Comparing Carnival Vista Suite to the Seascape Deluxe Grand Suite

[Moparfiend]

I just wanted to share a brief comparison of the two as these where my most recent cruises on my favorite ships from the brands.

Some will say it's not fair to compare an older ship like Carnival Pride to a newer one that's double the size. Having been on 17+ carnival cruises, with 9 on the same size (spirit class), this is actually in Carnivals benefit as it's our favorite ship and size for Carnival. Carnival's Mega ship experience was bad, really really bad, but that's a future review for MSC Owners Suite vs Mardi Gras Presidential Suite comparison later this year.

Both cruises where 7 days

Price
Carnival 
Room+Drinks+wifi came in roughly at 8k
MSC
Room (comes with drink and wifi), came in roughly at 6k
Winner: MSC, significantly cheaper

Rooms
Carnival Vista Suite
Room Size: 
Cabin: 245 sqft (23 m²)
Balcony: 220 sqft (21 m²)

Features: Wrap around deck at the back of the ship, split room (living room/seating area)
Perks: 1 bottle of water, priority boarding/disembarkation
Biggest Pro: Nice view and lots of natural light from inside. The deck area is nice, but it's so narrow that you can't lay out and see the ocean without turning your head to the side by > 90 degrees
Biggest Cons: The room layout is so bad that I could not even get out of bed without closing the door to the bathroom and with less then 12" I was sideways and usually ended up hitting the wall. The TV is tiny and not visible from the bed's left side where I sleep (ok, you can kinda see it, but the angle is extreme). No chair in the bedroom area.  Room was dirty, had them clean it but no attention to detail. 

Seascape Deluxe Grand
Room Size: 
Cabin: 269 sqft (25 m²)
Balcony: 86 sqft (8 m²)
Features: Larger then normal balcony deck where you can sit or lay down (they brought us a lounger) and look straight to see the water. Bigger walk in closet then Carnival. Way nicer bath room in both size and layout.
Perks: YC Level, priority, room service, butler, more then enough threads on all the stuff YC includes here
Biggest Pro: Clean, I mean super clean, we wiped the entire room down with wetwipe's and there was 0 dust or specs of anything on them. Service and YC features made this my wife's and I #1 cruise ever (pretty good considering we have gone on 35+ between the wife and I)
Biggest Cons: Weed smell on day 2, resolved by day 3 by the most awesome YC Director Mustafa 

Winner: MSC - I liked the concept of the Vista Suite, but in practice, if you sleep on the left side of the bed, it's horrid. My wife said the right side was fine.

Service
In general areas, both where fine. Some fast, some slower, overall no complaints.
In YC, service was over the top, Carnival suites on this class don't have a dedicated area (like loft 19 on Excel class)
Can't really compare Guest Services as we had Suite and are Platinum so there was never a line more then a person or two on Carnival, and YC has it's own area where we never waited more then a few minutes (if at all)
Winner: n/a, YC level service is at such a higher level it's not fair to compare service in the YC area to a Suite on Carnival's smaller ship. 

Food
Carnival food was better then some prior cruises with them, we didn't go hungry, but nothing that I would consider above Golden Corral (which I don't mind). Overall we had no issues other then some raw eggs, which they replaced, and I had a nasty Beef Wellington, which was beyond gross and like chewing on a tire. I simply got something else, maybe I don't like Beef Wellington. (my son said it was horrid as well)
Burgers - Guys Burgers are amazing and those fry's, yeah love them - 10/10

MSC food was amazing in YC, I didn't have a bad meal, even the regular buffet is better then Carnival in my opinion. We loved the food and lack of excessive amounts of sugar in everything.
YC donuts, wow, those have to be one of my favorite items in YC 🙂 Not that I should eat them, but they where SOOOO good.
Burgers - As served, 6/10, Once I learned to ask for extra cheese and some thousand island dressing, the burgers where much better, 8/10

Winner: MSC

Water
This is one of those that should not be a comparison, but since we had brown water coming out of the sinks in the stateroom on Carnival, I'm calling it out. Half the group (14 people) had stomach issues, one person could not eat the entire cruise after night 1. We blame this on the brown water as it was the only thing that was the same between all the people. 

MSC - clear water, no smell, it's water .. but.. some drinking glasses smelled off even if it was from water in a bottle, so I drank sparkling water from the single serve container. Good thing it's YC and those are always available, even in the room.

Carnival - Brown water, yes brown, terrible incredibly strong smell of chlorine in ice and water, dishes smelled like a wet dog. We brought this up multiple times only to hear it happens, it's fine, and they will bring more. I ended up with soda or booze as they didn't have or couldn't get sparkling water in the MDR. Everyone in my group switched to bottle water and no ice.

I will no longer drink tap water on a ship. Bottled only.
Also, what the heck is that wet dog smell?
Winner: MSC

Overall Winner
MSC Seascape YC - and it wasn't even close
Price, food, service, cleanliness, YC perks, fully stocked mini fridge with CLEAN water

When Carnival was a much cheaper option, and the food was 2018 and back level, they where our favorite line. Today with the price, service decline, and failing to even have clean water, they priced themself out of our range for what we get.

Edited July 18 by Moparfiend

[HappyInVan]

I have to agree. MSC YC value is outstanding; while CCL quality is declining.