Itchy&Scratchy

like I said - we must be buying different cruises, because the 3 of us sail for 10 days for $3.5K. Not in suites, of course.

we must be buying very different cruises, because there is no way 20 days in AI luxury resorts with flights included, a week's rental in the UK plus a European city break, with leftover change, would cost $3.5K.

thank you, but you are sailing between school breaks right now. 🙂 We will be traveling during a school break, when ships are usually super full. 🙂 I will make reservations when I get onboard, though, or closer to sailing date when MDR menus are available on the app, since we don't want to miss our favorites.

And now - about the most enjoyable part of our cruise: the Easy Plus package and wifi. I booked it when I made a reservation, because the rate with "included" drinks and wifi was very attractive. We do not drink alcohol at all, but we may get a cocktail or two on a cruise if we have OBC to burn through. Since we had an Easy Plus package on this cruise, we decided to put it to good use. We definitely consumed many bottles of still and sparkling mineral water, kiddo enjoyed sodas and mocktails, I personally enjoyed 2-3 specialty coffees a day (they were very small), and both DH and I enjoyed a couple of cocktails a day. I can't handle more than 2 without being out of commission completely, so that's what I had, unless they weren't yummy and I abandoned them, getting something different in their stead. As far as bars and bartenders go, YMMV. I believe a lot of people on CC were complaining that drinks were watered down, but being the cheap drunk and a weakling when it comes to alcohol, I thought just the opposite... 🙂 Beverages' taste and appearance heavily depended on who is making them. After many tries, I discovered that Angela at the Casino bar makes the best (for me) appletini and lemon drop. Hugo - didn't like it. I don't think it had any elderflower liquor in it. Several times I ordered an appletini at another bar (Seascape, Shine, Marina), and the bartender would accept my order, get half way through making the drink and then inform me that he didn't actually have apple schnapps, so he was going to use another type of alcohol. The results were often unpredictable and not at all delicious. I think this was a mango margarita: it was great! Mudslide - too much alcohol. Basically, I guess what I wanted was a milkshake with a hint of alcohol and what I got was alcohol with a hint of a milkshake. 🙂 Very pretty! White Russian. Also too much alcohol, but pretty as well! DH had a few mojitos and we both really liked Mango Tropical Trooper. He also loved Lava Rock (a frozen drink), but I didn't find it on any menus. I found this menu on our last night at the Casino bar.... lol Probably a lot more readable in pdf: QR_S_COFFEE-AND-BAR-LIST-GENERIC_OTHER_DAYX_EN_1694195722.pdfQR_Q_BAR-LIST-GENERIC_OTHER_DAYX_EN_1681927896.pdf I didn't find any of the fancy coffees listed in the first file at any bars. When I asked what was available, because they didn't have a menu handy, I was told: espresso, americano, cappuccino and latte. I opted for lattes and cappuccinos - they were very good, but I am not exactly a coffee connoisseur. I mostly ordered coffee with my breakfast at the buffet, directly at the Buffet bar, if the line wasn't too long. If it was, I'd come back later. I used a waiter service once, but he got back so late, the coffee was cold. The wifi packaged worked fine in browsing mode (FB, email, reddit) and even played videos on reddit. We didn't try to stream, but I think DH listened to Spotify a bit.

I tried making a reservation for 5 at Sabatini, and it will not let me book a table, unless I remove a person. If I make a reservation for 4, every day and every time slot is available. But if I try booking 5 people, it's a no go. What should I do? Do they even have tables for 5? If not, should I make a reservation for 2 and 3, or 4 and 1? And then, once onboard, I could ask to accommodate us? Or should we just go to MDR? Catch by Rudi and Crown Grill do not have this problem. However, my kid strongly despises seafood, so he chose Sabatini instead of Catch. Also, when I make a specialty rest reservation, it says all 5 of us are covered by dining credit. I believe that only the first 2 people on the reservation have the Premier package, and the third one is out of luck. So, what dining credit is the 3rd person getting? It's perplexing. Is it taken out of the unrelated OBC? Thanks!

