voyager89

Wow that “carne asada” does look awful. 
 

I’m getting on the Seashore on Sunday, and I’m super excited but also a bit weary about all the bad reviews lately. I’ve only sailed with MSC in 2018, Seaside and no complaints whatsoever. Hopefully I’ll have better luck. 

How often is Karaoke please? I saw it on one of the dailies but being 1:15 hours duration only, my DH won’t be happy if it’s just a couple, of times on a week long cruise. 

Uh oh. I sail on 12/10 and I hope it’s notas bad since it’s my husbands first time with MSC and just second cruise. I did the Seaside in 2018 and it was fine. Not YC then or now, just a regular balcony. Do you need to wait for a shuttle for the beach? I’ve never been to ocean cay, but I thought we could just walk. 

Last month I booked 2 cabins for a December Seashore sailing, did interior bella as we needed the cheapest fare with drinks and wifi. Never noticed when they assigned our cabin but I got the upgrade email, I looked into it to see how much would it be when I realized they gave us a deluxe balcony on deck 14; I’m quite happy! $1400 for 2 people with wifi and drinks on a balcony I think it’s a great deal. 

This is really only my second time with MSC, first one was the Seaside in 2018 and the same thing happened, booked Bella interior, got a balcony. The booking showed Fantastica in some places and Bella in others, back then they were doing the drink vouchers, but we ended up getting just the Bella which was ok, the upgrade was more than enough.

Hello all,

even though I signed to the forum 9 years ago and did a few cruises during those years, I haven’t been to one since 2017 and feels like an eternity. Obviously the pandemic has changed everything, but also many things in my life have changed, ended an 11 year relationship with who I took all of my cruises and transatlantics. I’m married now and moved from Mexico City to St Louis MO. Not to keep going but for some reason I feel as if I’m going to cruise for the first time. I’ve taken the Sky and the Epic, and some with RC and MSC. 
 

Finally doing another cruise, it’s just a 3 nighter on the Getaway out of Port Canaveral on December 7, so less than a month away! Booked it about 3 months ago, got my flights, Orlando hotel and rental cars all taken care of but I feel completely clueless when it comes to the actual cruise, I need some help pretty please! 
 

Is everything kind of normal regarding covid?

We got all the free at sea offers. Is the internet provided only for one device? And any advice on roaming? We have T-Mobile. Going to GSC and Nassau. 
 

Is there poker on the ship? Never cared for the casino but my husband loves poker. 
 

any karaoke nights? Same as before never cared much for this but he loves to sing (he’s actually pretty good lol)

how do I reserve specialty dining? Can I do it now or is it on board only, and which restaurant would be the best to pick? We like all cuisines but seafood. I’ve only tried Moderno out of the specialty ones. 
 

can we show up anytime for dinner at any of the MDRs? 
 

how do we get the tender tickets for GSC? I’ve been there before but I really can’t remember the process. 
 

Any Latin music spots or parties? I’d love to go to one. 
 

Thanks in advance for any advice. 

I just give the print outs to the person at the curb when handing them my bags and they will take care of them. Don’t feel like buying those plastic things for cruise tags if I will use them for 2 hours once a year.

What I don´t understand is why would someone book a cruise on an Italian line hoping to get the American feel / experience. If I wanted that, I´d book Carnival.

We had a very pleasant cruise last week with its hits and misses like I´ve stated before. And we definetely appreciated the different vibe and various nationalities on board. As much as MSC wants or tries to sell the Seaside as an ¨american ship¨ I think it will always be an Italian ship from an Italian line, homeported in the USA.

Silly question, they say it is the first MSC ship to have a name in English. Wasn´t there an MSC Melody way back?

 

And I don't want to be told that I can't wear shorts after 6pm in public areas! That is crazy. They have the most restrictive dress code I have ever seen for the MDR and the ship in general but they want bargain shoppers.

Were you?

I wore shorts all week long, all day long, and never was I told I couldn´t. I even wore shorts to elegant night (nice, dressy shorts with designer shoes and a very nice, elegant jacket) and no one ever told me a thing.

Thank you all so much for your kind input and all the info provided.

