Just back from the Seascape

[skittl1321]

My family of 4 just got back from the Seascape. Our kids were 4 and 6 and had an amazing time. 

 

I am working on going through photos, and will try to do an in-depth review as the days go by, but my short review is: Wow! My expectations were greatly exceeded. I was really worried I picked the wrong cruiseline after reading so many negative reviews during my planning, but I have very few complaints at all. It felt like when we started cruising carnival in 2008, high quality food, high quality service. 

 

We cruised in a balcony cabin, fantastica experience. Drinks and Wifi were included in our booking. We had early dining, which was at 5:00.

Having young kids, we did very few of the planned daytime activities, and were in bed well before any evening parties, so our cruise experience is maybe a bit different from others who are staying up late and partying.

 

 Some initial thoughts:

Food: Buffet was a madhouse on embarkation day and after Grand Cayman, but not too bad any other time we went for lunch or breakfast (we never went for dinner). The breakfast choices were preferable to the dining room, but it was easier for us to go to the dining room with the kids. The lunch choices seemed a bit lacking, I didn't feel like there were many things we wanted to eat, so we usually had pizza. The kids did not like any of the dessert choices on the buffet, I could have eaten my weight in cream puffs and eclairs. Dining room breakfast service was not great- there was always a mistake with our order, and often they didn't have what we asked for. Dining room dinner was amazing, our head waiter was a highlight of the cruise. Kids menu was a bit boring, but the kids loved eating off the main menu, and just adored having ice cream every night.  My husband loved the dinner menu and found tons he liked to eat. I am a picky eater and ate more beef on this cruise than I have in the past few years combined, but it was all really good; I just had a hard time finding options.  

 

Drinks package: We had the easy plus package, and honestly, I wish I could have had the non-alcoholic package so I could have soft serve ice cream included! But my husband was happy with the variety of wines available at dinner, as well as the mixed drinks or ciders he had during the day. The kids LOVED getting virgin strawberry daquiris and pina coladas, and I drank a lot of diet coke!  Our drinks waiter was confused at dinner that I didn't drink, so would often bring out the Asti or Prosecco my husband ordered for me as well. (Never the red wine though...)  No problem, I just passed the drink over to my husband.  We mostly went to the bar in the atrium and the bartenders were amazing for our kids. My 4-year old loved cherries in his drink, and one time the waiter gave him 10!  Drink service was not fast, but the bartenders almost always were making frozen cocktails, not just handing out beers, so it takes some time.  Drinks were not premixed, so I could get a virgin strawberry daquiri with a banana in it, basically making a strawberry banana smoothie 🙂  Kids ice cream in the kids drink package was available most of the day, at the jungle pool bar; soft serve, chocolate, vanilla, or mix.  It was REALLY good soft serve.  We did get charged once and had to have the $4.50 charge removed. They tried to tell us the problem was an adult ordered it; but we handed over the kids card, and they eventually did remove us, but customer service really fought back on that.  I'm glad my kids shared, because I really wanted ice cream, but I wasn't paying that much for it.

 

Pirates Cove water park: 100% the best part of the cruise for us.  Our kids lived here. We didn't ask until the end of the cruise if our daughter could go on the slides because she was under the posted age limit. (I walked up and just said "what's the age?" and they just asked me how old she was, I said 6, and they said fine, and I signed a waiver.)  If I had done that the first day, I don't think I would have been able to get her off the waterslides ever.  On sea days it was a mad house, but after ports (or during) it was really amazing. My younger son loved the mini slides and enjoyed the kids pool. We didn't go into other pools because of their depth. 

