Average Seaside Cruise--Review/Opinion

Just returned last week on the Feb 17th from the Seaside. It was me, my DW, and my two teenage DD's. I have been on 25 cruises now. We have sailed mostly in the Caribbean with a couple of Alaska, New England, and Hawaii trips sprinkled in. This was out first MSC cruise. We are "average joes" so to speak. We do not do suites, haven clubs, etc. For us, a balcony is an upgrade. This truly is the first time I have done a "review" here on CC. Please take it with a grain of salt, it is just one families opinion. My family has spent several hours discussing our vacation all between the trip home and a few night at the dinner table. I feel that a few days to reflect before forming an overall opinion works for me.

Our Seaside cruise was average. It was not close to our best cruise experiences and at no point were things so bad that I contemplated tossing myself over the railing to end it. It was middle of the road for us. That said, this without a doubt, was the least expensive cruise (using a $$ breakdown for what we received) we have taken in at least 4-5 years. The price point does play a row for my review. By the way, we were Aurea package and paid 3300$ for four in a balcony room.

I always ask myself two specific questions post cruise. 1) Would I go on that cruise ship again? 2) Could I in good conscience, recommend this cruise ship to a close friend?

That is it, because I am not going to get into the trap of telling strangers on a forum what they should or should not do.

Would I go on the Seaside again? This answer is not as straight forward as other cruises I have sailed. It is because of the price point. If in the future, I find that $$ is tight but I really would like to get away on a cruise, then YES, I would strongly consider the Seaside. This is of course only if she remains at the current price point that I see now. If in the future, I find that the price point matches her competitors in the Florida area, then the answer would we NO. I honestly feel that the Seaside would have to up their game if they wanted their price point to match the Celebrities and the RC's. ( I'm not sure, but I don't think that that is their goal)

2) Could I in good conscience, recommend this cruise ship to a close friend? The answer would be similar to above. My first question would be to ask how much money that they want to spend? If money is tight and choices were narrow, I could easily recommend the Seaside for getting them their $$ worth. On the other side, if you took the money part out of the equation, I probably would have trouble recommending the Seaside compared to my other experiences cruising out of Florida.

I am going to do a little bit of a breakdown, but it really is going to be short and sweet.

Embarkation-- No problems here. Since we were Aurea, it was kind of like the Carnival "faster to the fun" and we bypassed the main line.

Public Spaces-- Clean and new. Lots of shiny surfaces. No problem with cleanliness in general. We did run into a few backed up toilets both mens and womens room. I did not note the area, but a women's room was closed at one point with a layer of water on the floor. Some of the layout was just wierd to me. I have some design/architect background, so a few areas had me scratching my head. My thinking was "well, it must have looked good on paper". Getting across deck 16 with its layout was odd to me. The garage club and table pool area seemed under utilized for such a bit of prime real estate. But, nothing was ruined, I survived. I just noted it.

Cabin Room -- The room was average, at best. The bed was comfortable, and the kids liked the bunk beds (which stayed up the whole trip). The storage sucked. Granted, it is 4 of us in a room, but compared to other cabins in the past, we had a lot of trouble getting our stuff into the nocks, crannies, and drawers. My wife has become adept over the years with cruise cabin packing and storage. She is funny beacuse she watches how-to youtube videos and starts packing a week in advance. She was perplexed, because her cabin storage planning that has always worked out in the past was a no go with the decreased amount of basic storage that our room offered. I'm sure that two in a room would be fine, but it was tighter than we have grown accustom to in general. Also, the bathroom toilet was more cramped in general than I have gotten used to. ( just had to get that knee in) We figured it out and got over it.

Pools/Hot Tubs --- Not much to say here, they were pools. Except, the hot tubs were all more like warm tubs. I saw someone complain to an officer, I don't think it had any affect.

Recreation/Slides -- My DD's were pretty ho hum about this segment. This is all my fault thought. They both feel that other cruises that they have been on in the past have offered more, bigger, and faster in general. They felt that the slide board was just OK. They had fun, but that was just their general assessment. After I let them do the zipline, they said it was cool but they did not feel the need to do it again. We did not bowl. They really like mini golf, but obviosly not an option. I honestly can say that I saw my two girls more on this cruise than in cruises past. Not that that is a bad thing, but on past cruises, they are ususally gone doing something during the day. (arcade, ice skating, 20 slides in a row, kids game shows, rock walls, mini golf, etc.) They are both outgoing free spirits and have no trouble finding the fun things to do on cruise ships, but this time they just did not find enough things to fill their days.

