MSC SEASIDE at CHRISTMAS 23/12/2017 REVIEW

[eroller]

Ernie ... The people I mentioned in the YC have just mentioned that when they were on the Divina YC the butler/ passenger ratio was 1.12 on Seaside it is 1.26 ! The same goes for the cabin stewards with increased number of cabins to clean.

 

 

Well I've never sailed in the YC before, but I have sailed on over 120 cruises so I will be quite aware if service is not up to snuff. I have enjoyed the Haven on NCL which is the closest competitor to the YC on MSC, so I'll be making comparisons for sure.

[SeaPhxCruiser]

Thank you for your review Ernie! I am sailing out tomorrow on the Seaside with my mom. I really appreciate all of the info that you have provided!

[BermudaBound2014]

Great review! Thanks for taking the time to share.

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[kicia]

Thanks for the great review. We will be in cabin 14260, which is next to yours, in March. I'm very happy to hear that we can use the aft elevators to get to our cabin. Hope that we can each get a complimentary dinner for two since we are both black card members.

 

Thanks again.

[bbramanb]

We just took the Seaside to celebrate new years. The food was awful. The service was terrible. The most rude crew I have ever seen on a ship. Some of the food was actually spoiled and old or served raw. The lettuce was served old and brown. Food at the buffet was cold. It did not pay to complain. They did not care. I believe we had food poisoning. We spent three days in bed sick from eating a salad that was served brown and warm. Even the hotel director took an attitude when I complained. My advice. Stay away from MSC.

[riclop]

Thanks for the very informative review.

[eroller]

We just took the Seaside to celebrate new years. The food was awful. The service was terrible. The most rude crew I have ever seen on a ship. Some of the food was actually spoiled and old or served raw. The lettuce was served old and brown. Food at the buffet was cold. It did not pay to complain. They did not care. I believe we had food poisoning. We spent three days in bed sick from eating a salad that was served brown and warm. Even the hotel director took an attitude when I complained. My advice. Stay away from MSC.

 

 

I would have thought twice before I ate lettuce that was brown and warm.

 

One hit wonder.

[portofrome]

Thanks for your great review!

[sidari]

Thank you for your review Ernie!

 

 

I think you will will that Ernie has not yet sailed on the Seaside and the review is in fact mine ...

 

 

bbramanb .... Yet another Travel agent no doubt trying to discourage their customers from moving to MSC! really some of these posts re the food is so far fetched.

 

Ernie ... so far I have not seen any photos and not seen the floor raised when we were on the ship.

[dexddd]

We just took the Seaside to celebrate new years. The food was awful. The service was terrible. The most rude crew I have ever seen on a ship. Some of the food was actually spoiled and old or served raw. The lettuce was served old and brown. Food at the buffet was cold. It did not pay to complain. They did not care. I believe we had food poisoning. We spent three days in bed sick from eating a salad that was served brown and warm. Even the hotel director took an attitude when I complained. My advice. Stay away from MSC.

 

You ate brown and warm salad?

[eroller]

 

 

I think you will will that Ernie has not yet sailed on the Seaside and the review is in fact mine ...

 

 

.

 

 

 

Damn you had to go and clarify that! I was all set to take credit for your excellent review! [emoji6]

[lifeasme123]

Thank you for the detailed great review! Couple of questions:

 

MSC Seaside at Christmas 23/12/2017

 

Our Cruise Critic meet and mingle had a total of 202 people sign up, we are not sure how many attended but photographs had to be done in two groups with Pier Paolo Scala and some of his deck officers, The Captain was good enough to have photos taken with anyone who asked, he was very keen on taking one of the back of our MSC T shirts that has our Six cruises on it. Be sure to hand your invitation in to one of the staff at the door to the Haven lounge or you will not get the photographs sent to your cabin.

.

 

Is the picture free? And one per cabin? The reason for asking is that I put 2 cabins on 1 M&M reservation.

 

If you want a photo with the Captain on the Elegant night you are sent a souvenir folder to your room containing the photo, you cannot buy just the photo.

 

 

Am I reading this correctly? Another free picture from MSC? That must be a long line for the picture?

[sidari]

To clarify, the M & M photo was provided free of charge, the photo with the Captain in the double folder is $35 and is left in your cabin for you to decide if you want to pay for it.

 

hdowney ... I have requested that the post by bbramanb be removed as being malicious.

 

Ernie ... I shall be keeping my eye on you !

[NYHartChapp]

Thanks for a great review. Any thoughts on the spa?

[hdowney]

Ooh I have thought of a question. Christmas decoration throughout the ship. What was it like? Just right, over the top, or lacking? I'm a Christmas nut and am so excited to be sailing at Christmas later this year.

[sidari]

There were a number of Trees in the Atrium and in various places around the ship along with some large boxes that had been gift wrapped, other than that basically that was it. Even on Xmas day morning I can only recall hearing one Xmas song in the Buffet on deck 8, that is not to say they did not have any elsewhere on the ship though.

 

I recall being on the Ruby Princess when the ship was just 3 weeks old in November 2008 and it being the week after thanksgiving, all the handrails were decorated along with other parts of the ship and it felt like an effort had been made on behalf of the passengers.

[sidari]

We have been home around 10 days now and still MSC have Failed to send the Feedback form that was requested onboard the Seaside!

The Voyagers club have also failed so far to respond to two emails sent to them regarding this and the issues surrounding the Black card perks mentioned in the review.

They will never win the "how to win friends and influence people" award .... :mad:

 

 

We were considering booking in April another cruise but my patience is wearing very very thin with MSC.

