MSC Seaview - An honest review

[amurray88]

Just got off MSC Seaview yesterday and wanted to give an honest review of our sailing...

 

Embarking at Marseille - embarking was extremely easy, even given Covid restrictions. Free bus from city centre to boat and was onboard quite quickly.

 

First steps on board - this was perhaps the poorest onboarding process we have experienced. We were taken aside as soon as we got on board (an area was cordoned off for those embarking) and we were sat down with a conveyer belt of staff trying to get us to upgrade packages. To be clear, we had easy plus drinks package which included all drinks up to €8 and an internet package. We were told the drinks package we had wasn't good enough and we would want to upgrade to the premium package then another staff member came and done the same with our internet package followed by yet another telling us we'd want to upgrade to speciality restaurants at least 3 nights of our cruise. We said no to all of these but they were extremely pushy (speciality chef said he'd automatically sign us up as we'd be missing out if we didn't. When I said no he asked if we really planned to be on the cruise and not use the speciality restaurants...)

 

Into general categories -

Our room - we were given a free upgrade to a balcony room. I have never had a balcony before on any of my cruises so this was a treat. We didn't use the balcony all that much but we loved having the door open pretty much the whole cruise. The bed was very comfortable and the maid/cleaner was efficient and looked after it well.

 

The buffet - we visited the buffet most mornings and lunch times and also one evening for dinner. The food quality we found to be a very high standard (pizza was easily restaurant quality). The layout was awful and the service completely abysmal. All buffets are busy but this really was chaotic to say the least. I don't understand why they have cordoned off certain areas to push everyone into very tight corridors/pathways through the buffet which they then leave things in. It is almost impossible to move around. The service was the worst we've experienced. On day 1 we got a table, went to get food then tried to order a drink. What a mistake. Servers are not interested and actively walked away when people looked for them....this left us having finished our lunch before being served - having asked a waitress 3 times and a manager for service. On day 2 at breakfast we then thought we'd order our drinks before getting food. Again, no drinks arrived until after we finished our food. The drinks service was truly awful. Instinctively I then thought well I'm happy enough just to go to the bar and order for myself only to be told no, you can't do that and to be told to take a seat and wait. From this day onwards we went to a lounge/bar before going to the buffet, got a drink and took it in with us. It shouldn't be that hard. Last thing to note is I was extremely disappointed with the range of food the night we went for dinner...the range at lunch was far far superior. 75% of the buffet was closed during dinner.

 

Bars/Lounges - the service here was excellent. The servers and bartenders could not have done enough and were very personable at all bars we went to. The range of cocktails and drinks was excellent and a lovely wee touch was the bowls of nibbles/crisps/nuts they gave. 

 

Main Dining Room - the main dining room was fine. Service by the waiter was average, nothing special but didn't do anything wrong. The food was very good quality although I would say the choice certainly challenged us on a couple of nights. We asked to change timing one night and there is a full post about that....the service we received from the MDR manager and supervisor is something I would not want to inflict on anyone. They were extremely rude and given that this happened so early on in the cruise it completely spoiled our experience of MSC. It probably took us until the last day before we recovered from the way we were treated and spoken to. I have written to MSC about this - it was shocking. Last thing - it was extremely annoying that during dinner they continuously tried to upsell. Every night they came round with a raw piece of meat on a plate trying to get you to upgrade to it...yes, even after you had finished your meal or eating dessert they still wouldn't leave you alone. One night we were finishing our dessert and I was asked to buy a T-Bone. I said no. The head waiter then asked why not? I said I've finished my dinner...and he kept going. "So you don't like steak?" "But you could have it after your dessert?" "Do you not want to feel like your on holiday?" I'm sorry but that is outrageous, get out my face and get away from my table. Obviously I didn't say this and was polite but it shouldn't be done like this.....every night.

 

Entertainment - the entertainment definitely took a while to acclimatise to. The shows in the main theatre were actually very good.... different but good. The cast must have been shattered by the end, they do 3 performances of the same show every night....that's 21 shows a week these guys are doing. Outwith the main dining room I didn't think entertainment was good. Having recently sailed Symphony of the Seas (aquatheatre & ice rink shows) and NCL Epic (comedy club, circus tent shows) the MSC Seaview is a huge distance off. Outwith a 35min show in the theatre each night the entertainment was non-existent outwith a singer and guitar or a singer and a piano.

 

The ship - the main atrium is beautiful. We felt the ship had a huge amount of potential but it wasn't utilised. On deck 8 they had patio seating with a sign for a French bistro. It looked lovely...but the French bistro didn't exist. It was just a sign. The garage nightclub was a large venue that was just a passageway 95% of the time, the bar wasn't open and no events happened in it at all during the day. The kids pool area looked amazing and we felt (we are 2 adults) that one of the other pools should have been make adult only. Both NCL and RCI have adult only areas but MSC didn't do this (that's just personal preference). All the areas just felt a bit blah, the lounges were just generic lounges you'd expect on a ferry. No real theming. We went to look round the speciality restaurants and these are all in the 1 areas too, you walk through the same front door to all of them. It just felt so generic. The one thing we really enjoyed was outdoor dining at the buffet and outdoor seating at bars.

