Jaco5NC

Wow! Thank you for your review. It sounds like your family had quite an adventure! We are doing a land-based vacation in Curaçao and I am interested in the Blue Room. Sounds like it can be quite intimidating.

We have only sailed on Seaside so far. The lip line was $20.00 per cabin. We are on the Meraviglia next and from what I understand there is not a charge for the ropes course. You do need to sign a waiver for this activity as well as the waterslides in advance. Someone please correct me if I am wrong about the fee.

We were just having the same exact discussion as OP. We sailed Seaside last year and loved most things about it. Decided to book Meraviglia for a different ship. We’ve read lots of reviews and people seem to love the Meraviglia. We've done both itineraries so that wasn’t a consideration. One thing to note for the OP, the Seaside offers a zipline (which our family loved) and the Meraviglia offers a ropes course. Also, Seaside has an outdoor basketball court versus an indoor court on Meraviglia. Just in case those things matter to you as it does our family. I don’t think you can go wrong. We’ve sailed NCL, RCCL, Carnival and truly enjoyed MSC as well. Not in the YC by the way!

We are not sailing on Divina, however, we are sailing on Meraviglia March 15th for Spring Break from Miami with our kids. We live in Florida and that lines up with their vacation dates. Just for your reference.

I was thinking/guessing it would be similar to the Seaside drink menus? I have no idea though.🤷🏻‍♀️

I know the exact bartender she is referring to at the Deck 19 bar. We utilized that bar frequently and I (as a woman) was never ignored nor was my husband. In fact, he went out of his way to make special drinks for my picky 12 year old daughter. Not saying that what the OP stated wasn’t her true experience, just that my experience was vastly different, thankfully. With that being said, we enjoyed our Seaside Cruise last summer. It wasn’t perfect but none of our cruises on the different lines have been. We are on vacation and laid back so every cruise is a good cruise. We try to teach our children to let little things go.

Just a quick note about the zip line: when we sailed last June on Seaside it was $10 per person or $20 per cabin for the duration of the cruise. Not sure if this has changed though.

Our experience was that the slides and zip line was open while in port. We stayed on the ship in Nassau and it felt like we had the ship to ourselves until the early afternoon when people started returning. It was fantastic!

I do not remember any outlets in the bathroom. I had to blow dry (I recommend bringing your own if you have long or thick hair) and flat iron my hair at the vanity table outside of the bathroom. We had a balcony cabin. I could definitely be wrong though. American style outlets in the cabin though for charging, no adapter required.

We’ve sailed many of the mainstream cruise lines (NCL, RCCL & CCL) and have found MSC to be more similar then different. We are American and a family of four. We always go in with an open mind and always enjoy ourselves tremendously. We haven’t been on a cruise that has been 100% perfect but they have all come very close. I’ve read reviews and have asked myself if the reviewer was talking about the same ship! Their opinion differed so much from ours. Have a wonderful vacation!!

We also agree. We would love to see MSC offer a quick serve type option. We loved getting a quick bite at Sorrentos on our last RCCL sailing. We’ve also sailed NCL and have grabbed light meals in O’Sheehans. Our family personally prefers that over the buffets.

The flights have definitely been one of the things that hold us back. Additionally, we have limited time (school/sports schedules) and I am thinking we would need at least a few days pre and post cruise to explore. I have begun to use our AA travel rewards credit card more often to try to start accumulating points for our tickets. We live in Florida so Caribbean itineraries have been easy peasy for us😊.

Thank you so much for sharing your experiences! We are sailing the Meraviglia next year to the Caribbean. Looking forward to it as we loved the Seaside last year. Your review has me even more excited. We are dying to do a Mediterranean itinerary and reading through your comments have been helpful, thank you again!

Thank you for sharing the link. I had not seen it yet.

Sailing tomorrow and still waiting to hear...