Will definitely start doing my homework on the Carnival website now

 

- What's the deal with the buffet? I saw where the dinner buffet has very little in it's offerings. On Divina, the buffet was very good for dinner. Part of it closes or something also? I didn't understand that. We really enjoyed pizza pretty much 24/7 on Divina.

 

You may or may not know here are 2 buffets, Marketplace which is the main, big buffet on deck 8 is open for breakfast and lunch. It closes at 3:30 and they use it as a third main dining room at night. Past that time, you only have the Biscayne Bay Buffet on deck 16 which is a much smaller buffet with of course more limited options.

Past 3:30 you can only find snacks, finger foods, pizza, burgers, hot dogs. At I believe 6.30 they would put dinner options out, chicke, fish, beef dishes. It was not bad but I wish they used this smaller buffet for the MDR overflow and leave the main buffet as a buffet.

Thanks for the help with my questions. Anyone know if pizza is available most hours of the day?

It was. Breakfast pizza durng the morning, regular ones the rest of the day and night. I believe pizza was available 20 hours a day.

I´m not a fan of upcharges either. But it´s also good that ¨you get to choose¨ if you want to pay extra or not for the added thrills (zipline, bowling, F1, etc). I´m sure if these would be included the cost would be higher, and imagine the lines.

Hi

I found life past 10 very boring. We had the 8:30 MDR seating so we would be out at around 9:45 or so. There were parties or shows past that time, but by 10:30 or 11, most were over or dead. I stayed at the white party until probably 11 because I found the music just terrible. They did some sort of ¨travel the world playing one song from each country¨ type of thing. It was all about group dancing to stuff like Macarena, Cha cha slide and the likes. Very old music. Lots of people seemed to enjoy themselves though.

Went a couple of times to the Garage disco and it was either dead, or also playing terrible music. The SoBe bar had very good music but everybody would just be sitting drinking / smoking so it was not very lively or entertaining.

As for the dress code, I did find people to be more dressy than any other cruise I´ve been on, which I enjoyed cause I like dressing up when on vacation, and I don´t mean suit and tie but mostly designer gear that I don´t get to wear when I´m home. Your fiance will fit just right in in khakis and polos which a lot of gentleman were using, that will be fine. It was a more dressy ship yes but not to the extremes. For dinner I didn´t see men in tuxedos but did´t see any on flip flops and a St Thomas t-shirt either haha.

I was on board last week and even with the charge, there were still lines. I want to think that the lines were due to the fact that since it was a very windy cruise, it was rarely open. I was glad I didn´t pay for the 50 dollars unlimited use or I would have been very upset.

I could bet every cruise line with a social media / community management department must at least be o these forums and read. They might not answer as they would be bombarded with a thousand posts and private messages. But I´m sure they read. But somehow I don´t think MSC does.

Even when they are the 4th or 5th biggest cruise line (I´ve read contradictory info on this) they don´t seem to be very interested in what us passengers have to say. I did their post cruise survey just yesterday and there were some things I wanted to give my input on and did not have a section to do so.

We had a very enjoyable cruise. But I would really love to be able to give my feedback on their areas of opportunity. We were trying MSC for the first time aand I think our opinion is as valuable as those who have cruised several times with them.

Thank you guys, glad you enjoyed :)

The photo will be taken on board if you did not choose the photo option when you did your preboard check in on line. Your credit card can be swiped at one of the on board kiosks at your convenience at anytime during the first two days. If you forget, the billing department will send a reminder note to your cabin. Shore excursion vouchers will be delivered to your cabin the evening before your excursion. Don't know about the vouchers, but I assume they should be in your cabin when you arrive. If not, go to guest services immediately since the lines there are very long most of the time.

I submitted photos of the both of us on the online check in and the edocs button became available but they still took pictures at the terminal. MSC is just odd on a lot of things.

Wow, I wish I knew this.

I did think of going to the front desk and ask how were they going to compensate us (I know it was not their fault, but I´m still not getting what I paid for) to see if they have some customer service principles but I figured it would just be a waste of time.

