MSC Divina August 19, 2017 Eastern Caribbean cruise review

As I’ve seen many others here do, I will begin my review by telling you a little about myself and my cruising experience. I am a middle aged woman traveling with my sister. We’v been on one 4 day cruise previously about 15 years ago on a ship that was so mediocre that neither of us remember what company it was. Despite the mediocrity of that ship we remember that we managed to have a good time.

We chose an inside guarantee room and were upgraded to one of the smaller balcony rooms on the 13th floor. We each purchased one 18 drink voucher package and split one 18 non-alcohol voucher package. We also purchased the streamer cruise plus internet package. We did not visit any of the onboard specialty restaurants.

I have to insert the disclaimer that I may have mixed up the night on which I ate certain foods because I was too silly to take pictures of the menu nightly. I also must apologize for the fact that 99% of the time I forgot to photograph my food until after I started eating it.:') I do not usually photograph my food and I don't like to leave my phone on the table so I could not remember to do this properly. Please know that MSC's food presentation was probably significantly better than my pictures make it appear.

Last but certainly not least I ended up with a horrible cold by the time I got home (I think it was the wet hair) so I lost some mental details and I may have to randomly pop in here and add them to the thread since you have such a limited amount of time to edit each post.

Now for the review!

We flew into Fort Lauderdale the day of the cruise (I know this is risky but it had to be that way this time). Our flight arrived in Florida at around 9am. We took an Uber to Port of Miami. This was only tedious because of the number of people waiting for various pickups. I don’t think it matters what you tell your driver you’re next to because there is little chance they’ll be able to pull over right there when they get there so be prepared to haul your luggage quickly to wherever they are able to stop for you. Our trip started at about 10am and our trip was $40. It took about an hour to get to the port.

Here is our first full view of Divina!

The port was even more busy than the airport. The porter who was supposed to be taking bags from the non-Yacht Club passengers was nowhere to be found so one of the other porters helped us and he was very nice so we tipped him accordingly. We then made our way into the check-in area where we took a picture, were given our room cards and a group number to board the ship. This process was very fast and up until this point we did not see the massive number of people already there waiting to board. When we were directed to the waiting area we didn’t expect that many people but hey it was clean, not too cold or hot, and we didn’t think we were more than a couple hours from boarding time even though our group number was 27. The only problem I saw with the waiting area was that we sat too far back and when they started calling numbers we could not hear back there so we moved closer to the beginning of the area when space became available. Our group was called to board at around 1:30pm.

I tried to talk my sister into trying the Sports Bar first but she wasn’t into that idea so we braved the buffet and found seats at the back rather easily. Unfortunately I went to go get food first and got lost trying to find my table afterwards lol. It was super crowded and a bit overwhelming that day. Yes, my food was cool but considering how I wandered around looking for my table I’m pretty sure that was my fault. I completely forgot to take a picture of my food this time. Flying in the day of the cruise is exhausting even when the weather cooperates. I didn’t want to try everything on day one so I got pepperoni pizza, a brownie and some pasta with white sauce to try. There was a large variety which I did walk around and see but I’d heard that the food didn’t change much during the week so I wanted to stretch out the taste testing. The pizza was good if a little bit spicier than I expected. I wasn’t blown away but it was reliably good throughout the cruise. The brownie was really dry and tasted like Little Debbie, and the pasta was almost completely void of flavor. My sister tried a wider variety of things despite my warning about repetitive offerings. She wasn’t impressed with the food either.

After we ate lunch we enjoyed the view for a while.

Then we went to see if our room was ready. I didn’t find the ship as hard to navigate as I see some people saying it is. We found our room and it was ready! The room, though slightly small, was fine for two people. It was still significantly larger than our last cruise stateroom. The beds were actually bigger than I was expecting and the balcony was perfect! The room appeared to be very clean. The bathroom floor was the only place that showed any signs of use. The shower was not big but certainly functional. I really liked the look of the room as a whole. It was very tasteful. Our plan was to take a nap but only my sister did that. I sat out on the balcony reading a book for a while. I looked over the daily and there was nothing we wanted to do besides see the sail away and go to trivia. We’d been assigned first dinner so I doubted we would be able to make the beginning of The Voices show since there was only one performance at 7:45.

Day 1 daily

Here is a picture of our room. This picture is actually not from day 1. I was so excited to have a balcony that I didn't take a proper cabin picture.

And here is our view from the balcony while docked in Miami. It's not the water but it was still pretty and peaceful.

I had to wake my sister up and explain to her that we needed to get to our location for the muster drill early because we both have some injuries that make us uncomfortable when standing for long periods of time and we needed to be early if we wanted seats. Our muster was in the Black and White lounge which I found by looking at the map on the door to our room. We still didn’t make it until they called the drill but we got some of the last seats left! I don’t know if the elevators were on or not because they were directing everyone to the stairs and going down stairs isn’t a problem for us. The muster drill was not well thought out. The room was crowded so it was hard to see staff. There were children (and adults) blowing whistles literally the whole time so anyone who couldn’t figure out what to do with their life vest was just SOL! The multiple languages did not bother me though it appeared some people tried to leave after their language was spoken. It was just entirely too loud and it seems wrong not to even attempt to get people to take it seriously. It was not long enough for their behavior to be attributed to restlessness.

