Scooters

testing 1, 3, 2  hummmm

It looks like it sells out fairly fast. You might want to book your reservation a month or so in advance.  It was sold out for our Cruise on the 9th. I kept checking back and finally landed a spot.  

We visited Fernando when he had his first restaurant and had a great time.  He even sent us back to the ship with a couple of bottles of his "special" Tequila.

I understand that he now has a liquor store.  Where is it?

Hopefully not too far from Jamies!

On 10/26/2021 at 7:35 AM, CruisinCrow said:

 

Glad to hear that.  I started to get worried that I had booked at the wrong place. 🙂

Us Too Too.  We sent him a $25 deposit.

As I understand it, the ship goes to the "mssing" person's cabin, gathers their papers, etc.  and gives them to the port agent.  That way they have the credentials to get to the next port/home.  Another good reason to cruise with a passport, not just a driver's license.   We make a photo copy of our passport and keep it with us at all times.  The passport itself lives in the safe in our cabin.

I don't Relish the thought of reading any more of these responses!

I thought that I scored a GREAT deal for Adventure of the Seas ( 5 Day/Balcony/Feb 9/Galveston) during Black Friday week.

I just checked the current price (12/19  1130) and found that the price dropped $104.    I called and they are processing $104 OBC or refund.  No muss, fuss, or bother.  

Make sure that you keep checking every time you get an e-mail about another sale.  I suspect they could drop further if virus concerns cause more cancellations.

[When I get a sale e-mail, I go online and start a new booking for the same cruise/category of cabin and compare prices.]

Happy Holidays!

Did they have Massages on the Beach?  How much$$ . Thanks!

I keep adding as I think of more things.   We flew Southwest into Ft. Lauderdale and took Uber to our Hotel, Miami Hampton Inn Brickell.  The hotel was very nice, and breakfast was much better than most.  Many nice restaurants withing walking distance. Several have rated it in the Departures section.   The Hotel offered an $8 shuttle to the port on cruise morning.  

When we disembarked, the porter got us and our bags directly to the Rental Car Shuttle.   We didn't depart until Saturday Night, so we took a nice Florida drive.  Alamo was only about $60 for a medium SUV one-way from Miami to Ft. Lauderdale.

All Easy Peasey!!

Book on the first day onboard.  The good times go fast!

We were onboard the Seaside last week. It was our first time to St. Maarten. We booked a bus tour around the island "Sweet St. Maarten" (????) through the ship.  We got to go around the whole island, stopped at the French Pastry Shop/ Flea Market, IceCream Shop, and Maho Beach. We had enough time to watch a couple of take-offs and landings.   Since it was through the ship, we didn't have to worry about getting back on time.   It was a bit more expensive than going on our own, but we felt we got the maximum tour, without worrying about missing the ship on the short stay.

Thanks all for info!  Anyone else have any thoughts??

Great review and comments!  My wife is very allergic to cigar smoke (Migrane/Nausea/Vomiting)... How prevalent is cigar smoke in Cuba. We really want to go, but we don't need to have her too sick to enjoy the trip.  

Thanks!

If you carry off your own luggage, I think that debark started at about 0700 and was done by about 0800.   If you don' t self carry, Your exit time will depend on  your "experience," cabin type, floor, etc.  We were one of the earliest off at 0805.  Others exited over the next couple of hours.   

Miami did close one terminal in the afternoon last weekend, but it only served about 11 flights. Not sure of the current status. 

We flew out of Ft. Lauderdale  and there were no problems or long lines Saturday night.  

..... Hope this helps. 

Oh yes,  one more suggestion......  There is a lot of closet space (for a ship's cabin).  However, the clothes hanging space isn't real wide. To make it worse, they hangers were all the wide "suit" type in our cabin.  

I would strongly suggest that you bring a bunch of cheap wire hangers (drycleaner style).  Sub them for most of the Suit hangers and you will have a lot more room....

5 hours ago, livingis2me said:

Thank you for your review.

 

We have the same type of room booked for this upcoming Saturday. Did you use the minibar? If so, did they replenish it each time the room was made or once per day?