Final thoughts:

Itinerary

Didn´t love it but tried to make the most of it. It was cool to have 2 stops in Mexico andhave my food and all but I can go there much easier than I can go to other islands (I was actually in Cozumel last March and went to Playa del Carmen 4 times this year) but then again we didn´t book this cruise for it´s unique itinerary right? Plus most mass ships always do the same islands anyway. Guess anything is better than Freeport and Nassau (except for Jamaica IMO ha). Would we do this itinerary again? I hope we don´t have to.

Ship

Again, the ship is beautiful. The décor is very elegantly done. In my opinion, there is just one thing that ruins it. The ladies statues on the South Beach pool, and the hippo statues on the Miami Beach pool. Totally unnecessary IMO. The atrium while a bit small is awesome, the Swarovski stairs, the furniture at the bars ,everything else is just as I thought it would be. Very very elegant and classy all around. Would we book a Seaside cruise again? I am so unsure, not because I didn´t like it, I loved it, but while it´s my favorite ship so far, I don´t love the idea of repeating cruises. I like trying new ones instead.

Food

Buffets food flavor was good. But MDR was a hit or miss all week long. I have found the food in Norwegian much better, their NY strips on my Epic TA were amazing, I still have dreams about those beautiful steaks, crispy on the outside and tender and pink on the inside. Probably the best steaks I´ve ever had anywhere. The fact that other than the 2 buffets and your assigned MDR are the only complimentary options definitely plays a big part as well, since NCL and Royal offer at leas t1 or 2 more options. I had high hopes on their pizza and it was just ok. They always had margherita, pepperoni or olives and basil pizzas. Unless you paid for it via room service, there were no other options. Royal´s Sorrento´s made to order pizzas were so much better, which say a lot about an Italian line. Plus after trying NCL´s anytime dining, it was a bit hard to stick to a time each night. If I was to book MSC again I would try to do Aurea or above to be able to do this.

Service

It was always good but nothing exactly memorable. I remember our server and our cabin attendant, that´s all. We paid our tips but didn´t really give any extra to anyone. We received good service all around, that´s it.

Cleanliness/ foul smell

We were on deck12, and never experienced there the sewage smell I have read a lot about. The carpet was always clean and I didn´t see any lint. However there was some of that smell around deck 19 by the kids pool zone. Of course not pleasant but not something that would kill anyone. Most areas on the ship were always clean.

Laundry

I was very upset. As I mentioned before, I sent a t-shirt and jeans, that was on the first day. I left them on the paper bag they brought them back in and just packed them the last night. When I came back home and unfolded the jeans, they were still dirty, you could see the stains still there. The shirt had a funny smell.I didn´t pay 14 dollars for that! I really wish I had noticed while still onboard to either send it back or have them remove the charge. I always do my laundry and never ever have I sent something so now I know if I ever do again,to check my clothes when returned.

Fellow cruisers

Very different crowd to those we have cruised along with in NCL and RCCL. Way more nationalities which I liked, people overall were more dressy, saw several designer items, most would dress for the occasion / time of the day.

Entertainment

The cruise director was great. Didn´t see him a lot (only during the 2 shows to be exact) but loved his sense of humour. He was very pleasant to hear. Parties and other activities to me were not good. Even with just a handful of cruises under mybelt, after Royal´s Dreamworks parties / parades, aqua theater or ice skatings hows, or Norwegian´s Blue man group, it´s hard to be impressed on a ship. I really wish they had brought Cirque Du Soleil to the Seaside as well.

Next cruised esk

The pre-cruise experience was terrible. As we all know, their website sucks, the customer service is no better. I booked via an online agency and it was easy. But if I wanted to buy a cruise directly with them, it´s a nightmare. I thought it would be easier to try to do it on board. Silly me. The lady giving out the next cruise info was very nice and polite, but it was useless for us to go.Their Book on board and get all these benefits program was only for US citizens. Ok well, give us at least a quote on the Cuba and Cozumel cruises. She couldn´t. She said you would need to do it through an agency. Really? It´s as if I was asking for something for free. It feels like I have to beg them to sell me a cruise! They didn´t even have brochures -which yea I get it, 2018,the technology era, paperless all and stuff but I basically walked away with nothing, not even a post it with a sample pricing or anything.

