Seashore Oct ‘21 - a review, perhaps?

[CruiseIreland]

Bond Voyage, Bea! Looking forward to your review. Ken

[Beamafar]

I’m going to take the advice I offered someone else who had problems with losing all their typed up posts, due to forum issues, and type notes, then copy and paste into the thread.   The problem I’m having on CC is doing my head in! 

 

Our cabin steward is a sweetheart - an absolute gem.  There were no robes, slippers or laundry bags in the cabin so we tracked him down yesterday morning.  Apparently we weren’t on his list of Diamond members, so he said he’d leave them in the room later.  I also let him know that we had the minibar included and asked about how it would be restocked.  He said he’d do it twice a day and to let him know what we wanted.   He collected Mr B’s shirts & trousers for ironing and had them back to us in the afternoon! 

 

With the robes and slippers he also left a small sewing kit and one shower cap.  He must have reckoned that Mr B didn’t need one for his bald pate. 🤣🤣

 

[Itochen33]

Tagging along for the ride!

 

just as a heads-up, I will be going on ANOTHER cruise too soon! then it will be the first time in YC for me. Yay!

 

have a great cruise! 😘😘😘

[sidari]

4 hours ago, Beamafar said:

I’m going to take the advice I offered someone else who had problems with losing all their typed up posts, due to forum issues, and type notes, then copy and paste into the thread.   The problem I’m having on CC is doing my head in! 

 

Our cabin steward is a sweetheart - an absolute gem.  There were no robes, slippers or laundry bags in the cabin so we tracked him down yesterday morning.  Apparently we weren’t on his list of Diamond members, so he said he’d leave them in the room later.  I also let him know that we had the minibar included and asked about how it would be restocked.  He said he’d do it twice a day and to let him know what we wanted.   He collected Mr B’s shirts & trousers for ironing and had them back to us in the afternoon! 

 

With the robes and slippers he also left a small sewing kit and one shower cap.  He must have reckoned that Mr B didn’t need one for his bald pate. 🤣🤣

 

Once again we see the Double fleet standards of MSC regarding the Mini Bar! Glad that he is filling it twice a day for you Bea but MSC really do need to get their act together, it is like a chain of shops where every manager does his own thing.

[sidari]

Hello folks. .. Bea has asked me to let you know that she is having a lot of problems trying to post to the thread and will be back posting as soon as she is able to.

She did say that from November and the new drink packages that the mini bar will not be included in any of them, on a tour today they were speaking to a couple from the YC who are new to MSC and said that they had not received either the one bottle of spirits or use of the mini bar.

Hope to find out a bit more about that.

[sidari]

Update of a few things from Bea ...

 

Seashore Dining Room only open for breakfast from 7.30 to 8.30 and 12 to 1pm for Lunch! which means the Buffet is packed.

There are no indications of what offers are available to VC members while onboard, Bea did find out from the Cruise Consultant that Diamond members are entitled to 15% off Ironing services.

As with Seaside and Seaview, Customer service desk is in the wrong place in the Atrium and even on the second level people cannot hear themselves speak due to the live music being too loud.

 

Bea is the second person in two weeks who have told me they don't like Seashore, and that it is badly planned out.

 

Offers may vary according to cruise ! Yet another none standardised MSC thing which should be the same on every ship in the fleet.

 

[vistaman]

23 hours ago, sidari said:

Once again we see the Double fleet standards of MSC regarding the Mini Bar! Glad that he is filling it twice a day for you Bea but MSC really do need to get their act together, it is like a chain of shops where every manager does his own thing.

very true : on some ships there is Coca C and on other Pepsi - probably depending in which area 

Coca C  is difficult to find in the UAE and Qatar 

[sidari]

41 minutes ago, vistaman said:

very true : on some ships there is Coca C and on other Pepsi - probably depending in which area 

Coca C  is difficult to find in the UAE and Qatar 

Items like that are understandable.

