Fabulous Cruise

Our cruise November 11-21, 2015 on the MSC Divina was absolutely fabulous.

Nov. 11, 2015

We had a very long wait in the terminal to board, but I understand that the delay was caused from the ship having just come back to Miami from the Med. Our Customs people did an extra special check of the ship.

We boarded about 12:30 and were able to go directly to our cabin to drop things off, then off to the fabulous buffet. There was such an array of foods to eat that you were full just looking at everything. As usual the staff was very helpful with helping me with my tray of food and my drink. All of the food I had was great, my only problem is that my eyes are bigger than my stomach.

Tom asked if they had anchovy pizza and was told no.  When Tom said something to Govanni , he was told that there would be some the next day for him. There wasn’t any the next day so Tom stopped Giovanni  and asked him about it. He went to the pizzeria and personally made an anchovy pizza for Tom and brought it to the buffet for him.

At about 2 o’clock we went to the Silver lounge and met with Nicollas Figueiredo, absolutely The BEST PVC with MSC. We were able to talk with him for quite awhile before he had his next meeting.

Our wait staff in the dining room was the greatest. Dwi was very professional and after the first night he made sure that we had our Iced tea waiting on us when we walked into the dining room. We were always greeted with a smile and a “How was your day?” Dwi always made us feel like we were the only table he had to take care every night. 

After the second night Livue sent Najib Bhahtiar, the Head Waiter of our section to our table and a couple times every night he would come over and make sure everything was ok.

On the 3rd or 4th morning onboard we saw Livue in the Buffet and I asked him if it would be possible to get two orders of Caprese salad for dinner. To my surprise when I sat down at the table Dwi brought us 2 large plates of Caprese salad. It was so good and special.  Every evening Livue would bring us a special appetizer for the four of us to split. This made the entire cruise so much more special to us.

Mario came by our table every night and would stand and talk to the 4 of us. They even made a point to seek us out at breakfast or lunch to talk to us and ask us how things were. When we saw either Mario or Giovanni in the buffet they made a special point to come talk to us.

We were confused about the credit card set up and the Customer Service Rep was more than glad to come over and help us set our acct. up. We were always greeted by them with a smile and a “Hello, how is your day?”

The one bad side of the entire cruise was that our cabin person was very slow with our cabin. For one he never introduced himself to us. In fact we weren’t even sure which one he was. There were many days we would leave the cabin about 7:30 for breakfast and return about 10:30 and our cabin hadn’t been made up yet and there was no cart in site.  This definitely didn’t damper our cruise at all.

We went to trivia almost every day. Jamie Castillo and Zuni did a great job. Hector on the other hand needs a lot more training. He is very very hard to understand and refuses to spell the words out that we can’t understand. We did let Zuni and Jamie know and they said that they would work with him more.

We went to crafts a couple of times onboard and Khaoula Ameziane did an excellent job of teaching us our crafts. We thoroughly enjoyed making the t-shirts. She has such a way about her when she is crafting. She is so helpful and nurturing when you are doing crafts with her.

We enjoyed the Entertainment team very much while onboard. They are a great group of people.

We enjoyed all of the ports except Colon Panama. Yes we enjoyed being able to see the ships go thru the canal from our balcony but the port of Colon is a very scary place.  If there could be a different port to go to in Panama it would be better.

We did a ship sponsored tour in Costa Rica, PL126. I enjoyed it very much except for a couple of ladies that wanted to shop and didn’t care about other people. When the train stopped for a picture opt of a sloth this one particular lady got off the train and wondered off. The tour guide had to go and get her which delayed our train by 30 minutes. The boat ride on the river was very interesting and we were able to see a lot of animals in their natural habitat.

The other ports we have been to many times and just enjoyed a day onboard. We got off the ship long enough to look around in the port and then got back onboard to enjoy the peace and quiet of the ship.

Once again MSC has delivered an absolutely fabulous cruise, and we had the best time. Were there minor problems on this cruise,  yes. Were they worth fretting about and letting it ruin our cruise, No way.  

Since this was a cruise to celebrate our 36th wedding anniversary it was even more special. A couple of days before the cruise I gave Tom his anniversary present, a 10 day cruise onboard the gorgeous MSC Divina on the 11th of Jan. 2016. He was so shocked that Nicollas and I pulled this off without him finding out about it.  So, we will see you again onboard on Jan. 11, 2016. Which also happens to be Tom’s 64th birthday.

So until then have a great day.

Tom and Gerry Harris