All in all,it was a great week even with the things we found where they personally fell short compared to the other cruises we have done. It might also be the fact that 2 factors came into place, new ship + they are still trying to find their way in North America.

Would we cruise again with MSC? If we want a cruise on a beautiful ship just to relax,we would. But if we want a cruise for the food or entertainment we would most likely look at another line. Might give them another chance when their island is ready, but in the meantime we want to try Celebrity and Princess, probably Carnival -I´ve heard they are the fun ships lol-. We are yet to find our go to cruise line, we would go to Royal for entertainment, NCL for the food, MSC for the beautiful ships (I am sure all their fleet is as beautiful). But just like everything, a cruise is what you make of it right?

Thanks forreading and I hope you enjoyed :)

Day 7 – At sea

I somehow woke up at 5 AM and for a second thought of going up to the pools to continue sleeping there cause man was it hard to find sunbeds by the pool, well just like on every cruise. But it was too early so I said no and went back to bed. Woke up again by 8 and went up with a bit of hope to find one, well of course I was wrong. Not even a single bed by the Miami or south beach pools, and of course, nobody was there. It was a sea of towels and books. They don´t have signs like other ships of not reserving chairs and stuff abandoned for moret han 30 minutes would be removed so you´re pretty much screwed. Damn I should have gone up at 5 AM and slept there.

After breakfast I found some empty chairs on deck 19 by the stairs, it was that or nothing. Stayed a couple of hours there as I really wanted a deep dark tan (which I did get ) Later we went to the SoBe bar fora couple of drinks and get in the pool. We met the coolest Puerto Rican family there. Very few people on board would speak Spanish so it was nice to findthem, sadly on our last day though. We all had lunch together and went to the slides again.

We did go to the MDR for the last night. Again, onion soup and NY for me, which this time was on the selections for the day and the classics section. This time it came with greens instead of the tomato, it was much better than the other 2 steaks I had earlier on the week but still not the greatest one.

Later we saw the Peter Punk show which was amazing. I really really liked it. The acts were this time more cohesive than those on Fly, and much more impressive. I am glad I didn´t miss this one. The temperature at the theatre is cold! So bring acover up. The show was also very emotive with the cruise director and some representative parts of the staff coming to the stage with flags and all. I am not sure if there are any other shows as good as this one, but I was very impressed with it.

Came back to the cabin to finish packing and bring our bags out :(

Day 8 –Debarkation and final thoughts

Well, on debarkation day there´s not really a lot to do right? But grab breakfast and be sad that the week is over. It was a sad day indeed, cloudy and rainy. I was surprised to see that the Marketplace buffet was full of food and even a couple different offerings. Usually the breakfast on the last day is not as complete in my experience. Of course it was packed. We grabbed our food and went to the tables at the Bistro to eat as we couldn’t find one inside the buffet.

We werestaying for one more night in Miami and as you know, check ins are not until 3:00 PM so we tried to stay on the ship as long as we could. Finished breakfast and I actually started writing my review ha. By 10:15, they called all colors and we left the ship. They announced earlier that the process would take longer since there were not enough immigration agents. The line was really long once we were off the ship and moved super slow. When we got to the agent all he did was look at our passport and ask how many days were we staying… and that was it. Mere protocol I guess. Took an Uber and left the port :loudcry:

I was actually surprised that all Jungle, Miami and South beach pools were that deep. All other cruise ships I´ve been on would have around 4 feet deep.

Anyone knows if its an MSC thing? Or just the Seaside?

Wow, thanks a lot for all your comments. Will definitely take them in consideration.

One thing I know is no matter what ship, will ensure to do an itinerary that includes Grand Turk and Half Moon Cay for sure :)

Way too early, I don´t think you could make it.

If you take an uber or lyft, it takes a while for them to get there. Took us 20 minutes for us to get ours even when the app said 5 minutes.

I once took a cab from MIA to FLL and it took us almost an hour. Wouldn´t risk it.

