Itchy&Scratchy

I don't know about Euribia, but I suspect that the always available and kid's menus are the same across the board, so here are the kid's menu and the always available section on Seascape: You can check out my Seascape review for food pics and more menus. My 12 yo didn't want anything off of the kid's menu. He is not exactly a picky eater, but he is not adventurous either. He stuck mainly to always available pastas, caesar salad, tried main menu appetizers and desserts, and loved Grandma's chocolate cake. He enjoyed 3 main pasta dishes: lasagna Bolognese the first night, pasta carbonara and Texas style pulled pork with mac'n'cheese: DO NOT EAT THE PEPPER!!!! Extremely hot. When he didn't see anything he liked on the main menu, he always opted for Pennette pasta with red sauce: While I tried Pennette pasta with Alfredo sauce:

Now, let's talk about the positives and what we have enjoyed onboard Seascape. And some other general observations. 🙂 Card Activation Kiosks - a wonderful service. No need to stand in the long Guest Services line to make a deposit, to get the balance back, or to register your credit card. We've used it several times and were pleasantly surprised by the ease of use. Now, you gotta wait when you touch your cruise card to the reader plate until you hear a ding and then proceed to use the services. The screen had 6 languages that I saw to help international cruisers. Instead of registering a credit card, I made a cash deposit for us and for my parents. For some reason, their gratuities were $101.50, and our gratuities were $98 pp. Not sure why. We were also supposed to have $50 OBC for my DH's silver membership level, but even though I called MSC to add his number to our booking, this never materialized. Oh, well. At least my call didn't cause any problems with the booking itself. Surprisingly, we didn't have any erroneous charges on our folio. I stopped by the Guest Services the first night when it wasn't busy yet to ask why my OBC wasn't showing, and GS told me that she could see it, but it wasn't applied yet, but it will be by the end of day 2. It was. Service - also wonderful. All of the staff members we have simply encountered or dealt with were friendly, smiley, courteous. We enjoyed all the shows in the theater. Comedian A-Train was funny - we went to the family friendly show, most of his jokes went over the head of our friends' 8 and 6 year olds, but our 12 year old understood quite a few of them. The production shows were very nice. The female dancers gave it 200% and were terrific, especially Nia, while the male dancers (especially the shortest one of them) were more of a high school production caliber. Everything else was top notch. I was under the impression that theater shows would be more physical, to accommodate non-English speakers, but there was a lot of singing and pretty much all of the songs were in English. However, they were the familiar favorites, so I am sure even non-Americans enjoyed them. My parents did, and their English is very rudimentary. There was a group of deaf people onboard that week, and they had an ASL interpreter next to the stage. I loved watching them interpret. The acrobatic dance duo and the aerialists were great. I wish we could also see them at Le Cabaret Rouge, but every time we went there, there were other acts on stage... After about day 3 Le Cabaret Rouge shows switched from 8-10:30 pm to start at 10 pm, and we are usually ready to relax in bed or on the balcony by then. Wifi plan worked fine for browsing and even watching short videos/gifs on FB and reddit. I checked my email, FB, checked in with the pet sitter, etc. it does not work as a hot spot, just FYI. MSC has the weirdest disembarkation schedule. Cabins that are next to each other end up being in completely different waiting groups. My parents ended up in group 11 while we were in group 15. I asked our cabin attendant to either give us both group 11 or group 15,, but he told me I had to go to GS and request it. Instead, I just slapped a group 15 label on my parents' suitcase and moved it to our cabin door. Problem solved. Nobody cared. Our plane was leaving at 6 pm that evening, so we had plenty of time and didn't need to be among the first people off the ship. We had a "leisurely" breakfast among the chaos that was the Market Place buffet, and then waited on deck 6 across from the perfume store till about 10 or whenever they were calling groups 40+ and then joined a line of people moving towards the exit. I would call this a smooth disembarkation. No issues.

we didn't want any gelato. Thanks. that machine was always broken or otherwise inoperational. Every time we walked by - and let's face it, we did it many times a day (especially, since the boys were playing ping-pong just a deck up), it wasn't working. The crew member sent us to the Marina Bar (it also had a soft serve machine) where they didn't know that soft serve was included in the kid's package. thank you for restating something I've already said. I also mentioned that the crew didn't know about it. Once again, MSC proves that how it's supposed to be is not always how it really is. And, once again, you interject with how it is in YC. Everybody on this forum has read your posts many times and knows exactly how it is in YC. Please give us some space to discuss how things are outside of it.

