!!! DIVINA !!! Eastern Caribbean ^_^ The Ultimate Review and Complete Pictorial Guide

[gambee]

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[gambee]

 

Here is the little lobby area.

 

 

 

We sat there for a little while, my uncle also signed us for the raffle. The main pool holds the raffle the next day around 11am. My uncle went there, but we did not win anything. After we had rested and finished our drinks we agreed to go check out the kids club.

 

I took a few pictures on the way there.

 

 

 

 

They have movies under the stars, but most movies are quite dated. Rocky, Mary Poppins, etc. You rarely saw anyone watching these movies. For starters the sitting is rather limited. These are not movies that most are particularly interested in. MSC should consider showing more current material.

 

 

 

[gambee]

The main pool area is very nice, and the layout works great on sea days. The ship seems to spread the crowds very well.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[gambee]

 

Really nice, and busy photograph.

 

 

 

 

[gambee]

We kept on walking and arrived at the kids club. Mom is usually the one who makes the observations of the kids club. The younger children's area is really cute and well appointed. It is themed with the Smurfs theme and flows nicely. Personally, I thought it was really nice, but rather small. One thing to point out is that MSC much like Norwegian does a lot of activities throughout the ship with the kids. So you will find them around walking at times. They also do lunch and dinner so parents can relax and have some nice adult time together.

 

 

 

 

 

 

[EatSleepCruise]

Thank you for your nice comment, and for joining in. Hope you love the rest of the review :)

 

I am looking for to reading the entire cruise review.

 

We actually leave for our first Alaskan cruise in about a week so I am taking pointers from you good sir on how to craft a all encompassing mega-review!

[gambee]

 

 

 

 

 

[gambee]

I am looking for to reading the entire cruise review.

 

We actually leave for our first Alaskan cruise in about a week so I am taking pointers from you good sir on how to craft a all encompassing mega-review!

 

OMG! Have a great cruise! Mom and I are debating between Alaska and Europe for next year, although I am pretty sure Europe will win.

 

As far as mega reviews, I feel honored :o. I would love to read your review, please post a link on this thread so I am aware of it.

 

Thank you :)

[gambee]

 

 

 

 

Here is the tour of the area. My uncle was playing around in the playground and getting pictures to send to Colombia. Oh my, lol. He was having a blast! We almost had to sign him up for camp :D

 

[gambee]

 

 

 

The entire place is Smurfs themed. Very cool!

 

 

 

[gambee]

 

 

 

I love his bow tie, I might have to get one for myself =).

 

He was really good looking himself, the lens wide angle just messed the picture up.

 

 

 

Um, yeahhhhhhh. My uncle did ride the slide down. I thought he was going to break it. All the kids were staring at him!

 

 

Edited August 26, 2014 by gambee

[gambee]

 

 

 

 

I saw few carpet stains around the ship, not many though.

 

 

 

We finished the tour there and headed towards the teenager section. The area was very bland and even smaller than the younger kid area. They did not have any of the video game consoles that you see on some of the other cruise lines.

 

 

[gambee]

 

There are a lot of nutella products on board.

 

 

 

 

Exiting the teenage section you can go up one deck and end up in the arcade. I guess it’s a good way of getting teens to spend some of their parents’ dollars.

 

 

[gambee]

 

We wanted to check out the Formula One simulator and the 4D theater, but the door was closed. They opened later on.

 

The water slide aboard is… How do I put this… FLAT! There is very little vertical to it, and thus the speed you gain is minimal. I spoke to one adult who told me that he actually had to push himself to keep ongoing. I also noticed that some kids knew how to do it best by launching themselves into the slide and creating enough momentum to maintain a good speed. But yeah, this slide has nothing on Breakaway and the Breeze water slides.

 

 

We kept on walking and ended up in the Galaxy restaurant. The theme here is that they match the music to the food. It is a pre-set menu and while we did not attend, I spoke to someone who told me that the food was fabulous, but the environment was a bit dark.

 

 

The views here are fantastic.

 

 

 

The view is great from there, reminds me of the Viking Lounge.

 

 

[gambee]

If you keep on walking around that area, you end up in the Disco, which for some reason I did not take pictures of that day, and the library/ Chapel area.

 

 

The library is not really one, and it is tinny. It is also located right next to the Disco...

 

 

 

Once you exit, there is a staircase to go up to the solarium. But it is roped up and you are not supposed to head up through there. If you wish to purchase tickets to the solarium, you have to go by the water slide.

 

The solarium is a bit small, and it is not like any solarium I have seen before. Usually the solariums on ships have some kind glass roof to them. The solarium on MSC Divina has no cover whatsoever. The cost of the solarium is $15 per day for a lounger or $30 per day (good for 2 people) for one of the little igloos. Quite honestly, I do not know if I can recommend the solarium. We always found somewhere to relax on the ship. And the solarium itself provided nothing different from the other Lido areas. I guess the only benefit is that this is the only true adult area of the ship, but there are ways around this. So yeah, I don’t see a reason to purchase access to it. Maybe if it were covered I would have considered it.

 

I headed up there to get some pictures.

 

LOVE! LOVE! LOVE! THIS PICTURE!!!!!!!

 

 

 

 

[gambee]

 

 

 

The clouds were amazing that day!

 

 

A really nice view of Divina Lido deck!

 

 

 

[gambee]

That Jacuzzi was larger than the average one.

