Msc seaside cabin 9003

Looking for a review/ and most of all photo's of this cabin [9003]

 

Thank you

Found this:

 

https://boards.cruisecritic.com/showpost.php?p=54844624&postcount=538

I'm really happy with my cabin selection now, seeing those photos. When I booked in Jan 2016 it wasn't remotely clear what the balcony would be like (or even if it would have one.) I am loving the 2 regular chairs plus 2 loungers shown in the photos. Having 4 chairs will be a big win with my family of 4. It looks like the railing/wall is tall enough that sitting out there might be fine even with 20 mph winds while under way.

 

Note that this is 9002. We also have 9003, which has the double sofa bed. I am wondering if that layout will be different since it doesn't seem like there is room for a double sofa where the single sofa is in these photos. At the least it doesn't seem there would be enough space between the desk and expanded bed/couch to allow passage to the balcony.

 

Any other photos? We're not on for a couple of months...

So, we were in 9003 last week and I'm afraid I cannot recommend it. It was very windy the first couple of days, and other than getting a very rocky ride in the front of the ship, we heard something banging underneath whenever the ship rocked from side to side (perhaps an unsecured door opening and closing). There is a crew area underneath, and when I mentioned the noise to Captain Scala at the Cruise Critic party the first afternoon, he said that it was a library and could not understand what the noise was. To his credit, he was very concerned about this and sent a couple of officers up to the cabin to listen, and when I saw him later in the cruise he said that Captain Massa had also paid a visit (but not while we were in the cabin). The noise more or less stopped after midnight, which was when he said we'd be changing direction and getting out of the windy conditions.

 

The following day (which we were in Ocho Rios, I believe), we heard a bunch of banging which I think must have been them fixing something because we did not hear the loud noises after that although there were still noises when we were moving. Strangely, sometimes we heard a bump as if we'd hit something, which obviously makes no sense. I felt it in the theater as well (which was a couple of decks below us) so I'm not sure what it was; maybe waves hitting the ship?

 

Sadly, that was not the end of the problems. On Wednesday at around 10pm I started hearing music below us. I figured there was a crew party so I didn't say anything, although I did not see anyone below us on the bow with the crew pool (you do get to see the crew sun-bathnig from the balcony). Amazingly, the music played all night, and it wasn't just music but something with a boom-boom-boom to it that I felt. I did not get much sleep that night and the music was still playing in the morning!!! I saw an officer on the gangway as we were leaving so I told him about it. I was disappointed to find that it was still playing when we got back to the cabin after our day in Cozumel! So I went to guest services to get them to send someone up to listen to it. I was shocked to hear that another cabin had already reported it (other than my telling the officer when we left the ship) and it had not been addressed! The woman at GS made a call to someone in engineering and said that they would turn down the bass so I would not feel the booms, but when I got back to the cabin I realized the music had to be shut off because we heard it as well as the booms. So I called GS and spoke to the same person who said that she would send up a housekeeping supervisor. A few minutes later he arrived and then a housekeeping officer shortly after that. I had them stand in the spot where it was most noticeable (right near the door, although we heard and felt it in the entire cabin). The officer said that he understood the problem and would fix it. Around 5 minutes later the music was turned off and stayed off for the rest of the cruise. I have no idea who thought it was a good idea to put music on in the crew library, but hopefully they will not do it again!

 

Sadly that was not the only noise we heard. When docking, you heard and felt the bow thrusters and anchor going down.

 

The good news is that there were in fact 2 chairs and 2 loungers on the balcony. The bad news is that the balcony was pretty much unusable while sailing due to the winds. When we got to the cain, one of the chairs and tables were in the cabin. Apparently it had been broken on an earlier cruise, probably because of the wind. The divider near the balcony entrance also had several dents (presumably from the chair hitting it?) and we found some broken glass or plastic on the balcony (that was also fixed after reporting it to the captain).

 

The large sofa bed was next to the balcony door. It was open when we arrived (before cabins were officially available but we went there to drop off our stuff) because the room steward did not know how to close it. It was still open when we returned after they announced that cabins were available and it was still open. The room steward had to call her supervisor to be shown how to close it. The large sofa worked well for us, we were able to fit both suitcases on it :).

 

I have some pictures that I will try to post from the app. I also got a picture of the balcony for the 9001 GS next to us when they had the dividers open one day to wash the balconies. It's terrible -- not deep enough for the loungers because the railing is much deeper than on 9003 so they have to go sideways. On our balcony they would fit facing front, although they took all of the space.

 

I would not book this cabin again (wouldn't book MSC at all, but that's a different story). The size of the room and balcony were nice, but the movement and noise were not worth it. Fortunately we don't get seasick but if you have a problem with motion sickness, this is definitely not the cabin for you. Plus, because of the poor layout of elevators on the ship, you need to walk a pretty long distance to get to the elevator or stairs.

