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Seaside Review - Christmas 12/23/17-12/30/17

kpadalik

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kpadalik

kpadalik

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Hello! Here is mydetailed, lengthy review on the MSC Seaside. We were on the Eastern 12/23-12/30 cruise over Christmas. A little background…Sailing this cruise wasme and my husband, and our two daughters, ages 15 and 10. We have been on many cruises, 15 for me, myhusband at 12, my girls at 10 and 9. Wehave done Norwegian (my first cruise ever was on the Norway), RCCL (for ourhoneymoon), and the rest on Carnival and Disney. We are not picky cruisers. As long as the ship is clean, the food is goodand hot, the service is good, and we are able to relax, we are happy. We tend to book our cruises based on theship, not the itinerary. We’ve been oncruises where we have not gotten off once the entire time and have used thatextra time to explore and enjoy the ship.

We booked this cruise back in April. We were looking for a reasonably pricedChristmas cruise (our first Christmas cruise) and thought that MSC was pricedwell within our limits. Carnival was our2nd choice, but was about $700 more expensive for the 4 of us. We thought this would be a good opportunity totry out MSC, after reading mostly good reviews about the Divina. I have dividedthis review up into categories, instead of a day to day review. Please feelfree to ask any questions you may have. I will do my best to answer them!

 

 

Precruise: We booked a Fantastica balcony (stateroom 13201)which included 12 drink vouchers per person. We prebooked the digital photopackage for $99 which covered the entire cabin, the trio dining package for $69pp, and the coffee package for $29.

 

 

Embarkation: We live about 3-1/2 hours away from Miami anddrove down the day of, Saturday 12/23. There were, I believe, 7 ships in thePort of Miami when we arrived about 11am. The traffic was almost at astandstill and took us almost 45 minutes to get to the new Terminal F. Myhusband and oldest daughter Hannah dropped me and my other daughter Grace offin front of the terminal, where a porter took our bags out of our van, loadedthem up on his cart and said he would get them to the ship. He directed myhusband where to park (the garage in front of Terminal G), and showed us whereto go to enter Terminal F. There was a tent outside with a moderately long line,but I realized that was for Yacht Club cruisers. We walked into the terminal, waited for lessthan 5 minutes to get through security, then we were directed upstairs. We stopped at the restroom, then proceeded tothe line for check-in. We only waited a few minutes, then went up to the counter. There were about 60 check-in spaces at thecounter and check-in went very smooth. We got our security pictures taken, the employee went and grabbed ourcruise cards, we were given boarding group number 14 and off we went to thewaiting area. The entire process took us 15 minutes from the time we walkedinto the terminal until we went to the waiting area. While we waited, we logged into the MSC WiFiand started using the app. Once welearned it, it was very helpful during the week. Then things got a littlecrazy. One of the boarding agents waswalking around saying that the PA system wasn’t working. People asked what number they were boardingand she said 7 and to just listen for the next number – they would yell itout. So a line formed to go up theescalator…all numbers, all people. Nosort of organization. The line got so long that they had to form a second linenext to it. They didn’t even continuecalling numbers at that point. Everyone just started boarding. People weren’t very happy. Anyways, we got up the escalator, took ourembarkation photo, and handed over our cruise card so that we could board theship. You enter on deck 6 right into thebeautiful atrium!

 

 

Kids Club (DoReMi): Unfortunately, we didn’t have muchexperience with this. After embarkation,we stood in line to get a wristband for our daughter. There were two DoReMistaff that were helping people and it was very unorganized. You had to fill out a form (wristbandconsent) and then they handed out the wristband. Only my 10 year old needed it. However, westood in line for over a half hour, only for them to tell us that the wristbandshe needed (with a G on it for our muster station) they didn’t have. They gave her a temporary one and told us tocome up to the kids club later and they would switch it out. I do think thatthe reason the line was so long was because there were so many people fromdifferent countries, speaking different languages, and a lot of time was spentexplaining to them what the wristband was, finding the appropriate form to fillout, etc. I think that this could be something that MSC could improve on…if wewere allowed to fill these forms out online ahead of the cruise, wristbanddistribution could be much more efficient. Anyways, both of my girls planned to do the meet and greet in their respectiveclubs that night. My youngest isn’t as social as my oldest, but she wasdetermined to try. She always does thekids club on any other ships we have been on and enjoys them. She didn’t like the DoReMi kids club at all.She went to a couple of craft activities, but they lasted about 5 minutes andthen she said the kids just started playing legos and the counselors put thecrafts away. One night they had games around 10pm. She came back at 10:30 andsaid all she did was wait for 20 minutes for a balloon animal. I asked her ifshe made any friends, she said no because it was hard to find anyone that spokeEnglish. One note – your child has to wear closed toed shoes at any DoReMiactivity. They sent Grace back to theroom because she was wearing flip flops (for a craft activity). I understand itis for safety reasons, but I felt this was a little extreme. My oldest went thefirst couple of days to the teen club, but felt that a lot of the kids werealready grouped up and a lot didn’t speak English. A couple girls she made friends with were inthe Yacht Club and they would go hang out there. Because we weren’t in Yacht Club, Hannahcouldn’t go in with them. So after acouple days, our girls gave up on the kids club and just hung out with eachother, which was perfectly fine for them.

 

 

