MSC Divina Review June 24 - July 1st

[dinibo]

This was our first cruise and after reading all of the great reviews posted previously I thought I owed everyone our take. I'll try to break it down into categories as if not I'm fairly sure I will be here all week! If I miss anything you have a question on please let me know and I will be sure to add. Just for context our group included my mother (the trip was to celebrate her 60th birthday), me 39 and my brother 27.

 

1. Arrival

 

Maybe because this was our first cruise, in fact keep that in mind for everything to follow, but we thought it was remarkably easy. Based upon some good CC advice we arrived in Miami the night before and stayed at the comfort suites Miami airport north. We had a great rate for the room, free breakfast, they picked us up at the airport, dropped us off at the port and even offered to give us a ride back to the airport on arrival back if we needed, all for free. It couldn't have gone smoother. Highly recommend.

 

Upon arrival to the port our driver told us exactly where to go and what to do with our bags. We probably arrived around 11ish and made it right inside to join a few hundred of our friends waiting! We were excited and although the wait was maybe 30-45 minutes or so to get through the line it seemed to go by pretty quickly to me, particularly considering the number of people they were processing. The woman who issued us our cards was friendly and helpful. With little fuss or muss we were on the ship and headed to lunch!

 

Taking what was another great CC tip we headed straight to the sports bar. What a great tip this is! We were one of only 3 families there and had a great waiter ready and waiting. The only negative I guess I could point out is they didn't have any chicken dishes available but everything else was ready to go. Our family had the fish and chips, cheese sticks, McCarthy salad, artichoke dip and brownie ala mode, all which were very tasty. I actually tried to go back later to have the fish and chips again but after the first day we did find the sports bar pretty crazy. Absolutely do yourself a favor and head here first!

 

After that we took some time to explore the ship and get familiar with the layout. It is a little confusing if your room is in the back, which ours was, as some of the restaurants will block your access to certain floors. We learned to easily use the maps by the elevators very quickly however and to always skip the elevators nearest to us unless we were going to the garden pool or the buffet. I imagine if you are in the front of the ship this is less of an issue however.

 

The rest of the first day was spent getting settled into our room and taking selfies by the Miami skyline. I would have liked to unpack but our luggage didn't arrive until after dinner. Not a big deal to us but if you plan on swimming or need something special I would be sure not to turn over your carry-on luggage as you wont be seeing it for awhile.

 

This might be a good point to talk about the room. Our room was 11244, a fantastica balcony. For three adults it was cozy but very comfortable. The room was very quiet and I never noticed any sounds from our neighbors unless we both happened to be on the balcony at the same time. The balcony was much bigger than I expected and a favorite place to hang out late at night just watching the waves go by. I looked desperately for some kind of sea life but other than a few birds and a lot of sea weed nothing appeared. Our table mate did see a sea turtle near St. Martin from the back buffet windows though so if you are interested don't give up! You may get lucky!

 

One weird thing that we did have to deal with regarding the room were the beds. First the pluses - My mom actually really enjoyed the fold out sofa and chose to sleep on it instead of the smaller twin as she thought it was much more roomy and enjoyable. I had read a lot of comments about the pillows but we found them fluffy and soft, no problems there.

 

Now the negative - My brother's bed had some issues. As soon as we came in the room he sat down on his bed and the end kinda crashed down. Turns out the beds are really more cots with mattresses on a frame supported by thin wooden slats. The bottom 4 slats of his cot were clearly broken. We tried the best we could to fix it but just couldn't figure it out.

 

I called room service to come help us and about 20 minutes later a very confused lady came to our door with 3 washcloths and asked if that was what we needed. It gave us a good chuckle but no, that wasn't our issue. We tried through broken English to explain our problem but didn't seem to get the point across well. Finally we handed her one of the wooden slats which she seemed very startled to see and then took with a look of complete confusion and just walked away. We weren't quite sure what to make of that but we in a good mood and decided to just roll with it. When she didn't reappear we headed off to dinner in hopes that our room steward would be coming back during that time and hopefully would fix the problem. Who knows?

 

Luck being what it was later our room steward did show up but he hadn't heard anything about the bed issue. Luckily he did know how to fix it and was able to get everything back in order. My only real complaint was however the cot was clearly broken and needed replaced. Almost every night for the rest of the cruise the end would collapse and every day he would need to come fix it. We were having too much of a good time to get overly fixated on this simple issue but it really was something that should have just been fixed once with a new cot.

