Cheap Seats - Divina Review: April 8 – 15, 2017

Day Five – COZUMEL

 

 

So, as I mentioned earlier, I tried to stay healthy on thiscruise. Because of that I ordered minestrone, a fish stew (different name…butthat is what it was and it was the designated healthy option), and the fruitfor dessert. I was the only one to order that. Mistake…More later….

 

 

After dinner the kids ran to the teen center and we took thelittle one to kids care. The show that night was supposed to be a tribute toQueen, so we were all in! However, the whole think was weird. The femalevocalist was OUTSTANDING. The males had great pitch, but it was difficult tounderstand what words they were saying due to a heavy accent. Now, I don’t mindthat, but when it is a familiar song, it is a little strange. Halfway throughthe show, there was an opera song (NOT that part of Bohemian Rapsody….an actualopera song). It didn’t make sense at all. The show was just ODD. As I said, thevoices were good…but the show was weird.

 

 

After the show things were pretty dead. We went to a fewbars, and we finally headed up to the buffet because people were hungry. I gotan apple….and as I sat there, I realized that I was going to be sick. I quicklydismissed myself and ran to my room. I spent the next five hours vomiting in thebathroom (TMI). Seriously folks, avoid the fish stew! Food poisoning SUCKS! Itwas a BAD night.

 

 

Needless to say, my husband rounded up the kids, and the nightended in a less-than-stellar fashion.

 

 

 

END OF DAY FIVE!

Unfortunately, you are making the common mistake of blaming your last meal for your food poisoning. The cioppino was properly not the culprit.

It was more likely something you ate at lunch (8 - 12 hours before becoming ill) then something you ate at dinner.

Thank you for your review! Sister and I will be on board may 13

I will not take the fish stew ;-)

They had dancing (Teen Disco at night), wii video game stuff, etc. It wasn't super organized, but the boys liked it that way. They just did a lot of hanging out. They also really loved the soccer area and played a lot there with people from all over. One bummer thing...there is ping pong around the top of the indoor pool, but only people 18 and over can rent the paddles (free rental), so we had to get that for them a lot. They are rented from the area by the F1 simulator. Oh, and we paid the $60/room to let them do the bowling, F1 simulator, and 3D movies. They didn't like the F1 or 3D, but they did enjoy the bowling in the Sports Bar.

Thanks for the info! Very helpful.

Thank you for the review from the cheap seats. I was on the Divina last year, but was upsold to the YC. I'm booked on the Seaside for next April in the cheap seats, and am glad the cruise was good. I was a little concerned given some of the negatives I've read on CC. Looking forward to the Seaside. By the way, I thought the Divina was the most beautiful ship I've ever been on. P.S. No chance for an upsell this time. All YC cabins sold out.

Ok....I'm going to finish this now. Sorry for the delay!

Day Six – Sea Day

It was a great thing that this was a sea day was a sea daybecause I had very little sleep the night before and was a bit weak from the sickness.Clocks were set ahead one hour on this day, so that got us back to our hometimezone. That also meant that everyone woke up a little late (everyone on theship…it seemed), and the buffet was so crowded.

About 10:00 I took the little one to kids care and headed orthe indoor pool. When I dropped him off, parents were told that pick up was12:00 in the theatre. They said, “Bring a camera because there will be aspecial show.” I was excited to see what I assumed would be a brief talentshow. Back at the pool, things were very busy. I had a table, but every tablewas taken. It also seemed like some passengers had been away from home for toolong and forgotten some basic manners. People were bringing HUGE plates of foodinto the indoor pool and leaving half eaten plates piled up everywhere. Iactually felt sorry for the waitstaff….who became (understandably) a littlemore snarly!

A few minutes before noon I headed to the theatre to see theshow. My husband was with the older boys playing ping pong, and I told him thatI would be back shortly. WRONG! When I sat down in the theatre, the kids careleaders announced that MSC was working hard on the new web show called “Kellyand Kloe on Board.” The premise of this show is that two preteens live on boardan MSC ship. They publish these shows online. Guess what…these are PRE TEENshows…so adults will find them stupid. But, with the captured parent audience,they showed us ALL FOUND WEBISODES. Seriously, we watched four shows (onlyabout 10 minutes each….but still). Then they brought out some acrobat folks fora preview of the nightly show…..I was dying. I really wanted to get outside andenjoy the sea day, but I was held captive. FINALLY they had the kids show. It consistedof a few VERY CUTE group numbers and a talent show. My son didn’t do a talent(not sure he has one), so I watched other people’s kids being cute. It wascute, but like most things kids care related, it needed some organization andparameters. So, my advice to parents….show up to the theatre about 12:45…you’llsee enough. When the show ended we had to line up to check them out, which tookforever in the theatre.

Kids care was supposed to reopen at 2:30 and have a cookingclass at 3:00. This is the big one that you sign up for. As a Bella passenger,we didn’t get this free, but we signed up on day one and paid for it. The lineto check the kids in took my husband around 30 minutes because so many kidswanted to do the class. The class only lasted until 3:30. The kids care wassupposed to be open a bit after that, but they closed and cancelled the rest ofthe afternoon activities due to wind. Weird.

We spent the rest of the afternoon back at the indoor pool.At 4:00 there was another zumba class. Despite my uneasy stomach, I decided todo it because I had basically been sitting around all day. Again, the class wasgreat. It was very high energy and fun. But, because this was a sea day, therewas an added part that made the class pretty funny. Since the class is on thepool deck, a number of what I assume to be slightly drunk passengers just pulledup a chair and watched the class. Several girls were sitting on a bench that wasabout a foot from the last person in the back of the class. The situation wasweird…and funny. The class was great.

After Zumba I headed to the room to get ready for dinner. Thisnight is the second formal night. Most people seemed less dressed up, thoughthere were still a number of men wearing tuxedos and women wearing formalgowns. Again, my husband wore a suit and the boys all wore ties, but that is asdressed up as they got. I wore a dress, but it was certainly nothing superfancy. Dinner was fine, though I opted for the most bland food that I couldfind due to the slightly uneasy feeling of my stomach. At the end of dinnerthey did the parade of waiters carrying the desserts (appeared to be fake) on atray and sang a song. It was very nice.

After dinner we headed up to the jazz bar and the piano barafter dropping our youngest off at kids care. We watched a little of thehippies sing and generally floated between the two bars. We went into the showat 9:00, which was Treasure Island. I thought the show was pretty good. Themusic and dancing was nice, but there was no story to the show. At the endthere was some voiceover about “And that’s the story of Captain….” Honestly, Ihave no clue what story happened in that show. Still, it was entertaining. Theyalso had the kids all made up as pirates for the show, which was very cute.

After the show we went back to the bars for a bit beforeheading to pick up the little one and back to bed. We enjoyed the sea day alot, but it would have been better had I not been sick!

End of Day Six!

Day 7 – NASSAU

So, I’ve been to Nassau A LOT, and it is not generally myfavorite place. Usually we do an all-inclusive hotel day somewhere, but thoseadd up in price really quickly when you are talking about 5 people. I’ve neverdone Atlantis….and on our budget, it will probably never happen.

Before the cruise, I watched a few videos about the freebeaches, and we decided to go to Junkanoo Beach. I was nervous.

We woke up that morning and I was determined to get off ofthe boat early. The little guy wanted to eat in the dining room for breakfastagain, but the older boys did not. My husband and I decided to take him, and weagreed to meet the other two back at the room at 9:00. When we got to thedining room, it was very busy, but it was MUCH better than our first breakfastexperience. We got refills on coffee this time, and the food came prettyquickly.

