I have just returned from a 7 day cruise ex Venice on the MSC Divina and there are pros and cons, I'll start with the positive:- The ship is stunning and my balcony cabin was lovely always amazingly clean lots of storage and everything worked (different from the hotel rooms I experienced during the rest of my holiday)

The staff were all wonderful, polite and helpful in spite of some language barriers, The same cannot be said of many of the passengers, I found them loud, rude and pushy ,no idea of queuing or personal space. There were a lot of children on board which I hoped to avoid as it was outside school holidays so I gave the pool areas a wide berth. I didn't avail myself of the nightly entertainment so I can't comment. The food was very average so if you are happy to eat fruit and salads then its not a problem. Its a very cheap cruise so I wasn't expecting 5 star gourmet. A word of warning the buffet is like feeding time at the zoo,I have never seen so many people piling incredible amounts of food on their plates and going back again and again for more, they would put my two horses to shame and they don't know any better! Maybe they thought it was the end of the world and this was their last meal. I only used the cruise excursion once for Izmir - had a fabulous guide (also a lecturer at the university in Istanbul ) all other ports I did on my own or caught the $10 shuttle bus from the ship, it was very easy. For those cruisers visiting Istanbul, you do need Turkish Lira for the tram and the banks don't open till about 9:30, I was so lucky the guard let me on for free and telephoned ahead to so when I arrived another guard was waiting for me and let me off, neither would accept a tip. The embarkation and disembarkation process is a bit of a nightmare due to the sheer volume of passengers, my advice don't begin and end the cruise in Venice,pick another port.

Would I do it again ? probably not I would spend more money and go with a smaller more upmarket cruise line.