My View: 14 Days of Chasing the Sun on Seaside

[APDMOM]

Black Card Event:

Unlike last week, we remembered and attended the Black Card event.  I liked that the officers stayed around and talked about our cruise experience.  They seemed genuinely interested in our input.  Due to the timing of the Black Card event, we were unfortunately unable to have dinner in the main dining room.  However, after 12 days we are still enjoying the buffet options!  At the end of my review, I will list some of our favorites.

 

[sidari]

The helmet sits on your shoulders and air pumped in keeps the water out as long as you keep your head upright, I am a none swimmer but managed ok despite being 20 under water, you follow a path with handrails and there are divers down with you.

[APDMOM]

My View: End of Day 12 - Chasing the Setting Sun

 

 

[APDMOM]

Daily Planner - Eastern Route Day 5 - Philipsburg, St. Maarten

 

 

 

 

 

[sidari]

Visibility was not great but at least we got photos with our Gopro.

Edited June 13, 2019 by sidari

[ready2cruzagain]

On 6/11/2019 at 1:24 PM, Cruisergal1208 said:

What date is this from?  It was nothing like that on Seaside in April.

 

Thank goodness!  I was thinking I definitely would not be eating in Ocean Cay.

[APDMOM]

My View:  Day 13 - At Sea

[APDMOM]

Gym:

 

As mentioned before, the gym does not have enough equipment for such a large number of passengers.  They have a good variety, but not enough inventory of the popular machines.  The treadmills are almost always full between 6:10 a.m. and 7:30 a.m. when I am there.  If I don’t get there by 6:10 a.m., chances are good that I will not find an available upright bike either.  This is, of course, one of the peak times for the gym, so if you are not an early morning person, your experience may differ.  Both weeks, the gym attendance tapered off toward the end.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Tip:  The free weights are in kilograms.  I should have figured it out much sooner, but it took me until the second week.  On the first day, I tried what I normally do (5 and 3 lb dumbbells).  I could hardly lift the “5 lb” past 10 reps!  Come to realize, they are 12 lb dumbbells, and the 3 kg ones are really ~6.5 lbs.  I settled for the 3 kg and 2 kg for the rest of the time.

 

 

The ladies’ bathroom has 3 showers, a hair dryer, and plenty of lockers.  There is also a sauna in the gym.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[APDMOM]

Free lunch in Ocean Cay:

We used this week’s free lunch for Black Card at Ocean Cay.  There are only 4 exclusions on the menu for this dining experience (I have marked them with red arrows below).  We ordered crab cakes for an appetizer, the sea bass and soft shell crabs for the main course, and we both got the mango crumble for the dessert.  The appetizer and both main courses were excellent!  The portions were very large.  I actually wish they would drop the price with smaller portions, because I don’t see myself paying the $49 for the dining experience and feeling I need to over-eat to get value for my money.  I would much rather have half the portions for a $25 dining experience.   The crumble was a bit of a disappointment.  It was mostly mango with a scoop of espresso ice cream and maybe a teaspoon (at the most) of crumble.  But for a free meal, it was very good.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[APDMOM]

Watch your charges closely:

We had planned on not drinking water at lunch in Ocean Cay, because I would much rather pay $6.50 for an Amaretto Sour than $5.50 for a bottle of water, which I can get for free elsewhere.  We were told the water was free due to our dining drinks package - but it turned out to be not true.  We were charged $5.50 for one bottle of water, plus gratuity.  I ordered a usual Amaretto sour, which should have cost $6.50.  We were charged $13 plus gratuity.  (We did give a $10 gratuity to our server, since lunch was free)

 

Minor Guest Services Gripe:

We called guest services about the $13 charge, and they said they could not handle charging disputes over the phone.  Just wondering why that is? 

 

Now, I know that the lack of customer service is one of the greatest complaints about MSC, but we have really had overall good customer service. DH went down to dispute the charge.  Come to find out the bar had charged us for two Amaretto Sours.  This exact thing happened to our CC friends last week (only with a whiskey drink) on the last day.  So, somebody at the bar is taking extra gratuities by charging for more drinks.  I sure hope they follow up regarding this!  That is unacceptable.  Now, guest services did refund the charges for us, which is great. 

