Entertainment – Wanderlist Vacations

Seven Days of Bliss

One week ago yesterday we returned from a seven day sailing aboard Norwegian’s newest ship, the Bliss. This sailing was the National Conference for our organization, and like last year’s voyage on the Harmony of the Seas, I don’t feel like we can accurately review everything about the ship since we were in sessions during the day and cocktail parties at night, as those kept us from experiencing some of the normal things you get to on a regular non-work sailing, but I certainly want to recount the things we did experience.

Before we get there, let’s talk about the itinerary. We were originally set to visit Puerto Vallarta, Mazatlan, and Cabo San Lucas, but mother nature had other ideas. Hours in to our sailing, while we were attending our first cocktail party on the evening we departed, the captain came over the PA to let everyone know that the storms closing in on our target area meant a complete change of schedule. To avoid the area and keep the ship and passengers safe, our stops were now San Francisco, San Diego, and Ensenada. Here’s my post of the itinerary change, along with a shot from NOAA of what the storms looked like at the time:

This is the first time we’ve experienced an itinerary change first-hand, so as agents it was good to see for ourselves how things played out. I completely empathize with those who were upset that the warm beach vacation they expected was gone, and that we were headed for a first stop where the high would be in the 60s, I really do, but I thank Norwegian for keeping us safe. The storm was not of their making obviously, and with limited options for ports, they gave us the best choices available. I know there are still people who are upset over this, mad at the line, etc, but personally I’m satisfied with the way they handled it. I understand if people are upset that there was no indication before boarding that Norwegian was even considering a change, but frankly, they had little time to evaluate the situation. Willa formed early on the morning of our departure, so direction, timing and future strength were pretty uncertain, and Vicente hadn’t formed much earlier (the day before) and was a lot further south. Most of us would have been on our way or at the port by the time either of these really became a threat to our itinerary, so an early warning to passengers when it was pretty uncertain whether either would impact us would have been an impossible call, and one I don’t envy them having to make. In my eyes, Norwegian did the right thing, and while they weren’t the stops anyone anticipated, they still gave us ports to go off and have fun in without the threat of sailing into heavy storms. I’m not here making excuses for Norwegian, I’m stating fact. They made the call, and we as passengers could either be upset and let it negatively impact our week, or we could accept it and choose to have fun. We chose the latter. Jen and I actually got a good laugh out of the change, as we’d been in San Francisco on vacation the month before, and had spent the 3 days leading up to the cruise in San Diego visiting our daughter, and would spend the 3 days after the cruise back there doing the same.

The itinerary change aside, we still had work to do. Our headquarters team did an amazing job getting everything rescheduled so that most (if not all) of our sessions were still held, in some cases at different times or on different days. I’m sure none of that is of interest to those reading this, so I’ll get moving on an actual review of the Bliss.

First up, the ship! The design is similar to the Escape (which we sailed 3 years ago), and as such, is just as beautiful. Even though it’s part of the same Breakaway-Plus class Escape is, the Bliss fixed a number of the things I took issue with on the Escape, as listed in that older post. Examples:

Movement of the ship was so much better. Maybe something was wrong with the stabilizers when we sailed Escape, but as mentioned in that review, movement/rocking in even calm seas was noticeable. In less than perfect seas, it was negatively impacting me, and I never get seasick. I was really happy to see the Bliss had no more movement than any other large ship we’ve been on.
I never felt like there was a lack of bar staff, as most of the time I was able to walk up and get a mudslide whenever I wanted without much of a wait, if any.
Margaritaville never had the waits we saw on the Escape when I walked by, or the day we ate there. Granted, when we were on the Escape it was free, which changed shortly after that sailing. I’ll talk more about the charge and experience in my restaurant post coming up after this one.
I was probably a little harsh on the main theater last time, but on the Bliss, I really had no issues with it. Good sight lines all around, and while the cup holders are still small (and I assume still don’t fit the soda cups), they fit everything else we threw at it; bar glasses, plastic bar cups, etc.
Outside space, especially around the main pool, is more plentiful. Here are comparison of shots I took of the main pool area on the Escape and Bliss to illustrate what I mean (Escape on the left):

My number one complaint from last time, the smell of smoke in the atrium due to the casino allowing smoking in an open area, has mostly been addressed, too, and I couldn’t be happier to see it. Did I still smell smoke? Yes, but only on the floor the casino was on, and nowhere near as bad as on the Escape. How has Norwegian accomplished this? By putting smoking gamblers in a box, literally. As mentioned on Norwegian’s blog, those who wish to smoke while gambling must do so in a separate room, complete with more than 100 machines and 6 table games. Some of that smell has made it out, but it’s far better and much more contained than it was on the Escape. Kudos, Norwegian!

Let’s move on to our cabin. Much like last time, we went with a standard balcony cabin, this time on deck 11 (11732, specifically). It was a pretty standard room with plenty of space to move around, and ample storage. Honestly, neither of us have anything negative to say about our cabin. Take a 360 degree look around both the room and balcony:

Now before we get to the fun stuff, like go-karts and water slides, let’s talk about the staff. I’m sure they were told that there were going to be a thousand travel agents, along with executives from NCL and other lines onboard, but even so, they were awesome all week. Again, we didn’t get to interact with them as much as we would normally, but when we did, we always got smiles, a “how’s your day”, and all out good attitudes from them. I walked around one my own a bit without anything identifying that I was part of the group, and there was no change in attitude. Additional little things, like the always-happy attitude on the guys at the buffet doors ensuring people were sanitizing (the “washy washy” guys) and the girls walking around Taste and Savor at breakfast handing out additional little treats while brightening your day with a song were awesome touches. If you were on the ship and don’t know what I’m referring to, you missed out! Fortunately, some friends of ours managed to get it on video!

