!!! DIVINA !!! Eastern Caribbean ^_^ The Ultimate Review and Complete Pictorial Guide

[gambee]

Yea!!! Another of your great reviews for me to follow! Looking forward to all your great pictures and commentary.

 

Lynda

 

Thank you for following along Lynda :)

[gambee]

 

We stopped at the pool bar and got drinks, they were all very tasty, although my long island was on the weak side.

 

Here is the first of many drinks lists. For some reason I did not take pictures of the drinks, I think I forgot because everyone started drinking them pretty fast.

 

 

 

 

 

I will talk about tips now, since something odd kind of happened here. Ok so here is the deal, when you purchase the drink packages ahead of time, you get a 15% gratuity discount. What exactly does that mean MSC? If I read correctly, it means that MSC is not giving the discount, the discount is coming out of the crew paycheck. This is not right at all! And something I do not understand. How can you have a happy staff when you’re taking away their tips? I knew all this ahead of time and we had brought aboard lots of change to make sure that they got their well-deserved tips on our pre-purchased packages.

 

But here is the thing. I think I was the only one doing this. Because when I went to tip him, it almost seemed like he was about to refuse the tip. I couldn't understand it. I think it was so rare that he got a cash tip that he got confused. All the other cases were similar. The servers and cocktail servers were almost in shock that we gave them a tip. You are required to sign a receipt even with the vouchers, but there is no room anywhere to add additional tip. The same goes for Great Stirrup Cay.

 

My guess is that this is part of the European system, but what I fail to understand is that if MSC specifically tailored this vessel for the US market why aren’t most US cruise factors ignored? This is just one of them. The list goes on and on. As I remember, I will write more on it.

 

[gambee]

We continued walking and heading towards the Spa to see it.

 

The main pool area is very nice, but just like all other cruise ships. It gets very busy on sea days.

 

 

 

 

That right there is one of the children's pool, they had a delightful temperature. Although maybe it a bit warmer after it got some action ;-), LoL. Just kidding, or am I?

 

All the pools on the ship were salt water. The Jacuzzis had fresh water.

 

 

 

 

[gambee]

See that? "Frequent toilet breaks!" LoL, yeah, I think I rather avoid the pools ;-). Then again, there is so much chlorine in cruise pools, that I think we are safe =)

 

 

 

WOW I AM JUST NOTICING HOW AMAZING THIS PICTURE IS!!! Just look at the cloud formations.

 

 

Before you enter into the indoor pool area are the soft serve ice cream machines. The machines are not the best, when they are working barely anything comes out. So you can only imagine the lines that form in there, I took a few pictures of that. In the end what they did was give up on the machines and they a had an attendant serving the ice cream with a scooper.

 

The ice cream itself is similar to other lines, nice and refreshing, just impossible to get.

 

 

Here is the indoor pool, it has a retractable room that they open and close several times during the cruise. It is a beautiful area, I just wish that this was an adult only area and that it was enforced. The only free adult only area is the aft pool, which is very nice. The big problem is MSC does not enforce the adult only rule. So you see children quite often jumping and running around. If you truly want a strict adult only area, you will have to pay for the solarium. I will show you the solarium later on.

 

 

 

 

 

[KSTAZMAN]

Looking forward to hearing more. We will be leaving soon. Enjoy reading all the differing views.

 

John

[gambee]

 

 

 

 

 

 

Immediately after the indoor pool is the spa. We took a quick tour of the spa.

 

Writing these review I feel that I repeat myself over and over again. It is very hard to keep track of what I have said. Anyway, I think I have not spoken of this before. The spa itself is very nice and follows the trend of the gorgeous ship, I have the prices of the spa services, but I took them another day, so you will have to wait a bit for them. The spa has several steam rooms and saunas, which are available to you for $16 per hour or $30 for the full day. There is no hydrotherapy pool like there is in some other modern ships. We never tried the area out as I am not a big spa kind of person, and again we were on a tight budget. The truth is that I wanted to spend an hour in the coconut steam room, it smelled divine in there. But if I spent an hour for me, I had to pay for 4 more people. It was just not doable, since we had shore excursions and other expenses ahead of us. Maybe next time =)

 

 

 

 

[gambee]

Looking forward to hearing more. We will be leaving soon. Enjoy reading all the differing views.

