MSC Divina May 27 - Any requests for review?

[Beamafar]

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:

 

Have a look at the following thread regarding Musica:

 

http://boards.cruisecritic.com/showthread.php?t=2503104

[crunchy05]

Thank you for the info in the kids club, do they allow the 12 yrs and sign in/out privileges?

[Reds4life]

Thank you for the info in the kids club, do they allow the 12 yrs and sign in/out privileges?

Yes they do.

[Reds4life]

A few thoughts on the buffet, food in general, and specifically the pizza:

 

- First, we thought the food was very good. The quality was top notch. We were expecting Golden Corral but got more. The variety is good and the salad and fruit is always fresh.

 

 

- Most MDR items are not overly seasoned. This is probably due to differences in tastes for the 4000 or so passengers and understandable.

 

 

- The seafood is very good quality. I think I ate every type of seafood I could think of other than crab legs and lobster. Everything was fresh and well cooked. The best was the grilled shrimp with filet mignon, swordfish/scallops/shrimp skewer, mahi mahi, and the seafood fritta appetizer with calamari, cod, and shrimp. We had four of the appetizers :)

 

 

- For some reason, MSC tries to put some type of sauce or gravy on all the steaks and toppings on the burgers even though there is a toppings bar. We learned to ask for no sauce and added salt and pepper and it tasted great. Ask for the burger plain and they'll grill one fresh. There IS steak of some sort every night on the MDR menu. Thank God.

 

 

- The buffet is horribly crowded at breakfast and lunch while the MDR is not. If I could recommend one thing to make your trip better, use the MDR for breakfast and lunch, even if in a hurry. The buffet is so long that it is hard to get all of your items in one trip. You'll spend all your meal walking around. Just go to the MDR and tell them you're limited on time. One morning for breakfast it took 10 minutes from ordering to the plates on the table. Very quick and a little better quality in some areas, particularly the fresh juices in the morning and made to order omelets not on the buffet. Each day they had a special added to the menu also. Frequently they had some seafood dish that apparently is popular on cruise ships. A lot of people seemed to like this feature.

 

 

- Don't be afraid to order multiple entrees. The service in the MDR was just as fast as most sit down restaurants, so explore it all. I'd suggest the pasta of the day along with the main entree.

 

 

- If I had one thing that I would do over, it would be to skip the formal nights. We wasted lots of suitcase space and stressed over what to wear. The menu was not even the best of the week in the MDR on formal nights. We found many of the same items on the buffet later when my youngest wanted a pizza snack. Plus, they had probably the 2nd best steak that I had during the week at the carving station at the buffet during the first formal night. (Yes, I had to try it even after eating dinner in the MDR) All you can eat and carved fresh. The guy at the buffet said they do steak once per week during the first formal night. I REALLY wish someone would have told us this prior to the cruise. Unless you just like to relive your senior prom or something, just hit the nearly empty buffet for a better meal in your comfortable clothing.

 

 

- Now....for the pizza. I know I might be in the minority on this, but it was NOT the best pizza I had ever eaten. Like many things on MSC, it could be the best out there if they made a few changes and quit cutting corners. The crust is outstanding, perhaps the best I've had or very close. However, crust alone does not make a pizza great for me. The toppings tasted amazing. Now for the big problem I had with the pizza, actually two things - First, the toppings are very scarce. They need to put more everything on the pizza - sauce, cheese, toppings. It would be INCREDIBLE if they didn't skimp on the good stuff. Second, every pizza only had one or two toppings and either marinara or cream sauce - not much variety. They ALWAYS had Pepperoni which was a good thing and Margarita which was basically cheese. Then, they usually had a diet version of the Margarita, another cheese version, a cream sauce variety with a single meat (ham, bacon or sausage) and a veggie (olives, onions,etc) and finally some off the wall kind that no one ate like eggplant pizza. Putting more toppings on the pizza and a little more variety would greatly improve a potential game changing product.

 

 

I'm still trying to get pictures on here so bear with me on that. I'll try to address a few more quick items in another post and leave the rest for my full review.

[thegraminator]

Thanks for sharing your thoughts and experience . Seems like you all had a good time .

