The Landlocked Travelers

About a year ago, in June 2022, I was presented with the opportunity to sail with MSC Cruises as a travel agent at a heavily discounted rate. As I really knew nothing about MSC Cruises, I jumped at the chance! As part of this promotion, I was also able to offer 5 staterooms to family and friends at 50% off!! I put a bug in my family’s ears, and my Mom, one of my sisters, my brother, and my sister in law were able to join Jerry and I for a 7 night Caribbean & Antilles cruise aboard MSC Divina.

MSC Cruises has been around for a long time – they were founded in Italy in 1989 – and are the third largest cruise company in the world. So why haven’t you heard of them? They were primarily sailing in Europe and other parts of the world, until about the last 5 years when they started sailing out of the Port of Miami, Port Canaveral (near Orlando), and Cape Liberty (New York/New Jersey). They are really trying to break into the North American cruise market right now, so you can find amazing deals! (Better yet, I can find YOU amazing deals!!)

Before booking my travel agent promotional cruise, I reached out to my MSC Cruises BDM (business development manager) to find out more about this cruise line. Below I have paraphrased what he had to say:

The key to booking and enjoying an MSC cruise is to keep an open mind. If you’ve cruised on other brands and want to compare us to them, you’re already defeated. We are not a North American brand so please do not expect a North American experience. We do not have Budweiser & Texas barbecue parties.

We have a Mediterranean flair – so expect the best, most authentic pizzas onboard…but also expect a lot of tight Speedos, as a lot of our clientele are Europeans. Nothing wrong with that.

If your clients prefer a North American type of cruise experience, there are 5 or 6 brands that do it well. Not MSC. But if you want a European experience, nobody does it better than MSC.

So, with an open mind, we dove in head first!
Our itinerary was on MSC Divina, leaving from Miami and stopping at Belize City, Belize; Roatan, Honduras; Costa Maya, Mexico; and Ocean Cay, MSC’s marine reserve in the Bahamas.

We flew WestJet out of Saskatoon. Luckily all testing requirements had been lifted by the time our departure day rolled around, so no added expense/worry there. We got a (grumpy) lady to take our picture at YXE.

We took the red eye, and though it was uneventful, it was a long trip with stops in Calgary and Toronto. We finally landed in Fort Lauderdale on the afternoon before our cruise was to depart (always fly in at least one day before your cruise leaves!). We took Lyft from FLL to our hotel, TownePlace Suites Miami Airport, which took 47 minutes and cost $79.32 USD before tip (split 6 ways, this is a great deal and the easiest way to go, in my opinion).

If you read our Virgin Voyages Scarlet Lady Cruise Review, you know that Jerry and I have a favorite restaurant in Miami – Catch of the Day. Last time, Jerry introduced me to this awesome place, and this time, we were excited to introduce our family to it as well. As it was only a 4 minute walk from our hotel, we made our way there for dinner that night. I think it’s safe to say everyone loved the fun atmosphere and delicious seafood. The entertainment was great as well.

Embarkation
Next day was embarkation day! We took Uber from our hotel to the Port of Miami ($27 USD ~ 20 mins). Embarkation was pretty smooth, except when we got to the waiting area upstairs, Jerry and I noticed that our cruise cards had someone else’s name on them! Uh-oh, back down we went and after about 10 mins we had the correct cards. We waited a few minutes and then it was time to board.

First impressions were that the ship was beautiful in an elegant way. The decor is glamorous, complete with MSC’s famous Swarovski crystal staircases.

We were hungry and our rooms were not ready yet, so we hit the buffet. Overall we enjoyed the buffet, we thought it had a great variety of tasty foods. I really liked the pizza and agreed with my MSC BDM that MSC has the best pizza at sea (that I’ve tasted so far). Jerry didn’t think it was that great. Their pasta is also made fresh each day. Mmmm.

They made the announcement that our rooms were ready, so we made our way to Decks 11 and 12. We all had the Premium Balcony stateroom, and as I apparently didn’t take any pictures, here’s one courtesy of MSC Cruises Canada website.

Premium Balcony Stateroom
We found the room to be extremely spacious, and had tons of storage for all of our belongings. The balcony was a good size as well. The bathroom was small but adequate, in terms of cruise ship bathroom sizes. The shower was plenty big enough for us. We thought the overall decor of the room could use some updating, but there was nothing really wrong with it. The TV was tiny… some laptop screens are bigger than that TV! We never seem to watch TV on cruises anyway, so that didn’t bother us.

Now it was time for sail away! We headed to deck 15 to watch the sail away party on the pool deck below! The staff was super high energy, there was lots of dancing and upbeat music.