 

People onboard - I can't talk about this cruise without addressing the other passengers. I read about this beforehand, I just didn't think it would be this bad. They were by far the rudest set of people we have ever seen on holiday. Day 2 (first full day) we were at the pool deck. We had been there around 4 hours. A woman came up and started shouting at us telling us we had taken her sunbed (we hadn't). I said sorry but I think you must be mistaken, we've been here for hours etc. She took our towels and threw them in the pool and shouted at us. What. On. Earth? Now we didn't see anything as extreme as this but we continuously seen people fighting over sunloungers, throwing people's things off the beds and replacing them with their own. The buffet was another place to see people at their rudest. It really opened our eyes.

 

The ports - the ports were the thing that attracted us to this sailing and they didn't disappoint. In order of preference -

1. Barcelona 2. Genoa (Santa Margherita) 3. Naples 4. Valletta 5. Messina... Marseille was where we embarked and we thought that was fine too.

 

Evaluation - it felt like we were on a Ryanair cruise. Want an ice cream? You pay for it (yes even for the wee machines). Want to have dinner? You need to go through all their sales pitch first. Want good service? Well that's a hit or miss and tough if someone's having a bad day as you didn't pay for good service.

 

Conclusion - the experience we had with the MDR managers was disgraceful. It ruined a bit part of our holiday and the very poor drinks service at the buffet was extremely disappointing. Both of these along with the rudeness of passengers has outweighed the positives for us.

 

On the positive side - the service in bars/lounges was extremely good. The entertainment was very good and the choice of drinks was very good too. We paid $99 each for a drinks & internet package which was great value for money. The free upgrade to a balcony made this a very good value for money cruise.

 

To be clear, we paid roughly the same price in April for 7 nights on Symphony of the Seas with a non-alc drinks package. If I was offered both again (note: Symphony left from Miami and therefore flights were far more expensive, this is simply based on the cost of the sailing) then it would be a no contest. Interior room on Symphony with non-alc drinks package would far be superior to balcony on Seaview with full drinks package with internet.

 

 

[StolidCruiser]

Thanks for another honest review of your experience.

 

It can be frustrating to be frequently be presented with upsells by staff whose job is to do it, not get table service in the buffet and be accommodated to deviate from your chosen fixed dining choice because of inconveniences caused by your off-ship port activities.

 

MSC is a very different line with practices and clientele diverse from other mainstream companies.

 

You found out the hard way your expectations don’t align.  Find another line that suits you better and enjoy many happier days sailing.

 

 

 

[amurray88]

3 hours ago, StolidCruiser said:

Thanks for another honest review of your experience.

 

It can be frustrating to be frequently be presented with upsells by staff whose job is to do it, not get table service in the buffet and be accommodated to deviate from your chosen fixed dining choice because of inconveniences caused by your off-ship port activities.

 

MSC is a very different line with practices and clientele diverse from other mainstream companies.

 

You found out the hard way your expectations don’t align.  Find another line that suits you better and enjoy many happier days sailing.

 

 

 

It got better after the first few days (thank goodness) and I'm fairly sure that if it weren't for the first few days I'd have been sitting here saying they're not all that different from the others.

 

Out of interest, have you sailed Seaview/Seaside etc? Did you feel there was alot of wasted space?

[Nunagoras]

So: apparently and if so, sadly, MSC is just copying the worst part of all the other mainstream cruise lines in place? I have never had any up sell pressures on MSC other than the random photographers that "pester" the ship in certain nights. A nice "no thanks" use to suffix. Maybe: The current Seaview hotel director is someone used to work for the American lines and he brought a like minded team onboard?... Are they just to test the waters on that here in Europe? Good luck for them. Most of the MSC regulars will to dislike it! I certainly will.

 

Either way: Many thanks to the honest review. Ships at this point are way understaffed pretty much elsewhere, even on true luxury lines. We must be patient enough. Drinks buffet service was never good enough. Now it may be quite non existent due to the short staff issues, sadly.

 

MSC's dinner buffets are always on the poor side on European sailings. Europeans, and specially Italians want their holiday meals to be a family social experience, then they want to be served at a table venue. MSC's dinner buffets are then seen as your "last opportunity" to eat if you fail your allocated MDR time slot. By the way: If a nice pizza slice and some dessert suffixes for such a different night, here they are!

 

By the way: I understand MSC doesn't fit for you for many reasons. At least you were able to take some positives about the experience and that's good. Have a nice day and nice sailings even if elsewhere!...

