Jim Zim's MSC Seaside Review With 84 Photos & 8 Videos

The "MSC For Me" App

MSC has a smartphone app called "MSC For Me" which you can use onboard the ship. It connects via the ship's WiFi network and not via a cellular network, so you can leave your phone in airplane mode (but with WiFi turned on) and be assured that you are not using any roaming data. Even though it connects via the ship's WiFi network, you do NOT have to purchase an Internet access plan to use the app.

The app really doesn't offer a whole lot of functionality, and I certainly wouldn't say it's something you absolutely need to download and use to enhance your cruise experience. The most useful thing about it is that you can make reservations for the shows in the Metropolitan Theater... but when you fire up the app, you'll spend a long time trying to figure out how to do so. It's not intuitive at all. It's a lot easier to just make show reservations from the TV in your cabin, or from one of the interactive electronic kiosks throughout the ship.

The other thing that's handy about having the app is that it gives you easy access to the deck plans. So, if you're trying to figure out something about the ship's layout, it's pretty easy to look it up on the app. A handy feature built in with the deck plans is the ability to have the app show you, based on where you currently are, where the nearest restroom is.

What struck me more about the app wasn't what it did, but what it couldn't do. In a perfect world, you'd be able to look up the menu for every night of the week in the main dining room. You'd also be able to look up the current location of other people who have given you permission to look up their location, such as your wife and kids. When MSC first announced the development of the app, they did say a kid-finder feature was going to be included. But either they couldn't get it to work reliably, or they ran in to some other roadblock... because there was no such functionality during the week I was onboard.

Perhaps the most important feature they didn't build in to their app was a chat function. I had sailed on the Carnival Vista a few months earlier, and they, too, had a smartphone app. The coolest feature of Carnival's app was the ability to chat with the other people you were travelling with. We were sailing with some friends of ours, and being able to contact each other via Carnival's app made it SO EASY to coordinate schedules and arrange to meet.

Disembarkation In Miami

Remember that earlier I mentioned there were two ugly incidents where things were poorly organized and customer service was poor. The first had been in Jamaica, and on disembarkation day in Miami I was about to have the second incident.

As I mentioned, we had pre-booked two beach shore excursions from home, and paid for them by credit card, long before the cruise. Due to the bad weather during our cruise, both of those beach excursions ended up getting cancelled. But instead of refunding the amount we paid back to the credit card that we had paid with, MSC posted the refunds as onboard credit to our spending account on the ship. In addition, as part of the incentives offered at the time I booked this cruise, we had a $150 onboard credit on our account. So, that was a whole lot of onboard credit, and by the end of the cruise we had not used it all. There had been daily service charges of $25 deducted (that's basically the mandatory gratuity that goes to the crew) and we had spent $108 for our meal at the steakhouse, plus $23 to upgrade to the fastest Internet package that they offered. But that wasn't enough to use up all the onboard credit we had. At the end of our cruise, we had a negative balance on our onboard spending account of $187.58. In other words, we didn't owe them any money at the end of the cruise, they actually owed us $187.58 due to the refund of those two shore excursions that I had paid for before the cruise.

That brings us to the morning of disembarkation, and things were a little bit of a mess onboard. Our flight wasn't until 11:45 AM, so we weren't really in any big rush to get off the ship. But MSC made it very clear in their disembarkation instructions that they wanted all passengers out of their cabins by 7 AM, to give the room stewards enough time to do their thing. In the disembarkation information that MSC gave to us, the schedule showed that "express walk off" (where you carry your own luggage off with you) would occur from 6:30 AM to 7:30 AM. Yet, by 7 AM, there hadn't been a single announcement about disembarkation getting started. Finally, a few minutes past 7, the Cruise Director announced that express disembarkation could begin, and that ANY passenger that was ready to carry all of their luggage off the ship could proceed to the Piazza for disembarkation.

I've been on 43 cruises, and I've seen how a proper disembarkation is done. They never tell everybody all at the same time that they can leave. This causes a gigantic stampede. The way it's always done is they do it in groups... usually by floors. For example, they'll say if your cabin is on deck 10 or deck 11, and you can carry all your luggage with you, you can proceed to disembarkation now. And then 10 minutes later they'll do two more decks, and ten minutes after that two more. This spreads out the flow of passengers so that there isn't a giant stampede all at one time.

So, on MSC Seaside, there was a stampede a few minutes after 7 AM, as everyone that wanted to do express walk off all proceeded to the elevators at the same time. And after waiting and waiting and waiting for an elevator, when they all finally made it through the elevators, they all reached the Piazza at the same time. This was a bit of a mess, but the worst was yet to come for me and Kellyn.