Really, the only crew issue I encoutered was at Margaritaville, but we’ll talk about that in my upcoming food post.

Next up on page 2, the good stuff; go-karts, waterslides, and shows!

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Four Days in Dubai

To kick off my series covering our most recent vacation, we’re looking back at the first few days of our trip, spent in Dubai. First, it’s prudent to give a little history on how we got here. Our daughter graduated from college this year, and as both a present to her and a last hurrah before she goes off into the workforce, we decided to let her choose where she wanted to go for a graduation trip. Initially she was looking at Bora Bora, and at least once we were within a couple of clicks of booking a trip to that area on either a Paul Gauguin or Windstar cruise. She really wanted to swim with whale sharks, and once we discovered that it’s not really the season for that in the south pacific, we started looking elsewhere. Along the way, I came across some package rates to the Maldives, one of the few places where whale sharks are prevalent this time of year, so we started looking closer. As I looked at the various packages, I came across a solid deal on an 8-day Maldives trip that included a 4 day stop in Dubai first. We all fell in love with the idea of seeing this city, and in early April pulled the trigger on it!

The trip started off when we boarded an Emirates A380 from JFK to Dubai direct. The flight itself, while long (12 hours), was pretty uneventful. There’s plenty of legroom in economy on these planes, and while it was fairly comfortable, none of us slept all that much.

We arrived in Dubai around 8:30am local time Sunday morning and headed to our hotel. Being the offseason, and Ramadan, we got a great rate at the JW Marriott Marquis in what’s referred to as New Dubai. On arrival at the hotel, we decided to take them up on a pretty reasonable upgrade to a corner suite on the 61^st floor, complete with a large living room, master bedroom, and good sized master bath. Click on those links and check out the 360 degree views of our room, A6106.

After cleaning ourselves up and grabbing a bite to eat in the hotel’s outstanding breakfast buffet, we decided to hop the Marriott’s shuttle to the Dubai Mall, one of the 56 malls in the city, and the one containing the huge aquarium and the entrance to the Burj Khalifa tour. After a bit of a walk around the mall (it’s huge), we decided to grad some lunch. Being Ramadan, almost every restaurant was closed, so our best option was the food court, as it was barricaded off, allowing those who weren’t fasting the ability to eat. The main food court in this mall is huge. Larger than any mall food court I’ve ever seen. We ended up eating Shake Shack, and which breaks our main travel rule of not eating anywhere we can eat at home, but under the circumstances, I was happy with the choice.

After some more mall walking, we headed back to the room to get some rest before dinner, as we had a busy day on tap the next day. We ended up eating at the hotel again, this time in the executive lounge. Executive club access is something we added for a pretty reasonable charge, and it was werll worth it, with the breakfast buffet included, along with snacks and drinks (alcoholic and non-alcoholic) included in the benefits. The small buffet in the executive lounge each evening had some delicious items as well.

Monday morning brought our first excursion of the trip. We’d booked a private guided city tour with Tours by Locals, and were picked up by our guide at the hotel at 9am. Our guide Sunil was outstanding, and this tour was definitely the highlight of our time in Dubai. We started off with the Dubai Mall, and since we’d walked that the day before, he just showed us a few of the highlights before we moved on to the Emirates office tower area as one of our first picture spots. The architecture in Dubai is amazing, and this was the perfect place to really kick things off:

Next up was Za’abeel Palace for another photo stop. This obviously isn’t a place where you can just walk up to the gate, so we hung out by the Mercedes police G wagon and took a few pictures:

Our next stop was a local fish market, which was really cool. We were warned before hand that the vendors selling would be on us as soon as we walked in, but would back off if we ignored them or said no thank you, and he was right. For those familiar with pushy vendors in Caribbean ports, this wasn’t even close to as bad as some of those can get, frankly it was pretty mild. Inside, there were a ton of fish lined up, but being Ramadan, the place wasn’t completely full of vendors. We walk through the fish area, the meat area, and ended in the fruits and vegetable area. Note that this isn’t for the faint of heart, as you do see things like cow heads in the meat area. All in all, I’m glad he added it to the tour, it was cool to see how a normal market worked in the area.

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After a short stroll through the small attached mall, it was off to walk around a couple of the souks in the area! This was probably the highlight of the tour, and at times felt like something out of either the Amazing Race or Indiana Jones. He took us through a gold souk before giving us a little instruction, setting a time to meet, and sending us off on our own to explore. Again, the vendors will approach you, but nothing as pushy as some Caribbean ports, and they were always friendly. We did buy a couple of items, with Bayley picking up a hanging glass ball decoration and Jen getting a scarf. Our guide did help us negotiate the price of those two, these vendors will haggle. After walking a few streets here, we hopped on a water taxi to another park of the city to stroll through a few more souks:

After finishing up the time-lapse above, which was Sunil’s idea, we walked over to the Dubai Museum. While not overly large, this has various exhibits giving you the opportunity to learn about Dubai’s history. This was followed by a walk down a few more areas, including stops at a local art gallery, coffee museum and coin museum. From the time we started our initial walk through the first souk until we got back to the car, I think we were on our feet for around 2 hours. Considering the heat here, that’s a long time, but having hydrated before we got out of the car, it wasn’t a big issue.

