MSC Seaside - March 3-10 Beautiful Ship, but not the cruise line for us.

Disclaimer: What follows is my family’s opinion and our experience.

My DH, myself and our two boys (9 & 5) just returned from a week on Seaside. We have sailed Carnival, Princess, Celebrity and RCI previously, having 10 cruises behind us; two of which were with the kids (both of those on Carnival).

We enjoyed our vacation together, after all this was our yearly family vacation and as such we found our fun and didn't let the mole hills become mountains. We acknowledge that we did not spend a great deal on this cruise, but that being said we didn’t really come away feeling we’d received anything of value for what we spent. The Seaside is a beautiful ship, but we’re not sure the MSC business model is the right one for us.

The Ship: The ship was beautiful, though I never got the hang of where things were. I kept going aft when I should have gone forward and vise versa. I also found it disappointing that I could not look out to sea on any deck without glass in my way. I'm 5"3' and if I wanted to look out over the railing without looking through glass I had to sit on our balcony (which is where we spent lots of our time) or at the back of the ship. It would have been really nice to sit outside with my buffet meal on deck 8 and just look over the rail. Also especially noticeable, was the crush of people confined to two thirds of the ship. I understand the ‘exclusivity’ is paid for by going Yacht Club, but to confine three quarters of the people to two thirds of the ship made spending anytime lounging by the pool or on deck a challenge to say the least. We saw people hugging their towels waiting for pool attendants to lay out the loungers at 6am, if you weren’t there you didn’t get a chair.

The Smell: We only smelt sewage on Embarkation day, and in the Atrium on the same day we smelt what I reminded me of new carpet being laid. Otherwise our experience on the cruise was odor free.

Room: We had a balcony on Deck 14, Fantastica experience. The room was smaller than what we have experienced previously, the shower area was small, though I did appreciate the door instead of a curtain. My DH also mentioned that for him the area around the toilet was snug, as his knees kept hitting the counter or shower. Storage was tight, though we did make it work, had it just been two of us I don’t think it wouldn’t have been so tight. Our Steward was very prompt to clean our room and turn it down at night, which was great since pretty much right after dinner our kids would be ready for their bedtime routines. The balcony was quiet, and a nice place to spend time. For the first time in a few cruises, I thought most people respected the no smoking guidelines; until I saw a glowing butt thrown over the side of the ship one night and land on deck 8.

Service: The staff are clearly working hard, but there are glaring inconsistencies in service. Whether this is because of training issues, it seemed to us to be a very inexperienced crew, or because, while the overall ratio of crew to passengers is typical for a ship of this size, I’m not sure if MSC took into account the staff required to work exclusively in Yacht Club. If you look at the numbers in that framework, you have, in my opinion, a very understaffed ship. This is especially noticeable in the MDR and the bars around the ship. In the MDR, especially at breakfast and lunch, the service was inconsistent, in that some of us would receive bread, others of us would be skipped. On one occasion at breakfast in the MDR, not only did the server skip my husband with the pastry tray, but they very nearly skipped my children’s breakfast order. They just could not keep track of who belonged to who, and who had just arrived at the table. Lunch service was just as chaotic, my eldest ordered a meatball sub and it arrived a good 10 minutes after the rest of our table had been served. The explanation given what a mess up in the kitchen. We also ordered continental breakfast in our room several mornings, and while the order generally arrived on time, it was a guessing game as to whether or not we would have enough spoons for all of us to eat our cereal. One morning my husband asked ‘where the tea bags were?’ and I said ‘why, I ordered coffee’... we had only received hot water; other mornings it looked like the coffee beans had walked through on stilts as it was very light coffee.