Thanksgiving in Cozumel. Seascape supposedly docked around 10 am. By the time we got off the ship (sigh...), walked through the mall like terminal, and stood in a super long line to get a taxi, it after noon when we finally got to Playa Palancar. The taxi was supposed to be $25 for up to 4 people, $35 for 5 people and $45 for 6-8 people according to huge posters and placards all over the pier. When we got into the taxi, the driver also said $35. During the ride, though, he started telling us that the price has changed and it's now $45. Insert eye roll. Hubs didn't want to argue and asked me to just hand over $45. To a somewhat unpleasant surprise, Playa Palancar now charges $20 entrance fee per person. It doesn't even include a welcome drink like it does in some other similarly priced beach clubs. So, a beach day in Mexico cost me more than $200 this time. A little steep for a very short beach day, IMHO. However, DH is absolutely enamored with this beach club due to its beautiful beach and waterline. I used to like it because it was inexpensive, pay as you go, with a nice sandy beach for the kid (when he used to play in the sand) with umbrellas and loungers. I still like it because it's exactly what we want in terms of a beach break. Large margaritas and daquiries are $12-17, and non-alcoholic ones are $7. I got a mango daquiri, DH got a mango-strawberry margarita, and DS got a mango/strawberry smoothie. Yummy as always. You can feed some chips to a few racoons on the premises. They don't want carrots. 🙂 They are junk food oriented. We left sooner than we wanted because I was afraid of a long line to get back on the ship, but it was all good this time. However, on the way back there was no large taxi available, so we had to bargain for 2 regular sedans. Still cost us $45. 🙂

Grand Cayman - things didn't go according to plan. MSC Stingray excursion, among many others, was late. We were the last ones to arrive and the first boat to leave the sandbar. Many on our boat got injured to different extent due to the inexperienced captain. My dad had a bleeding gash on his sheen after being hit by the ladder, and I hurt my knee getting back into the boat. Another guy's leg got caught under the ladder when the boat was coming down after a big wave (this was no gentle bobbing). Boat captain kept leaving and coming back, reparking the boat. Ugh. Boat crew was more concerned about selling photos than about our safety. Didn't provide life vests to kids upon request. No photos. Will not repeat. We had a wonderful 3rd party excursion to the Stingray city back in 2009 - nothing like this disorganized mess.

yes. Please check out my review in signature. There were some things we greatly disliked about MSC, but in general we enjoyed our cruise. However, we didn't spend "thousands" on the cruise. We booked a Fantastica balcony for 3 for $2,300 plus grats, airfare and hotel. The latter three are a part of any of our cruises. So, $2,300, considering that we got a drink package included in it to drown our MSC caused sorrows, was a decent price for this cruise. Not a complete disappointment by any means. We made reservations for theater shows through the app when we boarded, however, 5 minutes before the show they stop checking the reservations, and you actually get the premium seats at the top which are reserved for the elite, who don't show up in reserved amounts. P.S. I will never book an MSC excursion in Grand Cayman. If we want to go ashore there, I will book a whole cruise with a different line. Same goes for Jamaica.

I would probably die. 🙂 We've just sailed with an alcohol package for the very first time. I mean - it was $90 pp for a 7 day cruise, including wifi, so it was really a no brainer, since it included specialty coffee, soda and bottled water which are more my thing on a cruise. Since we don't drink at all, I found that I could only handle 2 alcoholic drinks a day - it would hardly justify buying a package for $50+ a day.

It probably gets a LOT busier after 11. I suspect that our check in was easy because we showed up early. It was just like any other cruise line if not better. We showed up around 11 instead of 1:30 and 2:30 assigned times, and got into the building right away, went through x-rays, and a minute later we were in front of a check-in person. He took pics of our passports, looked at the health forms but didn't collect them (I too printed and signed everything), took our pics despite me uploading our photos into the app, got our cruise cards, and we went to a huge waiting room to await our group 21 boarding. The wait took about 30 minutes if not less, but what took a long time was shuffling up the zigzag walkway in a very long line with all the people waiting to board. The day before the cruise we received a text from MSC instructing decks 5-11 to use West entrance, and the rest of the decks to use East entrance of the Terminal C.