Dining in the MDR: Before the cruise, our online check-ininformation said 6pm for dinner, but didn’t say which dining room. Our info on the MSC for me app said anytimedining, anywhere. Our cruise card, saidIpanema restaurant at 7:45pm. We don’tlike to eat that late, so my husband went to see if it could be changed. Theysaid a lot of the information was incorrect and that we were supposed to beSeashore restaurant at 6pm. We were happy. Our head waiter was Ronny, assistantwaiter was Joshua. They were both good,not overly personable, but friendly. We asked for a kids menu the first nightand Ronny said, “Sorry, we don’t have kids’ menus.” I thought that was rather odd, but figuredour 10 year old could find something to eat on the regular menu. The third night, we noticed the table next tous serving the kids some pizza. We askedRonny what that was about…he said that pizza, chix nuggets, and fish stickswere available for the kids as long as they didn’t run out. I thought that maybe he could have told usthat the first night, but oh well. Our daughter ordered the pizza the nextnight, but it wasn’t the same as the pizza upstairs, so she continued to orderoff the regular menu the rest of the week. We ate in the MDR for dinner every night but 2 because we did the Triodining package. Our girls ate in thedining room those 2 nights without us and were served without any issues. They are well-behaved, so we knew we couldtrust them to use their manners! Food was good, not great, but good. The foodwas hot, which was nice. The only thingwe found with food temps was that they never cooked meat as asked. Steak we asked for medium rare, it was eithermedium or rare. Lamb was asked for medium, it was medium rare. This was both inthe MDR and in the specialty dining restaurants. There was a variety of thingson the menus to please everyone in our party. Service was a little slow attimes, but they did well enough. While we didn’t have any problems, there was alarge party next to us that had some. The second night they complained to theMDR that their service was slow. Itreally was very slow for them two nights in a row. We were eating dessert andthey were just getting their apps. They said that the assistant waiter wasnowhere to be seen and their waiter had too many tables. I agree with them on that point. The nextnight the chicken they ordered came out raw. This caused everyone at the surrounding tables to examine their chickenas well. While ours was fine, there wereprobably 5 or 6 in total that were not. Thatfamily of 10 didn’t show up in the MDR for the rest of the week. We did eat in the MDR for lunch one day andit was excellent. We also enjoyed breakfast in the MDR several mornings andenjoyed it much more than the buffet. Service was really slow for breakfast andwe had to ask several times for water, but the food was good and hot. My onlycomplaint was the bacon was very salty. They had several (almost too many) waiterswalking around with juice (OJ was really good!) and pastries. I wish they would have used a few of thosepeople to walk around with water instead! Eating in the MDR on port days ishighly recommended over the buffet.

 

 

Dining in the buffet: There are two buffets – Deck 8, whichis the larger of the 2, and Deck 16, which is smaller and more family friendly.While we preferred Deck 8, Deck 16 had pizza all the time and free soft serveice cream, so my kids visited there a lot! I preferred the buffet food overother cruise lines we have sailed. Myhusband did not. I felt there was more variety and it was fresher. Water, tea,coffee, and juices were available for free throughout the day. There were also pour your own beer and winestations for purchase (or for those with bev packages). We never ate dinner at the buffet, but did goup for pizza and late night snacks (delicious chocolate chip cookies!).Breakfast at the buffet is a madhouse on port days. We tried going the morning we were inAntigua, but the lines were long and the food wasn’t being replenished fast enoughso we put our plates down and went down to the MDR. Sea days were much less hectic.It was a little too windy to eat outside, but we did find a nice table outsidethe back of deck 8 and there was no breeze at all.

 

 

Trio Dining Package – We ate at Ocean Cay and Butcher’s Cutfor dinner and at the PanAsian Fusion for lunch. The trio package means you canchoose one app, one entrée, and one dessert (or two apps and an entrée) fromthe dining experience menu at each of the restaurants. Teppanyaki is notincluded in the trio. I advise you tobook your restaurants at the beginning of the week. It seems to me that theyoverbook the restaurants not leaving enough reservations for those that bookedthe trio package. On two of our visits, people were complaining that they weren’table to book their third restaurant because there weren’t any reservationsavailable. However, every time we ate in a restaurant, there were plenty ofavailable tables. I imagine this is something that will be worked out in time.So I would book them the first day or two on the ship. You can book for lunch, which is nice. Therestaurants have glass windows, so there are beautiful views as long as it’slight out. Ocean Cay was our leastfavorite. My husband had the crab appetizer, chose to have it served cold andit was really good. I had the crab cakes. Again, good. We both had the sea bass and it was just okay. Butcher’sCut was very good as well. My husband had shrimp cocktail (he loved the dippingsauce), the filet (ordered medium rare, parts of it were rare), and the NYcheesecake (it was NOT NY cheesecake). Even though parts of the filet were rare, he enjoyed it very much. I hadthe hearts of palm salad, the foie deviled eggs, and the lamb. They were all very good. I ordered the lambmedium, it came out medium rare. I was okay with that because I would rather itbe undercooked than over. Our favorite meal was from the PanAsian Fusion. I hadavocado poke, the lamb, and the pineapple upside down cake. My husband had thePork Bao Bun, the filet, and the lava cake. The flavors in this meal were by far the best we had all cruise. We would have eaten here for all 3 meals ifwe could have! The only thing that was odd was the water situation. We asked for water the first time in OceanCay. They said they only served bottled or sparkling, not tap. We said bottledwas fine. We weren’t exactly happy thatwe had to pay for water, but whatever. We went through several bottles ofwater, but were charged only $5.18 at the end of the night. The other tworestaurants though, we were served the bottled water and weren’t charged adime. Not really sure what the mix up ormiscommunication was, but again, something they will probably work out in time.Service tended to be on the slow side, especially in Butcher’s Cut.

 

 

Stateroom: We were in a Fantastica Balcony room 13201. Wewere right around the corner from the elevators, towards the back of the ship.Our room had the bed closest to the closet, with the sofa bed that turned intoa bunk for our girls. The room was on the smallish side, which we expected, butthe balcony was spacious. However, there was NO storage in the room. We had twodrawers and 4 shelves (one had the safe on it) in the poorly designedcloset. We made it work, but it wasfrustrating. Our oldest daughter livedout of her suitcase for the week, which we put under the counter across from thebunk. The bathroom had good storage – two hooks on the door, shelves on andabove the counter, three towel racks, and space under the sink. We brought 3Mhooks for additional storage and I am so glad we did. All of our suitcases fitunder the bed just fine. You do use your cruise card to control the lights inthe room. It will only take a cruise card. This was only a hassle when mydaughter wanted to charge her phone while we were out, but couldn’t because weall had our cruise cards. My husband’s card got smeared halfway through theweek, so he went and got a new one. The old one we used in the slot for therest of the week. We were still mindful of turning the lights off when we leftour room though. Having your cruise card in or out of the slot didn’t seem to affectthe a/c at all. We saw our room steward once on the first day and never again.I asked him for more hangers (I needed about 20 more of them since there was nostorage in the drawers), and what to do with our luggage mat. He kind of chuckled when I asked him for allthe hangers, but said he would bring me some. He said to leave the luggage mat.The next day, the luggage mat was still in our room, so we folded it and put itunder the bed. The hangers finally arrived later that afternoon. He brought me 10. We never saw him the rest of the week. Ourroom was always made up in the late morning, and turned down later in theevening. We never got towel animals,which was fine with me, but my girls always like to see that. The littlebuttons by the card slot were really helpful. There was one that says DND (donot disturb) that we would press when we were in the room, and there is onethat says Make Up Room. They have corresponding lights on the outside of theroom to inform our room steward. A couple things to note – my husband needed anextension cord for his CPAP machine. We asked our room steward the first nightand he said we had to call guest services. So we called guest services. Theytold us we had to come down and get one from the guest services desk. Myhusband waited in line for nearly an hour at 11pm the first night to get anextension cord. They charge you a $30 fee that is refunded when it is returned.At first it didn’t look like it would work with an American plug, but with alittle finagling, it was fine. Also, there are USB ports by the counter and byone side of the bed, not both.

