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MSC Divina: Day 8 Recap – Debark and Final Thoughts

Saturday morning saw us (unfortunately) back in Miami. We chose not to do self debark this time, preferring the ease of debarking without having to drag luggage around. Even with an 11 hour drive home, I was more than willing to delay it by an hour or two in order to avoid lugging 5 suitcases around the ship.

Having two rooms on two different decks, we had a choice of which debark color to go with, the red one for our room (9146) that would be one of the last to get called, or the pink one for Bayley’s room, with a scheduled departure of 8:45. We chose pink. This isn’t like other lines where they make the color/zone announcements throughout the ship either, they assign you a time to meet in the Pantheon theater, the only place where they then make the announcements for each color.

Prior to our scheduled time in the theater, we hit the MDR for breakfast, where I’m pretty sure they were just serving the same food from the buffet, as my waffle was the same soft Belgian waffle I’d had a few days earlier. No biggie. We finished up and headed to the theater around 8am. We didn’t have long to wait, as they called us a bit early, somewhere around 8:20am. Exiting couldn’t have been smoother, either. There was only a small group of us, and we were escorted to the rear gangway with no wait, and headed to the baggage area. The cool thing here is that it’s not the typical warehouse “hunt for your baggage” setup, they actually have rooms with conveyor belts, similar to airport arrival. I think it took all of 5min for our bags to arrive, and we headed to customs, where there was also no wait. From the time our color was called in the theater to the point where we exited customs, it *might* have been 20 minutes (probably less). It was all handled very well from our perspective, one of the fastest debarks we’ve seen.

I’ll flip things around at this point and give our overall opinion before I call out the highs and lows.

We talked it over on the way home and agree that in spite of any negatives, we had a great week. After reading a number of reviews, we really didn’t know what to expect, but agreed that whatever issues MSC had last year with integration in to the American market have pretty much been taken care of. The crew was outstanding for the most part (exceptions listed below), the ship was very clean, the food was pretty good, and we had a blast all week. MSC has made its way into our regular cruise line rotation, and we’re excited about the prospect of sailing the MSC Seaside out of Miami after she arrives in late 2017. Well done, MSC, you’ve come back to the US with a great product!

Additionally, not knowing anything about this line before this trip, it would have been hard to recommend it to clients. We’re certainly not going to push a line we don’t know, so this was as much about learning the product as it was enjoying our holiday aboard one of their ships. After experiencing it first-hand, if the Divina and it’s itinerary are a good fit for clients looking to sail the Caribbean, we wouldn’t hesitate to put them on it!

On to the positives and negatives!

Positives:

We love the smoking situation, especially the lack of smoking in the casino. It’s actually nice to be able to play in a smoke free environment.
The food was, for the most part, pretty good. There were exceptions, as there are on all cruises, but overall what we ate was tasty. The pizza is also the best at sea in my opinion.
The ship is beautiful. Not the gaudy decor you get with some lines, tastefully decorated throughout the ship.
Once again, the entertainment team was awesome. We had a blast at every activity we attended, even bingo. The team really blends well together and genuinely appears to be having fun entertaining the passengers.
Very nice main theater. There appeared to be far fewer obstructed view seats than we’ve seen on other lines, at least on the lower level.
Not something we could make use of, but on certain sailings (including our Christmas sailing), kids sail free or at a discounted rate. Per MSC’s site, the policy is changing slightly this coming summer, but still, a good deal for parents!
The shows were higher caliber ones than you tend to get with the included shows on other lines. The main singers are some of the best we’ve seen at sea, and having some acrobatics integrated into the shows is awesome. MSC appears to be laser-focused on giving passengers great shows, and their new partnership with Cirque Du Soleil is a prime example of that.
The staff throughout the ship were all very friendly. Always saying hello, wishing people happy holidays, etc.

Negatives:

The MDR has too many tables crammed in to too small of a space. Half the seats at our table always seemed to be blocking servers trying to walk through due to seats from tables around us being so close. The 6 person table we were at in no way should seat 6, either. 5 tops.
The MDR almost seemed short-staffed. Getting small things like drink refills was hit or miss due to how many tables and orders they were having to handle. They were all very nice, but just seemed like they had too much to deal with.
Cabin service for us in 9164 wasn’t very good, and completely the opposite experience our daughter had in 12039. From small things, like her ice bucket being full every day, whereas ours had a layer of dust on it from non-use, to running out of toilet paper due to the bathroom not being touched two nights in a row, to us never even seeing our steward the entire cruise.
The abridged schedules for some things got really annoying. I mentioned the limited soft-serve hours in my last post, and the issues with the water slide times two posts before that. I’ve also alluded to the odd buffet schedule in a couple of posts, but yea, if you don’t want to eat in the MDR, your options for dinner on the buffet are limited, as very few stations are open during dinner hours.
There’s no comedy club on-board. It’s not really fair to compare MSC to the contemporary lines like Norwegian, Royal or Carnival, but for those who are used to those lines and looking at MSC, that comparison is bound to happen. We all love a good comedy club, but you’ll have to love it on another line. Regardless, the other entertainment more than made up for it.

