Tag: lunch

MSC Divina Day 5 – Port Fun!

The end of day 5 saw us ready for the upcoming sea day, giving us a chance to sleep in and recover from the past two days. Back to back port days can be exhausting, especially when you have a couple of pretty active excursions planned in each port. Before I get to that, another nice thing about being in Yacht Club is the butler escort off of the ship when you’re in port. Last time we sailed this itinerary, getting off in St Thomas was really, really slow, even though we waited a half hour or so after debark started. This time, I have no idea how long the line was in either port, we just got off. You meet a butler at the concierge area on 15, and he escorts you down to 4, out a side door right next to the gangway, stops one of the lines so his group can (more or less) cut in, and you then have your card scanned and get off the boat. If you’re on an MSC excursion, he’ll escort you over to that meeting point as well. All in all, less than 5 minutes start to finish. Very nice benefit! Here’s our butler, Jacques, after escorting us off the ship in San Juan:

 

For both of our first two stops, we (and by “we”, I mean Jen) booked independent excursions with an outside company, Island Marketing. We’d never used them before, but the reviews were good, and the excursions were things that sounded like a lot of fun. They didn’t disappoint, either. So what did we do at each stop?

St Thomas: After arriving in port and walking around the shops a bit, we grabbed a cab and headed for Oasis Marina Cove. We were booked on a snorkeling excursion with Captain Nautica, and had to meet there at 11:15am. Turns out, the rest of the people in our group (off the Norwegian Spirit) didn’t arrive until after 12, so we were there a bit early. No biggie. After everyone was there, we were given a bit of a talk on what was going to happen, along with a safety briefing. This wasn’t just a “hop on our boat and we’ll take you to a cove” excursion, we actually got to drive our own Zodiac over to Christmas Cove for snorkeling. It was a bumpy but really fun ride over and back in the little boat. I think it took around 25min or so to get there, and about the same to get back. Somehow I managed to keep Jen and Bayley in the boat, a tough task with all of the waves we were jumping in that thing :).

The snorkeling wasn’t bad. Not a lot of fish, but plenty of sea turtles, and even a couple of small stingrays! One of the guides was swimming around checking on people, and even grabbed my GoPro and swam down next to one of the turtles to get some video. One of the shots below (right next to the turtle) is a screengrab from that clip.

All in all, it was a really fun day in St Thomas. The guides were awesome, and it really wasn’t a crowded trip. There were 16 people, including us, on the excursion, and the cove had hardly any other tourists in it, so it wasn’t like Buck Island where you have a whole lot of excursions crowding you. I think we’d all recommend Captain Nautica to others coming here!

 

San Juan: Again, Jen booked us through Island Marketing, this time on a rainforest hike in El Yunque. The rainforest excursions are a popular thing on the cruise ships, but most of them only take you to a couple of stops, and maybe a small walk, and usually you’re in a larger bus with a bunch of people. Not us. We were in a van with a family of 4, also off of our boat (their first cruise!). We did have a longer ride to the park than expected, but only because a tree was blocking the main road, and our driver had to find a back way in. No problem, he got us in, giving us a history of the island along the way.

Once there, we stopped at a local food stand to get a pre-hike snack, which consisted of some local, really delicious food. I had a pizza turnover, Jen had a beef taco, and Bayley had a chicken taco. All really, really good. After eating, we then headed to Yokahu observation tower so we could walk up to the top and check out the view of the surrounding area. I haven’t pulled any of the pictures of that off the GoPro yet, but when I do, I’ll be posting them on our Instagram feed. The top of the tower provided some awesome views of the mountains and coast. Incidentally, the MSC tour of the rainforest was there at the same time as us. One thing we learned with their tours, they send one of the ship’s photographers along to take pictures of the guests, a nice touch we haven’t seen from any other line we sailed.

Our walk up the tower over, our guide took us over to the trailhead. We had a 1.5mi hike ahead of us, and he estimated it’d take us about 1h 15m, maybe a little longer. He gave us instructions for hiking down to a waterfall, then back up another trail, and told us he’d meet us at the top of that other trail at 1:15pm. His times were pretty close to accurate, too. It was obviously quite wet on the hike, but we were ready for that. We walked down the first trail to the waterfall, stopping along the way to enjoy the river and other scenery. When we got to the waterfall we didn’t go in the water, as it had rained pretty hard the night before and the water was moving at a good clip, but we did walk out on the rocks on the left hand side for some pictures. After a short stop there, we walked up the other trail. This portion got pretty steep in some areas, so if you do a trip like this, just know that hiking down means you eventually have to hike back up, and be prepared for it. We got back up fine, but there were a few other people (not in our group) who really looked like they didn’t want to be there anymore.

