Live from MSC Divina 12/30-01/13

[ABC XYZ]

11 minutes ago, styles27 said:

Overall the temperature on the ship has been comfortable. I’ve never felt like I needed a sweater or wrap even in the evenings. 
This morning we’re sitting on our balcony and the sun is very hot.
 

It’s really the first cruise we have been able to use our balcony and not be cold…even last night we were out here til midnight. 
It has been a great escape from the craziness. 
I’m thinking the air temp may be a little cooler for next week’s cruise since we’re staying in the Bahamas. 

 

 

Thank you - I guess worst case scenario, I wear my jacket!

 

Hopefully the temperature at Ocean Cay is comfortable enough next week to go into the water! I am so excited for some sun!!

[styles27]

Today’s Daily program. The Comedy and Magic person is the main show again tonight. 

[styles27]

22 minutes ago, ABC XYZ said:

Thank you - I guess worst case scenario, I wear my jacket!

 

Hopefully the temperature at Ocean Cay is comfortable enough next week to go into the water! I am so excited for some sun!!

The air temp at OC was great. The water was a bit chilly but we went in. We’re used to the iced cold temps of Rhode Island beaches and it was a lot warmer than that. lol

[JAGR]

14 minutes ago, styles27 said:

Today’s Daily program. The Comedy and Magic person is the main show again tonight. 

Glad they brought back the Staff Talent show!  Saw those shows on Seaside, and there were some really talented employees!  Especially liked how the normal singers and dancers attended the shows and cheered on the staff talent!

[styles27]

2 minutes ago, JAGR said:

Glad they brought back the Staff Talent show!  Saw those shows on Seaside, and there were some really talented employees!  Especially liked how the normal singers and dancers attended the shows and cheered on the staff talent!

Me too!  Definitely looking forward to that!

[tkwbear]

3 hours ago, RC Dancers said:

We are also booked on the May transatlantic and share your concerns. 17 nights is a long cruise with a bunch of rude jerks.

I was mainly impacted in ports, though sometimes on the Poesia the buffet got a bit wild. Also one of my pet peeves is people storming into an elevator before people are allowed out. There was a lot of that. However, I can't wait to sail the Poesia again, and last month on the Meraviglia, the overworked crew treated me like a king. Some recognized me from previous cruises, but others were new to me. I always try to be nice to them because I know they work so hard.

 

I'm wondering about shore excursions in Morocco and Funchal. I've never been to Morocco and will lean toward a ship excursion. I'm not sure how the locals in Morocco will react to the rude passengers. I have been to Funchal and love it. The last time I was there I traveled with 4 friends and we booked an all day private tour that was fabulous. However this time I am going alone so may do the HOHO bus or maybe an MSC excursion. Be sure to try the bananas in Funchal, they are wonderful! The wine is pretty good too.

[flahagan]

1 hour ago, tkwbear said:

I was mainly impacted in ports, though sometimes on the Poesia the buffet got a bit wild. Also one of my pet peeves is people storming into an elevator before people are allowed out. There was a lot of that. However, I can't wait to sail the Poesia again, and last month on the Meraviglia, the overworked crew treated me like a king. Some recognized me from previous cruises, but others were new to me. I always try to be nice to them because I know they work so hard.

 

I'm wondering about shore excursions in Morocco and Funchal. I've never been to Morocco and will lean toward a ship excursion. I'm not sure how the locals in Morocco will react to the rude passengers. I have been to Funchal and love it. The last time I was there I traveled with 4 friends and we booked an all day private tour that was fabulous. However this time I am going alone so may do the HOHO bus or maybe an MSC excursion. Be sure to try the bananas in Funchal, they are wonderful! The wine is pretty good too.

 

[flahagan]

I'm also doing the 25 nt TA in May on Divina, trying to decide if I want a drink package or not.  Have there been any daily drink specials or happy hour offerings?  I'm thinking of just purchasing a few bottles of wine for my cabin and having the occasional bloody mary or martini.  

[flahagan]

2 hours ago, flahagan said:

I'm also doing the 25 nt TA in May on Divina, trying to decide if I want a drink package or not.  Have there been any daily drink specials or happy hour offerings?  I'm thinking of just purchasing a few bottles of wine for my cabin and having the occasional bloody mary or martini.  