We met our boys back at the room around 9:00, got our stufftogether, and headed off of the ship. We were off very quickly, and headedtowards the straw market. The walk to Junkanoo Beach took about 15 minutes, andit was really a beautiful day, so we all enjoyed the walk. When we got there, Iwent right up to the guy at the Tiki Bikini Bar (hut) and asked about chairs. For$10/chair we got a chair right near the ocean, the kids drank kids drinks freeall day, and my husband and I got 5 free drinks (total, not each). That seemedlike a great deal to me, so we set up for our day on the beach.

Around 11:00 the beach began to get really crowded, but theenergy was great. People were playing games, dancing, etc. My boys and I swamfor a while (husband wouldn’t enter the cold water). My oldest wanted to trythe water bike, so I rented it for an hour for $40. HUGE waste of money. It wasvery windy, so pedaling the bike was like climbing a mountain. The bike seats 2people, but my sons could barely make it move. After 10 minutes they were done.I thought they were being wimps, so I jumped on with my 11 year old. Worthless….Icould barely more the bike. So, I surrendered it back to the guy who rented tous and felt frustrated to have just lost $40.

My 11 year old son soon joined a volleyball game on thebeach. He played for a long time, and he met lots of nice people. My seven yearold also saw some kids that he knew from the boat, and he had a great time. My13 year old was given the wifi password, so he and my husband were in heaven.It was a nice relaxing beach day. We ended up only drinking 4 of our 5 freedrinks, but that was fine. About 1:30, we decided to head to town to find lunchand then back to the ship since “all aboard” was 3:30. We walked into SeniorFrogs first. I’ve been there before and think it is fun, but when we looked atthe menu, we realized lunch would cost well over $100, and it is not worththat. We walked down the road looking for other lunch places, but finally wejust decided to head back to the ship.

Again, this was a good move because we got back on the shipbefore the massive crowds. We were able to get lunch and find a good table by theindoor pool in time to enjoy the day. My youngest was ready to head back tokids care, so we took him up there for about an hour. At 5:00 we all headeddown to get ready for the final dinner. I was super sad that things were comingto an end! I packed up all of our stuff except for a small morning bag, andplaced our luggage in the hall. They didn’t pick it up until sometime aftermidnight, but I wanted to have it done.

The final dinner was my favorite food of the week. I had a vegetarianpad thai, which was the healthy option. I loved it. My husband hated it.Hmmmmmm…. At dinner I had one glass of wine, which they topped off after I hada few sips. My husband had the same. Our friends had one beer and no wine. Whenwe got the bills, I had four glasses on my bill, my husband had five, and ourfriend had three (she had none). Clearly, since we had the deluxe package, theywanted to put a lot of alcohol on there. It was strange.

At dinner my eleven year old had a dessert he didn’t like. Ioffered to take him to the dessert place on deck six and get him somethingelse. We had not been there all week, but I knew that with my package I couldget free dessert. He hadn’t known that. So, we headed there, I ordered a giantpiece of chocolate cake, and he happily had his last dessert on the Divina.While we were doing that my husband was taking our youngest to kids care andchanging out of the suit.

My son and I met up with my husband and our friends at theJazz bar, and then we headed to the Michael Jackson show. My oldest son alsowent there to watch the show, though he opted to sit with another teenager, notthe parents. The show was AWESOME! This was by far the best show I’ve ever seenat sea. Really, this is a cannot miss show on the Divina. Everyone in our groupand all of our kids loved it. The young kids were seated up from with the kidsclub.

After the show we headed back to the Jazz bar for a while,said goodbye to our friends, and headed to pick up our son from kids care.Since it was his last night, we left him there as late as we could because Iknew he would be sad to leave. He was. We left kids care and decided to takehim for an extra dessert, as well. I ordered two desserts, but he didn’t likeeither, so I took them back to the cabin for my older sons. They came in aroundmidnight, and they were sad to leave. They said that they spent their finalnight dancing, which is so awesome!

SADLY, End of DAY SEVEN!