I should take a minute to point out that while Ramadan prohibits eating or drinking in public during daylight hours, our guide did have water available for us in the car, so had we not brought our own, we would have been fine.

Following all of that walking, we had a bit of a break to cool off, as it was a bit of a car ride to our next stop, Jumeira Mosque. This is the only mosque that allows non-Muslims to tour the facility, however, they weren’t doing tours at this point, so we were just seeing the outside. On our guide’s recommendation, we did go back for the official tour on Wednesday, and I’d agree with him, it’s worth the time, very interesting and informative!

After a couple of other short picture stops to get views of Burj Al Arab, we headed in the direction of Palm Island. We had a couple of options, ride with them up to the end of it where the Atlantis is located, or take the monorail from the trunk to Atlantis. We chose the latter 😊. Riding the monorail is fun, and I highly recommend (on his recommendation, actually) being in the front cabin so you can watch the trip.

After the monorail ride and a short stop outside of Atlantis and one other spot along the branches for pictures, we headed back to the hotel quite happy with the tour we’d chosen. This is probably one of the best we’ve ever done, as both Sunil and our driver were outstanding. They showed us a large part of the area, ensured hydrated and fed even with Ramadan happening, and added stops upon realizing we had plenty of time for them along our 8 hour tour. I’d be more than happy to book with Tours by Locals again!

After cleaning ourselves up and resting a little, we decided to end the day by heading over to a spot Sunil recommended, Dubai Garden Glow. This is an awesome little place that packs three separate areas in to one facility, including and ice park, dinosaur land, and a while section with lit up displays to enjoy. You don’t have to do it all, as they sell tickets at varying prices that allow access to some or all of the park. Considering that we have no idea if we’d ever make it back to Dubai, we bought the full pass.

It was a fun walk through the whole thing, with the glow garden section being the longest walk. They’ve got a ton of lit displays, typically the kind of thing you only see around Christmas in the US. After a pretty lengthy walk through that area, I was ready to hit the ice park and cool off. Even though it was night, it was still pretty hot and humid out. Entering the ice park, you’re handed a coat and some gloves, and you head in to a large warehouse type setup with a bunch of ice sculptures. Most of it appeared to be landmarks from around Dubai, including the Burj Khalifa, some camels, and Palm Island. This is the shortest walk in the park, as it’s not really that big, but it’s definitely a good way to cool off while in the park. After leaving our icy detour, we headed into the dinosaur section, which is basically just a bunch of outdoor dinosaur exhibits you walk around. Here’s a look at some of the things we saw in the Dubai Glow Garden:

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Our first full day in Dubai was tiring, but really fun! Next up on page two, a day of skiing, penguin hugs, and off-roading in the desert!

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MSC Seaside: The Ship!

The Seaside is, in a word, beautiful. There’s no denying that. If you want to see for yourself, check out the videos we’ve been posting from on-board that include public area walk-throughs and cabin tours. We’ve got plenty more to come too, so be sure to subscribe to our YouTube channel! If you’d rather watch them on a dedicated VR platform, follow us on VeeR, as all of the 360 videos in question are posted there as well! In addition to all the video, throughout this post I’ll be including pictures we’ve posted on Instagram of the ship, and even including a slideshow of mostly interior shots at the end, including a bunch of shots from the various kids club areas, so read on!

I called this out in my “initial thoughts” post, but if you consider the traditional ship design, you generally an open open upper deck or two, and one lower deck that while providing a view of the ocean, also has a number of obstructions of that view, typically involving the ship’s lifeboats. The Seaside changes that by moving the upper decks inward, allowing them to create an open lower deck that gives you a much more immersive outside feel, almost like walking in a park, if that park was in the middle of the ocean. I’m once again going to be using one of MSC’s initial renderings to show what I mean:

The design definitely lives up to the goal of bringing you closer to the sun, and provides plenty of lounger space on those outer decks. There are multiple highlights of these new outdoor spaces, as well.

Infinity Bridge: On each side of the ship out on deck 8, there’s an Infinity Bridge with a clear glass floor that allows you to walk out over the ocean. 360 video of this is coming soon on our YouTube and VeeR channels!
Bridge of Sighs: At deck 16 aft they’ve placed another clear glass bridge that allows you to walk out over South Beach pool, which is 9 floors below. It’s an incredibly picturesque spot, definitely one to see during multiple times of the day. Don’t believe me? See for yourself with our 360 degree tour of it!

South Beach Pool: In the rendering above, this is the open aft section on deck 7 that contains a pool, loungers, and a bar / gelato station. When you’re hanging out back here on a sunny day, the look of it, with the condo-style balconies towering above you, really does give you that South Beach condo-scene feel.