Once the hike was over, we headed back to the little food stand we’d stopped at before, this time to enjoy more of a lunch (the previous stop was unplanned, but the little boys in our group were hungry. Fine with us, that place was delicious!)

 

We’ve really been having a lot of fun on this trip on the ship, too. We attended the Flower Glory party on the evening of the second sea day and somehow managed to get caught up in a bunch of the video from it since we were out on the dance floor for most of it, but did miss the white party the night before San Juan. Just too tired to make it to 11pm. Last night we caught the Italian party, which was a blast too. The entertainment team really goes the extra mile to make sure everyone’s having fun. In one of the shots here, Carlos has loaned me some of his gear at the Flower Glory party 🙂

 

One more note – As previously mentioned, our Maitre’ D has been great. Another example, we decided to eat dinner the past couple of nights with a two other people we know onboard, also in Yacht Club, and without warning the first night, he set us up pretty quickly in Le Muse. He always has a smile on his face and is constantly walking the restaurant checking on his guests. We couldn’t be happier with the service in Le Muse!

That’s about it for now, but we have the final sea day on tap, along with a stop in Nassau. We’re not doing anything in port this time, just getting off so Bayley can get her hair braided, then spending the rest of the day on the boat. Figured we’d rather have another “sea day” than do anything here.

Oh, and if you’re not following us on Instagram / Twitter / Facebook, you’re missing out, I just posted a comparison of our YC1 balcony to the one next to us. Yes, it’s YC1 as well, but about half the size! (for reference, a deck plan of our deck). Follow us to see more from Yacht Club!

MSC Divina Day 3 – The Yacht Club Fun Continues!

As the end of our second sea day approaches, I wanted to get another post up on our time in Yacht Club so far. As I think I mentioned before, we weren’t really sure what to expect going in, but so far we’ve been really happy with everything the suites have to offer.

The past two days have been filled with a mix of activities for us. We’ve participated in several of our normal activities, from Taboo to trivia, and even another round of Scattergories, and have had a blast at all of them. I know I’ve mentioned how great the entertainment staff is in several previous posts on the Divina, but it really can’t be understated. This team is really fun to be around, and they do their best to ensure all participants are having a good time. They always have a smile on their faces. Always. So glad Bingo Boys are still a thing, too. Those guys make bingo fun (even if you don’t play), and that’s no easy task.

 

Having covered the normal activates in the posts about our Christmas sailing, I’d like to focus this more on the Yacht Club aspect of this trip. So far, it’s been worth every penny. I recognize it’s not a cheap upgrade, but it’s one that I wouldn’t hesitate to go for again. On the last sailing, the service from our dining room team and cabin attendant was somewhat lacking, as I covered in those posts, but this trip has been the exact opposite:

Cabin: Our butler Jaques and his assistant have been outstanding. Our cabin always looks great, and they always seem to be around, greeting us with a smile. Some of the best cabin service we’ve had on any sailing.

Dining room: In Le Muse, I finally see the purpose of a Maître D. In a large MDR, you never really see what they’re doing, and generally they only stop by once a cruise (unless there are issues raised), which can make you feel like they only showed up to get the extra tip that’s common for the Maître D on some lines. In a smaller setting like Le Muse, you really get to see him (or her) work. Our Maitre D has been outstanding, taking care of our seating arrangements, stopping by more than once per meal, and always engaging in short conversation asking how your day has been, how the meal is, etc. All with a smile on his face. We’ve eaten in there for breakfast, lunch and dinner, and he always seems to be there ensuring guests are happy.

Our head waiter (Dejan) and his assistant have been outstanding. Always there to get what you need, and doing an excellent job keeping our glasses full. Also, I’m not sure if it’s intentional, but when we’ve eaten in there for breakfast and lunch, we’ve had the same head waiter for (I think) each of those meals as well, even though we’ve been at different tables. A nice touch if it is part of the plan.

