Seashore 4/21-4/28, the good and not so good

[jcollin]

Just off the Seashore.  What we thought (4 of us) were the good and not so good things.

Good:

Embarkation - We had Aurea so we went through the priority line about noon time,  Didn't really need it as the lines were small at that time. Total time from arriving to on the ship was less than a 1/2 hour.  The room keys are in a little envelope hanging on your door.

Dining room - We ate in the Manhattan room. The service each night was great.  The food was good as well.  We always sat in the same area each night.

Room - we were on the 15th floor.  Our room was cleaned pretty quickly in the morning, and we also had turndown service each night.

Cocktail bar on deck 8.  The best drinks we had. Some we had to pay extra for as our package only covered up to $10.  The jungle bar was fun too but humid. We also liked the sports bar.

The Spa - It's nice and not crowded.  We enjoyed the saunas and steam rooms.  We made reservations the first day but just walked in at other times with no issue.

Hola Tacos - specialty restaurant - we did the all you can eat.  It was $42 for two and the food is outstanding, great service too.  

Top 19 - Great place to relax.  Hardly anyone up there and tons of room.  It did get really hot as there is little to no shade.  The two hot tubs are a good size and were empty most of the time.  

The rectangle shaped hot tuns on 8.  They are on both sides of the ship so one is in the sun and the other shade.  They aren't super-hot but they were the best tubs on the ship.  They are right against the glass overlooking the ocean.  It was fun to sit there and look out over the ocean.

La Cabaret Rouge - Fun spot we stopped into before the 9:30 shows.

Disembarkation - They do want you out of your room at 7 which seems early, but the process was smooth.  We ate breakfast, went to Cabaret lounge and about 15 mins later our number was called. We walked off grabbed our luggage with no issues.

 

Not so good

The buffet - The food is fine, but this is your only option on embarkation day as well as port days.  The area for the buffet is big but trying to shove 5000+ people in there doesn't work.  Why no dining room for lunch?  One of the enjoyable parts of cruising is having someone wait on you for meals.  Lunch felt like we were back in school visiting the cafeteria.  

Breakfast service, or lack of - Breakfast was served in Central Park.  It was complete confusion each day.  I think we had 10 different people from that start to end of breakfast one day.  None of them knew what the other was doing.  One day we had already ordered and yet we got menus again.  Coffee refills were hard to get.  Orders were usually missing something.  They had plenty of wait staff but couldn't seem to figure out a process that works.

Muster - It's bad.  We went to our room to watch the video, that never came up on the TV.  Then we joined the mad rush, on the stairs, to our muster station to have our cards scanned.  Here's a tip - Only 1 person needs to make the trip.  Just bring both cards and they will scan them.

The elevators - We actually had no issue with them.  Just select the floor you want for the number of people, in our case 4 for 15.  We heard lots of other people complaining about them.  I think it would help if MSC stationed a few of their team near the elevators on day 1 to tell people how they work.  It was close to the last day and someone jumped on our elevator and asked is this going to 16.  Someone said did you select 16 and they seemed confused by the question.

 

Overall, it's hard to have a bad time on a cruise.  This was our 3rd on MSC and we would do another.  We heard lots of people talking about how nice  the Meraviglia was so maybe we'll try that next.

[freeon]

25 minutes ago, jcollin said:

Not so good

The buffet - The food is fine, but this is your only option on embarkation day as well as port days.  The area for the buffet is big but trying to shove 5000+ people in there doesn't work. 

 

Technically not your only option. We went to Hola Tacos and were the only ones in the restaurant. I guess nobody knows it's open on embarkation day.

 

Went to the buffet on a sea day and your right, way to over crowded. Wait till 1:30 and it was much better. Didn't find find it that bad on port days. Most people were off the ship.

[jcollin]

Correct Hola is open on embarkation day.   We choose to eat there at dinner.  For those that don't get off the ship having a dinner room open for lunch would have been nice.  We knew no dining room on day 1 but surprise no dining room on port days.  The other days they have a brunch from 8-1:30 so i don't they ever offer a true lunch only in the dining room.  Seems odd to me.

[Beamafar]

This is the first time I’ve ever heard that the MDR on MSC wasn’t open on port days. 

[Two Wheels Only]

3 hours ago, jcollin said:

The room keys are in a little envelope hanging on your door.

 

Do Aurea guests get wristbands included?

[jcollin]

We didn't get the wrist bands but I did see them on a few people.  Getting drinks never seemed to work for the people that had them.  They have a card reader that you put the wristband up to but it seemed to be an issue the few times I saw people using it.

[jcollin]

2 hours ago, Beamafar said:

This is the first time I’ve ever heard that the MDR on MSC wasn’t open on port days. 

First time for us as well.  It was open on other MSC cruises we've been on.  But it was not open on any of the port days this time.

[Beamafar]

16 minutes ago, jcollin said:

First time for us as well.  It was open on other MSC cruises we've been on.  But it was not open on any of the port days this time.

