Seaside review from the 2/24 sailing - 1st time cruisers

[Danny61231]

Our backstory:

 

My wife (29) and I (33) took our first cruise. We arrived in Miami the night before sailing and were happy with our stay at the Miami Airport Marriott. We took a shuttle from the hotel to the cruise port which cost us $10 each. The process went smoothly, but wasn’t the most well organized experience we’ve ever had.

 

Embarkment:

 

We arrived at the Port of Miami at about 11:30AM and made it through security within minutes. We then proceeded up the escalator and were immediately directed to an open agent who checked us in and took our security photos. The agent gave us our cruise cards and boarding number and we were directed to the next room to wait for our time to board. The wait didn’t take very long and before we knew it, we were standing on the ship.

 

Overview – The whole embarkment process was very easy and everyone seemed very friendly and willing to help. The only complaint I had at all was when our shuttle dropped us off at the curb. The gentleman who took our bags to put them on the ship was very up front about wanting a tip by saying “Now is the time you tip me for getting your bags on the ship.” We thought that was very disrespectful.

 

First impressions:

 

When we first set foot on the ship we were amazed at the beauty and sheer size of everything. Our first order of business was to go to the spa (deck 8) to book our massages for 9AM Sunday morning. After our booking was complete, we were given a tour of the thermal area in the spa which we had access to for the duration of our trip. After we were done touring the spa, we went to the Marketplace Buffet on deck 8 for lunch. We were impressed with the choices they had available and had no problem finding a table. I thought the pizza was tasty and my wife and I both thought the pineapple was some of the best we ever had! The buffet offers at least 4-6 different types of juice, iced tea and lemonade for free, also. We toured the ship for a while and at about 2:30PM the announcement was made that rooms were ready for guests.

 

 

Overview - First impressions of the ship were amazing and, again, we were very impressed with all of the staff that we encountered.

 

The room:

 

We were booked in room 13067, which is an interior Fantastica room. When looking at the deck plans trying to pick which room to book, it appeared that this room would be larger than a normal interior room and IT WAS! The room really felt spacious and we were impressed that during the entire trip we NEVER heard any noise from other rooms or in the hallway. Later, we heard a knock on the door which was our drink vouchers being delivered and our bags showed up at approximately 5:30PM. Our room was kept clean and we always had everything we needed throughout the duration of the cruise.

 

Overview – We loved our room and thought that the décor was nice. My wife did think the artwork (a picture of herring) was kind of an odd choice and the shower was small. The soap/shampoo weren’t amazing but, again, everything was sufficient enough for a week. One night we were given a daily program that was written in a different language, but it was promptly fixed.

 

Food:

 

We were VERY impressed with the food we had during this trip! Usually we would eat at the buffet for breakfast and lunch and then eat in the dining room for dinner. The only exception to this was eating one lunch in the dining room and eating dinner in the buffet on the two elegant nights.

 

We both thought that the breakfast choices in the buffet were very good and always had a tough time deciding what to eat each morning. Some of our favorites were the pastries, breakfast potatoes, bacon and French toast.

 

The lunch buffet was also pretty good with plenty of choices. Some of our favorites were the pizza, hamburgers, French fries/curly fries and sandwiches.

 

We ate lunch in the dining room on Thursday and thought the food and desserts were very good, but the service left a lot to be desired. The main issue, I believe, was a language barrier with our waiter. We ordered a shrimp cocktail and mozzarella sticks for starters, two Philly cheesesteak sandwiches for the entrées, and for dessert we ordered a lime cake and cheesecake with a mixed berry sauce. The starters arrived as expected, but our Philly cheesesteak sandwiches were replaced with two Cuban sandwiches instead. We brought the mistake to our assistant waiter’s attention and he corrected the issue with a short delay. When our desserts arrived, the cheesecake was correct, but instead of the lime cake they brought tres leche cake. We didn’t even bring this issue to their attention as we were just ready to be done with the meal at this point. All of the food did taste very good though.

 

We were assigned to the Ipanema dining room for the 7:45PM seating and our waiters name was Sailesh. Before the trip, I had requested a two person table and when we got on the ship we checked with the main dining room staff, who informed us that we were indeed assigned a two person table. When we arrived at dinner the first night, we found that it was basically a 4 person table that was separated by 2 inches. Our waiter was great and always asked if we wanted drinks other than water, always asked if we wanted coffee/tea and checked in on us often. *On numerous occasions he would bring us extra food aside from what we ordered telling us how good it was and that we really needed to try it – normally he was correct and my wife ended up eating the extra food he brought instead of what she originally ordered because it was so good. We were VERY impressed with most of the food that we had in the dining room and our favorites were the New York Strip(classics menu), spring rolls, sea food skewer, lemon delight dessert, cheesecake with mixed berry sauce and the salmon(classics menu). The only meal that my wife really didn’t care for was some oriental salad as a starter and oriental rice noodles as an entrée.

