We cruised to the Eastern Carib in December of 2018 on board MSC Seaside. The crew was absolutely wonderful. The ship design has limitations put in place by MSC management.
The ship left Miami on the 22nd and spent the next day at sea. My first morning on board was a disappointment due to not being able to get forward. The entire forward end of the ship is not accessible without being a ‘Special Guest’. The ships designers and MSC management decided to take up the forward one third of the upper decks with a Yacht Club area. This area serves around 170 high paying guests. So, the rest of the 5000 guests can not see a forward view from the ship and are limited to two thirds of the sun deck space.
The rest of the first full day was spent exploring. We visited the 2 upper deck pools located on 16. One is aft and one is midships. The aft pool is surrounded by outdoor seating. Better get there early if you want a seat on the pool level. Not enough seating and hard to actually walk since the guest move the lounge chairs into the aisles, which are not made for two people to walk side by side to start with. There is one bar that serves this pool and is usually 3 or 4 deep to get served. Wait staff is very good and friendly just extremely over worked at this bar. At this pool there is an entertainment area below the big screen and the crew does a wonderful job of entertaining there.
One parent was assigned to each room. Door keys did not work on other room. Problem with door keys fixed by getting room bracelot for kids and taking their cards for adults. Great layout with connecting door. Kids had one room and parents in second.
7 cruise ships in port at same time. Took over an hour to get to Atlantis. Only a half day in port. Lines were more than an hour long on water slides. Expensive and not worth it.