MSC Divina May 27 - Any requests for review?

Hey a big thanks to everyone on this board for helping us prepare for this cruise. I found MSC customer service to be let's say less than informative, but the people here are amazing. Now, to give back, I plan on posting a review of our cruise leaving on May 27. However, I'd like to do it a little differently. I would like for others getting ready to cruise to leave me some areas, experiences, situations, etc. that they would like more information on. I'll try to capture some pictures as well. Consider me to be your investigator and I'll try my best to throw some information your way to help you the same way others have helped me and my family. Please submit anything you would like for me to find out for you and I'll report back when we return.

A few things to know ahead:

- We'll be in Fantastica Interior

- We don't drink or smoke

- We have two daughters 12 and 6 who will be attending kids activities

- We will attend shows

- We will not be doing any tours in ports. We plan on renting a car and exploring on our own

- We will be going to El Yunque

Ask away ahead of time so I can pay attention to the details. (This is not a strength according to my wife so I'll need your help :D)

Looking forward to your review. MSC is on our bucket list and we read every Divina review. :)

I'll be very interested to hear what your daughters think of the kids activities and the ship in general. We're going with my two, ages 8 and 11, in July. Really though, anything you can share about the Divina will be great! Thanks so much for this :)

I'll try my best to get some info on the kids club. I know mine are excited for the cooking class and the Lego stuff. They're very outspoken so I'm sure I'll get some feedback

I'm also very interested in the kids club activities . Also sailing in July (same time as cutepsychokitty) with grand babies age 8,7,& 5.

Also curious about the photographs and photo packages . If you are going to purchase or have pre-ordered any photos , could you please share your experience ? TIA

Hey a big thanks to everyone on this board for helping us prepare for this cruise. I found MSC customer service to be let's say less than informative, but the people here are amazing. Now, to give back, I plan on posting a review of our cruise leaving on May 27. However, I'd like to do it a little differently. I would like for others getting ready to cruise to leave me some areas, experiences, situations, etc. that they would like more information on. I'll try to capture some pictures as well. Consider me to be your investigator and I'll try my best to throw some information your way to help you the same way others have helped me and my family. Please submit anything you would like for me to find out for you and I'll report back when we return.

 

A few things to know ahead:

- We'll be in Fantastica Interior

- We don't drink or smoke

- We have two daughters 12 and 6 who will be attending kids activities

- We will attend shows

- We will not be doing any tours in ports. We plan on renting a car and exploring on our own

- We will be going to El Yunque

 

Ask away ahead of time so I can pay attention to the details. (This is not a strength according to my wife so I'll need your help :D)

Hey, just want to let you know we'll be on the ship, too!

We have 2 daughters, 4 and 6; the 6 year old will definitely do the kids club; 4 year old will probably be by the pool with mom most of the time!

Sounds great. I'm not sure on photo packages but I'll do my best to find some info. I'll definitely share our experiences with the kids club. Jacksonx, my 6 yr old is a girl too, so I'm sure they'll see each other in the club!

We are on this cruise too! Can't wait to get onboard! Our youngest is 12 so maybe he will see your daughter in the club.

Like the rest, kids club information! Its super hard to come by and the website doesnt help. I will be going with 22 month old and a 5 year old who turns 6 on the trip, in October.

Do they do the thing where the kids club takes the kids during the meal in the MDR?

Definitely interested in Kids club info

My kids will be 13 and 7 when we cruise. Also renting a car and doing the rain forest.

Thank you in advance.

I'll do my best! We fly down tomorrow!!! I won't have internet until after the cruise, but will be taking plenty of pictures.

Or DS and his friend will be 14 so that would be interesting to see what is around for them.

Also, what flavors of pizza are in the buffet?

We're definitely pizza people so I'll help you with the buffet flavors. Kids are pretty plain cheese kinda girls. Wife ventures out a little but usually goes for just pepperoni. I'm all in though:) try just about all of them

Have a great cruise! Would definitely love to see a review when you get back! Enjoy.

Today is the day! Have a wonderful cruise! I would be interested about any little nooks or "secret" spots on the ship with a view. We are on the Divina next month and can't wait. Enjoy!

I'd like to know if activating your credit card goes smoothly. Specifically did you need a a pin associated with your card...my cc doesn't have one... I heard a few state that it didn't work for them, so I'm taking back up just in case but that would be a big downer if you couldn't get money, lol.

Getting ready to get on. I'll go to work for you guys :)

Have a fantastic cruise !

Hope you have a wonderful time [emoji3]

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Today is the day! Have a wonderful cruise! I would be interested about any little nooks or "secret" spots on the ship with a view. We are on the Divina next month and can't wait. Enjoy!

If you walk to the aft cabins on any of decks 8-13 and turn either right or left, you'll spot a door at either end. They lead out to an open area with stairs leading up to the back of the buffet or down to other decks (depending on the deck you're on). These are terrific viewpoints when in port or for sailaways.

Reds4life ................ have a great trip!

Thanks Bea!

Just got off the boat. I'll be posting soon. I found out plenty of information for everyone.