Forest Aquaventure Park: A multi-story waterpark in the center of the ship that contains kids pools and 4 water slides. One kids slide, two high-speed racing slides, and one with Slide-boarding technology, combining an interactive game, lights, music and a 367-foot water slide. We rode the racing slides and the interactive slide, and personally, I prefer the racing slides, mainly because the whole points-based game on the other slide didn’t really appeal to me. The kids riding it really seemed to like that one, however, as there was usually a line at the bottom to get one of the slide boards you have to ride down on.
Zip Line: The Seaside boasts what MSC calls the longest zip line at sea. We took a run down this while docked in Nassau, and I have to say that it’s worth a ride, it’s definitely better than the zip line on the Oasis class, and gives you a great view of everything around you. The downside of the open design of it is that windy sea days might mean closure, as we encountered early in the cruise. On our sailing it was free, which meant really, really busy. I’d heard of people waiting ~45 minutes to ride, as they were only opening one side at a time. We got there about 30 minutes before it opened the second time in Nassau and were first in line for a 2pm run. We’ve heard that after our sailing they implemented a fee for the zipline, $10 per person or $50 per cabin. As mentioned, it’s a fun time offering a great view, easily worth a try!

Even though the decks above 8 appear to almost be squished inward to accommodate the open-air design, you don’t really lose anything in the way of public space. That mostly appears to be due (in my totally uneducated guesstimate) to the public areas like the atrium, shopping, and entertainment spaces existing on decks 5 – 8, where the ship is still the full width. Those interior public areas are just as beautiful as the outside area, too, with the Seaside’s atrium being the center piece of it all. In keeping with previous MSC designs, this 4 deck atrium houses the signature Swarovski crystal staircases, along with a bar on the bottom floor, and stages positioned on each of the three floors above it. I’ll have some pictures of it below, but if you want to take a virtual tour, check out my 360 degree walk-through!

Up next on page 2, interior entertainment venues!

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MSC Seaside: Initial Thoughts

Well, the fun has come to an end. We debarked the Seaside yesterday morning for the final time on this trip, so I figured I’d get a start on covering our time on board. I purposely held off on writing posts while on the ship to allow myself time to digest everything that we saw and experienced. This is a brand new ship, and as such, there is a lot of interest in it. Hopefully the information we provide by way of this blog helps paint a picture of our experience for those sailing or thinking about sailing the Seaside any time soon. I have a short series of posts I’ll be doing on the experience over the next two to three weeks, starting with this overview of some of the highlights and lowlights. Details may be light, but in most cases will follow in the more detailed posts that come later.

First, we had an absolute blast during the two day inaugural. I previously covered the naming ceremony itself, but as far as the time on board, we had fun, and were very happy to have been invited to be part of it! The crew treated us very well, and while there were a few hiccups, those two days on board were really fun. Getting to see the ship while she’s not even close to capacity was awesome, as it really allowed us to explore the various public areas, as well as different categories of cabins. I’ll be including the latter in my planned posts on cabins.

Moving on, our actual sailing over Christmas is what I suspect those interested in the Seaside want to read about. This sailing represented the first time the ship was taking paying passengers out of its new home port of Miami, and it was amazing to be a part of. Full disclosure since I’ve seen people in various online communities make accusations of paid cheerleading by anyone that had anything positive to say: We paid full fare for this trip. No TA rates, FAM rates, or any sort of industry discount from MSC, we were just normal paying passengers who booked on our own over a year ago out of excitement for the product, and this is written from that point of view.

Going in, I expected there to be issues. I assumed we’d hit some of the following, and adjusted my expectations and patience level accordingly:

Embarkation would be a little chaotic in the newly renovated terminal F
The new technology on the ship (the MSC for Me app and wristbands) would be problematic
Dining might be a little out of control the first night as getting seating and serving processes down when the ship is at capacity might take a night or two
Room issues might arise. By this I mean things might physically fail or break. The ship is brand new, and even new things fail when introduced in such a large scale. We were aware of a few room issues during the 2-day, so as the ship reach capacity on the Christmas sailing, I figured we might see or hear of more of it.

Some of those did occur, and in larger doses than others, but nothing that ruined our trip. Let’s take a high level look at some of the good and bad. I’ll start with the latter so we end on a high note 🙂

Keep in mind that the ship just launched, this crew has only been working together a short time (since training started in Italy like a month or so before the ship launched) and as a result, I personally expect this to get better as systems get ironed out and processes are made more efficient.

The bad

Storage space in some of those cabins is really at a premium. We were in 11054 (Fantastica Balcony) for the inaugural and 9250 (Aurea Suite) for the Christmas sailing. Calling 9250 a suite is incredibly generous in my opinion. The interior of the room was identical to 11054 except for the bed and couch positions being reversed. Both suffered from the same lack of storage space. You get a closet, two smallish drawers, and three and half shelves (the half is shared with the safe). You also get two very small shelves in the nightstand on each side of the bed. Jen and I never unpacked in 11054 due to the short time on-board, but having that same small amount of space in 9250 with 3 people was a challenge. I think we’d have used the mini fridge for storage if we could have. We made it work, but due to the closet access being partially blocked by the sofa, all had to store our shoes under the bed instead of in the closet, which really wasn’t ideal. The bathroom is also really small. That shower (the same in 11054 and 9250) was absolutely tiny, and if you’re at all tall, forget about drying off in there :). Here’s a look around both the room and bathroom in 9250:

I also have 360 degree walkthrough video of this room and a few others that I’ll be processing and posting on our YouTube channel after we get back to Charlotte, so subscribe and be on the lookout!

