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Review of MSC Seaside Sept 1st - 8th 2018


MikeACY
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REVIEW OF MSC SEASIDE

 

The following is my impression of our 7 day cruise fromMiami to St. Maarten, San Juan, and Nassau in September 2018.

 

Embankment:

Pro: Simple, efficient and easy.

Cons: No one looked at or cared about our check in times.Rooms were ready by 2:00pm

 

Room: Wehad an interior on the 12th floor.

Pro: Roomy and well lit. Multiple electrical sockets and USBports to charge devises.

Con: Shower could have been a little larger.

 

Ship:

Pro: Beautiful ship. Well laid out.

Con: Not enough elevators. Waits were too long. We had to go“UP” many times to go “Down”. Also we couldn’t get to the front of the ship forviewing. The front was reserved only for their Exclusive Yacht Club Passengers.

 

Entertainment:

Pro: Different show in the main theater every night and theywere amazing! Multiple rooms on the ship where music was playing at all times.Main Pool side entertainments were very good (the usual belly flop contest,Miss Ocean Queen, etc)

Con: Don’t forget to make main Theater reservations on theship via their Wifi (more on this later) or on many of their information boardson the decks. Seats “sold” out quickly. Some passengers commented that theshows were actually the same every night except for the customs. They werereferring to the same 4 singers, the same acrobats, (Roller skaters, hula hoopguy, man doing stunts with a large ring, two very flexible-contortion- women).I found them all to be beyond cruise ship standards, so I didn’t mind watchingthem again on every show. Other comments where that much of the music playedwas Latino and therefore sung in that language.

 

Pool Area:

Pro: Enough chairs to go around. Although the entertainmentwas “noisy” for some around the main pool, one could go other places for peaceand quiet. Hot tubs were not always available. I was happy to see a poollifeguard and attendant to keep inconsiderate passengers from jumping into thepools, and to keep the hot tubs capacity under control. Most hot tubs held 9people, and the life guard will monitor that and ask people to leave if thatwas exceeded.

Con: The main pool is over 6 feet deep!!! Whose idea wasthat? People were clinging to the sides while in the pool. It was easy to floatbecause of the large salt content, however, who wants to do that? I do not knowif the other pool located in the back were the same depth.

 

 

 

 

Buffet:

Pro: Two buffets. A smaller one on the 16thfloor, and one larger one on the 8th. The 8th had a widevariety to choose from, and for the most part the food was good and at leastwarm.

 

Con: Everyday was the same food. Breakfast, Lunch and Dinnerin the buffets were the same every day! Also they ran out of ice, coffee,coffee cups, drink cups, didn’t clean the tables in a timely manner. This justdidn’t happen once, it happened often.

 

Dinner:

Pro: We only did the complementary dinners, and for the mostpart food was fair to good. Quantities were smaller, but enough.

Con: No lobster night! And not enough staffing!! (More onthis later) Service was slow, and it took a full 1 ½ hours at least to eatdinner because of the slow service. No individual attention and we had the sametable/waiter every night.

 

Wifi:

Pro: Excellent idea where passengers were able to hook up tothe ship Wifi and not be charged as long as they used it for booking excursions,shows, dinners, etc. It also showed your agenda for the day or week includedall the reserved shows, ship itinerary etc.

Con: Not user friendly!!! Took me at least two days tofigure out how to use most of its features. Great idea, but not easy to use.

 

Bars:

Pro: Everywhere you looked or turned there was a bar.

Con: Not enough staffing. Most had two bar tenders to a barand it wasn’t uncommon to wait 5-10 min for a drink. They were not lazy, butoverwhelmed!!

 

Excursions:

Pro: Easy to reserve, just us the Wifi. Excursion desk neverhad a line.

Con: I usually do most excursion reservations with off shipvendors. However, this time I reserved thru the cruise line since this was alast min cruise. I was sorry I did. The descriptions weren’t accurate and theywere expensive. I have other reviews on this site that describe my unsatisfaction.

 

 

Disembarkment:

 

Pro: Simple. Had to be out of room by 7:45 but we overslept and left at 8:30 with no problem. Luggage tag showed our departure from the ship at 9:50 and it was accurate.

Con: None

 

Overview:

A beautiful designed, well maintained ship, and excellententertainment. The cruise director was funny and always seen. Many passengers werenot happy that when an announcement was made over the Public Address system,that the crew repeated the same message in at least 5 languages. Since mostpeople understand English, after the first message, people started talking, noone listened, so it became ignoring. Their biggest issue is staffing. Ourwaiter did an excellent job trying to keep up serving 30 people in our group.And it wasn’t just our group, but others in the dining room experienced thesame. I miss the individual attention that waiters on cruise lines gave theirpassengers. Staffing at the bars, unacceptable. And running out of cups,coffee, ice, not cleaning tables (many tables were outside and in port theseagulls were eating the food off the tables) was unacceptable. No one enforced“washy washy” at all!

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We were on the same cruise with you and I agree with everything you stated above. Just did my MSC survey today and told them about the lack of variety each day at the buffet, under staffed bars and we did want more variety in the shows each night.

Also, two mornings when we arrived in port, the captain came over the loud speaker in the cabin and announced you could disembark and then in 5 other languages.

