Today is another day at sea aboard MSC Seascape. Our morning begins with our daily dining strategy. We plan to dine at the Top Sail Restaurant for the Gala Dinner this evening, so that means we will skip lunch, and instead, enjoy breakfast at Top Sail Restaurant (MSC Yacht Club’s private dining venue).

As you would expect, the breakfast menu is rather extensive.

*Pastries offered at Top Sail Restaurant*

The restaurant is less than half full of guests this morning. No doubt, many opt for the breakfast buffet being served at the Yacht Club Pool Grill on Deck 20. So far, the food we have had in the Top Sail Restaurant has been good. The service, however, can be hit or miss. It seems to take a long time for food to be delivered to the table. This has been true at breakfast, lunch and dinner.

Once nice thing we noticed at breakfast this morning is that pastries are offered after you are seated. We have seen this long‑standing cruise tradition disappearing on some cruise lines.

I ordered three eggs over medium with link sausage and wheat toast. My eggs were slightly overcooked, but I prefer that to undercooked. The link sausage was good, but nothing special. The toast was not buttered, and butter did not arrive at the table until I was finished eating my toast.

Rickee ordered her favorite: Eggs Benedict. The eggs were poached perfectly with the whites cooked through while the yolk was still runny. You would think that a perfectly poached egg would be routine for any restaurant, but usually they are either undercooked or overcooked. Rickee rates the Eggs Benedict a 7 out of 10. Even though the eggs were nicely cooked, they were not hot and the Hollandaise sauce could have used more lemon.

After breakfast we wanted to burn off some calories and get our steps in, so we head down to Deck 8. This is the only open deck good for walking; however, it is not a true “promenade” deck as the forward portion of the deck is blocked off for Aurea Spa use. So, when you get to the front of the ship, either port or starboard, you have to make a u-turn and go back the other direction.

*Infinity Bridge - Deck 8 - MSC Seascape*

The deck is wide enough for easy walking, even on a sea day with everyone on board. However, the entire port side of the deck is designated as a smoking section, so you may end up walking through a haze of cigar or cigarette smoke during half of your stroll.

After our walk, we head up to the Marina Pool on Deck 18 aft. From the looks of the pool deck loungers, it does not appear that the ship is full. We could still see a few empty loungers.

There are activities going on around the pool throughout the day. A putting competition was in progress when we walked through.

As we walked through the Marketplace Buffet, we saw the Kids’ Buffet which has a lower counter making the food easy to reach for the youngsters. That is a great idea and one that every cruise line should adopt.

As we walk through the buffet, we are on the hunt for soft-serve ice cream for Rickee. This turned out to be quite a search. Many cruise lines have soft-serve machines scattered around the ship, but on MSC Seascape, the only place we could find it was at the dessert station in the buffet. And, the ice cream is not self-serve.

Nevertheless, once we found the right location, the crew member served up a nice swirl cone for Rickee.

The Marketplace Buffet is huge. I do not remember the buffet on MSC Seashore being this massive. The food on offer did look better than I remember from previous MSC sailings. It does appear that MSC has improved their buffet since our last cruise. But, we will have to try it for ourselves later in the cruise.

I saw at least three different sections of the buffet dedicated to pizza. As we walked through a Vegan buffet section where I saw a slice of pizza with no cheese. I could not resist a slice.

Even though there was no cheese on my slice, the crust was so thin and crisp that I did not miss the cheese. The sauce was also very good. I would rate their pizza a solid 8 out of 10. I will be trying this again.

The burger station, on the other hand, looks similar to what we remember from past MSC cruises. Burgers are not cooked to order and are just sort of sitting in a serving pan. I would say this is the weakest station we saw as we walked through the buffet.

*Burgers are pre-cooked and assembled on the buffet*

This afternoon, we were walking by the Champagne Bar where we saw a very enticing juice bar menu with a selection of smoothies on offer. Our first thought was that $14 for a smoothie is outrageously high. But, since we have the Yacht Club drink package and our per drink limit is $16, what the heck? However, when we tried to order our smoothies, we were told that they are not included in our drink package! What? You have to be kidding! In our opinion, that is a major fail for the value of the “Premium” drink package.

*Smoothies are not included in the Yacht Club drink package*

This evening, Yacht Club guests are invited to the Top Sail Lounge where we had the opportunity to meet several of the ship’s senior staff. We were greeted by Cruise Director, Ryan Rose, who introduced Captain Miele. The Captain revealed to us that MSC Cruises is currently building, or has plans to build, 10 new ships to be launched in the coming years, four of which will sail under the Explora Journeys brand (MSC’s luxury brand). We were also introduced to Allesandro Di Contanzo, our MSC Yacht Club Director.

After the presentation by the senior staff, we walked upstairs to the Top Sail Restaurant and got a wonderful table for two overlooking the lounge below.

Tonight’s menu presents the Gala Dinner selections.

For my starter, I chose the always available Caesar Salad. This is one of my standard tests for cruise line dining. There are times when I will only have a Caesar Salad for lunch or dinner, so it has to meet my high standards. This Caesar Salad is better than I have had on most cruise lines, even better than Silversea Cruises. The Romaine lettuce was fresh and crisp, the shaved Parmesan is much preferred over grated or shredded. The dressing was very good, although the salad was a bit underdressed for my tastes. The only fail was the croutons were very tough and maybe even stale. Still, I would rate the Caesar an 8 out of 10.

Rickee ordered the Twice-Baked Bleu Cheese Souffle as her starter. She rated it a 10 out of 10 and said it was the best thing she has eaten on the ship so far.

We each ordered the Beef Tenderloin Rossini for our main course. My foie gras topping quickly found its way to Rickee’s plate since I do not care for foie gras. The steak was perfectly cooked Medium. It was very tender, but lacked the perfect seasoning and flavor of the filet served at Butcher’s Cut. Still, I would give it a solid 7 out of 10 rating. The asparagus and new potato sides were very good.

I also ordered what was supposed to be a small portion of the Egg Fettuccini in a Creamy Porcini Mushroom Sauce for us to share. The menu claims that the pastas are handmade fresh daily. The noodles were perfectly cooked al dente and the mushroom sauce was delicious. For a pasta dish, this was a 10 out of 10.

We did order a dessert to share, but the photo did not come out well. We ordered the Grandma’s Chocolate Cake. Honestly, this was the weakest part of the meal. The cake tasted like something you would get from the buffet line. Our rating, a 5 out of 10 for the dessert.

Overall, we did enjoy the Gala Dinner. I am sure most guests ordered the lobster, or a steak and lobster combo. Neither Rickee or me are big lobster fans.

Tomorrow, MSC Seascape will be docked in Costa Maya and we have reservations at the Teppanyaki restaurant for dinner.

Day 3 Day at sea

Day 2 - Day at Sea