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Review of MSC Seaside 12/23/17-1/6/18, SuperfamilyPlus, Menu, Dailies, Food Pr0n,Etc.


seaweeyin
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Hello!

 

I have tried to jump into threads with an answer to a question here and there, but I am delighted to sit down and write my own full review of our two weeks on the MSC Seaside. There seems to be two dominant types of reviews on this site: those who review by category and those who review by day. I'm going to attempt a hybrid by first going over some category stuff--pre-cruise, administration, the ship, our cabin--then move into a series of brief daily posts, which is where you will find the dailies, menus, and food pr0n, which I know 87% of you are really here for anyway. I promise I'll work as quickly as I can, but real life deadlines and activities loom, so patience is greatly appreciated.

 

I'll begin with one comment and one question. First, I spend many hours on this forum researching my own planned and possible cruise vacations and, as a very green cruiser, must share my thanks for all the work others put into their own reviews and info sharing. As a type A personality, knowledge is king. I hope this review can help at least one other person the way I've been helped in the past and know will be again.

 

Second: Perhaps my most pressing question throughout the cruise was: Do THAT many women really not know how to lock a bathroom stall? Stick with me--I greatly dislike potty humor, so I'm not going for a cheap joke here--but I'm afraid I walked in on more ladies these past two weeks than I have the entire rest of my life. That includes the time I walked in on one lady turned the wrong way around, skittered back, the lady came out and said "Sorry, the lock is broken," after which I went in, UNLATCHED the bolt, closed the door, then latched it again, no problem.

 

A bolted door is hard to close.

 

Perhaps this is just one delightful part of that cultural immersion MSC is so well known for here on these boards. ;)

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Looking forward to your review. Also you made me laugh. On RCI Oasis I had a woman come up to me in the ladies room and ask me how to ...use a particular lady hygiene item...I tried as politely as I could to explain in ungrafic terms. After which my two teen daughters emerged from the stalls crimson red after over hearing us.

 

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Introduction:

 

I am seaweeyin, a full-time novelist living in Seattle with mr. seaweeyin, a techie software project manager something or other, and our three kids, a teen, a tween, and a toddler.

 

My husband is originally from Scotland, which is where my delightful in-laws still reside, and to avoid the tediousness of going back and forth from Seattle to Scotland and vice versa for every vacation, we try to meet in the middle, instead. It's not always quite the middle, but so long as we're all on board, everyone's happy. We hadn't taken a single cruise before booking this two weeker---not a weekend party cruise, not a west coast three nighter, nothing. We'd booked our first cruise together--the Mexican Riviera on the Norwegian Jewel--and were waiting for that holiday to arrive when I started reading about the Seaside. It sounded like a good time--and with the SuperfamilyPlus cabins, a true bargain. With that in mind...

 

Once upon a time, a wife asked her husband if he thought his parents would ever want to spend Christmas on holiday together. "Ach, nae!" said he. "My mother would never leave Scotland at Christmastime!" (As you can tell, mr. seaweeyin's accent has Americanized in the years he's lived here). Fast forward to that next weekend for our weekly Skype session with the in-laws. Somehow, in between talk about the Scottish Premier League (mon the hoops!) and which recent wedding was held in which luxurious castle, I wedged in my question. "MIL, what do you think about a family cruise for the 2017 holidays?" Well, her face lit up. "I have dreamed of spending Christmas in a warm, tropical location my entire LIFE!"

 

Score one point for seaweeyin. (Just kidding, we don't keep score in our marriage. My tally would be too high to keep track of.)

 

Since we're in the States and the in-laws are in Scotland, we debated where to book. We also stressed, because one day after the bookings went live, the SuperFamilyPlus cabins were shown as all sold out. They came back online a few days later and there we were, baptized into the infamous Most Terrible Website Ever club. Anyway, we decided the better deal was to be had through the UK site, so we booked there for our family of five, my in-laws, my husband's brother, and my husband's uncle. I was planning on adding on the drink vouchers to our booking, but during the next Skype visit, we learned that the deluxe drink package had been added on to our booking by a magical celtic fairy (my MIL). So we adjusted our budget up and marked the calendar. The countdown began.

