We just completed a 7 day cruise on MSC Divina visiting St. Martin, Tortola, and Great Stirrup Cay. I have been on about 11 cruises to include Holland America, Celebrity, RCL, and Carnival. This was by far the worst of the bunch and for several reasons. The Divina is an absolutely beautiful ship with lots of things you won’t find on other ships. Unfortunately they create a lot of problems in traffic flow and finding your way around the ship. The signage on board, or should I say lack of signage, makes no sense. Bathrooms are difficult to find and are generally quite small. Men’s rooms have no urinals and even crew members mentioned both those things as issues that need fixing.

Embarkation was typical of Miami and went fairly smoothly. Disembarkation was a total disaster. It was disorganized and even though we were the second group off we didn’t get through immigration till 1015. The MSC rep began yelling at the port authority rep after he spoke to her about the fiasco that was unfolding with way to many people coming off at the same time and backing up the people to where no one could move. She yelled at him and he shut down people leaving until it got smoothed out. I spoke to a lady at the door to the Immigration section and she said it is the same way every week with MSC. They have 4,000 people on board and it is complete chaos! My past experiences disembarking in Miami have been the quickest and easiest of any Florida port.

The rooms were larger than most and we had a balcony. My wife does smoke, but unlike some other cruise lines, MSC does not allow smoking on the balcony. When it came to the requirements with regard to attire in the evenings, they were pretty much ignored. One formal night I wore a tuxedo and others had on long pants and polo shirts. Jeans and shorts for men in the evening were seen throughout the ship and in the dining room on all nights. You would see a lot of people with bathing suits on with towels wrapped around them in the buffet, but that is largely a result of no snack bar on the pool deck. Read more