On another note the Black and White lounge is much nicer than it looks during a crowded muster drill. It did not take long to get an elevator up to our room either.

We got ready for dinner early and took a walk around the ship. I would not call what was happening on the pool deck a “party”. It was more like some people standing around taking pictures of Miami. The rest of the ship had some hustle and bustle but no partying, just soft music and pretty sights.

We went to dinner in the Black Crab restaurant. Our table mates arrived a little later and they were a very nice couple who were newly married. Our other table mates did not come to dinner that night. Our server introduced himself and said he would be our server for the duration of our stay however I believe it was 2 days later that he disappeared and we were introduced to a new server. Anyway our server asked if we wanted to order drinks and when we ordered iced tea (which wasn’t good) he asked if we wanted to order alcoholic beverages and he didn’t really understand when we tried telling him no because we had not picked up our drink vouchers.

For dinner that night I ordered the shrimp avocado salad which didn’t have enough dressing so it wasn’t very tasty. My sister ordered the clam chowder which tasted and looked a lot like your everyday chicken noodle soup. We also tried the shrimp ravioli entrée they had which was way too small but very tasty. Then I had the cocoa dusted pork tenderloin which was pretty good, not I’d eat that again good, but decent. I did not like the fork mashed potatoes that came with this. They were smooth like baby food and just weird but still edible and I think they were real potatoes. My sister had the blackened grouper which was really good and gets my night 1 recommendation for future guests lol.

Lastly I had the warm chocolate brownie a la mode which despite the melted ice cream was no longer warm. We also ordered the chocolate lava cake to try which seamed to annoy my server. I don’t know how they managed to dry out the cake with the “lava” inside it but they did it. It also was not sweet enough and the lava felt like pudding. Despite the hits and slight misses we approved of the main dining room’s efforts and thought it was better than the buffet right away.

For some reason we had not started moving yet so after dinner we rushed up to the top deck just in time to see this beautiful view!

Mere moments after the ship began to move raindrops started to fall so all of the people ran for the doors to the Aqua Park and headed back inside. My sister and I wandered around and found the most exciting place onboard to be the Golden Jazz Bar for Name That TV Show Tune trivia. Now I have no idea what trivia is like on other ships but it was not at all what I expected. Two hosts stood in front of the bar while all of us trivia players sat all spread out in the bar. They handed out sheets of paper and colored markers and told us to write our team name on top. They played exactly 17 songs for about 45 seconds a piece. They played almost every song until the chorus said the name of the tv show if it was in the song lyrics. We were all supposed to write down the name of the shows and to find the winner at the end we passed our paper to another team like you do in grammar school and together we all checked to see if the team we were “grading” had the answers right. It was so boring. I was astonished by how they could consider that entertainment.

After trivia they had a band with a female lead singer performing songs both new and old and mostly uptempo. She was really energetic so that made our first night on board more fun. For those of you wanting an example of the music played onboard I remember her singing Hit the Road Jack by Ray Charles, Mercy by Duffy, Treasure by Bruno Mars, some Stevie Wonder, and Fever by Peggy Lee.

The Golden Jazz Bar is really cute but it is sectioned off in a way that doesn’t invite people to mingle with each other which is actually one of my bigger problems with this ship. Everything seems to be sectioned off like a place where multiple groups meet and talk amongst themselves in semi seclusion instead of being places where numerous people congregate for fun. I also did not like the whole everyone is walking through the entertainment rooms setup. It’s not comfortable walking in front of a performer just to get to the next location and it’s really uncomfortable having to walk by them when you’re getting up to leave in the middle of their set!

Anyway we’re weak alcohol drinkers so we ordered frozen drinks. I had a Miami Vice and my sister had a Mango Trooper.

I preferred hers but both were good so we had a few and enjoyed the music. Unfortunately the band had a short set and there was nothing in the daily we wanted to do after that until the 10:45 party in the Galaxy Disco. Now I don’t know about you guys but when we have a few hours to sit and do nothing we fall asleep so that’s what we did, slept right through that party we were supposed to get up and go to.

Day 2 Daily

On day 2 we went to the buffet for breakfast and I found that to be much better than lunch in the buffet. It was actually 10am so lunch food was making its way out as well. I had delicious chocolate croissants, some other sort of pastry, bacon, herb roasted potatoes, toast and fruit. When I was on my way back to my still impossible to find table I saw paella and corned beef so I added that and a different white sauce pasta to my now colorful plate.

The fruit was not sweet, the pasta was still tasteless and they need a better drip tray or perhaps a blotting technique for the bacon because it always had too much oil left on it but when blotted it was fine. The potatoes, croissant, pastry, paella, and corned beef were all really good.

