gtalum

We are sailing this Friday, December 3rd on Seaside's maiden transatlantic voyage to Miami. Would love to meet up with other travelers on board. Currently in Trieste.

Friday is December 1. I hope your calendar is correct. :D

MSC has a Chef's Table? We have done this experience on Carnival a couple of times and loved it. Any additional info would be appreciated.

If you read the description, sadly it's not much like the Carnival offering.

Thanks for the photos Sidari!

I'm dying for photos of the one bedroom side Grand Suites, though (**002 and **003)!

I suspect the low 2018 prices were a "loss leader" of sorts to fill the ship. Assuming the early voyages are a success there's no reason to continue discounting like they were.

No if I used a different airline I'd pay way more. Southwest still has free bags! And with us being a family with 3 woman plus my dh there are always 8 checked bags plus 4 carry ons😎

 

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Consider packing much lighter and flying directly into MIA. Your trip will be much less stressful.

My wife and I and our 2 kids travel for an indefinite time period in 3 carry-on sized rollaboards and 3 backpacks.

This is not a reason to pour scorn on MSC, this only highlights this particular cruisers prejudices.

 

Possible good reasons: Bad food (Subjective), Bad service, Ship sinks.

Not good reasons: Thinking English is the only language that should be spoken on board.

I agree. I think her complaints are probably baseless.

and yet you're offering no explanation as to what was wrong with your cruise? Post after post of 'worst cruise line' but no detail why. Not the most helpful. Keep on going with the trolling though.

She expressed discomfort with "multiple languages" being spoken aboard in another thread. Assuming she's being honest, I suspect the problem lies in the fact that MSC offers a much more European experience than many insular Americans are used to. All of her complaints point in that direction.

Waiting for photos of the SE3 Aurea Grand Suites is like torture.

New (as far as I can tell, haven’t seen it in the thread yet) pic showing one of the whirlpool tubs on a balcony... just me or does that look really small for more than just one person??

 

 

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That looks small for one person by himself. That guy isn't very big and he fills the whole thing up.

OPT OUT ASAP my review won't be posted for a day or 2, but i titled it, calling it the spiritair of cruising is an insult to spirit. however bad you think the customer service it's way worse than that. food is awful, service around the ship is worse. it is horrible for americans. we're not used to this poor service. it's like in an italian movie of the 1960's where they're screaming at each, but 7 different languages. just get out if you can. did you take insurance, if you get real sick, real soon. please for your sanity opt out.

OMG! Multiple languages?!?!? How terrifying! :loudcry:

;)

In seriousness, I strongly suspect that you are describing a more European approach to service rather than the typical American approach. It's not bad (and neither is the American way), it's just different.

It's probably just hiding from you, Dave. :D It's 'alt + 3' on my macBook. ####

And it's 'Shift + 3' on the PC.

Probably drugs.

This seems most likely.

Since St. Thomas is a US port, it could also be that someone on board was discovered to have a serious warrant against them.

Would love to but unfortunately it's very difficult for my boyfriend and I to take off of work. And even when we do on vacation we have to work. Such is corporate life.

I completely understand having to work some on vacation, as I own a small business and my wife is an attorney. We have to buy a sizeable internet package every time we cruise.

You still have to find a way to make the time, and to enjoy the time you do get.

I promise I'm really trying to help, not to be a jerk. :)

Take a deep breath and enjoy your trip.

If you don't hear back within a few days, submit again. The first time I submitted I heard nothing, and a few weeks later I resubmitted all 4 of our Carnival statuses and got a response the same day on each one.

Oh and take more vacations. That way there won't be so much pressure if one isn't quite what you hoped... ;)

Literally? ;)

Relax. Ultimately a vacation is what you make of it, so go into it with an open attitude. That said, there is nothing to be "terrified" of even if your worst assumptions are true.

If you go in expecting a bad vacation, you're going to have a bad vacation.

Good luck!

We enjoyed our experience on Poesia and Divina. Beautiful ships, great entertainment, which we thought topped most of other ships. I do prefer production shows to Broadway ones.

The only downside for us was evening buffets offerings and quality and preparation meat. Hope this has improved.

On Divina we missed Italian flare of Poesia, as it was more americanized(nothing against my country, but we picked MSC to experience Europe :) )

I suspect Seaside will be geared even more to North American pax.

 

I would place MSC experience much closer to RCCL, than Carnival.

I'm not expecting much "Italian flair" on Seaside, but we will be pleasantly surprised if there is some!

We are easygoing cruisers, so I'm certain we'll enjoy ourselves. We are very frequent Carnival cruisers, but open-minded to try everybody else. Give me a beer and a deck chair overlooking the water and I'm happy. :D

The fare that snagged us was the Grand Suite. I'm looking forward to seeing what one of those actually looks like. We're going to sail in a 1-bedroom Grand Suite with drinks included for less than a very similar Carnival cruise in a standard balcony without drinks. Privacy from the kids in the cabin will be much appreciated, so we took that over a similarly priced YC Balcony.

Well, MSC is very aggressive in pursuit of North American market. Starting with pricing.

I am sure other cruiselines aren't very happy about them trying to steal their loyal pax base. Although MSC perks aren't comparable to for example RCCL.

They seem to be placing themselves firmly in between Carnival and Royal, in terms of membership perks. I agree, the other lines can't be happy about their rates, but the spectacular ones offered last spring and summer seem to be going up now so I suspect they'll reach an equilibrium. With so many new ships coming on line so quickly they needed to do something to ramp up their customer base.

Now to see if they can hold on to us with the onboard experience. I'm looking forward to our Seaside cruise in June.

we have booked a cruise on the Seaside departing on March 17 from Miami. After reading reviews, it seems there are lots of kids on MSC cruises.

For people that have cruised on Divina, what can I expect? We have cruised on Royal Princess last year and Cekebrity Refkection before that

Thanks

Mid-late March is spring break season for Florida kids, and for a lot of colleges around the nation. So probably yes, lots of kids and "kids". :cool:

Unless I am missing it, there does not appear to be a pre-paid option for parking? Is that correct? If so, too bad. We just returned from a cruise out of Port Canaveral and being able to pre-pay parking was wonderful. You just showed your paid receipt and were waved in.

You pay on the way out. It's quick and easy.

It's not cheap ($20 per day last time I was there) but it's convenient and plentiful.

Here is Mark’s post from yesterday in Facebook

 

“ "Finished" photos of cabins are still a week or two away.Please keep in mind that everything has to be loaded on board,Laundry needs to be operational, Crew fully trained and in place, and all cabins MUST pass the final inspections with ZERO remarks from our side.As soon as we have cabins that are fully set up I will post , I Understand and appreciate the anticipation and would not like to ruin it by posting photos that do not show the true beauty of this ship, Public Areas,Open Decks and Cabins.”

 

 

 

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I am not knocking Mark here, but I find it odd that he was free to post "in process" photos of the public areas but not the cabins. There are many public space photos with construction going on.

I'm sure he is posting everything that he is allowed to, but I wonder what MSC is hiding with the cabins?

Good luck collecting from him.

I doubt it's worth trashing the OP's credit.

Grinder

Download and check it out

Grindr is like Tinder but only for gay men. You might not want to download it. Then again you might. :cool:

Just charge it back and start sailing a different cruise line.

This is not a good plan. If the cruise line has a legitimate claim to the funds it will just go to collections.