Seaside review: January 13 sailing

DH (45) myself (38) son (10) and extended family (2 seniors, adult female and toddler) sailed this past week on Seaside. We are all novice cruisers, myself having cruised twice before, on RCI 9 year’s ago and NCL Star 2 year’s ago. We chose this ship because of the ports and the price. The fact that it was brand new was a bonus. Hadn’t heard much about MSC.

I didn’t take a lot of pictures on this trip, so apologies in advance! The pictures already posted of the ship speak for themselves, with a few exceptions I’ll note.

Embarkation: our tickets said to embark at 3:10, but we learned from CC that you can come much earlier. We had stayed on Miami Beach the night before (Pricelined Washington Park hotel) so it was an easy $8 Uber. We arrived at 12. The line was maybe 35 minutes long. There appeared to be about 55 windows but not all were open. We had uploaded security photos prior to leaving (which took many hours due to MSC’s terrible website!!) however I shouldn’t have bothered because they automatically take ones for you at check in.

The scene at check in:

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We entered on deck 6 and were told to immediately check in our son to the kids club at the table at deck 6. We did so and encountered our first of many minor tech/service snafus. They gave my son a paper band instead of the blue chip bands I had heard about. The staff said you had to get them at guest services. I immediately cringed thinking of the long lines I would inevitably encounter. We decided to let it go for now and deal with it later.

Met up with our family on the 8th floor Marketplace Buffet. It was very busy! We didn’t try to eat with them, just said hi. My sister and I went off to make spa appointments and stop by the kids club to sign waivers.

Went by the spa and it was empty at 1:00. This is the reception area:

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Nice - following .......

Looking forward to the rest of your review

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We had prepurchased the Relaxing Wave 30 minute facial, 30 minute massage, with a week long Thermal pass for $129. My sister had additionally booked a manipedi and wanted to add on a hair color. Hair coloring was $44! My mom got a cut and it was like $30.

The facilities were beautiful and I was thoroughly impressed. Most of the spa staff was from Bali. We were approached by a nice woman to whom we explained we wanted to make reservations. She sat us down and proceeded to try and sell us packages. We politely informed her that we already purchased the packages, we just needed to book. I think it was either the language barrier or just lack of staff training, but she was so confused. She kept asking us if we were Aurea, and we said no, we were Fantastica. Finally she gave up and sent us to the gentleman at the front desk who quickly made our appointments. She informed us that we were indeed Aurea, which I still don’t understand. We were lucky to get our appointments early in the week.

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Oh yay! Can not wait to read more. [emoji4]

We are also Fantastica with a large group. (8)

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Rooms weren’t available at 2:00, so my son and I went to try the pools. Unfortunately none were filled! The jungle pool was in the process of being filled, and the slides were closed. We did find a jacuzzi available at the exit of the slides on 18. This was the jacuzzi we most often used. It was lukewarm, as are all the jacuzzis. The indoor spa jacuzzi was a little warmer.

At 2:00 the announcement was made about rooms being open so off we went. We were in 14112, Fantastica interior. I was happy with the room. It didn’t feel smaller than the interior room we had on NCL because the colors were lighter and the fold down beds were in the ceiling instead of protruding from the walls. The closet hanging space was ample, but I could have used more drawer space. I didn’t utilize the two bedside tables well enough; they were empty. The desk had a large wide and shallow drawer which held the hair dryer (plug built in). There were two plugs on the desk with 2 usb plugs. There was one usb plug by one side of the bed. There were no plugs in the bathroom other than a euro plug.

The bathroom was smaller than NCL, but adequate. There was plenty of storage on the wall and under the sink was a garbage can and plenty more storage.

The towels were plentiful and brand new. You received pool towels as well which were nice and big and thick.

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The TV was large (35”?) and had many channels. There was TBS, TCM, and ESPN. Also Cartoon Network and boomerang. The tv system was “closed” meaning we were not able to plug in our iPads via hdmi or AV adapter to watch movies, as we had done in previous cruise. Oh well.

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Great review so far.... Your Just off the ship and your already giving us input!!! Awesome!!

Bathroom shower had “Med” by MSC shower gel and shampoo containers which were surprisingly nice. Same stuff

As in the spa showers.

The garish carpet in the photos wasn’t as bad as you’d think. It’s more of a violet, like Pantone’s color of the year. The color was repeated on the headboard and throughout the ship.