 

Other than that we had no issues with the room. Using another CC tip we asked for our mini fridge to be emptied so we could bring back goodies of our own like fruit and cheeses. We used the continental room service breakfast menus each day and would raid the buffet the night before for a bowl of melon we would then store in the fridge to enjoy with our coffee and chocolate croissants on the balcony the next morning. Much easier than fighting the buffet crowds for sure!

 

Oh, and I saw some folks mentioning putting some sort of decoration on your door to make it easier to see. This might be more common on other cruises but on MSC it didn't look like many people did this. We made a small magnet and hung it on our door which was nice and tasteful... and stolen on the second to last night. I probably wouldn't bother if I were to go again.

[dinibo]

So where to next? How about...

 

2. Entertainment

 

So here we are on this big ship! What to do? Well we are not big drinkers, in fact our drink coupons went towards a very silly amount of gelato instead of cocktails. My brother doesn't drink at all and my mom and I had maybe 1 drink a day. I will say a tip for those who like their drinks a bit stronger is to use the casino bar, particularly if you want to bring a drink with you to the theater. We found the drinks from there much heavier pours than say some of the pool bars!

 

So we weren't here for a booze cruise so what did we do? Everything! I was very pleasantly surprised by the number of activities available. We were so busy running from activity to activity, although to be honest trivia took up the majority of our days. I am sad to report we didn't win a single round. It was HARD. And this comes from someone who regularly wins bar trivia events at home. It seemed you had to get a nearly perfect score to win. There are some very smart folks on MSC! I'd like to throw a shout out to Conrad, who I imagine is STILL from South Africa, for being such a fun host as well. We really had a great time getting to know him and teaching him how to play scattegories. ;)

 

Most of the prizes for trivia btw are very silly absurdly large visors that I imagine no one really wants but still, a prize is a prize right? Here is a quick tip too. If you want to win one watch the good morning divina show and answer the easy trivia question of the day by turning in your answer in the box across from reception, particularly the first few days. They give away 5 prizes each day to the winners and on the day we won there were... 5 people who entered! May the odds forever be in your favor eh? :)

 

So other entertainment - the pools. TBH the pools were a bit much for us. My brother got up each morning at 5:30 to watch the sunrise and take a morning swim. This seems about the best time to go because otherwise it is basically people soup! We did swim once in the garden pool on a sea day and while fun, well, being that close to strangers in my underwear... not my thing! If you like sun bathing and people watching though I would say this is made for you. Oh, and be VERY careful near the pools when walking. I saw so many people slip and fall. This is really something they need to fix as it was kinda scary seeing some of the older people go down.

 

 

We did not try any of the bowling or racecar games. They did look popular though. We also didn't do any of the spa treatments.

 

 

As for the more formal entertainment? We really enjoyed hearing several of the musical acts playing in the various bars and lounges. We often were just passing through but I very much enjoyed what I heard briefly. But we should probably cut to the big daddy of them all - the theater shows.

 

 

So here is a little secret about me. I kinda hate "shows". I'm not a person to take to a play or a musical. I just have no patience for it. I agreed to go to the shows though because of my family and guess what? I loved them! We saw the mask show, the Paris witches show, the pirate show and of course the Michael Jackson show. My favorite was probably the witches btw. They were more like variety shows than true shows with plots, although I suppose there was some plot in there somewhere! The acts changed from singing, to dancing, to stunts, to magic, to just amazing acrobatic performances so quickly you just didn't have a chance to get bored. I know this is going to sound heretical but the only show I kinda *didn't* like was the MJ show as it was ok but was mostly just a guy pretending to be Michael Jackson for 45 minutes. I know, I know, put away your pitch forks. It was ok, just not as great as I figured it would be after all the hype. The other shows however, if you like acrobatics and feats of wonder, check them out for sure. Absolutely amazing to watch.

[dinibo]

So what next? How about...

 

3. Food

 

Food is an interesting topic isn't it? I mean we all like what we like and some people like boxed mac and cheese and some people like $500 steaks. Who is to say which is "right"? If you like it, you like it. If you don't... well.