Calling guest services proved to be frustrating. We had an issue the first night regarding luggage delivery with a key bag, and after calling a couple of times and getting no answer at all, the automated system finally asked if we wanted to request a callback, so we did. It never came. Ever. Okay, that was on the first night, so maybe they were just overloaded. Well, people were still having issues getting anyone on the final night. Someone next to us in line to be seated in the MDR had been trying to call room service for over an hour, no one ever picked up, and they also requested a callback that never came from the automated system. Not good.

The buffet is a mess. Literally. First, there are two buffets on the Seaside, the main one on 8, and a smaller snack-sized one on 16. This may end up being a common theme in my posts, but it just feels like they don’t have enough crew to service a full ship. When everyone was on board (sea days, before getting off in port or after getting back on), the buffet areas weren’t well-kept during prime eating times. In multiple instances, it was nearly impossible to find silverware and/or napkins. Paper napkin dispensers were constantly empty, and you could pretty much forget about finding cloth napkins/silverware. Tables also took quite a while to be cleared from what we saw. It wasn’t that crew were standing around doing nothing, we saw them busting their butts, it really just seemed like there weren’t enough of them to keep up with the crowd.

Note that this was far less of an issue on port days since many passengers obviously aren’t on the ship. The staff was better able to keep up in these situations.

Public bathrooms are also a mess. I actually don’t think I ever used one, but Jen and Bayley did (or attempted to) on multiple occasions and almost always complained of toilets that didn’t work, either overflowing or continuously flushing, stall doors that didn’t stay latched, bathrooms that were really messy overall. In each case where they encountered someone trying to clean a women’s bathroom, it was a man, and no announcement was made before he entered in any of those instances.

Overall, the ship’s cleanliness not up to Divina standards. We’ve always found the Divina to be a very well-kept ship, probably the cleanest we’ve sailed. We expected those same standards to exist on the Seaside, but on this trip, that expectation wasn’t met. In addition to the issues mentioned above, we constantly noticed a lack of cleaning across the ship. Examples of this: Coming down the aft stairs a couple of days ago, we came across a piece of bacon just laying on the floor (which we aptly named “stair bacon”), we found half-full cups just sitting on stairway rails a number of times, and more small things like that. Granted that type of thing is just as much on the passengers who felt it was okay to leave things like that in places they didn’t belong, but on Divina, things like that disappear quickly. In a bigger example of what I’m talking about, I went out to the South Beach pool area on the morning of the final sea day to catch the sunrise, only to find the tables and chairs around the bar still strewn about from the night before. Chairs all over the place, not set up with the tables they went with, etc. Tables in the buffet would sit with used plates and cups for long periods of time before being cleaned up, as well. Again, it felt like there simply wasn’t enough crew to keep up.

Bar and gelato service was hit or miss. Of the bars we frequented, we found the best service to be in the Haven lounge, and under the right circumstances up on deck 16. This isn’t a knock on the bartenders, they were doing their best to keep up, they just didn’t have the manpower to deal with a full ship, and bar service could be slow as a result. In a number of cases with both bars and gelato stands, we saw managers and officers stepping in to assist with basically everything, which I highly commend. If empty glasses needed to be removed, they were on it. If drinks needed to be made, they were on it. If gelato needed to be scooped, they were on it. There are also station inefficiencies that I have no doubt they’ll iron out. Heck, we saw one fixed over the course of the week in the Venchi chocolate/coffee station on deck 6. The bar manager was making us shakes and having to walk the length of the station 4-5 times per shake going back and forth between where we were, the milk was, and the gelato was located. A couple of days later, we noticed the milk had been moved to the chocolate side of the station in a chilled bucket to save time. Things like that will definitely help over time.

MDR service was very hit or miss. When it was a miss, it was a big miss. Being Aurea, we were assigned any-time dining in the Seashore restaurant. The first night there were no signs out telling Aurea/wellness guests where to check in, so it was a little chaotic among the other passengers that were trying to get MDR issues sorted, but once I got to the podium and asked, we were seated immediately. Service that night was pretty bad, with speed being the primary issue, taking over an hour and a half to serve 3 courses. I assumed that being the first night it’d get sorted out, but in the end really didn’t seem to be a process issue, more of a training issue. One night would be really slow, the next great, it really depended on what section you got seated in. The same held true for lunch in Seashore. I think the longest we spent in there for a dinner was 2 hours one night, while tables in other servers sections were out in well under that. On the bad nights, it really felt like we were being served by head waiters that had never worked on a ship prior to Seaside and didn’t understand any of the flow in how it all worked. I will say that on the good nights, we had servers who really knew what they were doing. Overall, the women were killing it, with two of our best nights being at Barbara and Brenda’s tables. I don’t want to leave Kikit out of this either, the night we were in his section was probably our quickest dinner all week. Those bad nights and lunches were incredibly frustrating, though. The last couple of nights we let our servers know ahead of time that we were trying to get done quickly to get to a show or some other activity, and that did help, but that really shouldn’t be necessary. It shouldn’t take 20 minutes to get a menu, and then another 15 minutes to get a drink, and so on. We actually walked out in the middle of one lunch in Seashore because we were tired of waiting and our wait staff had simply disappeared. Don’t get me wrong, they were all friendly, and all appeared to be working their tails off, but it again seemed to come down lack of experience with some of the head waiters.