We explored the ship for a while and I took some pictures of the wake which you'll find I took entirely too many pictures of.

Then we hung out on the top deck where we found a nicely shaded spot. It was actually too windy up there that day but it was so beautiful that we couldn’t resist spending some time there. We wanted to play Name That Price but when we saw how it was being played….in the front are of the pool deck two hosts had about a handful of people in front of them with a pen a a piece of paper…yeah it was very sunny, hot, and sticky over there so we did not stay to play. It couldn’t have been much fun because it looked like the entire rest of the people on the pool deck were aloof to the fact that a game was being played. So we went to the Sports Bar for a bite to eat.

Now this is where my review differs from others. I’ve seen people rave about the Sports Bar but for me it was the only place that I found the service to be unfriendly. I ordered a strawberry daiquiri and my sister and I began deciding what food to order. We decided to go with mozzarella sticks and buffalo wings. When we began ordering the server cut us off and asked what my sister would be having to drink. She said she’d have lemonade and we were about to go back to ordering when he informed us in a very rude tone that the food was only complimentary when ordering a drink. If she wanted food she had to purchase a drink. I had not seen this in anyone’s review so I still politely asked why she had to order a drink when I had and I was the one making the order. He replied that if she wanted to eat she had to drink. We went ahead and ordered another drink; a purple rain which neither of us enjoyed. We had no problem finding a seat however all of the available tables had left behind French fries on the floor. No big deal, just not as maintained as the rest of the ship on that particular day, I doubt that it’s a common occurrence. The TVs were behind your head so the person across from you stared at you and you stared at them…kind of weird. The food was just alright, probably good for people whose problem with bar food is too much salt. This food was not salty to me. The mozzarella sticks were hot and crispy on the outside but not super flavorful. The BBQ buffalo chicken wings were not crisp, just warm, and had one small glob of sauce on each piece. Nothing was bad but needless to say I never even visited the Sports Bar again.

I was momentarily irritated so I didn't remember to take any pictures of the food when it arrived but here are the drinks.

We're gluttons for punishment so we went to see what trivia in La Luna Piano Bar looked like. It may have been a better venue for trivia because the people were closer together but since the host was the same, there was only a small group of people, and the colored markers and paper had been spread out we didn’t join…..

Since it was formal night the dinner that night included fillet mignon and shrimp so we both ordered that. Unfortunately I completely forgot to photograph dinner this night. As an appetizer my sister ordered the mojito infused bay scallops and white fish ceviche which I expected she would regret and she did. I ordered the Greek salad which was the best Greek salad ever. I think maybe the feta cheese was fresher than I’ve ever had it so even though it was something I make occasionally it was much better than the slightly dry cheese at my local grocery store. Now as for the main course, the shrimp were delicious. The steak was too rare for us and it was also too tough for the knives they gave us but it was edible I guess. I had the “used to be warm” brownie a la mode for dessert again because any brownie is better than no brownie and my sister had a tasty blueberry cheesecake.

That night there was a lot of action in the main lobby so we hung out in there while they introduced the officers. We did a lot of people watching since almost everyone was all dressed up. I think there was some piano music in there as well. At some point that night we went to see a movie.

Day 3 Daily

The next morning was the Cruise Critic Meet and Mingle. We were expecting the M&M to start at 10:30 and unfortunately didn’t remember that it was a half hour earlier until 10:10. We headed down to the Black and White lounge where it was being held as quickly as we could but nice lady at the door informed us that it was actually almost over. Still we walked in and were greeted by the friendly staff members left. They put out a pretty snack plate for us and gave us the option of champagne or juice. I wasn’t super comfortable with the idea of mingling but I introduced myself to one couple who just happened to be the wonderful Arzeena and her husband! I had actually been talking to Arzeena quite a bit on the board so I was really happy to meet her and they both gave me some helpful advice on what I should do at the port stops. Unfortunately I didn’t get to meet anyone else from the board but I can tell that the M&M was very nice.

For my late breakfast of the day I had cantaloupe, a roasted tomato, a French toast wedge, herb roasted potatoes, bacon, and chocolate croissants and a brand muffin that I actually took back to my room for late night snacking.

After breakfast we checked out the view from the aft deck on our floor to see if we’d be able to see the eclipse from there and avoid the crowded pool deck but it was hidden over the stairwell so we took some more pictures of the beautiful wake and headed back to our room to change into swimwear.

I honestly cannot tell you how shocked we were to find 2 seats right near the staircase in front of the infinity pool.