One morning we were still asleep and it was very aggravating to have the announcement in our cabin.

 

Overall a nice cruise though.

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Something to consider about deep swimming pools.

Shallow pools tend to have people standing around all afternoon drinking and never leaving to use the restroom.

I'm not aware of any ships that have "shallow ends" in their pools. They are all deep. Kiddie pools (waders) are the exception, of course!

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We were on the same cruise with you and I agree with everything you stated above. Just did my MSC survey today and told them about the lack of variety each day at the buffet, under staffed bars and we did want more variety in the shows each night.

Also, two mornings when we arrived in port, the captain came over the loud speaker in the cabin and announced you could disembark and then in 5 other languages.

One morning we were still asleep and it was very aggravating to have the announcement in our cabin.

 

Overall a nice cruise though.

 

Do you know if they have a knob (or some kind of button) in the room that turns off the room speakers? (at least when it's not an emergency type announcement)

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Thanks for your review!

 

Concerning the pools: It´s good that they are quite deep - that avoids that the pool is crowded by people just standing around.

 

Concerning the announcements: MSC is still a European cruise line and in Europe there are more languages than just one - so don´t be selfish and think of people, who are might not be able to speak or understand English very well.

 

Staff: I agree that it would be nice to have more staff on board - but this would also have an impact on the price. One of the USPs of MSC is that they are really affordable for a lot of people.

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Thank you very much, @MikeACY for your review, it was very informative and I liked how you grouped the different aspects of the cruise and listed the Pros and Cons. I might quibble a bit about the 5 languages bit (polyglot that I am) and the deep pool water, but I am a little concerned about the long bar waits you describe. We're in an Aurea cabin and are hoping the service will be faster at the dedicated bar. Again, many thanks for a great review!!

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Thank you very much, @MikeACY for your review, it was very informative and I liked how you grouped the different aspects of the cruise and listed the Pros and Cons. I might quibble a bit about the 5 languages bit (polyglot that I am) and the deep pool water, but I am a little concerned about the long bar waits you describe. We're in an Aurea cabin and are hoping the service will be faster at the dedicated bar. Again, many thanks for a great review!!

 

I would not call 5 -10 minutes long bar wait or 1.5 hour inner long dinner.:confused:

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Couple questions... did it cost $$ to use the water slides? I think the Zip line was extra.

 

Also on the drink package... I see it includes Beer,Wine, Basic Rum,Vodka ..etc...and non alcoholic drinks...but were Frozen drinks with alcohol included like Straw Daqs, Pina Colada, Fuzzy Navel,..etc ? Thank you

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Do you know if they have a knob (or some kind of button) in the room that turns off the room speakers? (at least when it's not an emergency type announcement)

 

I looked all over for the knob, but couldn’t find it. Doesn’t mean it wasn’t there though.

Hearing the announcements in different languages never bothered me until it woke me up in the cabin.

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Couple questions... did it cost $$ to use the water slides? I think the Zip line was extra.

 

Also on the drink package... I see it includes Beer,Wine, Basic Rum,Vodka ..etc...and non alcoholic drinks...but were Frozen drinks with alcohol included like Straw Daqs, Pina Colada, Fuzzy Navel,..etc ? Thank you

 

The drinks on us package doesn’t include frozen drinks and you pay the gratuity for each drink that you order.

You can upgrade to the classic package for $18pp per day and that includes the gratuities, drinks up to $8, so I’m not sure how much frozen drinks cost.

We upgraded to deluxe which was $26 pp per day and included drinks up to $13 gelato, specialty coffees and everything in your room fridge(beer,soda,water, vodka,gin,whiskey, chips, nuts) which is replenished daily.

In hindsight, we should have just upgraded to the classic pkg. because MSC drink prices are very reasonable compared to RCCL.

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Thank you very much, @MikeACY for your review, it was very informative and I liked how you grouped the different aspects of the cruise and listed the Pros and Cons. I might quibble a bit about the 5 languages bit (polyglot that I am) and the deep pool water, but I am a little concerned about the long bar waits you describe. We're in an Aurea cabin and are hoping the service will be faster at the dedicated bar. Again, many thanks for a great review!!

 

I found the Aurea bar worst for wait despite fewer customers. That being said, it was still not long with one exception. On the last afternoon, I literally waited 45 minutes to tip out the young lady who had brought us drinks the most often. I finally walked away and gave her tip to the ladies at Venchi. The ladies at Venchi we're best.

 

If you are Aurea at the front of the boat, try the casino bar during the day for super fast service.

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I was on the Seaside on the same week. It was better than I expected, but some people seem to be really mad that cream was not available at all coffee stations.....

 

 

Love the deep pool, makes it more empty and the pool was completely empty during days in port.

 

 

Considering the Drink On Us package was free, I had no complaints about it, but the red wine and rose is nothing to write about. I like how bottled water is included (both small and large) and if you use the drink station in the buffet, there's no gratuity charges. They also have styrofoam cups in the back.

 

 

The buffet was huge, with tons of variety and they do change it every day. (It's mostly leftovers from the previous MDR menu). Some weird combination of pizza, like french fries.

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