 

John

 

I hope you have a great cruise!

 

Thank you for joining in.

[EaglesWin]

 

Ok, so let's talk buffet food. I will just try to be as honest as possible. I found out it to be ok. A lot of reviewers say it's fantastic. Others say that it is inedible. I thought it was to be just about average. Definitely a much larger selection than I find at home :D, but not up to par with all the other cruise lines that I have sailed on. The main problem that I found was the absence of variety, especially for breakfast. They have about 5 stations with the same eggs and bacon. There was also never eggs Benedict and smoked salmon, you could only get it in the main dinning room.

 

The taste of the food was good on some items, while others not so much. Personally, I did not care for the burgers at all, the meat-tasted kind of funny and they just seemed like they sat on the heater for too long. Needless to state that the only burger that I tried was that one, and one on Great Stirrup Cay.

 

The pizza is absolutely PHENOMENAL!!!! The problem is that one cannot live on pizza for 7 days, especially when you have a lactose intolerance problem like myself.

 

The pasta was good for the most part, but I think I can pull off a better fettuccine Alfredo than the one they have aboard.

 

The meats are good, tasty and tender, just wish there were more of them.

 

Fish is rather limited and a lot of the days, and finding tilapia and swai fish is very common. A few times they had mahi mahi and other options. By the way the swai fish smelled horrible, I got a picture of it. No one touched the tray. I think there was one piece missing. Everyone avoided, personally I would not have put that fish out there.

 

Seafood… Good Luck… Rare sightings, I found calamity once, and like I said popcorn shrimp in the kid’s section.

 

 

Exactly my opinion as well.

[Beamafar]

Ripple Cruise Communicator I was able to test this new iOS application right after it came out, on my MSC Divina cruise. At the time of this review the application costs $0.99. Overall, I was very impressed with the application. Up until now we have been relying on cruise line–specific ways to communicate on the ship, and Ripple offers a completely new way to communicate with others aboard the cruise

 

Thank you so much for this little nugget. I hadn't heard of this App before - I now have it downloaded to my iphone & DH's and can't wait to try it out when I board Preziosa next Saturday.

[EaglesWin]

 

The casino itself is rather small, or at least I thought so. However, then again I never saw it full to capacity, so I think it is a good size for the ship. I never noticed any smoke smell. They must have a very good ventilation system implemented.

 

 

Yes we also thought the casino was small, but it never really got too busy.

 

There is NO SMOKING in the casino. Big selling point (for us).

[EatSleepCruise]

Yes! Another Gambee reviewed.

 

Your Allure of the Seas guide virtually planned our vacation on that ship last year.

 

Glad you got to take advantage of the ridiculously low prices they were running on this ship. Review is looking good so far. Lots of great pictures and information as always.

 

Looking forward to reading more about this ship and the islands.

[cruzinlady1947]

Wow....you just started this review around 1pm and already are on page 5. :eek: Great start and I almost hate to leave for my cruise tomorrow, but, I'm not crazy. :rolleyes::p I will just have to finish the review when I return.

 

This ship is really elegant. I love the staterooms. That is terrible about the wall next to your balcony. It should have been half price (oh wait, you did get a good price). Anyway, I will follow along as long as I can until tomorrow.

 

Keep up the great work and those pictures are just amazing, as usual.

 

 

Gwen :)

[gambee]

Exactly my opinion as well.

 

Glad to know that I am not that off the charts :D

[gambee]

Thank you so much for this little nugget. I hadn't heard of this App before - I now have it downloaded to my iphone & DH's and can't wait to try it out when I board Preziosa next Saturday.

 

Great app, hope everything goes smoothly for you :)

[gambee]

Yes we also thought the casino was small, but it never really got too busy.