We just knew that we’d need to get in the pool to even have a spot up there but we saw quite a few seats empty and reoccupy while we were up there. Since we had seats and a great view of the sun (right behind us) I decided to use up some drink tickets. I ran back down the stairs since we hadn’t brought them with us (thinking we’d be IN the pool). I decided to walk through the buffet and noticed they’d put out calamari, then I went to the pool deck bar to get drinks. The service here was not great. I was in the best spot for ordering, in fact every order I saw them take before my turn came from people in front of me in that very spot, but for some reason when it was my turn I got skipped 3 times by people who walked up to other spots of the bar and almost a 4th time by a woman who thought she’d just walk in front of me. I had a pleasant facial expression, had my drink vouchers out and knew what I wanted so this was not pleasant. Still I was polite when my turn arrived and I figured it was possible that those other people were repeat customers (perhaps customers who had already tipped once). The bartender never even made eye contact with me. Anyway, he made a good drink and the 2nd time I went to the bar someone else took my order and relayed it to him while I had a brief conversation with a friendly lady from Australia. I think the bartender was just super busy but I didn’t feel great about it so u didn’t go back.

My sister went down to the buffet and brought back fries, calamari, cold cuts, and bread and we snacked and sipped while waiting for the eclipse.

I had extra sets of the solar eclipse glasses I’d ordered online so I passed the extras around which was a tad difficult because of the language gap. People were happy to look but did not immediately understand that they could just share with all their friends and surrounding strangers so for a while they kept bringing them back to us which was so nice. We just kept handing them around and this was the most bonded I felt with the largely European crowd on the ship so even though we barely talked I felt a comfort level I hadn’t achieved yet. I saw a lot of people trying to get pictures of the eclipse so I tried too and got some grainy tiny images lol and at the end of it all a lady who was sitting all the way on the other end came over and told us how many people had gotten to look at the eclipse through our glasses which was super cool! I think those glasses (germs from strangers and all) are probably the best souvenir I have.

MSC did make announcements about selling/giving out eclipse glasses at some point in the morning but I don’t think they made it in multiple languages and they did say that supply was limited but I thought that was nice. Oddly enough I probably wouldn’t have even gone outside to see the eclipse if I were home.

The top deck movement actually made my sister feel sick so she didn’t even get to drink her 2nd drink and she had to take sea sick medicine and lay down before she could get ready for dinner. We came prepared with sea bands and meclizine so she recovered enough to head to our favorite place on the ship…the main dining room.

For my appetizer I had the crispy vegetable spring rolls which were pretty good. My sister had the seafood and chicken gumbo. It was not worth the tummy space. For dinner I had the jumbo shrimp with spiced tomato sauce, risotto, and a small vegetable turnover for dinner and it was really good if you like a little old bay seasoning but my sister’s prime rib was fantastic! I wish I could have this dinner again right now. I think we both got the brownie again for dessert.

We hung out in The Golden Jazz Bar that night. We took a look at the “party” in the Black and White lounge but did not find it as upbeat.

Day 4 Daily

Our first port day was in Phillipsburg, St. Maarten. We woke up early, took some pictures from our balcony and grabbed some food from the buffet. We’d decided to visit Orient Bay Beach for the day. To exit and re-enter the boat make sure to have your room card (which you can’t leave without) and your government issued ID. You’re asked to remove your hat for identification purposes on your way in and out so if you have your hair pulled back messily like I did be warned lol. We headed into the town only about a 10 minute walk before we got to the shuttles. You ask the people in the orange shirts which shuttle is going where you want to go. If a lot of people are going there you are only charged $7 but if few people are you pay $10; both prices will feel more than reasonable when you see the curvy, uneven roads of Phillipsburg. It was obvious right away that most people wanted to go to Maho Beach, but we did end until with a full van going to Orient. The trip to Orient is quite a winding path through a combination of run down streets and beautiful grass covered hills. It is not exactly nearby but boy is it beautiful!

Some of these pictures will be grainy because I only brought my underwater camera.

We did not walk far into the beach so I don’t know if the prices went down at all but we stopped at the pink and purple umbrella chairs and paid I believe $15 for an umbrellaed chair, one alcoholic drink, and wifi for the day. A nice lady maintained that little area making sure no garbage laid around and I’m pretty sure she was about to tell the pushy vendors there to leave us alone at some point too. My sister did buy a bag that came with a matching sarong. It is rainbow and very pretty. She didn’t try to get them to lower the price, she really just wanted to be left alone after that but they came back a lot despite our insistence that we didn’t want anything. We ended up playing in the water and swimming so much that we weren’t bothered anymore but even from the water I saw them walk by our section over and over again bothering people who rented from any of the nearby huts. I found it odd that they were all women. If this kind of thing bothers you, I don’t suggest the beginning of the beach.

Despite that stuff, Orient Beach is the most beautiful beach I’ve ever been to. It was clean though there was some sea weed and a few rocks in the water but that might be unavoidable. The water was stunning and warm. It got a little rougher as the day went on but I would definitely go back. We met a very nice family who we on the Norwegian Escape that had been re-routed East and they seemed to take that very well. I think the beach was just too beautiful to be mad about much.

