Sorry this is long winded but necessary for others to know to avoid what we went through. We had booked our cruise pre-covid with MSC on the Seaside. After trying to get MSC to refund the cruise and getting no where with that we assumed that it was a loss. Mid summer 2022 I received an email saying we were sailing September 1, 2022. This date was not possible. We contacted the cruise line and they did thankfully change the date to one of our choice, the New Years cruise, as well they did upgrade our room to a balcony. That’s where all the good ended.

We arrive at the shop on embarkation day. Our time was from 10 am and stated that we only had one hour and then our time slot would close. They didn’t even have the ship unloaded from the previous sailing let alone able to begin loading the passengers for our sailing. We ended up not even getting aboard the ship till after 1 pm. Very long time to wait in lines. Over 5000 passengers and only two security scanners open. Ridiculous! Get to our room finally in the late afternoon and it was clean so it appeared. Noticed that the garbage can had fun in it and it was not washed out. Moved the garbage can and there was garbage behind it that was still there when our cruise ended! The couch in the room had a huge black stain on it that we had to cover with a blanket so we could a guy sit on it.

We purchased the drink package as soon as we boarded and noticed day two that we had 5 drink charges. We were told that we were served Tito’s vodka which was not included in our Easy package. We never asked for Tito’s as we knew this, we just asked for vodka which would mean well liquor. We were told that it happened at 3 different bars so we must have asked for it. We said we specifically said only vodka, water and a splash of cranberry as we knew we had to have the well vodka. She accused us of being liars. One I don’t like Tito’s so would never ask for it, two we knew not to ask for a specific vodka, three we had a ship onboard tab already of $1500 why lie about $60 and four if they serve Tito’s or any other upgrade vodka without you asking for it then it’s their on them as they are supposed to make you sign for anything that requires payment which we never did. They only refunded us half of the drinks. Read more