Small, nitpicky stuff:

They really like to hawk their wares. It starts shortly after you board, as there are people everywhere trying to sell you a drink package. Eating your first lunch in the buffet? Expect to be approached by no fewer than 4 people asking if you want a drink package. Additionally, the shops have tables set up in multiple locations on the ship trying to sell you watches, jewelry, pasta ingredients, etc. There was even a row of tables on one side of the main pool area taking up good chair space trying to sell stuff. We just found that a bit odd.
The water slide area has no place to hold your stuff (chairs, cubbies, etc) while you ride the slide, so we just put ours on the ground off to the side of the bottom of the slide.
The on-board app is just okay. It’s not really an app, either, it’s just an internally-hosted web site. It didn’t work on my wife’s Windows Phone, unfortunately, so we couldn’t use it to communicate with her, and the info it offered was incomplete, as it didn’t have any restaurant menus, and I never did see show information listed on it.
Lunch service in the MDR was really slow, even when things aren’t busy.
The infinity pool wasn’t infinity-ing while in port. Maybe they were taking that time to clean/refill it, but it would have been nice to be able to use it when people were still ashore and it was less busy.
I think I mentioned this before, but there’s nothing in the way of water or cold towels when you return to the ship after a day in port. I really wanted to grab both from Holland America’s table when we got back to the ship in San Juan, as we were pretty hot from walking around.

The negatives above weren’t that big of a deal to us, as the positives generally outweighed all of them, and we had an amazing Christmas week aboard the Divina. As I’ve already mentioned, we’d sail her again if given the chance!

MSC Divina: Day 7 Recap – It’s Christmas!

Our final day aboard the Divina was also Christmas day, and what better way to spend the morning than opening presents in a balcony cabin? We did bring our stocking stuffers along, so we spent a few minutes doing just that before getting ready to head ashore in Nassau.

We’d gotten day passes for Breezes prior to sailing, so as soon a we got off the ship, we headed to the taxi stand and grabbed a cab to the resort. It was an absolutely beautiful Christmas day out, so after a short tour of the facilities they offer, we headed to the beach for some sun.

It was a bit windy, so unfortunately the water activities were limited and the trapeze instruction wasn’t happening. Shame, we were really looking forward to that, but hey, can’t really ask for better weather outside of the wind. Regardless, we spent plenty of time on the beach soaking up the sun before heading in for some food and drink.

After some food and a little more time in the sun, we grabbed a cab and headed back to the ship. Traffic down by the port was pretty bad in part due to having 6 ships docked, and also because of the Junkanoo festival happening later that night, with several of the teams taking up large sections of streets in the area setting up their stuff. It was pretty cool to see all that going on, although it would have been cooler if we were in port overnight to see the actual parade!

After a little shopping and a quick stop at the hair braiding stand, we braved the long security line to get back out on the dock and head to the ship.

Once on board, we headed up to the water slide to finally have a go at that. While I liked the Escape’s better, this one was fun, and we ended up riding it three times, including this run of Bayely’s:

After the water slide, we headed to the final session of trivia for this sailing. I can’t say enough about Jaime and his fun activities. That guy is always on, and did an excellent job mixing in some Christmas themed questions the past couple of days.

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After trivia, we headed to 14 for one last ice cream cone, which brings up one issue I keep forgetting to call out. Unlike the American lines we’re used to, the soft serve machines on the Divina are only open from 2-5pm every day. Okay, we made our peace with that early on, but if it’s only going to be open for 3 hours, keep it clean and full. More often than not the front was covered in melted ice cream, and flavors were totally empty in multiple machines. Even on Carnival on three different Thanksgiving sailings (with a ton of kids on each sailing and 24 hour soft serve), this was the worst management we’ve seen of ice cream machines on a ship.