Food: The food in Le Muse has so far been consistently better than what we remember of the MDR. We did have some good food there, but it was almost a hit or miss thing, with one night being good, the next night no so much, etc. In Le Muse, I don’t think we’ve had anything we didn’t like yet. Yes, the Easter dinner menu was the same in our restaurant as it was in the MDR, but other than that they’ve had little overlap, and we’ve had some good quality food compared to our previous MDR experience on the Divina.

Other perks of Yacht Club have been great as well:

Captain’s reception: Earlier today, there was a reception in the Top Sail lounge specifically for Yacht Club guests to meet the captain. Other than our trip on the Celebrity Summit, I’m not sure we’ve ever attended the captain’s events on previous ships. This time, we took advantage and hung out in the lounge with some drinks as the captain made his way around. He stopped by each table and chatted with the guests for a few minutes. Jen was sure to tell him how much we enjoy the entertainment staff, hope they get some recognition out of that!

 

Pool deck: This is where the whole “ship within a ship” concept stands out. We didn’t lay by the pool at all yesterday, but in walking the 14th and 15th decks outside have noticed how full it is during the day. There are a crazy amount of deck chairs out all around (pretty much any open spot on either deck front to back), and they’re always full. Either people are laying out in them, or they’ve got towels and bags on them. Can’t say I remember any ship we’ve been on where you really couldn’t find two or three chairs together anywhere unless you got down there really, really early. In Yacht Club, no such nonsense. We laid out today after lunch, and were easily able to find open space (plenty of it, in my opinion), and it was very peaceful. No kids running around yelling, and no real noise other than the waves. So relaxing. Here are a couple of comparison shots taken this afternoon:

 

It doesn’t hurt that there are a really good selection of drinks (both alcoholic and non) available at no additional cost in Yacht Club J

One additional thing to call out in regards to my mention of no kids running around the pool, it’s not that there aren’t any children in Yacht Club, because there are. What we’ve seen so far is that they’re really well behaved. Whether it’s in Le Muse, Top Sail, or up in the Yacht Club pool area, they’ve all been very polite and well-mannered regardless of age. I’m not saying all kids outside of this area aren’t, since good behavior is certainly not reserved for suite guests, but overall it’s been a nice change of pace compared to some of the ones we’ve run in to (literally, sometimes) while out in other areas of the ship.

Overall, we’re having a great time, and even with the same itinerary as Christmas, this feels like a completely different cruise. With a day in St Thomas on tap for tomorrow, can’t wait to see where the rest of the trip takes us!

Good night from cabin 15028!

Disney Dining – Round 2

With everything going on the past couple of months, I haven’t had time to cover our Thanksgiving trip to Disney World, so it’s time to fix that. First up, our experience with the Plus Dining Plan, which gives each person on the plan 1 table service meal, 1 quick service meal, and 1 snack for each night of your stay.

This is our second time using the dining plan, but the first using one that included table service. As mentioned in my June post, I was iffy on getting the dining plan again, as I felt that I ended up eating a lot more unhealthy food than I would have without the plan, but the decision was made to go with the higher level plan this time around to see what we could get out of the table service meals.

We did a lot of planning for this, and I mean a lot. Jen was on the dining site nightly for several weeks trying to get our table service schedule just right, and in the end it paid off. We ended up with several character meals, including one for Thanksgiving dinner! Here’s a quick look at where we used the table service credits:

Be Our Guest: This was actually done as a quick service meal, but it was so much better than the first time that I wanted to include it. We were scheduled for an 8:00am breakfast here on our first day, the same time the Magic Kingdom opened. The nice thing about making dining reservations for that early is that you end up in the park before everyone else. There’s a separate line for those with dining reservations, and if I recall, we got in to the park about 7:50am to make our way back to the restaurant. They do have cast members along the way keeping an eye to be sure no one’s headed in a direction they shouldn’t be, but getting in the park that early is awesome. Here are a few shots of the (mostly) empty park I took along the way to the restaurant:

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Additionally, we were second in line at BoG, so we got through ordering pretty quick and were able to easily get a table in the West Wing near the rose. The food was decent, too. I had the croissant doughnut, which was very tasty.

