MSC Seaside Review - Cabin 9064, Aurea experience(upgraded to Deluxe beverage package

We travelled as a family and opted for the Aurea package due to the anytime dining, included beverage package and larger balcony. We are from the Washington,DC metro area and chose to drive to Miami so my son could look at a few colleges along the way. We parked at the port and had no issues with our car while at sea. None of us tend to be “joiners”, my daughter being the biggest social butterfly of the lot of us. We were mostly looking for a soothing place to enjoy the ocean, eat some good food that we didn’t have to cook ourselves, an occasional show and a tropical beach or two. Obviously we went into the experience with open minds and minimal expectations. I should add, the kids had been with us on one previous cruise with NCL and my husband and I have cruised with Princess about 20 years ago, I had cruised with my family on a small luxury line when in college. My husband and children have only traveled in the Caribbean, I have done several student exchanges to Europe, so we were a mixed bag of international experiences.

Embarkation was fairly smooth, we were checked in fairly rapidly. The only odd part during Embarkation was that my husband who has a Black card would have been the only one checked through expressly since the kids and I were only Silver level. It felt weird that they would separate us that way, but perhaps it was to help with traffic flow. He chose to stay with us and check in through the Aurea line. We were on the ship within a half hour of going through the ground floor security check in. The process was quicker and smoother than we had had with either Princess or NCL.

Disembarkation went smoothly for us with the exception of getting lost in a tangle in the Port of Miami. We had planned to walk off early to get started on the long drive home and accordingly set alarms for 6:00 thinking we would have time to grab a quick last breakfast. We accidently hit the wrong floor on the elevator and ended up on 6 where walk off departures would begin. There was already a line from the atrium to the entrance to the Grand Piazza. We quickly decided to skip breakfast and go back to the room and get our luggage. This was the only time we encountered aggressively rude passengers. They were complaining about several different things, so I think they were just not terribly happy people.

Now for the things in between those two events…. I made a list of Pros, Cons and “When I am Queen of the World” items.

Pros:

Gorgeous ship - the ship herself is gorgeous! I tend to choose more traditional decor and all the chrome and mirrors would give me cleaning nightmares in my personal space, however clever use of that chrome and mirrors makes the interior spaces feel much bigger than they are in reality. The decor is all visually different, interesting and tastefully done. However for us, the main attraction of the ship was how much ocean you could see from so many places. We took our meals outside on the back of the ship whenever we used the buffet, spent tons of time on our balcony, time up at the Top19 Solarium in the afternoon and after our evening cappuccino, back up on 19 and 16 to enjoy the sea breezes. Both my husband and son spent some time in the Shine bar on sea days just watching the waves roll by. Despite being such a big ship, or perhaps because of her size, I never really felt much pitch or roll while moving. I will clarify however that we had exceptional weather.

Food - for the most part was excellent. Some will say that the food isn’t seasoned enough, but our family will completely disagree. For the most part, exception listed below, everything tasted very fresh and was seasoned appropriately to let the fresh flavors come through. All the pasta sauces were exceptional, the alfredo delicate and light, the tomato based sauces fresh and neither too bitter nor too sweet. The kitchen has staff who are fantastic at cooking fish, every seafood dish was fantastic. The bakery staff was excellent. All the breads at diner, pastries at breakfast and desserts were delicious.

Excellent Service - overall, the service on the ship was excellent. Our cabin was unobtrusively kept clean and tidy, our minibar well stocked. I can count on a single hand the number of times I waited more than ten minutes for cocktail service. Diner service is still a bit awkward in terms of the flow from kitchen to diner’s table. That being said, there was some truly exceptional employees found on the ship. I caught names where I could and countries where I couldn’t get names. I will mention them here so any future cruisers can keep an eye out for them.

Jaqamo, our cabin steward was amazing. Things were anticipated (extra water and gatorade on island days) without needing to have spoken a word. We spent a lot of time out on our balcony but he still managed to slip in and take care of things.

Nina Dela Cruz ironically was the first crew member I spoke to once we boarded the ship. Little did I know how much of her I would be seeing over the next week. I am a coffee lover, as is my daughter, and Italian roasts are just about my favorite coffee. Nina always greeted us with a huge smile, was patient while we looked through the interesting options available, brought us our choices and doubled back to see if we wanted something more. When Nina was unavailable, her counterpart, a tall brunette from Brazil, whose name I could never catch, was also a wonderful server.

