MSC Divina Reviews
We are all about ‘The Best Fucking Vacation’ and we have been receiving a wide range of reviews. Some are so different that it’s hard to imagine everyone was on the same vacation.
I really appreciate guests taking time to share their experiences with us and our readers.
Lynn’s Review of Couples Cruise on MSC Divina
We have been on over 18 lifestyle takeover cruises and my feeling on the last day was that this was the best one overall so far.
There are a number of criteria I use to rate a lifestyle takeover cruise. Obviously those criteria are a little different than how I would rate a great family vacation cruise.
Overall ease preparing for the Cruise. Rating: Poor
As a travel planner focused on details I found this to be a difficult product to explain clearly. MSC’s web site crash 2 weeks before boarding and over all unfamiliar pre-booking policies for enhancements (tours, drink packages, dining spa) made things feel confusing prior to boarding. Despite all the confusion in the weeks prior to the cruise and lack of boarding documents. This embarkation was one of the smoothest fastest we have ever seen.
Was it easy to meet couples that were like me? Rating: Excellent
Couples Cruise has this dialed in. They host meet & greets for almost every special interest and age group. There was the biggest selection of classes and seminars I’ve ever seen. Since we have kinky interests, attending these classes helped us find those other kinky couples.
The theme parties give everyone something fun to do and talk about. The special EDM dance party pool made it super easy for the younger couples and folks who love that vibe find each other. It was loud. Possibly too loud. But it was EDM in one spot all day and night. Nice.
Was it easy to relax and have the sort of fun I was dreaming about? Rating: Excellent
My secret to really getting the most out of a cruise is to USE the daily ship schedule that they deliver to the room every night. I pick my highlights then keep it with me incase I’m wondering what to do next. I’ve learned to not pressure my self to do everything, but rather to have a good idea of the options so I can make the most of my time in a fun and relaxing way.
My next travel secret is to REALLY have a look around. Do a full tour to figure out what is where. This ship was huge and it took me a couple day to really feel like I could get to the places I wanted to be for fun easily. But once I found it, all the fun I could imagine was right there.
I spent my days on the pool deck getting to know new friends and watching the amazing body painting by Rachel DeBoer.
I was one of the lucky folks who booked early and had Yacht Club access. This provided a lovely quiet retreat where I could grab a drink (included) and float in the hot tub. For me it was the perfect contrast to the active and rocking main pool deck.
The nightly show in the theater were some of the best we have ever seen. There was entertainment all over this ship. All day all night. We loved hanging out with Passion Suite Club in the Jazz bar after the shows and before the dance party for the night got cranking.
The playrooms were gorgeous. I’m an exhibitionist and I love the playrooms. These were absolutely stunning. The dungeon play space felt a bit more crowed to us than past cruises… maybe that was because there were so many hot kinky players on this one! Dungeon Master Bad Poet did a great job of organizing as always. And I loved the 9-10 pm kinky classes that kicked off the festivities every evening.
Taking care of US and space for being together as a couple. Rating: Excellent
As exciting as it is to get to know all the sexy new people, we always take time to do just US things. The Divina gave us a great opportunity for that. We are early risers and almost every day we enjoyed coffee on our balcony planning the day and reviewing the fun from the day before. We also enjoyed some early morning private soaks in the hot tubs up on the Yacht Club One Pool deck before everyone was up.
We like that the space were broken up into smaller bars. It allowed us to feel like there were places for conversations and that is what we like. Yes we agree that the Promenade is missed as a gathering spot on every ship that does not have one (and most do not.)
I pre-booked a spa package that included 3 massage treatments. They were super flexible in letting me split that package with my husband. We spent one morning doing a turkish steam bath and getting massages and relaxing before a few scheduled meetings.
Romantic Wine Dinner for two. Again on cruises we always set one night aside as date night to make sure it was a time for us to just pay attention to each other. Le Muse was the perfect restaurant for that and service from the waiters and somlier in that restaurant were outstanding.
Overall Food and Drink. Rating: Average
With nearly 20 lifestyle cruises in my repertoire I feel like I have a pretty good understanding of the quality that is delivered in mass scale on a cruise ship. Divina was no exception. I’ve actually lowered my rating from Good to Average based on feed back and complaints from other cruisers. I did not share this negative experience.
Our favorite drinks: Aperol Spritz, White Wine, Pina Colada
Most of our cocktails were before or during dinner. There did seem to be quite a crush for bar service in the disco and some of the pool bars.
We heard bars ran out of certain brands. Again, we didn’t experience that since our cocktails were mostly consumed before dinner.
A few people have told me the food was horrible. What food? All of it. I did find some offerings that didn’t look or sound good I the menu. I didn’t order or eat those things. I was pleased with the selections I found so I thought I’d post a short list of what I enjoyed. Maybe the folks who hated the food didn’t find what I was finding or have a different preference in flavors.
