upgrade instead. I have no idea what we’re really walking into when we get there. It’d be super cool if we got to keep our aft balcony and got YC privileges, but I don’t think they do that.

Hobby3333, mine said the same, that I’d get another email within 24 hours or I could click the link to go to their website. I just clicked the link in that first email and didn’t wait for the new offer. I submitted again today, I guess we’ll just have to see if I get another cancellation email tomorrow morning. It doesn’t look like there’s been an itinerary change, but that could be something that doesn’t get updated right away I suppose.

I hadn’t even considered an itinerary change. I’ll have to take another look at my account. I’d only looked at the cabin.

I’m sailing on Seashore on July 23 in an Aurea aft suite. Yesterday I got an email stating my upgrade bid (to YC) had been canceled due to a change in my booking. Nothing has changed on my booking, and I’ve double-checked my account numerous times. Strange, but whatever. I re-did my bid, got the confirmation, all was well. Then this morning I get another email saying my new bids were also canceled, and again, “due to a change in your booking”. There are no changes to my booking that I can find. Anyone have this happen before? I’m planning to email PlusGrade, but it seems very strange.

I sailed on Divina a few years ago and I have to say, they were incredible with my eating gluten free. We had the Fantastica experience, and we ended up with a table for two, which I have to assume was because of my food allergies. We had the usual two waiters like any other table, but then I had a special dedicated waiter just for me to help me navigate the options. I could order off the regular menu, no pre-ordering required like on other lines. It was so nice to just walk in, sit down, and have a normal meal without feeling like a weirdo! And the food was great! We actually preferred the food on MSC over NCL and Royal, but it's super subjective, so your tastes may be different. Don't miss the pasta and risotto! Apparently Italy has one of the highest rates of celiac disease in the world, so the Italians really understand gluten-free options and you see that reflected on MSC ships. The one downside is that everyone raves about MSC's pizza, including my husband, but there's no GF pizza option. I still found plenty to eat though! We tended to do the buffet only for breakfast, the dining rooms were better for lunch and dinner. I did have occasional trouble getting a gluten-free menu at lunch that was in English, but I read enough French that the French and Italian menus I ended up with were workable. Make sure you fill out the special diet form that you can get on the website. That will guarantee that you get what you need. We had such a great experience on Divina that we're on the Seashore in July!