AngryBirdah

My March 2022 experience, in case anyone should happen upon this thread: Photo Package: Before the trip, I wanted to buy the "All-In Digital Photo Package," but was left confused over the rules regarding using it for my extended family across two staterooms. The fine print clearly says that one package doesn't cover everyone, but some people said that it wasn't a problem. A cruiser from a few weeks ago specifically asked the photo staff about it and they indicated that buying two packages would be necessary to ensure that all photos were captured. To be safe, I bought each stateroom a package. The photographers did as good a job as others we've had. We did a couple of nice portrait sessions in the photo area and a sunset shoot at the Bridge of Sighs. We also got an Ocean Cay welcome photo set. However, we missed embarkation, which was disappointing. As well, since we didn't eat in the MDR, we missed out on many photo ops, both at dinner and at stations set up on Decks 5-7 during the dinner hours. In the end, all of the photos were collected onto my wife's card... even those featuring only the grandparents from the adjoining cabin. In theory this shouldn't have been allowed, but no one gave us any trouble. That means that we wasted $149 by buying a package for my mom. Of course, if we hadn't done that, then surely someone on the photo staff would have caught on to the number of people and made us buy a package for the other cabin at $199+15% in order to get all the photos. Oh well. We may have overpaid for the digital package, and inadvertently not maximized the number of pictures we should have gotten, but in the end we were happy with the memories that were captured

In case anyone happens upon this thread, this was my March 2022 experience: Photo Package: Before the trip, I wanted to buy the "All-In Digital Photo Package," but was left confused over the rules regarding using it for my extended family across two staterooms. The fine print clearly says that one package doesn't cover everyone, but some people said that it wasn't a problem. A cruiser from a few weeks ago specifically asked the photo staff about it and they indicated that buying two packages would be necessary to ensure that all photos were captured. To be safe, I bought each stateroom a package. The photographers did as good a job as others we've had. We did a couple of nice portrait sessions in the photo area and a sunset shoot at the Bridge of Sighs. We also got an Ocean Cay welcome photo set. However, we missed embarkation, which was disappointing. As well, since we didn't eat in the MDR, we missed out on many photo ops, both at dinner and at stations set up on Decks 5-7 during the dinner hours. In the end, all of the photos were collected onto my wife's card... even those featuring only the grandparents from the adjoining cabin. In theory this shouldn't have been allowed, but no one gave us any trouble. That means that we wasted $149 by buying a package for my mom. Of course, if we hadn't done that, then surely someone on the photo staff would have caught on to the number of people and made us buy a package for the other cabin at $199+15% in order to get all the photos. Oh well. We may have overpaid for the digital package, and inadvertently not maximized the number of pictures we should have gotten, but in the end we were happy with the memories that were captured

@Tori2727 @new_cruiser_75 Hilarious that I lamented about not finding any conclusive information, but then never came back to my own thread to document what I learned 😓 Funny enough, we're going on another Spring Break cruise next month, and I honestly couldn't remember how we handled it. So I came and searched my posts here and found that I did make a post (on a different thread) that detailed our experience: "So the terms and conditions of the photo package say that it covers the people in your stateroom and not others, including family in other staterooms. We had 2 cabins with 7 total family members. I ended up buying a package for each cabin so we wouldn't run into any issues. In the end, all of the pictures of everyone in our group went on my wife's card... even solo pictures of the grandparents from the other cabin. No one questioned or gave issue. The photo staff were slammed on the last night of the cruise, which was the only time we interacted with them (to manually add some photos from Ocean Cay where they weren't scanning cards at picture time). I would say that if you take pictures with other cruisers, but you two are in the pictures, then you should be just fine. If you start trying to collect photos of random shipmates that don't involve you, then you may get questioned. Buying in advance is a good plan... $149 is much cheaper than $199+15% onboard! I think we could have gotten away with just having the one package, but decided to be safe.

