JamieLogical's Live from the MSC Divina 2/11

[Mark_T]

47 minutes ago, JamieLogical said:

There is something going on at the port of Miami. They are diverting all of the traffic to the Cargo area and we can't get to the cruise terminal area at all.

We must have got through just ahead of whatever is happening, there was no queue through the tunnel at that time and traffic was flowing well. 
 

we left Brickell at 10:35 and boarded just ahead of the first boarding calls for those with mobility issues. Reached the lounge onboard just after 11:00am. 
 

There are 8 ships in today so it is going to be busy, but hope the delay isn’t long for you …

[JamieLogical]

Well, after a long diversion and a $20 tip to out very flustered Lyft driver, we did make it onboard. Two big things of note: they don't give you your key card at check-in. It was left on our cabin door. And the other big thing is that we DO NOT have My Choice dining despite what the app said. We have a 6:00pm seating in the Black Crab.

[Mark_T]

3 minutes ago, JamieLogical said:

Well, after a long diversion and a $20 tip to out very flustered Lyft driver, we did make it onboard.

Glad you’ve made it onboard, shame about the fixed dining time though. 

Edited February 11 by Mark_T

[stefmaia]

6 hours ago, JamieLogical said:

Last night we ended up at a place called Lincoln's Beer Brewery for some beer and food. The food is provided by a separate food stand out back of the brewery called Tacos & Tattoos. We loved the atmosphere and the beer was pretty good, as was the food. It was a nice little side trip, even if it did mean an extra round of Lyft rides. We came back to the hotel after, watched a movie, and then got to bed pretty early and now I am awake *too* early!

One of my favorite hangouts! Which of the beers did you try?

[markwfpb]

1 hour ago, JamieLogical said:

Well, after a long diversion and a $20 tip to out very flustered Lyft driver, we did make it onboard. 

 

Do you think there was actually something going on at the port or just the usual?! 
Seems like that's the case whenever we've been through there - I think to myself this can't ALWAYS be how it is - an hour to get just a few miles! Wish there was a high speed rail option or express lane for a bus or something!

We always end up tipping our Lyft drivers too - seems like the right thing to do in that situation!

Happy cruising from here on out!

[DaKahuna]

3 hours ago, JamieLogical said:

Well, after a long diversion and a $20 tip to out very flustered Lyft driver, we did make it onboard. Two big things of note: they don't give you your key card at check-in. It was left on our cabin door. And the other big thing is that we DO NOT have My Choice dining despite what the app said. We have a 6:00pm seating in the Black Crab.

 Sorry to hear of your issues.  We did not have as much trouble.  Documenting our boarding over on my thread to not distract from yours.

[JamieLogical]

I apologize for the bold text. I work in Google Docs and then copy my blogs here for fear of losing them if my wifi drops and for some reason, when I copy from Google Docs, even if I copy into Notepad first, it comes through as all bold. If I try to paste as plain text, I lose all of my line breaks.

 

Yesterday was embarkation day. We woke up around 6:00, despite our best efforts to sleep in. That meant hanging out around our hotel room for quite a long time. The hotel didn’t offer continental breakfast, but there was a restaurant that was supposed to offer a la carte breakfast. Turns out, that was a lie. The restaurant offered the same, sad breakfast buffet that most hotels offer for free, but charged $15 per person for it! Since I don’t usually eat breakfast anyway and had only gone down there to keep my husband company, I turned around and went back to the room. My husband, to his regret, paid the $15 and was duly disappointed.

 

Our free time in our room did give us a chance to play some original Mario Kart on my husband’s Nintendo Switch. We had just watched a YouTube documentary about the making of the game the night before we left, so we were feeling nostalgic about the game. It is still just as much fun as I remember from when I was a kid, but my husband got pretty sick of getting his butt kicked, so we only played two of the cup circuits before he was ready to quit. Fun fact about me: I used to want to be a race car driver. When I was in the 4th grade, my parents gave me a choice between a midget car and a trip to Space Camp. I foolishly chose the trip to Space Camp, which was only a week, instead of the car that I could have driven for a couple of years. The moral of this story: don’t expect 10-year-olds to make good, long-term decisions! If I could have been a midget car driver, who knows where I would be today! Probably not on this beautiful cruise ship balcony, watching the sunrise.

 

I was getting anxious to get to the port, so we left the hotel room around 10:00. I had to wait in a bit of a line to check out of the hotel. People kept just skipping the line and popping their heads in up at the counter, which was good practice for my patience that would be needed on the cruise.

