review of the Caribbean cruise we returned from yesterday

Today (Saturday Jan. 13)  we disembarked from the MSC Seaside cruise to Western Caribbean, originally planned to be Eastern Caribbean. Overall it was the most frustrating and unpleasant of the 9 sea cruises we have taken so far, but I will try to be specific about good parts, bad parts, and things to watch for.

The best part for me, by far, was the ship excursion to Kohunlich. We have already visited many other Mayan sites, in the company of world-class archeologists, but our tour guide, Edna, whose home town is along the bus route we took, told us many interesting things we did not know yet. This experience, and a new look at the ocean from the 19th floor, were the two spiritually meaningful parts of the cruise, without which R&R would be the only justification. (Well, now that I think of it, getting a waiter one day became an esoteric experience too.)

The ship itself was the next best part. It is shiny, new, big and beautiful, more than any of the others we have traveled on.

The Jamaica port day was lots of fun.  My wife wisely booked a local driver, through Juta tours, who took us very early first to the main falls (Dunn? Another D name?), and then to botanical park tour. We really enjoyed clambering up from the bottom (labelled only as "exit") over rushing water and smooth rocks to the top, stopping to copy the three locals who stood in a natural shower and take pictures. But if any of us did not have perfect attention  to our immediate surroundings, it would have been easy to die. As we left, we shivered to see the huge crowd entering, to think what THAT implied for safety and fun where we just were. My wife says that the ship excursion requires the whole line of people to hold hands, a terrible mess, but understandable given the safety issues. We did learn a little at the botanical garden as well.

That was the great and good stuff OFF the ship. But on the ship, there were so many snafus it is hard to know where to begin.

There were only 4 free restaurants, a large cafeteria (like Norwegian garden cafe but not the same scale), a tiny cafeteria up near the main pool, and two normal restaurants, Seaside and Ipanema. Perhaps because of overpopulation, even the main cafeteria was controlled-access much of the time, open only to certain people at certain times. So for example, when we returned to the ship at about 3Pm from GrandCayman island, the only food I could get was an overcooked dry hamburger and an old style fatty hot dog with a little plastic package of relish and mayonnaise (no ketchup) from the pool area. People were willing to promise hot tea with lemon in the restaurants, but 1/3 of the time they delivered and 2/3 it became another case of no food.
For dinner, it was assigned seating and time, in group tables, for the lucky ones. As black card folks, we had a wonderful window view and waiters much better than any others we saw aboard the ship, but the random selection of table mates was a bit jarring.  We knew to race home from Mexico, and not change clothes, to meet the assigned time. (It was that or no food that day; we are glad they did not enforce the strict dress code on us that day, but rules in general were somewhat random.) Our table mates had no food that day after breakfast because they did try to meet the dress code, and it was closed. Even yesterday, it said "closed" to us, but we physically opened the doors and mentioned Captain's event, so they let us in. On Norwegian, we never had to worry about no-food days.
We signed up for lots of bennies -- spa, drinks in mealtime, coffee package, medium wifi. Wifi worked well, in the end,BUT we lost a lot of time because no one told us we had to type "login.com" in the address bar even after successfully navigating the tricky web site which comes up. It woukd be so easy for them to just tell us that,on the web site itself, instead of creating huge unnecessary lines in the reception area for people asking the same question.
The drink and coffee packages work great if you like to start your day with wine over breakfast and end with a couple of cappuchinos as you go to bed.  But we ended up using less than half the coffee coupons, because restaurants would not take them, and none of the venchi places would accept them for anything but coffee. If your caffeine intake is limited, maybe you should forget the coffee package, and just give in to the regular restaurant coffee -- unless you prefer eggs with water.
The eighth floor buffet was reasonable for lunch. Meat in sauce was OK. Bar offered just heineken inside for beer on the mealtime drinks package, but around the corner outside newcastle ale was also available on draft; helpful and friendly folks. Seaside restaurant had great salmon for breakfast, but seating and waiters were a nightmare.
(First day: "sorry for the delay; we are looking for a cook." Later: "sorry, we do not know where the waiter for your area is.")
On assigned dinners, Italian dishes were generally much better than others, though the prime rib on the last day was great. I am surprised the French Embassy has yet to complain about the so-called French onion soup, a tasteless red glob.
On the very first day, they were clear we should go to the emergency station indicated on our cards and on the map in our room. But the two did not match.  Folks were tested on going to what their cards say, but we had no map of where to find it. But crew had signs, so we survived that.
There are also gates connecting balconies. On the first day,  I was disconcerted to see unfamiliar kids on our balcony, laughing and peering in to us. We called steward who needed a special tool to lock the gate, but a few days later in the night the gates got loose again on both sides, banging noisily all night.