 

 

Room Service: Room service was ordered twice. Once on Christmas morning for breakfast andonce around 10pm. We only ever had the breakfast order form in our room onetime, and that was on Christmas Eve. Idon’t know why it wasn’t ever in our room again. I’m sure we could have askedour room steward, but didn’t think of it. We just ordered coffee, hotchocolate, pastries, and fruit to munch on while we enjoyed our Christmasmorning. It was delivered on time. Latenight room service was fine as well. We ordered a couple of sandwiches, somecookies, fruit, and a Caesar salad. Thesalad was very salty, but everything else was good. My husband loved the BBQchicken wrap. They told us it would be about 30 minutes for delivery and it wasjust under when they delivered it.

 

 

Pools: We tried to avoid the pools on Sea Days, but this is just something we do on all our cruises. On port days, they are much less busy and more enjoyable. You have to sign a waiver for the slides and zip line and you receive a bracelet. We signed a waiver on the first day by the video game slide...however, they were out of every language waiver except for Hindu or something like that. So I honestly have no idea what we signed, but everyone else signed the same thing we did. Anyways, the slides were fun. My kids did the video game slide once and weren't impressed. They said it was rather short and my little one fell off her board at the end and it scratched her side. The racer slides were awesome. My oldest did the zip line on a port day and waited about a half hour. It was never opened on a sea day because it was too windy. She loved the zip line and said it was worth the wait. We went in the aquaventure park pool (not salt water), the Jungle Pool (salt), and the Miami Beach Pool (salt). Those two pools are deep. The Jungle Pool was my favorite.

 

 

Photography: We purchased the VIP Digital Sea Pass before we cruised. It was $99 and very worth it. You get your sea pass from the photo studio and they link your room cards to it. They said they could only link 2 cards, so a couple times we had to have them transfer pictures from our daughter's card to our Sea Pass, but it was easy. Some of the photographers took way too long to take their pictures and pose people. After a couple times with one photographer, we decided to avoid him. He cut off my husband's head, he put us in weird poses, and took WAY too long to pose us. We did get some really nice pictures of us as a family. We got our embarkation photo, dinner pictures, and posed pictures. They do not have photographers taking port pictures. They also had pictures with Santa, but apparently our Sea Pass stopped working, so it wouldn't scan. We tried looking for the picture in the millions of pictures they had, but eventually gave up. We ended up just using our cruise card the rest of the week for pictures since they were linked. When I asked the photo guy about our Sea Pass not working anymore, he got very rude with me and demanded to know who punched a hole in my card. I told him I did. He said I damaged the card by doing that and that is why it wasn't working any more. (I was told that if we punched a hole in any of our cards, that the RFID wouldn't work, but we chanced it on the first day, and didn't have any issues all week). I told him that I punched a hole in our room cards and in our Sea Pass on the first day and they have worked fine all week. Wednesday is when we realized our Sea Pass wasn't working anymore. He really was very rude. I went to someone else and she was very helpful and fixed the problem. We logged onto the mymscphotos.com website throughout the week to view our pictures and downloaded them to our phones. Thankfully we did that, because now that we are home, it shows our pictures aren't available anymore. I did read somewhere that they will be available a week after sailing, but I don't know if that's true.

 

 

Gelato/Coffee/Bar Service: As I mentioned before I boughtthe coffee package and we received the 12 drink vouchers per person with the Fantasticapackage. First, I wish they would doaway with the paper vouchers and somehow just have them on our cruise card. IfI didn’t have to carry those vouchers around, it would be nice. My husband andI had the alcoholic drink vouchers (doesn’t include premium) and didn’t haveany issues using them. Our girls had thenon-alcoholic vouchers and used them for pina coladas, strawberry dacquiris,and other non-alcoholic drinks. They arenot soda drinkers, so it was the fancy fruity drinks for them. They were able to use them for the milkshakesat the Venchi gelato bar, except for onetime. They had gotten them every night for the first 3 nights without anyissues. On the 4th night, thebar waitress told them they couldn’t use them. My oldest said they had usedthem every night before and the bar waitress said they shouldn’t have beenallowed to. The next night, the tried again and ordered from someone else. No issues. I imagine this is again due tomiscommunication. Gelato was more generously served at the Venchi gelato barthan at the gelato stations by the pools. I had 15 coffee vouchers to use whileon the ship. You can use these at the coffee bar by Venchi, any of the bars, orany of the restaurants. They have espresso machines everywhere. I did order cappuccinos/lattes a couple timesat places other than the Venchi coffee bar, but preferred to order from thecoffee bar. The specialty coffee was very good and you can’t beat the price ofthe coffee package. Now my complaint…the bar service is horrendous. It is sodisorganized…there are bar waitresses that may or may not take your order.Bartenders don’t know if your order has been taken – they don’t ask and theyare so busy that you can’t even stop them to place an order. I rarely saw barservice walking around the pool taking orders. I was on deck 19 above the aquapark one day and stopped someone to order a drink and they said sorry theyweren’t serving in that area. I saw bar waiters twice in the casino the entireweek. I waited one night for 15 minutes at the casino bar before the show toorder a drink. I had to leave because I would have missed the beginning of theshow. Maybe this is just how they do it on MSC, but every other cruise I havebeen on, the bar servers are regularly asking guests if they can get themanything. MSC definitely needs toimprove their service in the bar areas. Very chaotic, disorganized, and just a basic lack of service.

 

 

Casino: Clean and fun, if not a little small. Dealers werenice. Husband played Ultimate Texas Hold Em and did well. He also played Black Jack. He took advantageof the Happy Hour special they offered. On Sea Days from 11a-1pm, it was halfprice bets on Texas Hold Em and Black Jack. I played Video Poker andslots. Slots were fun, but didn’t winanything. Much preferred Video Poker,however the area of the Video Poker was incredibly smoky.

