Divina Review May 10-17 Sailing

My husband wrote a review of our week on Divina ( he posted it under my user name as he couldn't remember his login details). I would have added that the cruise was better than our HAL cruise last Fall...

An Excellent Relaxing Cruise.

Road access to the Port of Miami seems to have deteriorated since our last visit, signage from and after I 95 is very poor.

Embarkation at around 1pm was a breeze, very efficient and friendly, 15 minutes from parking lot to walking on to the beautiful MSC Divina. We were greeted and directed to the buffet though we diverted by way of the Casino bar to pick up our beverage coupon, once again a quick and easy process..

We then ascended to deck 14 and the buffet for lunch. The buffet seemed surprisingly uncrowded, was easy to navigate with it's well marked stations and we had no problem finding a vacant table then or at any lunch time during the week. We pretty much stuck to the salad, fruit and Mediterranaen stations which while not lavish in their selection took care of our needs. We ordered from the limited but quite adequate room sevice menu and ate breakfast on our balcony all week so did not see the buffet in the mornings.

At 2pm the cabins were declared 'open' and on inspection of our deck 8 balcony cabin we found a stylish room with a small balcony and an efficient bathroom with, to our delight, a bath tub. The balcony overlooks the ships boats but without obstructing the view. Our bags turned up fairly quickly with the courtesy of a knock on the door from our room steward, who unobtrusively took care of our cabin with great efficiency and always greeted us when we passed by.

Lifeboat/safety drill differed little from any previous cruise, a liitle crowded, a bit warm and slightly protracted by explanations in 5 languages, though English was the only language used for regular announcements for the remainder of the week.

We were booked in for early seating dinner at 6pm, on a 6 top we had two regular Canadian table mates and two who were occasional visitors. Service was good, our waiters were excellent with a good sense of humor, dinner selection was varied and the food generally good. Dinner lasted 1 1/2 to 2 hrs in part because we usually tried each of the 4 courses. The pasta dishes were interesting and always al dente, entrees were generally good and appetizers and desserts excellent. There was no pressure to rush dinner because the entertainment schedule was well thought out so no need to rush off to an event. We did not feel the need to try the speciality restaurants.

Divina has multiple bars and lounges with several diverse styles of music playing at any time. Bar service was very good and you quickly recognized that the way to get drinks was to flag down one of many helpful servers to take your order, which left the bartenders free to mix drinks. This in concert with the fact that most people had drink coupons or packages made the process quck and painless.

The production shows in the theater were generally excellent, the performers professional and enthusiastic with acrobats, tumblers and contortionis plus a cast of great dancers performing in every show. The shows were the best we have seen on any ship. Because of the diversity of venues and perhaps the mix of passenger nationalities people seemed to be spread all over the ship at any particular time and it never seemed crowded. The ship's multinational entertainment team who hosted the activities were brilliant, entertaining and unique in their approach, the cruise director was great, very low key.

On sea days the pool areas were crowded but it was always possible to find a lounger, though shade was in short supply. There seemed to be less chair hogging than on many ships, once again perhaps because of the international flavor of the passenger list and a younger average age. Older North Americans seemed to be the only exceptions.

Ports were pretty standard, Falmouth Jamaica was interesting, with an obvious presence of police and security personnel around the town the local vendors and taxi drives were polite, unaggressive and friendly. We savoured the peace of a quiet ship in Grand Cayman so cannot roport on the tendering, in Cozumel the ship docked at the 'old dock' close to town so walking in to the town center was a breeze.

We arrived off the private island of Great Stirrup Cay with a cold front bearing down from the north so the captain announced a diversion to Nassau for the day, a pleasant surprise since most cruise lines seem to revert to a sea day when it is too rough for tendering into a port.

We chose self assist disembarkation, very smooth process we were walking off the ship at 7am and driving out of the port 30 minutes later.

All in all an excellent cruise, good service and entertainment and food every bit as good as our recent cruise on Ruby Princess and better than on RCCL last year.

Great review. Its interesting getting so many perspectives on the Divina - seems to be generally a very positive experience for most people.

Thanks for the review. The Divina provides fantastic entertainment excellent food at a very good price which we know that will all change when the ship comes back in Nov. 2015.