 

Elevators: Um, so this is probably the number one complaint I've heard across the ship.  Honestly, I think the elevator system was fine, maybe even good. The problem is people don't understand it.  (I worked in a high-rise that used basically the same system.)  You press the button for the floor you want to go to, it assigns and elevator and tells you how long it will be.  I THINK you are supposed to press the button the number of times there are people in your party, so the elevator can determine if it is full, but nothing said to do that, and we didn't, nor did we see anyone else do it.  Here are where the problems lie: People don't understand how the elevators are assigned, so when it shows a long wait, they press another floor near the one they want. Then another. We saw people press every single floor in a row.  So now the computer is assigning elevators to go from that floor to every single floor.  We were also guilty of abandoning elevators to take the stairs if the wait was more than 2 minutes, so the system could really use a cancel button!  With a regular elevator bank though, you'd just be waiting and waiting, and you'd have just as many issues with full elevators. I think the seascape could really use MORE elevators.  We did get the "no elevator available" message a few times; but we've been on plenty of cruise ships where we just wait and wait; so at least with that message the people ON the elevator aren't stopping at every floor.

 

Kids Club: Our kids only went to kids club twice (mini club). They had a dance party where they took the kids out on deck; and our kids told us it was incredible; but when we tried to get them to go again, they told us it was boring and there were only legos to play with. Both times we went to check them in and out it was absolute chaos with so much noise from all the parties in the rooms; but the process was very secure. 

 

Shows: We went to see 3 shows and a comedian. The comedian was fine but not really our cup of tea.  He literally kept checking his watch, as part of his act??? but it just felt like he could not be bothered to be there and was literally saying "5 minutes left to meet my contractual obligations". That's OK, not every comedian is for everyone. The guy behind us clearly thought he was hilarious.  The shows were amazing.  No, they are not broadway shows. They are song/dance revues, with arielists and contortionists. The dancers were very good. The costuming was good. The singers were good. The music was way too loud.  It reminded me of Carnival 15 years ago, when we used to be super impressed with their original shows.  My 4-year old was absolutely enamoured with every second of the shows, and we LOVED that after the performances the entertainers came out to take photos. That was such an incredible touch that really made the cruise for the kids. The 7:30 show often sold out.  We skipped the "In Concert" show because the kids were tired, and I wish we hadn't. We also skipped the instrumentalist.   I bet the pop-up entertainment in La Caberet Rouge was excellent as it was many of the same performers, but it was too late at night for us to attend.  The space is underutilized during the day, so our kids loved going back there and dancing on the stage when the room was empty. 

 

 

Will add more later... ports, more about food, stateroom, and any thing people ask about. (Plus some photos.)

[Match Game 72]

Thanks for sharing your experience. Glad you had a good cruise.

[JamieLogical]

Glad to hear you had a great time. Looking forward to reading more of your review.

[kasi1979]

Good to know that there are still people cruising in regular staterooms, as all we get to read are YC reviews.

Looking forward to all you have to say about this cruise.

[skittl1321]

Hmm, so here's my problem with photos. My husband does all the photos, and he's teaching a ton this week so hasn't processed any of them, so let me try a few that I snapped with my phone.

 

My typical buffet breakfast.  The white donuts were SO good. Bavarian creme filled.  (Chocolate ones were chocolate filled, pink were jelly filled, much to my daughter's disappointment.) The bacon was SO good and crispy, and no bacon police to limit how many you can have.  

 

 

Buffet lunch: The fruit on this ship was SO good, and these creme puffs/eclairs were amazing. I liked the white creme better than the chocolate though.  

 

Dining room breakfast.  The omlets here you could have tons of things added, as opposed to the pre-fab ones on the buffet (I never saw an omelet station at least.) 

 

Another dining room omelette.  The english muffin was not toasted, so I could not eat it.  Ironically, my kids like bagels untoasted, but those always came out toasted.  I had read previously that MSC doesn't serve butter with their bread, but we always had butter on our tables. 

 

Surf and turf:

These mashed potatoes were the best thing I ate the entire cruise.  I just wanted the turf part, and it was an excellent steak. I don't really get the fuss over lobster, but I think my husband ate it, and the kids tried it. 

 

Caesar Salad: This was so good. No anchovies, which I prefer. On carnival I can't eat them they are so fishy, so I was so excited to get one I ate nearly every night here.  

