We had never been on an MSC cruise before and wanted to try it out. The Seascape is a big beautiful, extremely clean ship with stunning modern decor. We have cruised many times before mostly on Royal Caribbean, but also on Carnival and Norwegian. All of the employees were friendly, helpful and kind.

The food both in the dining room and at the buffet was hit or miss. Sometimes we thoroughly enjoyed specific foods, but other times the food was poor. The rack of lamb in the Marketplace buffet, for example, in addition to being a pleasant surprise, was seasoned and cooked perfectly. The pizza and pasta selections--freshly made on the ship-were also excellent. Most of the desserts were lackluster and tasteless, unfortunately. The variety and quality of salads served in the main diningroom as well were standouts. The fish in the main dining room was overcooked, but the fish selections in the Marketplace buffet was nice and tender. There was a very nice selection in both the main dining room as well as in the marketplace buffet. Although we were not impressed with the quality of the desserts in the main dining room, they always had delicious ice cream selections. In addition to the usual chocolate and vanilla, there was always an alternative selection--for example, coffee, chocolate chip, rum raisin, pistachio and banana. Although we didn't opt for a drink package, we found that lemonade, coffee and ice tea were complimentary in the main dining room. There was a huge selection of drinks from the machine in the Marketplace Buffet. For example--kiwi strawberry, lemonade, mango..A fun touch, too, was that there were two flavored creamers--hazelnut and french vanilla that you could put in your coffee. If you are a tea drinker, there was a nice selection of tea available including green tea, orange cinnamon, chamomile, lemon..The set up of the buffet area was more like Carnival Celebration, as the layout included different seating sections making the experience more comfortable. While Carnival and Royal Caribbean both have several self-serve soft serve ice cream machines (and frozen yogurt), on this MSC Seascape, the only time you could get soft serve was from 3:30-5pm each day at the buffet area. Someone served this to the passengers during this time frame. There were, however, many toppings available such as sprinkles, chocolate sauce, blueberry and strawberry toppings. We also tried their Ocean Cay specialty restaurant. The food was ok, but the ambiance and the waitstaff were rather stuffy.

The only reason I rated this ship a 4 instead of a 5 was due to the quality of entertainment of the main theater shows. I appreciated that they had a different show each night and that you could make reservations for these shows. However, although there was so much potential, it's unfortunate that the quality was so poor. The dancers were extremely talented, however. The biggest issue was with the singers. Whatever was used to enhance the sound on the microphones were so loud when the singers hit the high notes that it sounded like a scream or screech, not someone singing a high note. I wasn't sure whether it was the singers themselves who couldn't sing or the effect placed on the microphone was just too loud at the high notes. Whatever it was, it was very uncomfortable to hear. A lot of the choreography could have been faster paced and more creative, too. The last two nights the choreography seemed to match the capabilities of the strong dancers. They just weren't given a chance in the earlier shows. In addition to this, the costumes were also better for the last two shows than they were in the beginning. It looked like the women were wearing large multicolored diapers draped with pieces of scarf-like fabric which were at times scattered with large obtrusive flower-like decorations. The sequined costumes for the last two shows were much classier and more appropriate for a large stage performance with talented dancers. The background screens kept glitching so the picture would flicker. When we asked the technical people about this, they said there was nothing they could do because the program was incompatible with their computers...They know about this issue. If MSC addresses and solves some of these problems, their shows will surely rank right up there with Carnival entertainment. Royal Caribbean is still the winner for the best entertainment since they have developed a way to provide quality shows with high production value and talent. We hope that MSC will take some notes from Royal Caribbean. MSC entertainment has so much potential, so it was indeed frustrating. The Cabaret entertainment was ok. The electric violinist from France was very talented as was the contortionist. However, these performances went on for multiple days. It would have been nice to see a different act each night. Both the MC/Singer as well as the band were talented and professional. Read more