Having cruised with Princess and P&O it was planned to make our 25 Wedding Anniversary special by joining the Sophia Loren sophisticated styling of MSC Divina at Miami for what we thought was a 14 day cruise but to our dismay later it was described as a back to back 7 day cruise (first time cruisers be aware). This means that the cruise was two 7 day cruises. The itinerary was brilliant, apart from having to disembark and re-embark at Miami after the first seven days which was a nightmare and something to avoid as you have to join the same queues as those that are disembarking after the first seven days. Divina herself is beautiful and very sophisticated design, however when MSC offer FREE CHILDREN then the Sophia Loren image of the ship changes to a kids playground at school with parents that you probably wouldn't see on a full paid cruise allowing their children to run riot in every part of the ship from climbing over furniture, running around in the theatre, wrecking the quiet lounges, illegally in the casino, running around in the $60 dollar a night speciality restaurants, screaming down corridors at night, partying on balconies to avoid paying costs in the ship bars, Teenage children were even complaining that the disco at 3am was full of 3 to 5 year olds running around, all with MSC Cruise Officer approval who despite the anger of the cleaning staff turned a blind eye. Totally Horrendous. As a result we walked out of restaurants without paying half the way through, don't bother complaining to guest services just refuse to pay and don't authorise your card and more importantly NEVER pay ahead for any of the facilities. Divina is not fit for the Adult passenger, great for some families who have no morals whatsoever mainly American. Great too for those families that had well behaved children and didn't encourage the children to walk over highly polished furniture all night in sight of the young cleaning staff. There are three places where an adult can be free of this appalling behaviour and that is the Smoking Room (too bad if you don't smoke), the children’s club (as the club is empty as they are running riot through the ship with no activities for them), and one more special place that was for us the best place to be, off it ashore !! The only reason we didn't do any excursions was that we didn't want to follow the Buffet Diners (Nick named the Trough) ashore and spend time with more bad behaved kids. When we did complain about the 1500 children on board we were advised that the Yatch Club on the ship (members only) might be a solution, don't bother with that either as it is another way to sponge money out of you and the infestation of children are up there too!!! Best recommendation is to get off as soon as possible. We made a point of avoiding the buffet but on some days we missed the restaurant as they kept changing the open and close times and was forced to eat in the buffet, I walked through, sorry waded through, to see what was available and had to leave as the passengers were making me feel sick, the place was full over extremely overweight and loud americans plying on food on their trays, eating food as they walked around with their mouths open, the various serveries dragging their kids in ever direction. We love America, we love American people and we love holidaying there every year, however this cruise as made me realise that Americans in general are great people ON LAND, not in a confined space at sea for two weeks, sorry about that USA. The food in the restaurants is ok but don't just put up with cold food, see the waiter and keep sending it back, try moving to another table or dining room. The shows in the threate were if nothing else interesting, designed for the kids I accept but even then the Italians are good at one thing and its not food, its singing. Great entertainment but why they felt the need to include the American anthem on the Italian night was laughable and was the point to walk out to get to your next destination. We did dine with some lovely people though and made many friends and adopted "make the most of it" approach, but MSC have got this so wrong and according to staff they know it and are going into refit soon to put all the wrongs right. For me, not interested as the ONE thing worse that 1500 children holidaying with you and puts me off MSC cruises for life is that the Safety Drill was so disorganised and cahotic it raised a concern if anything like the Concordia happened again none of us would survive. MSC need to get serious about safety and get some training organisation applied, we decided that in the event of an emergency the last thing we would do is go to the Muster Station, get off yourself and ignore this bunch of pirates. There is much more to say here to support my case but I am fed up of typing, we read the cruise reviews before we went and noted a review entitled "Avoid this Ship", we wish we didn't ignore it now and so do many other passengers. Finally in relation to the Pirate Show, what the hell as the song "You Raise Me Up" got to do with Treasure Island!