 

We probably had 20+ of these over the course of our cruise. The kids LOVED these (though my daughter really wished the sprinkles were not on the whipped cream, since she doesn't eat whipped cream), and they were my favorite dessert too.

 

The various pastas in the everyday section of the menu were the go-to for my daughter.

 

Grandma's chocolate cake was rich, and so delicious.

 

Is this called prime rib? I ordered it mainly because it came with a "loaded baked potato", but the potato only had sour cream on it. Still, the meat exceeded my expectations once I got around the fatty parts (which I understand are a feature of the cut). I haven't eaten much beef in years, so it surprised me how often I ordered it on the cruise. 

 

Just a funny shot to close out the post.  "Cultural differences" on MSC. Our water never had ice (and that was fine with me), but my daughter's milk did.

[JamieLogical]

Ice in milk? WTH?

[skittl1321]

We had regular balcony cabin 10183. It was midship and a great location.  We were a bit too far down to do stairs up to the buffet, but we did do stairs down; and we were able to take stairs up and down to shows, dinner, and the lobby; so less waiting for elevators.

 

My 6-year old was THRILLED to have a bunk bed.  My 4-year old actually ended up sleeping on the floor everynight, weirdo. The bed stayed as a bed, and I would have liked to have a couch, but it was nice to have distinct spaces for the kids, as before we would do an activity we would make them "HOP", head on pillow, for 3 minutes to calm down; sometimes that 3-minutes took nearly half an hour to get their heads down and them calm.  

 

 

The two adults in the cabin next to us were extremely loud (it was a connecting cabin), and thank god, because I am sure they hated us, I know we were too loud...

 

The cabin was very narrow. There was not a lot of walking space in front of the bed, and there was a little stool and table under the vanity, but there would not have been room for a coffee table to stay in front of the couch. 

 

I was very happy with the balcony. There were two chairs and an ottoman/table. There was enough room to put it in front of the chair and set your feet up. I had read the balconies were small and there was only room to sit with the chair sideways.  All 4 of us could comfortably sit out on the balcony, though with small kids, I often preferred to sit on the ground with them, so no one tried to climb.

 

The balcony door had a lock, but also a secondary lock that was above the kids reach.

 

No towel animals, but our room steward did always tuck the kids stuffed animals in, and even their ipad one night...

 

We had plenty of storage for a family of 4. We brought 8 magnetic hooks, and would bring a few more next time, as we had tons of swimsuits to dry out, little kids don't like putting wet ones on, so we went through 2 a day.  We also had their floaties (though we ended up not using them on the ship, as they are decent swimmers and the water shallow, but they were wet from port.) We also bring an over the door shoe organizer for all our stuff.

 

The bathroom shower was very very small. The smallest I can remember on a ship, but it did have a glass door, so at least there was never a curtain attacking us.

 

Our room steward never told us his name, but we said hello in the hallway every time we saw him. He was friendly, but extremely busy.

[skittl1321]

8 hours ago, kasi1979 said:

Good to know that there are still people cruising in regular staterooms, as all we get to read are YC reviews.

Looking forward to all you have to say about this cruise.

I was honestly so nervous about this cruise, as all I kept reading was that MSC is awful unless you are yacht club; after I booked it.  That just was not the case at all for us. We had an amazing time and our expectations were far exceeded. 

 

Even though all the reviews seem to be nearly all for yacht club, and people say the rest of the ship is trash; they are sailing fully booked so clearly SOMEONE is sailing back there in steerage with me 🙂

 

A lot of people say MSC is super cheap, and that was not the case for us; it cost about the same as we pay on other lines ($3400ish for the four of us after military discount; by contrast we have paid $3800 for a junior suite on RCCL for a 7-day europe cruise; that had kids sail free, MSC did not when we booked); but I think that's an incredible value for what was offered. 