When we finally made it all the way through the very long line in the Piazza, and reached the final door leading from the Piazza to the gangway ashore, I handed over my keycard to the guy that scans it to record that we're officially off the ship. Instead of hearing the nice little ding sound that you hear when you're cleared to exit the ship, there was a loud buzzing sound instead. The guy looked at his device, and told us "You can't leave the ship. You've got a negative balance on your onboard account. You're going to have to go to guest services to clear this up first."

Now keep in mind that we had a NEGATIVE balance on our account. All they had to do was process a refund back to the credit card that I had on file, the same credit card I had used at home to purchase those two excursions which ended up getting cancelled. We didn't owe them any money. They actually owed us money. But instead of just crediting that money back to my credit card that they had on file, they denied us disembarkation, and made me go to guest services to clear things up.

So, I found a place to tuck Kellyn and all of our luggage out of the way, so that she wouldn't cause a traffic jam for all the other disembarking passengers, and I headed down to the guest services desk. Oh my, what a horrible mess awaited me there!

Lined up in front of guest services was a gigantic line of unhappy customers, all waiting to resolve issues before disembarking It wasn't a happy crowd. I stood in that line for 45 minutes, until I finally got to the front of the line and got to speak to someone to resolve things. Luckily, our flight was not until 11:45 AM, which meant I had plenty of time to get all this resolved, but I hate to think of how upset and frustrated I would have been if I had a somewhat earlier flight.

The way MSC dealt with that line of people was strange, too. There was one guest services rep who kept coming out from behind the desk and talking to people in the line. It seemed like perhaps she was doing a form of triage... checking to see why people were in the line, seeing if maybe she could direct some of them elsewhere, or trying to answer a quick question so that they didn't have to be in the line. But she didn't start doing her triage with the people in the front of the line who had been waiting the longest, she seemed to randomly pick people in the line and see what they were there for. A lot of them she spoke to in Italian. Some of them she would pull out of the line, take them up to the guest services desk, and immediately help them. (Yacht Club guests, perhaps?) After helping someone at the desk, she came back to the line but started helping people at the BACK of the line... the people who had been in line the shortest amount of time. At no point did she ever check with me or the people immediately in front or behind me, to see if she could help us. We were just left to stand in the line for 45 minutes. It was a bizarre customer service moment. But wait, there's more!

When I finally got up to the front of the line, I explained my situation to the guest services rep. I explained about the negative balance on my account, and how it had occurred. I requested that he simply refund the balance to my credit card on file. He brought up my account on his computer, thought about things for a while, and then said he wouldn't be able to refund the money, because of the $150 onboard spending credit I had been given as part of the booking promotion. It was an onboard credit only, and had to be used onboard. It could not be refunded. I explained that I had a plane to catch, didn't want to be late, just wanted to disembark the ship. I requested that he please just zero out the account. Forget about the $187.58 negative balance. As far as I was concerned, I didn't need it. Let's call it good, set my balance to zero, and let me off the ship.

He stepped away from the counter and disappeared through a door in to the office in the back. He was gone a few minutes, presumably conferring with his supervisor or someone with management. When he came back, he said that while he was not able to refund the $150 since that was non-refundable onboard credit, that left $37.58 that he was able to refund. And he proceeded to go in to his cash drawer, and hand me $37.58 in cash and coins. That seemed like it would be the end of the story, and I would be allowed off the ship. But it got even stranger after that!

After he handed me the $37.58 in cash, he was looking at his computer screen for a while and then he excused himself and went back through the door to the back room. After a few minutes back there, presumably conferring further with his boss, he came back out and announced that he was able to refund the whole amount after all... and he proceeded to hand me another $150 in cash from his cash box. Then he closed out my account, and told me I was good to disembark.

It was a totally odd example of customer service. In the end, they somehow managed to do the right thing... but they sure put me through the wringer to get there!

Was I the first passenger in the history of MSC cruises to ever end the cruise with a negative balance? Had they never developed a procedure for this? Look, if their rules say it's not refundable, just zero the account automatically. Don't deny the passenger from disembarking. And if the rules say the amount is refundable, just automatically credit it to the card on file. Don't deny the passenger from disembarking and then pay him his refund in cash. That's really a lousy process. And that's the way my cruise on the MSC Seaside ended.

Downloads

If you're interested in the MSC Seaside, I think you'll also find the following PDF files to be quite interesting. Most are scans of documents that MSC gave me during our cruise, a few are interesting things I found on MSC's web site...

Daily Programs from our cruise

Miami Disembarkation Information

MSC Seaside Brochure

Alternate Brochure

MSC Brochure (198 pages!)