 

Overview: We were very impressed with the food on the ship and honestly thought it was one of their strong points. Everything in the buffet and the main dining room was served at the temperature that it should be and all of the items seemed fresh.

 

*

 

Pool areas:

 

We only used the Miami Beach pool on deck 16, the Jungle Pool on deck 18 and the hot tub on deck 19. The pool water always seemed a little cold, but after a while you would get used to it. As others have already said all of the pools are approximately 6 ½ feet deep and at least in these 2 pools the only way in/out is by using a ladder. The ship has a lot of nice loungers all around, but if you want one on a sea day you will need to save one early in the morning (I normally would around 8AM) as they do fill up quickly. On port days it seemed like you could easily find a chair at any time of the day. I did try the speed slides and the slide board slide and while they were enjoyable, I wasn’t overly impressed with any of them. We never tried the south beach pool due to the amount of smoking that takes place on that deck. Be advised that the south beach bar and the south beach pool are almost always VERY smoky and where all of the smokers tend to congregate.

 

Overview – The pool areas were all enjoyable and always had something going on. The activities staff did a great job of trying to keep all of the guests involved and to keep the party atmosphere going. I was surprised when they announced a belly flop contest that was enjoyable to watch.

 

Theater shows and nightlife:

 

During the course of the week, we went to see every theater show except for Butterflies and Beer Prov. We were very impressed with all of the shows and thought that they were all very entertaining. The cast is repetitive throughout all of the shows-showing a lot of versatility and really trying to make them appeal to all ages and nationalities. *

 

We spent most of our nights in the Haven Lounge where they always had different types of game shows and music/dancing going on. The house band, Caribbean Fusion, played every night and I would say they were average, but had a few off nights where they really butchered some classic songs. The activities staff did a great job of getting everyone involved and making all of the parties and game shows as fun as possible. We especially enjoyed participating in the Quest game that was a lot of fun!

 

 

Overview – Finding something to do each night that appealed to us was very easy. We usually found ourselves trying to get out of dinner as soon as possible as we always had different things we wanted to do.

 

Staff:

 

We were very impressed with all of the staff members that we had the privilege to encounter during the cruise. Everyone was always smiling, willing to help and willing to go above and beyond what they were expected to do. The hardest part we found with the staff was the language barrier and how quiet a lot of them speak.

 

Extra purchases we made:

 

Internet package - This was one of the most frustrating parts of the trip for us. Before the trip started, we purchased the 800mb package that included an extra 20% = 960mb. When we arrived on the ship we tried to set up our wifi and no matter what we did it only gave us the option to purchase a wifi package. Late the first night, we went to the guest services counter to figure out what we were doing wrong and they informed us that the package we had purchased had been discontinued and we would have to repurchase a new package. The new package was 1500mb and we were reimbursed the difference of what we originally paid before the trip. On Monday or Tuesday we received a call in our room from guest services saying that we needed to go back to guest services because we were given the wrong information on our internet package. When we arrived at guest services, we were informed that they told us to purchase the wrong package and we now had to purchase the 3000mb package, but we would still be reimbursed for all of them. We purchased the 3000mb package and everything seemed to work fine from that point on. All of our extra purchases were refunded as they had said and in the end we ended up paying $44 for over 3500mb of internet!

 

Turtle farm excursion in Grand Cayman – we purchased this excursion through MSC and everything went very smooth. The tickets arrived in our room on Sunday and we were to meet in the theater at 9:45AM on the day of the excursion. When entering the theater, they had a table set up to get checked in and they gave you a sticker with your excursion number on it. When the time came they escorted all of us to our tender boat and the group met on shore. We did have a short delay waiting for the bus, about 20 minutes. Our tour guide, Joseph, showed us around for about a half hour and then we were free to explore the wildlife center. Between being able to hold the turtles and snorkel with them, we thought it was an amazing experience. The tour bus showed up to bring us back to the port where we discovered a VERY long line for the tender boats. The wait wasn’t terrible and probably took around a half hour to get back on the tenders.

 

Our biggest complaints:

 

Coffee cups in the buffet -* it might sound trivial, but this is one of my biggest complaints! On all but two visits to the buffet, all they had were small white coffee cups (tea cups) that were almost impossible to use. They also had large blue coffee cups and a little smaller white coffee cup that worked just fine, but you could almost never find them.