 

 

Shows: I don’t know how to really describe the shows. Somewere good, some were great, some were just plain weird. First of all, you havethe ability to prebook your show. Ihighly recommend doing this. I booked ours the morning of through the app (youcan also do it on the interactive screens throughout the ship). You can getinto the show if you prebook a half hour early. Five minutes before, they openany remaining seats to general admission. The first night was a tribute toFrank Sinatra and we did not see this one. The second night was Timeless. Thedescription was so different than the actual show. There were a couple ofrandom songs at the beginning, then it turned into a Michael Jacksontribute. It was a fun show, but it didn’tflow very well. The next night was our special Christmas show, Christmas aroundthe World. I think everyone had the same reaction we did. It was weird. It really had nothing to do with Christmas. Ibelieve that this might just be a regular show that they do but they changedtheir outfits to santa outfits and added a Christmas song at the beginning ofthe show. There was a pole dancing act during the show (which was beautiful,but not really Christmassy –lol), salsa dancing, a contortionist act. It wasjust odd. My Life in Music was good, but again just a random assortment of songsand dance acts. Butterflies was MSC’s version of Madame Butterfly. My husbandand youngest daughter left after a few minutes, opera is not their thing. It was really very beautiful and full oftalent. But it was an Italian opera. The Wizard is where I felt like thingsimproved. It was described as an illusionist, but it really only had one or twoillusion acts. It was still very good, visually appealing, and exciting. Thelast night was Peter Punk. This show wasalso very good and exciting, fun music, colorful. However, it ended very non-climactically…almostlike they didn’t do a finishing song. Then all the production cast from the week sang “We Are the World”, astheir final goodbye song. One recurringtheme in all the shows…every night had an aerialist, contortionist act,ballerina act, etc. They wereinteresting, but kind of predictable and repetitive. All in all, the shows weregood. My kids loved the last two showsthe best. Honestly, the descriptions ofthe shows are nothing like the actual shows themselves. They are entertaining though. And the talent of the dancers and singers aresecond to none. Those voices…wow!

 

 

Disembarkation: We received Brown 1 tags. Our room stewardgave us 4. To get extras, you have to goto guest services. We had to be out of our room by 7:00-7:30. We were told two different times, so we leftat 7:15. We went to breakfast in the MDR and had to be in the MetropolitanTheatre at 10am for disembarkation. After breakfast, I went and got a coffee atthe coffee bar, then we headed up to the couches by the Jungle Pool torelax. It was quiet, great views, and wetook little naps until it was time to head to the theatre. When we got there, they immediately escortedour Brown 1 group to get off the ship. There was a short line to go down theescalator because the baggage claim area was crowded. We found our bags rightaway and got a porter. I can’t tell youhow worth it it is to get a porter. Heloaded up our bags on his cart, took us to a short line to get through customsand we were out of the terminal in less than 15 minutes. The regular line had to have been 1-1/2 hourslong. He escorted us to the garage,loaded our bags into the car and we were on our way. We gave him a nice tip. Please note – there areno customs declarations forms to fill out. Apparently they don’t do this anymore. At customs, we gave him ourlicenses and our birth certificates and we were out of there. Disembarkationwas very easy.

 

 

Overall: We had a very enjoyable cruise. There were a few small issues and a couple things we didn't like, but nothing that would prevent us from booking another with MSC. I felt like all the problems they had could be fixed over time. It was a very heavy international group of cruisers, something we are not used to. I'm not sure if this is because it was a Transatlantic and many Europeans were finishing up their holiday, but there were LOTS of different languages heard all week. Bingo instructions were given out in 6 different languages, for example. We did have a great time and are excited to see how MSC Seaside improves over the next year or two.

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Cruisergal1208 Great Review Rare

Cruisergal1208

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Thank you for your detailed review.

You said the porter escorted you with luggage to the garage G. This was a long walk for us so had to take the shuttle bus to the garage. If I may ask, how much did you tip the porter to take your luggage to your car in the garage from terminal F? We may try this when we disembark on Jan. 20th. Thanks.

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mafig

mafig

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Interesting about pre-booking the shows.

 

You did it every day? Can you pre-book for the whole week? Did you hear of anyone who couldn't get in?

 

 

I think this is just me and dh, but we are really sick of the cirque-type shows, having seen them for years on ships and Las Vegas. (Las Vegas is not doing any more new ones because, apparently, others feel like we do.) As soon as we see someone start hanging from curtains we tend to leave (don't worry, we usually sit in the back).

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kpadalik

kpadalik

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Thank you for taking the time to write such a detailed review!

 

That is great they have salt water pool!

 

Do you recall the min height for the zip line?

 

I'm sorry, I don't recall the minimum height. My youngest daughter is a tall 10 year old and she was tall enough. I saw a few people shorter than her doing it as well.

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kpadalik

kpadalik

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Thank you for your review.

 

Did you use any of the hot tubs? Were they hot?

 

I used the hot tubs on the sides of deck 19 (not in the Aurea Top 19 area) and they were like bath water. But they were empty and had a great view. Plus it was breezy and comfortably cool, so it was fine. The hot tubs at The Jungle Pool were much warmer, but not hot. I didn't do any of the other hot tubs.

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kpadalik

kpadalik

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Thank you for your detailed review.

You said the porter escorted you with luggage to the garage G. This was a long walk for us so had to take the shuttle bus to the garage. If I may ask, how much did you tip the porter to take your luggage to your car in the garage from terminal F? We may try this when we disembark on Jan. 20th. Thanks.

 

Yes, it was quite a long walk. We gave him $20 and he waited on the bottom floor with me and my daughter while my husband and other daughter went and grabbed the car. Then he loaded the suitcases in our van for us. He was very appreciative and very friendly and chatty. After we left, I told my husband that it was so easy I probably would have given him $40! It is so much better to fast-track through that customs line that anything!

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kpadalik

kpadalik

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Interesting about pre-booking the shows.

 

You did it every day? Can you pre-book for the whole week? Did you hear of anyone who couldn't get in?

 

 

I think this is just me and dh, but we are really sick of the cirque-type shows, having seen them for years on ships and Las Vegas. (Las Vegas is not doing any more new ones because, apparently, others feel like we do.) As soon as we see someone start hanging from curtains we tend to leave (don't worry, we usually sit in the back).

 

The shows were definitely not bad, just different. And the Cirque type stuff was only a segment or two of the show. I would give them a chance. I have to say the shows got better as the week went on. You can only pre-book the day of the show. Except one day, late at night (11:30pm) we were able to prebook for the next evening's show. I just made a mental note to do it every morning when I woke up. It's so easy to do through the app. Only one time did I see that the 7:30 show was sold out during pre-bookings. It shows how many seats are still available when you pre-book. My girls love to sit in the first couple of rows, so they would get there at 8:40 for an 8:45 check-in for the 9:15 show and then save a couple seats for me and my husband. The theatre was full for our show every night, once they opened for general admission. I even saw people standing at the back of the theatre if they couldn't get a seat.