Eldan from the Philippines worked in the Seashore restaurant on the “Anytime Dining“ side. We were only fortunate enough to get Eldan twice as our server. Eldan could work in many of the finest restaurants on land. He presented menus properly, glasses of all beverages were kept topped off, bread baskets and butter were refreshed and all courses were delivered together and at the proper temperature. This was an admirable feat since feeding the number of people on board makes timing challenging. I don’t in general expect this level of service, frankly I am grateful to not have to cook and clean up, I can certainly appreciate it when received. The attention he put into his job represents MSC well.

Ubiratan Vieira was very charming and was probably the crew member we interacted with the most. What impressed me the most about this young man was that in the space of 5 minutes, I heard him interact with passengers in 4 different languages, none of which was his native language. I speak two other languages besides English and get them garbled up, so how easily he slipped from one to the other really impressed me. Did I mention he did all this while writing out receipts for purchases? He also really came through for me in terms of customer service. I have a favorite pendant I never take off, only this trip the chain broke. I was in a mild panic I’d lose the pendant without having it around my neck. Ubiratan searched diligently for the findings for a chain fine enough to fit through my pendant despite having low supplies. Happy ending to the story, my chain is repaired, pendant in place and my daughter has a new chain.

Three people who just made things fun were the South African bartender from the Miami Beach bar (his name began with a T then S or a M). He was just full of energy and loved to laugh and joke.

Patricia with the dance entertainment group gave several lessons while we sipped our coffee. We didn’t join in, but laughed right along with the group learning the Tarantella when she drew them in to have such fun.

The last crew member I wanted to mention is “the cowboy”. We referred to him as such all trip because the first time we encountered him was country western night. Although we aren't big on Country Western music, we stayed in the Atrium to watch the dance crew do their thing…...ending with “the cowboy” upside down in a rodeo barrel with his feet sticking out. We saw him almost every night after that and every night he did something funny and outrageous (visual comedy) to crack us up! I wish I had his name but he moves fast for such a big guy. He was at least 6’4” and had sandy blonde hair. Be on the lookout for him, he has a great sense of humor!

Clean, clean, clean - the ship was kept immaculate. Considering the number of hands touching all those chrome and mirrored surfaces constantly, everything was always clean. Carpets were clean, the hallways were kept clean despite the free room service the halls were seldom littered with plates like I have seen on other cruise lines.

International Vibe - the vibe on the ship is awesome. One world, one tribe. It is heartwarming to see so many people from so many places coexisting, figuring out how to communicate with each other and to accept and let differences in culture slide. Both my children came away from the experience saying they loved the mix of nationalities and that they felt they had grown in their world view.

Shows - we went to all of the shows except the Frank Sinatra show and the afternoon Opera. They were all very good. They have more of a Cirque du Soliel vibe than many cruisers may be used to. The singers were all very talented and had great voices, the acrobat clowns were wonderful, they were all fantastic to be honest. The costumes and scenery were well done. Most importantly, the shows had something to appeal to everyone in the audience no matter what nation they were from.

Security - I always felt safe on board. There were security personnel making rounds regularly of all the decks and it was done in a very low key manner so that you knew it was “just to keep an extra eye out” rather than a “this is not a safe place” way.

Coffee - did I mention how much time we spent at Venchi? I have been pouting over the lack of yummy Italian cappuccino to start, continue and end my day for the past 4 days.

Cons:

Smoking all over - yeah, this was super nasty. I think as long as there is such a lax policy towards smoking in areas other than the designated areas, American cruisers will be put off. We chose this cruise line for several reasons, one of which was how close to the sea we could be. However every place we could be outdoors in the sea air, it was like sitting in an ashtray. The French woman two balconies down was a chain smoker, making the balcony big enough for all of us to spend time together an unpleasant place. The Top19 Solarium is only along the starboard side of the ship and had ashtrays at each and every table along that side, making the whole area a smoking area since the smoke blew back over everyone. On deck at night to get a clear glimpse of the stars and some cool evening sea air? Nope, whole aft of the Miramar bar was smoking. In order to enjoy the aroma of your evening coffee, you had to sit in the very back of Venchi near the boutique to avoid the fragrance wafting from the casino sairs. Needless to say none of us went anywhere near the casino.