Sewer Smell??--- I told my wife about all the hub bub on CC about the sewer smell. She said that she should be fine after 20 years with me. (not sure how to take that). I will make this short and sweet. Yes, we came across it a couple of times. We did not thing too much of it. It did smell pretty bad, but we would just move along and the smell did not follow us. I do feel better, because my wife retracted here statement that living with me prepared her. We spoke with people that never smelt anything and people who did smell it. I did not take a survey of smelt it vs not smelt it. I probably smelt the odor for a total of 10 of the entire cruise. Thats that.

I will return tommorrow for more. Thanks

25 cruises and first review here? what made you to do it?

Thanks for your detailed review. I have been looking at this ship for our family and one of the concerns is how my teenage son would like it compared to the other cruises we have done. The ship looks beautiful and I am curious to try MSC. The cost seems very reasonable. However, with everything I read I keep leaning towards holding off on the Seaside until my husband and I do a cruise by ourselves. For a family cruise vacation I think other CLs offer more for everyone.

Thanks for your review.... Seems to be similar to alot of previous feedback regarding layout on deck 16 and lack of storage space in cabins. Enjoyed your light hearted humor about sewage smell!!

Thank you.

Looking forward to the rest.:D

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25 cruises and first review here? what made you to do it?

Very fair question. I've been reading CC for a while now, but I have honestly never had the inclination to join and comment/review until just before this cruise. I have always just enjoyed sitting back and reading without adding my "two cents" if you will. If I enjoy the experience of posting my opinion, I will continue to do so for future cruises.

Food/Dining--- We really enjoyed the "my time dining" of our package. It was nice to have the freedom to go eat in the dining room in a general window rather than a specific exact time. Now, what I do like about "traditional" dining, is having the same waiter team every night, especially if you get a good one. The food was good. Not great and not bad. It was right on par with what I have grown to expect for included dining on a cruise ship. We like to try new things, so running into something that we don't like is expected. We just order something different. Overall sit down dining was fine. The buffet food was good. The food was hot, sometimes a bit bland, but I'm not too picky. I was looking forward to actively joining into the great pizza debate, so that was the first thing that I went for on the first day of lunch. It was good, I got ahold of some slices from a fresh pie. I'm not a pizza "expert" but it was ok/good. I did not find myself dying to get more the next day and the next. What I will say, I really found myself wishing that there was more variety. By no means did anyone in the family starve. We all ate and enjoyed what we ate. But, if am going to compare the buffet selection to past cruise experiences its going to end up on the bottom overall. Late night snacking was a bit of a let down, variety was definitely lacking for us in that category.

Customer Service ---- Nobody was every rude to us. Staff smiled and were polite. There were still some hiccups along the way. We never ran into any major snafu's that required a trip to the customer service desk. (which is a good thing, because it always had a long line whenever I took note). The issues that we had were minor and things that we have experienced before on other ships in one fashion or the other. One thing that stood out to me, (just a personal pet peeve) was ordering cocktails/wine with dinner. I like to have a gin and tonic before the entree and a glass of wine with my meal. I would order and explain that they could bring both at the same time to make it easier on them. It was about 50/50. One time I got wine and no G and T. One time the opposite. One time nothing. I just started getting my gin and walking in with it. I want to say "no big deal", but when I waited tables in college, if I presented service like that, I'd be getting a bad tip if any. Also, it occurred with different waiters. We also had a few times in general where I felt like the language barrier was the culprit. We just smiled and moved on. My wife did have a little issue with her massage that she had scheduled. It was resolved, but she did note that it took up more time that she wanted to get it worked out.

Our room steward busted his butt. He was always running/working. I'm not sure if he slept. I think they gave him too much of a workload. We had to go out and get a few basic things off of his cart a handful of times and a couple of times a few things were missed in the room. If I did not always see him working, I would have not been so gracious but it was not totally his fault.

Bar service was overall good. Drinks were good and for the most part service was as expected. I did have to wait what felt like a long time for a few drink orders and a couple of times I just left and went to another bar after not wanting to wait. The bars were pretty busy in all of those instances. I really sincerly feel like MSC could reevaluate staffing levels at alot of their point of service areas and benefit from some changes. (one man's opinion)

I am with you on the whole review thing, I have done 25 plus cruises, and I don't think I have ever posted a review under a thread. Truly I am uncertain how you even post a new thread, and I have no clue how to attach photos, etc.

I do think under the main review section I have perhaps reviewed 5 of them (if even that). I too just like reading posts, and I will chime in here and again with a comment, but not an overall review.