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kpadalik

kpadalik

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What a fabulous review. THANK YOU.

Can you tell me more about using the vouchers? Did your kids have any trouble using them? Can they be shared? If you didn’t want all yours could your husband had used them' date=' etc?

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Forums[/quote']

 

Our kids had no trouble using their vouchers, except for that one incident with the milkshake. But I think the bar waitress didn't know what she was talking about because they got milkshakes every other night without a problem. Yes, you can share vouchers. My husband didn't use all of his, so I used a couple of them. My girls actually have a couple of theirs left. They usually only drink water here at home, so it was an overload of fruity drinks and milkshakes for them this week! I think they had enough! I told them we will save theirs for our next cruise and hopefully we can use them then!

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Vacationdreamer<><

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Our kids had no trouble using their vouchers, except for that one incident with the milkshake. But I think the bar waitress didn't know what she was talking about because they got milkshakes every other night without a problem. Yes, you can share vouchers. My husband didn't use all of his, so I used a couple of them. My girls actually have a couple of theirs left. They usually only drink water here at home, so it was an overload of fruity drinks and milkshakes for them this week! I think they had enough! I told them we will save theirs for our next cruise and hopefully we can use them then!

 

 

 

Thank you.

I’m going to be monitoring the voucher situation in and off for our June trip. We have six kids, whom Soda is a big treat and completely linked with “vacation.” They are disappointed by the voucher system, but the soft drink package is a lot of money plus they each already have 12 with Fantastica. I’m considering getting the soft drink package for one cabin and not for the other, then those in the cabin with the package can give their vouchers to the kids in the non-package cabin and everyone can have as much high fructose corn syrup as they want for a cruise. LOL

 

 

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shukapaw

shukapaw

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Thank you so much for taking the time to write this review. It was very comprehensive and answered a lot of my questions.

 

It sounds like a lot of the issues you experienced will be fixed as the kinks are worked out .

 

Thanks again,

 

~Brian

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Cruisergal1208 Great Review Rare

Cruisergal1208

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Thanks for a great review. I only stumbled upon this ship today and cannot wait to book, but need to do more research. And I want pictures!

 

 

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If you use the search feature in the right hand corner at top of page and type in Seaside pictures, you should get the page of hundreds of photos.

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frannie

frannie

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Hello! Here is mydetailed, lengthy review on the MSC Seaside. We were on the Eastern 12/23-12/30 cruise over Christmas. A little background…Sailing this cruise wasme and my husband, and our two daughters, ages 15 and 10. We have been on many cruises, 15 for me, myhusband at 12, my girls at 10 and 9. Wehave done Norwegian (my first cruise ever was on the Norway), RCCL (for ourhoneymoon), and the rest on Carnival and Disney. We are not picky cruisers. As long as the ship is clean, the food is goodand hot, the service is good, and we are able to relax, we are happy. We tend to book our cruises based on theship, not the itinerary. We’ve been oncruises where we have not gotten off once the entire time and have used thatextra time to explore and enjoy the ship.

We booked this cruise back in April. We were looking for a reasonably pricedChristmas cruise (our first Christmas cruise) and thought that MSC was pricedwell within our limits. Carnival was our2nd choice, but was about $700 more expensive for the 4 of us. We thought this would be a good opportunity totry out MSC, after reading mostly good reviews about the Divina. I have dividedthis review up into categories, instead of a day to day review. Please feelfree to ask any questions you may have. I will do my best to answer them!

 

 

Precruise: We booked a Fantastica balcony (stateroom 13201)which included 12 drink vouchers per person. We prebooked the digital photopackage for $99 which covered the entire cabin, the trio dining package for $69pp, and the coffee package for $29.

 

 

Embarkation: We live about 3-1/2 hours away from Miami anddrove down the day of, Saturday 12/23. There were, I believe, 7 ships in thePort of Miami when we arrived about 11am. The traffic was almost at astandstill and took us almost 45 minutes to get to the new Terminal F. Myhusband and oldest daughter Hannah dropped me and my other daughter Grace offin front of the terminal, where a porter took our bags out of our van, loadedthem up on his cart and said he would get them to the ship. He directed myhusband where to park (the garage in front of Terminal G), and showed us whereto go to enter Terminal F. There was a tent outside with a moderately long line,but I realized that was for Yacht Club cruisers. We walked into the terminal, waited for lessthan 5 minutes to get through security, then we were directed upstairs. We stopped at the restroom, then proceeded tothe line for check-in. We only waited a few minutes, then went up to the counter. There were about 60 check-in spaces at thecounter and check-in went very smooth. We got our security pictures taken, the employee went and grabbed ourcruise cards, we were given boarding group number 14 and off we went to thewaiting area. The entire process took us 15 minutes from the time we walkedinto the terminal until we went to the waiting area. While we waited, we logged into the MSC WiFiand started using the app. Once welearned it, it was very helpful during the week. Then things got a littlecrazy. One of the boarding agents waswalking around saying that the PA system wasn’t working. People asked what number they were boardingand she said 7 and to just listen for the next number – they would yell itout. So a line formed to go up theescalator…all numbers, all people. Nosort of organization. The line got so long that they had to form a second linenext to it. They didn’t even continuecalling numbers at that point. Everyone just started boarding. People weren’t very happy. Anyways, we got up the escalator, took ourembarkation photo, and handed over our cruise card so that we could board theship. You enter on deck 6 right into thebeautiful atrium!