 

The Desk/Office/Admin Side of MSC: Between the disconnected offices in each country they sell in, and a general culture of inflexibility, trying to get a task completed or a question answered is a true exercise in patience. I certainly got more answers here than I ever did from them on anything, and I was frustrated to not be able to access my own booking through an 800 or similar number. The one time I called up MSC USA, I was told they couldn't access any UK bookings. I don't really see the point of keeping everything so separated. The reasons for calling up MSC ranged from general questions about what the drink packages did and didn't cover (and also the pricing, which actually went down in price from when we booked) to the bigger issue of: could we add one more person to our booking?

 

In the time since we'd booked, brother-in-law met, fell in love with, and bought a house with a lady and wanted to bring her along. We didn't know what the protocol would be--our cabin held 10 and we were 9--but calls to ask came back with everything from "I don't know, I'll pass this along to a manager (and then silence)," "No, because we don't have enough life jackets on the ship," and "No, just because no." Fast forward to a few weeks before the cruise and brother-in-law decides he won't go, after all. We certainly didn't expect any kind of refund for his drinks package, but we also didn't want there to be any problems if his name was on the reservation. During THAT call, the MSC rep asked if we wanted BIL AND HIS PARTNER both off the reservation. Wait, WHAT??? I still don't know what happened there, but it was too late for them to get decent flights and so they ended up not coming. To their credit, MSC did refund his drinks package.

 

As for the rest of our booking, in addition to the deluxe drinks packages for adults and kids (we slipped in before the strange age thing I guess they're doing now?), we also booked the 100 photos package, the trio specialty dining package for the adults, and the 30 minute Bali massage for myself and my husband (the couples' version), and my MIL.

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Check-in and The Cabin(s):

 

The Scots flew into Miami the Thursday before the cruise, while we west coasters arrived Friday evening. We all stayed at the Embassy Suites Miami Airport which suited our needs well enough. On Saturday morning, we grabbed three Lyfts to the port. On first approach, we saw the MSC logo, pointed, and screeched just a little. Then I looked a little further.

 

"No," I said to the kids. "THAT'S the Seaside."

 

It looked impressive to me, with all those slides hanging over the sides and floors and floors of balconies. Even our Lyft driver kept repeating "Beautiful, beautiful!" We battled the masses, handed over our bags, and waited for the third car to arrive. And waited. And waited. To make a long and painful story short, I WAS LITERALLY STANDING IN FRONT OF OUR SHIP AT TERMINAL F while the driver, some random taxi driver, and some random traffic control person were all trying to convince my in-laws that the Seaside was at Terminal D. A short time later, we were all together again and on our way in.

 

Check-in was easy enough and painless. I felt terribly sorry for the caroling quartet all done up in their Edwardian suits, gowns, and wraps in that warm Miami terminal. But I appreciated the music. Mr. seaweeyin had never spent Christmas where it was warm, so it was all a bit surreal for him (whereas I'm originally from southern California).

 

The atrium, upon entrance, is really beautiful. Glittering and glitzy and refined. In general, I really love the look of the ship. It's truly beautiful and I only got caught up by the mirrors one time, early on, when walking from forward to aft on deck 8 and wondering why on earth that woman coming towards me wasn't moving aside to let me pass! Yes, the carpets tended to be fuzzy, but even that got better as the days went on. I did, however, feel a bit overwhelmed by the all the activity in the atrium, which was a feeling that was repeated the next boarding day, as well. I don't know enough about ship design to say if the atrium is small for the capactity of the ship, or if that's simply every first day on pretty much every cruise ship ever.

 

We got in line to get our two younger kids registered for the kids' club. Other than the line being slow moving, there didn't seem to be any issues there. Both kids were outfitted with rubber bracelets that they could use for checking in and out of the club, opening their cabin doors, and ordering drinks. We thought all was well but this one's to be continued....

 

We next went to take a peek at our cabins. We were assigned three connecting balconies on the 11th floor. I noticed that they didn't have that green line around them on the deck plans indicating SuperFamilyPlus, so I was a little nervous that they'd end up being something other than what we'd booked. But we were happy to discover the set-up promised: one cabin had a double bed + sofa bunk beds, one had a double bed + a pull-out sofa bed, and one had a double bed. The third cabin with just the double bed was the one with the bathtub. To me, the maroon colors of the room and the decor look better in person than in the photos I'd seen beforehand. Nothing to write home about, but nothing offensive, either.