What I loved at Breakfast:
Breakfast Pizza with an Egg baked on top
Poached Eggs over an arugula salad and toasted muffins
Eggs Benedict
Pool side omelets, scrambled eggs and pastries.
Amazing Italian Espresso & Cappuccino
Fresh Orange Juice
Our Lunch Favorites:
Again that crazy pizza… margarita was my favorite. Addicting and available at all hours.
Fresh Salads, Italian specialty meats, small fresh mozzarellas
Caprice Salad
My husband loved the gourmet sandwiches on crusty Italian bread
For Dinners we at in Black Crab (main restaurant) Eatily (specialty restaurant) and Le Muse (Yacht Club). Le Muse was our favorite but we found things we like in all three.
The fresh bake breads were delicious and offered in all the restruants.
Soups worth mentioning were the chicken tortellini, roasted red bell pepper & creamy mushroom. I love that they use the dried porcini Italian mushrooms in their dishes.
The appetizers were by far the tastiest. I’ve found that restruants on ships and on land often feature some of their best dishes in the starter section. I’ve been know to often just order starters for all courses.
Caprese salad
Italian Mushroom tart
Spanakopita
Briny olive & cheese selection
Shrimp with pink peppercorns
Hand made Buratta with arugula
Parma ham served with chilled melon
As expected the protein selection was average and the portions were small. This is okay with me, but I ran into a few “meat & potato guys” who were disappointed. I recommended to a few people in the Yacht Club that were complaining that they couldn’t get a good steak to order 2 of the the petit filet minions in Le Muse. High quality protein is really the area that all Big Ships do their biggest cut backs in and Divina was no exception. Protein selection and quality was poor.
That said, I can remember 5 great entrees including:
Medium rare duck breast in a wine reduction,
Cold water lobster tail on the second formal night,
Hand made tagateli & clams,
Delicious but small rack of lamb in Eatily,
Prime rib & baked potato in Black Crab
Would I go back? Yes, but only if it was a Yacht Club Take Over! I think my Yacht Club Cabin had alot to do with my overall satisfaction on this trip.
For those who wondered what took place here are the details about Couples Cruise on MSC Divina.
- Official On-board Program http://
tinyurl.com/divinaprogram - Detailed hour by hour full week schedule – classes, meet and greets etc. https://
couplescruisedivina2016.sched. org/
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Customer Divina Reviews
Our First Couples Cruise
by A.
We were hooked.
We attended multiple seminars and each time we learned something new. We examined our boundaries, our emotions, our wildest desires, and discovered the adventure kit. I was truly impressed by the structure and content of the seminars, not to mention the involvement which reinforced the learning aspect. Bottom line, neither my husband nor I are sun worshippers, at least not all day, so this intellectual on-board excursion was right up our alley and truly valuable. Kenneth Play’s seminars were a highlight of our vacation and should certainly be a part of future cruises. I hope that this is something that your cruise will continue, it certainly impressed us.
My take on the voyage by JK.
I spent 55 nights on ships in Asia, Europe and crossing since last summer. I am comparing Divina to Princess, Cunard and NCL. I am a best customer to my agency, Apex Adventures. I spent 8 plus month traveling so beside my pension there is little income. For this reason I look for the cheapest way out. Always.
1. Pre-cruise information….. Really great. I have no idea how many people work for you, but answers to any stupid question was nearly immediate, by phone or email and weekends included which was totally unexpected. Once you assured me that even if the check in docs are not coming on time I will not need them I was completely happy.
2. Usual packages, excursions, booze and spa……… I took this trip for one reason only: Sexual encounters and visual enhancement of my perception of humanity watching those amazing bodies. If I was looking for anything else I would take a perhaps $299 agent’s rate on some better ship instead of paying 4 times the amount. I have been to both ports several times. Before my retirement I worked on 7 Caribbean islands. A dream job that come to the end by 9/11. ……….I could not care less about excursions. Nude Orient beach is greatly oversold to people. Not that great and if I want to oogle breasts the ship’s pool is a better choice.
…..I could not be bothered with drinking. The ship cost me perhaps $10 per hour. To keep the price below $100 per orgasm I must not waste time by sleeping. Each drink increases for me the sleeping time by an hour so the cost becomes astronomical. My only drinking was in a bar in the 2 ports checking out my emails. Perhaps 6 total beer. I consider soft drinks a pure poison. The ship’s water and coffee was quite satisfactory for me. ………..massages. I love massages and I indulge in Asia for perhaps 10% of the cost on ship.
3. Checking in………..Absolutely the best I have encountered. Organization and the help from the yellow shirted very visible people, just could not be beat anywhere. I was also seeing as positive the card activation by a machine. So the process of cards activation I found really pleasant.