 

 

Kids Club (DoReMi): Unfortunately, we didn’t have muchexperience with this. After embarkation,we stood in line to get a wristband for our daughter. There were two DoReMistaff that were helping people and it was very unorganized. You had to fill out a form (wristbandconsent) and then they handed out the wristband. Only my 10 year old needed it. However, westood in line for over a half hour, only for them to tell us that the wristbandshe needed (with a G on it for our muster station) they didn’t have. They gave her a temporary one and told us tocome up to the kids club later and they would switch it out. I do think thatthe reason the line was so long was because there were so many people fromdifferent countries, speaking different languages, and a lot of time was spentexplaining to them what the wristband was, finding the appropriate form to fillout, etc. I think that this could be something that MSC could improve on…if wewere allowed to fill these forms out online ahead of the cruise, wristbanddistribution could be much more efficient. Anyways, both of my girls planned to do the meet and greet in their respectiveclubs that night. My youngest isn’t as social as my oldest, but she wasdetermined to try. She always does thekids club on any other ships we have been on and enjoys them. She didn’t like the DoReMi kids club at all.She went to a couple of craft activities, but they lasted about 5 minutes andthen she said the kids just started playing legos and the counselors put thecrafts away. One night they had games around 10pm. She came back at 10:30 andsaid all she did was wait for 20 minutes for a balloon animal. I asked her ifshe made any friends, she said no because it was hard to find anyone that spokeEnglish. One note – your child has to wear closed toed shoes at any DoReMiactivity. They sent Grace back to theroom because she was wearing flip flops (for a craft activity). I understand itis for safety reasons, but I felt this was a little extreme. My oldest went thefirst couple of days to the teen club, but felt that a lot of the kids werealready grouped up and a lot didn’t speak English. A couple girls she made friends with were inthe Yacht Club and they would go hang out there. Because we weren’t in Yacht Club, Hannahcouldn’t go in with them. So after acouple days, our girls gave up on the kids club and just hung out with eachother, which was perfectly fine for them.

 

 

Dining in the MDR: Before the cruise, our online check-ininformation said 6pm for dinner, but didn’t say which dining room. Our info on the MSC for me app said anytimedining, anywhere. Our cruise card, saidIpanema restaurant at 7:45pm. We don’tlike to eat that late, so my husband went to see if it could be changed. Theysaid a lot of the information was incorrect and that we were supposed to beSeashore restaurant at 6pm. We were happy. Our head waiter was Ronny, assistantwaiter was Joshua. They were both good,not overly personable, but friendly. We asked for a kids menu the first nightand Ronny said, “Sorry, we don’t have kids’ menus.” I thought that was rather odd, but figuredour 10 year old could find something to eat on the regular menu. The third night, we noticed the table next tous serving the kids some pizza. We askedRonny what that was about…he said that pizza, chix nuggets, and fish stickswere available for the kids as long as they didn’t run out. I thought that maybe he could have told usthat the first night, but oh well. Our daughter ordered the pizza the nextnight, but it wasn’t the same as the pizza upstairs, so she continued to orderoff the regular menu the rest of the week. We ate in the MDR for dinner every night but 2 because we did the Triodining package. Our girls ate in thedining room those 2 nights without us and were served without any issues. They are well-behaved, so we knew we couldtrust them to use their manners! Food was good, not great, but good. The foodwas hot, which was nice. The only thingwe found with food temps was that they never cooked meat as asked. Steak we asked for medium rare, it was eithermedium or rare. Lamb was asked for medium, it was medium rare. This was both inthe MDR and in the specialty dining restaurants. There was a variety of thingson the menus to please everyone in our party. Service was a little slow attimes, but they did well enough. While we didn’t have any problems, there was alarge party next to us that had some. The second night they complained to theMDR that their service was slow. Itreally was very slow for them two nights in a row. We were eating dessert andthey were just getting their apps. They said that the assistant waiter wasnowhere to be seen and their waiter had too many tables. I agree with them on that point. The nextnight the chicken they ordered came out raw. This caused everyone at the surrounding tables to examine their chickenas well. While ours was fine, there wereprobably 5 or 6 in total that were not. Thatfamily of 10 didn’t show up in the MDR for the rest of the week. We did eat in the MDR for lunch one day andit was excellent. We also enjoyed breakfast in the MDR several mornings andenjoyed it much more than the buffet. Service was really slow for breakfast andwe had to ask several times for water, but the food was good and hot. My onlycomplaint was the bacon was very salty. They had several (almost too many) waiterswalking around with juice (OJ was really good!) and pastries. I wish they would have used a few of thosepeople to walk around with water instead! Eating in the MDR on port days ishighly recommended over the buffet.

 

 

Dining in the buffet: There are two buffets – Deck 8, whichis the larger of the 2, and Deck 16, which is smaller and more family friendly.While we preferred Deck 8, Deck 16 had pizza all the time and free soft serveice cream, so my kids visited there a lot! I preferred the buffet food overother cruise lines we have sailed. Myhusband did not. I felt there was more variety and it was fresher. Water, tea,coffee, and juices were available for free throughout the day. There were also pour your own beer and winestations for purchase (or for those with bev packages). We never ate dinner at the buffet, but did goup for pizza and late night snacks (delicious chocolate chip cookies!).Breakfast at the buffet is a madhouse on port days. We tried going the morning we were inAntigua, but the lines were long and the food wasn’t being replenished fast enoughso we put our plates down and went down to the MDR. Sea days were much less hectic.It was a little too windy to eat outside, but we did find a nice table outsidethe back of deck 8 and there was no breeze at all.

 

 

Trio Dining Package – We ate at Ocean Cay and Butcher’s Cutfor dinner and at the PanAsian Fusion for lunch. The trio package means you canchoose one app, one entrée, and one dessert (or two apps and an entrée) fromthe dining experience menu at each of the restaurants. Teppanyaki is notincluded in the trio. I advise you tobook your restaurants at the beginning of the week. It seems to me that theyoverbook the restaurants not leaving enough reservations for those that bookedthe trio package. On two of our visits, people were complaining that they weren’table to book their third restaurant because there weren’t any reservationsavailable. However, every time we ate in a restaurant, there were plenty ofavailable tables. I imagine this is something that will be worked out in time.So I would book them the first day or two on the ship. You can book for lunch, which is nice. Therestaurants have glass windows, so there are beautiful views as long as it’slight out. Ocean Cay was our leastfavorite. My husband had the crab appetizer, chose to have it served cold andit was really good. I had the crab cakes. Again, good. We both had the sea bass and it was just okay. Butcher’sCut was very good as well. My husband had shrimp cocktail (he loved the dippingsauce), the filet (ordered medium rare, parts of it were rare), and the NYcheesecake (it was NOT NY cheesecake). Even though parts of the filet were rare, he enjoyed it very much. I hadthe hearts of palm salad, the foie deviled eggs, and the lamb. They were all very good. I ordered the lambmedium, it came out medium rare. I was okay with that because I would rather itbe undercooked than over. Our favorite meal was from the PanAsian Fusion. I hadavocado poke, the lamb, and the pineapple upside down cake. My husband had thePork Bao Bun, the filet, and the lava cake. The flavors in this meal were by far the best we had all cruise. We would have eaten here for all 3 meals ifwe could have! The only thing that was odd was the water situation. We asked for water the first time in OceanCay. They said they only served bottled or sparkling, not tap. We said bottledwas fine. We weren’t exactly happy thatwe had to pay for water, but whatever. We went through several bottles ofwater, but were charged only $5.18 at the end of the night. The other tworestaurants though, we were served the bottled water and weren’t charged adime. Not really sure what the mix up ormiscommunication was, but again, something they will probably work out in time.Service tended to be on the slow side, especially in Butcher’s Cut.

