Great price, beautiful ship, terrible service, mediocre food, activities/entertainment
MSC Divina Cruise Review to Caribbean - Southern
Contributor Level:
Second Mate
Cruises: 7+ cruises
Reviews: 5
Helpful Votes: 82
11 Night Southern Caribbean & Bahamas (Miami Roundtrip)
Sail date: October 09, 2022
Ship: MSC Divina
Cabin type: Balcony
Cabin number: 11220
Traveled as: Couple
Reviewed: 2 years ago
Review summary
There were many other ports of call not listed in this review. We also went to Aruba, Cartagena Columbia, Colon Panama, Costa Rica and Costa Maya and Miami. We enjoyed visiting these countries and doing excursions there. If you overlook the mediocre service, food and entertainment and look only at the cost of the cruise, this was a great way to visit a lot of countries for an inexpensive price.Embarkation
Disorganized outside the terminal; everyone had to walk up several flights of stairs; escalator turned off. Once inside the terminal things went
Ship experiences
Food and Dining
Food on the buffet was cold to lukewarm. Scrambled eggs were dry and cold every morning. Pancakes were cold. Only offered hash browns one morning. Potatoes on the morning buffet were overly seasoned with paprika, french fries were too salty. The only way to get hot eggs was to get them made to order. Not much variety on buffet. Buffet was very crowded. Main dining room was hit and miss. Some meals were very good, others were not; only allowed one lobster on surf and turf night. Main dining room offered a vegan choice every night and all of the other choices were usually seafood with one meat choice. There were only juice size cups for water and tea, so you had to fill multiple glasses. The pizza they had every day at breakfast and lunch buffet was good. They only offered hot panini sandwiches on port days, and they were very good. No soda only drink package offered. Good prices on liquor drink packages.
Onboard Activities
Pools were all salt-water. No hot tub in the adult only area, just a pool that was 4 ft deep. Main pools were all 5-6 ft deep, and not good for hanging out in. Most activities were held outside on the main pool deck where it was loud and noisy. Not an ideal area to do trivia or bingo. They had daily stretching and aerobics on the pool deck and dance lessons. There were two water slides.
Entertainment
The second comedian was awful. We enjoyed the juggler and magicians. The stage show performers were OK, but not great. The staff variety show was great. The saxophone and piano bar players were great.
Service and Staff
Wait staff in buffet did not offer to bring you water/tea. They only brought drinks to people with a drink package or who were buying a drink. Main dining room wait staff did not refill tea without asking and then had to ask more than once. You only got 1 beach towel per day after the steward cleaned your room. You could not exchange beach towels on the swim decks. We had to pay a deposit of $30 to borrow an extension cord for my CPAP and go to the main reception desk and wait in line to get it and return it at the end of the trip. There were only 220V plugs by the beds. There were two 120V plugs by the desk. The ship kept local time, so there were at least 3 time changes during the trip. Two people showed up an hour late to the Veteran's gathering because they missed the time change.
Ship Quality
This is a beautiful ship! There was an elevator on the aft end that would not go all the way to the main floor, so that was confusing. There wasn't an app, so you had to look at the maps by the elevators to find where you wanted to go. You had to take a picture of the daily program and planner or take the papers with you. Everything was clean and well-maintained. There were strip lights on all the stairs in the main theater that caused depth perception issues as to how far you needed to step down to reach the next step. We saw many people fall or trip on the stairs in the theater. There wasn't a rail along the steps in the theater except on the outside walls. Internet for one device can not be logged out and shared with another device. The muster drill required everyone to walk down flights of stairs from their room to muster station. People with canes were seen on the stairs struggling instead of being allowed to use the elevators. There were mirrors everywhere, some of which my husband ran into thinking it was a hallway.
Cabin / Stateroom
Our cabin was nice. We enjoyed the balcony. Closet was directly across from bathroom door, so that created some problems. Bed was very hard and pillows were firm. We asked for a mattress topper, but didn't get one. Cabin was clean, but toilet always had a slight urine smell.
Ship tip
Take a picture of the daily planner/program and ship map. Skip most of the entertainment.
Thumbs up
0
Ports of call
We were there two days early and went to Cocoa Beach Pier to watch the SpaceX Rocket launch. I saw a shark twice while at the beach, so be aware! We had a wonderful lunch at Pizza Vola just a block or so from the beach.
We did not stop in Nassau, but we stopped at their private island, Ocean Cay. It was very nice. The buffet was good and there were plenty of chairs for everyone. We wished we could have stayed for the evening lighthouse show.
Disembarkation
Worst experience ever! We did the express self-assist and it took 1 1/2 hours from the time we were in line until we were off the ship. Extremely disorganized! Since it was a repositioning cruise, many people had to rent cars to return to Port Canaveral from Miami.
9 Comments
CruzeFan 2 years ago
Thanks for the review. I was on the same cruise and thought it was excellent. The food in the dining room and buffet was always good. I was always able to get iced tea or water from the servers in the Buffet with no issue. A gentleman at our table had six lobsters on elegant night and another lady had five, so there was no issue getting more than one from out sever. I thought the entertainment was much better than on carnival or royal Caribbean, other than the second comedian and magicians were not great. The disembarkation issues were partially due to immigration and customs being short staffed due to many being at a funeral for an agent who was killed in a training accident.