4. The activities: ……………………I found the 10PM shows better then on the other ships I have experience with. Just super!! I would never miss the Cunard’s 10 AM lecture, but here I have come to entertain the man’s main brain. Some of the sexual presentations were just as informative. The selling features were completely flowing with information presented. Just great. The play room. Again congratulation is in order. I would improve on design by having a dark room truly dark. Perhaps barely dim LEDs to just outline the bed and of course no floor obstruction of any kind including having bucket for consumed items screwed to the wall so one cannot trip over it. I would also separate the bar with at least a curtain.
5. Ease of encounters. My partner has developed rapid deterioration of her hip and knee. She will have iron parts installed in May, first term they could get her in. I did ask for insurance but It was not available for European and Canadian passports. If it were we would not go. I knew that I will have a problem with immobile partner so I had the cards printed saying: Mostly a solo dancer. I also registered as BI, I did all I knew how to enhance my chances. Still I felt at times that I was hassling to much finding partners. She got finally better at end of the cruise. For her the medical problems just made her trip a total waste.
What I would do better? Instead of meet and greet in the bar I would use the greatness of the playroom. Set a few hours every day for this. Same rules: No street clothing (or no clothing) Start Sunday morning, 9am for hour and half single women and couples. Next single man and couples. Next bi women, bi man, bi couples. This would take 8 hours, per day and could be repeated every other day. I am sure this would enhance the selection. It could be speed dating format with opportunity to engage there and then.
6. Food. So far the worst I encountered. The buffet was the best choice. What do I eat on other ships? Breakfast huge helping of salad. No dressing but various seeds and nuts and lux and caviar, Lunch again salad various chees or salmon. Couple helpings of cheese cake. Supper again salad and lamb or fish. I stay away from GMO bread also for it glycemic value. I never eat steak, try to stay away from chicken for its breast growing hormones in the meat. At home I substitute fish for pork for its $$$ content.
I tried 2 restaurants. Time consuming, food was cold and not better then buffet fare, Once I had lobster tail with crayfish combo. They managed to ruin this great meal by accompanying wild?? black rice mixed with totally awful spice of some sort.
When hungry and looking for a snack I look for clam chowder. Non was on the ship that I could find. But I did not come to eat food. Therefore I am discounting what was negative culinary experience as irrelevant to my personal quest.
7. Navigation of the ship. I had to make a cheater sheet describing how to get to venues I wanted to go to. Starting to turn left or right leaving the cabin.
8. Other participants. Absolutely outstanding. I had encounters with doctors, nurses, lawyers, business owners, scholars and teachers. Perhaps most Europeans throw the people with tattoos into a category of not so smart people. How wrong I was, The participants were absolutely outstanding people and much brainier then what is found in vanilla social places. Great pleasure in conversations.
9. Having a sick partner I really felt handicapped. I found that the phones not accepting and delivering messages were really very detrimental to keeping the appointments and making new ones. I did present a complaint to the customer service asking for compensation.
In general. This was my first swingers cruise, also we had a vast experience from swingers clubs from Seattle to Toronto. We would go again in a heart beat. Very positive experience. You can solicit our recommendation.
Sincerely, JK
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We missed the promenade parties. Every night parties in the mini disco? MSC is the worst cruise line ever, etc….
we already told our point of view to Bob an Tess. (Couples Cruise)
Your team, other companies team and of course Couples Cruise were exceptional, our minds kept the party going.
We told Bob and Tess we must keep a mature mind and positive mind, we will make a next and next and next lifestyle cruise gain, of course, we are just very unhappy with MSC. Our group had very bad experiences on board. We had issues with not all but many of the people from MSC staff, the food, we bought the premium drink package and after 4 days the premium brands had run out.
Our point of view is only with MSC, we hope CC think twice about choosing again that company before making another cruise. We will skip MSC but love Couples Cruise.
Best regards from Mexico and sorry about my bad english.
Take care, and thank you for your time, hard work and ALL DAY SMILE on board the ship.
M:R and M.M
I mean a lot!!!!! All over the world.
Italian cruise. Maybe your favorite wine from Goody Goody wasn’t on the list. Go Home and enjoy it there. Take a step out of your comfort zone and trying new things. To me if you want the food at home, you should have stayed there. The wait staff and the chefs were doing their best to feed so many people all at once. WE all ate about the same time. No one really went at 6 to dinner. We are
LS for goodness sake. We go to bed at 4 am and wake up at noon. WE typically are night owls.
Giving a card every time you drink is too much waste of time, too much work on bar tenders, and too much wasted paper flying around. Having a top shelf card only for like 1 drink would cut down on that. But again this is how the cruise ship wanted to manage their file keeping. AND yes, they needed more bar tenders that were not having to work 18 hour shifts. They worked their butts off.
Some good Some Bad…..
DON’T want music blaring where we can’t hear each other. This happened especially by the infinity pool. Several asked to turn it down and they would not do so. Saying management wants it loud. BS We are the customers and want to mingle not scream. I lost my voice a couple of times. The disco and dancing can be loud. However in my opinion and observation that people left cause it was still too loud. We all love to dance, but in LS we are trying to get to know each other for other reasons too.
activities:
