BeeeJay

not everyone 😉 and just after we were debating if the machines were rigged cause no one had gotten a 4 of a kind. Guess not. Completely agree casino kinda empty and older machines. However I do kind like it! 😂

can ya tell him to floor it? 😂

Great report and totally appreciated---spent 5 weeks on Seascape 10/15-11/18, 2 in yacht club, 3 in gen pop. Now on Emerald Princess---a super old ship and the food, service, and overall experience, while certainly dated, is comparable quality to my MSC yacht club experience. I absolutely LOVE MSC Seascape, ship and staff are amazing, but its incredibly obvious the company puts their people in a bad position to deliver, especially at the top end. It just reeks of corporate cost controls. The liquor selection is absolute trash. The food is just bad. Yacht club restaurant dinner service is a travesty. BUT it IS super cheap for what it is. And that's a niche. I think you just need to go into MSC YC with proper expectations and do some CC research so you have the proper knowledge of a few tricks to improve your experience.

Yeah I would do both, I accidently left my phone off airplane mode leaving port and it offered me the package. Another time I didn't notice for a few hours and got some charges, luckily the wifi data picked up that I only had a few international texts (charge per text because I declined the package). I think next time I will buy both. If you don't do the cruise package you won't get non-iphone texts.

my friend currently on seashore said she helped them decorate the tree they were putting up in the last day or two

not at all coming off that way and your experiences are eerily similar to mine on seascape. Notes for events AFTER, everything stocked late. Got my liquor bottle maybe day 5? Just brought it home. Pillow requests and newspapers midway thru. They did stock drinks and ice nicely. My conclusion was I had to take my vacation enjoyment into my own hands by taking drastic measures lol. Lower expectations, over tip and demand better service, skip yacht club restaurant completely, it’s a train wreck. That restaurant was complete trash. I ate breakfast and lunch at YC buffet and did specialty dining for dinners. When too many kids at YC pool went to Adult-only infinity pool on deck 8 aft. Overtipped servers there. once I tipped up front I got amazing service everywhere. Shouldn’t have to do it. Don’t care. It’s what got me the treatment I wanted. Shouldn’t have to pay for specialty in YC but I thought they were fantastic. probably the biggest problem in YC is kids with awful parents. It’s rampant. Regardless of the missteps I think with the right attitude and measures to insure a good trip YC is a great value. sounds like you are figuring things out nicely and it’s getting better!

I saw the good crispy hash browns a grand total of ONCE on the main buffet in 5 weeks. They had them in the kid buffet once that I noticed. Yacht club had them on 20 every morning

My experience was min bid on YC interior $775 * 2 rec'd upgrade from Bella Balcony to YC Deluxe so ended up getting double upgrade for $1,550 for 14 nights cruise, total cost just under $5,000 for 2 weeks yacht club w/balcony on Seascape. While I found that an incredible value, I still canceled my subsequent Yacht Club upgrade bids. I had more fun in Gen Pop using that extra money for specialty dining, excursions, and I also found I got excellent drink service from the floor bar staff once I started giving some strategic tips. Still spent way way less than the yacht club upgrade and I could argue I ate better and had more fun. I won't argue that I wasn't way more annoyed by crowds in the main ship, but I definitely liked the adult-only infinity pool on deck 8 aft better than the yacht club pool the week there were 50 kids in Yacht club. Booking a casino comp for upcoming cruises using the certificates I earned is proving to be borderline brutally difficult. I literally have the certificates in hand (thank god I insisted on getting them rather than waiting for the emails that never came) and I am still unable to book after multiple emails and calls. 1st call last week I was told to email msccasino and ask them to "locate and load" my offers. I did so and received an email back asking to provide my preferred cruise and they would book. So I both emailed AND called, and they still don't have the ability to book me after 3 rounds of calls and 3 rounds of emails. One offer is loaded but has no details, the other still isn't appearing. They are talking about having to reach back out to the casino host who gave them, he just left the ship (presumably for 2 months like everyone else) when I got off the last cruise. Both the cruises I'm trying to book have limited availability for my room type. Already booked flights and hotels thinking it was a done deal. Mildly frustrating. I guess I'll just book another cruise line if they can't get it together.

I didn't notice any interlopers so I guess so. Mr. "Buh Bye" went home a few weeks ago. Casino host Floyd went home the 18th. I found the service exceptional throughout the ship.

3 weeks ago at breakfast on MSC Seascape they were rotating each day between: French Toast Waffles Pancakes Donuts I saw a crazy scene during the week with bad weather, I think it was 10/29-11/4 where this guy went OFF on a manager at the buffet regarding the lack of French Toast and threatened to fly home from Cozumel. I offered to take the medical helicopter over to NCL for some French Toast Sticks and that manager and I joked about it every week thereafter. Sometime mid-week of the 11/11-11/18 cruise that same manager let me know they were serving all 4 of those items daily, and for the last few days of the cruise they did indeed have all on offer. While I firmly attest the food quality and selection are a notch below NCL & Royal (my only other recent experiences) I do agree they are making efforts to improve. They need fried chicken tenders on the main buffet, and they need all stations open more often when its busy.

Did your Hola Tacos waiter look a little bit like Lloyd, the assistant from TV Show Entourage? 330 YC guests vs under 250 we had one week seems like it would be a noticeable difference and potentially have a material impact on crowding and service.

65 children in yacht club YIKES, looking forward to the report!

The water pressure in the shower in the Bella Balcony is very weak compared to the YC Deluxe. That bathroom was fantastic. I agree the color scheme is really good. My friend had the Grand Suite and that walk in closet it a really nice upgrade from the YC Deluxe.

The YC restaurant wasn't great from 10/15-10/29 either. Seems like each meal there was either one item forgotten or something else incorrect on the order. Drinks took a while. Portion size was small. I wasn't impressed with the food. Not bad, just not outstanding. Most days I just ended up eating a big breakfast and by the time the tea snacks were done I was pretty full and either skipped dinner, ran into gen pop for pizza, or ordered room service. I also heard similar reviews from others on that and subsequent cruises. Saw quite a few YC people who were doing specialty restaurants.

I asked when I found out the reason for the delay in leaving port. I was aware there was a fall and someone had to be evacuated, but I never knew yacht club vs gen pop until seeing your post here. The first two weeks I was on the ship I got an upgrade from Bella Balcony to Yacht Club Deluxe based on a $775 * 2 = $1,550 bid (minimum plus $50) on a Yacht Club Interior. Effectively a double upgrade. I cancelled my upgrade bids for subsequent weeks because of the possibility of getting the Yacht Club Interior or something on 19 under the pool deck. I've been very happy with the Bella Balcony, but obviously the Yacht Club Deluxe was fantastic, so i went the route of waiting to ask for that specific opening because then you have control of saying yes or no to a specific room.

Had 4 yacht club steaks and 2 butcher's cut steaks on Seascape. Yacht club steaks were all 4 decent filet. Butcher's cut filet was similar. Butcher's cut ribeye (upcharge) was far superior. I heard from others the sirloin and strip steaks in BC were very poor. Similar to the original poster, I found the Yacht Club restaurant uninspiring, but the Pool Deck breakfast, lunch, and tea time buffet outstanding. I was there the week with 50 kids in yacht club (the week before the bad weather week OP was there) and the pool was a major splash zone that week. The lifeguard tries to manage it but if there are that many kids they are going to rule the seas so to speak.

No drinks in either YC or Marina/Infinity pools, quickly enforced in gen pop, slower/spottier enforcement in YC.

Yes they gave it out, I went to ask about it and it was already gone. Sorry about your fall and hope you are doing well. Also you missed nothing, that entire 6-day cruise was a complete wash out.

Aren't you in a Grand Suite in Yacht Club if you have a walk-in closet? Deluxe Suite in YC has balcony, but not walk in closet.

Agree with that analysis 100%, Pairs Plus is prob 10%-12% house advantage on MSC, not as bad as 30%, but the variance is high too. That said sometimes 3 card poker DOES pay for Yacht Club if you stop in Vegas on the way to Miami. 😉

The primary confiscated items are hairdryers and irons and booze. I’m on a golf trip and my clubs getting confiscated “sometimes” as dangerous blunt objects. When I got to retrieve them I see the other stuff.

Currently in YC on Seascape based on min YC interior bid upgrade from Bella Balcony to YC Deluxe balcony. It’s the best deal ever. Did overhear someone at concierge complaining of upgrade from non-YC balcony to YC interior and now they don’t have a balcony. YC is amazing for service, embark, disembark. And the YC Deluxe room is spacious and nice. Nightly snacks, room refresh multiple times per day. Bathroom is really nice. YC buffet at pool for breakfast/lunch/snack is fantastic. Room service is nice (menu isn’t great though). The priority port disembark is HUGE, the re-embark doesn’t really work, heard people complaining about that too. Pool area is a bit of a problem. Yacht club is an odd mix of older people and families with younger kids and a lot of comped casino players. Last week was an older crowd not much action. This week is a TON OF KIDS. The pool is unusable. Also overheard a back-to-backer complaining of non-stop noise from kids next door. Same kids from pool. Point of my post is Yacht club can be very hit and miss and you are greatly impacted by the mix of other guests. I would highly consider the type of trip you want before spending rack rate on YC. It’s a no brainer for low bid upgrade. The biggest issue with MSC in general is the billing. It’s cashless and you pre-auth a card for up to $500. Once you spend that down they put thru addl pre-auth as you spend money. If you do spa treatments, shop, casino, etc they build up additional preauthorizations but don’t seem to actually push through those charges until the cruise ends or you ask. Once they push through the charges it hits as a charge from Geneva, Switzerland. I had notified various cards I would be traveling in Caribbean. Not surprisingly, a couple times during the cruise I had fraud alert declines on cards that had been pre-auth for small amounts when a much larger amount from an unexpected destination was pushed through. As we are at sea these alerts came thru much later at next port so I could not approve in real time and had to use different cards. Additionally I’ve had charges go through and the pre-auth still shows, so MSC put through that amount (random shopping charge with cents I can easily identify) as a new charge rather than using the pre-auth token so now I have both the charge and the outstanding authorization. The upshot is you could have a pretty outsized hit to available credit vs actual charges so you have to be mindful of that.

I suspect as much as well. This portion is a drop in the bucket of the overall trip. I’m doing a Princess southern itin after the 3 B-2-B on MSC, so 8 weeks (less a day) on the seas. There is also a week in Vegas before and a winter in Scottsdale after with side trips to Vegas and Augusta. Made possible by remote/seasonal work.

Thanks so much for this advice, that makes a lot of sense, and I will follow that plan if my bids aren't accepted! It does appear now there is much more availability than I was seeing previously so I'm hopeful they will take more of my money! 🙂

@Morpheous maybe you know the answer to this question, I am doing multiple B-2-B, and I can see YC availability for all but one leg. Specifically I have already received upgrade for weeks 1 & 2, I have max bid in on weeks 3 thru 6. If I search for rooms by week I see YC availability on weeks 3, 5, 6 but week 4 doesn't show any YC rooms at all. My question is if it is possible to upgrade 1 leg of a 2 week cruise? My bookings are done 3 two-week cruises, weeks 1-2, 3-4, 5-6.