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Donald’s Dining Safari Thanksgiving Lunch at Tusker House Restaurant: This was (obviously) our Thanksgiving lunch, scheduled for 2:45pm. We’d had an awesome day already at Animal Kingdom, having done the Wild Africa Trek first thing that morning (I’ll cover that in my next post). We got to Tusker House around 2:30 and checked in, and maybe waited 5-10 minutes to be seated. The buffet itself did have some changes to it, with traditional Thanksgiving items laid out in addition to some of the normal menu items. One note here: the dessert table isn’t well placed, as it always seemed to have a line, and that line runs in front of the table that holds things like the South African preserves, Tabbouleh, and Hummus, which my wife was disappointed to discover only after she was full since she never saw those items until she went for dessert. Still, it was a fun Thanksgiving lunch, complete with Donald Duck and Friends!

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Fairytale Dining Breakfast at Cinderella’s Royal Table: Yea we did, and you should too! This isn’t an easy reservation to get, but Jen’s perseverance with the Disney Dining site paid off. Also note that this counts as two table service credits per person. We had a 9:05am reservation, and checked in slightly before that. After a short wait outside, were taken in to the lower waiting area where you meet and have your picture taken with Cinderella. After another wait for your name to be called, you’re taken upstairs to your table. The entire place is well done, with attention to detail in every aspect of it. Just like every other character meal, as you eat, the various princesses make their way around the dining area and stop at each table for pictures and autographs.

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Cinderella’s Happily Ever After Dinner at 1900 Park Fare: We did this the same day we did Cinderella’s Royal Table, so it was a princess-heavy day. We were second in line at 1900 Park Fare when it opened for dinner, and for those with little ones, I highly recommend being there for the dinner opening. The little girl in front of us got to help them open the doors. Here, that means saying the magic words, and having Cinderella and Prince Charming open the doors, welcome her in, and lead her and her family to their table. I can only imagine how much that meant to her, so for other parents who want a shot at this for their kids, opt for the 4pm reservation and be there early!

Food-wise, it was the best buffet we had. The meat on the carving station was perfectly cooked, and everything else I had, including the mashed potatoes, was excellent. As we ate, Cinderella, Prince Charming, the step sisters, and the wicked stepmother made their way around. The sisters and mother were hilarious, too, as they were perfectly sarcastic to everyone they talked to. Case in point: when the red-headed step sister came over, she took one look at Bayley’s red hair and said: “Look at your hair color, it’s like we’re better than everyone else!”. At one point, one of the step sisters passed a crying baby a couple of tables over and loudly said: “Stop crying, you’re fine!”. Really funny stuff, everyone we saw was eating it up!

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Princess Storybook Dining Lunch at Akershus Royal Banquet Hall: Okay, maybe we went a bit overboard on the princess-themed character dining, but we really wanted to try Akershus. It’s similar to Cinderella’s Royal Table in that after you check in and have your name called, you have your picture taken with a princess, which in this case was Belle. After being seated, it’s the typical “eat while characters come by” setup. The food was pretty good, too. The appetizer portion of the menu is buffet style, with it being a “Taste of Norway” setup with meats, cheeses and seafood, among other items. There are two sides to the buffet table, with both sides being identical. This isn’t clear at first, and results in people walking the whole thing, slowing down the line as they cut in to see what’s on the opposite end. Somewhat annoying, but oh well. From the entree menu, I had the Traditional Kjøttkake, which is Norwegian meatballs on mashed potatoes. D-e-licious!

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All of the table service meals were great, as was the Be Our Guest breakfast using quick service credits. Our other quick service meals were at places we ate last time, including Wolfgang Puck Express at Disney Springs (still the best value for quick service, imo), Pizza Planet, and Contempo Cafe. All good stuff, I just didn’t feel the need to cover them again. We were disappointed in the specialty cupcake selection this time, as Pizza Planet only had a Thanksgiving-themed pumpkin spice cupcake (left pic), which was just okay. Contempo did have a few more options, including the creme filled cupcake I got (the chocolate one below). Mmmmmm.

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In the end, I felt the same way about this dining plan as I did in May with the Quick Service plan, that it’s not something I feel it necessary for us, but it may very well be a good option for a larger family. After everything was calculated, we’d saved close to $300 total by getting the dining plan (vs paying for each place we went outright), but then again, it’s highly unlikely we’d have done this many character and quick service meals, or even gotten as many snacks as the plan offers, so who knows if we would have even spent as much on food as the dining plan cost. I’d say that in both cases, the dining plans just “enabled” us to eat at more of the park options than we would have otherwise. I did enjoy it more this time, due in large part to the table service choices we made.