 

We had also heard a lot of people say that the people who sail MSC are really rude, and we didn't find that to be the case at all.  Everyone we met was friendly and polite. There was always a bit of craziness in the buffet, and people would cut in and out of lines; but we've seen that on every cruise.  There were more people whose first language was not English than was, as far as I could tell, and a few people who had no English at all, so my husband got a lot of practice with his French, Spanish, and Portugeuse.  We had one tour with all Italians, and we talked to them through broken English and Spanish, since none of us speak Italian. Husband now wants to learn it before the next MSC cruise.   I feel like Europeans in general are so much more patient with kids than Americans, and that was helpful for me, as I spent half the cruise apologizing for my 4-year old son walking straight into people, and everyone would always smile, say no worries, and rub his head...

[PTC DAWG]

27 minutes ago, JamieLogical said:

Ice in milk? WTH?

Milk is about 90% water...ice just keeps it a little colder.  

Edited August 9, 2023 by PTC DAWG

[PTC DAWG]

8 hours ago, kasi1979 said:

Good to know that there are still people cruising in regular staterooms, as all we get to read are YC reviews.

Looking forward to all you have to say about this cruise.

I've stayed in both..YC and the regular part of the ship.  Even when in YC, the Wife and I get out a good bit into the regular areas of the ship.  I think MSC has a good product...

[rikitikitavii]

4 hours ago, PTC DAWG said:

I've stayed in both..YC and the regular part of the ship.  Even when in YC, the Wife and I get out a good bit into the regular areas of the ship.  I think MSC has a good product...

We were on Seascape in YC last week, and preferred the marketplace buffet for lunch on port days! Much better selection IMO.

[indstate3333]

Thanks for the reviews.  I am happy to hear that the service had not changed since our last MSC cruise in 2019 (Seaside).  We are booked on the Seascape for the 9/24 Cruise with an Aurea Balcony again.

[skittl1321]

Hmmm, just realized some of my photos are broken now. Not sure what happened, and it doesn't look like I can edit, so I will just apologize.

[Itchy&Scratchy]

7 hours ago, skittl1321 said:

A lot of people say MSC is super cheap, and that was not the case for us; it cost about the same as we pay on other lines ($3400ish for the four of us after military discount; by contrast we have paid $3800 for a junior suite on RCCL for a 7-day europe cruise; that had kids sail free, MSC did not when we booked); but I think that's an incredible value for what was offered. 

you have to book far in advance to get a much better price. For example, I paid $2,300 for our upcoming November Seascape cruise, also a reg balcony on deck 10, for the 3 of us, with drinks and wifi included. I booked a year in advance. Now this same cruise is $2,987 pp WITHOUT the drinks/wifi and $3,657 with the drinks/wifi.

 

57 minutes ago, skittl1321 said:

Hmmm, just realized some of my photos are broken now. Not sure what happened, and it doesn't look like I can edit, so I will just apologize.

save them all to your hard drive and then drag and drop them into your post.

[JamieLogical]

8 hours ago, skittl1321 said:

The bathroom shower was very very small. The smallest I can remember on a ship, but it did have a glass door, so at least there was never a curtain attacking us.

 

Thank you for the flashbacks to my strongly formed life partnership with the shower curtain in my Emerald Princess balcony cabin back in December....

 

🥺

[skittl1321]

16 hours ago, Itchy&Scratchy said:

you have to book far in advance to get a much better price. For example, I paid $2,300 for our upcoming November Seascape cruise, also a reg balcony on deck 10, for the 3 of us, with drinks and wifi included. I booked a year in advance. Now this same cruise is $2,987 pp WITHOUT the drinks/wifi and $3,657 with the drinks/wifi.

 

 

Yeah, and that might be part of the difference, we booked RCCL a year out and MSC maybe 5 months out.  I am happy with the price we paid, I think it was fine; I just hear so often that MSC is a bargain basement cruise line, and I don't necessarily think that is true.  It is probably a bit cheaper overall than NCL/CCL/RCCL but it is right in line with them, I think.  Depends on various promotions, and when you book. I just don't think people should assume MSC = super cheap.  This wasn't a walmart of the seas party cruise environment, so I don't think it is attracting the people looking for only the lowest fares.  