Next stop - Jamaica. We have been to Jamaica a few times before, but taxi prices after the pandemic became somewhat unreasonable, considering that we don't usually find Jamaica beaches to be all that picturesque. Upon reading some info on Jamaica subforum here on CC, I decided upon going to the closest beach to the left of the pier. I thought - dad could walk that far, right, since most reviews said that once you get to the end of the pier, you are almost there anyway. Surprise! Carnival Horizon was docked next to that beach, and we were a lot farther away.... We left the ship and asked about a taxi. $5 pp to that beach. About 4 minutes away.... 🙂 Taxi driver decided to fill the taxi to the brim, and our child had to ride in my DH's lap. I guess, not the first time, since the Hampton Inn shuttle driver made us do the same. Keep in mind that our kiddo is well over 100# and 5'. He is bigger than some fully grown adults we know. After a very brief ride we arrived at the public beach. $4 per adult and $1 per kid entrance fee was very reasonable, and $5 per lounger was nice. We couldn't use our inflatable, so the staff member stored it for us in the backroom. We found some place in the shade and set down to the left of the entrance if you are looking at water. A few locals were hanging out the tables, and the smell of weed was overwhelming at first. Not gonna lie - I was a bit concerned. But in the end it was all good - the smell dissipated, we went swimming, leaving one person at a time to guard our bags, the water was clear and warm, the beach was clean. Many people were using the inflatable park for an additional fee. An occasional "braids? massage?" person was a little annoying, but not overly intrusive. We had a lovely beach day, which was then almost ruined by MSC.

Ports of call section. 🙂 Our first port was Ocean Cay. We were supposed to stay till 8 pm, but without any warning, MSC changed it to 4 pm. Not exactly the paradise we expected... Sure, it's pretty, but it still needs a lot of work. There weren't enough loungers for everyone, so I had to start my "relaxing" vacation by dragging 5 chaises from all over the Sunset beach to one spot. Many of them were already taken (and there were very few to begin with), so I got a really "good" workout I didn't intend on having. I was tired and sweaty by the time I got the 5th one dragged over. I went ahead of my DH and DS who weren't ready yet because I knew the beaches would fill up quickly, otherwise, he would have been the one collecting chaises. The Lighthouse beach filled up while I was still SPF lotioning up on the balcony. These were taken early in the morning: There wasn't a bus service to Sunset beach (big minus for those with mobility issues), but it was a beach with the most natural shade and not too far from the ship. So, mom and I went ahead, and dad slowly hobbled over. If you pick a place other than South Beach (or North Beach) or maybe, Lighthouse beach, YOU MUST HAVE WATER SHOES. The rocks on the beach are unbelievable. I thought Princess Cay was bad with their hidden sharp rocks, but this beach was on another level. The water was a bit cold, but not as bad as we had in CocoCay. It was a beautiful aquamarine color. A little wavy on the Sunset beach side, and super calm on the lagoon side across the road (and a bit warmer). The lagoon side with the rental location. No rocks. We settled next to the Cactus bar. I rented an umbrella for $15 prior to the cruise. Waste of money. First, Sunset beach had natural shade. Second, the rental station next to the ship didn't have any umbrellas. When my DH finally arrived, I sent him to get an umbrella at the rental station on the Sunset beach. It was a bit of a walk. Nobody was there to dispense the umbrellas. DH went twice and came back with nothing. I finally went and still nobody there. I asked a maintenance person who was cutting the grass and he sent me to the rental station across the road (see photo above) at the South beach. They had umbrellas, but no stands, and Sunset beach didn't have stands already in the sand (like the Lagoon side). Also, the crew member told us we HAD to bring it back to the rental station which we did, and that turned out to be a lie. Not fun. Maps... the one downloaded from the app was quite different from the paper one they gave out. Downloaded pdf version showed 3 food trucks on Sunset beach. There were none. This version also showed a rental station on Sunset beach. It didn't have a person manning it. Ocean Cay.pdf Fooled me... we didn't get to eat until we got back on the ship at the end of the stay. The paper version was more realistic. No food service anywhere near Sunset beach, and the rental station is in the correct spot at the end of the South beach. Bar Service: the Cactus bar next to us had a very long line pretty much at all times. I managed to get a couple of waters/sodas. At the end of the day we decided to walk around, take some pictures, and found that there was nobody at the Ivory bar. We very happily got some yummy drinks. Per other child's recommendation, DS discovered a zero proof Miami Vice, which became his favorite. Lighthouse beach at the end of the day.