Things around the ship were literally breaking. Remember that expectation of room issues I mentioned earlier? Yea, we’re aware of several instances of it. I’m not surprised. You install this many of the same items at this scale and some are bound to break, it happens. We had one panel in our first room on 11 (below the storage drawers) that was broken off, and our bathroom door wouldn’t latch shut, but other than that, nothing wrong in either of our rooms. We did, however, see reports in the Facebook group for our sailing and the group for our travel agent community of other things, like power outlets not working for the first few days, water leaks under floors, and other breakdowns like that. The worst, however, had to be the balcony issue for one family. The parents got up early on Christmas morning and went out on the balcony to see the view, only to get trapped out there when their balcony door wouldn’t open back up. After finally flagging down someone else out on a balcony, ship’s security had to guide them back in via another balcony, with their own taking a few hours to be repaired. With small kids in the room during all of this, I can’t imagine how they felt.

The Good

The ship is beautiful. Seriously. The design is stunning, and it’s a really photogenic piece of hardware. You’ve got the signature Swarovski crystal stairs in the atrium, well decorated hallways, elegant shopping areas, and awesome venues around the ship like the Sports Bar, the Haven Lounge, and of course the atrium. Oh that sparkly atrium. I can’t wait to get my 360 video walk through of that processed. In the meantime, here’s a full view of it from the top level:

I posted other shots of it here, here, here (that’s a multi-shot post), here, and here too. There may be a few videos from events in there on our Insta, too.

The real beauty in the design of the ship comes from the awesome outdoor spaces. The ship’s design is inspired by the Miami condo scene, and it doesn’t disappoint. Outside there’s a lot to enjoy. There are Infinity bridges on each side that extend out over the ocean with see-through walkways, along with a “Bridge of Sighs” on deck 16 aft that extends out over the South Beach pool and also features a see-through walkway so you can see what’s happening below. It’s also a prime picture spot, with my favorite examples being my 360 shot on one of the sea days:

along with my shot of Bayley standing out there on our final formal night:

Seriously, this ship is incredible. Most ships have a lower outside deck, but on most, your view is obscured in some way by lifeboats. Like the outer deck lit in blue light here, with lifeboats overhead:

(Note – this obviously isn’t just a Carnival thing, I just happened to take this picture while docked in Nassau with this specific post in mind 🙂 )

That’s not the case at all on the Seaside, as the lifeboats are on a lower deck passengers can’t get to, while the outer boardwalk style deck on 8 has no lifeboats in view anywhere. The original renderings are pretty accurate in this regard, showing the deck 8 outside areas right above where the lifeboats are kept:

I know I’ve already said it, but she really is a beautiful ship, and if you’re not following us on Instagram, you’re missing out! I’ve still got plenty of ship shots left to post, so feel free to check us out over there!

Our balcony was pretty nice. While I stand by my point above that the room doesn’t really warrant the “suite” title, even with the Aurea benefits, having a longer balcony with loungers on it was nice. No crowding of the balcony if all three of us want on, and a place for all three of us to stretch out. The only downside was that we did end up with some trash out there, mostly in the form of jellybeans. Not sure if someone on an adjacent balcony dropped them and they rolled in, or if they were thrown from a higher balcony, but they got there, and got stepped on accidentally. Note that while people can see down in to this balcony from above if you’re out in the sunny part (on a lounger, near the glass, etc), you can slide back under cover near the door and get more privacy if you want. Take a look around and see for yourself!

The new technology on the ship worked really well! We got RFID-ish wristbands at check-in (free for Aurea and above, small charge for everyone else if I recall), and Jen only wore that, didn’t carry her ship card with her on-board at all, and we had no issues. We could pay at the bars with them, use them to open our cabin door, basically use them anywhere you’d normally use your ship card. The only exception to this was at the spa. If you use the thermal area, they prefer you hand over your card to get your pass into the thermal area vs handing over the wristband.

The MSC For Me app seems to really work well on-board. There were issues with it before sailing, like the itinerary not including Christmas day, but once you’re on the ship’s wifi, it really lights up. Bayley used it to book our show times all but one night, and it worked perfectly.

Additionally, the little tablets the bar staff had seemed to work pretty well for ordering an paying. You tell the server what you want, they enter it into their tablet and scan your card/wristband for payment. Then the order is transmitted to the bar to be made. I was surprised at how well these things worked so early in their use, and wish that they’d extend use to the MDR to make ordering/food prep more efficient vs using the old “write orders on a pad” method.

The buffet design is soooo much better than Divina. I’m sure I’ve noted in past Divina posts that one of my biggest gripes on that ship is that the walkways in the buffet are too small, with posts popping up at bad times, resulting in backups during busy times. That’s all been sorted from what I saw on Seaside. Walkways are much wider, allowing better flow. Obviously you still get people walking slowly in the middle of a walkway, or stopping for no apparent reason right in front of you, but the overall layout is much better in my opinion. There’s also more than one pizza station in the deck 8 buffet (the larger of the two buffets), so during busy times the wait for whatever flavor of pizza you want should be non-existent. Maybe I just got lucky, but I had zero wait getting a slice or two of pepperoni whenever we went, no matter how busy things were.

