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

I'm curious, given that you seem to prefer to go to beaches as opposed to excursions or exploring the various port towns, why you prefer cruising rather than staying at a beach resort (Beaches, Sandals, etc.)?

Your comment is right on target, actually. We did do a land vacation in Maui last year, which I don't publicize, so nobody knows we did that. But more importantly, we are currently looking at adding some kind of Mexican all-inclusive land resort vacation to our 2018 lineup.

But the reason I think cruises are really a better fit for us is the entertainment in the evening, especially the comedy and music. I think I can generally get a lot more entertainment in the evening on a cruise than I could at a land resort.

Do they have "American" shows at a Mexican beach resort?

Thanks for the taking the time to make such a detailed review! We're cruising the Seaside in March and from what I see, it looks like we're pretty much the polar opposite to you: love long, 2 hour dinners every night, would rather spend our evenings reading on our deck than going to shows or seeing comedians, etc. So I'm definitely reading things from a different perspective. We've also cruised MSC twice in Europe so we're going in knowing what to expect and looking forward to comparing our experience to mainstream North American cruises. The main thing that worried me from the review is that crazy crowded dining room at breakfast! We love to relax with our breakfast in the late morning and that doesn't look at all relaxing.

By the way, were there any coffee making facilities in the Aurea suites? Having the Nespresso machines and enjoying an early morning cup of coffee on the deck was one of the highlights of our Haven experience on NCL. I know that room service is an option, but it seems like a lot of hassle to get my wake up jolt of caffeine in the morning.

There wasn't any kind of coffee maker in our Aurea suite. An excursion to the buffet is a good option, though. I bet in the Yacht Club there is a coffee maker in the suite, though... and certainly a butler to bring coffee, if you don't have a coffee maker.

Do they have "American" shows at a Mexican beach resort?

Well, they sure as hell won't have opera in the evenings! :')

Thanks for the taking the time to make such a detailed review! We're cruising the Seaside in March and from what I see, it looks like we're pretty much the polar opposite to you: love long, 2 hour dinners every night, would rather spend our evenings reading on our deck than going to shows or seeing comedians, etc. So I'm definitely reading things from a different perspective. We've also cruised MSC twice in Europe so we're going in knowing what to expect and looking forward to comparing our experience to mainstream North American cruises. The main thing that worried me from the review is that crazy crowded dining room at breakfast! We love to relax with our breakfast in the late morning and that doesn't look at all relaxing.

 

 

 

By the way, were there any coffee making facilities in the Aurea suites? Having the Nespresso machines and enjoying an early morning cup of coffee on the deck was one of the highlights of our Haven experience on NCL. I know that room service is an option, but it seems like a lot of hassle to get my wake up jolt of caffeine in the morning.

I’m with you, I’m American but very much a Europhile and I’m looking forward to the Seaside’s European feel. I also enjoy lingering over dinner, cappuccinos every morning and Italian pizza and gelato. What I most appreciated about Spaniel Lover’s review, though, is that it’s very fair minded. He’s clear about what his priorities are, but unlike some reviews I’ve read of this ship, he is respectful of people with different opinions. He doesn’t expect everyone else to play cheerleader with him. I appreciate that.

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Well, they sure as hell won't have opera in the evenings! :')

Better check in advance. Unless, you know, Mexicans don't like opera. :*

Thank you for the review. I have two friends that went on and pretty much stated what u said. I am not looking forward to my March cruise but I guess I will be eating in the dining room every meal. I don’t get how a ship can make it with very little food options. Only buffet or dining room. That sucks.

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Thank you for the review. I have two friends that went on and pretty much stated what u said. I am not looking forward to my March cruise but I guess I will be eating in the dining room every meal. I don’t get how a ship can make it with very little food options. Only buffet or dining room. That sucks.

 

 

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Having watched almost every YouTube video about the Seaside in existence, I can confidently say that there are plenty of food options available.

I'm confused about what you and others who have this concern find missing? Serious question not snotty remark.

I don't quite get all the bashing that is going on...it's his opinion...and this site is, after all, cruise CRITIC.

Jim I actually really like your reviews- how come you've never tried Celebrity? I think you'd like them; they especially do live music, dining, and buffets really well. Thanks for taking the time to do this- I was poking around MSC thinking of Seaside- but nah, i'll give that awhile for them to work the kinks out- and if they don't I'll stick to Celebrity and Royal!

Although we're dying to do Viking Ocean!

Having watched almost every YouTube video about the Seaside in existence, I can confidently say that there are plenty of food options available.

I'm confused about what you and others who have this concern find missing? Serious question not snotty remark.

If your a buffet only person I can see the disappointment with the deck 16 buffet. How many people only eat buffet?

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Have to admit, I tried to read the whole thing, just couldn’t do it. What I did read though made me realize I am going to thoroughly enjoy my MSC Seaside cruise in October.