Having had a wonderful sailing, I wanted to come back and answer my own questions in the hopes that it helps others! Divina has no Digital Photos at all! That was quite disappointing. I mean, it' snot like they're shooting with film, so you'd think they could sort something out. The photo agent said that the "Legacy" ships like Divina don't have Digital. However, their photographers were quite good and captured some beautiful pictures, both in the studio scenes as well as out in the water at Ocean Cay. They offered the standard mix-n-match packages on the boat, for example, 10 prints for $120. I thought we did a great thing pre-purchasing that 10 print package for $100, but it turns out this isn't so. One of the Diamond/Black benefits is a 40% discount on photos, including special offers. So we settled on 20 prints that we loved: The first 10 came off of our pre-paid package. The next 10 were purchased with the $120 package... which was discounted to $72 thanks to Diamond! WOW. If going on a Legacy ship again, I won't pre-purchase a package. Instead, I'll wait to see how many photos we really want, and then use that 40% discount off of the most sensible package onboard! It was really neat drinking something other than the complimentary water and lemonade for a change! We kept track of what we drank, and we did end up getting our money's worth... though there were some times that we were drinking for the sake of drinking and not because we were thirsty. Indulging in more of the higher-priced mocktails would have helped, but we're mainly Coke/Water/Coffee people. It took asking Guest Services to get the answer, but there is, indeed, soft serve ice cream as part of the package. It's mainly found at the Pool Bars. Service was quick and easy, and made for a nice treat. Still not as convenient as Carnival's 24/7 machines, but it was still cool.

Great review! The Legacy (i.e., Old) MSC Ships have no Digital. The newer ships do, and the all-in Digital Photo Package is a great value (we did that on Seashore earlier this year). Also, a cool thing I didn't realize before: The higher your status, the more of a discount you get on photo packages onboard... even beating the price of pre-ordering!

Thanks! We were on the same cruise! Wasn't it wonderfully NOT crowded? I thought it was an overall fantastic experience.

Thanks! They at least had the free stuff in the afternoons this past March on the Seashore, so hopefully that's a good sign.

Whoops - I meant Digital Download/USB Drive offerings in addition to the Prints packages I'm seeing online

Hi All! We're on a 7-night Divina cruise next week (first time on this ship). I saw in the pre-cruise add-ons that one could buy Photo Print packages (5/10/20/30), but did not see an option for an All-In Digital Photo package like we had on the Seashore. I guess only the newer ships are tied into that offering. #1: Does the Divina currently offer any kind of Digital Photo package, either on board or by calling in pre-cruise? If not, do any recent cruisers have notes on the prices or specials that were offered on board? 30 minutes of Google research came up pretty empty 😔 #2: Also, for the first time ever, my wife and I splurged on a non-alcoholic drink package. It says that this includes soft serve ice cream? Where on Divina does one find the soft serve? I assume they have some for everyone at the buffet in the late afternoon, but is there a particular spot to go find it at other times of the day? Many thanks, as always, for your insights 😊

Hi Everyone! My wife and I both earned the 30%-off certificates on our Spring Break Seashore cruise, which I'm looking to use on a late-summer Divina trip. Our typical party is the 2 of us and our 3 kids, but cabins for 5 are rare, and since kids-sail-free, so it costs very little extra to bring along the grandparents! Since we need 2 cabins (ideally near each other), it would be great to use both 30%-off certificates: - Cabin #1: Me/Grandma/2 kids - Cabin #2: Wife/Grandpa/1 kid I've read mixed reviews about being able to officially switch people and keys through Guest Services (in this case, switching Wife and Grandma). I guess that they could just carry each others' cards, but they'd have to remember to switch back whenever getting off the boat. It would also be problematic for playing in the casino. I had another thought though: If we paid the $5/each to get the Wristbands, then couldn't Wife and Grandma just permanently switch wristbands with each other? Then they'd have their physical cards for casino and debarkation, but always have the wristband to get into the right room? I don't even care which room on-board charges go to, since I'm paying for everything anyway and putting my credit card on both rooms. Any holes in this scheme? It seems like the wristband trick would keep things simple and not require a dreaded early-cruise trip to Guest Services! Thanks 😊

@georgiapeach84 How did this story end? Were you able to switch or not?

@tymike I found this old thread and was wondering how the onboard plan of swapped keys worked out for your cruise? Did you just trade keys back-and-forth with each other or did Guest Services actually change who was in each room to make it easier? Thanks!

My wife and I both got the 30% off certificates on our last cruise (me on the bed, her in the casino around midnight on the last night of the cruise!). Any tips and tricks to using them?

Hi All, I had searched the forum and found several related threads, but none of them followed-up. We always buy lots of photos on cruises and I love that MSC offers this all-inclusive package. However, I'm confused as to the logistics of it. We have 7 of us split between 2 cabins. Per the conditions of the package, it seems to say that we can only get photos of the people in our cabin, and not of travelling members in other cabins. However some folks seem to report that this is either not the case or not enforced (especially if you get a VIP Photo Card to scan to instead of a room key)? If I have to pay for 2 all-inclusive packages (1 for each cabin), then that's fine... but I don't want to unnecessarily overpay either. Does anyone have any recent experience on how multi-cabin groups are handled with this photo package? We'll be on Seashore. Many thanks!