[skittl1321]

Still waiting to get some more pictures before I update about ports.  Man does life get in the way 😞 I want to go back to the cruise, it really was incredible. 

[blueslily]

On 8/10/2023 at 9:55 AM, skittl1321 said:

 

Yeah, and that might be part of the difference, we booked RCCL a year out and MSC maybe 5 months out.  I am happy with the price we paid, I think it was fine; I just hear so often that MSC is a bargain basement cruise line, and I don't necessarily think that is true.  It is probably a bit cheaper overall than NCL/CCL/RCCL but it is right in line with them, I think.  Depends on various promotions, and when you book. I just don't think people should assume MSC = super cheap.  This wasn't a walmart of the seas party cruise environment, so I don't think it is attracting the people looking for only the lowest fares.  

 

MSC used to have much better pricing for itineraries I was sailing at that time. As other lines have increased pricing, so has MSC. Now I see SOME pricing benefit, but definitely not on the same level that I had experienced in past years. Sadly, its bye to those good old days, lol. (for me). 

[traceytd]

On 8/8/2023 at 2:02 PM, skittl1321 said:

My family of 4 just got back from the Seascape. Our kids were 4 and 6 and had an amazing time. 

 

I am working on going through photos, and will try to do an in-depth review as the days go by, but my short review is: Wow! My expectations were greatly exceeded. I was really worried I picked the wrong cruiseline after reading so many negative reviews during my planning, but I have very few complaints at all. It felt like when we started cruising carnival in 2008, high quality food, high quality service. 

 

We cruised in a balcony cabin, fantastica experience. Drinks and Wifi were included in our booking. We had early dining, which was at 5:00.

Having young kids, we did very few of the planned daytime activities, and were in bed well before any evening parties, so our cruise experience is maybe a bit different from others who are staying up late and partying.

 

 Some initial thoughts:

Food: Buffet was a madhouse on embarkation day and after Grand Cayman, but not too bad any other time we went for lunch or breakfast (we never went for dinner). The breakfast choices were preferable to the dining room, but it was easier for us to go to the dining room with the kids. The lunch choices seemed a bit lacking, I didn't feel like there were many things we wanted to eat, so we usually had pizza. The kids did not like any of the dessert choices on the buffet, I could have eaten my weight in cream puffs and eclairs. Dining room breakfast service was not great- there was always a mistake with our order, and often they didn't have what we asked for. Dining room dinner was amazing, our head waiter was a highlight of the cruise. Kids menu was a bit boring, but the kids loved eating off the main menu, and just adored having ice cream every night.  My husband loved the dinner menu and found tons he liked to eat. I am a picky eater and ate more beef on this cruise than I have in the past few years combined, but it was all really good; I just had a hard time finding options.  

 

Drinks package: We had the easy plus package, and honestly, I wish I could have had the non-alcoholic package so I could have soft serve ice cream included! But my husband was happy with the variety of wines available at dinner, as well as the mixed drinks or ciders he had during the day. The kids LOVED getting virgin strawberry daquiris and pina coladas, and I drank a lot of diet coke!  Our drinks waiter was confused at dinner that I didn't drink, so would often bring out the Asti or Prosecco my husband ordered for me as well. (Never the red wine though...)  No problem, I just passed the drink over to my husband.  We mostly went to the bar in the atrium and the bartenders were amazing for our kids. My 4-year old loved cherries in his drink, and one time the waiter gave him 10!  Drink service was not fast, but the bartenders almost always were making frozen cocktails, not just handing out beers, so it takes some time.  Drinks were not premixed, so I could get a virgin strawberry daquiri with a banana in it, basically making a strawberry banana smoothie 🙂  Kids ice cream in the kids drink package was available most of the day, at the jungle pool bar; soft serve, chocolate, vanilla, or mix.  It was REALLY good soft serve.  We did get charged once and had to have the $4.50 charge removed. They tried to tell us the problem was an adult ordered it; but we handed over the kids card, and they eventually did remove us, but customer service really fought back on that.  I'm glad my kids shared, because I really wanted ice cream, but I wasn't paying that much for it.

