waterslides – Wanderlist Vacations

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:

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!

Ship Inspection Sunday – Carnival Pride

After spending a few days in DC for some CruiseOne regional training, we headed up to the port of Baltimore yesterday morning for another ship inspection before heading home. This time, we got to check out the Carnival Pride, one of their Spirit class ships. We’ve sailed on a ship in this class before, having taken the Carnival Legend out of Tampa in 2012. Even though the Pride is the same class as the Legend, it felt like a different ship thanks in part to the Fun Ship 2.0 upgrades it underwent during dry dock late last year. I don’t know that it got all of the upgrades, but it got the big ones, like the additional food choices.

The port isn’t much to look at, but it seems like it’s set up pretty well. When we arrived, we were directed over to a parking area off to the side for those not staying on the ship, but looking over the main parking, it looks like it’s all right there next to the terminal, making it one of the most convenient we’ve been to. After parking, we headed in the terminal to check in, and after a bit of a wait were led on to the ship by our tour guide, Kathy.

The ship underwent a dry dock late last year to add some of the Fun Ship 2.0 goodness, and while the upgraded areas were nice, there are plenty of areas still sporting the Renaissance theme the ship is known for. Much like the Legend’s urn-ish theme, I just wasn’t a fan. I get wanting to stray from the normal “cruise ship chic” theme so many of the older ships have, but there were areas where the theme just doesn’t work. None of the rooms underwent any sort of renovation during dry dock either, but the ones we saw were fine. We got to see the following room types while on-board:

Deck 1: Interior (Cat 4A) and Ocean View (Cat 6A)

Deck 4: Ocean view Obstructed with French doors (Cat 4K – Accessible), Interior (Cat 4K) and Vista Suite (Cat VS)

Deck 6: Extended Balcony (Cat 8J), Premium Balcony (Cat 9B), Grand Suite (Cat GS)

For the most part, pretty standard rooms, but that Vista Suite was pretty nice, especially with the extended aft-wrap balcony and walk in closet.

After touring rooms, we headed upstairs and got a tour of David’s Steak House (one of two specialty restaurants on board), the spa, the main Lido food areas, Serenity (adults only area), and the waterpark. All pretty standard, although the waterpark was a new addition in last years’ dry dock. You can see some shots of these areas in the random ship pictures at the end of this post.

After that part of the tour, we were free to eat anywhere on Lido that we wanted, which was a nice change of pace from our tour on the Fantasy where we were served in the dining room. The main reason I was happy about this is that it gave me a chance to indulge in my favorite burger at sea, the Pig Patty at Guy’s Burger Joint:

The downside to this is that we didn’t get warm chocolate melting cake for dessert, but hey, the selection on the Sweet Spot dessert bar wasn’t bad:

The cake pop was pretty good, the lemon meringue pie was okay, but the rest was just average, to be honest.

After eating, we decided to see the rest ourselves to speed up our departure since we had a long drive back to Charlotte, which pretty much meant walking decks 2 and 3 in order to see the theater, shops, and casino. All were pretty much what you expect on a Carnival ship, meaning if you’ve seen them on other ships in this class, you’ve seen these. Well, except maybe the Taj Mahal theater. Not sure if they were trying to continue the Renaissance theme in there (really didn’t look like it), but we just weren’t fans of the décor in there:

The other thing to mention were the passageways on each side of the ship on deck 3 that lead back to the game room. Legend had one too, known as the enchanted forest, but this was a little brighter than that is. Honestly, not really sure what to make of these spaces. They come off as something Carnival just didn’t know what to do with, almost wasted space in our opinion:

Overall, the ship was clean, nice (especially with the new food additions), and certainly better than the Legend in my opinion. I’d sail it in a heartbeat if I lived closer!

One last thing, a big thank you to Kathy and everyone on the Pride for an outstanding time. The Carnival hospitality always shines through on these tours!

Enjoy a some more random pics from around the ship!

Ship Inspection Saturday – Carnival Fantasy

One of the things that we do as travel agents is the occasional cruise ship inspection. As mentioned in my post back in October after we toured the NCL Getaway, this is generally a 3 hour tour of the ship, hosted by a rep or two from the cruise line, and it’s intended to give us an idea of what our clients can expect should we book them on the ship. This is my second ship tour, and my wife’s fourth, as she did two more while down in Ft Lauderdale for Cruise3sixty a couple of weeks ago. For this one, we were getting a look at the Carnival Fantasy, the only ship from any line currently based out of Charleston, SC. She’s an older ship, having launched in early 1990, but the last refurbishment has her in pretty good shape. The decor is pretty standard for other older ships we’ve been on, too. Overall, we were pleasantly surprised at how well the Fantasy has been kept up. Let’s take a closer look…

We drove down from Charlotte early this morning, getting to the port around 10am. Check in for the tour wasn’t scheduled to begin until 11am after all the guests from the previous sailing debarked, so we walked around trying to figure out where to meet. Fortunately, the port area isn’t all that big and we found the spot pretty quickly, and hung out until the Carnival reps arrived. Things didn’t exactly kick off on time, as there was a lot going on. They ended up with surprise Coast Guard and USDA inspections happening after the ship got back in to port this morning. No biggie, things happen, and we were just a small blip on the list of things the crew had to deal with before they left port this evening. I think we may have been delayed 30-45 minutes boarding as a result. Here’s a couple quick shots of the port, including the front of the terminal. When you arrive and park, a shuttle brings you to this entrance and drops you off here, at which point you’ll go through security and check in for your cruise!

