The Seaside Class, in one read
MSC Seaside (2017) and MSC Seaview (2018) are the ships that made MSC interesting to Americans. Fincantieri built them at Monfalcone to 153,516 certificated gross tons and 323 metres, carrying 4,132 guests at double occupancy, and the design brief was genuinely contrarian: while every other line was building inward-facing malls and multi-storey atriums, MSC built a ship that faces the sea. A waterfront boardwalk at deck 8 that circumnavigates the entire hull, glass lifts running down the outside with glass floors as well as glass walls, glass-floor catwalks, and an aft superstructure of terraced balconies that looks unmistakably like a Miami condominium block. Nine years on they have never had a major refit, MSC has built a longer and richer version of them, and MSC Seaside still holds the best passenger rating of any ship in the family.
Fit scores, not review scores — these measure who the ships suit, not how good they are.
Warm-weather families and first-time cruisers who want a genuinely distinctive big ship at the lowest fare MSC charges in the American market — and anyone for whom a short Bahamas cruise with an overnight at a private island is the whole point.
You are sailing anywhere cool or shoulder-season. This design gives you its best on a hot deck and its worst in the rain, and Cruise Critic's editors say so in as many words.
What this class was built to solve
One design idea, executed harder than anyone else was executing it, plus two problems MSC solved almost by accident.
Ships had stopped looking at the sea
By the mid-2010s the industry's answer to scale was interior: neighbourhoods, promenades, atriums, malls. MSC went the other way and built the sea back in. The Waterfront Boardwalk at deck 8 circles the whole ship behind a glass wall, lined with shops, bars and restaurants with alfresco seating, close enough to the waterline that it changes what a sea day feels like. Two panoramic glass lifts run down the outside of the hull with glass floors as well as glass walls. It is the most genuinely original big-ship design of its decade and nothing MSC has built since has improved on the idea, only lengthened it.
The stern, reinvented as real estate
The aft superstructure steps down in terraces toward the water, giving a tower of Terraced Balcony Cabins looking over a wide aft promenade with a pool at its base — South Beach on Seaside, Sunset Beach on Seaview. It reads as a Miami condominium and that is entirely deliberate. It also solved a commercial problem elegantly: it created a large block of premium-feeling balcony cabins on a ship priced for the value market.
Two buffets, and why that turns out to matter enormously
Each of these ships carries two buffets — the Marketplace at 1,102 seats plus a second at deck 16, Biscayne Bay on Seaside and Ocean Point on Seaview. That sounds like a footnote. It is arguably the single most consequential specification on the class, because MSC's stretched EVO ships consolidated to one, and the buffet is the venue where every corroborated crowding complaint on those ships lands. Cruise Critic's editors raise no capacity concern on either of these hulls, and on Seaside actively praise the arrangement.
Free thrills, before MSC learned to charge for them
Five waterslides in the Forest Aquaventure Park built by WhiteWater West, including Slideboarding at 112 metres and duelling AquaTubes at 160 metres partly cantilevered over the ship's side; two zip lines; an Adventure Trail ropes structure; two full-size bowling alleys; a 4D cinema. All of it in the fare. The EVO ships added Robotron at $10 a ride and the World Class added surcharges inside the specialty covers. On these two, what is on the deck is what you have already paid for.
The Value Ledger: the three-night Bahamas test
MSC Seaside runs short Bahamas cruises out of PortMiami with an overnight at Ocean Cay. It is the cheapest week-adjacent holiday MSC sells to Americans, and the one where a drinks package can cost more than the cabin. Set the ledger to three nights — that is the sailing most readers of this page are actually pricing.
The Ocean Cay line worth adding to your own ledger. Seaside is the heaviest caller at Ocean Cay in the fleet and the only ship doing regular overnights there — in at 07:00, out at 16:00 the following day. There is no admission gate, no coaster and no waterpark to buy your way into; eight beaches, a pier you walk off rather than tender to, and an evening lighthouse show are inside the fare. Cabanas, excursions and the spa are extra, and MSC's own wording says your Premium Extra package works ashore — naming one tier, which implies the cheaper ones may not. How to read this, and where to distrust it. Rates observed 27 July 2026: MSC’s North American service charge of $17 per person per night for bookings from 11 May 2026, Carnival’s $17, Norwegian’s $20. Drinks use MSC’s Premium Extra at the bottom of its published $70–$101 pre-cruise range — we gave MSC its own best case on purpose, because an argument that only survives on generous inputs is not an argument. Carnival prints $69.95 and $83.94 itself; Norwegian’s $45 becomes $54 with its 20% added. Royal Caribbean is absent from the picker for a reason that belongs in the ledger anyway: it confirms in writing that “an 18% gratuity will be automatically added to the pre-cruise or onboard purchase of a beverage package,” and its $21 daily service charge is public — but it publishes no package price outside its own booking engine, so no honest row can be built. The largest caveat is the one the arithmetic cannot hold: Norwegian folds its bar package into the fare under Free at Sea, so the $54 onboard rate flatters Norwegian here. Compare the fares as well as the add-ons. Fees move; verify yours before you book.