 

Dinner buffet – The dinner buffet needs more variety as it has many of the same options that are available at lunch. It’s not all hotdogs, hamburgers, chicken nuggets, etc… as some people have stated, but they do have all those options available. They usually had a fresh meat carving station where I did have beef ribs and prime rib, but besides that the choices were pretty limited. We ate in the buffet on both elegant nights and while we found plenty to eat, we both felt like it wasn’t as good as it should have been. On elegant nights they did seem to have a few options off of the main dining room menu, but not many.

 

Smell – Some people have stated that the smell has been taken care of and others have stated that they never smelled anything during the cruise….. We aren’t very sensitive to smells, but we did notice the smell in multiple areas of the ship. Over the first 2 days we never smelled anything, but it seemed like as soon as we arrived in Jamaica we began smelling it every once in a while. We mainly smelled it around the kiddy pool area on deck 18. The smell was also noticed around the jungle pool, atrium and another random area or two that we can’t remember the exact location of. The smell was nothing that ruined our trip by any means and usually when smelling it; if you walked 15-20 feet you would no longer smell it.

 

Port activities:

 

Ocho Rios, Jamaica – We didn’t have anything planned and just wandered off of the ship. After FINALLY making it through all of the little shops we walked into Margaritaville and decided to hang out on the beach for a while. The beach was decent, but small and they really limited where you were able to lay a towel down on the beach. After a couple hours we wandered through a few shops and then back to the ship. We both agreed that we didn’t care for Jamaica and felt like everyone was VERY pushy and didn’t easily take no for an answer.

 

 

Georgetown, Grand Cayman – We loved the turtle encounter and wildlife adventure. It was an awesome tour and loved being able to hold the turtles and snorkel with them. We definitely want to go back to check out more of Grand Cayman sometime in the future.

 

 

Cozumel, Mexico – We’ve been to Cozumel is the past, so we decided to spend the day at a resort called the Cozumel Palace, where we have stayed before on one of our previous trips to the island. It is an absolutely beautiful all-inclusive resort, that we enjoyed very much!

 

 

Nassau, Bahamas- We ported and decided to walk a little ways beyond the port to a public beach called Junkanoo Beach. The water was beautiful. This area seemed to have a lot of tourists enjoying the sun and the sand. While wandering back to the ship, we shopped a little bit in their “strip mall like” shops.

 

 

Trip overview:

 

My wife and I absolutely loved our cruise and are very happy that we chose the MSC Seaside! We went into this trip with an open mind and knew that no matter what we were going to have a good vacation. Yes, there were a few little things that happened that may not have been perfect or things we would have liked to see done a different way, but all in all the ship was amazing. The staff was friendly and very accommodating, and the weather was absolutely gorgeous! We heard very few people complaining during the course of the cruise and actually noticed many people saying how enjoyable of a ship it was. My wife and I are already talking about booking our next cruise and are pretty much set on sailing on the MSC Seaside, again!

 

 

 

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[Danny61231]

 

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[Danny61231]

 

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[Danny61231]

 

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[lcpagejr]

Thanks for the review..... Glad you had an enjoyable time. Your comment at the beginning regarding being asked for a tip by the porters, was strange. I have cruised out of Miami many times and never have been told when a tip is due. I might get flamed for saying this...but I think this may have been due to the mixture of nationalities and different customs for those cruising on MSC. Based on reading about tipping customs outside the US.... I am thinking porters may not have been "tipped" as regularly when working on MSC embarkation day vs the other lines where there is a larger passenger base of Americans who customarily tip for services.

[Danny61231]

Thanks for the review..... Glad you had an enjoyable time. Your comment at the beginning regarding being asked for a tip by the porters, was strange. I have cruised out of Miami many times and never have been told when a tip is due. I might get flamed for saying this...but I think this may have been due to the mixture of nationalities and different customs for those cruising on MSC. Based on reading about tipping customs outside the US.... I am thinking porters may not have been "tipped" as regularly when working on MSC embarkation day vs the other lines where there is a larger passenger base of Americans who customarily tip fro services.

I thought it was weird also and I might get flamed for this as well but I'll never tip when someone is trying to demand it...

 

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[KiMnEvan]

Thanks for a Great Review!

[Two Wheels Only]

Thanks for the review.

I'm doing my first MSC cruise in a few months (same ship/itinerary).

[Linda the Book Lover]

Thank you for your wonderful review. It was light and airy and full of information about what you did. I love your photos which really made this reader feel like I was traveling with you.

[Keith1010]

Fantastic review and photos.

 

Keith

[Captain-John]

Excellent review and glad you had a great first experience both with MSC and cruising in general!

 

I am with you on the tipping - if you ask for it, you won't get it. Only problem is your bags might not make it onto the ship if you don't tip the porter!