I don't think that it was restocked more than once a day.  We left them a note on specific items we wanted a couple of times, and they magically appeared the next time we got back to the room. 

We came in on the Seaside on Saturday 1/12.  We were concerned, but had no problems at all.  Our debarkation meeting time was 0805.   We were off the ship, had our bags, through customs and heading to the rental shuttle by 0830.  No problemo! 

I didn't see any fingerprinting going on, but I was really only paying attention to making it through our line.  Customs only held our passports up to the light, rather than checking it electronically.  Possibly their system was down.  We are US Citizens and have Global Entry.  However, you wouldn't have known the Global part unless you checked it electronically. 

BTW.... We did tell the customs and TSA folks how much we appreciated them working in "challenging times." 

we were there around noon.  No problem.

We just got off the Seaside yesterday.  The ship was absolutely spotless.  I've not seen such a clean ship before. There were no hints or reports of illness. There was hand sanitizer at each dining entrance.  We've experienced GI problems on other ships.  Not this one.   

Mrs. ScooterS and I just returned from a week aboard the MSC Seaside.  This is about cruise number 8 for us.  It is our first time on MSC.  Other trips have been on Carnival or Royal Caribbean. We were on the Eastern Caribbean loop.  We are a married couple of 60-somethings.

We had an Aurea suite. Yeah, we got the one with the balcony whirlpool tub. We also got the upgraded drink package. The packages have changed since we booked.

The weather was as close to perfect as one could ever expect.  It was about 73-78 degrees each day and didn’t get much below 70 at night.  We had sunny or partly-cloudy skies all week.  We got about 1 hour of rain showers the morning that we got to St. Martin…. Again, a perfect weather week!!

There was little or no sickness apparent on-board.  I think that the spotless ship and a lot of luck helped.  There was hand sanitizer at each dining room entrance and most seemed to use it.

This was the most “International” of any cruise that we have been on.   In our previous cruises out of Galveston, the largest groups had been from the US or Mexico, with a few others on-board.    On the Seaside, I believe that we had people from more than 40 countries and many languages.  Key announcements were done in about 8 languages and printed materials were printed in multiple languages as well.  There were many, many Europeans on-board.  English was the go-to language for everyone.  In addition to the US, we really enjoyed meeting a folks from Sweden, Canada, Slovakia, Germany, France, and several other countries/languages! Only 2 crew members were form the US, the Cruise Director and one young lady at the tour desk.  It is amazing how well crew and customers from all over the world can get along on a ship.  Too bad that doesn’t happen in the real-world.

Here are some thoughts, in no particular order……

·       The ship is absolutely beautiful!  It has a clean, modern look, without being “over the top” modern. There is a ship-wide emphasis on maintaining that beauty.

·       The ship is spotless.  Cleaning and maintaining is truly a passion.  I can’t begin to explain how much time and effort the crew spent scrubbing and cleaning. 

·       The onboard shows are some of the best that we’ve seen. There is a lot of variety within the limits of the size cast that can be expected at sea.  Absolutely, make sure that you attend the Michael Jackson show on the last cruise day!

·       The balcony was great!  The whirlpool was “marginal” for us.  We used it a couple of times, but could probably could have done without.  See other posts and pictures about these whirlpool balconies.  You can see and be seen all up and down the line of the ship when you are on the balcony or in the tub.

·       We were on the13th floor.  Also, beware of the extended balconies below us on 9.   They are much larger, but are completely open to the levels above.  Not only can you be seen by higher cabins, your area can be the landing zone for anything that falls from above.

·       We had a small tub in our room.  It would have been helpful if we were travelling with small children, but a shower would have been fine for us.

·       The Aurea experience was expensive, but we think it was worth it.  The massage was great, and we went to the thermal suite every day. See note on the my-time dining.

·       Embarkation was eazy-peasey.  We were in line at about 11:30 we were on-board and ready to eat within about 30-45 minutes. The Aurea priority line sure helped after we went through security.

·       Disembarkation was super easy too. Our Aurea experience got us scheduled to depart at 8:05.  By 8:30 we through Customs and off the ship with bags in-hand. By 9:00 the Alamo Rental Car shuttle had us at the Airport to pick up a car.