 

Pirates Cove water park: 100% the best part of the cruise for us.  Our kids lived here. We didn't ask until the end of the cruise if our daughter could go on the slides because she was under the posted age limit. (I walked up and just said "what's the age?" and they just asked me how old she was, I said 6, and they said fine, and I signed a waiver.)  If I had done that the first day, I don't think I would have been able to get her off the waterslides ever.  On sea days it was a mad house, but after ports (or during) it was really amazing. My younger son loved the mini slides and enjoyed the kids pool. We didn't go into other pools because of their depth. 

 

Elevators: Um, so this is probably the number one complaint I've heard across the ship.  Honestly, I think the elevator system was fine, maybe even good. The problem is people don't understand it.  (I worked in a high-rise that used basically the same system.)  You press the button for the floor you want to go to, it assigns and elevator and tells you how long it will be.  I THINK you are supposed to press the button the number of times there are people in your party, so the elevator can determine if it is full, but nothing said to do that, and we didn't, nor did we see anyone else do it.  Here are where the problems lie: People don't understand how the elevators are assigned, so when it shows a long wait, they press another floor near the one they want. Then another. We saw people press every single floor in a row.  So now the computer is assigning elevators to go from that floor to every single floor.  We were also guilty of abandoning elevators to take the stairs if the wait was more than 2 minutes, so the system could really use a cancel button!  With a regular elevator bank though, you'd just be waiting and waiting, and you'd have just as many issues with full elevators. I think the seascape could really use MORE elevators.  We did get the "no elevator available" message a few times; but we've been on plenty of cruise ships where we just wait and wait; so at least with that message the people ON the elevator aren't stopping at every floor.

 

Kids Club: Our kids only went to kids club twice (mini club). They had a dance party where they took the kids out on deck; and our kids told us it was incredible; but when we tried to get them to go again, they told us it was boring and there were only legos to play with. Both times we went to check them in and out it was absolute chaos with so much noise from all the parties in the rooms; but the process was very secure. 

 

Shows: We went to see 3 shows and a comedian. The comedian was fine but not really our cup of tea.  He literally kept checking his watch, as part of his act??? but it just felt like he could not be bothered to be there and was literally saying "5 minutes left to meet my contractual obligations". That's OK, not every comedian is for everyone. The guy behind us clearly thought he was hilarious.  The shows were amazing.  No, they are not broadway shows. They are song/dance revues, with arielists and contortionists. The dancers were very good. The costuming was good. The singers were good. The music was way too loud.  It reminded me of Carnival 15 years ago, when we used to be super impressed with their original shows.  My 4-year old was absolutely enamoured with every second of the shows, and we LOVED that after the performances the entertainers came out to take photos. That was such an incredible touch that really made the cruise for the kids. The 7:30 show often sold out.  We skipped the "In Concert" show because the kids were tired, and I wish we hadn't. We also skipped the instrumentalist.   I bet the pop-up entertainment in La Caberet Rouge was excellent as it was many of the same performers, but it was too late at night for us to attend.  The space is underutilized during the day, so our kids loved going back there and dancing on the stage when the room was empty. 

 

 

Will add more later... ports, more about food, stateroom, and any thing people ask about. (Plus some photos.)

Thanks for the great review.
We are actually going to be in that exact same room soon.

I was wondering about the bunkbed, if you had option to have it as a sofa in the day and bunk beds at night. Would your steward have don that for you. 

[skittl1321]

3 minutes ago, traceytd said:

Thanks for the great review.
We are actually going to be in that exact same room soon.

I was wondering about the bunkbed, if you had option to have it as a sofa in the day and bunk beds at night. Would your steward have don that for you. 

We did not ask, but I suspect they would if you asked them to.