 

The only offensive thing was the the sink in the middle cabin bathroom was clogged up with last night's puke.

 

Not a minute after I saw that, our cabin steward came rushing into the room, followed by a maintenance tech. He asked for another hour to finish the room and so we headed off to do something else. When we came back, all was well again. Gross, person before us. Just gross.

 

Going back to the kids' club bracelets. When we finally got our cabin assignment, the individuals in our party were randomly put into each cabin. One cabin held only the two youngest kids, while mr. seaweeyin and myself were split up. This was something we'd tried to rectify on the phone before sailing, to no avail (see previous post about admin problems). We figured we would simply sleep where we wanted and not worry beyond that. But it turned out that the kids' club wouldn't allow my husband or myself to check our youngest in and out of the club because he wasn't in the same room as us. And when I say the kids' club, I distinctly mean the technology. The actually counselors in the club were FANTASTIC, loved our kids, and were just as frustrated by the problem. We tried re-registering our toddler and tried switched the chip in toddler's bracelet, but neither worked. Finally, the counselors gave him one of the old-style bracelets with the barcode, which worked fine until we got our room assignments changed.

 

The refrain of "I hate this technology" was one we heard a number of times on board.

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A couple photos of the cabin with the bunk beds, and one balcony. We requested to have the doors between our balconies opened and after a warning that they might create noise from knocking in the wind, our steward opened them. They were never closed during the two weeks and never made a lick of noise.

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And here is what the pull out sofa looks like. You can't walk around it when out as it extends to within about an inch of the desk. Our steward mentioned this and said he's happy to set it up each night, but we preferred pulling it out ourselves when we were ready to use it. The problem that created was that our steward...forgot?... we were using it and never serviced the linens. And I'm being generous here. Because halfway through, he noticed the bed out while we were still in the cabin and said "oh, you're using it. " We confirmed we used it every night. You'd think it would be serviced after that! Alas, no. Not once.

 

Honestly, I'm pretty easy to please and can brush most things off my shoulders no problem. I do have to say that our cabin steward was not good. I've seen others on this board mention getting their mini bar refilled regularly -- it was like pulling teeth to get ours restocked and even then things would be missing. Our floor often still had things on it after being cleaned, and not fluff. Cabin stewards vary tremendously, so another is likely wonderful! But that's what we got. Did it dampen our holiday? Goodness, no!8c8b3e1c8ea18062b11f6794e937f429.jpg

 

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After the difficulties with the kids' club bracelets and just generally everyone wanting a key card that opens their actual cabin, we headed down to guest services to see if we could get the room assignments changed.

 

Aaaaahahahahaaahhahhaaaa! For two days straight that line wound around the corner and I don't know about you, but I don't go on holiday to stand in line for hours! What to do instead? Grab some drinks, get some lunch, sit back, and go with the flow. I thought the lunch buffet was excellent. The pizza is outstanding and there is always margherita and pepperoni, plus one other rotating flavor. I loved the Mediterranean corner with the meats and cheeses, of which there were 3-4 kinds of each, plus olives, sundried tomatoes, dried figs, nuts, etc. to make a nice cheese plate. There's a Grill station with two different kinds of burgers, fries, hot dogs, and sometimes seasoned curly fries and/or sweet potato fries. A salad bar section that, IMO, has too few offerings, a cut and whole fruit area, Rotisserie area with chicken seasoned different each day plus sides like potatoes, rice, cooked veg, etc. to go with, a variety of sandwiches and wraps, two soups per day, and several pastas--usually at least one baked dish, plus a few more with sauces. A small variety of other hot dishes rotated in and out--things like fish. At the back, something was always being carved during regular lunch hours. I noticed a whole turkey, ham, and Chicago beef. There are self-serve taps for Heineken and Heineken light in the back of the buffet, as well as for house red and white wine, and sodas. Also available were various watered down juice drinks, water and ice, coffee, tea, lemonade, and milk. The buffet on 8 has a bar with a limited selection of items and bar service can be hit or miss with its speed. When the buffet is full to bursting, well, that's a lot of orders to try to get.

 

The lunch buffet on 16 is smaller, but with most of the same things. This one does have a dedicated kid's section with chicken nuggets, fish fingers, potato croquettes, mac and cheese, quesadillas, hamburger patties and hot dogs, on rotation of 4-5 dishes at a time. This is also where you'll find the soft serve ice cream. There isn't a dedicated bar here, but the pool bar is just around the corner.

