We've sailed them twice. The newer MSC cruise ships are beautiful but it was a matter of beauty over function. Lol. Service was a bit lacking in comparison to other lines. As for food, we felt that the ingredients were top quality but execution could be poor and inconsistent. On lobster night, DH and I had PERFECTLY cooked and seasoned lobsters. BIL had an over salted inedible lobster! BIL was the biggest guy with the biggest appetite and yet it never failed that he was served the obviously smallest portion!! Even the 7 yo got a bigger steak than he did.
Pizza is one area that they excelled at. We had the best and freshest pizza at sea on the MSC. And the gelato was the bomb!
We status matched to the highest level loyalty level (Black, I think). Status is retained for 3 years only unless you sail on them in the meantime. So, we will cruise them when the price and itinerary are right. We will just tailor our expectations.
I will try to find my mini trip report for the first time we sailed on her and post it for you (if I find it).
We did the first US sailing of the
MSC Seaside, aka shake down over over Christmas 2017. This was the first of 2 MSC cruises. It was a big family reunion on DH's side of the family. I think there were 17 of us on board. It was the first time in years that we shared a cabin (balcony) with our girls.
The Seaside is a GORGEOUS ship!! Beautiful design with LOTS of open public meeting spaces. Great for family and group reunions such as ours.
However, it is definitely a matter of them choosing design over functionality. There was plenty of “what in the world were they thinking” moments. This was most noticeable (for me) in the lack of cabin storage. It was the least of any ship I had been on and we had overpacked with 4 in the cabin. Very frustrating.
Service was very problematic shipwide. I can forgive a lot due to growing pains. Nothing horrible happened to us. But hearing complaints seemed to be the topic of conversations on board with other passengers. DH and I believe it is a middle and upper management problem and not the crew trying to do their best. We saw a LOT of uniformed personnel on board strolling around, ordering from bars/cafes, etc., they looked like they were on vacation. Hardly any rolled up their sleeves to pitch in when service was logged up, in fact, they just added to the back up.
I wish Management was open to constructive criticism and looking for ways to tweak the product and ship based on the pax experience. After all, they ordered more ships. But there was nary a comment card on board. I asked everywhere. I had actually wanted to compliment a crew member and knew how important pax feedback was to the performance reviews on other cruise lines. Well apparently not on MSC. No wonder why many of the crew seemed to be so lack luster. There is apparently an online comment card to fill out once we are home.
Food is always subjective. Their pizza was GREAT. Lots of QUALITY ingredients overall. But not always executed well. Inconsistent preparation. Portion sizes varied greatly from dish to dish and even among the same item. I never went hungry (except when I was sick) but I was never overly tempted to over eat either. Vegetables were lacking. Not available at buffets and minimal as sides in the dining room. Fresh fruit was more varied than NCL though. They had pineapple, papaya, kiwi and star fruit available! Since I am allergic to cantaloupe and honey dew, this was great for me.
Would I recommend the MSC Seaside? Maybe if only to see the ship. If service is a big deal to you, definitely wait a while until the kinks are worked out.
Would I pick the Seaside again if I had a do-over? Probably. It was still the best deal in term of price for a holiday cruise for our large group. The lower price was probably due to the fact that it was in fact a shake down cruise.
MSC needs to step up their game if they want to increase their fares though. I‘m going to cruise where the best value is. If prices are the same, I’ll pick NCL over MSC, knowing they are both mass market cruiselines and feeling that NCL does it better. If I want to splurge, I’ll pick Celebrity because I had the best service there so far. I’m still too cheap to cruise the really premium cruiselines, especially, since we don‘t drink.
I purchased 18 alcoholic beverage vouchers before boarding (they discontinued the vouchers since then) and between DH and myself, we still have 2 left after giving some away to family and even using some for bottled water and ginger ale.
I don't want to come across as a whiner and complainer, since I have a lot more non-complimentary comments. None of these individual criticisms ruined our cruise. In fact, we had a great time. But we hope that certain things do improve in the future and they actually learn from the shake down cruises instead of sweeping it under the rug.
Funny story: My BIL and nephew went scuba diving in St. Thomas and happened to share a boat dive with a marketing executive with MSC corporate who was in charge of handling the celebrities such as Sophia Loren and Ricky Martin, etc. He had to work at the inaugural party and got a free cruise on the Seaside for him and his family for this holiday week as part of his reward. He told them that he had no problems selling this cruise, but he wouldn't take it again himself! He also pointed out a top executive (CFO?) on the beach with his family and told my BIL that is who he should complain to in order to get his money back.