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No bags had arrived so we explored the ship until dinner time. It was immediately clear that it would take us some time to figure out which elevators went were! We still didn’t feel comfortable by the end of the cruise finding our way around. I would have liked a paper map! The MSC for Me app has a feature which allows you to see where you are on the boat and gives you directions where to go. But I found it clumsy to use. Same with the big tv screens around the ship; there was always lag in the technology which made it frustrating to use.

We made it up to the kids club to check in there and sign waivers. I asked about the blue chip bands and was told they were now only available in the logo shop. Okay then. My son has ASD and was resistant to attending the kids club. He is high functioning but shy around other kids and adults he doesn’t know. I spoke with the staff and they assured me they would make him feel comfortable. I had told him all about the 3D printers and VR video games to get him excited. They assured him he could play with those “whenever he wanted”.

Our dinner reservations were for 5:30 in Ipanema. We were happy with the earlier time due to the two kids. We dressed casually the first night because our bags still hadn’t come.

Our server for the week was Anna. She was Italian and just off Fantasia. Dinner the first night took a long time. Our kids were both in rotten moods and almost 2 hours in we still hadn’t received dessert. My parents were unhappy with the steak (I wisely avoided; the salmon on the classic menu was always great). The kids menu was lackluster that first night. Only white pizza and a chicken hotdog, or penne. My picky kid did choke down some steak and fries and was okay.

We had just the 12 drink tickets and the coffee cuddle. Coffee was very hard to procure in the dining room. We asked the first two nights and it never came. Finally we ordered lattes but they came before the entrees. When Anna would ask us for our drink menu she looked like she was pleading with us not to order anything! It took a long time. The dining room manager came and apologized several times and said the wait was due to the long backup at the bar. Instead we would get a drink at a bar and bring it in with us.

There was a lot of misinformation between staff. I didn’t hold any of them personally responsible, but I do hope they better train staff going forward. Anna was working her tail off, but had strange responses for us. On Italian night they had Aperol Spritz’s on the menu for $7. Anna said they weren’t available. When we asked for fries for the kids she said we had to order the whole steak and fries. Finally she relented and said she’d ask the cooks. She said there were no substitutions allowed to anything on the menu. I kindof doubt that is entirely true, but we aren’t a picky crew so we just went along with it.

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This was the room service menu. The sandwiches were pretty bad (no condiments, so dry and tasteless) but others said the Mediterranean salad was good (but no dressing). Chips had no salt and the “salsa” onboard the entire ship was no more than tomato sauce.

I thought the dining room food was fine. It wasn’t as good as I remembered RCI, and was about on par with NCL. However all things equal I prefer my time dining and the choice of restaurants on NCL. I always found something I liked. The short ribs were okay but fatty, salmon excellent, pasta pretty good. Shrimp fettuccini had one large prawn that was mostly head and entrails. We used dinner as a way to sit down on the quiet and regroup together. The dining room was a little loud and it was hard for everyone to speak to each other.

Dress was casual. I didn’t see anyone get turned away. My husband wore “nice” shorts with a polo and loafers and wasn’t out of place. My mom has bad feet and wears orthotic sandals and was fine. Elegant night was practically an afterthought and they forgot to announce Italian night.

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We wanted to rush out of dinner so we wouldn’t miss sail away, but the ship was delayed due to a flight from China being delayed. Lucky for them! Sail away was anticlimactic. I missed not having a front portion of the ship. I felt like there wasn’t one main gathering spot on this ship. Maybe the Miami Beach pool held this function? It was very windy and cold so we watched from inside the jungle pool. We were also impatiently waiting for our bags.

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We met our steward, August from Bali. He was wonderful. We really lucked out. He was always in the hallways cleaning or folding. We gave him some cash and he brought us ice each night and gave us turndown service. He replaced our beach towels twice a day!

Finally our bags arrived around 8 pm, to our relief. We had brought on some rum runners (don’t hate me) but they arrived safely.

We inquired how to get our drink tickets and you have to ask your room steward. The tickets are, as many have stated, completely asinine and annoying. I didn’t carry a purse the whole week and instead had a card case that stuck to my phone; so I never could carry more than one or two. More on drink service later.

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thank you.:hearteyes:

looking forward to more.

