MAGIC - Our Photo Review of the Inaugural Sailing of the Magic

[cruisinskier]

Hi all....looks like Photobucket had gone down so I will try later to post some more.....

 

Jerry

[Meyer2]

Just got up. More great review & pictures!!! I'm so excited for my turn on the Magic later this year. Going to be awesome!!! Thanks for sharing, I look forward to the remainder of the review.

[Prairie_Gal]

Awesome, awesome awesome trip report! I have enjoyed reading it very much.

 

How long would you say it took you to commute to Venice from the Murano Palace?

 

Thanks again for taking the time to post such a detailed review.

[mtt32]

Thanks for the review and all the great pictures.

 

Looking forward to our cruise in January......

[cruisinskier]

Our tour guide for the day was Jana who spoke fluent english. On the way out of port we were able to get one last glimpse of the Magic (and friends) docked at the port.

 

 

 

Our first stop for today was Sagrada Familia, a basilica envisioned and started by Antoni Gaudi. Construction began in 1882 however it is still not completed. Gaudi worked on this church up until his death in 1926 and since then numeorus architects have been involved in the project. The goal is to complete construction by 2026 to celebrate the 100 year anniversary of gaudi's death. Of all the churches we visited on this trip, this was by far the most interesting and I highly recommend it be on everyone's bucket list to see this architectural marvel.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[cruisinskier]

 

 

 

 

 

 

You can see the cranes for the ongoing construction

[cruisinskier]

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[cruisinskier]

The front of the church is referred to as the nativity facade and is neo gothic in style. The back of the church is totally different. It is called the passion facade and is much more abstract in design.

 

 

 

 

 

 

[cruisinskier]

The next stop on our tour was Park Guell, a site that was to be a housing development designed by Gaudi. It is now a city park and toursit attraction.....

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[cruisinskier]

 

 

 

 

[cruisinskier]

After Parc Guell, we went for about an hour drive around Barcelona seeing some of the other top attractions. I knew that we would be seeing most of these later as we toured barcelona on our own so I did not take many pictures from the bus. Finally, around 2:00pm we were dropped off at our hotel, Hotel Barcelona Universal, which would be home for the next 3 nights.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[cruisinskier]

Once we were settled in the room, we needed some food and asked the concierge for a recommendation. They sent us aroound the corner to a great place that we would end up frequenting a few times over the next few days. Great food, great drinks and reasonable prices!

 

 

 

 

And of course, the beer of the day

 

 

After lunch we decided to set out on foot to do some exploring. We wandered past an old fort that now houses the maritime museum.

 

 

 

 

We kept walking and found the Columbus statue at the bottom end of Las Ramblas

 

 

And we kept walking towards the water wanting to see what the beach area was like....

 

 

A monument from the Olympic games

 

 

Not exactly sure what this guy was doing in the harbour...

[cruisinskier]

And finally we made it to the beach area

 

 

 

We stuck our foot in the water but it was very cold.....but the beach was very nice and we made a note to come back and spend some time here before we left. We continued on as we had noticed a cable car in the distance so decided to go see what it was all about...

 

 

 

 

By the time we made it to the tower for the cable car, they would only sell us a one way ticket but we weren't exactly sure to where?? It was going in the right direction to head back towards our hotel area so off we went...

 

 

 

 

The beach area from the cable car

 

 

 

 

And looking back at the cable cars when we got off...where ever we were!!

[cruisinskier]

We checked our map and realized we were part way up Montjuic. We ended up walking down the hill from here and the walk back to our hotel was only about 15 minutes from where we got off the cable car. We met up with the rest of our group and headed up to the roof of our hotel which had the pool and a patio area. We had brought a bottle of wine so enjoyed that overlooking the city. We realized we were all getting hungry so ended up having dinner (tapas) at the same restaurant where we had lunch earlier. After dinner it was back to the hotel to crash....we had a great full day in Barcelona and were looking forward to 2 more days of exploring.

 

 

 

Pool on the roof of the hotel

 

 

Patio area on the roof

[Peachie1]

I just read another review (Glory, maybe??) which had Blood Power on their trip and also said what a great band they were, and how they had everyone up on their feet!

