Let's talk about some of the things I loved, and some things I hated, about the MSC Seaside.
It's a controversial ship... the Europeans seems to love it, but a lot of Americans have been critical of certain aspects of the ship.
So, let's go over it, and I'd like to save the things I loved about this ship for last...
So we can end on a positive note... and I'll start with the things I hated about MSC Seaside.
At the top of the list was the entertainment in the evenings.
MSC, what is up with the Opera?
You said this ship was your first built specifically for North Americans...
You do realize that opera is not a big thing in Canada and the United States, don't you?
If you look at the entertainment schedule for all the shows scheduled in the ship's big theater during the week...
You'll see six different performances that were either straight up opera, or classical music...
And I'm not even counting the show "My Life In Music", which...
Had several songs sung completely in Italian.
The other thing that struck me about the entertainment on this ship is that they just didn't spend a lot of money on it.
Instead of a full band, you'd often see just two people performing.
Or here, it's just a DJ and a guy playing saxophone.
Or on this night, it was just a DJ and someone from the entertainment staff trying to pump up the crowd.
I missed the really good bands that I'd enjoyed on other cruises I've been on...
Like this 9-member band I saw on Carnival Breeze.
I also thought that the comedy wasn't in the same league as other cruise ships I've been on.
On MSC, they use a young improv group rather than traditional stand-up comedians.
I did have a few laughs at the improv shows, especially the R-rated one, but...
They're literally trying to make up funny stuff as they go.
That's simply never going to be as funny as some stand-up comic that's been perfecting his set over years and years on the road.
Now while I liked the fact that MSC Seaside had three different swimming pools...
Or five, if you count the shallow one in the waterpark and the restricted one in the Yacht Club...
MSC did something really stupid in designing the three main pools.
Notice that nobody's using the pool.
That's because they made them too deep.
All three of the main pools are over six feet deep, and there's no shallow end.
Notice how these ladies are clinging to the side in order to keep their heads above water.
It's either that, or tread water, or swim from one side of the small pool to the other.
Why didn't they at least put a shallow end in the pool?
And I just can't understand what they were thinking in making the Jungle Pool over six feet deep...
Because that's the pool located near the kid's clubs, and it's the pool that all the kids and families use.
No wonder they decided to put a lifeguard on duty there!
It seems dangerous to make that pool so deep, and with no shallow end at all.
Look how everybody tends to stay along the edges.
On most of the cruise ships I've been on, the pools aren't so very deep...
Allowing you to stand up with your head above water... which makes it fun, on a hot day in the Caribbean...
To spend long periods in the pool, chatting with the other passengers.
Now there's been a whole lot of chatter online about an overwhelming, horrible smell on parts of the MSC Seaside.
We only noticed it a few times where there was a very faint, unpleasant odor...
Nothing as serious as what others have described.
But I don't doubt what they say their experience was.
There've been enough reports from enough cruisers all sailing on different weeks...
In different parts of the ship, that I have to believe that there's been a real issue.
My wife and I prefer a super casual vacation... and normally, when we're on a cruise...
We eat every one of our meals in the buffet restaurant.
But the buffet just wasn't to our liking on MSC Seaside.
One example I can give you is how they made thin, overcooked omelets at breakfast.
We finally had to do something we almost never do... We ate breakfast in the main restaurant just to get a decent breakfast.
Lunch was a little better at the buffet, but still paled in comparison to lunch on other ships I've been on.
It never changed much from day to day.
For example, at their ethnic station, every day at lunch it was just tacos. Every day!
I would have expected them to mix it up more from day to day.
The dinner buffet was a total joke. It was the smallest dinner buffet I had ever seen on a cruise ship, with the least number of choices.
And the thing that amazed me most was, given how small the dinner buffet was...
Why did they devote two different stations to serving hamburgers, hot dogs, and chicken nuggets?
Did they think that was all they had to do to satisfy the Americans at dinner?
The steakhouse was beautiful, but insanely expensive.
I had the Porterhouse Steak, my wife had the halibut.
Our tab was $108, and I have to tell you that that steak was not that good.
Then there were logistics issues.
We ran in to a couple of big logistics snafus on MSC Seaside.
Getting on and off the ship was really slow.