 

There is NO SMOKING in the casino. Big selling point (for us).

 

 

Lol, I stand Corrected. Thank you for the info. My uncle said he saw a couple smoking there, so I took his word for it. I never saw anyone smoking there. That entirely explains the lack of smoke smell.

[gambee]

Yes! Another Gambee reviewed.

 

Your Allure of the Seas guide virtually planned our vacation on that ship last year.

 

Glad you got to take advantage of the ridiculously low prices they were running on this ship. Review is looking good so far. Lots of great pictures and information as always.

 

Looking forward to reading more about this ship and the islands.

 

 

Thank you for your nice comment, and for joining in. Hope you love the rest of the review :)

[gambee]

Wow....you just started this review around 1pm and already are on page 5. :eek: Great start and I almost hate to leave for my cruise tomorrow, but, I'm not crazy. :rolleyes::p I will just have to finish the review when I return.

 

This ship is really elegant. I love the staterooms. That is terrible about the wall next to your balcony. It should have been half price (oh wait, you did get a good price). Anyway, I will follow along as long as I can until tomorrow.

 

Keep up the great work and those pictures are just amazing, as usual.

 

 

Gwen :)

 

 

GWEN!!! It is always a pleasure to see you in my reviews =)

 

I hope you have an amazing cruise!!!

 

 

I will see you once you get back :D

[gambee]

Picabu!

 

 

 

 

 

Our tour guide was very nice and knowledgeable.

 

 

I am just noticing now the amount of breasts aboard this ship.

 

 

 

[gambee]

 

 

 

The funny thing is that the only time that I got a treatment on a cruise ship was on the Allure. It was given to me as part of the cruise deal. The funny thing is that the spa rooms on the Allure have no view, they are completely enclosed rooms. I wish it would have been a room like this one =)

 

 

A very nice view from up there.

 

 

 

[gambee]

 

 

 

There is a large store inside with lots of sport gear wear and equipment.

 

 

The Yoga Room. This picture is really funny! It's exactly how we looked the entire cruise. Both with camera in hand just taking a million pictures!!!

 

 

 

 

[gambee]

One thing that I really disliked about MSC Divina was that unless you were in the Yacht Club, there is no way of going to the top front decks and look forward. I think that was a lousy call from MSC, at least the Breakaway class has half of the ship for regular passengers and the other half for Haven. Anyway, I guess I just dislike being treated differently, I understand that they are paying a premium. But having access to the front of the ship is really nice and I make it there often in my voyages. So back to the spa topic, the only way you can see the front of the ship if you are not in the Yacht Club, is by going to the gym. The Gym is part of the spa, and of course it is free to use. However, as much as I said that I was going to go every day to the gym, I did not do it even once. That meant that the only time I saw the bow of the ship was on boarding day and the TV ship camera. Not a big deal, but it is something to be noted nonetheless.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[gambee]

All the equipment looked like new and it looked like top of the line. But then again this is coming from a guy who only sees gyms in boarding days of his cruises. So that really does not say much :D

 

 

 

 

 

 

[gambee]

 

By the way enjoy these towel animals as much as possible, because you won’t see more for the rest of the cruise. Yup, you heard that right. We never saw any in our staterooms :(. Please be aware I am not complaining about my room steward, she was fantastic! I am not sure if the non-towel animal thing is an MSC thing or not. We failed to ask her.

 

 

More boobies :p

 

 

This is the steam room area, very nice area!

 

 

 

[gambee]

 

My uncle and I spent sometime here and lost my mom and my aunt for a minute or two. The view from up there was phenomenal and the area smelled like all my desserts should taste. It really was an area that you could relax for hours, very enjoyable!

 

 

 

 

 

[gambee]

 

We met up back with them in the gym lobby. They were sitting waiting for us. There is also a bar there with nutritious drinks, and a very interesting drink menu. As you can imagine I documented it, here it is.

 

 

 

 

 

 

I should have bought some of that Ultima youth drink to bring home with me!