·       Strong Recommendation:  Get a Porter when you disembark.  We had several bags (and one had a broken wheel). We zoomed through customs.  When we got outside, the porter got us right to the front of the line for the rental shuttle. Otherwise, I suspect that we would have been in the shuttle line for a half-hour or so, during the rush. That alone, was worth a nice tip!

·       Elevators were busy and sometimes there was a wait, but nothing too frustrating.

·       We got the “Deluxe” drink package.  In reality, we probably could have done just fine with the “Classic,” but it all depends on what you want and how much you drink the good stuff.

·       With “included” or “prepaid” drinks, the bars were always busy.  It seemed worst around the pools.  However, the drinks themselves were well-poured and plentiful.  I’ll give a special shout-out to Paul in the sports bar (you can’t miss the large black man from Jamaica). He knew how to make a drink and was a lot of fun. 

·       We ate dinner each night in the dining room.  With Aurea, we got the my-time dining, which we loved with the “unique” port schedules on this trip.  Our wait crew was excellent and took very good care of this. They were occasionally busy, but rarely rushed.  We really enjoyed the service and the conversation. I can’t speak of the specialty restaurants as we didn’t try them.

·       Breakfast and lunch (when not in port) were at the buffet for us.  The ship was completely full and that showed at the buffet.  It was a bit chaotic, but we always found a place to sit.

·       Make sure that you get the spa tour and try the thermal spa.  We went down every day.  The salt room was our favorite.  If it wasn’t in you package, it might not be worth the extra $70 per day/per person.  Hint: I have heard that you can use the thermal spa for the day, when you get another treatment (unconfirmed).  My wife got her haircut for only $39…..

·       The food…… The topic of much discussion.   The food throughout the ship was “OK.”  It wasn’t bad, and it wasn’t great, it was “OK.”   There was a lot of variety at dinner, but not so much at lunch and very little change at breakfast.  If you are a true “foodie,” this may not be the cruise for you unless you want to hang out in the specialty restaurants.  The other 90% of us should do fine.

·       We didn’t spend as much time as many at the late-night parties, or the “contests” at the pool, but everyone seemed to be having fun.   Everyone was upbeat and really seemed to enjoy themselves.  We definitely had more fun than some of the cruises on,…… well you know a couple of the other cruise lines.

·       There were a few exceptions.  Some people won’t be happy with anything.  Special Message for the older man in the yellow shirt at the buffet on the last morning:   You didn’t need to loudly and repeatedly berate the young server because he ran out of scrambled eggs and couldn’t get a new pan out fast enough for you.   You are a grown man. You should be ashamed of yourself!  The crewmember kept his cool with you, but obviously took your tongue-lashing personally and disappeared shortly after your tirade.  I apologized to him through a supervisor behalf of the other customers who heard your tantrum.

Overall, I think that this is our new favorite cruiseline!  Yes, they need to work on the food a bit, and yes, everyone would have been a bit more comfortable if the ship was only 80% booked.  If there are questions, please fire away….

Mrs. ScooterS and I would like to Cruise to Cuba, unfortunately she is  super-sensitive to cigar smoke (Migrane- Nausea- Vomiting).  Can she avoid the smoke and still enjoy Cuba?  If cigars are everywhere, It looks like it will be a no-go for her.  I'm looking for an honest assessment, not a wild opinion in either direction, please...

It really is easy to use Uber.  Why don't you download the app and try it in your own area before you cruise. That should make your trip easier.   

Keep us posted!

My TA told me that MSC is converting to a new computer system and hiring a bunch of new staff. The hold times have been very long for the past few weeks. Sounds like things have been a bit bumpy. The TA said that the current wait times should be worth it for the increased capacity they will gain in the long rug.

Good Idea! The staff is very undercompensated. I'm sure that they will enjoy the $20, while you enjoy the inside cabin that you booked.

I called my TA to make a change in my booking today. She had to call MSC for me and we were in a holding pattern for over an hour. She explained that they are growing fast. They are moving to a new computer system and hiring a bunch of new people. She said that things have been pretty bumpy in getting through to them for the past couple of weeks. However, she thinks it will pay off in the long run.