On our way back to our room to pack, we stopped to check out the dinner menu. None of us were excited by the choices, so we decided to try the pizza in Eataly, located in La Cantina di Bacco. Yes, we paid for pizza when the buffet pizza is yummy, but we wanted to try the meter of pizza in Eataly, and it didn’t disappoint. It was a bit too much, as we severely underestimated just how big a meter of pizza is, but both the white pizza side and the pepperoni side were amazing. That’s a lot of pizza for $21 🙂

We finished up a little after 8pm and headed to the theater to get good seats for the final show, a tribute to Michael Jackson. Surprisingly (as hyped as this show is), the theater didn’t end up full for the show, as there were quite a few open seats both upstairs and down. It was a really good show, and the guy who was Michael is an amazing dancer. The show ended with the entertainment staff on stage thanking the passengers and allowing the crowd to also thank them one last time. It was an excellent end to the cruise.

After a short stop in the casino to lose a little more money and cash in a couple of small vouchers, we headed to the Black and White lounge for the final event hosted by the entertainment staff, the Stardust dance competition. Five passengers are paired with five of the ship’s dancers, and are given the opportunity to showcase their moves. Definitely a fun time, and it gave us the chance to thank the entertainment staff for an outstanding Christmas crust one last time. I’m sure it’s hard having to work Christmas, especially with their families so far away. If it was bothering them, they never once showed it. They were always smiling, having fun, and making sure the guests around them were having a great time as well.

Thanks again guys, you made our holidays that much better!

After we get home, I’ll get a final post up covering debark as well as some overall thoughts on the trip. In case I forget to say it in that post: Thank you all for joining us on our journey!

Crons in the Capital – Day 2

The second day began with Bayley and I heading to a local Arlington “landmark”, the Apple store in Clarendon. The night before, there was a bit of a water related incident with her iPhone, with the device being terminal by the time we woke up. Fortunately she got AppleCare for it, and after she handed over a few bucks, they swapped it out for a new device and we were on our way.

Leaving Clarendon, we had one main goal for the day, to hit the National Zoo. By the time we made it over there, we were both pretty hungry, and decided to stop outside the park at a little Italian bistro just down the road, Lillies Restaurant and Bar. Ended up being a pretty solid choice. We were both pretty hungry, and started off with some garlic bread, which was pretty good. For the main course, I went with lasagna, which I really enjoyed. Good sauce, and the perfect amount of ricotta for my tastes. We’d definitely eat there again.

Our bellies full, we headed in to the zoo. Again, it’s nice to have the option to visit something like this without an entrance fee, but we did donate $5 for the zoo map as we walked in.

We didn’t plan to see everything, but Bayley did have a list of animals she definitely didn’t want to miss. One of those targets was the panda habitat. Most of the panda stuff was shut down, as one of the panda bears was getting close to delivering a newborn, which actually happened the day after we were at the zoo. All we managed to catch was a brief glimpse of one of them while over there, which I managed to capture in a shot I had to crop pretty tightly:

Some of the other animal highlights included the tiger, who was out playing with a ball in his pond, which was pretty fun to watch, and the otters who were all out playing too, and were fun to watch as they showed off for the crowd.

The only negative to the zoo trip was the terrain. Going in is fine, it’s all downhill all the way to the back of the zoo. The downside to that is you’re walking all the way back up to get out. It was a little humid, too, so we headed back to the hotel after that to rest a bit, clean up, and wait for Jen.

For dinner that night, we decided to head to Old Town Alexandria. On arrival, we walked from the metro station all the way down to the waterfront and see if anything along the way sounded good. When we got to the end, we ran across Virtue Feed and Grain, and after a quick scan of the menu, decided to give it a shot. Ended up being a good choice for the most part. They seated us at the high-tops near the bar area, which was a little too loud for our tastes, but we had a great server, and the food was excellent. We happened to be there during restaurant week, so I ate off that 3 course menu. After starting with the mac and cheese, which was outstanding (quite cheesy, and almost perfectly creamy). Being a meat and potatoes guy, I went with the NY strip steak for my entree, which was excellent, having been cooked to a perfect level of medium. For dessert, I had the icebox pie, which was just okay. For something with the word ‘icebox’ in the name, I expected it to be a lot colder than it actual was (it was almost room temperature).

After dinner, we walked around a little more, even stopping for a couple of small cones at Pop’s Ice Cream before grabbing the King St trolley back to the metro station to catch a train back to our beds 🙂

Another fun day in the DC area in the books, with one more day on tap!

Carnival Conversations – Tampa

After a quick two days at home following our time in Ohio and DC, we drove down to Florida yesterday to bring our daughter back for her second year of college at Eckerd. While move-in day isn’t until tomorrow, my wife noticed a few weeks ago that Carnival was doing one of their Carnival Conversations events on board the Paradise today, and really wanted to attend it. While these events are held on board a ship that’s getting ready to depart, just like the ship inspections we’ve done, this is nothing like the tours.

