MSC Divina
One day while surfing through Sky Auction.com, my husband came across an 11 day Caribbean cruise on the MSC Divina up for bid. We didn’t know much about MSC, though we had seen the Poseia in port before on a previous cruise. The bidding was at $401 for an inside room, and had several rooms available so rather than raising it he matched the highest bid, not truly expecting to win the cruise for that price. When the auction ended, the notification came that we did indeed win, and for $75 could upgrade that to a balcony. Balconies normally cost a lot more than $75 over the price of an inside room, so we jumped on that one. Much like booking through category guarantee, we knew only what room type we would have, but not which specific room.
Double length balcony
Just a couple days before setting sail we were given room number 9145, but already in the midst of traveling since we set out for Miami ahead of time flying standby we never got the chance to look up the deck plans and see where the room was located or how it compared to other rooms. Considering the price we paid, we more or less expected all along to get their lowest category of balcony cabin, probably the smallest and worst room they had.
Imagine our surprise upon entering our cabin to find out that not only did we get a good cabin, but we got a really special one. One of only four cabins on the Divina turned long side to the sea instead of short end because of its location at the front of the atrium. This cabin had a double length balcony running down the long side of the room rather than the usual short end sized balcony. The other three like it are 9146 on the opposite side of the atrium, and 8144 and 8147 on the deck below.
living room area
Doors to the cabins normally come from a hallway into a short end of the room as well. Since the door to this room came on one end of a long side it had the closets on one side of the doorway and bathroom on the other. Then it had a little area with a couch and TV and the sliding door out to the veranda.
bedroom area
On the other side of the wall with the closet sat the bedroom area, so it was nearly divided into two rooms. The bedroom area had a desk and another TV. (Most rooms just get one TV.)
courtyard area just outside of room 9145
Doors to cruise ship cabins usually open onto narrow hallways. Ours opened onto a wide area where the hallway made a bend around the end of the atrium. A glass window gave a nice view into the atrium, and at the corner sat a sculpture on a stand with an area big enough to sit on – sort of like our own little courtyard with a view!
cabin door opens onto atrium view
We really loved this room, the best one we have ever had on any cruise ship. The two room-like quality made it nice if one person wanted to sleep or watch TV while the other wanted to read or work on their computer. The spacious balcony was very nice too. We also enjoyed the atrium view whenever entering or leaving the room, though other passengers did have a tendency to trash “our” courtyard area leaving dirty dishes or even random clothing on the bench there. The hard-working crew would come by to pick things up sooner or later though. The dishes they normally picked up fairly quickly, while clothing sat quite some time, waiting for the rightful owner to come along and claim it I suppose.
We ran into a few people who had paid a lot more than we did for the cruise and ended up in one of the tiny balcony cabins just behind the atrium area. If you pick a specific cabin when booking it pays to study the deck plans first.
I don’t know what the odds are of ever getting such a nice cabin again, but probably not too high. The special ones usually get booked very early. We sure enjoyed it while we had it though.
For more blogs about cabins see My Cruise Stories Ships and Cabins page.
Cruise Stories 
How fabulous, what a great win.
Wow ! Lucky you 😀
That sounded like quite a score. Excellent!
How’s your arm healing?
It was a great cruise. As for the arm, the bone healed, time will tell if the nerves do.
Thanks for your great blog! Now we are even MORE excited to stay in this room in September!
I hope you enjoy the room as much as we did.
Is there a hair dryer in the room?
There is one there. I don’t normally use them so I don’t remember where, but probably in a drawer or something.
That is a great room. Was it noisy being that close to the atrium or did the glass wall keep the sounds of the atrium blocked out?
We never heard any noise from the atrium.
Thanks for sharing this. I’m glad you were so lucky and enjoyed it so much.
Love it!
That cabin is definitely different. How was the food and meal service on MSC Divina? I read some negative comments about it on another site.
We liked their food. I liked the desserts, but did hear some people say they thought the desserts weren’t decadent enough. They had some really good ones. Their pineapple sorbet was awesome. In the afternoons they had a number of different desserts in the buffet area, cookies and bread pudding and stuff. The dining room service was more on European time than American (in other words not exactly speedy) when we went, but the ship had also just come from Europe and the crew was working on adjusting to American ways.
We will be sailing Divina in a month! So excited and thank you for sharing your great experience!!
Are you guys on the September 20th cruise?
Yes we are!!
Us too. We are very excited..
Awesome! I think it will be one of our best cruises yet! I’ve been on cruise critic and they have a lot of great info about the ship. Can’t wait!
Sounds wonderful. Great find. Glad you won the auction.
Going on a cruise soon. I would like to decorate our door. Do you know approx. dimensions?
The cabin doors are smaller than doors in a house. I’ve never measured one or tried to decorate it, but about 22 inches wide seems to be a common answer from other people. Some say they are magnetic. I have not tested that, but it would certainly come in handy for decorating if true.
Question – the deck plan for the boat shows those four rooms you mentioned DO NOT have a sofa in them but your pictures clearly show on. Wonder what gives with that? I am booking a cruise tomorrow and was thinking this would be a nice room.
The one we stayed in had a sofa in its own space as pictured. All the room photos were taken in room 9145 so everything shown inside the room was there. I’d guess that the ones without a sofa would be the row of really small rooms just behind the atrium where there are inside rooms across from the little balcony rooms. You can see clearly in these deck plans that those rooms are smaller than the rest.
Click to access Deckplans_DI_June2013_tcm12-80769.pdf