Blog Archives

MSC Seaside Beverages and Snacks

3/30/2018

This is where I am going to get excited! The Seaside had tons of delicious snack options around. I am still dreaming about some of these things that I indulged in last week. Most of the treats are Venchi brand and chocolate. SO if chocolate is not your thing, you can skim this post. If you're from or have visited; Chicago, New York, or Boston, you may have heard of them. Venchi was founded in Italy in 1878 and more likely to be found in Europe!

Venchi Crepes

Let's start with my favorite item from the week. My Venchi crepe. The crepes are located in the South Beach pool area on deck 7, aft. This particular Venchi shop had the crepes and gelato. Sadly, I only ventured off to this place on the second to last night. Had I found it earlier in the week I probably would have packed on a few extra pounds. This crepe was delicious! I ordered one with just gianduja (think of Italian Nutella). I had planned to go back and order one with bananas the following night but never got around to it. They are custom made, fresh for you each time one is ordered. It was delightful. Mine had cooled a bit before ate it. We walked to the main Venchi shop so that my friend and my husband could get their specialty coffees. It was room temperature, but still amazing. I would imagine one that was still warm would be heavenly.

Venchi Specialty Coffees

The main Venchi shop, on deck six just beyond the main atrium, is where it's at. They make everything from specialty coffees, specialty liquor drinks, and more. All involving CHOCOLATE! I'm fairly certain that we went here every single night of the cruise after dinner. The drinks were delicious. From thick, I mean seriously thick, bordering on pudding, creamy hot chocolate. Marocchino Specials, Chocolate Martinis. And more. However, the service at this location was not good. They made many mistakes and then when asked to be corrected, many guests were argued with. By the manager to boot. Not only did we experience this, but my friends did one of my neighbors who also sailed and other random guests that I witnessed. Yikes! That being said. It didn't keep me away. I still went back every day. Keep in mind that these drinks are extra charges unless you have coffee vouchers or the Premium add on drink package.

Venchi Cioccogelateria

AKA The Chocolate & Gelato place. Same location as the coffee bar. They have a case full of freshly made chocolate treats. Sorry I didn't take a close up. I enjoyed the dark chocolate bricks with hazelnuts inside. My husband liked the milk chocolate version. My five-year-old, he liked the Tiramisu chocolates. My one year old had his first taste of chocolate on this trip. Not sure how much he consumed because it was all over him at one point. We reloaded our chocolate stash daily. We'd eat what we bought; then I'd go for a chocolate run during nap time. My family would wake up happy with fresh chocolates awaiting them. I was way more interested in the chocolates than the Gelato. For some reason, I am not a big gelato fan. I love ice cream, but gelato just doesn't hit the spot for me. It was good gelato, and my friend and her son had it daily. They loved it. Each location varied in the flavors that they carried, so sometimes you had to gelato hop around the ship to find the specialty flavors.
* These are an extra charge. Its based on weight, but I would say it averaged out to $1.50-$2 per chocolate. Not cheap. BUT we were on vacation and that's when we tend to splurge!

Gelato Buddies!

Comments

MSC Seaside Dining

3/29/2018

Comments

I will discuss the dining venues we went to here. This will not include the yummy, scrumptious crepes, gelato, and chocolate. That will come later!

Buffet Dining

The Seaside is unique in that it has TWO buffets. The smaller, family friendly one, is Biscayne Bay Buffet on deck 16. The larger, more robust, location was the Marketplace on deck 8. We ate all of our breakfasts, 6/7 lunches, and 1 dinner at the buffets. There are times that half of the Marketplace buffet is closed at night and used as a Main Dining Room with table service. We usually chose the closer buffet- except breakfasts were always at Marketplace for us due to wider variety.
Pros

Wide variety of foods despite what I had read in previous reviews. There was something for everyone. Pizza was served at every meal- breakfast lunch, and dinner. Breads were freshly baked daily.
Full sized high chairs available with a tray. They are the Chicco Polly highchair line. They were always clean and available.
Bar Service button at each table along with a bar in the marketplace buffet.
We never struggled to find a table. Marketplace, on deck 8, has plenty of outdoor seating. We had great weather and took advantage a few times!
Biscayne Bay Buffet had a low counter for kids to get their own food from. It was chest height for my 5 year old.