I wonder if this is a new thing that MSC is introducing or if it’s just for this ship/region, if it’s a case that the MDR is being under-utilised on port days.  We’ll be on Seascape in a few weeks’ time;  I’ll see if it’s same on her. 

We’ve sailed on Meraviglia and enjoyed it.  Only real issue for us was that the entertainment team took over the Galleria area at night outside the Meraviglia lounge (and very little seating for such a popular venue).  We especially liked the English, Brass Anchor, pub. 
 

 

Edited April 30 by Beamafar

[Essiesmom]

1 hour ago, Two Wheels Only said:

 

Do Aurea guests get wristbands included?

They are t included but you can get them, on Seaside it was $10.

12 minutes ago, Beamafar said:

I wonder if this is a new thing that MSC is introducing or if it’s just for this ship/region, if it’s a case that the MDR is being under-utilised on port days.  We’ll be on Seascape in a few weeks’ time;  I’ll see if it’s same on her. 

We’ve sailed on Meraviglia and enjoyed it.  Only real issue for us was that the entertainment team took over the Galleria area at night outside the Meraviglia lounge (and very little seating for such a popular venue).  We especially liked the English, Brass Anchor, pub. 
 

 

I’ve read here that the. DR is open every day for lunch in Europe.  But cruise lines from the US don’t serve in the MDR on port days, and I guess MSC has caught on that it can be a cost saving.  EM

[Beamafar]

2 minutes ago, Essiesmom said:

 

I’ve read here that the. DR is open every day for lunch in Europe.  But cruise lines from the US don’t serve in the MDR on port days, and I guess MSC has caught on that it can be a cost saving.  EM

That’s my thinking, too.  @jcollin is the first person I’ve seen on here reporting it.   
 

I haven’t seen anything posted about the new digital boarding passes or printable barcode cruise tickets, either.  While the latter are only 4 pages now (2 of which are luggage tags), I’m not keen on not being able to see the pre-paid inclusions (gratuities, drinks packages, booked excursions) that used to come in voucher form.  While they show up in the app, I’d prefer to have a printable copy as proof of entitlement. 

[Essiesmom]

I had a digital boarding pass for my Seashore cruise in Dec., but I also had a paper copy and it was quicker to pull it out to show than fumble with my phone.  EM

[Beamafar]

Just now, Essiesmom said:

I had a digital boarding pass for my Seashore cruise in Dec., but I also had a paper copy and it was quicker to pull it out to show than fumble with my phone.  EM

I wasn’t sure when the new system was introduced.  Our last MSC cruise was last October;  the tickets were the usual.  When I was requesting the tickets for our upcoming, the TA advised that we’d receive less pages due to the ‘new’ system. 

[Essiesmom]

It was in the app.  Once your docs were ready, it was in the app.  This is what you see in the app.  The second and third pics are the upper and lower half of the pass, split so I could eliminate my name.

 

 

[Beamafar]

We have a B2B booked - first leg with a TA and the second, direct.  The first, we just received the printable tickets;  the direct booking, MSC sent us the QR codes for the boarding passes.  On the app, the boarding passes indicate that the QR code will be available on embarkation day. 
 

 

My issue is that, other than the app, there is no longer printable proof of what is included in the booking.  Having had issues in the past (where, thankfully, I had printed off what we were entitled to) I’m not keen on this set-up.

 

While I won’t have an issue with the digital boarding passes on my phone (whether at the port or for flights), I would always print everything possible, too. 
 

 

 

Edited May 1 by Beamafar

[Illbcruzn4life]

10 hours ago, jcollin said:

Just off the Seashore.  What we thought (4 of us) were the good and not so good things.

Good:

Embarkation - We had Aurea so we went through the priority line about noon time,  Didn't really need it as the lines were small at that time. Total time from arriving to on the ship was less than a 1/2 hour.  The room keys are in a little envelope hanging on your door.

Dining room - We ate in the Manhattan room. The service each night was great.  The food was good as well.  We always sat in the same area each night.

Room - we were on the 15th floor.  Our room was cleaned pretty quickly in the morning, and we also had turndown service each night.

Cocktail bar on deck 8.  The best drinks we had. Some we had to pay extra for as our package only covered up to $10.  The jungle bar was fun too but humid. We also liked the sports bar.

The Spa - It's nice and not crowded.  We enjoyed the saunas and steam rooms.  We made reservations the first day but just walked in at other times with no issue.

Hola Tacos - specialty restaurant - we did the all you can eat.  It was $42 for two and the food is outstanding, great service too.  

Top 19 - Great place to relax.  Hardly anyone up there and tons of room.  It did get really hot as there is little to no shade.  The two hot tubs are a good size and were empty most of the time.  

The rectangle shaped hot tuns on 8.  They are on both sides of the ship so one is in the sun and the other shade.  They aren't super-hot but they were the best tubs on the ship.  They are right against the glass overlooking the ocean.  It was fun to sit there and look out over the ocean.