 

So ok. Stop being coy right? Did I like the food? Yes. Was it great, super, amazing, stupendous? Nah. It was ok. Maybe because I'm used to Chicago pizza (best in the world, don't listen to those fools in NYC) I though the pizza was good, but just good, not great. I ate plenty of it for sure but only because it kinda was all there was many times we were in the buffet. Here is a good tip btw, the buffet is open 20 hours a day but the selection becomes very very limited unless you are there at meal times. Mostly pizza, cold sandwiches and burgers the rest of the time. I did have a burger btw and it was shockingly fairly tasty. If you want to real buffet you really need to be there during typical meal times and it is going to be pretty crazy in there. Fret not though. Go to the back young man, or woman! We always were able to find a table near the rear. The best system we found was to have someone snag a table then have the rest go get food and then switch. A bit clunky but pretty useful in the bedlam that exists.

 

Many people seem to love the pasta. I thought it was ok. Lots of alfredo based dishes so if you like that you will be in heaven. I'm more of a red sauce person and didn't find anything that blew me away. I did think the desserts were very very good, particularly the lemon bars. The breads and cheeses were also very very good. I did notice the nicest cheeses were served the first two days and by the end of the cruise it was pretty much just the same 2 or 3. If you like good cheese be sure to grab the blue and brie early. It doesn't last.

 

We didn't do any of the specialty dining. I figured we had already paid MSC enough. ;)

 

And for the main dining room? We ate in the MDR every night, mostly because of our table mates. We were at a table for 9 in the black crab, first seating. It was pretty tight quarters but we made it work. Each meal began with bread then the servers took our orders. Water refills were pretty plentiful and our servers even learned to bring a bowl of ice to our table each night as several people enjoyed having more ice with their drinks. The food was good and the portions were actually much bigger than I expected. The steak in particular was huge and not something I could finish. I do think that the time was excessive. Our first meal took almost 2 hours and frustrated everyone at the table. I was expecting multiple course European dining but this was just poor organization with long breaks with no food and nothing to do. We started timing the meals for fun though and by the end they seemed to have cut most meals down to just a bit over an hour. That first night though, expect a mad house.

 

Here is where I make my 2nd of 3 kinda major complaints however. Before we left we had purchased a birthday cake to be delivered the second night at sea. This was to celebrate my mom's 60th birthday. The very first night the waiter comes up to me and says loudly " Do you want it now?". No. I did not want it now. I tried to distract my mom and said no, tomorrow under my breath. Weird, frustrating, but ok.

 

The next night the waiter makes eye contact with me and says "Tonight?" I say yes. Ok, everything is on. We eat, night goes on, several other people get sang to, cakes are delivered, no cake. I start trying to get the attention of the waiter. He keeps giving me 1 finger saying soon. Ok, waiting. Waiting. WAITING. Our table mates start leaving, including the 2 young boys we really had hoped to share our cake with. Finally almost all the room has left, including all of our table. I try to get his attention to say never mind, we are leaving to go to the show and finally he runs over with the cake... which says, "happy anniversary". I admit I lost my patience a bit here. In the end, it was just cake but we paid extra for it and wanted to share it with the table to celebrate a special surprise for my mom. We said just forget it and left and our waiter did have the cake sent to our room later but it kinda defeated the purpose and was a bit of a let down.

[easyboy]

Your brother's bed was a real disappointment. Glad that it didn't spoil your cruise.

[CarrieAP]

Great review so far!! Soaking up everything MSC and Divina ahead of our first sailing on her in December!

[riclop]

Thanks for your thoughts.

[Shidah]

I hope they at least credited you back for the cost of the cake. I think you handled that better than I would have. I would have been pretty upset.

[dinibo]

So the last thing I will probably talk about is our excursions and eventually complaint #3. First I just want to cover one thing I think is really over blown in most MSC reviews. In 99% of the cases I though all of the staff and crew were just great. Everyone was friendly, smiling, they all honestly seemed to be trying as hard as they could to provide great service. There were small language quirks but we saw that more as part of the fun than any real hang up. I did see a couple PASSENGERS being real jerks to the staff however and was very embarrassed that anyone would think that is how most Americans behave. For our little English only Midwestern family however we had absolutely no issues communicating with anyone and found meeting so many people from different countries - Canada, England, Ireland, Germany, Australia, South Africa, ect a blast.

 

Back to excursions though! So our cruise went to St. Martin, San Juan and Nassau. We decided to go outside of the ship excursions for each day. We found getting on and off the ship extremely easy and never took more than 5 minutes or so to get through security.

