JillyQD

Booked a Bella Inside Guarantee for the Seashore in April and got assigned to a Deluxe Balcony. But in the past I've booked Bella Inside Guarantee and ended up with an inside cabin. I'm not real picky about my cabin location so I'm ok with taking the chance on the guarantee cabins.

Key West was dropped from our Oct 10th Glory cruise today too, was replaced with Bimini.

It is frustrating, I just kept calling at different times and eventually got through. Tried calling on a Saturday at 10:30am and was on hold for 40mins before I hung up. Tried on Sunday around 11:00am and someone answered in about 5 minutes. I've had some luck calling late in the afternoon too.

We did interior fantastica last year on the Divina and only perk I thought worth the extra money was the drink vouchers. We went with bella interior this time on Seaside because of the Drinks on Us package. We were quite impressed with the size of the interior rooms, plenty of closet storage. If not getting your desired dinner time is a big deal for you then it might be worth upgrading your experience otherwise you'll be fine with bella.

Awww such a bummer, I was hoping to get to sail with him again. He's such a great captain, took such great care of us during the hurricane Irma cruise. We loved his accent when making announcements. Does anyone know who will be replacing him on the Seaside?

They also have flavored waters too, my favorite were the lemon lime and kiwi strawberry.

 

So, would they allow me to go a little over the amount that I've put down? One reply said there was a balance of $80 owed and they squared up at guest services.

Yes we were allowed to charge more to our room then what we had previously deposited on our account with our debit card, they left us a bill on the last night and we paid it off at guest services. We never had a hold put on our bank account.

You took the words out of my mouth! We were also on the Irma cruise and it was out first with MSC and we were so impressed. I can't say enough good things about this cruise, everything was great, not perfect but great. We won't hesitate to cruise with them again.

Maybe things got a little lax with the dress code because we were on the extended Irma cruise but we were the 2nd seating in the Black Crab and I saw many men in the dining room with shorts. My husband wore shorts one night and no one said a word. One of my table mates wore a football jersey to dinner because he was going to the sports bar after to watch the game and again no issue. I saw plenty of women in sleeveless tops or dresses. Formal night there was a variety of "formal dress" I wore a dress and flat sandals and my husband wore a button down shirt and nice pants, we didn't feel under dressed at all. At the buffet anything goes, you'll see people in just their bathing suits there.

I agree with everything above and we also just came off the Irma cruise and previously had cruised with Carnival. Biggest difference we saw was that Divina was a bit more laid back and quieter, where Carnival is overstimulating sometimes with so much going on at once and more of a party atmosphere. We liked both lines, just for different reasons. We spent most of our time at the Garden Pool (adult only) and the waitstaff there was very attentive, go see Julius or Ray up there, they were our favorite waiters. I don't think we had a bad meal the entire 12 days we were on the ship and we thought there was a good variety for many different tastes. I was a little worried about the buffet after reading reviews but really the only day we had any issues finding a table was at embarkation because everyone was there at the same time. But other wise we were always able to find a table, you may just have to walk toward the back a ways. The pizza is fantastic also, we did try the Eataly pizza and it was good but I don't think it's a must have since the free pizza at the buffet was so good. I was also a big fan of the macaroons and they were only 90¢ each so a cheap splurge. Don't skip the shows, even ones that you think you won't be interested in because they are all fantastic. As long as you do your research and go in with an open mind then you'll probably love it, I find most of the things people complain about are either kind of petty or they just didn't do enough research ahead of time and it wasn't what they were used to.

We just came off the Divina and used a debit card. The first day we put $200 on the account using the self serve kiosk and we were told we could add more as we needed throughout the cruise. The minimum it lets you add is $100 though. We added another hundred a few days in because we were running low. On our last day we got our bill with $80 still outstanding (those drinks add up quick), rather then adding another $100 and getting a refund we just went down to the desk and paid the balance with our debit card. If you go at off times the wait is minimal.

We did call our bank ahead of time to let them know we might have charges from France. Depending on your bank you may get charged an exchange fee, we unfortunately did.

We disembarked yesterday and everything went smoothly. We were thankful that we were able to stay on until the day of our flight and even more thankful they let us use a phone while we were still at sea to make our flight arrangements. If it wasn't for me running out of vacation time I might have hung around until Saturday!!!

Thanks for the tip! I used the code for a one way rental from Miami to FLL and it saved me about half as well!