 

 

Stateroom: We were in a Fantastica Balcony room 13201. Wewere right around the corner from the elevators, towards the back of the ship.Our room had the bed closest to the closet, with the sofa bed that turned intoa bunk for our girls. The room was on the smallish side, which we expected, butthe balcony was spacious. However, there was NO storage in the room. We had twodrawers and 4 shelves (one had the safe on it) in the poorly designedcloset. We made it work, but it wasfrustrating. Our oldest daughter livedout of her suitcase for the week, which we put under the counter across from thebunk. The bathroom had good storage – two hooks on the door, shelves on andabove the counter, three towel racks, and space under the sink. We brought 3Mhooks for additional storage and I am so glad we did. All of our suitcases fitunder the bed just fine. You do use your cruise card to control the lights inthe room. It will only take a cruise card. This was only a hassle when mydaughter wanted to charge her phone while we were out, but couldn’t because weall had our cruise cards. My husband’s card got smeared halfway through theweek, so he went and got a new one. The old one we used in the slot for therest of the week. We were still mindful of turning the lights off when we leftour room though. Having your cruise card in or out of the slot didn’t seem to affectthe a/c at all. We saw our room steward once on the first day and never again.I asked him for more hangers (I needed about 20 more of them since there was nostorage in the drawers), and what to do with our luggage mat. He kind of chuckled when I asked him for allthe hangers, but said he would bring me some. He said to leave the luggage mat.The next day, the luggage mat was still in our room, so we folded it and put itunder the bed. The hangers finally arrived later that afternoon. He brought me 10. We never saw him the rest of the week. Ourroom was always made up in the late morning, and turned down later in theevening. We never got towel animals,which was fine with me, but my girls always like to see that. The littlebuttons by the card slot were really helpful. There was one that says DND (donot disturb) that we would press when we were in the room, and there is onethat says Make Up Room. They have corresponding lights on the outside of theroom to inform our room steward. A couple things to note – my husband needed anextension cord for his CPAP machine. We asked our room steward the first nightand he said we had to call guest services. So we called guest services. Theytold us we had to come down and get one from the guest services desk. Myhusband waited in line for nearly an hour at 11pm the first night to get anextension cord. They charge you a $30 fee that is refunded when it is returned.At first it didn’t look like it would work with an American plug, but with alittle finagling, it was fine. Also, there are USB ports by the counter and byone side of the bed, not both.

 

 

Room Service: Room service was ordered twice. Once on Christmas morning for breakfast andonce around 10pm. We only ever had the breakfast order form in our room onetime, and that was on Christmas Eve. Idon’t know why it wasn’t ever in our room again. I’m sure we could have askedour room steward, but didn’t think of it. We just ordered coffee, hotchocolate, pastries, and fruit to munch on while we enjoyed our Christmasmorning. It was delivered on time. Latenight room service was fine as well. We ordered a couple of sandwiches, somecookies, fruit, and a Caesar salad. Thesalad was very salty, but everything else was good. My husband loved the BBQchicken wrap. They told us it would be about 30 minutes for delivery and it wasjust under when they delivered it.

 

 

Pools: We tried to avoid the pools on Sea Days, but this is just something we do on all our cruises. On port days, they are much less busy and more enjoyable. You have to sign a waiver for the slides and zip line and you receive a bracelet. We signed a waiver on the first day by the video game slide...however, they were out of every language waiver except for Hindu or something like that. So I honestly have no idea what we signed, but everyone else signed the same thing we did. Anyways, the slides were fun. My kids did the video game slide once and weren't impressed. They said it was rather short and my little one fell off her board at the end and it scratched her side. The racer slides were awesome. My oldest did the zip line on a port day and waited about a half hour. It was never opened on a sea day because it was too windy. She loved the zip line and said it was worth the wait. We went in the aquaventure park pool (not salt water), the Jungle Pool (salt), and the Miami Beach Pool (salt). Those two pools are deep. The Jungle Pool was my favorite.

 

 

Photography: We purchased the VIP Digital Sea Pass before we cruised. It was $99 and very worth it. You get your sea pass from the photo studio and they link your room cards to it. They said they could only link 2 cards, so a couple times we had to have them transfer pictures from our daughter's card to our Sea Pass, but it was easy. Some of the photographers took way too long to take their pictures and pose people. After a couple times with one photographer, we decided to avoid him. He cut off my husband's head, he put us in weird poses, and took WAY too long to pose us. We did get some really nice pictures of us as a family. We got our embarkation photo, dinner pictures, and posed pictures. They do not have photographers taking port pictures. They also had pictures with Santa, but apparently our Sea Pass stopped working, so it wouldn't scan. We tried looking for the picture in the millions of pictures they had, but eventually gave up. We ended up just using our cruise card the rest of the week for pictures since they were linked. When I asked the photo guy about our Sea Pass not working anymore, he got very rude with me and demanded to know who punched a hole in my card. I told him I did. He said I damaged the card by doing that and that is why it wasn't working any more. (I was told that if we punched a hole in any of our cards, that the RFID wouldn't work, but we chanced it on the first day, and didn't have any issues all week). I told him that I punched a hole in our room cards and in our Sea Pass on the first day and they have worked fine all week. Wednesday is when we realized our Sea Pass wasn't working anymore. He really was very rude. I went to someone else and she was very helpful and fixed the problem. We logged onto the mymscphotos.com website throughout the week to view our pictures and downloaded them to our phones. Thankfully we did that, because now that we are home, it shows our pictures aren't available anymore. I did read somewhere that they will be available a week after sailing, but I don't know if that's true.