just get Princess Plus or Princess Premier and you will be set for drinks, wifi and grats. And also for room service, I think. We love Princess, even though we usually travel in lowly inside or obstructed balcony on deck 8 at best. Also, I would NOT travel on anything older than Royal Princess. we book the time we like in advance. You can book the same time every day or make individual reservations for different times on different days. yes, but having a reservation helps skip the line. Although, I doubt there will be a line at 8 pm. Princess is a rather tranquil line. There is an adult only area, and I think it's free, but we never tried it because we do have a kid with us. You may want to ask your Princess related questions in the Princess subforum rather than in the MSC one. 🙂

there were many announcements urging people to register their cards in the first couple of days. I didn't preregister our credit cards because I wanted to make cash deposits. To my surprise, this process was very smooth and instantaneous. The night before disembarkation, my kiddo all of a sudden wanted an MSC ship lego set, after I already settled the account. Adding $21.50 through the machine, buying the set and then getting some change back from the machine was a breeze. By the way, I expected some kind of a gratuity to be added to the ship's price, so I added another 15% to the deposit, but there was no tax or gratuity.

they were nice, although we strongly prefer Southern and Eastern Caribbean. I will post my observations about ports of call later today. 🙂

I was expecting it to be long in Cozumel (people on cruisecritic posted photos of 2 hour lines), so we got back way sooner than I would have liked. There was no wait. Our friends who went on a snorkeling excursion (non-MSC) said it took them a while to get back on the ship. The long wait in Jamaica caught me completely off guard. We came back early just in case - before 2 pm. Our friends stayed on the same beach longer and they told us it took them forever to get back on the ship. Needless to say, there was a long line for the return tender boats in Grand Cayman at 2:30. We were supposed to come back from our MSC excursion at 12:30 and I was even contemplating making a beach stop if we had time. Nope. Many MSC excursions were very late that day, so we decided that 2:30 was a good time to just get on the tender. After getting on the boat it wasn't too bad. The ladies who were in our MSC line with said that they were on MSC on a European cruise and TA right before that, and didn't encounter such messy embarkation on those cruises. An RCI ship was tendered next to us, and their tender boats were leaving from the same dock, and they had no line whatsoever. Maybe, they were in port longer, I don't know.

I know you said this, but the buffet is really not busy in the evening - just in case you decide to give it a try. What we did on other ships is go to the buffet/other eatery, pick up some things DS wanted, and take them with us to MDR. Meraviglia may be set up slightly different than Seascape, but I only saw chicken nuggets in the kid section of the buffet. Same goes for hash browns. Fries were available in other sections, probably next to the burgers.

well, there is a puff of ammonia that can be used, but people seem to dislike that method when they find out about it. It's not just MSC that I wouldn't trust with raw meat. I know it's marinated and it's supposed to kill everything unsavory, but I just don't trust it. Especially the day before traveling back home. 🙂

yes, the appetizers and desserts were unlimited, and we certainly ordered a few each at times. Pastas on the "always available" menu are considered entrees and would incur a $5 if ordered in addition to another entree. We asked the waiter if we could order them as appetizers for free, and he said NO.

We've cruised to Jamaica before, but never encountered manual searching of all passengers before. Plus, when we were on our balcony on the first night, we smelled somebody smoking weed, so Jamaica is not the only place one can bring it from. Even if the MSC is searching for weed, this doesn't seem like a very efficient way of finding it, but it is a very efficient way of pissing passengers off.

incredible! by the time we sailed during Thanksgiving week, they made the casino smoke-free. It was glorious! We didn't use the casino for its actual casino stuff, but we used their bar quite often and also quite often crossed from forward to aft through the casino. We would have definitely avoided it if it was a smoking establishment.

we were in 10056 and 10036, and 10036 didn't have a metal balcony. FYI for those choosing their deck 10 cabins: these two were far enough forward of the Loft Cafe (there is a smoking section in front of it) and the public jacuzzi to avoid all the noise and smoke. the view is from 10056 and the hot tub is all the way to the right beyond the curb: There will be some people on the loungers in front of you, but we experienced zero disturbance from them: in front of 10056 But there is a crew area all the way forward on deck 8, and they do smoke there. The closer you are to that, the higher the chance of smoke smell. We smelled somebody's weed the first night, and I was very concerned, but it was fine for the rest of the cruise. I sat on the balcony for several hours (not in a row) every day.