When you exit the beach and head to the parking lot you will notice little “taxi” signs. A driver immediately came over to take us back to port so it was great not having to worry about how we’d get back. We left pretty early and there were still people just coming to the beach. Also there were a lot of people going from Orient to Maho so we actually couldn’t find anyone going back to port to share the ride with despite our driver trying really hard to find people.

Of course after a day of playing in the water I couldn’t have been happier to grab a shuttle back to the Divina! The salt water definitely made me tired. We grabbed a quick bite in the buffet, then headed to the room to rest. Rest ended up equaling taking video and pictures of the Norwegian Escape and yelling and waving goodbye to St.Maarten with all of them. They seemed to be much more jubilant than the people on our ship who were so far quiet and reserved.

When you look straight down

This night my appetizer was the popcorn shrimp salad. The popcorn shrimp were good but my salad had very little dressing and no cheese at all and when I saw other plates I knew they’d forgotten these things. I asked my server for more dressing and he began dousing my salad in oil and vinegar before I could point out that that was not the kind of dressing that came on that salad. My sister and I both had the NY Sirloin for dinner and we shared a bowl of the Fisherman’s Wharf soup which was a tomato broth with fish, squid, scallops, shrimp, potatoes, and carrots. Everything was delicious! We shared some sort of cake with a prailine cookie layer in it for dessert.

After dinner we decided to go check out some of The Witches of Paris in the Pantheon Theatre. The acrobatic parts and the “spinning” part I guess I’ll call it were ok but it definitely wasn’t for us. Without spoiling too much I’m just going to say the whole skirt part was unnecessary and un-entertaining to us but the rest of the crowd seemed to think it was good. I kinda think they should just rename this “Shenanigans”.

When that was over we went to our room to change into our clothes for the white party. We didn’t want to wear white to dinner and mess it up lol. Then we went to karaoke madness in the Black and White lounge. I don’t think any of their entertainment areas are set up for mingling. This was a well attended event but the way the seating is set up just doesn’t invite people to mingle. Some of us did sit together on small couches with tables in front of them but they were back to back like we were in rows. There were people hanging out at the bar while their young children sat away from them on couch chairs. There were people walking through the venue to get somewhere else. There was a section way at the back with people so far away that they probably couldn’t see the people singing. The words were on the wall in front of the majority of the crowd so the singers pretty much had their backs to the room if they needed to read the words.They had absolutely fabulous singers participate though and a nice variety of music was chosen as well.

The host for karaoke was pretty good but why would MSC end a well attended event a half hour or more early when you have nothing ready for them to do at the same energy level right afterwards? Also why don’t they have any adult only events like this? Do they really think all children are Celine Dions in the making? Yes they’re all cute but they don’t blend in well with the tipsy people in Bar/lounge environments.

Anyway after karaoke ended early the host told us the dj was ready for us on the top deck for the white party but he most certainly was not. The Black Velvet band was performing for maybe 20 people by the pool instead. We waited around up there in the hot mugginess but it didn’t become a party soon enough for us. Blame Velvet was good but there was no energy for them to build off of because no one was there. I’m sure you all know how much it can mess up your energy when you’re early to a party. After the time for the white party to start came and went we went to the buffet for a late night snack. I think that ended up being some really dry chocolate cookies and crunchy peanut butter cookies. We took another look out on the deck but still….*crickets*. It was beautiful up there at night though. We didn’t wait around to see how long it took for the partying to happen. We went to go sit in on The Godfather Part II which is not a bad way to end any night.

Day 5 Daily

The next day we arrived in San Juan. Ok I know all of the ports were in places with the tendency to be hot, but Puerto Rico was sweltering! We walked around for quite a while. We walked a pathway by the water and took pictures. We walked further into town to play the then record breaking Powerball (didn’t even win $2). We were just about to melt when we ran into Arzeena again [emoji3]. She told us how close we were to the people who do the tours so we walked down to them and shopped around for the best price and the most stops (also be aware of their return point as it is not always the same). I don’t know if they could tell we were melting or if it was because the demand was so high that day but we couldn’t get a single tour guide to go lower than $15 per person. Anyway it was a seat and we’d see more of the city so we picked the guide who offered the most stops. The bus had what I’d call minimal air conditioning. We were not cool but we were significantly relieved. We saw city Hall and some of Old and New San Juan. We stopped at the beach which was beautiful but the water looked a little rough. I also did not see any umbrellas on the main beach and that particular are looked a little small. The water though was stunning!

We took pictures by the beach and then headed to the Forts. It was a steep and crowded drive as they were clearly one main attractions of San Juan. I’d be careful of what time you choose to go there so you don’t need to rush back to the boat.

All in all I’d say the tour is a nice way to see a lot if all you wanted to do was sightsee. There was a passenger on ours who repeatedly engaged our driver in discussions so we didn’t get much commentary. As a person who prefers not to walk that much, it worked well for me.

The line to get back to the ships was super long because they couldn’t open the gates until a RCI ship that came in a day early was fully docked. The caption warned us of this and advised us on the time it could become an issue. It was so hot that we probably should have just went to Walgreens instead of waiting but it was all sorted out eventually and we headed back to our comfortable room.

