Excelllent cruise, but not the excursions

Item: MSC Divina
Rating: 4
Author: jcjl

MSC Divina Cruise Review to Caribbean - Eastern

jcjl

Contributor Level: Cruise Director

Cruises: 2-3 cruises

Review: 1

Helpful Votes: 47

Overall rating:

4 out of 5

7 Night Eastern Caribbean (Miami Roundtrip)

Sail date: November 21, 2015

Ship: MSC Divina

Cabin type: Balcony

Cabin number: 13029

Traveled as: Couple

Reviewed: 8 years ago

Review summary

Our first experience of the Caribbean and the American cruise market and we enjoyed ourselves immensely. We have used MSC in the past in the Mediterranean and found the standards kept up, except for what appeared to be a reduced number of course options in the main restaurants. One gripe (if it could be called that is that whilst we booked a 14 night cruise, the result was two 7 night cruises (back to back) and we were not advised of this at any time until during the cruise when we learnt that there were some restrictions (not able to book excursions for the second week, having to leave the boat at Miami during the change-over and a repeated on board itinerary ). It would have been nice to understand this beforehand and be able to set our own schedule accordingly. The other ‘issue’ we had was with the excursions – apart from not being able to book the second week during the first, we felt that too much was attempted to be put into each excursion resulting on rushing through the stops and not getting the full benefit. There was also insufficient leeway to allow for when people on the excursion delated it by not returning to the meeting point in the correct time. We have to say, that even with these couple of issues, we enjoyed the cruise (hence the 4* overall result) and are returning for another back to back cruise (this time with full knowledge of the implications and advised of the fact by MSC) in October 2016.

Ship experiences

Food and Dining

5 out of 5

Entertainment

3 out of 5

We enjoyed the couple of shows we watched, but the entertainment is not the prime purpose for us.

Service and Staff

5 out of 5

Ship Quality

5 out of 5

Cabin / Stateroom

5 out of 5

Traveler Photos

7 Comments

Gwbigdog 2 years ago

Thanks for sharing your cruise.

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lisamarieh 8 years ago

The drink vouchers we purchased were $84 for 18 drinks. If you prepay online for the vouchers you can avoid paying the 15% service charge. On the ship, it comes out to $96 and change for the same package.

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yulonda123 8 years ago

Someone said that we can purchase drink vouchers for as cheap as $48 for 15 drinks. Is this true! If so, that wouldn't be a bad way to go. I was told that you can purchase as many as you want.

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jcjl 8 years ago

Yes, had Aurea package, so also got a nice massage included and access to deck 18 Solarium. Worked out lower cost than Fantastica + drinks package.

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jolee416 8 years ago

Yes balcony and also the drinks package

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jvinny1976 8 years ago

July cruise on the Divina. Glad to hear positive reviews! Did you have a balcony room?

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jolee416 8 years ago

Hi, we did a back to back on Divina 2 years ago and we where told just in chatting with other cruisers that we had to get off at Miami, but we checked with reception just to make sure and we didn't actually have to get off the ship and was also advised that our room could have been changed, this also didn't happen, the cruise was fab and our 1st with msc, done another 3 since then and our next one on Sunday, the ships are beautiful

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Other reviews of this sailing

so glad i did this

MSC Divina Cruise Review to Caribbean - Eastern

POOR SERVICE