The entertainment team is still tops. This groups is one of the things we fell in love with on the Divina, and to be honest, I was a little worried they’d lose their edge on a bigger ship, but that wasn’t the case. It’s mostly a new cast of characters for us, with a few returning favorites (Andre as CD, Tyrone, Carlos, Wally, and Chante), and whether new to us or returning, they were all great. We attended numerous activities including trivia, scattergories, the evening parties in Haven, and all of the “moment with your cruise staff” activities in the atrium and enjoyed them all. Those last ones, the cruise staff moments, are oddly fun. It’s a 5 minute dance party with the entertainment team dressed in whatever the night’s theme is (Gatsby, horror outfits, western wear for country night, etc). They’re also well attended, with each floor of the atrium packed with people at each one we went to! Honestly, this team puts in more effort than I’ve seen on any other line to help ensure passengers are having fun, and they genuinely seem to be enjoying themselves regardless of the long hours they put in. They easily cancel out any of the issues I called out in the “bad” section.

The Captain is out and about quite a lot, and always friendly. We’ve sailed with Captain Scala before, during one of our Yacht Club sailings on the Divina, and were happy he’d be the captain for the first sailing of the Seaside. In that time, he’s developed quite a social media following and stays pretty active throughout each cruise posting various pics. We saw him out a number of times with his family as well, once at the Jungle Pool where he was filming this, as well as at shows, and even making an appearance at the Cruise Critic Meet & Mingle! I have to say, it was a pretty well attended event, and very well done on MSC’s part, with a couple of cakes prepared for us, as well as a variety of cocktails handed out to everyone. Good times were had by all 🙂

The crew were always friendly. No matter how hard they were working trying to keep up, they were always smiling, asking how you were doing, and how your day went. I can’t imagine the hours they were having to put in to try and keep up with some of the issues I called out above, but they always seemed to do it with a smile.

The gifts! The wonderful gifts! There are two parts to this one. First, all cabins got presents for being on the first full sailing out of Miami. We came back to the cabin one night to find these sitting on our bed!

Combined with the gifts we got on the 2 day inaugural (these, among a few other items), we’ve got some cool stuff that we’ll definitely treasure!

Second, Santa did show up again this cruise, and like our Christmas sailing on the Divina two years ago, handed out gifts to all the kids 11 and under (I think that was the age group, anyway). Santa and his helpers (Rudolph and some elves were positioned at center stage in the theater, and lines were formed in different areas for different age groups. Kids went up, got a gift, and had their picture taken with Santa. I love that they’re still doing this 🙂

All in all, it was a great week. Yes, there were issues, and things on the MDR and buffet side really need fixing, but overall we had a great time and would do it again without question. I have no doubt they’ll get past the issues experienced this week over time, but I can understand how what we saw this week could frustrate people considering it was a Christmas sailing, and a fairly pricey one at that. Keep in mind that everything I’m posting here was based on our own experience, so what you read elsewhere may vary. Personally, I’m happy to have spent another fun Christmas at sea, this time aboard a brand new ship!

This is definitely a ship I expect we’ll sail on again, which isn’t something I say lightly, since we rarely sail a ship twice (the Divina being the only ship we’ve sailed on more than once at the time of this). Over the next two to three weeks I’ll be writing in more detail on the ship, the rooms we saw, the food, and maybe a few other things, and as previously mentioned will be working on getting all of my 360 video uploaded to our YouTube channel, but for now, it’s a New Years Eve in Miami for us!

Sailing With Disney – Debark and Final Thoughts

Finishing out my series on our adventure aboard the Disney Dream, I wanted to cover our debarkation experience and look back at what we liked and didn’t like about this sailing. If this is the first post you’ve read in our Dream series, I encourage you to hit this link and check out our previous posts first!

Debarkation was a bit of a whirlwind for us. We’d tagged our bags the night before and put them out at the required time of 10pm, earlier than any other sailing I recall. We’d been given Daisy tags, and assumed they’d be calling the characters in a specific order, similar to numbered debarkation order on most lines. We were wrong.

When we woke up in port Friday morning we started getting ready, and after Jen turned her phone on, she started getting a series of texts letting her know of a bit of a family emergency going on back home. This suddenly meant our plans had changed, and that we needed to get off the ship and back to NC as soon as possible, so we headed to guest services to see if we could get off before our character was called. That was the point at which we found out there is no real debark order, you just get off whenever you want and head down to pick up your luggage from the zone that matches your tag. That was a first, and boy was it fast. We headed right for the exit, and with everything going on, I never had a chance to get any pictures, but one nice touch as we exited was that the Captain was there seeing guests off.

After exiting the ship and finding our luggage, we headed for customs, which was also a breeze, as we didn’t need to fill out and present a declaration form. We simply handed him our passports, he asked if we had fruit, and as soon as we said no we were on our way. It might have been 30 minutes from the time we started walking down the gangway until we arrived at our cars in the hotel parking lot. It was all very smooth, which we really needed at that point. A+ for debarkation, it was nice and smooth.