Puerto Rico was beautiful.

After we freshened up we headed to the buffet where we shared a plate of fries and the popcorn shrimp that finally showed up in the kids section! We had a little fruit and tried a couple unremarkable desserts on the side as well thought I think that cream puff is one of the better desserts in the buffet.

That night was Italian night and we actually dressed in theme. For dinner I had mushroom risotto and the always available steak with fries and peppercorn sauce. My sister had the calamari which is significantly better in the dining room than it is in the buffet though both are good. She had chicken marsala as her entrée and she found it bland so we shared my ginormous steak.

One thing I really didn’t like about the dining room experience is that my first server seemed angry when we ordered more than one thing per category and my second server was irritated by our inability to finish everything on our plates. Now I do feel bad when wasting food, but I do not think it is appropriate to pressure diners to finish their food. Sometimes that food is not good and some of us also feel ill when we eat more than our bodies want. I liked my server but this did annoy me. By the end of the cruise he was actually advising us on what we should order and what we probably wouldn’t like. He even on one occasion had what he thought we’d enjoy more ready for us one night when it was not what we’d ordered, and he was right! For dessert we had the tiramisu which I think they started serving before they had the tiramisu parade. It was nice to see the staff and some of the guests having a good time during the parade!

After dinner we went to check out the fashion show in the reception area which was really crowded and lively again so it was good for people watching. I have to say we didn't find the passengers to be friendly. It wasn't so much the barging in front of us at the buffet that was the problem. I didn't get mad when people bumped me and failed to say excuse me. I am just not used to people frowning when they make eye contact with me even after I smile and definitely not when I say hello. I didn't take it personally because honestly they didn't always look thrilled interacting with their own party. We managed to have a few brief friendly interactions but it really wasn't something I saw happening amongst strangers much.

After the fashion show we went to check out karaoke madness on the Aqua deck. This event was not very well attended and everyone seemed to be singing slow songs so it was a bit of a drag. Also again because the words were on the big screen, the singers had no interaction with the few groups of people there watching. By this point I was beginning to come down with a bad cold so we got some hot tea from the buffet and went to sleep.

Day 6 Daily

Is it bad that I was looking forward to another sea day? Anyway the next day we had only danishes and tea for breakfast as we’d both developed a cold. I was super happy to find that the cold medicine in the duty free store was not horribly overpriced. We decided to hang out on the pool deck that day and it was really beautiful up there. The crowd seemed a little more energetic as well.

We pretty much lounged all day that day. I watched as they attempted some really unamusing and poorly participated games on the pool deck but I was so worn out that I didn’t even have lunch. When we left the pool deck we found ourselves taking more pictures of the water from the aft of the ship again. Then we prepared for dinner since it was our final formal night.

For dinner that night I had the prosecco bronzed scallop risotto which I loved. My sister had the pesto gnocchi and we both had the grouper with a potato cake and vegetables. Neither of these dishes were good enough for me to order again but they were perfectly edible. The sauce on the grouper just made it wet. I don’t think the sauce had any flavor at all except maybe butter but the fish under it was seasoned. We had the baked Alaska for dessert and again they began serving it before the parade so no one had to wait. It was very tasty!

We briefly went back to our room to take a few pictures of the sky and water because there was a different sort of glow that night but then we headed out to see the Treasure Island show in the Pantheon theater. It was already pretty packed in there but we found seats with a very good view. Now I don’t know if I’ve seen too many professional stage productions, or if I’ve been to the circus too many times or what but this was just not enjoyable to me. The acrobatics and I guess I’ll call it juggling were near identical to what we saw in The Witches. The performers had long periods of time where they basically walked around in a circle and then stopped all together and made a noise which prompted applause. Like they literally did nothing but walk in a pattern, stop and make a noise in unison and the crowd began clapping. The intro to the show informed us that there was no storyline which I understand but then the show started with a pirate telling us that “this is the story of Billy Bones.” There was a point where pirates came running down the stairs near the end and even though we all saw them do it, when they stopped and threw there arms out even that made the crowd applaud. The only part of the show I enjoyed was one magic act that I still want to know the secret to lol. I am aware that the lightening and coloring during this show was good but nothing about it impressed me and I was also really thrown by the random American song thrown in. I am aware however that this is subjective and others seemed to REALLY enjoy the shows. I even saw people taping them who seemed to have seen them before because they knew what was coming. Just be aware that if you’ve seen a fair amount of exceptional entertainment, this may not suffice for you and perhaps sit on an aisle where you can escape without commotion if necessary.

If anyone knows the secret to that magic

Tonight there were several things we decided to try to do. First we went to the B&T lounge for a rumba lesson. It was very low key. Everyone just lined up in several rows and watched as the instructor, Fernando, told us what to do. The lesson was very short as the Quest Game was right after it. I had never seen the Quest game before so I had no idea that they didn’t even keep score but it was funny to see the people on the ship letting loose after being so composed lol.