 

 

Gelato/Coffee/Bar Service: As I mentioned before I boughtthe coffee package and we received the 12 drink vouchers per person with the Fantasticapackage. First, I wish they would doaway with the paper vouchers and somehow just have them on our cruise card. IfI didn’t have to carry those vouchers around, it would be nice. My husband andI had the alcoholic drink vouchers (doesn’t include premium) and didn’t haveany issues using them. Our girls had thenon-alcoholic vouchers and used them for pina coladas, strawberry dacquiris,and other non-alcoholic drinks. They arenot soda drinkers, so it was the fancy fruity drinks for them. They were able to use them for the milkshakesat the Venchi gelato bar, except for onetime. They had gotten them every night for the first 3 nights without anyissues. On the 4th night, thebar waitress told them they couldn’t use them. My oldest said they had usedthem every night before and the bar waitress said they shouldn’t have beenallowed to. The next night, the tried again and ordered from someone else. No issues. I imagine this is again due tomiscommunication. Gelato was more generously served at the Venchi gelato barthan at the gelato stations by the pools. I had 15 coffee vouchers to use whileon the ship. You can use these at the coffee bar by Venchi, any of the bars, orany of the restaurants. They have espresso machines everywhere. I did order cappuccinos/lattes a couple timesat places other than the Venchi coffee bar, but preferred to order from thecoffee bar. The specialty coffee was very good and you can’t beat the price ofthe coffee package. Now my complaint…the bar service is horrendous. It is sodisorganized…there are bar waitresses that may or may not take your order.Bartenders don’t know if your order has been taken – they don’t ask and theyare so busy that you can’t even stop them to place an order. I rarely saw barservice walking around the pool taking orders. I was on deck 19 above the aquapark one day and stopped someone to order a drink and they said sorry theyweren’t serving in that area. I saw bar waiters twice in the casino the entireweek. I waited one night for 15 minutes at the casino bar before the show toorder a drink. I had to leave because I would have missed the beginning of theshow. Maybe this is just how they do it on MSC, but every other cruise I havebeen on, the bar servers are regularly asking guests if they can get themanything. MSC definitely needs toimprove their service in the bar areas. Very chaotic, disorganized, and just a basic lack of service.

 

 

Casino: Clean and fun, if not a little small. Dealers werenice. Husband played Ultimate Texas Hold Em and did well. He also played Black Jack. He took advantageof the Happy Hour special they offered. On Sea Days from 11a-1pm, it was halfprice bets on Texas Hold Em and Black Jack. I played Video Poker andslots. Slots were fun, but didn’t winanything. Much preferred Video Poker,however the area of the Video Poker was incredibly smoky.

 

 

Shows: I don’t know how to really describe the shows. Somewere good, some were great, some were just plain weird. First of all, you havethe ability to prebook your show. Ihighly recommend doing this. I booked ours the morning of through the app (youcan also do it on the interactive screens throughout the ship). You can getinto the show if you prebook a half hour early. Five minutes before, they openany remaining seats to general admission. The first night was a tribute toFrank Sinatra and we did not see this one. The second night was Timeless. Thedescription was so different than the actual show. There were a couple ofrandom songs at the beginning, then it turned into a Michael Jacksontribute. It was a fun show, but it didn’tflow very well. The next night was our special Christmas show, Christmas aroundthe World. I think everyone had the same reaction we did. It was weird. It really had nothing to do with Christmas. Ibelieve that this might just be a regular show that they do but they changedtheir outfits to santa outfits and added a Christmas song at the beginning ofthe show. There was a pole dancing act during the show (which was beautiful,but not really Christmassy –lol), salsa dancing, a contortionist act. It wasjust odd. My Life in Music was good, but again just a random assortment of songsand dance acts. Butterflies was MSC’s version of Madame Butterfly. My husbandand youngest daughter left after a few minutes, opera is not their thing. It was really very beautiful and full oftalent. But it was an Italian opera. The Wizard is where I felt like thingsimproved. It was described as an illusionist, but it really only had one or twoillusion acts. It was still very good, visually appealing, and exciting. Thelast night was Peter Punk. This show wasalso very good and exciting, fun music, colorful. However, it ended very non-climactically…almostlike they didn’t do a finishing song. Then all the production cast from the week sang “We Are the World”, astheir final goodbye song. One recurringtheme in all the shows…every night had an aerialist, contortionist act,ballerina act, etc. They wereinteresting, but kind of predictable and repetitive. All in all, the shows weregood. My kids loved the last two showsthe best. Honestly, the descriptions ofthe shows are nothing like the actual shows themselves. They are entertaining though. And the talent of the dancers and singers aresecond to none. Those voices…wow!

 

 

Disembarkation: We received Brown 1 tags. Our room stewardgave us 4. To get extras, you have to goto guest services. We had to be out of our room by 7:00-7:30. We were told two different times, so we leftat 7:15. We went to breakfast in the MDR and had to be in the MetropolitanTheatre at 10am for disembarkation. After breakfast, I went and got a coffee atthe coffee bar, then we headed up to the couches by the Jungle Pool torelax. It was quiet, great views, and wetook little naps until it was time to head to the theatre. When we got there, they immediately escortedour Brown 1 group to get off the ship. There was a short line to go down theescalator because the baggage claim area was crowded. We found our bags rightaway and got a porter. I can’t tell youhow worth it it is to get a porter. Heloaded up our bags on his cart, took us to a short line to get through customsand we were out of the terminal in less than 15 minutes. The regular line had to have been 1-1/2 hourslong. He escorted us to the garage,loaded our bags into the car and we were on our way. We gave him a nice tip. Please note – there areno customs declarations forms to fill out. Apparently they don’t do this anymore. At customs, we gave him ourlicenses and our birth certificates and we were out of there. Disembarkationwas very easy.

 

 

Overall: We had a very enjoyable cruise. There were a few small issues and a couple things we didn't like, but nothing that would prevent us from booking another with MSC. I felt like all the problems they had could be fixed over time. It was a very heavy international group of cruisers, something we are not used to. I'm not sure if this is because it was a Transatlantic and many Europeans were finishing up their holiday, but there were LOTS of different languages heard all week. Bingo instructions were given out in 6 different languages, for example. We did have a great time and are excited to see how MSC Seaside improves over the next year or two.

 

 

Just wondering if any of the pools have stairs to enter or do they all have those vertical ladders . I am senior and do not have much upper body strenth would prefer to walk into pool

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Thesecret

Thesecret

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Such a thorough review, so helpful and answered many lingering questions. Thank you for that😊 I do a a couple of questions that maybe you can help with:

Did you visit the spa at all? Any feeling for that?

Can you confirm any of the theme nights? I’ve heard white party, Italian night, roaring 20’s, 60’s/70’s flower party, Michael Jackson Thriller...are any or all of these correct?

If you have the bracelet to get into your room and pay, could you not leave your card in the slot to charge the room?

I was glad you mentioned the suitcases fitting under beds, usb only on one side of bed and about the extension cords and hangers, all great to know! So many great details in your post, thank you again!

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