Now I want to mention some things about our cruise which left a rather negative impression on us. They will definitely weigh pretty heavily on the negative side when deciding on our next 2025 adventure. First, the elevators. Ugh. We hated them. The number of times they arrived within a minute or two was seriously negated by the number of times we waited for over 5 minutes. While my mom, DH, DS and I could give up and take the stairs for a few floors, my dad couldn't. Once time we waited for 10 minutes, the elevator finally arrived, but it was so full, even my dad alone couldn't squeeze in. We waited for another 10 minutes for the next one. On other cruise lines, we never waited this long. Sometimes, we would even ride down first to ride up, but it's impossible with this stupid MSC system. In the past we would sometimes forget something in the cabin, make it all the way to the MDR, sit down, and then one of us would make a very quick dash to the cabin and make it back before the waiter would even come out with menus. No such luck on Seascape. Second, and a real deal breaker - the level of disorganization, especially when it comes to embarkation and disembarkation in ports of call. Good grief. Why even bother putting the disembarkation deck on the tableau inside the elevator if the person can't see it until they call the elevator to the correct deck first? Why the horribly long lines to get off the ship? Why are there only one or two disembarkation points with only one crew member manning the station? Why do we have to walk for a mile through the bowels of the ship just to get out? Why are they searching all the beach bags manually in Jamaica? What are they looking for? Why does it take over an hour to get back on the ship? Why are we standing in a hot area without any air movement? They are letting families with kids in strollers through, but elderly adults with walking canes and walkers are ignored. If there is no line, they will not shorten a walk to the x-ray machine by taking off some of the ropes. You still have to zigzag through several turns. I can do it, but my dad can't. I actually asked for them to let my dad in because we were literally standing right next to the x-ray machine, there was no line, but they were still sending people to walk through the maze of ropes first. Third, the buffet layout is horrible. Not enough seating for everyone. Some tables are so close to each other, you can't actually sit at them because you can't squeeze into a chair. Tables cannot be moved. Last one: soft serve ice cream. Now, we knew this going in, but we still didn't realize how difficult it would be to obtain it. We knew it was included with the Minor's package, but apparently, MSC crew didn't. Free soft serve is available in the buffet in the afternoon for about an hour, but you are spending that time trying to get back on the ship for over an hour. When you finally get in, the line for ice cream is very long. I managed to get the soft serve only ONCE during the entire cruise. Granted, it was very good, but ONCE???? It's ok, though, it's my DH and kiddo for whom having unlimited soft serve any time they want is an essential part of cruising. DH and kid had it twice - once when we finally convinced the crew member manning the ice cream machine that it was included with the kid's package, but he was still skeptical, and another time when my dad stood in that long line and got 3 cones for us.

Last night's dinner... In its infinite weirdness MSC decided to have a Gala dinner on the last night, while asking people to dress up for dinner, and also to pack their luggage and to only keep the necessary stuff with them. Eggplant parmigiana was pretty good: I loved Salmon Rillettes, even though I didn't know that it was going to be minced salmon with some kind of a red caviar on top. Neither did my husband - he really didn't care for it, so I ate his portion. The waiter forgot to bring me my own. 😞 To my shame I also didn't realize that beef tartar was a RAW dish. Hubs didn't order it and didn't think to warn me either, lol. I got it for myself and my parents, and when it was brought out, my DH said - oh, did you know it was raw? Nope. I actually asked the waiter just to be sure. I stopped eating it - sorry, but I don't trust MSC to properly "disinfect" raw meat. Even though I get a medium steak. 🙂 Lobster bisque was ok. I guess I am not a fan, but I keep ordering these on cruises, hoping to one day find the one I like. When I order clam chowder, it's always different on ships, some I like, and some I don't. Both DH and I ordered filet mignon. Mine was plain, and his as intended - with the jus. It was good, but not Princess or even RCI good. Our waiter tried to get us to order a lobster "for just $5", but we are not fans. Instead I would have loved to have the wild mushroom pasta, but I didn't want to pay extra to get a tiny portion. My parents had Salmon en Croute, since both of them love salmon, and my dad is very fond of feta cheese. It was very good according to them. I also loved the presentation. This beautiful chocolate cake was Royal cake, and it was scrumptious. Ice cream of the day was once again coffee, and our waiter brought it out to all of us without even asking, because he remembered how much we loved it before. It was wonderful yet again. We also tried baked Alaska, and it was very good. And that's it for MDR food. 🙂 I must also note that the asst waiter always brought bottles of mineral water (still and sparking) for our dinner. I don't know if it's because we had an Easy Plus package or everyone gets them as well. I am still not sure.

We did not. One of the reasons we didn't ask is because we always arrived a bit late (because we don't want to eat at 5, so they told us to show up by 5:30 which we did), so if we asked for a different entree or two, it would have pushed our dinner to end much later, when the second seating was ready to dine. Also, we weren't sure they wouldn't mistake it for a plot to get a "free" entree. Those poor waiters get enough crap as it is. It's not like we were still hungry, and if we were, as others pointed out, there was always buffet. We did visit buffet once after MDR dinner with our friends whose kids wanted some food. That's when I discovered delicious buffet desserts.

Thanksgiving dinner 🙂 All the standard US options. The always available menu was also available, but not brought out or mentioned in the digital copy. We ordered all of the appetizers, however, they didn't have the mushroom ragout, because "they didn't have any mushrooms." Surprise! Bacon wrapped shrimp. The shrimp was good, but some plates had soggy bacon. Mine was crispy, DH's was very soggy. And two shrimp? Only two? I should have been used to the tiny portions by now... Dad like the barley soup: Deviled eggs were good and fluffy, but not as tasty as Nana makes. 🙂 Mom ordered Glazed Salmon and loved it. Unfortunately, she felt obliged to give it to dad, when his turkey was a bit on a tough side and he couldn't chew through it. She found a nice soft piece of turkey and liked it. I thought the presentation was lovely. I had ham steak and I liked it, but I then felt obliged to share it with mom and dad, because of their turkey problems. My DH ate the Brussel sprouts. My DH didn't find anything appealing on the main menu, so he had the rotisserie chicken from the always available side. He liked it. DS had a pasta. Desserts were great! The poached pear was wonderful. Not too sweet, lovely flavor, I wish I ordered it for myself. I don't like traditional pecan pie in the States because it's usually over the top sweet which kills any flavor for me personally. This one, however, was different - not overly sweet, with a very interesting combination of burnt sugar and something else flavors. DS raved about the pumpkin pie bar - according to him it was the best ever. He was so excited, he insisted that I try it. I hate pumpkin pie. I obliged, of course, and as far as pumpkin pies are concerned, this one was probably outstanding. Just not for me. 🙂 Unfortunately, the cheese platter had all the stinky or sharper cheeses on it, so I only nibbled on the middle one a bit and ate all the garnish. Ice cream of the day was Rum Raisin, and it was terrific! Just as great as Häagen-Dazs. I love Häagen-Dazs Rum Raisin, and I've never found any other version of Rum Raisin I love as much. This one was just right!

Kid's menu. DS didn't want to try any of it. If he didn't like anything on the adult menu, he always opted for pasta. He and I love pasta.

French onion soup was available every day, and my dad ordered it pretty much every time, but the taste was inconsistent. Some nights it was very salty and my dad who'll eat just about anything (like me, lol), didn't eat it. I wouldn't call MSC fine dining, nor do we do fine dining at home, but it was pretty standard cruise food, nothing extraordinary, but not awful every day either. Edible, but uninspiring. Years after taking cruises on Princess, I remember our favorite choices and can't wait to eat them again. RCI post pandemic has actually been really-really good. Pre-pandemic NCL food was awful. It's been a week since our MSC cruise, and nothing at MDR truly stood out in a good, memorable way. If I weren't looking at the photos for this review, I wouldn't remember any of it. But like I said so far - we only had one really bad MDR night. Somebody we talked to later said she wanted to try shrimp and grits, but the waiter told her it was really bad as well. I would have liked to try it, but I assumed that the dish (even if it had been good) would have been tiny. Before I forget to mention it, the bite size desserts at the buffet were outstanding. There were different varieties, and they looked a little like these (the photo is from Enchanted Princess) and they were delicious:

it's pretty funny, but somebody on our sailing's FB page asked this, and everybody in steerage class was like - why would you want to? A lot of people considered MDR food to be bad. And then someone in YC class said that she was having the best food ever in YC - lamb, shrimp, seafood, blah-blah. And here we were - having to pay $5 for additional entrees. P.S. I'll post more tomorrow.