 

 

 

 

 

We kept on walking towards the aft of the ship to check out the 2 Jacuzzis that I have had my eye on since before the cruise. I had read they were a little hidden and it was our best chance at getting some peace and quiet. Ironically, they are located right behind the basketball/soccer court. But you know something, they were right. If you want peace and quiet, this is your place. Most people are not aware of this area and it tends to have lighter crowds throughout the cruise. We ended up spending more time here than any other area of the ship, well, I lie, we spent a ton of time in the room sleeping :D.

 

 

And here it is. That is the only picture I have right now, but no worries I have tons more.

 

 

[gambee]

We went down one deck to check out the aft infinity pool.

 

 

 

 

 

 

[gambee]

The aft pool is absolutely amazing. They had it filled to the top a few times during our cruise and I loved it. This area would be my absolute favorite part of the ship, if it was not for the fact that MSC does not enforce rules and allows kids there. It can be very crowded in there.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[skyking]

Simply amazing pictures and the next 59 days are gonna DRAG. So does the disco lounge become the DISCO (dance club) at night?

[gambee]

 

We kept on walking. We needed to go to the room to check out if our bags had arrived. It was around 3:30 and we needed to change so we could go in the Jacuzzi.

 

I saw some kids eagerly waiting for the water slide to open.

 

 

 

 

 

Back in the room there were no bags, so we decided to wait a little longer to determine if they arrived.

 

Here is a picture of the drink vouchers. Some people in our roll call joked around saying that they would be the ones with a million vouchers. It would great if MSC simply added the credit to the room's card. The vouchers just seem unnecessary in this technological era.

 

 

They also had a cool looking pizza menu in the room. It was in all sorts of languages. I guess this is a good time to talk about this. This is by far the most multicultural ship that I have ever been on. I must have heard over 10 languages during our cruise. While English was still dominant, I will tell you, it was not by much. Another neat thing was 90% of the crew understood when we spoke to them in Spanish, and I am not talking about the Spanish crew. They were mainly European and Asian, some of the very fluent on it. My family was very happy about this. They could talk to anyone and get what they wanted easily.

 

I liked the idea of being in a multicultural ship. It was a different experience. But the problem is that this brings a lot of issues. I did see a few clashes over petty stuff, but nonetheless it happened. Also some of the announcements are done in several languages that can get annoying, as was the muster drill. The menus are in multiple languages as well.

 

This is one thing that puzzled me during the entire cruise. So we are all aware that Divina was brought to the USA to attempt to make a strong presence in the US market. The ship was even designed specifically for it. Now we find out that MSC is pulling the ship out at the end of the season next year. I can just imagine the cost of opening the US division in Miami. So here is my problem, you bring a ship, right and you want to gain US market share. Why not try to adjust as much as possible to that market that way you can make a statement right off the start.

 

Divina is flawed in that aspect, in many ways. Long dinner times that are more for the European market. The cruise director Andre is by far the worst CD that I have sailed with. The lack of activities on the ship was very noticeable, and the planning of the limited activities was chaotic and disorganized. He also enjoyed talking abundantly before shows, mostly about boring details of the cruise or trying to sell a few specials.

 

I am not entirely sure why MSC did not implement a good US based CD from say Carnival. I mean you’re already below the cost of a Carnival cruise, so in essence you will attract some of that crowd. Why not give the people what they want and what they are used to? I realize that they still want to keep the brand name, and they want to appeal to their Euro crowd as well. But Divina was a new project, a different project and one that require changes in order to accomplish what she was brought for.

 

Personally, I think MSC has had enough time to figure this out, but how come nothing has been done yet to deal with this? Like I said in the past. MSC is trying too hard to please many people from different mindsets. And in the way they are loosing a large market share from both sides. We plenty of people complaining, for various reasons. I won’t go into details, but I however go over everything that I noted that should have made improvements by now.

 

I know many will disagree with my statement, but I stand by what I say. All this comes from a week long of observations and taking notes. The funny thing is that in reality this should be somewhat simple thing to do. You already have the gorgeous ship, with a great Carnival Captain. Why not take one of Carnival's great CD and deploy them, see how it works? I know this would not please many, as MSC is a more elegant line, but Divina is already below Carnival price point, which means they have to appeal to that crowd.

 

Anyway, enough of that, here is the pizza menu from my room.

 

 

Edited August 26, 2014 by gambee

[gambee]

Simply amazing pictures and the next 59 days are gonna DRAG. So does the disco lounge become the DISCO (dance club) at night?

 

It does. But in our cruise it was frequented by teens mostly. There were very few people there for the most part. I will go over more details as the review evolves.

 

Very glad that you're loving the pictures. I absolutely love my new camera equipment :)

[CruiseIreland]

Hi. Great to see you back in the 'saddle' again. Really interested in this ship as we are sailing MSC Preziosa soon. Ken

[gambee]

Hi. Great to see you back in the 'saddle' again. Really interested in this ship as we are sailing MSC Preziosa soon. Ken

 

Mom and I love cruising, and it will be a few months until our next cruise. I will try to have as much fun with this cruise as possible :)

 

I hope you have a great time aboard Preziosa, they are the same class, right?

[micmacmissy]

 

I am just noticing now the amount of breasts aboard this ship.

 

 

I'm surprised you noticed them...they're not your thing! ;)

 

Happy to find another great review to follow along...keep up the great work Gambee!