Kids’ Club: Both of our kids enjoyed their time at Kids’ Club, but having been to Carnival’s Camp Ocean, found it a little boring in the end. They missed the variety of games, and activities offered on Carnival. We, as parents, missed the enthusiastic staff, stories and crafts that would litter our cabin on prior cruises. We also found that our eldest seemed to play more PS3 on this cruise, than anything else. He told us they played dodgeball every day, but more often than not it was PS3. My DH & I were rather disappointed that, though the 7 to 11 year olds had a 3d Printer in their space, it was not used. Also according to the website, part of the Fantastica (and above) perks were cooking classes and other demonstrations. These were not offered, or at least we could not find anything indicating they were, in either the Kids’ Club schedule or the Daily Planner. I noticed when I was filling out my Kids’ Club forms, Bella passengers could pay to have their children participate in these activities as well. I would have been rather upset if I had authorised payment and then found out they weren’t offered. We also found the little things, like online pre-registration would have helped significantly. When we boarded the ship we had to sign our kids up for a RFID wristband indicating their muster station, and giving them access to unlock the cabin door. The paperwork created a huge backlog of parents and children, even members of the ships’ staff were asking the Kids’ Club people to go faster. On the day before we returned to Miami, we had to return the RFID chip by 4pm and the kids were issued a normal wristband with a barcode that was scanned to sign them in and out of the Kids’ Club. We thought it was a bit of overkill because, unless you paid $18 per kid to be able to track them, the active RFID bracelet was just another way to sign them in and out of Kids’ Club. I wonder if they were to start using the barcode bracelets, and only give the active RFID bracelets to the people who paid for the tracking service, if that would quicken the huge line on Embarkation day, and the final day when the chip has to be returned. Not only did we have to sign the kids up for the bracelet, we also had to then go up to the Kids’ Club and sign them up to attend. It seemed like a slow process, and a lot of work for the Kids’ Club staff who then had to input all of the forms into their computers, that could be alleviated by allowing us to register our kids online.

Pools/Aquaventure Park: We spent some time here, but the little kids area was often closed on our sea days because any amount of swell/ship movement, turned the wading pool into a wave pool and became unsafe for the kids. My eldest liked the waterslides, but said he preferred the ones on the Carnival Magic to these. I’m not sure if that’s more to do with the long lines than the slides themselves. The biggest downside to the pools were their depth. Neither of my kids are particularly strong swimmers and having all of the pools over 6ft in depth made them inaccessible for us. Neither I, nor my husband could touch the bottom and as we didn’t have room to pack life jackets, and none were offered on board, we simply could not use the pools with our kids.

Food: Completely subjective! Needless to say we did not go hungry, but found the food lacking in variety and not up to standards we’ve become accustomed to on previous cruises. The MDR was ok. We ate 4 of our dinners there, and there was always something to eat on the menu but we were let down by the presentation and taste a fair amount. The desserts, aside from the Black Forest Cake, were overbaked. I tried the Baked Alaska, and found the cake was overbaked and the merengue was under mixed, in that I could taste every sugar crystal. I’m not an expert baker, but I know a merengue should be smooth, not granular. We ate breakfast, lunch and dinner at both Buffets, and on our cruise, they opened half of the 8th floor buffet for dinner, and closed the one on deck 16. So I think previous critiques of the buffet at dinner are being examined. That being said we missed the lack of variety and choice in both buffets, that we’ve found on previous cruises. We found that it was easy to locate burgers, fries and pizza in both buffets, but you really had to look for other alternatives. There was also very little variation between lunch and dinner options.

Specialty Dining: We tried two speciality restaurants; Teppanyaki and Ocean Cay; one was the best meal of the week, the other ranked near the bottom. Teppanyaki was outstanding, our chef was interactive and was very entertaining. The food was outstanding, especially the fillet and the chef was very good at making sure we were all entertained. Ocean Cay on the other hand would have been outstanding if we had only eaten the crab cakes and tuna tartare. My husband had the cooked oysters, I had a soft shell crab and both kids had sea bass. All of which were ‘meh’. We noticed from the conversations around us, that we weren’t the only ones disappointed with the food in Ocean Cay. One thing in both restaurants that bothered us, was if you wanted water, you had to pay for it. We couldn’t figure out why we could get tap water in the MDR (and the Buffet for that matter) but in both of the specialty restaurants, you had to pay for mineral water. When we asked for tap water, we were told they didn’t offer it and we would have to purchase either still or sparkling water.