[sidari]

This is somewhat disturbing to hear ... "People are walking past the hand sanitizers at the MDR entrance without using them and they are being allowed to!"

[Beamafar]

Folks, I think I’m back (for now, anyway).  I’ll post what I had intended to yesterday:

 

Now, we, in Ireland, can’t purchase anything on the MSC Ireland website (nor can we book cruises) as it’s not set up to take payments. We can pre-purchase drinks packages and excursions and the charge is then added to our onboard account. 

 

I booked 3 excursions, including one to Portofino for today.   When I didn’t see any signs of the tickets I went to the excursions desk to confirm that we we’re booked.  There was nothing in the system.  The agent said it was because they hadn’t been paid for.  I explained about the Irish site but there was nothing she could do.  The Portofino tour was booked out so she couldn’t even book it again. 

 

I had printed out a copy of the confirmation email I’d received at the time of booking, with the prices showing, and gave it to her but she said that didn’t show that the excursions were actually booked.  I could see that she was at a loss as to what to do so I told her that I understood it wasn’t her fault.  Well, her whole demeanour changed and she went back onto the computer to see what could be done. 

 

In the meantime, I checked our cruise tickets stored on my phone and saw that there were vouchers for the excursions included.  Once she saw those it confirmed that we did, indeed, have excursions booked. 

 

She disappeared into the back office for at least 15 minutes before finally returning with tickets for Sunday’s outing and confirmed that the other 2 days’ excursions were now in the system.  One of the problems, it appears, was the discounted price for pre-purchase and, of course, the fact that the Portofino one was booked out (though 2 tickets were found for us anyway). 

 

So, we had a lovely trip to Portofino and there were many seats free on the bus!   We didn’t need to fill out PLFs.  We were told we just needed Covid certs and photo ID.  We weren’t told beforehand so Mr B had to run back to the cabin to get some ID just before we were escorted off the ship for the excursion.  We never had to produce either. 🙄

[sidari]

Bea ... Left Hand / Right Hand ... 🙄

[miataman19]

On 10/22/2021 at 6:51 PM, sidari said:

Hi Bea ... Hope the trials of the last two weeks are soon forgotten, friend got off today who had been in YC and enjoyed the cruise but not the ship and prefers Seaside and Seaview.

sidari, I'm booked on Seashore next June 18th. What did your friends say were the major differences in the YC's? Recently off Meraviglia in YC and had a fantastic experience.

[Norwegian Cruiser 73]

On 10/24/2021 at 3:49 PM, sidari said:

Hello folks. .. Bea has asked me to let you know that she is having a lot of problems trying to post to the thread and will be back posting as soon as she is able to.

She did say that from November and the new drink packages that the mini bar will not be included in any of them, on a tour today they were speaking to a couple from the YC who are new to MSC and said that they had not received either the one bottle of spirits or use of the mini bar.

Hope to find out a bit more about that.

 

I have just returned from a cruise in the YC onboard the MSC Grandiosa and had a lovely time onboard 👌👍

 

Regarding the welcome bottle of spirits, you have to order a bottle of spirits /wine from a drink menu which you will find in the cabin upon embarkation. I have posted the drink menu here. Once you order it from the butler it's delivered right away. 

 

 

[Cardex]

53 minutes ago, Norwegian Cruiser 73 said:

 

I have just returned from a cruise in the YC onboard the MSC Grandiosa and had a lovely time onboard 👌👍

 

Will you be doing a review? I would love to hear about your cruise. My DH and I will be on the Grandiosa in January and it will be our 1st time in the YC.

[sidari]

2 hours ago, miataman19 said:

sidari, I'm booked on Seashore next June 18th. What did your friends say were the major differences in the YC's? Recently off Meraviglia in YC and had a fantastic experience.

The YC was not an issue I don't believe but the rest of the ship in it's design, friends onboard this week are not in the YC but will be again I believe in March 2022.

[sidari]

NC 73 ... Bea currently has the mini bar with their drink package and it is refilled twice a day with the small bottles.