 

Anyway, we did manage to get the cabins switched on day three, which cleared up the kids' club situation.

 

One situation that I DID stand in line for (for 45 minutes) was to chat with the maitre'd about our dining time. Here's another one of those ridiculous things we couldn't sort out before the cruise with admin: between the three cabins within our one SuperFamilyPlus reservation, we had two different dining times. Two cabins were late, and one early. We'd requested early, and our reservation showed early until the actual cabin assignment. When my MIL called about the discrepancy, the MSC rep said she changed us all to early, no worries. When we got on board? All assigned late.

 

I know there have been lots of questions about Bella and the buffet restaurant in the evenings. I don't know too much about what was happening there. We were assigned the Seashore restaurant and had Fantastica experience. I can say, however, that one of the reasons the line to address the dining issue was so long was because a woman was truly belligerent about being assigned Marketplace for her dinner. She and the Maitre'd went back and forth on it for some time. At one point, a security personnel came up to stand behind the Maitre'd. I don't know that the situation was ever resolved, so to speak, but she did move on. I am entirely neutral about her behavior, btw. Different things matter differently to different people and such is humanity. When it came to be my turn, the best he could offer me was to write down my name and cabin number and say he'd let me know by the next day if there was anything he could do for me. "And if I don't hear from you?" I asked. He shrugged.

 

Needless to say, I didn't hear from him. I did catch up with him midweek and change our second week to early dining. Which brings us to....

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Dinner, day one. 8:30 really is too late for us, but we made the best of it. This night, we all ate together, but on some other nights, the kids and/or teen would go to their respective aged clubs. We were never offered the "we'll pick them up after they eat first course with you" thing, so we simply dropped off and picked up ourselves as needed (only required with toddler, as the other two could check themselves in and out).

 

We also never asked for a kids menu, so I never got a copy to photograph. We don't really do kids menus. 9319914f3552b1b26748989dda9f3e84.jpg9bde9e85c8d7dd5cebbe0112ad6779d0.jpg2f19fa8744ee2730918315a0e13b19b9.jpg0bca6f2c924307d69b182b49416f2246.jpgc86ddf67d9c2e1fdef3f77134bf18fe2.jpg471240a4d09c501c28d937e06c5fae9c.jpg

 

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Here we have the gnocchi as a starter, the ceasar salad from the everyday menu, the grouper, the snickers cake, the fruit plate, the brownie stack, cheese plate, and the passionfruit cheesecake. The snickers cake was a touch dry, but just add some of the rich chocolate ganache from the middle of the brownie stack and you're all set! The whole meal was very good -- you'll be happy to hear I got better at getting photos of everyone else at the table's meals, too. So much so that everyone was kind enough to check if I got a photo before beginning to eat. Have I mentioned yet how much I love seeing food photos on here??1dbd4ebdbb23b645af9172638ccc3422.jpgd6c58ea7efaf7e9f06997c5a02070c63.jpgd9ec5af228a5f53f6af5fd111b2a611f.jpg50ce217e264b5dcebdee51b7cafc5fb4.jpg73026586ff5178a250eccd51346def49.jpg5d86179d3275326d8f9860545c6611c3.jpg

 

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Here are some photo heavy posts of the Venchi bar menus. First will be the one on deck 7 aft at the south beach pool. With the deluxe package, we had to scramble around to figure out what was included. Thanks again to those on this board who helped answer that question. A couple more details: the crepes and waffle things (cialdone) are NOT included in any package. Also, the sundaes are NOT included. Everything else is. fb6090afdba4bca62822197c40869e05.jpgd3a2d8a46970092731c5f654c2de28d0.jpg5d5cc1ca82394ee21ac6ea31f9eb5ce8.jpg31b92c15e325437792479ee1bf36e434.jpga5364c92c64e2a8c89630f9c4629dadc.jpg84947fe5d1cc2ec94099740dcb94ac70.jpg

 

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Looking forward to your review. Also you made me laugh. On RCI Oasis I had a woman come up to me in the ladies room and ask me how to ...use a particular lady hygiene item...I tried as politely as I could to explain in ungrafic terms. After which my two teen daughters emerged from the stalls crimson red after over hearing us.