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Have to admit, I tried to read the whole thing, just couldn’t do it. What I did read though made me realize I am going to thoroughly enjoy my MSC Seaside cruise in October.

 

 

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That’s part of what makes his reviews so helpful. You may not agree with all his opinions, but there is no shortage of information.

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Having watched almost every YouTube video about the Seaside in existence, I can confidently say that there are plenty of food options available.

I'm confused about what you and others who have this concern find missing? Serious question not snotty remark.

For instance on carnival they have of course the buffet and dining but also guys burgers, Mexican burrito and taco bar, deli, Stirfry, asian area, and a whole different salad bar area not part of buffet plus bbq area outside.

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This is on top of the buffet with a huge selection.

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Having been on the same cruise as Jim, my wife’s biggest disappointment was with the food options during the day or late night. Really the only options during the day is the buffet. You certainly won’t go starving but there isn’t the variety on some of the other lines. The ship itself was beautiful and I actually liked the entertainment other then the mad dash to find a seat in the theatre.

We were in yacht club and I can confirm we had a Nespresso machine. Never used it as the top sail lounge was convienant and our Butler was always willing to bring us. I think jim nailed it with his assessment of msc America, although I don’t think it was anywhere near my worst cruise, the issue revolves around them creating the perception that it really is an American ship and it isn’t. With that being said I really do appreciate the effort and I feel they are a few tweaks away.

Another beautifully done review! Thanks much.

If your a buffet only person I can see the disappointment with the deck 16 buffet. How many people only eat buffet?

 

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???

I'm not a buffet only person.

So... I still don't understand. Enlighten me, please.

For instance on carnival they have of course the buffet and dining but also guys burgers, Mexican burrito and taco bar, deli, Stirfry, asian area, and a whole different salad bar area not part of buffet plus bbq area outside.

 

 

 

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Ah! Interesting!

Thank you!

The MSC pizza looks like New York pizza. One of the best things about NY pizza is the crust, so it would never be covered in pepperoni like the bottom pizza was. Now it "looks" like NY pizza but I wonder if it tastes like it? I will find that out on Saturday when we set sail!

Really enjoying your review...thanks for taking the time to share your experience with us!

Day 2: At Sea

 

Our bed was quite comfortable and we got a good night's rest. For breakfast, we headed to the Marketplace Buffet, for our first buffet breakfast. Breakfast is actually my favorite meal of the day, and my normal eating pattern at home is to have a big breakfast, a big lunch, and then, believe it or not, Kellyn and I generally don't eat dinner at all. We either just skip dinner altogether, or at most we have a light snack, such as some popcorn. On vacation, I still like to have a big breakfast and a big lunch, and then go somewhat light at dinner. What I'm trying to say is that getting a good breakfast is important to me. On most cruise ships, that's not difficult... it's usually pretty easy to get an omelet, some potatoes, a little bacon or sausage, and some kind of pastry. That would be my ideal vacation breakfast.

 

Getting a good croissant was no problem at all in the Marketplace buffet. They were readily available, and I thought they were actually quite tasty, with a nice butter flavor to them. You can't tell from the picture below, which gives no sense of scale, that the croissants were quite small... I had to take a couple of them to satisfy my croissant craving... but I give MSC a good grade for their tasty croissants.

 

 

The best cruise ship croissant I ever had was on

the Viking Star. They served a much larger croissant, with an even stronger flavor of butter than the ones on MSC. I also really liked the croissants whenever I stayed in The Haven on Norwegian Cruise Line, because in The Haven, they would gladly warm up a croissant for me. A warm croissant beats a room-temperature croissant, for sure. In fact, on several of my cruises in The Haven on NCL, if I asked for a warmed-up croissant at breakfast on the first day, they would automatically bring me a warmed-up croissant as soon as I sat down, without even having to ask, for the entire rest of the cruise! I couldn't help but wonder if we had stayed in the Yacht Club instead of in our whirlpool suite, would I have been able to get a warmed-up croissant in the Yacht Club's restaurant? My guess would be yes.

 

So, the croissants were fine, but the rest of the breakfast was a bust. Surprisingly, the ham & cheese omelet that they grilled to order for me was not good. The omelet chef had spread it out very thin in the pan, and that caused it to get overcooked and have a rubbery texture. It was also a very small omelet. If you went to an American restaurant and ordered an omelet, you would almost always get an omelet made from three eggs. But on the MSC Seaside, the omelets were about half that size. The big problem, though, was the fact that it was overcooked. That really ruined it.

 

The breakfast potatoes they served in the buffet were also not to my liking. They were similar to the potatoes they serve in a McDonalds restaurant at breakfast time. Basically, a deep-fried potato patty. Finally, the nail in the coffin of the buffet breakfast was the bacon...

 

 

Instead of serving full strips of bacon, what they served was more like the kind of crumpled up bacon you would put in to an omelet. It was basically bacon pieces. I liked that it was well cooked and not limp, but it was odd how there were no full strips. On the left side of the photo, notice the baked apples they served at breakfast. Kellyn absolutely loved those... she said it was like eating an apple pie without the crust.