 

I sensed from your review that the children's club was a bit overcrowded and add to that some difficult children, makes for a less than perfect experience for your children . Can you estimate the number of 7 - 11 yr olds? I realize this number will change from sailing to sailing . Did you feel it was under staffed? I'm a little concerned .

 

Thanks too for the suggestion about eating breakfast and lunch in the dining room . Maybe we will only go to the buffet for snacks in the off hours .

 

And one more question , please , did you try your luck in the casino at all ?

 

I sincerely appreciate your help !

[Reds4life]

Thanks for sharing your thoughts and experience . Seems like you all had a good time .

 

I sensed from your review that the children's club was a bit overcrowded and add to that some difficult children, makes for a less than perfect experience for your children . Can you estimate the number of 7 - 11 yr olds? I realize this number will change from sailing to sailing . Did you feel it was under staffed? I'm a little concerned .

 

Thanks too for the suggestion about eating breakfast and lunch in the dining room . Maybe we will only go to the buffet for snacks in the off hours .

 

And one more question , please , did you try your luck in the casino at all ?

 

I sincerely appreciate your help !

 

I would say probably 40 kids 11 and under in all and usually just 2 or 3 adults. They combined the groups, probably due to the numbers and limited staff. I thought they needed around a 5 to 1 ratio, so probably minimum 6 to 8 adults for that number of kids. I definitely felt that staffing was a big reason why the program was not as successful. The staff really do try, but I think MSC ties their hands with limited resources and staffing.

 

As for the casino, yes I did play nearly every day. I lost $10 in slots to begin with and then saw in the program that every day they had a happy hour where they give you a free $3 in slot play. Actually, I took my wife's cruise card and put it into the machine to get her $3 in credit as well. I ended up winning $11 with $27 in free credit so I guess I ended up ahead $1 lol. The slots were not very loose at all. They have mostly penny machines that allow for multiple line betting and more than one credit per line. I did not play the table games. They had a few rules with the Texas Hold Up that I didn't understand and the casino attendants didn't let me just stand and watch the live games, so I passed. The rewards program was not much. You had to get like 500 points for like a key chain or something lol. I ended up with like 40 points from playing probably 6 hours or so. It was fun to play with house money each day and with the penny machines (some actually were just a penny), I could play for awhile.

[Reds4life]

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.

 

Just to follow up, the credit card took probably a minute and worked fine.

[KiMnEvan]

Great Review!

[Reds4life]

Great Review!

Thanks! I hope I didn't sound overly critical because we did have a great time. However, there are some things where I felt like future cruises should know the expectations. I'm a little hard on the kids program since that is the profession of my wife and I.

Edited June 12, 2017 by Reds4life

[cutepsychokitty]

Thank you for all the detailed information! It sounds like the kids club may not be the most organized, but my kids are also interested in the foreign language and cooking classes so we'll check it out. I also don't take my kids on vacation only to drop them off at a babysitter, so no big deal to us if it doesn't work out. The tips about skipping formal nights and using the MDR for breakfast/lunch are much appreciated, too. I loathe getting dressed up while on vacation anyway, so we'll just save that suitcase space for something else. I'm glad it was a good trip and we're even more excited now for ours after reading all this!

[Reds4life]

Thank you for all the detailed information! It sounds like the kids club may not be the most organized, but my kids are also interested in the foreign language and cooking classes so we'll check it out. I also don't take my kids on vacation only to drop them off at a babysitter, so no big deal to us if it doesn't work out. The tips about skipping formal nights and using the MDR for breakfast/lunch are much appreciated, too. I loathe getting dressed up while on vacation anyway, so we'll just save that suitcase space for something else. I'm glad it was a good trip and we're even more excited now for ours after reading all this!

I am being as honest as possible about the formal night. It was really not worth the headache of packing extra dress clothes and then trying to all get ready (myself, the wife, my soon to be 13 yr old and a 6 yr old) in a much smaller space than we're used to with one bathroom. I respect those who like to get dressed up and feel glamorous I suppose, but not our cup of tea while on vacation. I look over next to me and some guy wearing jeans and a t shirt is not dressed up and eating the same meal as I am lol.

 

Make sure they actually do the language classes. They skipped the first one because their wasn't enough kids supposedly. The girls colored and watched TV instead which made us disappointed. It's listed as "Doremi School" for some reason on the program.

 

You'll have a good time I'm sure. Have fun! :)