Then they had live band karaoke. Now again I have a gripe with this. The song list had about 30 songs on it. Black Velvet is a damn good band. I know they can play more than those songs. Hell I’m pretty sure I heard them play other songs. That list was so bad that it was hard for them to get participants unlike the first night when they had more people than they wanted ready to sign up. I went up to look at the list and realized they had nothing for me to sing as even those 30 songs were highly male dominated so I sat back down. My sister went over and just casually asked if they had anymore songs and they actually had a hand written list of about 20 songs hidden in their binder. I had to go up and ask about this list after she told me about it and the guy with the binder had already hidden it in the back again! I picked a song from that list to sing and watched as he proceeded to tuck the list way in the back of his binder again….

A little girl actually got up there and did Uptown Funk by Bruno Mars which was super cute and she did a good job! I also remember a guy doing a good job on Child of Mine. It was a fun experience but still obviously tarnished by the crappy song list and the almost classroom like seating arrangement of the Black and White lounge. Maybe they don’t have more songs because they don’t want the event to last long because all of the activities are rather short.

After karaoke we went to the Galaxy Disco. The dj actually seemed to be pretty good, unfortunately the dance floor was filled with teenagers. They were very obviously teenagers and some of them had drinks in bottles in their hands. At one point one of them dropped a glass that shattered all over the floor but they just danced over it. They were having a grand time but the adults looked out of place in here. A lot of them stood back away from the dance floor or sat in the seating area off to the side. It was also here that I saw the entertainment host flirting with a woman who I’m going to assume he knew. When the woman pointed out the broken glass to him, he just shrugged and kept dancing up on her.

Despite the good music we didn’t want to party with the kids so we left. A maintenance man came to sweep up the glass as we were leaving.

Day 7 Daily

The last day of the trip was our stop at Nassau. I don’t think this is the best way to end a cruise on a beautiful ship but we got off anyway in search of gifts for our family and friends. We walked out into town and found that the beginnings of Nassau have been taken over by mainstream and some higher end stores. I don’t think it was like this the last time I visited. It was hard to find anything special for gifts. A lot of the things with Nassau, Bahamas on them were just plain t-shirts and the island dresses were identical to things you see in little cheap stores in America. Anyway I managed to find some things but I wished I hadn't been cheap and purchased some of the more interesting looking things I saw in St. Maarten.

I was really sick by this point and I wasn't even sure I'd make it to dinner so I went back to the room to take a nap.

I did make it to dinner. My sister and I both had the fried seafood platter appetizer. Everything was good except the fish which was tasteless. Then I had what was supposed to be a seafood risotto but seemed to only have remnants of seafood in it. It was still decent. I got the steak again for dinner but I barely ate it because I ordered it well done and it was pretty rare on the inside. I ordered the chocolate chip cheesecake for dessert and it was decent but the chocolate wasn't sweet enough for me and I felt like crap so I only took a little taste. Our server brought us ice cream because he felt bad about our steaks being rare. We didn't even complain about it, he just noticed the blood on our plates. The ice cream was fabulous.

I forgot that on night 6 this was waiting for us in our room.

Our first and only towel animal. I know how much some of you love these. It was nice to get one.

Also here are the pictures I took of the sky and water that night. It must have been the time of day that made the view look so special.

And you can't go on Divina without getting a picture of these stairs!

The glass elevators are a nice touch as well

Thank you so much for taking the time to write such a detailed review and such great pics. I do have to say, I am a little discouraged, as your review is a bit of a downer. I have been torn as to which ship to book for next year....the Divina or the Seaside. :cool: I greatly appreciate your input! (sorry you got sick..but luckily it was the end of your cruise) Would you go on MSC again if you had the chance?

Fantastic review - thanks! I enjoyed reading it. Sorry to hear you were ill, though. Having suffered a virus-like illness on a couple of cruises (crossing the Equator seems to cause me problems) I can relate to how you felt.

The final morning on the ship I had fruit and yogurt for breakfast. We stayed onboard past our call time because we had a late flight. When we left it was still very crowded and hard for our Uber to find a spot to pull over near us. We should have just left earlier.

We actually flew home out of West Palm Beach because it was still much cheaper even when we added in the price of the Uber. The ride was about an hour long. The Uber driver didn't know that airport well and he didn't speak English so we couldn't really help him. He got a little lost so we missed our opportunity to get on the only flight leaving before ours and then our flight was delayed twice so we were at the airport for quite a while. Thankfully it's a nice quiet airport.

On this trip we went to customer service twice. Once because our internet connection wouldn't work. The line wasn't long but it was suuuuuper slow. The last time was to clear our bill. The line was both long and obnoxiously slow that time, like really really I can't f*in believe this slow. It was the day before debarkation.