Day 5 MDR dinner We started with crispy crab cakes. LOL. The texture and the taste were that of ordinary mashed potatoes. But they looked pretty. Asparagus soup was very unusual, but my mom liked it. Prosciutto was delicious! And I enjoyed both baba ghanoush and hummus, although they were a little on a plain side. DH enjoyed his medium Steak Diane: while I enjoyed medium Steak Diane without the sauce: the steak was thin, but tender, and definitely medium as requested: DS super duper loved Texas mac and cheese, but don't eat the pepper on top, unless you like extraordinarily hot peppers: my husband loves hot peppers, but even for him this was spicy. My parents both enjoyed the always available grilled salmon: All the desserts were quite lovely: Vanilla cream: Dulce de leche Cheesecake with passion fruit Coconut tapioca pudding and as usual, Granma's chocolate cake Every day there was a different additional flavor of ice cream, and tonight it was COFFEE!! It was fantastic.

Day 4 dinner in MDR Shrimp tails were great (and who doesn't like shrimp?) DS ordered guac and chips, ate the chips and sent the guac packing before I had a chance to eat it.... 😞 Kids, man... He knows how much I love guacamole. DH ordered the gumbo, and it was ok: I ordered the fish soup for me and my parents and we all liked it: And that's where things got dicey..... This dinner was the only one most of us disliked. Both DH and I ordered a red snapper. I ordered ribs for my parents and DS. All three rib servings were simply awful. My dad is omnivorous, as long as he can chew the food. His teeth are pretty bad, and he couldn't chew the ribs. They were tough, tasteless and fatty, and the bbq sauce was not good. We make terrific baby back ribs at home. These were bad. My red snapper was very good and tender, but my mom really hated her ribs, so I switched dishes with her. However, my DH's red snapper was very dry (I tried it and I concur). I didn't eat the ribs because they were awful. the desserts were good. 🙂 since I didn't get to eat an entree, I ordered a cheese plate for the first time. Cheese offerings are different every day. I loved all the choices this evening: they were all mild.

Day 3 dinner in MDR Arancini were very nice. Caprese salad was lovely And antipasti was great: Both DS and I ordered Carbonara Pasta. It was great as well - wonderful flavor, and the pasta was tender: Mom ordered Mixed Seafood and it was good: Dad ordered the always available rotisserie chicken. Unexpectedly, it was the largest meal we had in MDR, and dad really liked it: DH ordered Chicken Parmigiana, but he didn't like it. He didn't specify why. I tried a little piece of his chicken (without the red sauce on it) and I liked it: The Limoncello cake was fluffy and delightful: Tiramisu was great: and berry crumble was very good as well:

Day 2 lunch in MDR I believe I read in JamieLogical's review that she really liked conch fritters at MDR lunch, so when I saw them on the menu, I decided that we all wanted to try them as well. So, off to MDR for lunch we went. 🙂 Mozzarella sticks were not exactly what we are used to, they were good, but texture was unexpected. More like spongy cake than melted cheese. Maybe, because they were cooling down. We didn't exactly like conch fritters. I don't know what I expected, but this wasn't it. 🙂 They tasted like dough, and the texture was that of a sourdough ball. My linguini was very good, exactly what I wanted. My parents and DH ordered mahi-mahi and they all liked it. Dad also had a soup of the day, I don't remember what it was. Maybe, bean soup. Tres leches cake was good.

Decks 5 through 11 used West entrance, and decks 12 through 19 - East, Terminal C. We received a text from MSC a day before our cruise with instructions. We disembarked at Terminal C.

so, Celebrity ship had barnacles, making it Celebrity's fault, and you got OBC. How's the war and keeping passengers safe Celebrity's fault? Sure, it would be nice if they offered something, but they still got a cruise.

and they now have free umbrellas for all:

we use rover.com. Sometimes you find a gem, and sometimes you don't. a ton of Chinese citizens go on Caribbean cruises. Surely, Andy will not be Celebrity's first Chinese citizen. 🙂 Signed, a former F-1 student.

we weren't in Yacht Club, so I am reviewing our own experience in the regular MarketPlace buffet and Cala Jondal MDR. I do not want it compared to YC, please, because it's of no use to mere mortals like us.

