My family I chose this cruise purely from a price perspective. We all wanted a last minute getaway without having to pay 5-7k to do it. We have been on 17 previous cruises all with either Carnival, Royal, or NCL. For three people in a balcony the price on MSC was too good to pass up so we decided to book the Seascape and hope that all the negative reviews were not a barometer for our trip. I can happily say they weren’t but I’ll elaborate on that later.

We got to Miami the day of the cruise and took an Uber from the airport to the cruise terminal. Since MSC is newer to the American market they are still using the older terminals at Port Miami. Obviously the NCL and Royal Terminals are incredible but blading thru an older terminal doesn’t bother me. We got to the port around 10:30 and were thru check in by 11am. We were grouped in zones ranging from 1-22. We ended up getting seven and expected to be on the ship fairly quickly. Unfortunately that did not happen. The previous cruise had issues with disembarking passengers so we were forced to wait until about 12:15 before we boarded. Definitely not the smoothest embarkation we have experienced but definitely not the worst.

We made our way up to the marketplace buffet for lunch and found a really great table overlooking the city of Miami. The buffet itself is the largest I have ever seen on a cruise ship. Bigger than even the ones on Royals Oasis class of ships. The overall design is well laid out and there was plenty of stations on both sides to accommodate people. It also felt upscale compared to some other buffets we’ve experienced on Royal and Carnival. Read more