 

Tip:  Keep a close eye on your charges at the bars!

 

View of the busy pool on a Sea Day:

 

 

[APDMOM]

Special Desserts:

On the second sea day, they have this lovely dessert extravaganza with all kinds of cake and desserts to choose from.  These photo’s were from last week, but I forgot to post.  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[APDMOM]

More ship pictures for your sea day ship tour:

 

Champagne Bar:

 

 

 

 

 

 

Atrium:

 

 

I never imagined how beautiful the Swarovski stairs would be in person, as all the pictures I had seen were from far away.  Here is one with a close up view.  They really have large crystals embedded in each of those stairs:

 

 

 

 I love seeing the different displays on the large screens in the atrium.  Here are just a couple of my favorites:

 

 

Edited June 14, 2019 by APDMOM

[APDMOM]

Miami Casino:

 

 

 

That mirror floor... clearly designed by a man! 😜

 

 

 

[APDMOM]

My View:  End of Day 13 - Chasing another beautiful sunset:

 

[APDMOM]

Daily Planner - Eastern Route Day 6 - At Sea

 

 

 

 

 

 

[AZ Stan (FKA Stan in Chicago)]

6 hours ago, APDMOM said:

My View:  End of Day 13 - Chasing another beautiful sunset:

 

APDMom, first, thank you for taking the time and effort to post this most informative review.  DW Pat and I took a 14 day similar itinerary about 18 months ago on the Seaside, and found it lacking in some areas.  I have a feeling, based mostly on your review that some things have changed on board since then.

 

I realize that your cruise is just coming to an end as I write this message, so understand that you may not respond for a few days, but I would appreciate your input.  Below is my recollection of the negatives on our cruise.  But before I do that, I want to emphasize that there were many positives as well, and I think many of our issues were just "teething pain" on a relatively new ship in a new market.

 

So here goes:  Dinner choice- main buffet was closed at 3:30 PM.  Only choice after that was the mini buffet (burgers,chicken fingers, etc.), or a pay for meal, except for the main dining room, and snacks before or after dinner were non-existent.     Very little variety on luncheon buffet, same offerings every day.      Early teen kids with little or no supervision, acting unruly, especially blocking entrance to elevators, standing 4 abreast in the lift, so when the doors open, no one could enter, and then they'd push the door close button.  (700 kids on this cruise!!!!)      Dining room directly under bowling alley, resulting in crashing sounds all during dinner. (Can't they close bowling during dinner hours?).     Absolutely no attempt to enforce even minimal dress standards on formal nights.  I could see teens in hoodies, backward baseball caps, and plain white T shirts.  And that was just at the tables around ours.      

 

On the plus side, the ship was gorgeous, entertainment was superb, and, for the most part, service was good.

 

Also, was the MDR menu a second week repeat of the first?

 

Thanks for helping us decide whether we should book on the Seaside again.

 

Stan

 

[APDMOM]

2 hours ago, AZ Stan (FKA Stan in Chicago) said:

So here goes:  Dinner choice- main buffet was closed at 3:30 PM.  Only choice after that was the mini buffet (burgers,chicken fingers, etc.), or a pay for meal, except for the main dining room, and snacks before or after dinner were non-existent.     Very little variety on luncheon buffet, same offerings every day.      Early teen kids with little or no supervision, acting unruly, especially blocking entrance to elevators, standing 4 abreast in the lift, so when the doors open, no one could enter, and then they'd push the door close button.  (700 kids on this cruise!!!!)      Dining room directly under bowling alley, resulting in crashing sounds all during dinner. (Can't they close bowling during dinner hours?).     Absolutely no attempt to enforce even minimal dress standards on formal nights.  I could see teens in hoodies, backward baseball caps, and plain white T shirts.  And that was just at the tables around ours.      

 

Hi, Stan! Thank you for your input and questions!   I will try my best to respond, based upon our experience.  I can tell you that we met a couple who has cruised on MSC for a few years now.  They have seen a great improvement since they started.  I have to agree that I have NOT seen many of the previous complaints from reviews, such as poor bar service, lack of variety of foods, etc. Also, I gathered from the staff that they really take our input to heart and they try to make a positive difference by implementing changes.  So, I am sure things have changed since you last cruised Seaside.