 

I wonder if we would be lucky enough for them to be on our trip...

 

 

We have seen Blood Power on 4 or 5 occasions and they ROCK! I'm hoping they will still be there Nov.14th for the first cruise out of Galveston and then again on March 4th...I'm too old to be a groupie, but I haven't seen any other ship band that beats them...

 

Peaches, landlocked for the summer

[Peachie1]

Thank you so much for doing this while you were on vacation! Wonderful pictures and great commentary, I'm so glad that you took the time.

 

Peachie

[cdubmom]

Thank you so much for your detailed review! We are trying to decide if we should book the Aug 14 sailing...but we're hesitant since we have a 3 year-old. Your pictures have certainly made me thing we should put our anxieties aside and just do it!!! Also, how multi-culturally diverse was the ship? Thanks in advance!!! :)

[douglinc@msn.com]

Enjoyed your review and some really great pictures, thanks.

 

Doug

[cruisinskier]

Thank you so much for doing this while you were on vacation! Wonderful pictures and great commentary, I'm so glad that you took the time.

 

Peachie

 

 

Peachie, thanks for your comments. Enjoy your 2 cruises on Magic and I hope Blood Power is still onboard! And you are never too old to be a groupie :)

[cruisinskier]

Thank you so much for your detailed review! We are trying to decide if we should book the Aug 14 sailing...but we're hesitant since we have a 3 year-old. Your pictures have certainly made me thing we should put our anxieties aside and just do it!!! Also, how multi-culturally diverse was the ship? Thanks in advance!!! :)

 

Hi cdubmom. I would highly receommend both the Magic and the European itinerary. Only you can decide if now is the time or if you want to wait until your 3 year old is older. Of course you could always go now and again later. :D There is so much to see that it is impossible to do it all on one cruise. We have already said that we will do a similar cruise again as in every port we had to make decisions as to what to see so we want to go back and see the other places (i.e. in Naples we did Pompeii and Amalfi coast but missed Capri; in Florence we did not see enough of Tuscany, etc). So as you said...just do it!!

 

With regards to how diverse the boat was, here is a link to John Heald's blog and about half way down (right after he answers the questions) there is a breakdown of the nationalities onboard our cruise.....it was a very diverse group, our group of 12 were part of the 339 Canadians onboard. Just over half onboard were from the US (1962).

http://johnhealdsblog.com/2011/05/02/its-bin-a-magical-start/

[cruisinskier]

Easily the best and most informative review on CC! Well done! :)

 

Enjoyed your review and some really great pictures, thanks.

 

Doug

 

Thank you both. Appreciate the comments and glad you have enjoyed my review. We had a great time!

[cruisinskier]

Breakfast at the hotel was included in our rate. They had a nice restaurant on the 2nd floor with a full buffet breakfast. The food was very good.

 

 

 

After breakfast we decided to go explore more of Barcelona and the ladies wanted to do a little shopping. When we were looking for a hotel, one of our prioirities was that there be a subway entrance close by. Our hotel was right at the Parallel subway station and the entrance was literally in front of our hotel.

 

This is the view from the front door of the hotel and the subway is down those stairs

 

 

The subway is very automated and very clean

 

 

 

 

It shows you what stations you have been to and flashes green for what station is next

 

 

[cruisinskier]

We took the subway from the Parallel station to the Diagonal station. Getting off at this station allowed us to see some more of the popular Gaudi attractions on our way to the shopping district and Las Ramblas.

 

La Pedrera

 

 

 

 

Casa Batllo

 

 

 

 

[cruisinskier]

We did some shopping and wandered around until we got hungry. We found the Hard Rock and went there for lunch.....it is always good but it actually ended up being the most expensive meal we had on our entire trip.

 

 

Would you have guessed that this is.....

 

 

......McDonalds McCafe

 

 

The architecture around Barcelona is very interesting...

 

 

 

 

 

 

The chandelier at the Hard Rock

[cruisinskier]

After lunch we found the Palau Musica Catalana, a concert hall that looks amazing. We had tried to get tickets to a concert here the night before but were not able to. They do tours inside but we did not have time today...

 

 

I just liked the name of this place.....

 

 

We then headed down Las Ramblas

 

 

And stopped at the market