Another tip: As you board the ship, you’ll notice a bunch of crew wearing red sweatshirts that say “Just Ask”. If you need to know anything, like where you can grab some food or where you’re room is, they are there to answer those questions. No need to get in line for guest services!

Once we were on, we hustled to check out a couple of rooms. Since we were late, we really were moving fast, and my pictures show it. With more than two dozen people in the group and a schedule to keep, there really wasn’t time to stop and ensure the pictures were clear. The first set here is from a standard oceanview room:

Not bad, a little small compared to more current ships, but I’d be more than happy to sail in it. Next up is the only shot I got of an interior down the hall:

And finally, we have a Grand Suite, the largest room category on board. Note that being an older ship, the only categories that actually have balconies are the Junior and Grand Suites

Due to our time constraints, those were all the rooms we got to see. After finishing there, we were guided around a few other areas as we headed in the direction of the dining room for our lunch. Here are some shots of different areas we saw along the way, including: the show lounge, casino, a couple of bars, the kid’s club, and the Forum Aft Lounge, where they were setting up to host a wedding reception:

There were a couple of weddings going on today before sailing, from what we saw. We entered the port at the same place they did, and the wedding parties were shuttled in to security the same way we were. While I’m familiar with how on-board weddings at sea (or in a foreign port) work, this was my first exposure to weddings that take place in port prior to the ship’s departure. Not everyone in the wedding party was going on the cruise, so after getting everyone on the ship, they hold the wedding, followed by the reception, and then those who are not sailing are escorted off. Pretty good way to get a shipboard wedding on a budget.

Let’s get back to the tour. After a quick visit to the kid’s club, it was time to eat. They took us to the Jubilee dining room at the aft of the Atlantic deck (8), one of the two main dining rooms on board. We all sat at one of the five tables set up for us, and were served by the staff as if we were cruisers, eating some of the same things served at sea. The menu was pretty well set too, with the only choice we got to make being fish or beef for the main course:

and here are the courses, in order (I had the beef):

The spaghetti carbonara was spectacular, as was the warm chocolate melting cake, which is one of our all-time favorite desserts (we usually eat it more than once when we’re on Carnival :)). The braised short ribs were good quality meat, and perfectly cooked, but I’m just not a fan of what ends up being stringy meat (like pot roast type meat). Jen had the beef too, and enjoyed it, but said both the spaghetti and short ribs were better on her tour of the Splendor a couple of weeks ago (they serve the same food on all ship tours).

I’m going to take a second to give a huge shoutout to the wait staff today too, they did a great job, and were even sure to learn our names. After we ate, they even busted out some music and got some of us to get up and dance, just like a regular MDR experience.

After lunch was over, we headed up to check out the buffets and outside areas on the Lido deck. The buffet stations on the Fantasy are all pretty standard for Carnival, but note that this ship has not undergone any of the Fun Ship 2.0 upgrades, so no Guy’s Burger Joint or BlueIguana Cantina. It does have a Mongolian Wok though, which we always enjoy.

No, we didn’t sample any of the buffet food, pretty sure that would have been frowned upon, plus we were full from lunch.

On to the outside areas. Here’s the main area on the Lido deck:

At the back of the ship, they have Waterworks 2.0, added during its last refurbishment a few years ago

They’re definitely some nice slides for a ship this old, but the one downside here is location. Being right behind the stack, it was a bit noisier, especially as you walked out to this area (walkway shown in the first shot above). It is what is is, though. The other odd thing about the aft design is that one deck down is the Serenity adults-only area. I shot this looking down on it from the back of the ship where the waterslides are:

Between the noise from the stack and the kids on the waterslide one deck above, I can’t imagine this is very serene, but having never sailed the Fantasy, that’s pure speculation. If you’ve sailed this ship in her current configuration and can speak to the noise level in Serenity, feel free to comment, we’d love to hear how it really is!

Update: Based on a comment on our Facebook page, it sounds like the location of Serenity is a non-issue!

After we finished on Lido, we did a very quick walk through of the spa, which was a pretty standard setup for Carnival. There seemed to be plenty of gym space for those wanting to work out, too.

Once we finished our walk-through of the spa we were out of time, so we headed down to deck 3, gave our passes back, and sadly left the ship. All in all it was a good tour, and left us with a pretty solid impression of the Fantasy. As mentioned, Carnival has done a really good job with upkeep. Is it small? Yes. Are you limited in room types? Yes. It’s not the Dream or the Breeze, but it’s still a worthy option, especially if you’re looking to cruise out of an east coast port outside of Florida. It’s only three hours from us, so I personally would like to give the ship a shot in the near future if we can carve out some time.

One last thing before I leave you with more pictures of the tour: A big thank you to Joanie and Kirsten, our tour guides from Carnival. They took really good care of us today!