Around 10pm my sisters bag still hadn’t arrived and she needed the rest of her baby gear. She was already very upset because she specially arrived to the ship early to snag one of the ships famed Chicco strollers only to find they only had 4 for the whole ship!! She did procure a pack n play but was really relying on that stroller. Hauling a toddler around the whole ship wasn’t very appealing for her.

Without her bag she went down to customer service aka the 10th circle of hell. Staff wasn’t very helpful and told her there were “millions!!” Of unclaimed bags and that she must not have put the tag on properly. She was furious and holding her adorable but squalling toddler and demanded her bag; a staff hopped to and led her into a room with maybe 20 bags. He told her that her bag had been flagged for contraband and did she try to smuggle booze?? Spoiler alert- she did not (I’m the rebel of the family apparently) She pulled out diapers and Elmo and essentially yelled this at them and they let her go. So, not a good first impression for her.

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I slept like a baby in our room. The mattress was nice and firm. Everything was in good working order.

The next morning I awoke way too early so roamed the ship. I had purchased the Streamer package and still hadn’t figured out how to use it. I had wanted to buy the social package for $20 but it disappeared from the MSC website before I could snag it. I only wanted WiFi to keep in contact with my family.

At around 600 am I wandered down to guest services where there was no one around. A staff member appeared and I asked if he was open- he shrugged. I asked him about the WiFi and how to connect. He said it was already on my phone. I’m pretty tech savvy but it definitely wasn’t on my phone. I tried to explain to him but he just wordlessly snatched my phone and started tapping. He was right- it was there on the MSC app but hidden. He then ominously began explaining how I was certain to burn through all my allotted data unless I was very careful. To protect myself from myself, MSC “helpfully” logs you out of WiFi every 3 hours so you don’t accidentally go over. Which means if you want to text ppl you not only have to be logged on, you have to hope your family member is too. Many times throughout the week we were bickering with each other about who wasn’t logged on. It was a huge pain. The streamer did work pretty well though even in our room. My sister has an iPhone X which stopped working midweek; the texting program needed an update or something and she couldn’t get it to work; MSC said their IT had looked into it and it was an Apple problem and not theirs.

We were all a little annoyed by MSC service. I was less annoyed than most. They were brusque, but not rude. Mostly they just didn’t know, or acted like they knew. That morning was the only time I went to guest services. That guy didn’t crack a smile once. I asked him about the kids band and he told me they were not free and they cost $5. Huh? He said they were only available in the kids club, not the logo store. I recounted to him both the other stories I had heard and he just shrugged and said “I don’t know why they are saying that. They aren’t free.” He also kept insisting my kids paper band would open his stateroom. I just kept saying “no, it doesn’t, it’s paper.” To which he shook his head and said yes, it does. When this happened to me with staff, as it did a few times, I’d just chuckle and go find a drink. Others in my group were really annoyed.

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Um.

I’m not getting a warm fuzzy feeling here...

[emoji51][emoji51][emoji30]🤭

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Thanks so much for taking the time to write your review~! Following with lots of interest as we sail on her in a few weeks time!

Sounds like another sub-par quality cruise on the new Seaside. Hope all of these issues get ironed out by April. Looking for more MDR and buffet food reviews.

I sense I bit of being overwhelmed and still working out the kinks and comfort with working on a new ship. Need to balance right amount of staff to passenger count.... Friendly and attentive service can go along way to make the other short comings or inconveniences seem minor

Sounds to me that the staff needs to be better trained and a bit more knowledgeable with their product. Getting a sense that some of the crew hasn't received any training with the lack of friendliness, knowledge, or downright not caring. If I experience any of this shi+,It'll be my first and last MSC cruise. I'll be sure to let as many potential MSC cruisers know my experience, good or bad.

I agree.... I am sitting dead center as to whether confirm my booking for end of March. We are about as easygoing as anyone when it comes to cruising. But poor service is a deal breaker for me...especially if I am unable to get drinks easily or our head waiter does not meet our drink requests. I can do without the Theater and other venues as we keep to ourselves and really only visit Casino and few bars each night. This review should give me the input I'm looking for..... Yes things will change....But changing the culture for customer service starts with management and if they don't hold the staff accountable...you can't expect the staff to easily change ship wide

Thank you for informing all of us who are booked on the Seaside for the months and year to come.

Gathering all the info we can get from CC will help us to be better prepared to handle issues that we may encounter.

Thanks for taking the time to write this review.