So what is it? Well, simply put, it’s a chance to hear from and ask questions of Carnival’s senior management. For today’s event, the main speaker was Christine Duffy, President of Carnival Cruise Lines. We’d never been to one of these events before, and since we were going to be in the area anyway, it seemed like a good opportunity to see what they were about, and to hear from the line’s leadership.

The itinerary for the event was pretty simple, but didn’t allow for any time to tour the ship, so there will be far fewer pictures in this post than the last :).

When we got to the Queen Mary Lounge, we grabbed a seat next to a couple other agents and chatted with them for a bit before Mike Julius, Managing Director of US Sales got up to kick things off. He started off by introducing us to Seth Grunes, the Tampa area Business Development Manager, who gave us a quick update on Carnival, including a brief overview of their newest ship, The Vista. Jen’s been paying attention to all of Carnival’s announcements about the ship, she she was already up to speed on it, but having a full time job to focus on, I didn’t know a heck of a lot about it. I enjoyed getting to see what’s coming, and I have to say that I completely understand her excitement about the ship and desire to sail it. Those Havana suites sound amazing!

Next up was Christine, who spent a few minutes giving us an update on the line, and other business info specific to their travel partners (us). Having come up through the agency ranks, she’s in a unique position to make positive changes to the way Carnival works with their partners. Here’s hoping it happens!

After that, a panel of Carnival execs, including Christine, gathered on stage listening to agent feedback and answering our questions. There’s not really much to say from this, as the discussion all centered around way Carnival can change to better allow agents to serve our customers when it comes to Carnival cruises. We’re both fans of the Carnival brand, having thoroughly enjoyed three straight Thanksgiving cruises on their ships, and the discussion today was validation of our trust in their product.

Following the panel discussion was lunch, so we all headed to the Destiny dining room. The menu was identical to what we had on our tour of the Fantasy back in May, so I won’t waste space repeating the same food pictures in that post. While I would have liked another Guy’s burger, the food was excellent, and we did get to enjoy one of my favorite things, the warm chocolate melting cake, which is a must-have if you’re on any Carnival ship.

Near the end of lunch they did a few giveaways, including a couple of free cruises, but we unfortunately didn’t win. Oh well, but congratulations to those who did win, we’re totally jealous!

Lunch ended right about the time we had to get off (the boat was getting ready to head out for an actual cruise, after all :)), so we headed back down the gangway, out the terminal, and back to our temporary home for the weekend.

Once again, I’d like to thank Carnival for their hospitality, including all the executives for making themselves available to us for a couple of hours, and to our dining room staff, who I’m sure could have used the break between sailings to rest a bit. One of the best crews at sea, for sure!

Ship Inspection Saturday – Carnival Fantasy

One of the things that we do as travel agents is the occasional cruise ship inspection. As mentioned in my post back in October after we toured the NCL Getaway, this is generally a 3 hour tour of the ship, hosted by a rep or two from the cruise line, and it’s intended to give us an idea of what our clients can expect should we book them on the ship. This is my second ship tour, and my wife’s fourth, as she did two more while down in Ft Lauderdale for Cruise3sixty a couple of weeks ago. For this one, we were getting a look at the Carnival Fantasy, the only ship from any line currently based out of Charleston, SC. She’s an older ship, having launched in early 1990, but the last refurbishment has her in pretty good shape. The decor is pretty standard for other older ships we’ve been on, too. Overall, we were pleasantly surprised at how well the Fantasy has been kept up. Let’s take a closer look…

We drove down from Charlotte early this morning, getting to the port around 10am. Check in for the tour wasn’t scheduled to begin until 11am after all the guests from the previous sailing debarked, so we walked around trying to figure out where to meet. Fortunately, the port area isn’t all that big and we found the spot pretty quickly, and hung out until the Carnival reps arrived. Things didn’t exactly kick off on time, as there was a lot going on. They ended up with surprise Coast Guard and USDA inspections happening after the ship got back in to port this morning. No biggie, things happen, and we were just a small blip on the list of things the crew had to deal with before they left port this evening. I think we may have been delayed 30-45 minutes boarding as a result. Here’s a couple quick shots of the port, including the front of the terminal. When you arrive and park, a shuttle brings you to this entrance and drops you off here, at which point you’ll go through security and check in for your cruise!

Another tip: As you board the ship, you’ll notice a bunch of crew wearing red sweatshirts that say “Just Ask”. If you need to know anything, like where you can grab some food or where you’re room is, they are there to answer those questions. No need to get in line for guest services!