that doesn't look like a regular buffet donut or a regular buffet table. 🙂

Day 2 MDR food Appetizers were good. Bacon was soggy, but asparagus was good. I had Pennette pasta with Alfredo sauce. The taste was good (I love white pasta sauces), but the pasta was very undercooked and tough. DS had Pennette pasta with red sauce. His was good. DH chose Chicken Coq au Vin, and it was good: Both parents had swordfish, which was good: Desserts: Gateau Opera was great! Strudel was ok:

MDR food. 🙂 Since we were limited to one free entree each, I won't be able to post as many food pics and opinions as I have previously done with the other cruise lines. In general, we found MDR food to be OK. Some dishes were great. Some - pretty bad. But overall - we weren't unhappy with the food, but we weren't thrilled either. For comparison sake - we find Princess Royal class MDR to be great, RCI's Oasis class food to be good, and NCL's food in 2018 to be inedible. All the dishes and appetizers were usually pretty tiny compared to other cruise lines. Desserts were usually averagely sized. We inquired about having the "available every day" pasta as an appetizer for free, but were told - NO. So, here we go - menus and subjective opinions about our choices: Tomato soup was good. We ordered a Caesar salad with every dinner. I personally didn't like it (not enough flavor in the dressing), but the rest of my family thought it was good so they had it every night. Bay Scallop Ceviche was good. We also ordered a baby shrimp cocktail every night. It was different from other lines since it was more like a baby shrimp salad with some kind of mayo like dressing. It was very good. DS ordered the lasagna and found it to be THE BEST EVER. It was perfectly kid sized. DH and my parents had a Grouper - it was good. I had Prime Rib without the sauce (I don't like any sauces, jus, gravy, etc. with beef dishes, so I always ask to have them plain). It was good. A knife for scale - it was pretty small. A baked potato was also a miniature. 🙂 Desserts: Dad had sugar free ice cream. It wasn't all that. Warm apple crumble was good. DS absolutely LOVED Grandma's chocolate cake and had it every day. oh, look at that mini cheesecake! It was good.

Food on Seascape.... The buffet was a zoo during popular times. The times were popular for a reason, but the buffet is badly designed and does not provide adequate seating or food distribution patterns. Hash browns were available only in the kid's section which was tiny and roped off for kids. There was no smoked salmon, but there were different cold cuts (chorizo, salamis, cheeses) and cheeses, including some kind of a goat cheese which was amazing. Soft, mild and delicious. I mostly stuck to omelets or some other egg dishes and cheese. Omelettes were pretty good, but my kid's one was undercooked and he didn't want them for the rest of the cruise. DH usually loads up on bacon, waffles, chocolate pastries, and definitely omelettes. Bacon was mostly soggy, but once in a while we found a station with the crispy goodness. We only saw donuts at the buffet on the last day, but didn't like the texture/taste. I didn't get to try any of the sweets for breakfast (for personal reasons), but they looked great: Tiny chocolate twist pastries were great (left). Banana bread was very nice as well: In general, I found lunch and dinner buffet food to be average in terms of the variety and taste, but it was the expected temperature, consistency, texture, taste, etc. It was just your regular buffet food (not Princess Royal Class buffet food). I LOVED their pizza without the red sauce (not Margherita pizza), they usually had one variety a day - either a pesto sauce with cheese, or cheese and ham. Both varieties were great since I don't like red sauce. I liked the thin crust and it was firm on these types of white sauce pizzas. DS liked their pepperoni pizza's taste, but didn't care for its thin and floppy crust. The "abominations" below were breakfast pizzas: Onion, egg and sausage pizza: Some kind of berry pie pizza: Bananas Foster pizza Here is a selection of teas at the buffet: and juice (juice drinks?) at breakfast: My DH drank the hot teas, my parents drank the free buffet coffee (they didn't have a package), and I had lattes and cappuccinos at the buffet bar every morning: they were good, but teeny tiny. We don't buy fancy coffees at home but I usually indulge on cruises (especially if I have OBC), and I am used to slightly larger versions of hot and iced coffees. The buffet bar made tiny ones even if you asked for them to go. The Seascape bartender filled the to go cups to the brim: I saw a fellow passenger with a full cup and asked her how she managed to get a large coffee. She explained that you have to ask a latte, grande, to go. 🙂

I have uploaded dailies in my Seascape Thanksgiving sailing review. Feel free to click on the link and explore. I am about to post menus and food pics as well.

we had the same menu for Thanksgiving on Seascape. 🙂