MSC Divina Review
Rating by category
Additional details
We wanted to go on a cruise in February and one of the cheapest was on the MSC Divina. We have heard mixed reviews on this site but decided to go ahead and book a flight and cruise deal for an Oceanview cabin. Once we booked, we could go on the MSC website and using our surname and booking number, we were able to reserve excursions and special drink packages.
Overall, we were very pleased with the beauty of the ship, the food, the staff service, cleanliness of the public areas and our surprisingly spacious room. The entertainment was very professional with good talent and costume design. If you like operatic music, cirque du soleil style performances, and 70s/80s tributes, you will enjoy the entertainment on this ship. The piece de resistance is the Swarovski laden crystal staircases in the grand hallway which are tastefully presented. There was a large variety of food in the buffet and their pastries and home made pizza and pasta were very popular. While they do charge for specialty coffees, gelato and smoothies, all the prices were reasonable and MSC has these drink coupon packages which are good value. We bought the 18 coupon booklet for $84US and that allowed us to have anything we wanted with a price cap per item(specialty coffee, gelato/ice cream, cocktail, beer, wine or smoothie). The average cost of a decent wine or cocktail was 6.00-$7.00 and each coupon was worth $4.70.
We also went on one excursion with the cruise ship at Grand Turks as the price per person was the same as if we did it independently. This was surprising as most cruise ships charge significantly more per person for their mark up so I was surprised the same excursion being marketed onshore at the same price as that of the cruise ship. The excursion was professional with the exception that the MSC staff needs to better organize the disembarkation to shore as we were stuck with the throngs of people all leaving the ship at the same time so it took us 1 hour and 15 minutes to get on our catamaran from first gathering on the ship and the catamaran was only a 5 minute walk from the ship. Once we got on, we were pleased with the catamaran, the professionalism of the staff and the quality of snorkel equipment(snorkel vests were mandatory to wear and sponge noodles were provided to the less confident ocean swimmers).
Cabin Review
We were close to the middle of the ship just off the reception area but our room was spacious(we had more storage space than we needed for two people), the bathroom was larger than most standard cabins, and we had a large window which let in a lot of light in the mornings. We normally book balcony on our cruise lines and this oceanview cabin was more spacious than most of the balcony cabins we have stayed in. Our steward was very good at refreshing our bath towels and pool towels and keeping our room tidy.