Cons

Deciding which buffet to eat at.
Crowds. We found the Biscayne Bay buffet to be much more crowded. It was smaller to begin with and near the Miami Beach Pool, so naturally people head there because it's close to the outdoor activities. The layout led to a lot of squished moments where there wasn't quite enough room for everyone to squeeze through while walking.

Main Dining Room

This is one of the hits and misses of the cruise- food is subjective. The food itself was good. I consider myself a picky eater and found at least 1-2 entrees each night that satisfied my liking. There was only ONE dish that did not taste right, and that was the French Onion Soup. It was missing something, and I could not pin point it. There were a lot of misses on the desserts too. Their features Brownie stack was dry and lacked a good chocolate flavor. It also changed nightly. By the end of the week it was missing the brownie portion and only had mousse on top. haha Thankfully we waltzed on over the Venchi after dinner, daily, and loaded up on gelato, chocolates, and more!

We requested early dining and were assigned 7:45 pm in the Ipanema dining room. We went to the Maitre D on the first day to request to be moved. 7:45 pm is too late for us to eat with young kids. There were many other people waiting to request the same thing. The couple we traveled with was able to get us accommodated at the 5:30/6pm time. Yay, great relief! Night one we had an amazing waiter who anticipated our every need and brought the boys food and desserts that kept them behaving. Nights 2-5 we had a waiter who needed more training. Night 6, the guy was on top of things, and the Maitre D even brought the boys dinners out quickly for us. Night 7, we were squeezed in last minute, and the guy was in a rush. So not our best dining "experience" on a cruise by far.

Butcher's Cut Steakhouse

My husband and I had lunch at the steakhouse on a sea day. The food was delicious and flavorful. They offer two types of butter, one smoked and another sweet with spices. With the yummy butters, you're also given a soft cloth basket of bread. Four large breadstick style and one sweet biscuit. Those were pretty good, but I would have liked a soft bread to better spread my yummy butter!

We both had the Smoked Tomato Soup. It came with a small grilled cheese for dipping. We both also had the Filet and a side of Smoked Mashed Potatoes. The steaks are served with four sauces: chimichurri, bearnaise, peppercorn, and something with mushrooms. I blocked the last one out because I don't do mushrooms ;)

Overall it was a fabulous meal. Relaxing. Service was great. I highly recommend it!

Comments

MSC Seaside Kids Club

3/24/2018

Comments

Things to note about the kids club-

There were over 1,100 kids on our sailing.
Happy Dinners need to be signed up for in advance, but daily. It does fill up!
The kids club is located on the same deck as the Forest Aquaventure Park, we'll call it kid-central!
Each child gets a red-silicone bracelet with a circular chip inside. This is used to scan in and out of the club, it also indicates muster station on the side, as well as GPS capability if you choose to pay for it. You have to return the chip on the last day before debarkation, before 4pm to prevent being charged for the chip.
To use the GPS locator embedded within the kid bracelet, you pay $18 for the duration of the cruise. It was not free.

Mini Club (ages 3-6)

The Mini Club room is Lego themed. I was unable to get a photo because on day one they were doing a charity event closed to the public and after that, they did not allow parents back into the age group rooms. The kids club doesn't stay in there all day. There are various times in the day in which the kids were all over the ship. Dance parties in the garage club, soccer clinics on the basketball court, etc. We arrived one night to be told that the kids were down in the atrium. They had plenty of staff, but it seemed pretty easy to slip away with a kid in these locations. One night we picked him up from the Garage Club and no one stopped us from taking him. I am a rule follower, so I found the lady with the laptop to properly sign him out, but no one would have stopped me if I just left with him that night.

Baby Care

We used Baby Care every night except the first night. This was the first ship I'd been on that provided it for free! Disney and Royal Caribbean charge per hour for this service. So having it provided was a nice touch. We sent our little guy on about half the days for lunch so we could use the waterslides together as a family, he's too small for the waterslides obviously.... We also had a steakhouse lunch one day, so we sent him then. It was good for exactly what we needed- lunch and dinner. The catch to it being free is that they don't change diapers, give bottles, cups, or food/snacks even if I sent it. Interestingly, someone else on the same cruise reported that the staff fed the baby snacks that she brought... There goes the inconsistency again...