Embarkation and Disembarkation were the easiest we’ve ever experienced. Though we did find it somewhat maddening on port days that they didn’t have a door designated for exiting the ship and vise versa. There were a couple times when we were fighting to go upstream of the crowd causing confusion for security because they’d have to stop the line going one way to accommodate people going the opposite direction. Again inexperience coming into play perhaps?

I cannot comment on any of the shows, we didn’t have any desire to see them. Which isn’t indicative of the shows themselves, it’s just not something we generally do, especially when we have two kids who are up before the crack of dawn. There was one trio that performed in the Atrium occasionally but otherwise I found there was a lack of live music. I also found the canned loud jazz in the hallways obtrusive in the early mornings. I would have prefered some gentle classical when we opened the door at 6am instead of heavy sax and synthesizer. We also didn’t find the Daily Planner packed with activities; on prior cruises there have been port talks, or shopping talks or special interest talks, and we didn’t notice any of those. Park West is there if you’re into that, but since we’re not we didn’t really attend anything.

As I said at the beginning of this, I’ve written about my family’s experience, and as I’ve seen throughout the months since we booked our trip there are many different opinions about Seaside and MSC, this was ours. We are looking forward to our next cruise, but I can honestly say it won’t be with MSC.

Thank you for your review. This will be our first time on an MSC ship but we are going to be in the YachtClub. But find the kids club information very helpful. We will have a 9 year old and he has only sailed on NCL 7 times and loved the kids club there. Hopefully he will like the one on the seaside.

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Thank you for the information about the kid's club. I haven't found much online about it, and your description was very helpful as I have a 12 yr old and except for a blurb on the website, had no idea what to expect for her.

This is an excellent review; with extra applause on being so politically correct :).

Thank you for your very thorough and informative report.

Keith

This is an excellent review; with extra applause on being so politically correct :).

Thanks :)

I've never seen someone complain that the transparent railings were too high. Usually, people complain when the steel railings aren't transparent.

If you want to know why the railings are high, just read about the drunken woman on NCL Epic who "fell" into the water a couple of weeks ago. Cruise lines have to take human stupidity into account when building outdoor spaces.

As for the Yacht Club, the percentage of space given to it is less than you think.

Thanks for your review!

Thanks for the insight on the kids clubs. It seems to be few and far between right now. It’s a bummer to hear about the 3D printer not being used. Do you happen to know if the kids ever asked to use it? My daughter was super excited to see this online. That would be a bummer if they can’t use it at al!

Thanks for the insight on the kids clubs. It seems to be few and far between right now. It’s a bummer to hear about the 3D printer not being used. Do you happen to know if the kids ever asked to use it? My daughter was super excited to see this online. That would be a bummer if they can’t use it at al!

I'm not sure, we suggested to our son to ask but don't know if he did. I did overhear on Mom ask staff if her son could just play video games as he only spoke Swedish and was told by the staff member that if it was on the schedule at that time he could, if not he'd had to do whatever was planned. It didn't sound like there was flexibility to the schedule.

I've never seen someone complain that the transparent railings were too high. Usually, people complain when the steel railings aren't transparent.

 

If you want to know why the railings are high, just read about the drunken woman on NCL Epic who "fell" into the water a couple of weeks ago. Cruise lines have to take human stupidity into account when building outdoor spaces.

 

As for the Yacht Club, the percentage of space given to it is less than you think.

If someone drunkenly decides to 'fall' over a railing, no railing is too high. This is the first ship I've been on where there is no clear line of sight on a 'promenade' like deck to the water, and I missed that.

If cruise lines were to take all actions of human stupidity into account when building outdoor spaces we wouldn't have balconies and the high glass would be consistent throughout the ship and industry...

Thank you for an excellent review. I am floored about the tap water, so strange.

There is always going to be someone who thinks your opinion is unworthy, ignore the vultures!

This is the first ship I've been on where there is no clear line of sight on a 'promenade' like deck to the water, and I missed that.

Sadly, this is becoming the new normal. Most new builds have little to no "direct down" view to the water.

If cruise lines were to take all actions of human stupidity into account when building outdoor spaces we wouldn't have balconies and the high glass would be consistent throughout the ship and industry...