[hamrag]

8 hours ago, sidari said:

Update of a few things from Bea ...

 

....As with Seaside and Seaview, Customer service desk is in the wrong place in the Atrium and even on the second level people cannot hear themselves speak due to the live music being too loud....

 

 

It's exactly the same on Virtuosa....we concluded this is a deliberate ploy to seriously discourage passengers from using such!!

[sidari]

3 hours ago, hamrag said:

 

It's exactly the same on Virtuosa....we concluded this is a deliberate ploy to seriously discourage passengers from using such!!

Have to agree with you totally on this.

[CruisingFox27]

5 hours ago, sidari said:

NC 73 ... Bea currently has the mini bar with their drink package and it is refilled twice a day with the small bottles.

I think it was the fellow passengers Bea met up with who were YC that hadn't received the drinks. 

[Beamafar]

On 10/23/2021 at 3:26 PM, Morgsmom said:

Oh, what a pretty stateroom.  I, too, prefer sofa next to balcony. I wish there was a way to figure this out when looking at the deckplan.

Turns out it’s not as bad as I’d imagined.  There is a stool and table beneath the dressing table opposite the couch and we enjoyed a nightcap sitting on the sofa watching YC last night. 

 

 

 

Veuve Cliquot with added sweet pepper slices and fruits frozen in ice (strawberry, blackberry and raspberry 😁).  The chocolates are from Venchi;  the servers in Times Square treat us to these each evening where we hang out listening to the couple on the “duelling pianos “ (which is nothing like those on NCL!). And, of course, snacks from the minibar 👍

[hamrag]

11 minutes ago, Beamafar said:

Turns out it’s not as bad as I’d imagined.  There is a stool and table beneath the dressing table opposite the couch and we enjoyed a nightcap sitting on the sofa watching YC last night. 

 

 

 

I'm certain I'm not the only regular here noticing the choco peanuts have already disappeared!

[Beamafar]

Yee-haw, managed to get another post up!   Let’s see if this one will work. 🙄

 

……..

 

The buffet was very busy at breakfast time yesterday. People would hover around tables that had just been vacated, with their trays of food, waiting for the dishes to be cleared.  As soon as a crew member cleared the dirty dishes, they would put their own trays down without waiting for the table to be sanitised.  This would not have been allowed when we were on NCL.  The table and chairs had to be sanitised after a table was cleared before anyone could be seated there. 
 

 

Going into the buffet, the crew member taking people’s temperature never directed anyone to use the hand sanitizer next to her.  I’m shocked at the number of people who walk past it without using it.  (This happens at the MDR entrance too).   There is no way you could get away with this on NCL.  There was always someone in the buffet entrance singing “washy, washy, healthy, healthy, masky, masky” before pointing to hand sanitizers on each side of the entranceway. 
 

Because of the very limited opening time for breakfast in the MDR, we had to queue for 15 minutes before getting a table this morning.  The place was packed for lunch yesterday which made for a very busy and noisy experience - again, due to everyone having to be there within the one hour time frame.  There are too many people onboard to be having these ridiculous time limits.  They must want people to use the buffet, by the looks of it. 

[Beamafar]

We found a towel thingamiggy (can’t call it a towel animal cos it isn’t one 😂) on our bed last night. 
 

 

If there’s a bottle opener in the cabin for the minibar beer, we haven’t found it.  On (some) other ships it’s in the bathroom.  Mr B used the buckle on his belt as an alternative.  Desperate times call for desperate measures. 🤣

[Beamafar]

Whoops - we weren’t watching YC last night.  I meant ‘TV’.  

[Beamafar]

15 hours ago, Cardex said:

 

Will you be doing a review? I would love to hear about your cruise. My DH and I will be on the Grandiosa in January and it will be our 1st time in the YC.

NC doesn’t do reviews.  Sometimes he’ll share links to YouTube videos that he takes onboard.  Don’t know if he’s done one for Grandiosa.