Beef - If you are hoping for delicious beef based dishes, you will need to go to Butcher’s Cut. The filet I had there was amazing. However the strip steak in the Seashore Restaurant was not. Cooking at sea is different than on land, I understand that and wasn’t expecting a grilled piece of steak. What was served felt more like it had been put into a press to leave grill marks, then steamed. Some pan searing techniques might help the cut of steak served. The au poivre sauce served with the steak couldn't quite make up for the cooking style on the steak, although it was very good.

Seating Spacing - things are past a little tight with seating. I get that in general culturally our personal space bubbles are larger than most Europeans, but some of the seating was packed so tight there was mere inches between a table edge and the chair. The dining room tables are also a bit tight for any sort of private conversation.

Elevator jacking - yeah, the whole yacht club grabs the elevator thing is a poor choice. It doesn’t make sense to please a small number of people at the expense of a larger number. Even when looked at with a superficial financial viewpoint, the two people from yacht club who jack the elevator from the sometimes 10 others cannot possibly outweigh the revenue brought on board for this trip nor future trips. Plus on the last sea day, my daughter and I waited on 19 for an elevator down where two of them showed as priority service, but no movement from either of them. So of four elevators in that bank, two of them were keyed as priority service, yet not a peep from the elevator shaft, so the two elevators were keyed to priority and not working. Another time, the elevator was packed, including a woman with a scooter, and was jacked to a lower floor, but there was literally no space to fit another person in. I think MSC would be wise to reevaluate this policy.

Would have liked to have seen, or the “When I am Queen of the World” portion:

Evening open air seating - as mentioned earlier, we picked MSC to be nearer to the sea. We would have liked to have been able to sit outside in the evening star gazing, sipping a cocktail, etc. There were very limited places where there was open air seating at night. I should clarify and say that there was seating at the back of the boat near the disco/club areas. We were looking for something more mellow, but still outside.

Reggae/Calypso music - truthfully, if I had my way it would be all reggae all the time, but I am still waiting on that Queen promotion…. That being said, MSC does an amazing job of including music from many different cultures in all aspects of their entertainment. Serious Kudos for how considerate and all encompassing they have made their entertainment programs. I just wish there had been more music from the area of the world we were visiting. Thank you to the singer down near Venchi for the rendition of Three Little Birds. I did at least get one reggae song while in the Caribbean!

Better behaved children - so shipboard kids are interesting. Everyone post puberty is busily strutting their stuff for the others in their age group. The littles are closely minded by parents. Which leaves the 7-12 year olds…..who seem to think that because they are on a ship where someone may or may not speak their language, they can push things. One afternoon several boys decided it would be wonderful fun to spit over their balcony onto our balcony where my husband was chilling out. He had to go down to the front desk to tell someone about it. Credit to MSC for sending maintenance to clean up the mess, but what was needed was a visit from security to scare some proper behavior into these boys and their parents. The second incident happened during the Michael Jackson impersonator show. A group of a dozen kids suddenly ran into the theater up and down the aisle in front of us, jumped up on the seats, etc. I suspect they were Doremi drop off kids brought down to the theater as an activity. Truthfully it is a great idea for an activity, however block off the group of seats with a reserved sign. Don’t let the group disturb rows of passengers who had been there the entire show and most certainly do not leave them relatively unsupervised to mouth off at said passengers.

Better AC when not docked - our room AC may have had an issue, I am not sure. I heard maintenance talking to the woman several balconies over about a problem in their cabin, our cabin and the one between us. In the polyglot of languages used to explain the issue, I didn’t pick up the exact problem. I suspect it was AC since someone was in to look at our electrical panel the next day. But essentially what I noticed was that when docked, the AC ran relatively well. When we were at sea, not so much. We had a few nights that were very sweaty.

