Where to start! We are normally independent travellers, so decided to book directly with MSC. This was a reasonable experience and the person dealing with our telephone booking did select a good room for us, which was appreciated. On the Forums, some bookers seem to not have received a room allocation at time of confirmation. We were given a balcony cabin 12134. That's deck 12 on Aurora, mid ships and not too from from lifts. Our party consisted of myself with my two daughters aged 21 and 19, so we shared a double bed and the sofa bed was turned into a large single bed each evening during turndown. Received the cheque book type confirmation a few days before - this was couriered to us by DHL from Naples. However, it was incorrect and I had to phone to point out the mistake about one of our airport to port transfers that had been included, and so it was emailed out within 24 hours on a A4 sheet. Our flights from UK to Italy were included as part of the package, as the prices were excellent - we couldn't have done anything better ourselves. I checked! However, the flights to Venice from London did not arrive in time (no matter which airline you used) so we had to fly from LGW to Verona (there were 35 other Divina passengers on this BA flight too). I was expecting some assistance at the Gatwick check in from MSC but it was just do-it-yourself. As this was part of a group booking, I found it a bit irritating that we couldn't do online check in.

Check in

Arrived at Verona with the usual scrum that you may expect. Looked for the MSC rep - there were lots of other travel companies there too - and she duly appeared about 10mins late. A comfortable air conditioned coach awaited us outside the terminal building. Criticism at this point - we had only eaten the BA breakfast, and there was no suggestion that we may like to get something to sustain us at this time. Little did we realise that we would not eat until dinner that evening on the ship! Fortunately, the first sitting at 19:00. Coach transfer (this was the bit we were missing in the original travel details) was smooth and took us right into the port, to the terminal building adjacent to the Divina. Here's where the good experience ended! Embarkation check in was the worst I have ever endured. Queue outside the building, passport check and deposit luggage with the appropriate tags. Enter building and given a number - 23 in our case. Waited in another holding area with seating, toilets and that's it. No food, no drink and lots of pushing and frustrated bemused people. It seemed like several hours, but think it was (only!) 90 mins. Every 30mins another number was called to join yet another queue. I had completed the web check in form beforehand, in the hope that this would fast track us, but don't think this saved any time at all. Pointless! When we did finally join the queue to actually check in, the photographer tried to take our photos around a ship's wheel. What a joke - sad, tired and frustrated subjects. Sorry, didn't buy that particular photo! Read more