Disembarkation:

We were very lucky because we were given a 7:30disembarkation time. We got up at 6:00, and our final bill was under our door.I realized that they had randomly charged me for one drink on the cruise. Iheaded over to guest services to get it taken care of. It took a surprisingly longtime to fix. Despite seeing my package, they had to call a supervisor, get permission,etc. I ended up waiting about 25 minutes of that headache. Strange. Afterfixing that, we headed for the buffet for breakfast. I was surprised that thebuffet was not as crowded as it was on other mornings. We enjoyed sitting thereand looking at Miami, but we had a table of sad folks as we prepared to leave.

After breakfast we headed back to the room to grab the finalstuff and report to the theatre to get off of the ship. That was when my 13year old realized that he had lost his card somewhere between breakfast and theroom. My husband and son then had to stand in a VERY LONG line to get a newcard so that we could get off of the ship. The rest of us headed to the theatre.Around 7:40 they called our color (Yellow 1), and we started to head off. Wehad to stand in line for about 15 minutes, but all-in-all, it was pretty quick.

Security was very fast as we got off. The luggage was onhuge baggage claim carriers similar to in an airport. We had to wait about 10minutes to get our luggage, and we headed to the curb to wait for our ride. Iput on my sticker, and we called Safe Cruise Parking. They said they would bethere in about 30 minutes. When the guy pulled up 30 minutes later, he had ourgroup of 5 and a large group of friends and family. That family clearly thoughtthat we should wait, but we were there first, so I wasn’t going to do that.They squeezed us all in….. We quickly got to the parking location, grabbed ourluggage, and loaded into our car. Safe Cruise Parking was efficient and our carwas just as we left it.

Sadly, by about 8:45 we were headed back to South Carolina.The drive took about 10.5 hours, and we were all sad the whole way. We were,however, very thankful for our great week on the Divinia.

ODD THINGS:

There were a few odd things about this cruise, and I havenot been able to fit them in to the summary, so I am just going to list them.

1. There didn’t seem to be free water with dinner.Maybe if you don’t have a drink package they give it to you, but since we didwe were “charged” for bottles of water with dinner every night.

2. I almost never saw my room steward, and he didn’tspeak English. On previous cruises I got to know the steward a bit, I never didon the Divina. I think I saw him twice.

3. The kids care sign in and hours are weird. Ittakes forever; they close early; there is no care the first night. It’s justodd. My son LOVED it, but this could be improved.

4. No one ever played the piano in the piano bar.

5. Karaoke is outside.

FINAL THOUGHTS:

Before this trip, I heard so many warnings about MSC. I don’treally know what that is about. As I noted above, there are some ODD THINGS,but this cruise is wonderful. Overall, this was hands down one of my favorites.There are ways to improve, but it was great. We will cruise MSC again, and Isuspect many people feel the same way. I want to go back right now!

Day 7 – NASSAU

 

At dinner my eleven year old had a dessert he didn’t like. Ioffered to take him to the dessert place on deck six and get him somethingelse. We had not been there all week, but I knew that with my package I couldget free dessert. He hadn’t known that. So, we headed there, I ordered a giantpiece of chocolate cake, and he happily had his last dessert on the Divina.While we were doing that my husband was taking our youngest to kids care andchanging out of the suit.

What package did you have that included dessert? Was this at Piazza Del Doge?

What package did you have that included dessert? Was this at Piazza Del Doge?

Yep! The Deluxe drink package included the desserts from teh Piazza Del Doge.

Yep! The Deluxe drink package included the desserts from teh Piazza Del Doge.

We have the Classic drink package and it probably doesn't include the desserts at Piazza Del Doge. It sounds like you all had a nice cruise--I can't wait until November to try Divina out myself :)

Great review! Thank you for sharing! Also traveling with kids, so great info on the kids club. We plan to go to Junkanoo in Nassau. Glad to hear that you enjoyed it so much.