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.

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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 6 Recap – Christmas Eve Edition!

In addition to being our last sea day, it was also Christmas eve. Having never spent Christmas on a ship, we weren’t sure what to expect, but MSC didn’t disappoint.

We spent most of the day bouncing back and forth between the various activities indoors, despite the excellent weather outside. We started the fun off with a Pictionary win, and followed that up by tying for the win in the first round of Christmas trivia! I said it yesterday, and I’ll say it again, the entertainment staff is outstanding. I really don’t know how Jaime is able to keep up with it all, but we’ve enjoyed every round of trivia we’ve participated in.

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Lunch found us back at the buffet, which we’ve been somewhat disappointed in over the course of the week. Breakfast seems to offer the most stations open, along with the largest selection of items. When we’ve eaten lunch in here, half the stations are generally empty. It’s definitely a change from other lines we’ve been on. The other buffet related item that’s somewhat annoying is that they only have lemonade at the beverage stations during lunch. At dinner, it’s just water and tea. My irritation with the lack of buffet selection was tempered by our view of the ocean as we ate, though :).

After lunch and a bit of time resting, we headed back down to play Scattergories. Fun, but there were a large number of teams, which made it run a bit long, causing Jaime to be late to the final round of Christmas trivia. We all knew this because the guy I mentioned in my day 3 recap that promised to correct Jaime at every turn walked in loudly and rudely reminding Jaime that he was late. Seriously, you’re on a cruise, relax and enjoy yourself. We did head in to that final Christmas trivia round when Scattergories was done, but lost that one by 3 points.

After trivia, we headed to the theater for a special event. MSC had secured a visit from Santa and Rudolph, and had them set up on stage taking pictures and giving out presents to every single child on the ship. You read that right. Every last one who came in and waited in line got a gift. It wasn’t just small MSC logo items either. The presents were things like small Lego sets for boys, art kits for girls, and a couple of other types of presents I never got a good look at. We were in there the entire time, and that line was really, really long at the start, snaking from the stage up to the back of the theater, and back around again. It took just over an hour, but they got through everyone and still had a pretty good pile of presents left. I have to say, we were very impressed, MSC obviously knows how to do Christmas at sea the right way!

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That took us in to dinner in the MDR, where we had a special 7 course Christmas eve meal. Things started off really slowly, as we only had the initial course before the first hour elapsed. They appeared to take notice of that, as things started coming out a lot faster, and all of the tables around us ended up losing out on one course, the pallet-cleansing sorbet set to arrive right before our entrees. While it would have been nice to have things a little more relaxed and in the proper order, we wanted to make it to the final bingo at 7:45, so we weren’t complaining. My dinner:

  • Beef Carpaccio
  • Festive Holiday Salad (no pic of that, however)
  • Chilled Three Melon Soup
  • Fresh Pasta
  • Honey-Baked Virginia Ham
  • Traditional Panettone Slice for dessert

All of it was pretty good, although the carpaccio was a little drier than it generally should be.

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We made it to bingo on time, and enjoyed one last performance by the Bingo Boys. Seriously, this is the best entertainment staff we’ve had on any cruise we’ve been on. If you’re sailing the Divina any time soon, don’t miss bingo, even if you don’t play.

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Since we’d been in the theater for bingo, we already had great seats for the show, and the special Christmas performance didn’t disappoint. It was a mix of singing, dancing, and some acrobatics. Great stuff!

We capped off our night by blowing some time (and a small amount of money) in the casino while waiting for the midnight buffet. I have to say, I love that the casino is smoke free.

It’s been a while since we’ve been on a line that still did a midnight buffet, and frankly I just assumed no one did it anymore. MSC proved me wrong, and in a big way. Every single station was open, with a mix of finger foods, bread, and a ton of yummy desserts. They also had a few carved watermelons, and different bread sculptures. We could see that a lot of time and effort went in to this, and were glad we stayed up for it. I swear there was more food in the midnight buffet than they actually have out on the lunch or dinner buffets. It was great stuff and worth the wait!

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That about covers day 6. Our final day here on the Divina will be in port in Nassau for Christmas day. We were here last month on the Escape as well, and we’re really hoping that we don’t get all the rain we did on that last visit!