We were given a phone for them to reach us should something happen to our son. They called us nearly every time that he was crying. He's been in ship nurseries in the past, and this didn't happen. I don't know if it's his age or what.

The girl who was there each time would hold him until we got there to keep him calm, which was nice.

Happy Dinners

We signed our older son up for Happy Dinners on 5 of the seven nights. He's not a great eater, to begin with, so the dining room would be torture for him. He's better off eating in a social setting with other kids. So we sent him there. They had themed nights. Dinner was at 7 pm, which I found to be late for young kids. One night was a Hamburger party that I recall off the top of my head. But they served pizza, chicken fingers, french fries, and hamburgers to the kids. It's a cruise; I am not looking for my kid to have a plate full of vegetables. Each night we'd ask what he ate, and he would reply with "French Fries!" One night we picked them up from the buffet on deck 16- Biscayne Bay Buffet. It was closed to the public, so that was nice. They just had the kids in there. We saw trays of french fries! I can only assume it was the aftermath because they were passing out ice cream at that time.

We had an issue on Day 2. I had asked to sign my older son up for the Happy Dinners; the DoReMi staff member told me to come back at 5 pm to sign up. At 5 pm I showed up and was told it was full. I explained that the woman from earlier told me to come back at 5 pm. The lady in charge then argued with me that no one told me that and I was, essentially, making it up. I eventually got it resolved, and my son ate dinner with the club. We had another issue later in the week concerning dining, but it was basically another argument with the staff at the kids club.

Comments

MSC Seaside

3/24/2018

Comments

We're baaaaack! We just sailed on the brand new MSC Seaside. MSC has been around for many years as a shipping company, and now a cruise line as well. They recently decided to break in to the U.S. market a little more with a ship specifically designed to sail from Miami year round. I wanted to be one of the first on this state of the art new ship. It debuted in December, so I gave it 3 months to warm up to the "American" clientele. Before my cruise, reviews online were hit and miss. Everything from extreme disappointment to falling in love with the ship. It was shocking to read reviews of such disparity I know most people are wondering, how did it go? Would you go again? My answer is: we had fun. I would go again in the future as long as a few things change. Below is my "short" review. In the coming days, maybe weeks- depends on how busy I am, I will go through each category in separate blog posts.

Food

My husband said it was the best food he's had on a cruise that he can remember. I am a picky eater and found something every night that satisfied me. The breads are all fresh baked onboard and delicious. Butter was readily available despite earlier reports of "Buttergate" flying around social media. Pizza is also made fresh in pizza ovens a few minutes before it hits your mouth. It beats Princess pizza, which is pretty darn good! There are 4 Venchi Gelato shops onboard. Some just have gelato, others have yummy crepes, fresh made chocolate, and even coffee! We ate at Butcher's Cut Steakhouse and our meal was fabulous. Overall the food was a win for me.

Venchi Crepe

Stateroom

We had a Fantastica Balcony, basically a standard balcony for this ship. Aurea and Bella balcony rooms are the same size. It was a little tight, but that's because it had a smaller than average closet. Plus the pack n play they provided was massive. Like, so big that my 5 year old fit in it with extra room! I guess Chicco makes bigger ones in Italy? I loved the curtains. Super thick, which kept the light out, which made my family sleep in! <3 The bed was better than the ones on Harmony back in December. I liked the glass shower door opposed to curtains that some older ships have. The room was alright overall. Not better nor worse than past cruises unless you need tons of storage space.

Ship

The ship itself was beautiful. A lot of shiny metals, Swarovski Crystal steps, and more. Everything was clean. The elevator doors were mirrored metal and very rarely did I see finger prints. I saw crew members wiping and cleaning 24/7. There were definitely some design and layout issues though. There was a large round stage-like thing next to the Miami Beach pool that essentially blocked the big screen and stage where day time events occurred. I felt like I had to constantly zig-zag around the ship due to areas not open to the public or that did not allow direct pass throughs. Sometimes I had to go up and over a deck to get to something on the other side. Not a deal breaker, but annoying to say the least.