Edited February 8, 2018 by MisterBill99

Thanks for the excellent information!

 

Question: The sofa is actually a regular (queen?) size bed? That is what the deck map indicates, but I was beginning to wonder if we'd get stuck with the bunk-bed type couch. Based on prior photos, it seems like there would be no space to walk between the bed and the desk when the bed is open. Not a huge problem for us, except maybe when my son hurls his body over... and directly at the glass door!

 

That is a strange place to put a library. Seems like it would be in the bowels of the ship leaving above the water line for crew cabins where possible. I do have to wonder if the noise was coming from whatever is behind the theater, just 2 decks down. In either case, it shouldn't be loud enough to be heard above, unless it's the theater's main sound system. We have been directly above the side stage in the casino on a carnival ship, with a really energetic cruise director, that that was just fuzzy noise coming through the floor. To get through a deck or two with a personal/local/background sound system is just insane.

 

Observation: there is always banging like you heard from the hull area, and can be heard in the first 1/3rd of the ship typically. I joke that we hit a whale, but I don't think a few-ton whale would be enough to make anything other than a local 'thud'... not to mention they surely heard the ship miles away. I suspect it's the structure adjusting to stresses, like a cookie sheet in the over, only on a vastly larger scale.

 

Likewise, the anchors are immensely loud and that's always a risk being the near the bow, or far aft. We dock everywhere on our cruise, so it shouldn't be an issue for us. Bow thrusters... haven't run into that before, but I would assume it's short lived? 15 mins or less? Preferable to being aft where sometimes the drive system can shake the entire area for extended periods of time. :eek:

 

Question: there appears to be elevators/stairs about 15 cabins (~150 feet?) down the hall. Were those not accessible? It's not an issue for as as everything is in that direction anyway, and it's a benefit that we can't go 1/2 a ship in the wrong direction before figuring it out and turning around. :) I do see that for someone with mobility issues this could be a problem, but I hope they would book mid-ship near elevators by default.

 

It sounds like you got excellent responsiveness to your issues, even though they didn't resolve every issue immediately?

 

Any recommendations on gelato flavors? :D

 

Photos would be greatly appreciated. The ones I linked above are all I could find (and are 9002) and they are on the dark side.

It's one of the pop-up bunk beds that there are photos of elsewhere and I'm fairly sure it was queen size. There is not enough room for a normal pull out sofa there.

 

I tried uploading photos in the app but it's telling me that image uploading is disabled in this forum. I'm sure I have seen full resolution photos uploaded here so I'm not sure what is going on.

 

As for the music, it definitely came from the crew area beneath us because it only took a few minutes for it to be turned off once the housekeeping officer visited the cabin. I was very happy with the response I got from telling Captain Scala about my problems. Much less so with the music issue.

 

No accessible stairs until the bank of elevators much further back (near the spa, gym, theater entrances)

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Thank you again.

 

As for the photos, I believe you need to upload them somewhere else and link them in (Insert Image?) or just post a link to the folder where they are uploaded.

If you have fb you can put them on there and then copy and paste them in the reply to thread box.

We're back, and my assessment of 9003 is about the same as MisterBill99. I would not recommend against 9003, but I would not book thinking it's super special. However, it will be situational depending on the cruise, and I'll get into that in a bit. Specific to Mr. Bill's comments:

 

- We did not have the banging noise problem. A few times the crew was playing music rather loudly on deck 8, but only in the afternoons so not much of a bother. We didn't see much of the crew out there, but many time the men were in underwear rather than swimsuits. Not a nudity thing, but more of a :confused: ??? Mostly men also, so a bit of a bummer there from my personal perspective. Never more than 3 or 4 at a time, and that was rare, so no crew party on the forward deck.

 

- We could hear/feel the box thrusters, but much, much, much less that we've experienced on other ships. We had no tender ports, so no anchor chains, but no doubt that is loud.

 

- We had to ask for loungers and then didn't get them until about day 3. Apparently they had gone missing the prior week, and several times before that. A bit of a mystery because even if the wind had taken them (quite possible) they should have ended up on deck 8.

 

- The sleeper sofa is a bunk bed. When we booked, and until recently I believe, it showed the "double sofa bed" symbol on the deck map. However, that has now been changed to show "sofa converts into bunk bed" on the MSC USA site.

 

- The cabin is not nearly as large as it appears on the deck map. I know: "don't trust deck maps". :D However, for future readers: the balcony door wall is narrower than a normal balcony cabin. As noted above, the cabin is not wide enough at that point for a bed, thus the bunk beds. At the far end of the cabin, adjacent to 9001, it is wider that typical. And of course, it is longer since the hallway end and the section is added to this cabin.