Thanks for taking the time to post this thoughtfully considered review.

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Thanks for your review! I appreciate the detailed information and balanced approach.

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Thank you for the well balanced review :)

SnowManBob , if you don't mind me asking , what was your impression of the on board entertainment , both during the day time and the evening hours? TIA

SnowManBob as you had aurea package I would like to know whether your teens have entered thermal area as well.

Entertainment--- For my teenage girls, this was an easy one. They got bored quickly. The rule for them is that they have to at least give the evening shows a try with my wife and I. (except for rated R comedy) I have found that this works well, as if they are entertained, they always stay for the whole show. If they are not happy, I give them the freedom to leave. They started every show with us, but never finished a show. That was a first ever for us. For the wife and I, we were entertained and mostly enjoyed the singing. Now opera is not my cup of tea, but the shows were short I had no problem sitting until the end. The comedy improv did not do it for me. Maybe it was an off night, but we left a bit early on that one. We are not dancers, but we did enjoy listening to the music and singing that took place around the different ship venues.

SPA-- While my kids had no interest in the spa, the DW and I found it to be quite relaxing. The included massages were very nice, and we really liked all the different spa rooms that you could visit. The spa was nice.

We just returned from a two week cruise on the Seaside 2/10-2/17.

Rather than post another review, I would be happy to answer any questions you all may have.

We are Black Card by status match and booked a Fantastica Balcony cabin.

I enjoyed your review/report.

Keith

We just returned from a two week cruise on the Seaside 2/10-2/17.

Rather than post another review, I would be happy to answer any questions you all may have.

 

We are Black Card by status match and booked a Fantastica Balcony cabin.

Can you or anyone else tell us about the Miramar bar...I have heard it recommended for an outside venue for sail aways, but I can’t find it on deck plans....is there any shade? Thanks

Can you or anyone else tell us about the Miramar bar...I have heard it recommended for an outside venue for sail aways, but I can’t find it on deck plans....is there any shade? Thanks

Not much help but this is the view from it!

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What is that blue area in the center? What about the black pipe looking things coming out the center of it?

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That is the raised floor of the deck 16 pool.

That is the raised floor of the deck 16 pool.

Any guess Why would they have the pool inoperative during what looks like a beautiful day?

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Any guess Why would they have the pool inoperative during what looks like a beautiful day?

 

 

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They seemed to be doing some work on it also it was the last day?

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Hopefully no one will mind if I piggyback off this review. My wife and I were also on this sailing. Many of my comments will mirror the OP, so I will add were I feel there were differences. I also followed Nikkiw60's live review while on the ship.

Stateroom - We were in an inside Fantastica cabin, 13202. Plenty of room, but storage at a premium. We used a door organizer over the inside of the bathroom door. It was a big help. Our cabin steward was exceptional. We asked for ice to be stocked regularly and it was. Two issues. Lost power to the bathroom only one day. It was fixed within hours. Toilets also stopped flushing for short periods. Again this was fixed within a few hours.

Customer Service - First two days Guest Services were swamped. Average line wait time was 30 minutes. During this time impossible to even reach anyone by phone. You would leave a message and hope someone would return the call the same day. Reception staff informed us that there's only 3 operators on duty at a time manning switchboard and they're receive dozens of calls a minute. This problem pretty much resolved itself by day 3. You can also dial x115 for a medical emergency, but didn't recall seeing this posted anywhere.

Food - My wife and enjoyed the food in the MDR everynight. Maybe a few less options than other mainstream cruiselines we've sailed (NCL, Carnival & RC), but we thought the quality was as good if not slightly better. We had a terrific wait staff (Gerald and Ryan in deck 6 dining room). My mother wanted a tray of olives on the table, and they made sure we had one every night. Everyone probably knows about the 2 buffet situation by now. Market Place buffet (deck 8) only open for breakfast and lunch. Biscayne buffet open all day pretty much until 2 AM. Overall we found the buffet food to be better quality than other cruise lines we've sailed. I agree with OP, there seems to be less variety and the options change very little from day to day. Pizza is good, not the best I've ever had, but then again, I'm from Chicago. The burgers were also pretty good, especially their signature burger, but so far nothing at sea beats Guy's burgers on Carnival.

Entertainment - I have a slightly different opinion on the Production Shows than the OP. Truly the best I've seen at sea. Performers are exceptional, and they work their butts off. Theater at capacity every night including the opera nights. If you want to go the shows reserve your showtimes in advance on the interactive screens throughout the ship or using the MSC for Me app. I am not an opera fan, but the shows are definitely worth seeing...probably because they are short. I might not have felt the same if they were much longer. (Many Americans didn't agree an walked out in the middle of these shows). Lots of acrobatics every show. Timeless a must as well as Peter Punk'd.