I don't know about Euribia, but I suspect that the always available and kid's menus are the same across the board, so here are the kid's menu and the always available section on Seascape: You can check out my Seascape review for food pics and more menus. My 12 yo didn't want anything off of the kid's menu. He is not exactly a picky eater, but he is not adventurous either. He stuck mainly to always available pastas, caesar salad, tried main menu appetizers and desserts, and loved Grandma's chocolate cake. He enjoyed 3 main pasta dishes: lasagna Bolognese the first night, pasta carbonara and Texas style pulled pork with mac'n'cheese: DO NOT EAT THE PEPPER!!!! Extremely hot. When he didn't see anything he liked on the main menu, he always opted for Pennette pasta with red sauce: While I tried Pennette pasta with Alfredo sauce:

Now, let's talk about the positives and what we have enjoyed onboard Seascape. And some other general observations. 🙂 Card Activation Kiosks - a wonderful service. No need to stand in the long Guest Services line to make a deposit, to get the balance back, or to register your credit card. We've used it several times and were pleasantly surprised by the ease of use. Now, you gotta wait when you touch your cruise card to the reader plate until you hear a ding and then proceed to use the services. The screen had 6 languages that I saw to help international cruisers. Instead of registering a credit card, I made a cash deposit for us and for my parents. For some reason, their gratuities were $101.50, and our gratuities were $98 pp. Not sure why. We were also supposed to have $50 OBC for my DH's silver membership level, but even though I called MSC to add his number to our booking, this never materialized. Oh, well. At least my call didn't cause any problems with the booking itself. Surprisingly, we didn't have any erroneous charges on our folio. I stopped by the Guest Services the first night when it wasn't busy yet to ask why my OBC wasn't showing, and GS told me that she could see it, but it wasn't applied yet, but it will be by the end of day 2. It was. Service - also wonderful. All of the staff members we have simply encountered or dealt with were friendly, smiley, courteous. We enjoyed all the shows in the theater. Comedian A-Train was funny - we went to the family friendly show, most of his jokes went over the head of our friends' 8 and 6 year olds, but our 12 year old understood quite a few of them. The production shows were very nice. The female dancers gave it 200% and were terrific, especially Nia, while the male dancers (especially the shortest one of them) were more of a high school production caliber. Everything else was top notch. I was under the impression that theater shows would be more physical, to accommodate non-English speakers, but there was a lot of singing and pretty much all of the songs were in English. However, they were the familiar favorites, so I am sure even non-Americans enjoyed them. My parents did, and their English is very rudimentary. There was a group of deaf people onboard that week, and they had an ASL interpreter next to the stage. I loved watching them interpret. The acrobatic dance duo and the aerialists were great. I wish we could also see them at Le Cabaret Rouge, but every time we went there, there were other acts on stage... After about day 3 Le Cabaret Rouge shows switched from 8-10:30 pm to start at 10 pm, and we are usually ready to relax in bed or on the balcony by then. Wifi plan worked fine for browsing and even watching short videos/gifs on FB and reddit. I checked my email, FB, checked in with the pet sitter, etc. it does not work as a hot spot, just FYI. MSC has the weirdest disembarkation schedule. Cabins that are next to each other end up being in completely different waiting groups. My parents ended up in group 11 while we were in group 15. I asked our cabin attendant to either give us both group 11 or group 15,, but he told me I had to go to GS and request it. Instead, I just slapped a group 15 label on my parents' suitcase and moved it to our cabin door. Problem solved. Nobody cared. Our plane was leaving at 6 pm that evening, so we had plenty of time and didn't need to be among the first people off the ship. We had a "leisurely" breakfast among the chaos that was the Market Place buffet, and then waited on deck 6 across from the perfume store till about 10 or whenever they were calling groups 40+ and then joined a line of people moving towards the exit. I would call this a smooth disembarkation. No issues.