Day 6 –Costa Maya

Costa Maya is not a real place as is. It is a cruise line built pier with a pool,dolphins, stores and restaurants. The actual Mayan coast (Costa Maya) is the coast between Punta Herreros through Xcalak, which includes the probably more known Bacalar, Mahahual and Chetumal. Excursions, food, drinks and souvenirs are way too expensive. If you want toeat, drink and buy souvenirs, you are better off going to Mahahual, which is only a 10 minute, 2 dollar per person taxi trip. It´s such a beautiful place with some of the clearest waters I´ve seen in Mexico. The day was a bit cloudy but later on cleared out and the sun came out. Got an amazing tan there

One place I recommend: Ibiza Sunset. Mahahual is such a small town, almost everything is on the beachfront street / promenade. I had seen this place before on Facebook and looked good. It´s big, it´s a 2 story restaurant then across the street you have more tables, hammocks and sunbeds right in the water. This was our first stop for breakfast. If you haven´t,please try the Jamaica (hibiscus) water which is a classic, typical drink inMexico.

One place I DO NOT recommend: Barefoot beach club. SO expensive, pretty much ship prices.They have an sign saying ¨Tripadvisor excellence award¨ or something like that,which if is real, I don´t know how they got it. The staff is very nice, whichfor what they charge, there´s no way they couldn´t be nice. We got a menu withno prices and like 7 cocktail options only. We should have known better. We got 2 beers and 3 cocktails which weren´t even that good and on the very small side and paid 34 dollars, no tip included. Because of course they charged us in dollars. Each beer was 5 and each cocktail 8. So please avoid this place.

We ended up going back to Ibiza Sunset, they had a 2 margaritas or daiquiris for 80 pesos special, less than 4 dollars. And they were so good. We had the Jamaica and cucumber daiquiris and gosh, they were so good. Their steak nachos were amazing! I wish we never left in the first place after breakfast, we would have avoided that Barefooot place rip off.

Note that each of those drinks was 80 pesos as they offered to put the 2 drinks for 80 pesos in one big glass.

Fun short story: After breakfast while walking down the street you could see the ships. I started to see smoke and the ship next to us moving (Liberty OTS) and DH was like wow, it´s way too early for them to be leaving already. 5 seconds later I said wait, it´s not their ship, it´s ours that´s moving! I almost had a pants accident. I was like there´s no way I mean it´s like 11 AM, what´s going on?There´s thousands of us here, this can´t be happening! I freaked out for a minute but then realized there was no way the ship was just leaving like that.Turns out they were just changing the ship´s position. But man did I get scared. Anyway here is a pic of the shore:

And here is me enjoying the life lol:

After spending the rest of the day at Ibiza Sunset we went back to the ship. It turned out to be a very hot day so we just went straight to the South beach pool to take a dip and then go to the room to get changed for sail away and a few drinks at the bar.

A bit tired of the MDR so we had dinner at the buffet that night. There were some offerings I did feel like having and everything was good. A lamb stew, greek style brochettes, spring rolls, grilled chicken, etc. The desserts were ok.

We went out to the Miami pool and they were playing Sing! for the kids (they would play a movie each night but none that I felt like watching) but I love Sing so we went to get changed -it was a very chilly night- and stayed to watch it. I think it was part of their kids dining program where they would take the kids away for parents to dine at MDR while entertaining them but IMO it was late for them to be out there (11ish) but well, vacation time I guess. We went to bed when the movie was over.

Hello,

Not new to CC but to the Carnival boards. Started cruising in 2013 and have just done 6 cruises (3 RC, 2 NCL, 1 MSC) and still trying to find our go to cruise line.

Was just on board last week on the MSC Seaside and while it was a very enjoyable cruise sometimes it felt very boring. A Puertorican family on board recommended Carnival (Just not their ship in PR as it is very old they say) as they are lively and fun. Trying to find some help and tips from experienced cruisers. I would go with the Vista as it´s the newest ship but not closed to other options.

Also, on their website they advertise several included venues like Blue Iguana which if I´m not mistaken is a bar, is it really free I mean are drinks included at that venue?

Thanks in advance for any info you can provide :)