Our cruise was NOT bad but we were literally surrounded by people complaining including a MSC executive!!
Btw, my only "real" complaint is the lack of safety training on the ship. We noticed a LOT of things "broken" on the new ship. Fire safety doors to/from the buffet kitchen that would lock the crew out (panic bars not working) so, that later on in the cruise, they disabled the self locking mechanism and left it ajar. My nephew noticed only 2 bolts on the fire suppression equipment (?) out of the 4 bolt holes. If there was a fire, and they needed to use it, he is guessing that the pressure of the water would blow that entire box apart. (His words. I didn't see the box myself.) The BIGGEST thing: My family was walking out of the buffet after eating when we saw one of those big industrial toasters on FIRE. There were actually FLAMES shooting up in the air. Some idiot passenger probably put some sort of pastry in the thing and the sugar caught on fire. There were a few passengers standing around trying to flag down the crew who did not seem to care. Crew was walking behind the darn thing and just walked away!! DH went up to it and turned off the appliance and then used tongs to pull the burning food out. Meanwhile, there was still no crew around, they all scattered. There was a tall European screaming at the top of his lungs that some F'ing crew member better get over here to make sure the ship didn't burn down! Once we knew the fire was out, we left and didn't see the rest of the drama or how long it took the crew to get there. With a fire, seconds count!! If DH didn't put it out so fast, it would have spread so easily! I've seen drills on other ships and they take this seriously. No crew in the vicinity of a real fire on Seaside seemed too concerned.
We did a second MSC cruise on the
MSC Divina with my parents in Jan 2020 before COVID news spread around the world. I think I got a great deal on it. We thought it would the first of many cruises and trips as empty nesters! Still waiting for that...
MSC may not be for everyone but we really enjoyed it. We met people who loved MSC and those who didn’t.
Food is subjective , of course, but we enjoyed the food. Sometimes it seemed that nothing on the menu appealed so we ordered “whatever” and was pleasantly surprised when we enjoyed it. The biggest disappointment was Butchers Cut, the paid specialty restaurant. DH and I are diamond status members due to status match to NCL. So we got a free dinner for 2. We paid OOP for my parents. That is $120 that we will never get back. Lol. The service was blah and the food was not great. I mean how do you mess up steak? Mom said the free NY sirloin in the dining room was 100 times better.
DH did not enjoy the buffet breakfast but as long as my parents had hot oatmeal and fresh fruit and I had chocolate croissants, we were happy. MSC had great pizza and it was available all the time!
I also really enjoyed MSC entertainment (when I went). Music, acrobatics, dancing and short. No need for boring story lines.
The MSC private island, Ocean Cay, was worth the wait and worth the cruise fare. Absolutely the perfect beach day. Gorgeous and big enough to not feel crowded. All walkable with the furthest part about a 20 min walk from the ship. Once the trees mature, there will be plenty of shade. In the mean time, you can rent an umbrella. We found a shady spot under some trees away from crowds and spent a few blissful hours there.
Service is hit or miss but nothing bad or great. I booked a 50 min massage, Internet package, and a color, cut & shampoo, all for $190 before boarding. There was absolutely no invoices or extra tipping on board, which was very nice.
We did not have a beverage package and didn’t need one. There were FREE drinks available every day, at the cruisecritic party, the welcome party, the diamond member party, and there was even a happy hour at all bars one day with free sparkling wine from 6pm-7pm? We actually didn’t drink at all, got the non-alcoholic fruity drink at those events and then started skipping said events.
We had an early dinner sitting at 6pm and was lucky enough to have a 4 top. My parents lucked out and got a cabin on the 8th floor right by the aft elevators and stairs. Super convenient to the dining room (6 aft) and the buffet (14 aft). They also snagged a cabin with a bathtub! My Dad enjoys a soak. We were all the way forward, also on the 8th. Our cabin was bigger and has a full loveseat instead of a chair because our bathroom was smaller with a shower instead of a tub. So we were happy. The long walk was good for us anyway after the eating so much.
There seemed to be more storage space over the MSC Seaside and the cabin seems spacious for just the 2 of us.
All in all, if the price is right, we will be back, if only to keep our diamond status which is very nice. Got priority embarkation and a few freebies. Never got my free chocolate ship but didn’t care as I wouldn’t have eaten it anyway. Liked our free MSC baseball caps, even though they are only $10 to buy on the ship. We got white last time, this time we got blue!
HTH, let me know if you have any questions.
. I’ll probably try to use one of my FNCs from either IHG or Marriott. Not being high end won’t bug me! I do want clean, though!!
