My wife and I, both in our early 50’s, have only sailed NCL for the past 12 years with a couple now defunct lines in the 1990’s. Initially MSC caught my attention by offering a status match to their top tier and very competitive prices. I initially booked the Seaside 21 day transatlantic in the Yacht Club, but lack of information and concerns about Meraviglia’s recent maiden voyage/inaugural season voyages made me cancel this cruise as a first try with the company. On Divina I saw no reason to book Aurea class as the Thermal Spa, Top 18 sun deck and any time dining, which is basically just a choice of dining times with the option of a private table, did not seem worth the price. I figured our Black status would work well for embarkation, tenders and disembarkation. I’m sure we would have enjoyed Yacht Club but at around $3700 I wanted to see how we would enjoy a standard cabin. We mainly sail in suites on NCL but we decided to try a Fantastica balcony cabin for this cruise, at less than $1300 total it was hard to pass up. Part of that low rate was due to the sailing being in hurricane season and this season’s weather lived up to its reputation. The cruise before ours was cancelled as the prior cruise could not return to Miami on time due to hurricane Irma. Hurricane Jose and Maria were still out to the East so we were re-routed to a Western Caribbean variation. We had beautiful weather and calm seas the entire cruise. I will go ahead now and state that I did not find the Divina a ship that I would preferentially book again. Overall MSC has a steep learning curve for new cruisers, but once acclimated to how things work we found it an exceptional value for the money. I look forward to booking the Seaside in the future, as I think it will address many of the issues we disliked about Divina.

We flew into Fort Lauderdale two days early as conditions in South Florida were a bit unstable after Irma passed through. Uber fare was significantly higher this time, $47 compared to $28 last December, and we stayed at the Gates Doubletree in Miami Beach. The surge of people without power and utility workers caused them to not have the room I reserved, but they did upgrade me to a very nice suite after a small complaint. Unfortunately the beach was a mess of sea grass and trash. I was just happy the hotel had power and we had a place to stay. Most restaurants and stores were open at nearby South Beach.

Uber to the port of Miami was $14 and we arrived about 10:30am, check in on my documents stated 11am. I think embarkation was exceptionally fast because the ship had been in port for three days prior. I was surprised to see they had Aurea class check in next to the Yacht Club tent outside. We breezed through security which had a couple machines with no lines at all. Upstairs the check in area only had about 25 people in the main line. We were the only ones in the priority line and went right to an agent. Boarding had already started and the cabins were ready, definitely not the norm. First thing on board we went to the Casino bar to get our drink vouchers, we had 12 each with Fantastica experience and I purchased 18 more online for $89. This was our first experience with what became a frequent problem, they had no idea what I was talking about. A small part of it was a language barrier, but after asking several people in the casino bar who had never heard of the vouchers being handed out there, one finally knew it had recently changed so that they were now in our cabin. Okay, only ten minutes wasted time. We quickly registered a credit card at a nearby kiosk and headed to the cabin. Read more