Once we were on, we hustled to check out a couple of rooms. Since we were late, we really were moving fast, and my pictures show it. With more than two dozen people in the group and a schedule to keep, there really wasn’t time to stop and ensure the pictures were clear. The first set here is from a standard oceanview room:

Not bad, a little small compared to more current ships, but I’d be more than happy to sail in it. Next up is the only shot I got of an interior down the hall:

And finally, we have a Grand Suite, the largest room category on board. Note that being an older ship, the only categories that actually have balconies are the Junior and Grand Suites

Due to our time constraints, those were all the rooms we got to see. After finishing there, we were guided around a few other areas as we headed in the direction of the dining room for our lunch. Here are some shots of different areas we saw along the way, including: the show lounge, casino, a couple of bars, the kid’s club, and the Forum Aft Lounge, where they were setting up to host a wedding reception:

There were a couple of weddings going on today before sailing, from what we saw. We entered the port at the same place they did, and the wedding parties were shuttled in to security the same way we were. While I’m familiar with how on-board weddings at sea (or in a foreign port) work, this was my first exposure to weddings that take place in port prior to the ship’s departure. Not everyone in the wedding party was going on the cruise, so after getting everyone on the ship, they hold the wedding, followed by the reception, and then those who are not sailing are escorted off. Pretty good way to get a shipboard wedding on a budget.

Let’s get back to the tour. After a quick visit to the kid’s club, it was time to eat. They took us to the Jubilee dining room at the aft of the Atlantic deck (8), one of the two main dining rooms on board. We all sat at one of the five tables set up for us, and were served by the staff as if we were cruisers, eating some of the same things served at sea. The menu was pretty well set too, with the only choice we got to make being fish or beef for the main course:

and here are the courses, in order (I had the beef):

The spaghetti carbonara was spectacular, as was the warm chocolate melting cake, which is one of our all-time favorite desserts (we usually eat it more than once when we’re on Carnival :)). The braised short ribs were good quality meat, and perfectly cooked, but I’m just not a fan of what ends up being stringy meat (like pot roast type meat). Jen had the beef too, and enjoyed it, but said both the spaghetti and short ribs were better on her tour of the Splendor a couple of weeks ago (they serve the same food on all ship tours).

I’m going to take a second to give a huge shoutout to the wait staff today too, they did a great job, and were even sure to learn our names. After we ate, they even busted out some music and got some of us to get up and dance, just like a regular MDR experience.

After lunch was over, we headed up to check out the buffets and outside areas on the Lido deck. The buffet stations on the Fantasy are all pretty standard for Carnival, but note that this ship has not undergone any of the Fun Ship 2.0 upgrades, so no Guy’s Burger Joint or BlueIguana Cantina. It does have a Mongolian Wok though, which we always enjoy.

No, we didn’t sample any of the buffet food, pretty sure that would have been frowned upon, plus we were full from lunch.

On to the outside areas. Here’s the main area on the Lido deck:

At the back of the ship, they have Waterworks 2.0, added during its last refurbishment a few years ago

They’re definitely some nice slides for a ship this old, but the one downside here is location. Being right behind the stack, it was a bit noisier, especially as you walked out to this area (walkway shown in the first shot above). It is what is is, though. The other odd thing about the aft design is that one deck down is the Serenity adults-only area. I shot this looking down on it from the back of the ship where the waterslides are:

Between the noise from the stack and the kids on the waterslide one deck above, I can’t imagine this is very serene, but having never sailed the Fantasy, that’s pure speculation. If you’ve sailed this ship in her current configuration and can speak to the noise level in Serenity, feel free to comment, we’d love to hear how it really is!

Update: Based on a comment on our Facebook page, it sounds like the location of Serenity is a non-issue!

After we finished on Lido, we did a very quick walk through of the spa, which was a pretty standard setup for Carnival. There seemed to be plenty of gym space for those wanting to work out, too.

Once we finished our walk-through of the spa we were out of time, so we headed down to deck 3, gave our passes back, and sadly left the ship. All in all it was a good tour, and left us with a pretty solid impression of the Fantasy. As mentioned, Carnival has done a really good job with upkeep. Is it small? Yes. Are you limited in room types? Yes. It’s not the Dream or the Breeze, but it’s still a worthy option, especially if you’re looking to cruise out of an east coast port outside of Florida. It’s only three hours from us, so I personally would like to give the ship a shot in the near future if we can carve out some time.

One last thing before I leave you with more pictures of the tour: A big thank you to Joanie and Kirsten, our tour guides from Carnival. They took really good care of us today!