 

In SXM we used Bernard's tours and spent time at Orient beach, the french market and Maho beach. I can not recommend this tour enough if you are in SXM! The price was great and we had an almost private tour of the island as our group was just us and another couple. Our guide was knowledgeable and so helpful and was always great with keeping us on time and keeping our ship departure in mind. When the other couple with us asked if we could stay another 45 minutes and watch the biggest planes come in at Maho he was happy to stay, no problem, and got us back to port with plenty of time to spare. They run just a great outfit. You really should check them out.

 

In San Juan we elected to just walk up to El Moro. Before leaving we had considered using the trolley. Forget about it. It just isn't going to happen. We tried all the tricks suggested and never once saw it anything but 100% full. My mom tried to join us but OMG is it hot in San Juan. She made it about 10 minutes before deciding to go back to the ship. We actually saw an ambulance at port helping someone and I can only assume it was heat related. I can never remember being as sweaty as I was climbing up to the fort. We had a great time but man alive... it is HOT. A great tip btw if you have sprint phone service, which we do, you get full service in San Juan. It is a great time to make a call or use your data. Also we sent post cards from the post office right behind the Walgreens and they made it home before we did!

 

So we are at Nassau and my final and biggest complain. We had originally planned to go snorkeling with Stuart's Cove. Now I am a giant snorkeling buff. Half of the reason I chose this trip was I wanted to go somewhere we could snorkel and Stuart's Cove offers an amazing experience. Some of you may have seen me trying to organize a trip before we left as I was a bit worried about the times for this excursion but after talking with the office they talked me into believing it was doable. The excursion had been all I have been talking about for weeks. I couldn't have been more excited.

 

So cut to dinner the night before Nassau. I was telling one of our table mates about our plans for the next day and how I was just a little worried we were cutting it close with a 5 pm drop off when we needed to be on the ship at 5:30. She then said, "Didn't you get the letter?". Letter? What letter? Turns out she had had a letter delivered to her room the first night stating that the port times had been changed from 12-6 to 9-4. This ruined everything. We did not get any letter. If I hadn't mentioned it at dinner I don't know if we would have ever found out honestly.

 

Luckily I had a wireless plan so I used Facebook messenger to call my husband at home who called Stuarts Cove to tell them the situation. They were very understanding and said if we could be at the pick up at 9 we could switch to the morning tour. Not likely I figured but ok. We ran to the front desk to try to figure out what had happened and this is when I think I figured out why people sometimes think MSC is rude. We went to the front desk and asked them when the time change had been made and why we had not been alerted. The woman at the desk was VERY rude and informed me the change had been made 6 months ago! 6 months ago!? How? I pointed out on my phone that all of my MSC travel documents still said 12-6 and I received them a month ago. She was very snooty and informed me it was a problem with my booking agent and nothing she was involved with. We later tried to talk to another gentleman who took a report and told us to contact MSC when we got home but again, what good does that do us?

 

And ok, I get it. Port times get changed due to weather, illness, whatever, it is a risk of cruising, but if the time changed *6 months ago* why did no one tell me and why are my documents from MSC still saying the wrong time!? If I had known I could have changed my plans. Why did the lady at our table get a "letter" and if she did, why didn't we!?

 

In a panic we run up to the excursion office to book a snorkel tour through MSC. The next lady, who also couldn't seem to care less about our plight, informed us all the excursions were sold out. We begged, I'm not going to lie, I cried, she just didn't care. We were just out of luck.

 

So yeah. That sucked. I'm still not sure what happened and after talking with my TA she doesn't understand either. I guess some lines got crossed somewhere. We did manage to save the day after running off the ship like mad people at 9 and making a stupidly expensive call to Stuarts Cove trying to see if we could take a cab and make it on time. (Nope.) We did find a private cab driver who took us and a few other families over to Love Beach and in the end it was fairly decent snorkeling and he gave us a nice tour of the island. I do need to say Stuarts Cove was very awesome and has offered to refund our money too even though it is against their policy to give refunds with so little notice. Certainly something that is appreciated and if we ever get another chance to use them it will not be forgotten.

 

So yeah, that was our trip. For disembarkation we did self assist and it went extremely easy. We met at our disembarkation point at 6:45, were off the ship and through customs at just after 7am and on the shuttle to the airport just minutes after. (We rented a car and explored the keys a bit before our evening flight.) I don't think it could have been any simpler.