 

It's an organised racket, nothing more, nothing less. In Europe they just take your bags, as it's their job. End of.

 

Regarding sunbed availability - I'm sure I just misread you but I hope you weren't reserving a sunbed at 8AM and coming back later on to enjoy it! :P

[cruise4kicks]

Very well written review! You should submit this to CC's review area. I bet you'll get selected as a Review of the Week!

[Danny61231]

Excellent review and glad you had a great first experience both with MSC and cruising in general!

 

I am with you on the tipping - if you ask for it, you won't get it. Only problem is your bags might not make it onto the ship if you don't tip the porter!

 

It's an organised racket, nothing more, nothing less. In Europe they just take your bags, as it's their job. End of.

 

Regarding sunbed availability - I'm sure I just misread you but I hope you weren't reserving a sunbed at 8AM and coming back later on to enjoy it! :P

You didn't misread about the sun bed situation. 90% of the chairs get reserved early so if you don't reserve one you won't have a sun bed. Normally we would reserve one asst 8 AM, go and have breakfast, and then go to the chair. I know people don't like the idea of reserving chairs but that's how it works on this ship.

 

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[calgaryhhr]

Thanks for the review..... Glad you had an enjoyable time. Your comment at the beginning regarding being asked for a tip by the porters, was strange. I have cruised out of Miami many times and never have been told when a tip is due. I might get flamed for saying this...but I think this may have been due to the mixture of nationalities and different customs for those cruising on MSC. Based on reading about tipping customs outside the US.... I am thinking porters may not have been "tipped" as regularly when working on MSC embarkation day vs the other lines where there is a larger passenger base of Americans who customarily tip for services.

 

I think you are probably correct. Our porter directly asked us for a tip as well when he took our bags. He did not receive a tip. We did tip our shuttle driver when he dropped us off and unloaded our luggage though. I've never seen the porters essentially begging for tips. Either they feel that the large European population is unaware or they have a poor contracted rate with MSC. I'm not sure how the contracts work between cruise companies and porters.

[mafig]

What was that little ship next to Seaside?

 

Looks like you had beautiful weather.;p

[calgaryhhr]

Looks like one of the older RCCL ships. Enchantment or Vision?

[helenb]

Great review! Thanks to the OP for relating his experiences and posting the photos!

 

The tipping story makes me very glad that we will only have carryon bags with us. If we get a pushy porter asking for tips, we can walk right by and bring our own bags onto the ship.

[Two Wheels Only]

Looks like one of the older RCCL ships. Enchantment or Vision?

Could be Rhapsody OTS.

[Danny61231]

It was the Rhapsody of the seas. It's hard to believe the size difference between the two!

 

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[BermudaBound2014]

Danny, welcome home. Enjoyed your review. It's always refreshing to read from a first time cruisers perspective. I remember my first cruise, I came home and told everyone how amazing it was. I was totally hooked. Convinced lots of others to sail the line. Five years later the entire cruise line went bankrupt because they actually sucked but I didn't know any better (Regency for the old timers lol). I'm not at all saying MSC is going bankrupt or that your cruise wasn't amazing. I still love love love the Regent Sea and she will always be one of my most favorite cruises. After all, that little ship is the reason I'm such a fan.

 

Welcome to the cruising!! So happy your first experience was a memorable one.

 

 

Mafig: I'd bet anything that is Rhapsody. She is a grand old lady, did a 10 day spin on her last year from Venice. The vision class on RCL is a lovely step back in time.

[shukapaw]

Danny,

glad you had a good time on your trip.

 

Thanks so much for taking the time to share these details with us. Looking forward to a couple weeks on the Seaside in about 3 months.

 

~Brian

[Freespir8]

Thanks so much for taking the time to write such a well balanced review. Loved your attitude about everything and so happy that you discovered cruising too. We fell in love with it and even when we try to book a land based vacation, we always seem to end up on a cruise instead. We will be on Seaside this Saturday and have two more booked and one with Meraviglia. I have found the only way to get over the depression of leaving one cruise,is to book another.

 

Annie

 

 

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[TrinaLC]

OP is correct. You have to reserve your chair or you won’t get one. Fact of life on MSC. Maybe a European thing.

 

 

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[mimi217]

Thanks so much for a great review! We will be cruising on MSC for the first time in April. After reading your review I am looking forward to it even more.

You mentioned that your dinner was at 7:45 . Is that the early or late seating?

Thanks in advance.

[windlicht]

umm... no, not getting a chair is not "maybe a European thing." I just returned from a RCI cruise where people who did not go and reserve loungers early, did not find one. One day we found a somewhat reclined chair (not a lounger) on the side of a lower deck, which was okay, as well. It happens.