 

Despite the obviously huge rush of people heading to the cruise terminal, Lyft was a reasonable price (I believe it was $17) when I ordered it. Things went smoothly until we got within the vicinity of the terminal and then they had every single road with a sign that said “To Cruise Terminals” barricaded and police directing traffic to the cargo shop area of the port. Cars were stopping to argue with the police officers and the police officers were having none of it and directing that everyone had to go to the cargo section. Traffic was not moving AT ALL and it was so frustrating to see Terminal C just across a few concrete barriers, chain link fences, and roads from us and be heading away from it. I have never experienced anything like this at the Port of Miami. There is usually traffic, sure, but not all these blocked roads.

 

I really don’t understand what the point of any of it was, other to make everyone sit in cars and be incredibly frustrated for an extra 20 minutes. I felt especially bad for our Lyft driver who got way more than he bargained for. My husband tipped him $10 cash as he finally dropped us off and I tipped him $10 through the app. He probably missed out on at least one other fare with our detour. Oh, my favorite part was when Lyft kept sending me automated Safety Checks to make sure my Lyft driver hadn’t like kidnapped me or something because it could see that we were off our scheduled route.

 

Once we finally got to the terminal, dropping our bags with the porters was easy. We ended up at the wrong entrance door for our deck, though, so we had to walk the exterior length of the terminal to the “west” entrance. Once inside, there was literally no line for security or check-in. We still went to the priority check-in spot, since I am Diamond and were given boarding group 2. Boarding had already started though and by the time we got to the gangway area, they had called group 6, so we headed straight out to the gangway and that is where the backup started.

 

At check-in, we were surprised to learn that they were not handing out keycards inside the terminal. Instead, they were leaving them on door hangers on each cabin door. That meant to board the ship, you needed to keep you boarding pass bar code out and handy. Well, it seems not everyone was doing that, as there was a lot of delay as people dug through their luggage or pockets in search of the boarding passes they had already put away. We ended up having to stand on the gangway for what felt like a very long time as the line moved VERY slowly for people to actually enter the ship.

 

Once onboard, we went straight to our room to get our keycard because no keycard equals no drinks! We ran into our room steward in the hall who told us our room wasn’t ready (which we obviously already expected), but said we could drop our stuff in there if we wanted. I took him up on that so I wouldn’t have to lug my backpack all around the ship.

 

Once we had our keycards, we were disappointed to have our hopes of My Choice dining dashed. If you haven’t been following all my earlier posts, we had been excited to see our dining type listed as “My Choice” in the app prior to sailing. We had hoped MSC was experimenting with My Choice dining for Fantastica. But, alas, we were assigned a 6:00pm seating in the Black Crab. At least we got the early seating that we requested!

 

We headed down to Butcher’s Cut, which the Welcome Aboard sheet said was where we needed to go to make dinner reservations. When we got to the entrance, there wasn’t a soul in sight. I checked the sheet again and it did say something about “normal opening hours” and the sign on the door said that Butchers Cut didn’t open until 6:00pm, so we decided to come back later.

 

We ended up at the Cafe Italia bar, as it was the first one we came across that was open. I had hoped to get my usual Mojito as my first cruise drink, but the bar didn’t have any limes yet, so I went with a double vodka & ginger beer. My husband went for a rum & coke. We then decided to wander with our drinks a bit and see if we could find a spot with a view. We remembered that we had seen the Black & White lounge had big, aft-facing windows, so we headed back there, but on our way, we discovered a second entrance to Butcher’s Cut that actually had a little reservations desk set up. Who knew there were two entrances?

 

There was only one person ahead of us in line and we ended up chatting with him quite a bit. He and his wife just got off three weeks on the Seascape and were looking forward to the quieter, smaller ship. Apparently, they are retired and just cruise all the time. Life goals!

 

We were able to reserver Butcher’s Cut for the night we are in Ocho Rios, but held off on any sushi reservations since we aren’t really sure when we will want to do that. Then we headed back to the Black & White lounge and enjoyed some seats near the windows. While there, we spotted the Goodyear Blimp circling around overhead. No idea why it would be here in Miami right now.

 

After a second round of drinks, we headed up to the buffet for lunch. The buffet was busy, of course, but not as bad as a typical embarkation day on other ships, I don’t think. We were able to get a table right against the aft-facing windows, which was nice. I found some cheese and cold cuts, some kind of beef strips in sauce, a bunch of pastas, a slice of pizza, and a triangle of quesadilla. The pasta, except for the mac & cheese, wasn’t great. The quesadilla had no flavor at all. The cheese, cold cuts, and pizza saved the day. For dessert, my husband found me a square of mango cheesecake that was pretty good.