We had some little problems on the trip but nothing that we let get to us. Our room steward was very nice but he rarely left us wash cloths. He'd repeatedly refresh bath towels but nothing else. We wanted the beds separated. We asked on two different occasions. The first day we were told "maybe later." The second day we were told "ok." It was never done.

When looking for something in the room we discovered that under the beds had not been cleaned in quite some time. There was quite a bit of dust and debris along with a blanket of some sort and some pills someone had left behind.

We wanted the mini bar. cleaned out so that we could use it as a fridge for ourselves. We were told that this was no problem twice and that it would be done. The next time we asked he apologized and told us he would do it right away. We had never bothered to even open the mini bar so when we opened it we were shocked to find old half rated fruit and buffet food stuffed in there with the other stuff. When we informed our stewart that the mini bar still wasn't emptied and that none of that food in there was ours he apologized again and said he'd take care of everything, however all he did was remove the old food. Everything else stayed in the mini bar. There was no language barrier here either. As I said he was very nice but he somehow thought that telling us he was new on the job meant it was ok that he didn't do any of the things we asked him to do.

It turned out that the mini bar also was not on. Everything in there was room temperature. Since it was probably broken a few our stewart hadn't emptied it we just gave up on it however he must have reported it as broken when he removed the old food because one day out of nowhere maintenance showed up at our door. This was near the end of the cruise when I had gone back to the room to sleep because I was very ill. Maintenance insisted that he was told he had to check on this mini bar so my sister let him in and he proceeded to make tons of noise trying to fix it while I attempted to sleep off my fever. I was not surprised when after all of this he sane couldn't fix it and left us with the broken still full mini bar. It was too late for us to use it anyway so I personally think since we didn't call them they should have just waited until we left.

Other annoyances; the salesman at the duty free did not want to answer our question about why some of the alcohol came in boxes. I'm not exaggerating when I tell you he made an annoyed facial expression at us for at least a full minute. He finally told us that "unless we were going to buy 6 bottles we didn't need to worry about it." I don't think they should have someone working in there who is going to assume that someone cannot afford to buy something. It's certainly not the best way to sell things.

How is it that our cabin neighbors managed to bring on marijuana and we couldn't bring on a single can of soda?

Is it normal the only some of the ship announcements could be heard inside the cabin?

Either there were no paper napkins in the buffet for the first 6 days of our trip or they were impossible to find.

I'm sure there are more and I'll add them as I think of them, but none of these things truly affected my trip. We pretty much shrugged off any minor inconveniences we had.

What did affect our cruise was the lack of taste in most of the buffet food. A lot of it was really bland. Our table mates felt the same way. Other than the breakfast/brunch crossover time I did not enjoy the buffet.

Another thing that affected my trip was the lackluster entertainment. If you didn't want to see the shows you weren't left with much to do. The things they did have planned were all very short and a lot of them were poorly attended. It is almost like they left a lull in things to do so that you had to attend the shows during those hours. Unfortunately if they turn out not to be for you, your nights may fall flat.

The cruise line cannot be blamed for unfriendly passengers but they need to come up with a way to engage interaction so that the passengers don't seem so closed off.

I can see why couples who want to be alone would love this cruise, people who need to get away and relax on their own, even perhaps big groups who have no real interest in adding to their crew. In my opinion there are at least two kinds of vacations. There are fun active vacations and relaxing escapes and to me this cruise seems more like the latter.

It was not ideal for my sister and I but it was beautiful and comfortable so we enjoyed it anyway.

Would I cruise MSC again? Not unless they upped the entertainment factor and more Americans started cruising with them. I thought I'd like the Euro vibe but they were too standoffish for me.

I'm giving this cruise a 3 1/2 out of 5. They lose a half point for the food in the buffet and a full point for entertainment but I would recommend them to anyone who is looking for this kind of vacation

Feel free to ask any questions you have. [emoji846]

Thank you so much for taking the time to write such a detailed review and such great pics. I do have to say, I am a little discouraged, as your review is a bit of a downer. I have been torn as to which ship to book for next year....the Divina or the Seaside. :cool: I greatly appreciate your input! (sorry you got sick..but luckily it was the end of your cruise) Would you go on MSC again if you had the chance?

You're welcome! It was the only way I could thank all of the other people who wrote reviews and answered questions before my cruise.

Don't be discouraged but try to figure out what is important to you. If you need to relax in a continuously beautiful atmosphere you will like Divina, if you need more excitement perhaps try Seaside.

The conditions would have to be right for me to cruise MSC again. Perhaps for a honeymoon or a trip with my Mom.

At the moment I don't know which cruise line is going to be right for me. I loved the elegance of MSC. I dressed up every night. I don't think I'm a big enough partier for what I see people say about Carnival. I'm going to try Norwegian and Royal and see if either of them can offer some beauty and some excitement.

I forgot to mention, I complain about that heat on the pool deck a lot. My 13th floor balcony had the overhang so I was able to sit out there without the sun burning me. Everyone speaks of the overhang like it's a bad thing but for me it was a great advantage.