La Cabaret Rouge - Fun spot we stopped into before the 9:30 shows.

Disembarkation - They do want you out of your room at 7 which seems early, but the process was smooth.  We ate breakfast, went to Cabaret lounge and about 15 mins later our number was called. We walked off grabbed our luggage with no issues.

 

Not so good

The buffet - The food is fine, but this is your only option on embarkation day as well as port days.  The area for the buffet is big but trying to shove 5000+ people in there doesn't work.  Why no dining room for lunch?  One of the enjoyable parts of cruising is having someone wait on you for meals.  Lunch felt like we were back in school visiting the cafeteria.  

Breakfast service, or lack of - Breakfast was served in Central Park.  It was complete confusion each day.  I think we had 10 different people from that start to end of breakfast one day.  None of them knew what the other was doing.  One day we had already ordered and yet we got menus again.  Coffee refills were hard to get.  Orders were usually missing something.  They had plenty of wait staff but couldn't seem to figure out a process that works.

Muster - It's bad.  We went to our room to watch the video, that never came up on the TV.  Then we joined the mad rush, on the stairs, to our muster station to have our cards scanned.  Here's a tip - Only 1 person needs to make the trip.  Just bring both cards and they will scan them.

The elevators - We actually had no issue with them.  Just select the floor you want for the number of people, in our case 4 for 15.  We heard lots of other people complaining about them.  I think it would help if MSC stationed a few of their team near the elevators on day 1 to tell people how they work.  It was close to the last day and someone jumped on our elevator and asked is this going to 16.  Someone said did you select 16 and they seemed confused by the question.

 

Overall, it's hard to have a bad time on a cruise.  This was our 3rd on MSC and we would do another.  We heard lots of people talking about how nice  the Meraviglia was so maybe we'll try that next.

We were also on the same cruise and couldn’t agree more with the dining room. Breakfast was like the keystone cops. We didnt have as good of luck with the elevators. So many times one person hit the button and 6 pushed in. Wrote on the survey to post instructions at the elevators.

[jcollin]

17 hours ago, Beamafar said:

That’s my thinking, too.  @jcollin is the first person I’ve seen on here reporting it.   
 

I haven’t seen anything posted about the new digital boarding passes or printable barcode cruise tickets, either.  While the latter are only 4 pages now (2 of which are luggage tags), I’m not keen on not being able to see the pre-paid inclusions (gratuities, drinks packages, booked excursions) that used to come in voucher form.  While they show up in the app, I’d prefer to have a printable copy as proof of entitlement. 

We had printed all the docs for check in but did not need them.  I had our boarding passes in my apple wallet and that's all we needed.  We also added a credit card during online check-in and did not need to visit the kiosk while on board.  In past MSC cruises we did.

[Beamafar]

1 minute ago, jcollin said:

We had printed all the docs for check in but did not need them.  I had our boarding passes in my apple wallet and that's all we needed.  We also added a credit card during online check-in and did not need to visit the kiosk while on board.  In past MSC cruises we did.

Yeah - I have the boarding passes in the wallet for the second leg.  For some reason, the TA booked, first leg cruise, MSC hasn’t issued boarding passes for. 
 

I’m just not liking not having proof of inclusions (other than on the app - which I don’t fully trust as it’s glitchy) having experienced issues onboard on several occasions over not having some pre purchased items showing in the ships’ systems.  

[alserrod]

21 hours ago, Essiesmom said:

They are t included but you can get them, on Seaside it was $10.

I’ve read here that the. DR is open every day for lunch in Europe.  But cruise lines from the US don’t serve in the MDR on port days, and I guess MSC has caught on that it can be a cost saving.  EM

 

MDR open everyday not because opening in Europe but because multi-embarkment port.

 

If I have embarkment today, for me it is Day1.... but for people who embarked yesterday it is Day2 and MDR is open for them (and for all passengers who embarked in previous days).

 

Information given in embarkment will drive you to the buffet..... but MDR is open and nobody will ask you when did you had embarkment

 

 

 

 

 

[Beamafar]

2 hours ago, alserrod said:

 

MDR open everyday not because opening in Europe but because multi-embarkment port.

 

If I have embarkment today, for me it is Day1.... but for people who embarked yesterday it is Day2 and MDR is open for them (and for all passengers who embarked in previous days).

 

Information given in embarkment will drive you to the buffet..... but MDR is open and nobody will ask you when did you had embarkment

 

 

 

 

 

We have always been stopped at the MDR entrance on embarkation day (on European sailings).  They look at your cruisecard, which shows that you’ve just embarked and you’re told that you have to go to the buffet.  (We’ve always made a case for entry and have been facilitated - but it’s at the asst m’D’s discretion). 
 

Also, the point is that the MDR is open on port days (even if they happen to be embarkation ports, too).