 

We went back to the room a little early. Rooms were supposed to be ready at 2:00 and I think it was about 1:45. It wasn’t long after we got back to the room that the announcement was made that rooms were ready. We were pleasantly surprised to see all four of our bags already at our door when we got there. My husband had checked his backpack with the porter, not knowing that we would be able to take it directly to our room. So that was there along with our three suitcases.

 

I put out the makeup room sign to get our attendant’s attention because I wanted to request more hangers, an extra towel, and for our mini fridge to be unlocked and emptied. He came right back with the towel (actually two), six wire hangers, and said that he would empty the mini-fridge this evening when he did turndown. I asked if he could bring a few more hangers in the evening as well.

 

We then proceeded to nap HARD. I guess those double vodka & ginger beers and rum & cokes really hit us hard, along with the ton of food from the buffet. I think we napped until around 3:00 or 3:30? Muster was at 4:30. We went down to Cafe Italia for some afternoon coffee, and then we decided to get our unpacking done and were JUST finishing that up when they called our deck number for muster. We headed down to our muster station on deck 7 and rather than swim upstream to try to get back to our room, we went out on the promenade deck and checked out our surroundings. While looking off the back of the ship, we spotted a manatee that swam right under us!

 

Eventually, we went back inside and decided to explore deck 6 a bit. We wandered around, tried to link my credit card to our keycards (I say tried, because the machine we were at was finicky and we gave up). Then we sat in the theater for a bit. I was surprised to see that the theater on this ship is bigger than the one on the Meraviglia, despite being a smaller ship.

 

They did call the all-clear at some point. I didn’t actually hear the announcement over all the people cheering and clapping in the atrium. I knew it would be impossible to get a drink for a while, which is why we decided to sit in the theater.

 

Eventually, we decided to try to get a drink to bring to dinner with us. We ultimately ended up back at Cafe Italia, because the other bars we passed were SLAMMED. I got another vodka & gingerbeer and we headed to the Black Crab. It was just before 6:00 and there was a line at the door, so we found a couple of chairs at the Divina Lounge and sat where we could keep an eye ont he line. Once the line died down a bit, we headed inside. We were excited to see we got a table by the window, very similar to the one we had on our last Meraviglia sailing, though this one was a six-top, instead of an eight-top. We positioned ourselves where we could see out the window since none of our tablemates had arrived.

 

Well, none of our tablemates ever arrived and we ended up having the whole table to ourselves. We had a nice chat with our waiters. I got the Spanish delights, the lasagna bolognese, and some kind of custard dessert. My husband got the chicken croquettes, the prime rib, and the Grandma’s chocolate cake. We got to watch out the window as we sailed past the NCL terminal, the RCCL terminal, and the new MSC terminal that is under construction.

 

After dinner, we went up to deck 15 aft to see a little more of the sail away from the city. We then explored the upper decks a bit. Eventually, we ended up at the Black & White Lounge, which initially had a band playing music that got a lot of people dancing. That was a lot of fun and I ended up even dancing along when they started line dancing to Achy Breaky Heart. After the band finished, there was a dance lesson where they were teaching the Cha Cha Cha, which was very popular and everyone was having a blast.

 

We then decided to check out a bar we saw listed on the daily, but hadn’t actually come across yet, La Luna Piano Bar. Unfortunately, we got there just as a guitarist was finishing his set. However, we ended up hanging out for a bit, because it is a really nice venue. I think it has my favorite decor of any of the spaces on the Divina so far. Eventually, a pianist began to play, but the music was a little too sleep-inducing for the “late” hour and we decided to move along.

 

We just went back to the room and my husband decided to hang out there while I went to pay my daily tithes to the casino gods. I actually didn’t do *too* badly and only ended up down a little bit. I then headed up to the buffet for late late-night snack to see if they did the 10:00pm cookies, like on the Meraviglia. Their late-night snack options were definitely inferior to the Meraviglia. All they had was pizza, burgers, hot dogs, french fries, and some pre-made sandwiches. There was no salad bar, fruit, or desserts of any kind.

 

After having my late-night slice of pizza, I headed down to bed.

 

Overall, our first impressions of the Divina are very positive. Despite being one of the oldest ships we’ve ever been on, it seems very well maintained. We really like all of the small venues with live music. The music isn’t as loud as on the Meraviglia, and the whole vibe just seems a bit more chill. The crew and service seem great! Our room steward was eager to fulfill our special requests. The bartenders have all been happy and friendly. Our waiters at dinner were very chatty. We haven’t gotten to interact with as many fellow quests as we would like. I would guess that maybe 20% of passengers are American, so there is a definitely language barrier when it comes to other guests so far.