Net/net, the cabin appears to be about 250% the size of a regular cabin on the deck map, which would give you at least 3x the amount of free floor space (since they didn't add any extra storage). In reality you get maybe an extra 50% of free floor space... though that is still a gift with 4 people in the cabin including two young kids.

 

- Yes, they seriously did not add any extra storage space. In a "suite". With extra space. Nor did they enlarge the bathroom so the shower and toilet would be more usable. BIG misses considering the size of the cabin.

 

- Due to the design of the hallway, no one passes the cabin so there is no noise from passing foot traffic. Very nice if you've got kids that are trying to sleep. As noted above, it is a long walk from the nearest stairs so no strays.

 

- Balcony/wind - the wind wasn't as bad as I had thought it would be. However, there were times when the wind coming just around the corner was really strong, as in "not safe for kids to be out there" strong. On the flip side, there was a calm area next to the divider with 9001. It was nearly always calm in that corner, and the wind got stronger as I moved closed to the corner. Compared to a typical side balcony, it usually wasn't that much worse and since we read on kindles we had no problem. It was always possible to duck in beside the balcony wall to find a reasonable area. Oddly, we had a strong wind across the bow in San Juan and on that day, in port with the ship tied up, the wind was about as bad as it got. :confused:

 

- Balcony/size - what can I say? Awesome! So large it's almost pointless, actually. I think they should have given 9001 a T-shaped balcony by taking ~5 feet out each of 9002 and 9003's balconies. However, if you had a large group and wanted to do pre-dinner drinks and such, this would be fantastic.

 

- Balcony/view - this point I did not even consider and I was really shocked. Deck 8 extends well beyond deck 9 on the sides, and the bulkhead comes up nearly level with the deck 9 balcony. The net result is that you can't look down and see the water at all. It's similar to looking out across a regular balcony from inside the cabin. This is related to my comment about how the chairs wouldn't have blown off the ship, because they'd have to go a substantial distance without losing altitude in order to make it over deck 8 and the bulkhead.

 

My verdict: It depends on the cruise. If you have lots of port days and a bad itinerary like we had, and will spend a ton of time on the balcony, this is a more desirable cabin. If you're unlikely to use the balcony except while underway, maybe not so good. Unless the size of the balcony is a big plus for specific reasons (ie. large group gatherings), I would opt for one of the other S2 suites, specifically one of the rear facing angled balconies (9203, 9208, etc). However, I personally would not bother with a fantastica suite at all unless the price is very close to a regular fantastica balcony.

We're back, and my assessment of 9003 is about the same as MisterBill99. I would not recommend against 9003, but I would not book thinking it's super special. However, it will be situational depending on the cruise, and I'll get into that in a bit. Specific to Mr. Bill's comments:

 

- We did not have the banging noise problem.

 

- Yes, they seriously did not add any extra storage space. In a "suite". With extra space. Nor did they enlarge the bathroom so the shower and toilet would be more usable. BIG misses considering the size of the cabin.

Glad to hear they fixed the banging. To be honest, we heard it less later in the week after we made the Captain aware of it. I do recall hearing some banging one afternoon (while in port) that was presumably addressing whatever the problem was.

 

I am not surprised that they did not add extra storage space in the cabin or have a larger bathroom. These deck 9 corner cabins are the only two like them on the ship and it would make little sense to design something special for them. I don't even understand why they call them suites, other than so they can charge more (similar to HAL and their Signature Suites, which also have no suite benefits beyond a bigger cabin).

A banging noise to fix a banging noise? That settles it: my skill set and problem solving techniques are perfectly suited to work on a cruise ship!

 

My take is that if you're building a billion dollar cruise ship, you can take the time to make sure it's well designed. I suspect those closets are pretty much set in place, bolted to a welded fixture, and done... not nothing but not difficult. I can see that redesigning the bathroom might be a bit more difficult, but given that these cabins have to be uniquely designed anyway...

 

I agree about the suite designation. A suite should always have 2 rooms or more, though that definition would throw out almost every suite at sea (and many in hotels on land). The suites should at least come with VIP boarding and choice of first disembarkation (after YC, of course.)

 

But... not as if we won't cruise MSC again... we just won't book a suite unless the cabin choice is good and the price premium is minimal.

I don't understand taking problems to the Captain!

I don't understand taking problems to the Captain!

The captain was at the Cruise Critic Meet & Mingle so I spoke to him about the problem. It's a new ship and I saw nothing wrong with telling him about a problem with his ship (and specifically the design). Plus he was able to immediately call over the correct person to investigate the problem and have it addressed.

 

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