Captain was proud spa is "the biggest." One of the NCL ships had a spa which SEEMED a lot bigger, with views outside the ship and more powerful jets, but still the spa WAS good. Great background music. Steam baths, finnish sauna, access to a jacuzzi on private outdoor deck. Snow room.

The shows were mostly not up to NCL standards. Time-travel show was the best for me, "powerful but disconnected." But if you don't build time machines, it might be less powerful for you.
Specialty restaurants -- Yamaguchi is a real artist and we enjoyed quality things we haven't seen anywhere else. At chef's table, huge volume of food, including giant shrimp, but desert cake was the only bit of real flair. I am reminded of a table mate who ordered chicken, asked for some sauce, and was told that Tabasco and ketchup were the only choices.

One table mate commented about the effect of too many people on elevators.  I just shrugged my shoulders; I have never seen fast elevators on any cruise ship, and don't mind walking. But when 2 of the 4 next to us stopped working, and many folks became surly due to missing food and such, it really did become an issue.

At Grand Cayman, the tour we booked was cancelled due to earthquake, tsunami alert and such. We were not the only ones a bit frustrated. But local people had nice $20/person 7 stop tours. Near the port exit, to the right, was a small but amazing marine park; if we had brought our own snorkeling gear.. but it was amazing anyway. I wonder what those huge fish were right by the ladder and the steps down into the water.

Consider bringing a bar of soap and a simple workable salt shaker before you come on board. The elegant bath foam was so astringent that I had hours of on-again off-again intense pain after my first shower. After that I avoided washing all parts which medicine most demands we wash. The tables have many beautiful glass salt grinders,  and they can be made to deliver a little salt for a little while. Yes I understand the philosophy, but I also understand voodoo and do not want to be forced to practice it.

MSC practiced language diversity more than other cruise lines, but not other kinds of diversity, freedom and choice.

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Addendum:

Our very first cruise, long long ago on Carnival, was previously the worst and we never sailed on it again. Like MSC, they had assigned seating. They assigned us to eat with a Biblical family from Waco. When they lectured us on how sinful our  thinking was... well.. not fun. I was somewhat worried as we approached the MSC at Miami, right next to Carnival ships, knowing that for the second time we would face assigned seating again. Great worry, but not to fear. Our seat assignments were with a family very similar to old neighbors of mine with high mafia connections. Much easier conversations, but it seems once again we scared people somehow, though it didn't seem that way. Later debate: is the mafia irrelevant now, because the FBI downed it? Or did they take over the reins to the FBI itself? Or is that an issue of semantics?

Time to end this post.

Well... when I get two pictures of Hell from Luda, I will do a facebook post linking here:

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Grand cayman: anyone who tracks financial networks should not be surprised that there is a convenient express lane to hell there. Still, we were surprised when we got off the boat (URL) and were told: "Your tour is cancelled, because a 7.6 earthquake hit right where you were sailing, with a tsunami alert." Well, not exactly there, but I had been thinking how Trump's new tax law does not do justice to the game theory aspects of where the money goes around the world,  or to the Panama papers scandals well-known in Europe. With or without the new tax law, the US could bring back more money by cooperating more with EU and others who actually care about the strength of the people, enough to plug the most horrible leaks.
But this earthquake was small compared to what hit Mexico and NAFTA this past year...