Also, if it's not too much trouble, could you post a picture of the cocktail menu for the Easy Package?  Thanks in advance!

[Zephyr173]

Good to see you’re having a great time.

would you kindly make a note to give your comments as to disembarkation?  Is it a heavy and difficult process due to immigration procedures, or rather straightforward?  I would like this info to book my flight out of MIA, and my choices are 12 and 3:45PM. As Divina is set to arrive at 7AM, I would prefer the noon flight. 
Your thoughts and those of other CC friends are welcome.

We will be in YC, and have a Canadian passport.

Edited January 7, 2023 by Zephyr173
Specify passport.

[phissy]

3 hours ago, Zephyr173 said:

Good to see you’re having a great time.

would you kindly make a note to give your comments as to disembarkation?  Is it a heavy and difficult process due to immigration procedures, or rather straightforward?  I would like this info to book my flight out of MIA, and my choices are 12 and 3:45PM. As Divina is set to arrive at 7AM, I would prefer the noon flight. 
Your thoughts and those of other CC friends are welcome.

We will be in YC, and have a Canadian passport.

We were on Divina , end of October. Our flight out of MIA was originally 1pm. Airline  final change to 3:30pm. 
Glad we had the extra time to get to airport.  We were in YC and disembarkation at MIA took hours. First, ship did not clear customs until after 9 am. Lines of “ walk off” passengers were very long. 
YC butlers very frustrated with the chaos down on lower decks.

The line for customs after collecting luggage was 1-2 hours. A couple of elderly passed out while waiting in line. It was pretty bad. 
Facial recognition not working

We had heard MIA could be difficult but, it was awful. 
We did not get out to ground transportation until Noon.

My policy is hope for the best but plan for the worst.

Good luck and happy cruising.
 

Edited January 8, 2023 by phissy

[Seas2mountains]

Thank you for doing a live review and for posting the dailies.  It is greatly appreciated. 
We are getting on the ship on 01/13 when you disembark.  Looking forward to your updates this week. 

[Zephyr173]

9 hours ago, tkwbear said:

I was mainly impacted in ports, though sometimes on the Poesia the buffet got a bit wild. Also one of my pet peeves is people storming into an elevator before people are allowed out. There was a lot of that. However, I can't wait to sail the Poesia again, and last month on the Meraviglia, the overworked crew treated me like a king. Some recognized me from previous cruises, but others were new to me. I always try to be nice to them because I know they work so hard.

 

I'm wondering about shore excursions in Morocco and Funchal. I've never been to Morocco and will lean toward a ship excursion. I'm not sure how the locals in Morocco will react to the rude passengers. I have been to Funchal and love it. The last time I was there I traveled with 4 friends and we booked an all day private tour that was fabulous. However this time I am going alone so may do the HOHO bus or maybe an MSC excursion. Be sure to try the bananas in Funchal, they are wonderful! The wine is pretty good too.

 

[Zephyr173]

We enjoyed a TA on Meraviglia recently, with a port call in Funchal.  We had a FANTASTIC time doing a side-car excursion.  Picked up at port, 3 1/2 hours of excellent excursion. 120EUR.  I will not, of course, give out the site name in a post, but you can try «Madera» and «side-car».  Felipe is a swell fellow, his business is a start-up, and he is keen on customer service.

[styles27]

16 hours ago, Zephyr173 said:

Good to see you’re having a great time.

would you kindly make a note to give your comments as to disembarkation?  Is it a heavy and difficult process due to immigration procedures, or rather straightforward?  I would like this info to book my flight out of MIA, and my choices are 12 and 3:45PM. As Divina is set to arrive at 7AM, I would prefer the noon flight. 
Your thoughts and those of other CC friends are welcome.

We will be in YC, and have a Canadian passport.

Will do! We are doing a B2B  and our flight from Miami is at 1:30 so I’ll post our experience when we disembark on the 13th 

When we embarked on 12/30th the ship was cleared by 11a.m. So it was an improvement over the earlier debarkations in Miami 

 

We didn’t stay up for the crew show last evening. I wish we had but by 10:30 we’re fast asleep…darn rocking ship rocks us to sleep lol

 

Just had an interesting hour in one of the hottubs on deck 15 with some fellow Americans.