Thanks for the balanced review....We will be on Seaside 3/24 and staying in YC. We are bringing our 8 year old grandson. Outside of the waterpark....all he wants to do is play video games...so you made him a happy camper. Looks like we will have a good experience since we are in YC and they have a casino... With the wife being a early to bed person (not interested in shows).....Thats all I need. LOL

Regarding the cooking classes, I too was disappointed that they weren't offered and apparently it has something to do with US health and safety/food safety guidelines. The classes have been discontinued on US sailings. It sounds like on the first couple of sailings they did the classes but after that they stopped.

My kid probably would have liked to try it out.

 

As for the Yacht Club, the percentage of space given to it is less than you think.

I was thinking about the same thing. The YC does not take up a third of the ship.

Thanks for your thorough and informative review!

Thank You for your report.

Cheers.

I've never seen someone complain that the transparent railings were too high. Usually, people complain when the steel railings aren't transparent.

 

If you want to know why the railings are high, just read about the drunken woman on NCL Epic who "fell" into the water a couple of weeks ago. Cruise lines have to take human stupidity into account when building outdoor spaces.

 

As for the Yacht Club, the percentage of space given to it is less than you think.

/quote]

 

Yup !! You're so very right !! Drunk, AND stupid are two dangerous factors for adults including 19-20 aged college students especially. Many times while on a land vacation in Panama City, Fl during spring break we'd actually SEE college kids LEAP from the fourth floor railing, aiming at the center area pool (luckily, they made it (barely) that time.:rolleyes: However, usually 2-3 times during the break they'd miss, with horrible results.:eek: But you hear of ONE person, on a cruise, so drunk they can't even talk, use a chair (Because the railing is very high, almost to my chest, and I'm 6'2) because they've decided to SIT or even worse WALK the railing, fall overboard and OUT come the naysayers SCREAMING just how dangerous cruise ships are !! And how 'SOMETHING' needs to be done, too make cruising SAFER ! The sad thing is, you CANNNOT issue 'common sense' to drunken young/or OLDER adults, for that matter like a life jacket.. It's supposed a learned thing. Unfortunately, most people fail to learn, till it's too late. Then the bereaved parents/spouse are interviewed, grief-stricken so the local news media can vindicate THEIR belief that 'something-anything NEEDS to be done. As the old media quote goes--'IF it bleeds, it leads'.

 

Mac

I've never seen someone complain that the transparent railings were too high. Usually, people complain when the steel railings aren't transparent.

 

If you want to know why the railings are high, just read about the drunken woman on NCL Epic who "fell" into the water a couple of weeks ago. Cruise lines have to take human stupidity into account when building outdoor spaces.

 

As for the Yacht Club, the percentage of space given to it is less than you think.

/quote]

 

Yup !! You're so very right !! Drunk, AND stupid are two dangerous factors for adults including 19-20 aged college students especially. Many times while on a land vacation in Panama City, Fl during spring break we'd actually SEE college kids LEAP from the fourth floor railing, aiming at the center area pool (luckily, they made it (barely) that time.:rolleyes: However, usually 2-3 times during the break they'd miss, with horrible results.:eek: But you hear of ONE person, on a cruise, so drunk they can't even talk, use a chair (Because the railing is very high, almost to my chest, and I'm 6'2) because they've decided to SIT or even worse WALK the railing, fall overboard and OUT come the naysayers SCREAMING just how dangerous cruise ships are !! And how 'SOMETHING' needs to be done, too make cruising SAFER ! The sad thing is, you CANNNOT issue 'common sense' to drunken young/or OLDER adults, for that matter like a life jacket.. It's supposed a learned thing. Unfortunately, most people fail to learn, till it's too late. Then the bereaved parents/spouse are interviewed, grief-stricken so the local news media can vindicate THEIR belief that 'something-anything NEEDS to be done. As the old media quote goes--'IF it bleeds, it leads'.

 

Mac

you sound bitter... :confused:

Thanks for the review.

Our daughter said the 3D printer was broken during our cruise (March 3-10). I think they got it fixed, but to her understanding it could only be used once.