Cabin Map

Deck Plans (for 11x17 printing, double sided)

Shore Excursion Price List

Show Schedule

Priority Tender Information For Aurea Guests

Welcome Aboard Information

Technical Sheet

Butchers Cut Steakhouse Menu

Roy Yamaguchi Menu

Ocean Cay Menu

Suite Information

Getting There Is Half The Fun!

We live in California and our cruise departed from Miami, so we had a bit of an adventure to get from here to there. Normally, we'd fly out of the little regional airport 20 minutes from our house, but to get to Miami from that airport involves three flights. Since our cruise was in January, I didn't really want to gamble on three flights. January is notorious for weather delays, and the more flights you have to take, the greater your odds of having a

Photo by Mike Eliason - Santa Barbara County Fire Department

The direct way to get from our house to LAX involves driving down highway 101 through the Santa Barbara area. Unfortunately, a few days before our flight, there were heavy rains in the mountains behind Santa Barbara that caused huge mudslides in areas where wildfires had burned off the vegetation earlier in the year. Those mudslides completely blocked highway 101 in both directions, for almost two weeks! Not only was I not able to drive the direct route through Santa Barbara to get to the airport before our cruise, it still wasn't cleaned up a week later at the end of our cruise. So, in both directions, we took a long detour to get around the mess in the Santa Barbara area. But that's OK, it only added about a half hour to the drive in each direction.

That non-stop flight we took from LAX to Miami was pretty cool. No, I've understated it. That non-stop flight to Miami was GREAT... the best flight we've ever taken! We flew with Jet Blue, and used their first-class service, which they call "Mint". We had big, comfortable seats that could fold all the way down flat if you wanted to take a nap. And there was a nice entertainment system built in to the seatback in front of us.

Shortly after take-off from Los Angeles, I snapped this photo of Catalina island, off the coast of Southern California...

Along the way, there were cocktails for the first-class passengers.

It was a 9 AM flight, but hey, it's five o'clock somewhere, right?

When we finally reached the west coast of Florida,

there was a pretty great view of Sanibel Island and the Fort Meyers area...

Still photos give you a glimpse at the fun we had on the way to our cruise, but a video brings it to life.

Please take a look at the video I made that shows all the fun we had getting from California to Miami:

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Finally, one last video for you, before we officially conclude the story of our cruise on the MSC Seaside.

Here's a video I shot in Miami the morning of embarkation:

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Summary & Conclusion

This has been a long-winded review, and I thank you for enduring it. Let me see if I can summarize the whole thing in a couple of paragraphs.

There was a lot I liked about the MSC Seaside... especially the suite with a Jacuzzi on the balcony, and all the perks (such as free drinks and free gelato) that came with the cabin. I enjoyed the CruiseCritic meet-and-mingle, and LOVED the cabin crawl that the CruiseCritic members organized. The weather sucked, but it was great that MSC had the foresight to design a swimming pool area with a glass dome over it... a great place to hang out on a cool, cloudy day in the Caribbean.

It seemed like MSC made a lot of decisions to please their European passengers at the expense of their American passengers. This surprised me, since the MSC public relations team spent about a year trying to convince American cruisers that the Seaside was the first MSC ship designed specifically for them.

There were several big logistics snafus and customer service snafus during our cruise. They have a long way to go to learn what good customer service looks like. I imagine the logistical problems will get solved over time.

I honestly can't recommend the MSC Seaside to my American cruising friends. There are so many other cruises you could take where things are tailored to American tastes in food and entertainment, and where logistics issues have long ago been worked out. My suggestion would be that my American friends should cruise on the Norwegian Escape, Norwegian Getaway, Norwegian Breakaway, Carnival Vista, Carnival Breeze, Anthem Of The Seas, or Harmony Of The Seas... long before they cruise on MSC Seaside. For my American friends that do still think they'd like to experience the MSC Seaside, I'd suggest stepping up to the Yacht Club.

European folks will be much happier with MSC Seaside, but please keep in mind that as of January 2017 the crew was still fighting a steep learning curve. You'd be better off to give this ship a year to work out some of its issues.

That's it! That's the full story. I'd love to read your comments. It's your turn now. I'll check back from time to time to answer any questions.

If MSC was really serious about trying to make MSC Seaside a ship that would appeal to Americans more, they'd hire an American cast of singers for their big production shows." - What kind of statement is this? How do you know they are not American?

I haven't been on near the amount of cruises you have but there have been language barriers on each one I have been on. This is not just an MSC problem.

Each of the ships that you are telling other people to go on instead of the Seaside had growing pains as well, While the NCL Escape was my favorite ship I have been on, it was also the worst in terms of service. In my opinion these are growing pains with new ships/crews.

I would rather go to guest services to ensure I received any money back if owed to me. I cancelled an NCL cruise almost two weeks ago, to book another cruise on the Seaside, and I'm still waiting for my deposit to be returned to me.