They ought to go study how Royal Caribbean does it on the world's biggest cruise ships...
Much more efficiently than what we saw on this ship, which carries a lot less passengers.
And when we went to check in for a shore excursion we had booked, it was just a totally disorganized mess.
Now it's a new ship. That particular problem will probably get worked out over time, as the crew gets more experienced.
Customer service was also really bad on MSC Seaside.
I had two different situations that I had to resolve during our cruise, and they just weren't handled well at all.
On disembarkation day in Miami, I got denied disembarkation at the gangway...
Because I hadn't used up all the funds in my onboard spending account.
Instead of just crediting the extra money back to the credit card that they had on file...
They made me stand in a 45 minute line at guest services...
In order to resolve the fact that they owed me some money at the end of the cruise.
And in another situation, regarding cancelling a beach excursion on a rainy day...
They were far from accommodating, doing everything they could to put me off and avoid refunding my money...
Even though in the end, they did exactly that.
A bad design decision that they made was not including any self-service laundry facilities onboard.
That's really inconvenient if you want to pack light and do some laundry half way through your vacation.
Or if you're going to dress up for formal night, and want to iron out some wrinkles in your best outfit...
Which got all folded up in your suitcase.
They also made a horrendously bad design choice in our cabin's bathroom...
Which had a combination tub and shower in it. There was no sliding glass door to separate the shower from the rest of the bathroom.
Not even a shower curtain.
When I took a shower, it made a huge mess... with nothing to stop the water from splashing everywhere, all throughout the bathroom.
What were they thinking?!?
Sailing out of the Port Of Miami is a special moment for most cruisers.
It's one of the most beautiful cruise ports in the world, with great views of the mansions of the rich and famous...
The beautiful skyline with all the high rise condominiums...
And a spectacular view of the world-famous South Beach.
But MSC Seaside delays their sailaway until the evening, after dark...
Because they have so many European passengers that fly in the day of the cruise, and arrive late.
So, sailaway was in the dark, and passengers were all involved with dinners and the nightlife...
And totally missed out on what on most other cruises is a beautiful sailaway from the Port Of Miami.
MSC Seaside has a smartphone app called "MSC For Me" but it really didn't do much.
In a perfect world, you'd be able to check the app to find out what's being served at the main restaurant for dinner that night.
Or what night was formal night. But no, you couldn't do that.
You could bring up the deck plans. That was nice, but...
It was missing a key feature I saw on Carnival's smartphone app when I sailed on Carnival Vista a few months earlier.
Carnival had a chat feature built in to their smartphone app...
Which made it really easy to coordinate with the other couple that we were sailing with.
MSC didn't think to build a chat feature in to their app.
They also had a very cumbersome process for placing drink orders.
The servers had a handheld computer, but the software wasn't designed well.
It made ordering a drink a bit of an ordeal.
And then they have to hand it off to you for you to sign it.
There was a lot of room for improvement in that process.
So, that's a pretty long list of mistakes, bad design choices, and fumbles that MSC made with the Seaside.
Now let's go over a much shorter list of the things that we loved about our cruise.
The check-in process in Miami was among the best I've ever experienced.
MSC built a brand new facility at terminal F in the port of Miami...
And it was money well spent. We breezed right on to the ship.
The safety drill was the shortest I've ever experienced. I definitely liked that.
And notice the position of those lifeboats on the ship, and that deck that extends out directly above them.
That was a brilliant design! That extended deck right above the lifeboats totally hides them from above.
When you're sitting out on your balcony, enjoying the view, the lifeboats don't block your view at all...
Because they're hidden under that extended deck on deck 8.
And I totally love what they did with all that extra space on deck 8 where it extends way out to cover the lifeboats.
They made it a huge outdoor dining area.
So that on a warm day in the Caribbean you can take your buffet meal and enjoy it outdoors.
MSC Seaside has one of the best sports bars I've ever seen on a cruise ship.
Of course, there are TVs everywhere and the bar staff is happy to provide you with your beverage of choice.
And of course there's a huge TV where you can watch sports in a big group setting with lots of cheering.
But the cool thing that they did on MSC Seaside that I hadn't seen in the sports bars of other cruise ships
Was building in all these little nooks around the edges of the sports bar...
where you had a more private setting to watch the game with just your family and friends.
