CruiseScrooge

How about going to the buffet at 3pm and getting the cheeseburger and bring back some snacks for the late night.

3pm or 3am? eating a 12 hour old burger you got at 3pm doesn't sound fun to me. iirc burgers were available during lunch and the afternoon. at midnight and later the buffet had pizza [the best buffet pizza i've had by far] cold sandwiches and low maintenance stuff life salads. someone correct if i'm wrong. maybe they had some hot pasta dish or something but i don't remember them firing up the grill and having the hot dogs, burgers and fries late at night.

on the divina the cruise director and staff give a good cruise critic meet and greet just as the cruise is leaving. a nice chance to meet other cc. there is a solos/singles meet the second day. there are plenty of group and party games like trivia and simon says and group board games like pictionary. during some of the party games few people showed and the nice staff were required to stay although the 2 or 3 us who were there said we didn't mind if they left and grabbed some lunch or 40 winks. they handed out stuff and swapped stories with us.

i did a b2b solo out of miami. they have a single/solo meetup the 2nd night or so and a few people showed. of course out of miami most of the passengers were americans but we did have quite a few germans because they offered free airfare and kids go free to them.

on my b2b on the divina the cruise director told us at our cc meet and greet the mdr times are a nightmare. the europeans especially the germans want a 10:30 pm dining while americans want it much earlier. the 6:30 and 8:30 time pleased few. some people thinking party fun should be getting started at midnight and others everything beforehand and winding down.

my mdr waiter was lousy the first week and only got better because 1/2 of the people at his tables stopped coming to dinner. i heard more then one couple around me at the mdr say they would never cruise msc again. i will go on msc again and am curious on trying her in europe. i tried costa in europe a few years ago and was very disappointed but would like to compare.

i sailed on her last fall so if things have changed someone please update this...

the ship's tv will not show much baseball, college or pro football. i did a back to back during the mlb playoffs and world series and missed many of the games. for the nfl i think they had only the monday night game iirc and for college football there was a game or two on the entire week but it was always with teams not ranked. if you want soccer and darts you should be happy.

those rules are only for the main dining rooms during dinner and even then you might see a person or two sneak in wearing ripped faded blue jeans and flip flops. people wear whatever they want 24/7 everywhere except for dinner.

i don't have kids so i can't remember if the divina also had milk at breakfast in pint cartoons or just in the self serve dispensers. what you can do is bring along some drink cups and take milk back to your cabin frig for the kids . same goes with the breakfast juices. every cruise line has something besides water 24/7 but they always have the most juices at breakfast and before lunchtime turn most dispensers off so some people take juices back to their rooms.

whoops read your post as you having a 2 and 7 year old girl so i guess milk isn't so important. you can even find tea bags of 6-8 flavors in the mornings to make hot or cold tea later on. there is sugar on the tables and you could bring drink mix powders from home.

Normally your luggage stays onboard. I know of only one instance where the B2B pax had to take everything off with them. Happened about 4 years ago in Long Beach.

i had to do it last fall out of miami on the msc divina.

twice i have gone to the port without knowing what cabin i would have. one time i booked a week out and the other 60 hours before sail. both times carnival people and the porters looked at their paper lists and said you aren't listed anywhere but when i showed my paperwork and they chatted a bit on their walkie talkies i was walked to a supervisor. both times i'd say i saved time compared to the avg wait in line. when solo i love gty and like not knowing what i will get and do it without a second thought.

it is in a high traffic area and in plain sight.

they are inside and can be very disorganized and take a long time because of people arriving late because of the language barriers. if you have someone in your party who needs to sit down arrive early if you are unlucky enough to have a meeting place that doesn't have many seats. on my two divina cruises i was disappointed to see many adults in their 20's-40's and their teenage kids not offer their seats to the disabled and elderly.

when the ncl epic was new the company did a goof and the solo studio was advertised at the rate for 3rd person in a cabin. the deal lasted about 48 hours before the goof was fixed. the months available to choose your sail date was pretty large and i paid $350 for the 7 nights. the cost was $850 before and after the goof the discovered.

i just got it. i've got a pretty warped sense of humor and find it funny even though my mom died last year but darn it there must be a few people sleepwalking at the sales departments.

they do all kinds of trivia on a 7 day cruise including movie and music trivia where they play clips so i'm assuming they will do it on a 4 night. they also do some party games. i'm not really into it i think it was things like pictionary and scatagories. a guy doing simon says was funny. tv is pretty darn poor if you want american sports.

i'm thinking of doing the divina in april. will it have the free booze for an hour on the second day also?

i've done one final cruise on the carnival holiday and i liked it. i've never done a inaugural and i liked the final cruise so much i'm going to do those.

If your kids have instruments I say bring them. Better to have it and not need than need it and not have it.

bringing on instruments is not allowed by the cruise lines usually.

a quick google

http://www.carnival.com/Funville/forums/t/112166.aspx

• Musical Instruments: Only if the guest is participating in a pre-approved ship performance.

it would be a nightmare if strangers who booked a cabin together as part of a group like 40 or 50 people in a singles cruise group had to find their cabin mate before they could get on the ship.

i am not a audio video person so i'm just asking...

since the system is closed circuit tv will anyone who changes their tv to the channel you are using [#3-4 probably] see the video? and this is why cruise ships, hotels, etc.. go through great lengths not to allow this to happen? back in the day when vcrs were a new thing in my college dorm halls there would be notices from the school to the freshmen asking not bring and plug in their vcrs but drunken nitwits wanting to see their porn did it anyway.

So this might be a really stupid question but I like beer in my margarita so can I buy a beer and marg at the same time?

they have the margarita cerveza in their drink menus.

everyone else leaving the ship....

about 15 cruises-1 excursion.

a new years eve cruise is going to be a zoo. sad but true and that explains all the bozos who smoked around the ship. i like my football but i agree with you about the football game. they should have kicked out the football fans and started the show. gospel in a piano bar is strange. try again not during a holiday?

I am not into football so don't know exactly what they were airing, but they were showing games in the sports bar and on the big deck screen during our 2 weeks on Divina (Nov/Dec 2014). Some fans were very happy!

 

they show the sunday night and monday night nfl games only so they don't show a one or four pm game on sunday or the thursday night game. saturday was euro soccer all the time on their sports channels. or darts. one college football game starting at night because over there it and early in the morning but trust me they were throwing those darts to decide what games to air and they picked dogs. no midweek college football was shown either.

op forgot to write the word 'the' before sun

2nd poster reads sun as sunday