My family hadn't been on a cruise and the Seaside looked like it would cater to us and our children. The food was in general good. Many choices for the family. We opted for the Aurea experience so had flexibility on the time in the dining room. They do have a very limited Gluten Free menu (which I needed). If you are GF, the buffet is somewhat challenging.

Now the downsides:

1. Time in ports was minimal. Just enough time to do an excursion, no time to see anything else. The stop in Ocho Rios was a tourist trap...get off the boat and surrounded by a shopping community (hard to even find the exit). We felt trapped. Next stop was Cayman. We snorkeled and then it was time to get back on the boat. From there it was Jamaica. The boat pulled up to what appeared to be an industrial area. The walk to shopping was somewhat scary, with an abundance of people trying to sell you anything and everything. Even heard one man proposition a women for sex in front of my kids. We were quickly back on board. We were definitely not in the nice area. Last stop was Ocean Cay. We were scheduled to be there until midnight (then head back to Miami to close out the week). We left at 3:00 due to weather and had to deal with 50 mph gusts and a complete change of course. Weather was so bad it was hard to stand in our room. No communication from MSC regarding weather, safety or change of course. Terrible communication. With this weather change (call was made the day before), no changes were made to open additional restaurants or bars to accommodate the crowd. Just terrible. Read more