Looking forward to your review and info

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Hi, I'm 1st time cruiser and just signed it to the site. My cruise is leaving September 24,2017 with MSC Musica and want to get some advice/organize excursions group to see off shore. Please help me.:halo:

Ok, sorry to all for the delay. We had a basketball camp to go to prior to heading home and I didn't have time to post. I am also still working on figuring out the picture posting on here, so bear with me on that. I'll give a few quick impressions in general and then get to your specific questions.

OVERALL - We had a great time. This was our first cruise and we love the experience of cruising as it is very relaxing. The accommodations are outstanding. MSC is very lacking in customer service both on the ship and from the call center. However, the restaurant staff and housekeeping are top notch. The performers in the shows are extremely talented. I felt like they were under utilized in the productions however. If you don't drink alcohol, get the Bella package and not Fantastica.

KIDS CLUB - We went to the meet and greet for the kids club on the evening of our arrival on board. There were two staff members trying to accommodate probably 20 families all trying to sign up their children as quick as possible. It was a hectic scene and I felt sorry for the pair of workers who tried to keep a good attitude despite the chaos. I had to get papers and schedules for myself since they were tied up with parents. Initially, there was some confusion as to which groups my girls could participate in since they were 6 and 12. (The groups are supposed to be 3-6, 7-11, 12-14, and 15-17, but eventually just become 11 and under and 12 and older.)

My older daughter tried the 12-14 group but didn't feel comfortable with the older kids and found the club to be very centered around adolescent boys with video games and dodgeball being the main activities. Lots of sitting for the girls while music plays and the boys play video games was not interesting to her. She didn't see much variety in the program or other sports such as her favorite of basketball. She decided she would just join the 7-11 group for foreign language and cooking.

My younger daughter liked the kids club for the most part, but still said the teachers had to deal with a large amount of kids and many behavior problems most of the time. They also cancelled some activities if they didn't have enough or had too many kids, which was disappointing. The foreign language lesson was shortened because of several behavior issues. The highlights were a very engaging and fun cooking class with one of the chefs and a talent show at the Pantheon theater.

I quickly observed that most of the people waiting wanted more of a babysitting service rather than a supplementary educational program. I was in the minority here as my girls have parents who enjoy spending time with them on vacation and only wanted them in the club to learn something or do something fun that we can't provide. Many of times the counselors let the kids decide as a group what they wanted to do which led to going off script from what the program initially stated. I know that they have their hands full with the behaviors of the some of the kids and the apparent expectation of parents to keep them entertained until all hours of the night. One guy wanted to pick up his kids at 2am and I saw two sets of parents pick up their kids after the late show at 10pm clearly intoxicated. We're both teachers and I would think that MSC needs to set some behavior guidelines that keep parents from dumping their unruly kids off on the club with no accountability. If the kids can't behave then the parents get them and they're out of the club.

The counselors do the best they can with what they have also. The sports court is small and too often taken up by adult activities. The teen disco area is basically some video games, a foosball table, and some sitting areas. The little kids area is a little more furnished but is lacking in playground space for the number of kids in the club. The theme is somewhat confusing between Smurfs and Lego. The TV programming (not that I'm advocating more TV) is limited to Boomerang and some old cartoon channel. They did a UNICEF day when we were in port and did not see it, but short of that, there is very little educational experiences in the club.

Some additions like a rock wall, full size basketball goals on each side of the sports arena, ropes course, sprinklers or water buckets in a kids area, etc. would go a long way to helping the experience for kids. The one waterslide is nice but clearly not enough. Also, it's only open 11-1 and 2-5 each day. The pools are very deep for kids at over 5 foot on the shallow ends. Other than the pools there is a 3 to 5 inch splash area next to the pools but with no sprinklers or kids friendly activities. As for the kids areas that cost a fee, the F-1 simulator was impressive and so was the 4-D movies, but they're pretty expensive unless you buy the unlimited cabin pass which is now $85. There are 6 different 4-D movies and each is around 5 minutes long. The bowling alley is also included in the pass, but it never worked properly our whole trip and we only got to bowl once. The Sports Bar workers don't like to mess with it and tell you that someone is coming to fix it. The pins are held in place with strings from above and they often get tangled and people mess with the number of players on the scoring screen. It would be easy to fix but they act rude and don't want to bother. You can put a deposit down at the F-1/Movie desk for table tennis, foosball, basketball, or soccer, but it's pretty crowded and sometimes you won't get a time to play.

We did not use the dining service as we enjoy meals together as a family. The Main Dining Room was very prompt with our service and our 6 year old only on occasion was restless. I can say that the staff was very organized with moving the kids from place to place through the ship. We saw them come into the theater and to the buffet and they were all in line and supervised.

Overall, I think the staff of the kids club do well considering the expectation of a babysitting service from their clients. I think MSC needs to decide whether they'll offer something more enriching and rewarding with the potential to turn off kids who basically get their way at home and, in turn, parents who have no idea what their doing and just want someone to appease their kids like they do. MSC needs to make the ship more kid friendly also. We found it to be enjoyable and my kids liked the activities they chose to do. My advice would be to pick and choose the better activities on sea days and enjoy the ports as a family. One more little item, the cooking and language classes supposedly for Fantastica package are done with all the kids.

I'll try to post about the pizza bar in the next post. I hope this answered a lot about the kids areas. Please send any follow up questions and I'll try to answer. Remember, this is just my opinion also. You may have a different experience, but I'm trying to be as informative as possible.