MSC Seaside - Activities Director - PLEASE READ!

[Beamafar]

5 minutes ago, Captain-John said:

 

Looking forward to the full report. 😄

 

Gosh ... if I ever get to it!  I hate starting these things.  🙄  In fact, I never did reviews/reports before Meraviglia and only did that one because it was new and people wanted to hear about it.

[Mattnvick]

2 hours ago, Captain-John said:

Looking forward to the full report. 😄

 I second that Captain 😀

[Beamafar]

No pressure, so  

[Mattnvick]

Just now, Beamafar said:

No pressure, so  

 

Of course not - absolutely none 😂😂

 

Even a bare bones  would be fantastic. Im very interested in that Cuba itinerary. From the odd comment it sounds like you enjoyed it. 😀

[Arzeena]

17 hours ago, #1TravelMom said:

Wow - I didn't expect so many objections.  All of the activities except for 1 hour of pool volleyball on 2 sea days would not even be noticed by the average passenger.  Volleyball and dodgeball are held in the basketball court far from the serenity of the pool.  As far as extra trivia contests - if there are too many scheduled, simply do not attend.  I was just trying to make suggestions to make the range and number of activities more appealing to everyone.  I can't imagine that adding any of these activities(other than pool volleyball) would even be noticed.  

 

We have been on 60+ cruises and really enjoyed MSC Seaside, but we felt there needed to be more to do.  Many on the sailing expressed the same opinion.  

If they were appealing to everyone, then there would have been no objections!

 

[JonoBhoy]

22 hours ago, Beamafar said:

The problem with MSC is that they have their feet in 2 camps - European and US passengers, with very different views of what they want from a cruise.  This is always going to create difficulties as MSC doesn't seem to have made up its mind what to offer - especially for US-based ships.  I've now experienced an MSC US-based ship and seen for myself the difference between it and Med-based cruises.

Out of interest, what are those differences? We sailed Seaside last month and considering Seaview in Med this summer so interested in your take how different they are?

[Beamafar]

Some of the differences were too subtle to be able to articulate them.  Certainly some of the food offerings were different (in the MDR, anyway).  You won't get NY strip steak as an "always available" item in the Med (they used to offer 'steak paillard' which is nothing like NY strip - you could sole your shoe with it!  Now, even that's not available - only 'steamed fish of the day' (it used to always be salmon and was last week) or grilled chicken breast.  There were some really good desserts, too, that you won't see on a Med menu.

 

The approach to service felt a little different, too.  While we've almost always had great service (and fun) with the crew, it seemed to have been ramped up a notch.  Certainly the officers were more 'visible' and friendly and the head waiters in the MDR were more inclined to speak with people, (though that could have been as a result of the ship being small - we were on Armonia - and/or us being in the Suite restaurant, where it's usual to receive more attention than in the general MDR).

 

We got a real sense that the focus onboard was to woo the American guests and that the approach to service was to that end.

 

It'll be interesting to know if you detect any differences between your experiences if you do decide to book.  We'll be on Seaview in August;  we'll be in YC, so really looking forward to experiencing a Seaside-class ship.

Edited February 4, 2019 by Beamafar