[slei15]

We have been home around 10 days now and still MSC have Failed to send the Feedback form that was requested onboard the Seaside!

 

The Voyagers club have also failed so far to respond to two emails sent to them regarding this and the issues surrounding the Black card perks mentioned in the review.

 

They will never win the "how to win friends and influence people" award .... :mad:

 

 

 

 

 

We were considering booking in April another cruise but my patience is wearing very very thin with MSC.

 

 

 

I also sent an email directly to customer service about our issues the night we got home on 12/30 and have yet to hear a peep out of them. We did receive the survey and completed that as well.

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Forums

[voyager89]

We have been home around 10 days now and still MSC have Failed to send the Feedback form that was requested onboard the Seaside!

The Voyagers club have also failed so far to respond to two emails sent to them regarding this and the issues surrounding the Black card perks mentioned in the review.

They will never win the "how to win friends and influence people" award .... :mad:

 

 

We were considering booking in April another cruise but my patience is wearing very very thin with MSC.

 

Same here... running out of patience. Sailing in almost 2 weeks and still no e-docs. The Request your tickets button never worked, it would just take me nowhere. Now it´s just gone altogether.

 

I really hope I get a fantastic experience on board, or it will be my first and last cruise with them.

[WhiskeyTangoFoxtrot]

We just took the Seaside to celebrate new years. The food was awful. The service was terrible. The most rude crew I have ever seen on a ship. Some of the food was actually spoiled and old or served raw. The lettuce was served old and brown. Food at the buffet was cold. It did not pay to complain. They did not care. I believe we had food poisoning. We spent three days in bed sick from eating a salad that was served brown and warm. Even the hotel director took an attitude when I complained. My advice. Stay away from MSC.

 

 

Found the Norwegian employee, lol. :')

[DCLSailing]

Ooh I have thought of a question. Christmas decoration throughout the ship. What was it like? Just right, over the top, or lacking? I'm a Christmas nut and am so excited to be sailing at Christmas later this year.

 

 

 

They had Christmas trees on the multiple levels above the Seaside bar in the atrium. They also had them in various locations throughout the ship, in front of the buffet, near the gift shops, etc. There was a display near the Sports Bar that had gingerbread houses and a LEGO train.

 

When we boarded there were musicians playing Christmas songs in the Seaside bar area on piano and violin. For the first few days they also had these delightful candy canes out on the Seaside bar as well.

 

I would say it was very nice but not over the top in general.

[tjlj]

Same here... running out of patience. Sailing in almost 2 weeks and still no e-docs. The Request your tickets button never worked, it would just take me nowhere. Now it´s just gone altogether.

 

I really hope I get a fantastic experience on board, or it will be my first and last cruise with them.

did u book with TA? edocs came from my ta... call msc and they will email them...

[Cruiser21]

Just called yesterday for our Jan 27th cruise. They emailed the E Tickets to me while I was on the phone with them. Don't stress out and just call. Much faster. Good luck.

[sidari]

I was thinking back to the Muster drill held in the Garage disco on Deck 7, there are very few seats in there so most people have to stand for the duration of the drill.

 

Once again we observed people playing on their phones instead of listening and watching what was going on, it really is time that MSC clamped down on this issue, others were sat on the floor and could not see what was going on.

 

We still find it hard to believe that people can be so flippant with their own safety, these very same people would no doubt blame MSC when the smelly stuff hits the fan! ... :mad:

[Beamafar]

We have been home around 10 days now and still MSC have Failed to send the Feedback form that was requested onboard the Seaside!

The Voyagers club have also failed so far to respond to two emails sent to them regarding this and the issues surrounding the Black card perks mentioned in the review.

They will never win the "how to win friends and influence people" award .... :mad:

 

 

We were considering booking in April another cruise but my patience is wearing very very thin with MSC.

 

Hi Dave............. just getting around to reading your excellent review, now. It's taken a while, but I'm finally getting over the dose I picked up over Christmas! :p

 

I'm glad you enjoyed Seaside enough to consider booking it again.

 

For the first time, I haven't even bothered to fill out the feedback forms we received.

 

Did you receive the automated responses to your emails to Voyagers Club? If not, then they may not have received them. We didn't receive our bonus points so I emailed them. I got a reply the next day (got the automated response immediately) with an apology and stating that the bonus points had been added to our accounts.

 

I can fully understand you losing patience with MSC. I'm growing very tired of MSC and the direction they're going in. Less crew = less service = crew appear more rude as a result. More and more cutbacks are having an effect on the quality of the cruise experience. Our cruise on Orchestra (18th on MSC!) has left me considering cancelling our March 2019 cruise. We'll wait and see how we get on with our upcoming Splendida repo to Japan - though we're in YC on that and I sincerely hope it at least meets our expectations!

 

Having said all that, I'm actually attempting to book a Med cruise for our anniversary later this year. We were advised that we would get 10% off our next cruise due to missing 2 ports. I also qualified for the 30% casino discount voucher. I was told by the Cruise Consultant that I could combine the 2 with the 5% Voyagers Club discount which would give a total of 40.15% off. However, when I contacted MSC yesterday to make a booking, they "didn't know" if I could combine the discounts. I've since emailed them back, stating that nowhere does it say that the discounts cannot be combined with any other offers and advising that I'm willing to make the booking on condition that I receive the discounts I feel I'm entitled to.

 

The reason I'm willing to book another cruise, even though I'm considering cancelling a booking, is cost! If I manage to get the discounts I'm seeking, it will be well worth putting up with the negative aspects. However, the March 2019 cruise is costing us more than I'm comfortable with and I'm not sure I want to commit such an outlay the way I'm feeling about MSC right now.