 

So final thoughts? I had a great time and would absolutely go again. I think all the negative reviews are pretty crazy now that I have been. Was everything picture perfect? No, but is any trip ever? If you are a cruise fan MSC absolutely deserves your attention, particularly at the great prices they are offering which honestly is the main reason we chose them for our trip. Being our first cruise ever I suppose there might be other perks other lines offer we didn't realize we were missing but I think that is ok because it is good to judge a product on what it is not what it isn't and for us this was a very enjoyable experience.

 

So if anyone has any other questions please feel free to ask. I'll do my best to answer, although due to work schedules I do tend to do most of my replying in the evenings. Thanks for reading my thoughts and happy cruising to everyone!

[dinibo]

Your brother's bed was a real disappointment. Glad that it didn't spoil your cruise.

 

Nah, I don't think it was exactly a disappointment. Probably more to our room steward than us as he was the one who had to keep fixing it. We are pretty accommodating overall and try not to sweat the little stuff. I know our ship was sold out so maybe they just didn't have any other available? I'm not sure. It made for some funny conversation when that poor maid ran off with part of the bed though!

 

 

I should send a shout out to our steward Pietro too here as he was great about all of our needs. I know that MSC said they read all these reviews so if you are out there, fix the bed in 11244 already and give Pietro a raise!

[dinibo]

I hope they at least credited you back for the cost of the cake. I think you handled that better than I would have. I would have been pretty upset.

 

Oh trust me, I was pretty upset. It was one of those things where you just have to decide am I going to let this get me down or am I going to move on. My family has a way of turning adversity into humor though so we will just say it made for a good story. I actually left out the part where I then later accidentally dropped the dumb cake on the floor of our room while trying to figure out how to fit it in the fridge. In the end I think we will never forget that GD cake and all the mayhem it caused!

Edited July 10, 2017 by dinibo

[dinibo]

Oh, and one more thought before I leave for bed, the meet and mingle! For our cruise it was at 10:30 am on the second sea day I think. They provided a nice assortment of little appetizers and plenty of free drinks for about an hour. The captain walked around and said hi to everyone. Andre the cruise director also came around and said hi to every table... but ours! Naughty naughty Andre! And to think I watched good morning divina every morning too! You broke my heart.

 

Overall it was nice, if a bit boring. TBH I probably wouldn't go again. We took an awkward group photo that I thought we would all get a copy of but if we did we never got ours or told where to get it. I did enjoy talking to someone I met on the FB group for the cruise but it didn't seem like people mingled much and I'm not really a champagne before noon kinda gal. I think it has potential but maybe could have used a bit of hosting or something. I don't know. Your cruise mileage will probably vary.

[CruzanKris]

Excellent review. Thank you so much for your insight

 

 

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[Cherries Jubilee]

Oh, and one more thought before I leave for bed, the meet and mingle! For our cruise it was at 10:30 am on the second sea day I think. They provided a nice assortment of little appetizers and plenty of free drinks for about an hour. The captain walked around and said hi to everyone. Andre the cruise director also came around and said hi to every table... but ours! Naughty naughty Andre! And to think I watched good morning divina every morning too! You broke my heart.

 

Overall it was nice, if a bit boring. TBH I probably wouldn't go again. We took an awkward group photo that I thought we would all get a copy of but if we did we never got ours or told where to get it. I did enjoy talking to someone I met on the FB group for the cruise but it didn't seem like people mingled much and I'm not really a champagne before noon kinda gal. I think it has potential but maybe could have used a bit of hosting or something. I don't know. Your cruise mileage will probably vary.

 

 

Thanks for the great review! Do all the MSC cruises have a Facebook group?

[Bra_BE2014]

Thank you for the review, you have awesome attitude!

[Sunshine2U]

I love your humor. We tend to take things in stride, too. The issue with switched port times seems to support what I've been reading between the lines for a while. There are some systemic issues with MSC around communication and the websites. I think the front line customer service people have been hammered on these issues for so long they've learned to deflect it. I don't want to say they don't care, but perhaps they've heard it all so many times and it never goes away.

[Beamafar]

I really enjoyed reading your review, Dinibo. Nicely balanced and a great approach and attitude to the things that weren't up to par - like the cock-up with the cake, for instance!

 

Your comment "it didn't seem like people mingled much" seems to be a recurring theme in reviews these days.

[seeriteR]

Enjoyed reading your review. We will be sailing on Divina transatlantic in March. Every cruise offers new experiences! May you enjoy many more!

 

Jim

 

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