Spa - We bought the spa Relaxation Package in advance of the cruise since it included the Thermal Area Pass for the lenght of the cruise. Basically you get a 30 minute Bali Massage for the extra $9 per person ($90 vs $99). Get the spa staff to explain the wristbands for the Thermal Area.

This was our first MSC cruise. Overall it was a very enjoyable experience. The ship is absolutely beautiful. I agree with the OP on it's design. It's somewhat different from anything we've sailed on in the past, and somethings are quite odd. There are issues one being the 'smell'. We did smell the foul odor at times especially around the kids water park. Some folks had it in their cabins particularly on decks 5 and 11. We never did. There were also some issue with elevator wait times. We did not experience any of the customer service issues that seem to plague so many other Seaside cruisers, but I will qualify this concerning the bar/wait staff.

We talked to many of the bar staff because we were very concerned about tipping them. We had the Fantastica vouchers, and they worked fine. (And in many situations the bar staff let us get premium brands that we should not have been able to get). But having cruised other lines we normally would add something extra when signing our receipts. This was not an option on the Seaside regardless of whether we used the voucher or just charged something to the room. If you wanted to give the staff something extra you had to carry cash. We asked some of the bar/wait staff about this. I will not single anyone out, but they pretty much stated that they hated this ship compared to other MSC ships. Some even said that they couldn't wait for their contracts to end so they could leave. One bartender told us that many staff had already quit, and the ship was understaffed in the bars by about 50 people.

Overall we would definitely cruise MSC and this ship again. I pretty much agree on the OPs recommendations, but I do feel the ship is worth giving a try even if the price point goes up. I should also state that my wife and I have a second cruise booked on the Seaside for next December in a Whirlpool Balcony Suite. Honestly, we will probably cancel this cruise, but not because we didn't like the ship. We both feel that we've already experienced the Seaside. We just don't feel the Whirlpool Suite will add to the experience enough to warrant another sailing. That, and we've already seen all the entertainment.

As to the earlier pool pic, we heard the pool sprung a leak. Apparently some upper cabins had to be evacuated, and others said there was a waterfall down some elevator shafts. We only heard this on the final night of the cruises. We also heard that some of the evacuated passengers were given Engineers' cabins. Again, this is all heresay without any proof to back it up.

We were also on this cruise with 8 adults, 2 babies and 2 14 year old girls. We were in 3 Grand Suites on deck 11 at the front of the ship. There was lots of space and storage in all 3 rooms. The center suite was the only one that would reasonably sleep 4 adults. You definitely felt the motion in these rooms but the views from 11001 were great.

Guest Services for us was fine. We went immediately after boarding to get an issue corrected and the person was efficient and corrected the problem quickly.

Everyone loved using the wrist bands and had no problem with them.

I can agree with much of what others on this cruise experienced on this sailing but I think we would give the cruise an above average rating and look forward to a future cruise on MSC. Stateroom attendant was the best we've had on our many cruises. Some of the bar tenders were great, but overworked. Others were average or a bit below, especially in the jungle pool bar. They tried but often mixed up orders. We enjoyed the food in the buffets for breakfast and some lunches, and while we could have used more variety we were fine. There were things people had never tried. I especially loved the danish bread that was available every day. Everyone in our group loved the pizza. It was annoying when they ran out of coffee mugs however.

Room service was good but limited as on many cruises we've taken. There is no service charge for Aurea guests. If you order coffee and want cream or milk make sure to ask for it or you will just get sugar.

We ate at Butcher's Cut and Teppenyaki and really liked both a lot. The shrimp cocktail at Butcher's Cut could be an entire meal for me.

We loved the spa and the thermal area and wished we had more time there. The massages were great.

As for entertainment, we found the shows great and enjoyed a lot of the music. We almost never saw the 2 teenagers. They spent all of their time in the teen club and begged us to stay until midnight. The Baby Time (time with parents in the baby facility for kids under 3) was wonderful. The facility was the best I've seen on a ship and the staff was great. The only issue we had was know the times it was available. The provided pack-n-play in the cabin was high end with a very comfortable mattress.

We were really glad for the change in itinerary to Grand Turk. It was beautiful and worked better for enjoying the week.

I'll try to post a more detailed review in the review section.

As for the closed pool, 2 people in our group say that it had been drained so there was some kind of problem with it.