We have the Classic drink package and it probably doesn't include the desserts at Piazza Del Doge. It sounds like you all had a nice cruise--I can't wait until November to try Divina out myself :)

You will have a great time. Also, you can upgrade your package once you get onboard if you think you will use the other services. I particularly liked getting more expensive wine with dinner. :)

Great review! Thank you for sharing! Also traveling with kids, so great info on the kids club. We plan to go to Junkanoo in Nassau. Glad to hear that you enjoyed it so much.

We really did have fun. I would try to get there as early as possible, though. It got very busy after we got there. The Escape rolled in around noon. If I were crusing the Escape (which I will be soon), I wouldn't go to Junkanoo because it was too busy by that point.

You mentioned as Bella you could pay to have your son do the cooking class, do you happen to know/remember how much that was? I am currently booked Fantastica but am considering changing to Bella. Thanks

Your review was absolutely wonderful. We've already cruised on Divina, and we loved it. We're now booked on Seaside and can't wait to cruise with MSC again. I'm so glad that you had a wonderful time.

You mentioned as Bella you could pay to have your son do the cooking class, do you happen to know/remember how much that was? I am currently booked Fantastica but am considering changing to Bella. Thanks

Stay with fantastica you get room service for breakfast, a free photo on Italian night and better option for dining times.

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You mentioned as Bella you could pay to have your son do the cooking class, do you happen to know/remember how much that was? I am currently booked Fantastica but am considering changing to Bella. Thanks

It was $20. That actually included 4 different "classes," but the only one that was real was that cooking class.

I saw that someone else recommended to stay with Fantastica. I think that depends on the difference in price. My cruise would have been much more to move up to Fantastica, and it wouldn't have been worth it to me.

Stay with fantastica you get room service for breakfast, a free photo on Italian night and better option for dining times.

 

 

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We were on a sold out cruise and received our first option of dining times and we were actually able to change our reservation to get a table for 10 so that we could sit with our friends.

Stay with fantastica you get room service for breakfast, a free photo on Italian night and better option for dining times.

 

 

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It was $20. That actually included 4 different "classes," but the only one that was real was that cooking class.

 

I saw that someone else recommended to stay with Fantastica. I think that depends on the difference in price. My cruise would have been much more to move up to Fantastica, and it wouldn't have been worth it to me.

Thanks for the advice (and price). It costs me $120 more for the Fantastica and I get to choose my cabin, which seems to be a big one (I chose an outside and it seems to be a good locations, cabins above and below, near elevators but not too close lol). I'm not 100% sure it's getting me $120 more "stuff" but it does have the 12 drinks each, and if I go to Bella I don't get to choose my cabin. I think for this cruise I will stick with it. I did also book Seaside for March (which I can cancel if I absolutely hate MSC, though I can't see that happening). They didn't have any outside's still available so I have an inside, could not quite afford the balcony and still be able to do both cruises. Any way. Thanks again! I appreciate the review, and the information.

Just a comment about water in the MDR. On Divina twice last year and never had trouble getting normal water in a glass to drink at all meals. Believe me, I drink about 4-5 glasses with every meal and had no trouble getting refilled.

Just a comment about water in the MDR. On Divina twice last year and never had trouble getting normal water in a glass to drink at all meals. Believe me, I drink about 4-5 glasses with every meal and had no trouble getting refilled.

Good to know!

Thank you, we really enjoyed your review.

Thank You for your review.

Cheers.

Love this review ! Extremely helpful with kids club information ! Love your positive spin on things ! And sure, no cruise is perfect, but it's how you react to each situation that makes or breaks your vacation ! Thank you for sharing !

Awesome review. We too are a family of five on a budget and will be cruising MSC for the first time on the Devina in September.

I'm glad to know about the keycard situation. Really strange. I'm not sure how we will pass from room to room now...

A quick question: what's the temp like at the indoor pool area? I've been in other solarium type pools and found them quite hot. Like a greenhouse....

Thanks

Ron