 

Day's Drinks: Double vodka and ginger beer, Mojito, Americano w/ Bailey’s, Double vodka and ginger beer, Hugo Spritz, French 77

[JamieLogical]

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited February 12 by JamieLogical

[TrinaLC]

Wow, a manatee!  Never seen one in that harbor but know to look now!

 

One of my favorite things about the Divina is all the small music venues that you mentioned. I that feature really serves well to distribute the guests plus each to his own. And I agree, it isn’t too loud. 
 

I also love the promenade which goes “mostly” around the ship - and notice you have one of the coveted larger angled balconies. How do you like it?

 

[DaKahuna]

Your balcony is larger than ours but the room layout, except the bathroom of course, is very similar.  Our TV is a little larger too. Otherwise very much the same.

We also are seeing a similar demographic of multiple nationalities. 
 

We are keeping an eye out for you as we wander around the ship. 
 

[Rob-Bob]

We sailed on the Divina in March 2016 when she was pretty new.  We loved the Divina and stayed in room 11224.  This is a big angled balcony.  We could have fit 15 people on it at one time. It was huge.

 

This was back when a balcony was a balcony and they were all the same price regardless of deck and size of balcony.  All the same price😀  The good old days!!

Edited February 12 by Rob-Bob

[Jeep Driver]

Thanks for sharing those excellent pictures. Your cabin looks really nice! Surprised to see the manatee!

[Beamafar]

Just to say that you don’t need your cruisecard to get a drink on embarkation.  You just need to tell the server your cabin number and, if you have a drinks package included, it’ll show on the system. I assume they can charge to your cabin if you don’t. 

[Beamafar]

Lovely to see the Diamond perk bottle of bubbly & treats awaiting your arrival in the cabin.  I haven’t seen that in quite some time (except for YC - and they’ve done away with that, too).  It’s usually delivered some time during the cruise. 
 

That’s quite some feat to get all those photos uploaded - and the spaces in between. Is there a knack to it?  I know how to insert photos, but I have to hit the space bar after I’ve inserted each one, then go and insert the next photo, etc.  I’m wondering if there’s an easier way than the way I do it. 

[Dunchues]

We're having a great time so far on the same boat. We were here last February also, and I'm not sure if this is a new crew or not as they're sort of racing to catch up but definitely getting there. I did have a weird experience at lunch today, no religious effigies or anything but there's definitely a pig in my fish and chips!

[copper6606]

Really looking forward to following along on your Journey. Thanks so much for posting.

We are sailing on the Divine in April for her TransAtlantic voyage . First time with MSC  - so I'm reading everything I can . 

Could you tell me what dock area to get the Uber to drop us at the Miami Cruise Port? 

We are also staying in Hollywood, Fl the night before and were wondering if anyone had any suggestions of transport from their to Miami Cruise Port?

[TrinaLC]

27 minutes ago, copper6606 said:

Really looking forward to following along on your Journey. Thanks so much for posting.

We are sailing on the Divine in April for her TransAtlantic voyage . First time with MSC  - so I'm reading everything I can . 

Could you tell me what dock area to get the Uber to drop us at the Miami Cruise Port? 

We are also staying in Hollywood, Fl the night before and were wondering if anyone had any suggestions of transport from their to Miami Cruise Port?

Copper, we are in the same TA sailing. Our fifth time on Divina, we love this ship and the YC crew is fantastic. 
 

Divina usually uses Pier C. The YC drop-off tent is just as the cars enter into the Pier  C drive (so you see it first). 
 

We have found Uber/Lyft to be the best for Miami transport but not sure from Hollywood. 
 

One piece of advice is to bring 2 or 3 plug adapters so you can use the several European receptacles in your room that would otherwise go to ‘waste’. Divina is older so not enough receptacles and no dedicated USB ports. 
 

 

Edited February 13 by TrinaLC

[copper6606]

36 minutes ago, TrinaLC said:

Copper, we are in the same TA sailing. Our fifth time on Divina, we love this ship and the YC crew is fantastic. 
 

Divina usually uses Pier C. The YC drop-off tent is just as the cars enter into the Pier  C drive (so you see it first). 
 

We have found Uber/Lyft to be the best for Miami transport but not sure from Hollywood. 
 

