Tag: dan marino

MSC Seaside: The Naming Ceremony!

It’s 4 am on the morning of day 2 here aboard the Seaside, and with a little insomnia setting in, it seemed like a good time for a look at the Seaside’s naming ceremony we were fortunate to be able to attended last night.

First, I have to say, I’m loving this so far. It’s our first inaugural sailing, and things have gone pretty well in my opinion. Boarding was a little slow, but that’s to be expected, as everyone (media and travel industry) pretty much showed up at the same time, so check in took a little longer than it would for a normal sailing. The crew have been outstanding, the ship is beautiful, and we’re having a blast! I think my only true complaint was the gala dinner. Being that everyone had the same seating time, they served a set menu, one that really didn’t fit my eating habits. Very seafood heavy, with veal as the only non-fishy option for the entree:

(click the little arrow on the right side to move to the menu pic)

With it not really fitting our tastes, we ended up skipping out a little early and hitting the buffet, which gave me a second opportunity to have a slice of that awesome MSC pizza :).

Aside from the tiny dinner menu hiccup, things have been awesome so far. The naming ceremony itself was fun, with a number of speakers from MSC and the local community. Mario Lopez hosted:

Throughout the night he brought out a number of people, including Miami Dolphins legend Dan Marino:

The night also included performances by Andrea Bocelli with Voices of Haiti, and was capped off with a short concert by Ricky Martin! I haven’t had a chance to upload any of Andrea Bocelli’s performance yet, so keep an eye on our social media pages. Here’s a portion of Ricky Martin’s performance, with another short clip also available on our Instagram:

Following the speakers, the music, and all the fun, it was time to get down to business. One last thing needed to happen to make this all official, the ribbon cutting!

All in all it was a great ceremony, and we were happy to have been a part of it. I know I’m not doing it justice, and I’m going to blame the early morning hour/lack of sleep for that, but if you want to see the entire thing, head on over to MSC’s Youtube channel and check out the whole show!

The evening was capped off with some fun in the atrium with the entertainment team. Definitely saw some familiar faces out there, and can’t wait for the normal event schedule to start Saturday!

Well, that’s all for now, I’m going to try and get a little more sleep before we get up and explore the ship some more today. Maybe I’ll dream of that amazing gelato we had so much of yesterday :). They make some delicious flavors, and I have to say, the gelato bars are incredible. I could eat those as a meal. We’d never had one on the Divina (do they even have them?), but I grabbed a dark chocolate one after dinner and WOW. I can’t wait to try some of the other flavors!

Be sure to follow up on social media to see more of the ship over the next 9 days! This thing is awesome!

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5 Things We’re Excited for on MSC Seaside!

(Note – Any Seaside images/renderings used here belong to MSC Cruises)

In 4 short days, we embark on MSC’s newest ship, the Seaside, for two back to back sailings, kicking off with the 2-day inaugural that includes the naming ceremony, followed by an 8-day Christmas sailing. This is one we’ve been excited for going back well over a year, as we’ve become big fans of the MSC product, and are really looking forward to checking out their brand new ship! If you’re not familiar with what the Seaside has to offer, this post is for you! Let’s take a look at the top 5 things we’re looking forward to seeing onboard!

Our Cabin – Aurea Suite 9250

While the inside portion of the cabin itself doesn’t appear to be any bigger than a standard balcony room, it comes with a longer balcony, giving us more space outside, and it overlooks the outside boardwalk area. Having done standard balconies, larger Yacht Club balconies, and even an aft wrap, we wanted to try something new this time around, and this seemed to fit the bill! With this cabin comes all the Aurea benefits, which are a nice added bonus! I’ve circled the area where our cabin is here:

seaside5

Zipline and Waterslides

Ziplines at sea are always a blast. We’ve done the one on Oasis of the Seas, and very much look forward to trying out the one on the Seaside. I hope they allow you to take a camera, too, as I’d like to make a 360 video of this similar to the one I did for Royal Caribbean’s zipline on Labadee! The Seaside’s zipline is billed as the largest at sea, and I’m excited to take a run or 3 down this. Check out Captain Scala’s test run to see it for yourself!

The 4 water slides available on Seaside far surpass the single slide on the Divina, and include two high-speed racing slides that include clear loops extending over the sides of the ship. Yes please! They also have something called “Slide boarding technology” that, in their words combines “an interactive game, lights, music and a 367-foot water slide”. Sounds like fun!

Dan Marino

Okay, he’s not really a feature of the ship, but he’s going to be present for the naming ceremony on Thursday evening, which we’ll be at! I admit, I’m a fan, and hope that we get the chance to meet him! Yes, with all of the celebrities they’ve announced as being part of the ceremony, Marino’s the one I want to meet :). Pretty sure if you asked Jen who she wants to meet, it’d be Mario Lopez, but does Lopez hold the record for most games with 450+ passing yards? I think not!

If you want to watch the naming ceremony live, keep an eye on the event page around 6:45pm ET on 12/21!!

Boardwalk-Style Design

The Seaside’s design is a new take on exposing passengers to the sun. Instead of only offering the traditional upper deck outdoor spaces, Seaside takes that a step further with the Waterfront Boardwalk and Infinity Bridge on deck 8, and the South Beach pool at the rear of deck 7. The ship itself is modeled after the South Beach condo scene, with the pool sitting below all of the aft balcony cabins and the panoramic elevators that are between those cabins. It definitely gives off that vibe in the pictures, and I can’t wait to check it all out!

Restaurants

While I’m exited to try the included main dining room and really looking forward to that awesome MSC pizza, this is more about the specialty restaurants. As I mentioned in a previous post, we finally tried a couple of the specialty restaurants on the Divina during our last sailing, and loved them! The list of restaurants on the Seaside includes one that we’re definitely going to visit, the Teppanyaki restaurant by Roy Yamaguchi. We love a good Teppanyaki style eatery! We’ve eaten at ones on the Norwegian Escape, Norwegian Epic and Royal Caribbean Harmony of the Seas, and the ones on the Escape and Harmony set very high bars in our eyes (both were outstanding in their own ways), so I’m excited to see how the Seaside’s compares!

The Crew

I know I said I was only going to mention 5 things, but I simply couldn’t leave out the crew, so consider it a bonus! We’re excited to see some of the same faces we’ve come to enjoy from our past Divina sailings:

  • It all starts at the top, as we’re very happy to be sailing with Captain Scala again, easily one of our favorite cruise ship captains.
  • This sailing will be the 4th one with Andre Schlemmer as our cruise director! Woot! I’ve talked up their entertainment team in past posts from each sailing, and that all starts with Andre!
  • A few members of Andre’s Seaside staff have been on at least one of our past Divina sailings, including Carlos and Wally!
  • We know Erwin from our last sailing is on, and think that Noel may be too, can’t wait to see them again!

I’m sure there are some crew I’m leaving out, and apologies if I did, it wasn’t intentional. There are others we’re not sure of, like Giuseppe from Le Muse. Even though we’re not in Yacht Club this time, it’d be cool to stop in and say hi!

Well, that about covers it. There is a lot more to look forward to on the ship than the things I’ve covered here, so feel free to check out the Seaside info on MSC’s site, and follow us on social media (Instagram / Facebook / Twitter / YouTube) for pictures and video from the ship!