Both families on MSC for the first time. One family completely turned off by the passengers and said they wouldn’t cruise with MSC again. (They’re regulars on Carnival).

I was surprised that they felt this cruise was worse than the Carnival crowd. Their reasoning…tired of people bumping into them and cutting them in lines without so much as an excuse me or thank you. 
 

Americans are far from perfect but at least most of us will say excuse me or sorry if we bump into you. 
 

The other couple will give MSC another chance as they recognize a cruise over the holidays attracts many non US pax. 
 

I’m tired of people excusing the rudeness with “it’s a cultural thing”.

There is never an excuse for what we’re experiencing on this ship. These people should be ashamed of themselves. 

There was a woman from Spain in the hottub with us and she told us she is embarrassed of the behavior of her fellow European pax.  She went so far as to apologize to all of us. 
 

It is what it is. Unfortunately these people have ruined vacations for some. I won’t let that ruin our vacation but I will say we’ve never used our balcony more that we have on this cruise. 

 

Enough about that. I’m happy they’re getting off tomorrow and hopefully the majority of the 1800 pax going forward will be better mannered. 

So I just had our laundry delivered. We did the 20 piece package. Everything except the socks and underwear came back on a hanger. Very well done! I’ll post a picture for reference as I know some of you had bad luck with the laundry service on Divina. 
 

Our room steward is awesome. He has 18 rooms to take care of and he does it quickly and remembers that we like ice, wash cloths and tissue etc. I only needed to ask him for those things on the first day and they’re here each day. 
 

Here is today’s daily program, a pic of our laundry on hangers and the instructions for our B2B

 

 

 

 

 

[styles27]

Today’s MDR menus. Sea day. 

[styles27]

22 hours ago, flahagan said:

I'm also doing the 25 nt TA in May on Divina, trying to decide if I want a drink package or not.  Have there been any daily drink specials or happy hour offerings?  I'm thinking of just purchasing a few bottles of wine for my cabin and having the occasional bloody mary or martini.  

We have the drink package so I haven’t noticed that they have any drink specials. Other cruise lines will post a “drink of the day” in their daily planner. I’ve not seen that on MSC. 
 

[styles27]

Miami…debarkation is halted due to back up at immigration. Hoping to resume soon. 
We’re on the next sailing and have been told to report to the theater at 11:45  so obviously the ship won’t be cleared til after noon today. 
Today’s program…show is a repeat of our first night 12/30

 

 

[styles27]

Debarkation resumed at 8:55 am and halted again at 9:45 due to increased security screening and lack of space in the tunnel. 
 

 

[quattrohead]

Cruising out of Port Canaveral looks better and better each day.

 

I am getting emails from MSC, the marketing department have gone into high gear with great offers, they must be trying to fill ships.

[styles27]

37 minutes ago, quattrohead said:

Cruising out of Port Canaveral looks better and better each day.

 

I am getting emails from MSC, the marketing department have gone into high gear with great offers, they must be trying to fill ships.

Completely agree. I will try to avoid Miami in the future. 
It is now 11 am and they just started debarkation again. 
it is obvious that Immigration was not ready for processing 3800 passengers and facial recognition isn’t working. 🤦🏻‍♀️

I feel bad for people with early flights and for those anxious to board today. 
 

We’ll definitely choose to carry our luggage off on Friday. Those people were off before 8. 

 

[Zephyr173]

Thank you, Styles27.  With your precious information, I booked my return flight at 3:45.  The noon option was too risky.

Have a super b2b. 

[ABC XYZ]

Thanks for the disembarkation updates! I am supposed to board for 12:30pm but sounds like it will be delayed. Will take my time now..

[styles27]

13 minutes ago, Zephyr173 said:

Thank you, Styles27.  With your precious information, I booked my return flight at 3:45.  The noon option was too risky.

Have a super b2b. 

You’re very welcome! 

[styles27]

30 minutes ago, ABC XYZ said:

Thanks for the disembarkation updates! I am supposed to board for 12:30pm but sounds like it will be delayed. Will take my time now..

Yes lots of folks still on board…we are supposed to report at 11:45 to clear immigration but it’s been delayed as well 

 

Immigration just stopped disembarkation once again. (currently 11:50 am)

 

 

Edited January 9, 2023 by styles27