Main Dining Room
When we first got on the ship, I went to the main dining room to get our dining time sorted out, since we were a group of 6, and wanted to dine together. When I got there, there was a line up of people waiting to do the same thing. We wanted the earlier dining time, but unfortunately were only able to get late dining – 8:30 PM. We aren’t late diners usually, so I was disappointed to have to tell my family about this. But as it turned out, it worked alright as we were able to watch the production show each night and then head to dinner. The first night, the service was very slow and we were exhausted by the end. Each night after that, there seemed to be fun activities or parties happening after dinner that we didn’t want to be late for. We just had to mention it to our servers (Rosalyne & Gian) and they made sure we were always done on time! This is something we really appreciated, they sped up the meal service without sacrificing customer service. 😊

Here’s a gallery of dishes from the main dining room.

Theme nights
One thing about my family – we love a good theme party! On this cruise there were 4 of them.
– White Party
– Elegant Night
– Flower Party
– Halloween! (Yes, we were lucky enough to cruise over Halloween! 👻🎃)

The White Party was fun. It was supposed to be outside on the pool deck, but unfortunately the weather was bad so they had it inside. It was a big dance party!

Elegant Night was basically a formal night. We all dressed to impress!

Flower Night was so much fun! We all dressed up in our flower power outfits and took part in the dance party! ✌️☮️

Last but not least – Halloween!

Shows
This is one area I thought MSC really excelled at. We absolutely loved the nightly production shows in the theatre! The different shows were called Top of the Rock (rock performance), Autumn in Paris, a comedian (not very funny, unfortunately 👎), Graffiti (pop hits), Mamma Mia! (ABBA), Grande Amore (Italian songs), and on the last night – Extreme (singers, dancers and acrobatics) and Cruise Staff Variety Night (so funny!). My favorite was Mamma Mia!, but then again I am a huge ABBA fan! 😁

Overall Final Thoughts
We really enjoyed our cruise on MSC Divina! On sea days we spent a lot of time at the adult pool. We had a couple of rough days as a hurricane was following us, and it was almost a surreal feeling to stand in the pool while the water moved from side to side as the ship rocked back and forth in the waves. Staff members we encountered were friendly and helpful, although we got the feeling the ship was understaffed. Sometimes it took a long time to get a drink (this was one of our very few minor complaints). One difference we found, was that our room steward didn’t introduce themselves. Normally on other cruises, your room steward will come and introduce themselves on embarkation day, and ask if everything is ok in the room, or if you have any preferences, etc. This didn’t happen on MSC. However this did not affect the quality of service we had, as our room was cleaned every day. We didn’t have anything that we needed assistance with, but I’m sure he or she would have been easy to reach if we did. Just a small difference of note.

Our only other complaint was disembarkation. We waited in long lineups to get off the ship. We were brought to a halt for long periods of time. We were told that police had stopped the process at customs, and that was what was slowing everything down. Someone mentioned drug smuggling… I don’t know. But disembarkation has been super quick on all of the other cruise lines I’ve been on.

As always, thanks for reading and SEA you soon!

P.S. I know what you’re thinking! Shelly, you didn’t tell us anything about the ports you stopped at on your cruise!! Well, stay tuned, I will be writing about those in upcoming blogs! 🌴🦥🐒🦜

P.P.S. I roped some of my family members who were on this cruise into contributing to our blog! Enjoy their musings below!

Thoughts about MSC Cruise:
First its impressive size and when you enter, it’s the glamour of it. I really enjoyed the entertainment, but also the quiet moments I spent on the balcony watching the waves go by. It was relaxing and therapeutic. I enjoyed it very much.

Mom

What I liked about the cruise were the spacious rooms and comfy bed!! The rooms were very clean and cozy. The food was amazing, so much variety, was hard to ever decide what to have, but everything was delicious! The staff was great, very helpful when needed and a lot of fun! I enjoyed all the stops and exploring different places and the weather was great either sightseeing or just laying on a beach, wonderful memories for sure 😃.

Kris

Shelly booked this cruise for a group of us. She provided a package with all printed documents and itinerary. She was very thorough…I have never felt so organized on a trip! She also researched excursions for us. My favorite was the stop in Roatan, where we hugged the sloths…so cute! ❤ We all participated in the theme nights, which were super fun! Overall, the cruise was amazing. The ship was beautiful, the variety of food at the daily buffet was plentiful, the entertainment was top notch, our evening dinners were very delicious, and elegant and our servers made us feel very special. I was never interested in taking a cruise, but after this one, I would definitely do it again. 😊

Celine