And there wasn't just one or two of these little nooks, there were a lot of them.
MSC fully supported and encouraged a special social event for CruiseCritic members.
They called it a meet and mingle, and it's basically a cocktail party just for CruiseCritic.
And MSC provides the drinks for free, and even a cake.
The Captain and some of his officers attend the party and you're free to chat with them.
And they even take a group photo and deliver it to your cabin for free.
I mentioned that the pools were way too deep, but they did have some nice daybeds at the Miami Beach pool, and...
I liked the little waterfall that they had there, too.
The little play area within the children's water park was just the right depth for the kids.
And kids will like the waterslides on MSC Seaside...
Although I can't talk about waterslides without mentioning that if you want the best waterslides on any cruise ship...
You've got to sail on one of Norwegian Cruise Line's ships for that.
(Screaming!)
The thing I liked the most about our cruise was the cabin we stayed in called a "Suite With Whirlpool Bath".
The best thing about it was having our own private Jacuzzi on our balcony.
There was so much I liked about this cabin, and the perks that came along with it, that
I've already done a video that just runs through all the great things about this cabin and its special perks.
If you look at my YouTube channel, you'll find that video.
I won't spend the time now repeating all the benefits of the "Suite With Whirlpool Bath"
When you can just watch that other video that I've already made.
I liked the thermal suite in the ship's spa, although since we had our own Jacuzzi on our balcony, I didn't really need to use the thermal suite.
I also loved the itinerary for our cruise.
Our first stop was Ocho Rios, Jamaica...
Where the weather was so bad that MSC allowed us to get out of the beach excursion we had pre-booked.
Instead, we had some fun at Jimmy Buffet's Margaritaville...
And a much better lunch than we would have had in the buffet on MSC Seaside.
But, wow! It sure did rain that day!
But right around the time we were all done with our lunch, the skies cleared up, and we had a few hours of sunshine.
Our second stop was Grand Cayman, where we took a tender to George Town, and had lunch at the Hard Rock Cafe.
I had a $23 steak at the Hard Rock that beat the heck out of that expensive steak I had a few nights earlier in the ship's steakhouse.
Then we visited Cozumel, Mexico, where the weather was definitely not cooperating.
And you can certainly see why I wanted to cancel our beach excursion!
There's a really nice shopping mall right across the street from where the MSC Seaside docks in Cozumel.
And we had a totally fun lunch at Señor Frogs.
And there was a fourth stop during our 7-day cruise... Nassau, in the Bahamas.
This is a time lapse video I shot in Nassau from the balcony of our cabin...
Using a GoPro mounted on the glass right above our Jacuzzi.
The weather was overcast again, so we just stayed onboard for this day...
Enjoying our Jacuzzi, and the very nice view.
From our Jacuzzi, we had a pretty great view of the Carnival Liberty coming in to the harbor...
Making a big turn right in front of us, and then pulling right in to the dock next to us.
I liked the low cruise fares that MSC has been offering to try to give Americans a reason to try MSC Seaside...
Instead of booking the other great cruise ships that sail out of Miami...
Like Carnival Vista, and the Norwegian Escape.
But in the end, MSC Seaside just didn't compare well to the other cruises we've been on.
We've been on 43 cruises over the years, and honestly, if I were to rank all those cruises from best to worst...
MSC Seaside would be at #43 on my list.
If you're European, you'd probably like it a lot more than I did.
And if you stay in the Yacht Club, I bet you'd like it a lot more.
But if not, this isn't a ship that I'd really recommend for American cruisers.
You'd be much better off to sail on Carnival Vista
Or Norwegian Escape
Or Harmony Of The Seas
Or if you can afford something a little more upscale...
Any of the cruise ships from Viking Ocean cruises, like...
The Viking Star, the Viking Sun, and the Viking Sea.
I'm Jim Zim.
A few months from now, I'll be doing my first Panama Canal cruise.
On a brand new cruise ship: the Norwegian Bliss.
Keep an eye on my YouTube channel for a review of that one, which...
Based on my other cruises with Norwegian Cruise Line, will probably beat the heck out of my cruise on MSC Seaside.
In the meantime, here are a couple of other videos I'd like to recommend.
Click on one, and thanks for watching!