Optimal personnel placement - I don’t know the industry well enough to know how things are done, but I did notice that there were placements of personnel that didn’t make sense to me. The best example I can give is the young man who was occasionally cooking omelettes and other days waffles. Again I failed at nametag capturing, but he was at the most aft hot breakfast station on the port side, bright blue eyes and dirty blonde hair. This kid could cook! The day I saw him making waffles instead I almost cried. Other omelettes tended to be cooked over too high a heat with too much egg in the pan and stirred (by stripe shoulders) as if they were scrambled eggs. I hope this kid gets placed where his skills will be more widely enjoyed. Although not an optimizing personnel item, MSC may want to rethink last day type of offerings in their store areas. I felt things were balanced a lot towards the European passengers. The “sale” designers, bags and fragrances were primarily US designers. Most Europeans have a last chance at duty free in the airport or on the plane. For most US passengers, this is the last chance for duty free, so perhaps a selection of items which are a value to US consumers might be a good idea. Calvin Klein, Tommy Hilfiger and Polo are no big deal for us.

Would we go back? Yes definitely, given more time to smooth out the cultural differences, I can see MSC becoming an upscale family cruise line in the American market. I can see it filling a need between Celebrity and Princess easily. Although I have a list of negatives, the positives far outweigh them.

Great review--thanks. Your family sounds like ours--you just want to enjoy the sea air, relax, and basically keep to yourselves. I'll never understand why parents who won't let their child walk home from school back at home will let their young children run free and unsupervised on a giant ship full of "strangers"--many of whom are intoxicated! Crazy!

Interesting take on the elevator situation. We've sailed YC and didn't chose to use that option for the reasons you stated. It's one thing if you get onto an empty elevator and can then take it straight up, but would never "hijack" an elevator that already had others on it--unless it was a group of those unruly children who had pushed all the buttons!:D

Thanks for this comprehensive review. We'll be in YC but I can't fathom prioritizing an elevator by basically kicking everyone else out in order to get to my floor. That just seems crazy! Not even something I'd try if the elevator wasn't empty.

Thank you for composing this detailed and balanced review. You are mentioning interesting and helpful details.

I just got off the Seaside, as well, and I agree with the majority of your review! I was very satisfied with my cruise, as a whole. I will say that I didn't notice the smoking issue as much, and I'm generally very sensitive to smoke. I actually thought the smoke drift from the casino was far less than I was expecting, as most of the larger ships I've sailed have been much worse (NCL Breakaway being the absolute worst, in terms of drifting casino smoke, as I could smell it halfway down the ship on different levels). The only place I noticed more than a slight odor of smoke for an extensive period of time was in the billiard room/library and the bars just down from it, as they're just inside from the smoking area at the Miami Beach pool.

The difference in elevator etiquette among the various passengers was noticeable. On several occasions, I had to almost demand to be let off on my level, as no one wanted to move to let me out. Many tended to try to pack the elevators, too. I walked away from several over-full elevators, but some of my fellow passengers thought nothing of trying to fit in like a can of sardines, even when it was obvious that it was already very tight quarters.

 

Better AC when not docked - our room AC may have had an issue, I am not sure. I heard maintenance talking to the woman several balconies over about a problem in their cabin, our cabin and the one between us. In the polyglot of languages used to explain the issue, I didn’t pick up the exact problem. I suspect it was AC since someone was in to look at our electrical panel the next day. But essentially what I noticed was that when docked, the AC ran relatively well. When we were at sea, not so much. We had a few nights that were very sweaty.

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Thanks for the review, very helpful as we are in this EXACT cabin and my in-laws are in the one next door on October 20th. When you say the A/C wasn't working well on Sea days what would you say the temp was on average? and on docked days? just trying to get an idea. Thanks again for the great review

Great review - thank you.

I cruised Yacht Club aboard the Divina last summer, and I only "jacked" the elevator once all week. I mostly took the stairs, or wasn't in a hurry to get anywhere. But I will say that I love that feature and hope MSC keeps it. And as you pointed out it's only available in two of the forward bank of elevators.

My family has a Seaside cruise on the books next summer, and I can't wait to get back onboard an MSC ship. We had a great time on Divina!

Great review! We also had wonderful service from Eldan in the Seashore for two weeks in july. It was the best service we ever had.

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Great review and thank you for sharing? Do you mind sharing what you chose to do at the various ports?

Valorie

Thanks so much for the well balanced and fair review.