 

Dinner Choice:   

There is now a full dinner buffet with a great variety of options.  You can not typically find the same foods from the MDR, but still a great variety.  They usually have the same soup in the buffet as in the MDR, but other options are similar to lunch options.

 

Unruly Children:

Surprisingly, this has been one of our best cruises as far as the behavior of teens and pre-teens was concerned.  We have actually run into unruly teens on almost all summer and spring break cruises, regardless of cruise line, but these past two weeks were great!  There are always parents who do not “parent” on our cruises, but these two weeks have only had a few minor incidents.  I would not exclude any cruise line from this kind of problem though.  It can even differ from one week to the next. Last week had fewer kids on the cruise, so spaces were a little less crowded.  This week was more crowded, but still not a problem.

 

Dining Room and Bowling alley: 

We did not have this problem, as our table was on the opposite side of the bowling alley.  So, I can not comment on how that is working out now.  However, we have found the staff extremely accommodating, and I would not be surprised if you could get moved to the other dining room if you asked them.  From the previous comments I had read on cruise critic, the staff has learned how to switch to the American “Customer service” market in order to try to keep the majority happy.

 

Dress standards:

I can not answer this with confidence, as we did not attend the formal nights.  We did see many more men with sports jackets and suits in the public spaces than on any other cruise.  So, I think they tend to dress up more than we had experienced on RCL.  However, based upon our experiences with customer services regarding a complaint about a fellow passenger (will elaborate in my summary), I doubt that they would enforce a dress code rule... They do not really have a dress code - just a dress suggestion.  So, if this is an important aspect to you, MSC may still not be the line to fit your needs.  I think MSC still needs some balance in the area of “enforcing rules”, which I will explain in my summary.

 

Hope this helps!  We have booked 4 more weeks on Seaside, and 4 cruises on Royal Caribbean, so that tells you how much we loved this cruise  😁

[APDMOM]

Since we have a long drive back tomorrow, I will not be able to close out our review until Sunday.  I will leave you with one more menu... 

 

Seaview Lounge Coffee Bar Menu:

 

 

 

Bar menu:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited June 15, 2019 by APDMOM

[APDMOM]

Thanks to everyone for following along on our amazing 14-day adventure!  It was near perfect, but I will share the pros and cons at the end of this review so that you can decide if this is the cruise for you.  🙂

 

I hope to post a little tomorrow night and to close out on Sunday. 

[nautica34]

I've enjoyed very much following along! Do you recall which buffet had the fancy cakes on display and what time of day? Was it listed in the program and I missed it? 

[Niallol]

5 hours ago, APDMOM said:

Thanks to everyone for following along on our amazing 14-day adventure!  It was near perfect, but I will share the pros and cons at the end of this review so that you can decide if this is the cruise for you.  🙂

 

I hope to post a little tomorrow night and to close out on Sunday. 

 

Thank you, APDMOM. Your live reviewing has been a mini internet EVENT!

[CGTNORMANDIE]

1 hour ago, Niallol said:

 

Thank you, APDMOM. Your live reviewing has been a mini internet EVENT!

BRAVO ADPMOM!!  Great review...kept me enthralled for more than two weeks!

 

Thanks so much!

[dolphin1313]

6 hours ago, APDMOM said:

Thanks to everyone for following along on our amazing 14-day adventure!  It was near perfect, but I will share the pros and cons at the end of this review so that you can decide if this is the cruise for you.  🙂

 

I hope to post a little tomorrow night and to close out on Sunday. 

Thanks Apdmom for taking time from your vacation to post a live review!

[shipgeeks]

We have enjoyed your notes so much!

[cruzlover]

12 hours ago, APDMOM said:

Thanks to everyone for following along on our amazing 14-day adventure!  It was near perfect, but I will share the pros and cons at the end of this review so that you can decide if this is the cruise for you.  🙂

 

Thanks so much for sharing your amazing 14-day adventure! And especially for taking the time to answer questions. Looking forward to your wrap-up. I plan to re-read the whole thing the week before we go and take notes 

 

Can’t wait till it’s our turn 😎🚢🍹