MSC Seaside Cruise Ship Review
Welcome to the overview of our MSC Seaside Caribbean cruise. In this post, we hope to cover the main points of interest from our cruise, so that if you are thinking of booking an MSC Seaside cruise, you will know some of the great places to visit onboard.
For this holiday, we flew from London to Miami, where we stayed 2 nights at Hotel Chelsea in Miami South Beach, before embarking MSC Seaside in the Port of Miami, visiting San Juan, St Thomas, Nassau and Ocean Cay.
The total price for this was around £1250.00 per person and this included flights, transfers, a 2-night hotel stay and 7 night Cruise with the Premium Drinks package.
So, without further to do, let’s crack on.
MSC Seaside Review
Embarkation
When we arrived at the port of Miami around midday, it was slightly chaotic outside, but once we’d handed our luggage over, we made our way inside the terminal building to join the line for security. Thankfully, unlike Miami airport which took us 2.5 hours to get to security, we were through security within 20 minutes and on our way to the check-in area.
We checked in, had our photos taken as the MSC for Me app did not allow us to do it, and then had our cruise cards handed to us. It was now on to the lounge area to wait for our group number to be called. It couldn’t have been more than 10 minutes and we were being called to board the ship, now we were getting excited!
First Impression of MSC Seaside
WOW! MSC Seaside looks amazing! As soon as we were on board, we arrived at the atrium where a DJ was playing and the area was full of life, we instantly knew we were in for a fun cruise!
All around you will find MSC staff offering drinks packages and dining experiences for sale. A big tip is to pre-book these if you can as you will save around 18%.
The video below is from our YouTube channel – HolidaysAtSea
MSC Seaside Cabin 14133
We had an inside cabin, located on deck 14, at Fantastica grade. We specifically chose this grade as at the time, MSC was offering a free Premium Drinks Package, and everyone who knows us knows we love a drink… package.
Cabins became available at 2pm, until then, the corridors are closed off.
The cabin was comfortable and modern, with lots of space in the living area. There was lots of space under the bed for our cases and each side some storage drawers. There was a mini bar which had an additional charge. As part of our loyalty status, we had a bowl of fruit (tip: if you have never sailed MSC, check out Status Match!).
The cupboards had lots of hanging space and some additional shelves.
Now while the living area was large, we found the shower room very small! The shower itself was ok, but the sink and toilet space were quite tight! Though it’s not somewhere you spend too much time ?
We have to mention our cabin steward, he was fabulous! From the 3 MSC cruises we’ve done, he has been the friendliest we’ve experienced.
Bars
Everyone knows we enjoy a drink or two, and on MSC Seaside our thirsts were definitely quenched.
With various bars all around, you didn’t have to travel far to find a drink.
The Seaside Bar, in the middle of the atrium, was at the heart of the action and always had a lively atmosphere.
Smokers would be happy with South Beach Bar, located at the aft end next to the South Beach Pool. We’d often come here even as non-smokers as the other side was non-smoking which staff would enforce. Another bonus, it was Adults only!
Our favourite bar was probably the Wine and Cocktail bar up at Chefs Court, the area just by the speciality dining restaurants. This was a quiet bar, with a menu of cocktails that were not included in the drinks package, but if you wanted a standard G&T as we’d normally have, you would only need to ask.
Food
Most people comment that the one area that lets MSC down, is the food. We tend to disagree with this as we’ve always had great meals on our MSC cruises. The menu definitely has a more Mediterranean vibe than we’ve had on other cruise lines but we do love that.
We were assigned a table for 2 at 7:15. The table was next to another table for two, so close enough you could get to know those beside you if you wish, but also separate enough you could decide to keep yourselves to yourselves.
The food and service in the Main Dining Room were very good, we dinned here a total of 3 evenings during the cruise. The other nights we wanted to try out the other dining venues on offer.
Buffet dining is available around 20 hours a day, there was always something tasty on offer! We’d usually pop here late morning for breakfast, an afternoon snack or a midnight feast!
You will find several speciality restaurants on Seaside, which come with an additional charge, these include Butchers Cut specialising in steaks, Ocean Cay specialising in seafood and finally, the Asian Market Kitchen by Roy Yamaguchi
Entertainment
If there is one thing that MSC knows how to do, that to organise a party and get everyone dancing!
Generally, there was always something going on around the ship but on special nights, such as white night, the atmosphere was buzzing!
Anyone that knows us will know we don’t really do the shows, and we’ll be completely honest, we didn’t make it to one. We think that just goes to show how fun MSC Seaside really is. Obviously, though who enjoy that thing have the options to go every evening, with 2 showings, but you will need to book using one of the TV screens or the MSC for Me App.
Disembarkation
Disembarkation was very efficient, we were assigned 10am, at which point we followed the Konga line through the atrium and off the ship, very easy indeed. It then took a bit longer to get out of the terminal, and once outside, it was super chaotic – we guess that’s Miami cruise terminals for you.
We couldn’t find the shuttle or even make contact with them so we ended up arranging our own to get to the airport. This was easy enough to do, so in the future, we would just do this. It was about £15 for the two of us – which Vision Cruise did refund on return due to the issues we’d had on both arrive and return.
Final thoughts
Another amazing MSC cruise! They just keep doing it… we have so much fun on MSC cruises they put our go-to, P&O to shame! The food and service we experience were the best we’ve had with MSC, so we were really happy with that. If we did have any complaints, it would have been the lack of policing the sun loungers, but hey, you get that on all big ships.
We really can’t wait to revisit the Caribbean wither, the ports we visited were fab and we really want to go back to explore more!
This overview is just a little detail about our cruise holiday, we really hope you check out our cruise vlogs and follow us day to day on or holidays (suppose we should say cruise vacation!).
Related posts:
Miami and our MSC Seaside Cruise Highlights
