MSC Devina 09-16 April 2016

Overall, a good cruise experience.  Very clean ship; however, the crew did not dispense hand sanitizer at entrances to restaurants and the buffet, as found on other cruise lines.  About half of the self-service hand sanitizer dispensers failed to function correctly.   The ship's library that was available to all passengers was very poorly located inside of a conference room featuring classroom seating and had only a few shelves of English language books.   Worst library found in all of our cruise experiences.   We suspect that the private library available exclusively to Yacht Club passengers had a much better selection of books.

 Food and beverage quality and selection was average in comparison with other cruise lines.  One noteworthy item was a beverage coupon book sold for US$84 which contained 18 coupons good for beverage purchases up to $8 each.   That resulted in an average price of $4.67.   The other good thing about this offering is that it is not tied to one passenger's shipboard account.  Just tear off coupons and use them whenever and wherever you want without regard to who is the user.   So a couple can purchase one ticket book rather than both passengers having to purchase separate drink packages, as is true on many other cruise line beverage plans.

Another good point was MSC's new program of awarding equivalent status to members of other cruise line member loyalty programs.   We are "elite" status members of Celebrity's Captain's Club.  After submitting the necessary online application, MSC awarded us "Black Card" status in their Voyagers Club, which is their highest level.   Good marketing strategy.