Whether you’re a die hard spa fan or if you’re looking for a post-workout massage, you absolutely can’t miss the Aurea Spa on MSC Divina. Located on deck 14, Aurea Spa measures a total of 18,299 square feet of pure luxury. There is an abundance of treatment rooms for facials, massages, and treatments, not only for one person, but for couples, too. In addition to the spa, there is a sauna, steam room, thalassotherapy, hair salon, and fitness center.
An interesting and unique addition to the Aurea Spa is the shopping area (just to the right of the picture above) with clothing (workout clothing and soccer jerseys) in addition to spa products as well as a big bar and seating area. Don’t expect a martini or beer here! Instead, you’ll find bottled water, an assortment of teas, and fresh, made to order juices and smoothies. They have a few high end centrifugal juicers where they can juice just about anything to make you a healthy concoction after your workout like carrots, spinach, apples, ginger, etc. The menu is detailed and the the crew is extraordinarily helpful and patient while you peruse the choices.
The fitness center is outfitted with treadmills by Technogym and an assortment of cardio equipment, including free weights. The treadmills are a little different as they have levers on either side, like gear shifts, so when you want to increase/decrease speed or incline, you can nudge the lever in either direction. When you’re running, however, you really don’t want to have to play around with stuff like this and I personally found it tedious. Additionally, I found the treadmills to be less accurate and slower than the LifeFitness treadmill I regularly use and what I find on other cruise lines. Having said that, I was happy that there was a gym and that it was clean, new, and not packed.
I didn’t use any of the machines although there were several people regularly using them. I stuck with the free weights which were in kilograms vs. pounds, but thankfully, they had the conversion amount taped onto the end of each weight. There’s nothing worse than having to do math while working out! These were large free weights, definitely not designed for use by women as they were clunky, but we still found a way to work out. I would have preferred a variety of weights and more than one of each size to allow people to work out at the same time instead of waiting around for the weights.
In addition to the weights and cardio equipment, they also had other Technogym equipment available, Bosu balls, medicine balls, and foam rollers. They also had fresh, clean towels available and plenty of floor space if you wanted to do any floor exercises on your own.
MSC Divina also offers a variety of fitness classes for guests, either for free or for a nominal price. During our cruise they offered Stretching & Abdominals (free), Aqua Cycling ($12), Aerobics ($10), Yoga ($10), Group Cycling/Spinning ($10), and Zumba ($10). The spin class is offered inside the gym alongside the cardio equipment and is situated in front of a large wall with several TV screens.
The yoga class is right next door and is somewhat on the small side. When I walked by to take a peek, I knew I couldn’t do the class only because of how close everyone was. I need a little personal space when working out and this was just a little too close for my liking. However, it’s nice to have a variety of options available for classes while cruising because you might just pick up a new interest in something you might not have tried while at home. If you wanted a more yoga-based break you could look into completing this 500 hour yoga training in india. An opportunity to do yoga somewhere different and maybe learn new skills without the restriction of the ship and its small yoga facilities. However, I know plenty of people who enjoyed the ships facilities. The Zumba classes were quite popular poolside, but it could be that more people were watching than participating.
Although not located inside the Aurea Spa, La Prue Spa is an area on deck 16 aft and is great for a little privacy if you want to sneak away from it all and relax.
Basically, a raised hot tub with an area full of loungers, we were able to lay here undisturbed for some time before other passengers seemed to notice it even existed.
At nearly 5,000 square feet, you might wonder how anyone might miss it, but with 5 pools and 12 hot tubs onboard the MSC Divina and multiple areas to lay out in the sun, it’s easy to understand why this spot could go overlooked. Whether inside or out, you’ll definitely feel pampered in spa luxury on the MSC Divina.
If you’re an active person and worried about gaining weight or not having anything physical to do while on a cruise, I recommend reconsidering. Certainly the MSC Divina has a variety of options from classes to cardio equipment to weights that can aid you in keeping your workout regimen intact so you’ll definitely have the swimsuit body you can be proud of any time of year. Next up will be what else, but pools onboard the MSC Divina.
Nice shots…