[StolidCruiser]

3 hours ago, amurray88 said:

 

 

Out of interest, have you sailed Seaview/Seaside etc? Did you feel there was alot of wasted space?

 

I have and I don’t.

[mackfam]

4 hours ago, amurray88 said:

Out of interest, have you sailed Seaview/Seaside etc? Did you feel there was alot of wasted space?

We were on the Seaview in May. This was our first MSC cruise and I have to say I did not love the interior spaces of this ship. Too much glass, mirrors and glitz-seemed a little tacky. The ceilings in some of the corridors were so low that I could touch them and I’m only 5’7”.

On walking around the ship I did notice areas/ lounges that weren’t open as you mentioned. We were in the YC which we loved, but after venturing out into the regular part of the ship and experiencing rude passengers and poor service we chose to stay in the YC enclave. 

[amurray88]

8 hours ago, mackfam said:

We were on the Seaview in May. This was our first MSC cruise and I have to say I did not love the interior spaces of this ship. Too much glass, mirrors and glitz-seemed a little tacky. The ceilings in some of the corridors were so low that I could touch them and I’m only 5’7”.

On walking around the ship I did notice areas/ lounges that weren’t open as you mentioned. We were in the YC which we loved, but after venturing out into the regular part of the ship and experiencing rude passengers and poor service we chose to stay in the YC enclave. 

Maybe my expectations were too high - I felt this was meant to be MSC's rival to Oasis class/Breakaway class ships but that they had started at the atrium, spent all the budget and quickly threw everything else together with little thought. 

[amurray88]

10 hours ago, Nunagoras said:

So: apparently and if so, sadly, MSC is just copying the worst part of all the other mainstream cruise lines in place? I have never had any up sell pressures on MSC other than the random photographers that "pester" the ship in certain nights. A nice "no thanks" use to suffix. Maybe: The current Seaview hotel director is someone used to work for the American lines and he brought a like minded team onboard?... Are they just to test the waters on that here in Europe? Good luck for them. Most of the MSC regulars will to dislike it! I certainly will.

 

Either way: Many thanks to the honest review. Ships at this point are way understaffed pretty much elsewhere, even on true luxury lines. We must be patient enough. Drinks buffet service was never good enough. Now it may be quite non existent due to the short staff issues, sadly.

 

MSC's dinner buffets are always on the poor side on European sailings. Europeans, and specially Italians want their holiday meals to be a family social experience, then they want to be served at a table venue. MSC's dinner buffets are then seen as your "last opportunity" to eat if you fail your allocated MDR time slot. By the way: If a nice pizza slice and some dessert suffixes for such a different night, here they are!

 

By the way: I understand MSC doesn't fit for you for many reasons. At least you were able to take some positives about the experience and that's good. Have a nice day and nice sailings even if elsewhere!...

Thank you 👌 don't get me wrong, if the price was right I definitely would sail again...I think earlier in the week I said I wouldn't sail again even if it was free but it did get better.

 

But I think now I have my expectation level set and MSC would need to be ~30% cheaper than others before I would go with them again.

 

It was the gala night that we went to the buffet for dinner so possibly they expected everyone to be at the MDR but their lunch was definitely much better.

[Nunagoras]

1 hour ago, amurray88 said:

Thank you 👌 don't get me wrong, if the price was right I definitely would sail again...I think earlier in the week I said I wouldn't sail again even if it was free but it did get better.

 

But I think now I have my expectation level set and MSC would need to be ~30% cheaper than others before I would go with them again.

 

It was the gala night that we went to the buffet for dinner so possibly they expected everyone to be at the MDR but their lunch was definitely much better.

Many thanks again!... No matter if gala night or others. If a certain sailing has a departure port where check-in is set to be far later than usual they may have a full featured dinner buffet said day. Otherwise it'll to be on the poor side by design. It's a feature, not a bug!...

 

30% off MSC cruise compared to the competition???... Not anymore. Unless you can find one of those charter groups with a tour leader they used to have back in the day, or a "no frills" Bella category block on a "big box" TA out there... But even those are becoming rarer these days... I can to be happy with a 10-15% off on a last minute booking low season cruise out there. Otherwise MSC in Europe is slightly at same price as their competitors right now. On the newer ships they can even to be the 2nd to the most expensive one on the mainstream cruise industry here in Europe, just little bit below an RCI Oasis class sailing!... 😄 They've become very popular within certain European quarters, so now they make us to pay for the "privilege"!... Of course nothing beats an Oasis class for now in the market. MSC will have some difficulty to deal with a ship nearly the same size like the World Europa will to be. Time will tell if effectively competition will to start at that level or not so much... But I agree: A 30% off an Oasis sailing (or 20% off the other mainstream sailings) would to be a good fit for their real product offering.

 

Have a nice day!...

 

Have a nice day!...