 

The rest of the morning, we spent some time in the Jacuzzi on our balcony, plus I did some exploring and photographing of the ship. As noon approached, we were actually a little sleepy... and hey, we're on vacation!... so we decided to take a little nap. Right in the middle of a wonderful little nap, the Captain came on the public address system and made an announcement to the entire ship, including on the speaker inside of our cabin. Obviously, it woke us up from the nap. What was so important that he had to address the entire ship about, including inside all the cabins? He made a routine announcement that he would end up making at around noon every day of the cruise... concerning the ship's position and course, the weather conditions, and the time he expected we would arrive at our next port. This lasted about two minutes. Then he delivered the same announcement in Italian. Then he handed the microphone over to a woman who read the same announcement in several other languages... I think it may have been four other languages... each one lasting about two minutes.

 

This was a mistake by the Captain. I've toured the bridge of several cruise ships, and I actually have a friend who is a Cruise Director and who makes ship-wide announcements all the time. I know that there's a panel for the public address system, and when someone goes to make an announcement, they can choose from an array of buttons that determine where that announcement goes to. An announcement can be directed to just the crew areas, it can directed to all the public areas of the ship, and it can be directed ship-wide to every speaker in every nook and cranny of the ship. But the general rule is that the only announcements that are ever made to every nook and cranny of the ship are emergency announcements. All other announcements are usually targeted to certain areas of the ship. In this case of a routine announcement about the ship's position and the weather forecast... that should have just been directed to the public areas of the ship. It's rude to send an unimportant announcement to all the cabins, because you'll wake up the couple taking a nap in 14211. Thanks, Cap'n!

 

With our nap over, we headed down to the Marketplace buffet for some lunch. It was interesting to see the lunch buffet two days in a row. Not much had changed. I was hoping that they would switch some things up and offer some different selections, but it was very similar to what was offered on the previous day. There were a few minor changes... a slightly different pasta... a different meat at the carvery... but it struck me as a near-repeat of the previous day's lunch. That's too bad, because I didn't like the previous days lunch enough to want to experience it multiple times during the week!

 

Let's talk pizza now. I bet I get a whole lot of negative comments to what I'm about to say, but in the spirit of writing an honest review, I'm going to say it anyway. I've read nothing but good things about the pizza onboard MSC Seaside. The Seaside came out of the shipyard and did 4 or 5 weeks of cruising before we got onboard. I read as many reviews from those previous cruises as I could... and anytime they mentioned the pizza, they all had good things to say. I even read reviews from the Divina where people talked about how good the pizza was. So I was surprised when I finally tried the MSC pizza and it did not live up to my standards for pizza.

 

 

As I understand it, this is the style of pizza that Italians like. Not the pepperoni... I know that's not really the Italian pizza topping of choice... that's more an American thing. I'm talking about the thin crust, and the small amounts of sauce, cheese, and toppings. As I understand it, that's how the Italians like their pizza.

 

I'm not Italian, I'm from California... and I've just got to say that this is not the way I like my pizza. Let me show you a pepperoni pizza from my home town. This is the way I prefer my pizza... with very generous amounts of sauce, cheese, and toppings, and a crust that is softer, not crunchy.

 

 

Which one of those two pizzas looks better to you? I'm going to guess that if you're European, you're going to say that the first one looks better. But I'm guessing that if we were to put those two pizzas out in front of a room full of Americans, the second pizza would disappear first.

 

What I'm saying is that I didn't care for the pizza on MSC Seaside. The crust was crunchy. There was not enough sauce on it. There was not nearly enough cheese on it... by a factor of at least three, maybe four times. And there was not nearly enough pepperoni on it... again by a factor of three or four times. I know I'm going to get heckled about this by the Italians, but I call 'em the way I see 'em in my cruise reviews!

Just as an American I would say the first pizza looks much better than the second. Sorry. I don't like huge amounts of sauce, and I prefer a thin crust pizza. So I think it looks great.

Thanks for taking the time to write a well thought out review and interspersing it with great photos, videos and useful links! You provided a wealth of information that I already knew as well as some that I didn't know, so that was fantastic.

I do have 2 items that I'm trying to get more information on: I have seen the scans of the Specialty restaurant menus and I'm trying to decide if I want to pre-purchase the Dining Trio or just a single "experience" and the one menu I haven't seen is the actual Experience Menu for Ocean Cay ( I see mention of it in the links, but not an actual listing of what items are available) Do you happen to have a copy?

My last question- is the buffet the only place to get lunch or is one or both of the MDR's open as well?

Not defensive...just stating facts...

Those were not facts...They were assumptions and unfounded opinions. Have you cruised on Seaside yet?? Have you cruised on a ship with a passenger clientele of only 40-50% American?? Feel free to question someone who has already cruised on a ship you haven't once you have!

Another great review Jim, thanks!