Moving on, there are a few things that stood out to me over the course of this sailing:

It’s all about the Disney product. For example, on other lines, we’re used to the crew being introduced before the show on the last night of a sailing, but that never happened during this trip. Additionally, we’re used to the entertainment team being the face of your trip, but that never seemed to be the case here, it was all about Disney, and they made sure you remembered that. Not saying that’s a bad thing, just something different than what we’ve seen elsewhere. The experience comes first, just like it does in the parks.
Anyone that’s been to a Disney property knows how good Disney is at separating parents from their money, and the ships are no different in that regard. Other than the jewelry /purse “sales” on some ships, I rarely see people buying things like shorts, toys, or other line-specific gear, but this is Disney. The shops were busy most of the week, and I admit we even bought DCL shirts among other trinkets, and we never buy cruise line shirts. I’m sure they sold a number of pins on trading night, and a bunch of gear leading in to pirate night, too. I don’t recall a single sailing on any other line where I’ve seen the shops as busy as they were on the Dream.
The department heads were out checking on their areas more than on any other sailing I recall. That’s not to say it was in any way a distraction, they stayed out of the way, but it was impressive to see how often they were around making sure everything in their respective area was running smoothly. That alone made it obvious that this is a Disney operation.

So on to our positives and negatives. First up, the positives:

First and foremost, we had a great time. While it seemed to be busier than most sailings, mainly due to having a 21 year old that still loves the character meet and greets ;), the sailing was an absolute blast, and we’d do it again in a heartbeat.
The food was good all week. You can’t always say that about MDR and buffet food, but I can safely make that statement here. I don’t recall a single thing I had that I didn’t like. When you factor in the brunch buffet at Palo, it was some of the best food we’ve had any one sailing.
Our cabin service was excellent all week. We did have an issue with a misplaced item of clothing the first day, but it was located and things were good the rest of the week.
The shows were very entertaining, and offered sets and casts that overall were better than the vast majority of lines we’ve sailed. As I mentioned in a previous post, it’s hard for me to compare the shows themselves to any other line, because Disney has a catalog of popular stories that they don’t have to pay royalties on like other lines would, so it’s not really a fair fight. I will say that the singing and dancing was on point all week, some of the best we’ve seen on any ship.
Castaway Cay was awesome. One of our favorite private islands, and frankly I wish we’d have been on one of the sailings where you stop there twice. Having a separate area for adults was outstanding, along with tram service between all points on the island. I’d have easily traded our stop in Nassau for a second day at Castaway Cay.
The Aquaduck was probably the best water slide I’ve ridden on a ship to date. I’m a fan of the Aqua Racer on Norwegian’s Escape as you can see in our video, but the Aquaduck was better in my opinion. The night ride didn’t hurt 🙂
Rotating dining rooms almost every night is cool, definitely adds something to the experience on the ship. I just wish our repeat had been Animator’s Palate vs Enchanted Garden.
When you want to get away from the kids, there are plenty of adults only areas to give you some relaxation. A couple of different pools, and after 9pm, a whole “district” area at the back of the ship with multiple venues to choose from.
Having an on board movie theater with first-run Disney movies is awesome. Pirates of the Caribbean 5 came out a couple of days before we sailed, so getting to watch that on pirate night while sailing in the Caribbean was really cool. Add to that the snack bar (which does cost money) and ability to bring food from the buffet, and it’s definitely a nice touch.
We really liked our room, cabin 7004, a Deluxe Oceanview Stateroom with Porthole (OV). It was the first time in a while that we haven’t had a balcony, but I can’t say I ever really noticed. Having so much space (including plenty of storage) along with two bathrooms. Feel free to take a look around with this 360 degree shot!
The ship is in excellent condition, well decorated, and was always clean.
The entertainment options throughout the day were so much fun. There was so much to do that I don’t think we ever made it to any of the trivia events. The girls especially loved the drawing classes, something they were sad to see removed from Hollywood Studios. Getting to draw Stitch is always a highlight for Bayley!

The negatives, of which there were few:

Going in, we heard a lot of “this will ruin cruising for you due to that legendary Disney service” comments. Yea, none of us really agreed. If you’d never sailed before, the whole package (food quality, characters, the Disney experience) might make it hard to sail any other line, but we never really felt like the service lived up to that Disney level they’re famous for in the parks. I’m not saying it was bad (with the exception of my next bullet), as the crew was good all week, and the entertainment team was fun, but we’ve had service that’s been just as good on other lines, so I can’t really say it met those pre-set expectations.
The only really bad employee experience was in one of the shops. We wanted to buy a Pandora charm or two, since they have a couple they only sell on the ships, and the woman working the counter seemed less than interested in helping. We did buy one, but only after having to really push to get her to show them to us or tell us anything about them.
Something I mentioned in an earlier post, the dining speed. It really seemed like there were too many tables and not enough staff to handle them. That first night was brutal, taking well over 2 hours for the full meal (other tables had the same issue) and causing us to miss one late night activity we wanted to see. No complaints on our dining staff, they were great, they just seemed overworked.
The Midship Detective Agency apparently closes at midnight. I get it, most people doing it are likely well asleep, but Bayley was trying to participate one night while we were walking around late, only to find this had shut down a few minutes before we got there.
While the mixology class we did on day 2 was fun, we’d hoped that we’d actually be learning to make more drinks. We put together 3 of them, but in reality only truly made like 1 of them. For a couple of them, items that were part of the mix were prepared ahead of time, like some of the mashed fruits.

That’s really it for negatives, and none of them are really worth complaining about in my opinion. Our week on the Dream was excellent, and none of the above items took away from our fun at all.

In closing, I’d have to say that if you’re a Disney fan and have never sailed with them, you’re missing out! We really enjoyed our cruise, and would easily sail Disney again! They’re obviously a very family oriented line that provides a great experience for the kids while giving the grownups a chance to have fun as well. If a Disney cruise isn’t on your list, it should be!

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