The condo at sea, and what happened next
A design idea, a market that took eight years to catch up, and a refit that never came. Tap through.
Feature explorer
What both ships share, the two places they genuinely differ, and the design boundary that decides whether you will love them. Tap through.
Thirteen whirlpools, two buffets, and a newer ship with neither
The usual assumption is that the newer ship in a family has more of everything. On the Seaside line, MSC's own technical sheets say otherwise — and the two things it cut are precisely the two things that decide how a hot, full ship feels at four in the afternoon.
Fincantieri's 2018 press release promised the EVO ships “a larger number of whirlpools.” The delivered ships carry two large twenty-seat whirlpools plus two in the Yacht Club. The buffet went the same way: Seaside and Seaview each have two — Marketplace plus Biscayne Bay or Ocean Point — while EVO consolidated to one larger Marketplace, and Cruise Critic's own Seashore editor named it “the only place we consistently felt the pinch of crowds.” On Seaside the same publication's editor raises no capacity concern at all: “Both buffets offer indoor and outdoor seating, which is great when you're busy.” Two buffets is not a glamorous feature. It is the one this class got right.
Ship by ship
An identical platform a year apart, and then wildly divergent careers — one has never left the American market, the other has worked five of them.
| MSC Seaside | MSC Seaview | |
|---|---|---|
| Delivered | 29 November 2017 | 4 June 2018 |
| Gross tonnage | 153,516 certificated | 153,516 certificated |
| Guests (double occ.) | 4,132 | 4,132 |
| Crew | ~1,513 per MSC | ~1,413 per MSC — MSC's own figures differ for an identical ship |
| Zip lines | 2 × 120 m | 2 × 105 m |
| Second buffet | Biscayne Bay, deck 16, 430 seats | Ocean Point, deck 16 |
| Aft pool | South Beach Pool, deck 7 | Sunset Beach Pool |
| Godmother | Sophia Loren, PortMiami, 21 Dec 2017 | Sophia Loren, Genoa, 9 June 2018 |
| Refit history | None on record — a 7-day engine repair in July 2022 is not a refit | One drydock, Valletta, Mar–Apr 2023: maintenance and hull work only |
| Where she works | PortMiami, year-round — 3- and 4-night Bahamas through summer 2027 | Swing tonnage — Med summers, South America winter 2026-27 from Santos |
| Ocean Cay | Heaviest caller in the fleet, with overnights — in 07:00, out 16:00 the next day | No calls — not on her routes |
| Cruise Critic | Editor 4.0 · members 3.3 from 1,404 reviews | Editor 4.0 · members ~3.1 from 222 |
“MSC Seaside had a big refit.” She did not. Five independent checks come back empty — no drydock coverage, no refurbishment article, no entry on the fleet-wide refurbishment schedule, no refurbished year on her listing, and a Yacht Club configuration unchanged from her 2017 technical sheet. What people are remembering is a seven-day electrical repair to one engine at Palermo in July 2022. Report it as a reliability event, not a renovation.
“MSC Seaview went to China.” She did not, ever. That story belongs to MSC Bellissima, which has been in Asia since 2020 and is chartered to a Korean operator from 2027, and to MSC Splendida, which worked Shenzhen and Xiamen. Seaview has never sailed China and appears in no source that says otherwise.
The two ships, and the one reason to pick each
Tap between them. In practice only one of these is bookable from an American port, which simplifies things considerably.
Full ship guides: MSC Seaside · MSC Seaview.
| Ship | In service | Gross tonnage | Guests (2×) | Crew | Zip lines | Refit history | Where she works |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| MSC Seaside | 2017 | 153,516 GT | 4,132 | ~1,513 | 2 × 120 m | None on record | PortMiami year-round — Bahamas, with Ocean Cay overnights |
| MSC Seaview | 2018 | 153,516 GT | 4,132 | ~1,413 | 2 × 105 m | One drydock, spring 2023 | Mediterranean summers; South America winter 2026-27 |
Which Seaside Class ship fits you?
Four questions, though we will admit up front that geography answers most of it.
The honest read
The most useful finding on this class is that the older, un-refitted ship out-scores everything MSC built to succeed her. MSC Seaside carries a member rating of 3.3 across 1,404 reviews. MSC Seaview is about 3.1 from 222. Both EVO ships compute to about 2.9. That is not a small gap, it holds across large samples, and it runs in exactly the opposite direction to the specifications.
MSC's own technical sheets explain most of it. These ships carry 43,500 m² of public area at 10.5 m² per passenger against the EVO ships' 36,800 m² at 7.6. They have two buffets where EVO has one. They have thirteen whirlpools where EVO has four. When you strip away the marketing, the older ships give each passenger more room to be in and more places to be crowded into — and those are precisely the variables the negative reviews on this family are about.