 

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You are a blessing to share your knowledge! And a good role model for your teens, even if they were embarrassed at the time.

 

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On Christmas Eve, sea day one, mr. Seaweeyin and I checked out the spa while the kids made new friends in the clubs. I really liked the spa. It's peaceful with just a touch of novelty. The low lighting, soothing music, and sounds of water relaxed me. When we first checked in, we tried to book our massages but were given dinner hour times or 8 a.m. Nope, sorry, not on holiday. So we decided to book them for the next week.

 

We got our cruise pass set up: it's just a card you show when you arrive at the spa. Then they take your room key and exchange it for a snap bracelet that has a "suggested itinerary " for the different spa rooms (which we ignored in favor of doing whatever we wanted), and a key/locker card. My locker card actually worked about half the time. The rest were duds. You use the key card to open the door to the spa area and walk down a short hallway. To the left are the entrances for the locker rooms -- one for women, one for men -- and to the right the entrance to the spa experiences. In theory, you should be able to stash your stuff in a locker, then use the key card to lock it. Bring flip flops/spa shoes, btw, especially if you want to do the snow room. And you should do the snow room. I thought it was beautiful. We cycled through a few different showers, saunas, steam rooms, etc. Each with a different sensory experience -- a dark steam room vs a bright one, for example, or softly raining shower vs stormy one. The spa also gives you exclusive access to an outdoor area with loungers and a hot tub. Simply exit through one of the deck access doors in the spa. It won't lock behind you, promise.

 

We used the spa four days in the first week. We then came across what seemed to be a problem. When I mentioned that I would book our massages in the second week of our cruise, the spa staff looked confused. The manager was brought over and we explained we were on a 14 day. She said no problem, come see her when we got back to Miami and she'll open the reservations for the next week. I made some comment on passing about using the spa pass the next week, as well, and she started shaking her head, repeating that it's only for the duration of the cruise and there is a different price for another week. I replied that we'd booked a 14 day cruise -- not a back to back -- but she just stood there, shaking her head.

 

Honestly, after all the steam I'd had, I didn't have it in me to argue so just left. I simply didn't return the cardboard spa pass card we'd been given and planned to use it the next week. In the end, we did get our massages booked and performed in the second week, but we never used the spa pass again because we were too busy. This was not the only time the 14 day cruise confused staff, but I'll get to that later.

 

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We spent a delightful afternoon making use of the drinks package and the pool areas. My kids (and mr. Seaweeyin) loved the waterslides and splash pad areas. The slide board slide was my favorite by far.

 

In the evening, mr. Seaweeyin and I popped by the champagne bar for predinner drinks while waiting for the rest of our party to finish getting ready. I didn't photograph the whole menu because it was very long, but here are the cocktails. Two asterisks means not covered by any package, one is covered by deluxe, and no asterisk is covered by classic.

 

The drink photo is the blueberry lavender sparkler, which I found too sweet--something I found to be a common theme with drinks on the ship. 08fdda1e7c60ecb78d889558936a72fa.jpgcb0164d3be0caf4c234efd5bc2cbbcd2.jpg658097d020549a0cacaaf747ee657500.jpg1294061660f5602ac113777a010cdf70.jpg

 

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Here's the menu for Christmas eve dinner. It was also the first elegant night of the cruise. I don't know if this is representative of what non holiday cruises will have, since our second week also included a new year's eve menu along the same lines. I ordered the halibut, which I usually love, but it came out dry around the edges. I'm guessing that's a somewhat common thing when you don't order the lobster on lobster night. The center of the halibut was good. The filet and lobster was very good to excellent all around and after everyone had eaten, our server brought out two more plates of it because... why not, I guess? I don't know, but the filet on the last plate was upscale land steakhouse quality and cooked a perfect medium rare. Perhaps they were trying to make me forget about the halibut.

 

A quick note about our server: he was fantastic the whole cruise through. We could tell there were hiccups with the drinks ordering technology, but he moved us through our meals smoothly and with great professionalism.

 

And a quick note about wines: my in-laws tended to stick with the same rose and pinot noir, which they found very drinkable. I tasted my way through through most of the reds and settled on the Oberon and the malbec as my favorites. I generally like bold and juicy reds. 14bee55b21ab7be167ecda0e27ad361a.jpge9b5e93092736e637a1440574051ad92.jpg

 

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