Aft cabins on the Divina

[TITACATS]

Planning on a cruise on the Divina next June. It would be with my 2 adult daughters in their early 20's and my mother who is in her late 70's. We'd be getting 2 balcony cabins and the aft balcony cabins have a larger balcony which appeals to all of us. There is a review, several years old here on cruise critic, that the aft cabin balcony needed to be constantly mopped up because of overflow/drip from the pool on deck 15. Is this still the case? I'm looking at cabins on deck 11, can anyone let me know what their experience was?

[Boschmann]

We stayed in aft facing cabin 11303 on Divina in January, without a question the best balcony cabin we've stayed in.  Deck 10 are deeper, but from videos I watched they are too deep and create a tunnel view from inside the cabin, deck 11 was just a little smaller but plenty of room for two hammocks we brought along, search YouTube videos.  You can see my review in my signature.  If they really filled the aft adult pool I could see there might have been a water problem, we experienced none and the pool was pretty full.  No soot problems either.  I would avoid the outside two as they are against public stairwells and occasionally have people looking around the corner onto the balcony.

[BermudaBound2014]

I had an aft on deck 12. I get aft balconies a lot and do not remember any more mopping than normal. Deck 13 might have an issue from the infinity pool. IMO, deck 10 or 11 are the best. Those cabins are an excellent value, enjoy.

[firstcarib]

We had an aft balcony on deck 12 over Xmas on Divina. I’d wanted an aft for ages but was rather disappointed. There wasn’t any extra balcony room really. Lower decks seemed to have more space-but Beware!-the balconies on the deck above us were awfully small-hardly large enough for a chair! There was often an oily smell from the funnels ( also noticeable at the aft adult pool) & we noticed more movement than we had experienced in a more mid cabin. It was nice to watch the wake & we could use the “secret” staircase leading upto the buffet restaurant (if we wanted to go there!) but I think that box is now ticked. 

[TITACATS]

Thanks for the replies. Good to know that we can book these cabins without worrying about that. 🙂

[firstcarib]

5 minutes ago, TITACATS said:

Thanks for the replies. Good to know that we can book these cabins without worrying about that. 🙂

We did have a problem with water on the balcony too-we called housekeeping a few times but they were slow in responding so we gave up in the end! 

[sidari]

When the buffet windows are washed the water runs down onto the balconies, we had a Deck 10 balcony on the first TA to Miami, there was an issue with the Aft pool which had been over filled in St Maarten and not drained back before we left, water cascaded down onto the balconies until the pool had water drained from it.

It did occur on other occasions but not heard of anything recently.

[firstcarib]

9 hours ago, sidari said:

When the buffet windows are washed the water runs down onto the balconies, we had a Deck 10 balcony on the first TA to Miami, there was an issue with the Aft pool which had been over filled in St Maarten and not drained back before we left, water cascaded down onto the balconies until the pool had water drained from it.

It did occur on other occasions but not heard of anything recently.

Didn’t really know where the water came from-window washing or pool -but it was a real p—-in the a— to walk out into a puddle in the mornings! Guest services were pretty poor when we reported it for the second & third times. Our cabin guy cleared it as well as he could but it came back & he was soooo busy with other cabins( lots of very full family cabins as Xmas cruise!) so we didn’t like to keep bothering him! Thus we paddled or avoided using the balcony. Shame really.

[EMc&DrS]

We had an aft cabin on Divina during the first week of July 2016.  No water issues and you can't beat the view, but I will warm you it will get very hot (and humid!) out on the balcony because you don't get any breeze--absolutely no air movement which would become stifling after a few minutes during the day.  Our cabin was next to the corner stairwell on the port side.  I would actually lean over the railing and put my head over into the stairwell area to get some air.  Sometimes, if I was waiting for my wife to get ready for dinner (a time I usually love to sit on the balcony), I would actually go next door to the stairwell with a cocktail in hand just to stand in the breeze and take in the view without breaking into a sweat!  Usually, the only others I would ever see out there were crew members sitting on the stairs enjoying a much needed break.

 

Here's a hint for people who love aft balconies--We had enjoyed several aft cabins on other cruise lines before the Divina, but those had all been corner aft cabins that wrapped around the side of the ship.  If you can ever fine one of those, they are the ultimate because you have the whole aft view as well as the view along one side of the ship--and the never ending breeze.  Since people rarely even use those aft stairs on Divina, it seems like they missed out on adding some fantastic balcony cabins that would have been very popular.  Greatest aft cabin by far that we have enjoyed: 4228 on Carnival Legend.  Yes, the Legend is old and not very exciting, but that suite (which by other cruise line standards was not too expensive) has the bedroom on the corner of the ship with views out the back and side---and that balcony!  We could have fit 30 people standing side-by-side along the railing of our balcony.  You can't even capture the entire balcony in one photo:

 

[TITACATS]

On 9/12/2019 at 3:29 AM, firstcarib said:

Didn’t really know where the water came from-window washing or pool -but it was a real p—-in the a— to walk out into a puddle in the mornings! Guest services were pretty poor when we reported it for the second & third times. Our cabin guy cleared it as well as he could but it came back & he was soooo busy with other cabins( lots of very full family cabins as Xmas cruise!) so we didn’t like to keep bothering him! Thus we paddled or avoided using the balcony. Shame really.

Noted. Will be crossing my fingers that we have a better experience. 

[modes]

Never had a problem and love the aft balconies on the Divina.

[little britain]

We had aft deck 10 on Divina. Huge balcony. Also not too far from the lifts if travelling with elderly parents. (About 15 doors)

 

[Beamafar]

We had an aft cabin on Preziosa on a TA from Brazil and never had a problem with water on the balcony.  We absolutely loved it (and have booked another aft for our sailing next May to the Greek Isles).

 

We, too, had a huge balcony and the lifts brought you straight down to MDR that those in aft cabins are assigned to (the one on deck 6 that is awkward to get to unless you use that particular bank of elevators).

Edited September 16, 2019 by Beamafar