One piece of advice is to bring 2 or 3 plug adapters so you can use the several European receptacles in your room that would otherwise go to ‘waste’. Divina is older so not enough receptacles and no dedicated USB ports. 
 

 

Great advice . I do have one Adaptor and an Inverter - perhaps I should get another. 

We are not in YC - Do "we peasants " get dropped off in the same area . Wink Wink😁

[DaKahuna]

Jamie,  will you be going ashore tomorrow or would tomorrow be a good time to try and meet up for a drink onboard? 
 

We’ll probably just walk around the port area, find some coffee beans and come back aboard.

 

[gizfish]

Jaime, have you tried to get a lounge chair for that angled balcony?  I asked on Mera and had such a weird response.  Cabin stewardess said she had to ask supervisor who ultimately said it was not allowed.  When I asked at guest services, it was like no one had ever requested this before.  Finally an officer told the guest services clerk that it was not allowed because it could "break the glass on the balcony."  Guess the large balconies and YC balconies are immune to that safety issue.  Wondering if this is a fleet wide thing.  

[Nikita4]

10 minutes ago, gizfish said:

Jaime, have you tried to get a lounge chair for that angled balcony?  I asked on Mera and had such a weird response.  Cabin stewardess said she had to ask supervisor who ultimately said it was not allowed.  When I asked at guest services, it was like no one had ever requested this before.  Finally an officer told the guest services clerk that it was not allowed because it could "break the glass on the balcony."  Guess the large balconies and YC balconies are immune to that safety issue.  Wondering if this is a fleet wide thing.  

Only cabins in YC and Aurea Suites have lounge chairs. So more you pay, more you get… its like other cruise lines!

[JamieLogical]

Sorry for not replying to everyone yesterday! For some reason I didn't see any notifications that anyone had replied to my blog on my phone. Just now catching up and starting to work on my blog for yesterday. I will be sure to get you all answers to your questions this morning!

[JamieLogical]

21 hours ago, TrinaLC said:

Wow, a manatee!  Never seen one in that harbor but know to look now!

 

One of my favorite things about the Divina is all the small music venues that you mentioned. I that feature really serves well to distribute the guests plus each to his own. And I agree, it isn’t too loud. 
 

I also love the promenade which goes “mostly” around the ship - and notice you have one of the coveted larger angled balconies. How do you like it?

 

 

The angled balcony is great. I always try to book them on every ship that has them. They are usually the same price as the same category cabins around them, but the extra space is great! NCL was the only cruise line that would sometimes bring me a lounge chair upon request, so since starting cruising other lines, I started bringing a collapsible foot stool that fits in my luggage and just using that. Have my feet up on it right now as I am typing this, enjoying my room service coffee and pastries on my balcony!

 

 

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07Y9CPV84/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&psc=1

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited February 13 by JamieLogical

[JamieLogical]

19 hours ago, Beamafar said:

Lovely to see the Diamond perk bottle of bubbly & treats awaiting your arrival in the cabin.  I haven’t seen that in quite some time (except for YC - and they’ve done away with that, too).  It’s usually delivered some time during the cruise. 
 

That’s quite some feat to get all those photos uploaded - and the spaces in between. Is there a knack to it?  I know how to insert photos, but I have to hit the space bar after I’ve inserted each one, then go and insert the next photo, etc.  I’m wondering if there’s an easier way than the way I do it. 

 

So, I make it look easier than it is. The reason my written blog and my photos end up in separate posts is that I type up my blog in Google Docs on my laptop, since Google Docs continuously writes to both your local hard drive and the cloud. That way I won't lose all my work if my wifi drops or something goes hinky. I then copy/paste the completed blog into a post here on CC.

 

After that, I switch to my phone, where all of my photos live. I start a new post and I use the Add Files button to add all of the photos from the previous day in order from oldest to newest. I can usually safely do 10 at a time on the ship's wifi, but if I try to do to too many, I will get an error. Once all of the photos are added to that Add Files box in the bottom of the post, I just hit submit, I don't "Insert" any of them into the actually post. They all get added to the post in the order I uploaded them. Then I go back, edit that post, and enter a line break after each one.

 

[JamieLogical]

10 hours ago, DaKahuna said:

Jamie,  will you be going ashore tomorrow or would tomorrow be a good time to try and meet up for a drink onboard? 
 

We’ll probably just walk around the port area, find some coffee beans and come back aboard.

 

 

We do not plan to go onshore today. Look for us at any of the inside open bars (probably Cafe Italia), drinking some drinks and playing some cards or board games!