MSC Divina Review

4.0 / 5.0
1,915 reviews

The Devil is in the Details

Review for Bermuda Cruise on MSC Divina
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MakeItSo!
2-5 Cruises • Age 60s

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Sail Date: Apr 2015

While the Divina is a beautiful ship and did many things well, the design is not terribly functional and the service not terribly efficient and there is room for improvement. We met many seasoned cruisers who found the ship's interior difficult and confusing to navigate and details lacking.

The decorating choices in the nightclubs and lounges around the vessel, were pretty, but impractical, cutting down on available seating. The deep banquettes, made it necessary to either perch on the edge of the seat or crawl on and off of the seating. Washrooms in public areas were inadequate to the number of passengers. There were constant long line ups near the main dining rooms and theatre and in other areas washrooms were difficult to locate or absent. The choice to go with the electronic automatic flush toilets resulted in frustration to many of the guests, when they either wouldn't flush after use or seemingly flushed randomly. It was also difficult for the staff to keep up with stocking of the toilet tissue and thorough cleaning. On several occasions, we noticed the smell of urine or sewage when walking past the washrooms in the corridors.

The food offerings and selections available for both assigned seating and buffets were good but, they were not exceptional. One evening everyone at our table ordered the entree that came with a "Duchess potato". When you put your fork into it to take a mouthful, it was so dry it disintegrated into little dry bits that were inedible! Another evening, the steak was very gristly. The main dining rooms: Villa Rosa and the Black Crab were ridiculously and needlessly crowded, making it difficult for the guests or servers to move easily to or from the tables without squeezing awkwardly between diners. Also, rather than the servers having serving platforms centrally located to their tables, they had to keep negotiating their way in and out of the closely packed diners to get their orders from a serving station elsewhere in the dining room. There seemed to be insufficient staff available in the dining rooms to quickly and effectively serve the number of diners, resulting in frustration by those waiting a very long time for the various courses of their meal or even for refills of water or other beverages. And when we tried the Black Crab one morning for breakfast, it was even worse! Not one person at our table got their breakfast requests totally correct! And the wait was ridiculously long to even get a menu! Items that should have been served together were served separately, such as one guest who wanted oatmeal with raisins, milk and a banana for breakfast. First her oatmeal arrived, after a long delay, then with additional delays for each additional item to be delivered separately to her table...by which time her oatmeal was no longer warm.

Cabin Review

Cabin 1

The interior cabin was comfortable and fairly quiet, but the dark, red prints could have been replaced with something sunnier. The dark colours chosen for an interior cabin did make it seem darker than necessary. We found there was adequate storage for our needs as a couple. The bed and pillows were not terribly comfortable and the bottom, flat sheet kept coming untucked as we slept, getting uncomfortably crumpled under me. The pillows weren't comfortable. A board in the wardrobe came loose and would have struck me in the head when I was hanging my clothing, as it was missing screws. When I reported it, a carpenter was called to fix it, the next morning.

As mentioned in my review, it would have been appreciated if they included the amenity of a firmer pillow and bathrobes for the guests as well as a pen or pencil!

Port Reviews

Miami

I arrived on a transfer from FLL in time to board and only had a few hours before all aboard. We were tired after an early morning departure from Canada. We had been in Miami previously and decided a nap was preferable.

Nassau

Not really much to see in Nassau if you aren't into shopping and the ship really didn't do a great job in marketing their excursions. I'd been in Nassau last year and showed my partner around and saw all we wanted to see withing a couple of hours.

King's Wharf

It would have been nice if the ship used its tenders to take the guests to St. George and Hamilton to speed up access given they cut short our shore time to explore the beautiful island. We found the public transit and Tourist Information counsellors were wonderful as were the islanders. We wished our itinerary had not been changed to shorten our time in Bermuda.

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