Swarovski steps on MSC Seaside

Pools & Slides

The ship has three "public" pools. South Beach pool was adults only. Miami Beach pool was on deck 16 and was the "main" pool. The Jungle Pool was the magrodome/ enclosed pool. Deck chairs filled up quickly as they don't have a rule against chair hogs. So basically everyone woke up at the crack of dawn to reserve chairs. Pools were all very deep, 6 feet. So hard for smaller kids to really enjoy them. There was also the Yacht Club pool, exclusive to the Yacht Club guests.

The Forest Aquaventure Park was great. My older son loved it. Even my husband and I had fun on the features. There are 4 water slides, two mini slides within the splash area, and lots of water canons. It was closed on the final sea day due to water splashing in to the elevators nearby (another design flaw!) But overall the Aquaventure Park was another win for my family!

Entertainment

There was a different show every night. Which was nice. People could pick based on the type of shows that they wanted to see. There were three show times each night. Problem was, the descriptions did not fit the shows whatsoever! We saw two shows, the one on the 2nd night was The Dream. It was exactly like a dream. A lot of random things put together. The talent of the performers was impressive. The costumes were interesting at times and the acts ranged from funny, to "what was that", to unique talent. Overall I left entertained from that show. My friend and I were cracking up laughing at a few parts.

We also went to My Life in Music. My baby ended up getting sick during the show and we all took that as our cue to leave. It just wasn't our thing and so that was a blessing in disguise. I really wanted to see the Wizard, Perter Punk, and Timeless but never got around to it unfortunately.

Doremiland (Kids Club)

My son and his friend with the Doremi mascot.

This left me disappointed. I had high hopes for the kids club. Lego themed, it sounded like a perfect fit for my 5 year old. But sadly it just didn't live up to the hype. We were given wrong information on day two which turned in to an issue with the kids club staff that night. We also had a few safety/security concerns. This was one of the first cruises in which I had to beg my son to go (we wanted a few adult-only dinners). My 1 year old also used the nursery, which was nice, but not quite as good as Disney and Royal Caribbean's nursery program.

I will go in to more detail in my specific blog post about the kids club later.

Service

This is where the whole cruise can be made. Service is where it's at. Especially in the U.S. People expect certain things.

The best way I can describe the service on this ship was 50% friendly, warm, amazing staff/crew. The first night we had an awesome waiter who anticipated our every need. He was amazing, but we never had him again. The guy running the arcade was uber-nice to us.

The other 50% consisted of crew/staff that didn't know the answers to questions, but still answered anyway and crew/staff who flat out argued when they were wrong. It was frustrating at times to deal with because you never knew if the information was correct. Here are a few examples from the chocolate shop:
My friend and I ordered two identical coffee-chocolate drinks but specifically asked (multiple times) for one of them to be decaf. When the order was presented, she asked which is decaf. The manager was the one serving and turned to ask the guy who made them. He said they were both regular. My friend reiterated that she asked for decaf. The manager rolled her eyes and acted as though we were being unreasonable. Another friend also ordered coffee/chocolate drinks and were given drinks without the coffee. It was rather obvious based on the volume and consistency in the cup. The same manager, but this was on a different day, argued with them about it. Finally it was remade and it was the way it should have been initially.

I think service is something that can easily be improved upon and I will be sharing my experience with the higher ups in the company to help them provide a better experience to guests onboard. I had 8 other families, booked through me, traveling on the same cruise. So I was concerned that my own people were able to enjoy their trip.

Comments

MSC Seaside Beverages and Snacks

Venchi Crepes

Venchi Specialty Coffees

Venchi Cioccogelateria

MSC Seaside Dining

Buffet Dining

Main Dining Room

Butcher's Cut Steakhouse

MSC Seaside Kids Club

Mini Club (ages 3-6)

Baby Care

Happy Dinners

MSC Seaside

Food

Stateroom

Ship

Pools & Slides

Entertainment

Doremiland (Kids Club)

Service

Author

Categories

Archives