The editors are warm about both hulls and specific about why. Cruise Critic praises Seaside's ample outdoor space, excellent children's programming, strong specialty dining and a “well-designed deck plan preventing overcrowding despite large capacity”. Seaview's bottom line is “Beautiful ship, where the fun never stops and perfectly designed for warm-weather sailing.” Her stated con is more pointed and worth carrying into a booking decision: “Still work to be done on service and food quality.” That is the MSC pattern in miniature — the hardware over-delivers and the delivery is where the fare shows.
The design has a hard boundary and the editors name it. Cruise Critic's sole listed con for MSC Seaside is that with so many areas given to the outdoors, interior public spaces can feel crowded in poor weather. A firsthand account of a transatlantic on Seaview describes exactly that: too cold for the outdoor areas, a main lounge of roughly two hundred seats, and a shortage of buffet tables. If your sailing is Caribbean, this is a non-issue and these are superb ships. If it is a shoulder-season Mediterranean or a repositioning crossing, it is the single most important thing on this page.
Both ships are polarising rather than mediocre, and that is worth understanding before you read reviews. Seaside's 1,404 reviews break to 409 Excellent and 209 Terrible; Seaview's TripAdvisor sample runs 126 Excellent against 112 Terrible. People do not shrug at these ships. The strongest predictor of which camp you land in is whether you understood MSC's fare model before you boarded — the tiered Bella, Fantastica and Aurea structure, the multilingual announcements, the European service rhythm — and this guide exists largely to make sure you do.
Book the Seaside Class
For two buffets, thirteen whirlpools, MSC's own higher public-space figure per passenger, the heaviest Ocean Cay schedule in the fleet, and the lowest fare MSC charges for a big modern ship in America.
Book Seaside EVO instead
For a four-deck 131-suite Yacht Club, Chef's Court dining out on the waterfront promenade, an aft infinity pool, the fleet's largest kids' space — and Robotron, on Seascape.
Ask Seabound about Seaside Class
Tell us about your trip.
Tell us your dates, your homeport and whether Ocean Cay matters. On this class the Miami ship and the European ship are almost never both options.
Instant answers from our guides · always verified against current MSC information before you book.
Quick answers
What is MSC's Seaside class?
Two ships — MSC Seaside (2017) and MSC Seaview (2018) — built by Fincantieri at Monfalcone to 153,516 certificated gross tons and 323 metres, carrying 4,132 guests at double occupancy. Their design is deliberately outward-facing: a waterfront boardwalk at deck 8 that circles the entire ship, panoramic glass lifts on the outside of the hull with glass floors, glass-floor catwalks, and a terraced aft superstructure of balcony cabins stepping down to an aft pool.
Has MSC Seaside been refurbished?
No. There is no MSC Seaside refit on record, verified five ways: no drydock or refurbishment coverage in the trade press, no entry on CruiseMapper's fleet-wide refurbishment schedule, no refurbished year on her Cruise Critic listing, no renovation note on MSC's own pages, and a Yacht Club configuration unchanged from her 2017 technical sheet. What is sometimes remembered as a refit was a seven-day electrical repair to one of four engines at Fincantieri Palermo in July 2022.
Does MSC Seaside overnight at Ocean Cay?
Yes, and she is the only ship in the fleet doing so regularly. MSC Seaside is the heaviest caller at Ocean Cay MSC Marine Reserve, typically arriving at 07:00 and departing at 16:00 the following day. That scheduling is what makes her three- and four-night Bahamas cruises work as holidays rather than as long weekends. The island has a pier, so guests walk ashore rather than tendering, and the eight beaches, free trams and evening lighthouse show are included in the fare.
Which is better, MSC Seaside or MSC Seashore?
It depends on what your week is made of. Seashore is longer, has a four-deck 131-suite Yacht Club against Seaside's 86, and moves five specialty restaurants out to the waterfront promenade. Seaside has two buffets against Seashore's one, thirteen whirlpools against four, MSC's own higher public-space figure of 10.5 m² per passenger against 7.6, and a member rating of 3.3 against about 2.9. Book Seashore for the suites and the specialty dining; book Seaside if your week will be spent at the buffet and the whirlpools.
Are MSC Seaside class ships good in cold weather?
No, and Cruise Critic's editors say so directly. The sole listed con for MSC Seaside is that with so many areas dedicated to the outdoors, interior public areas can feel crowded during inclement weather, and Seaview's bottom line describes her as perfectly designed for warm-weather sailing. A firsthand transatlantic account of Seaview reports exactly the predicted problem — outdoor spaces unusable, a main lounge of about two hundred seats, and a shortage of buffet tables.
Where does MSC Seaview sail?
She is MSC's swing tonnage and moves more than most ships her size. As of mid-2026 she runs seven-night Western Mediterranean round-trips from Barcelona, Genoa, Marseille and Valletta; from November 2026 to March 2027 she takes seven-night South America itineraries from Santos, Buenos Aires and Balneário Camboriú, then returns to the Eastern and Western Mediterranean through 2027. She has also worked Brazil, the Baltic from Kiel and Copenhagen, and the French Caribbean. She does not call at Ocean Cay.