Serenade of the Seas vs. Disney Magic

[DeeAlsh13]

Both of these ships are cruising Greece from Barcelona, with SLIGHTLY different itineraries. Serenade sailing from August 3rd, and the Magic sailing from the 26th (I think) of July.

I've searched a lot about the Magic (Having already been on the Serenade's sister a couple years ago) and I've found some varying reviews.

The Magic has a better Itinerary for what I'm looking for, but I heard it's rooms are far smaller and for a higher price.

Everything is just a huge question mark at the moment, So I would like to know what all of you lovely cruisers think of both ships, or whatever! Greatly appreciated xx

[boulders]

Disney Magic and Serenade of the Seas are not pretty dissimilar. I did an 11 night Med cruise on Disney Magic 3 years ago. I haven't sailed Serenade, but I've sailed her sister ship Radiance of the Seas.

 

Price - The Magic is almost twice the cost of Serenade for a comparable room.

 

Cabins - A balcony on Magic is 268 sq ft (including the verandah). A D1 balcony on Serenade will be 204 sq ft plus a 41 sq ft balcony. However, the bathroom area on the Magic is much larger and the additional square footage plus more is in its bathroom area. Each half of the bathroom is smaller than the bathrooms on Royal Caribbean ships. My guesstimate is that the main living area of the Serenade is 170 sq ft and the Magic is 150 sq ft. The Magic has a lower space to passenger ratio.

 

Demographics - Disney is aimed towards kids. There will be a lot more than on Serenade of the Seas. There are cartoon characters in the lobby. There are cartoon characters in the dining room. The dining rooms are less formal. People do not dress for formal night. Disney allows shorts in the dining room.

 

Food - The food quality in the dining rooms of the Magic was better than in the dining rooms, but worse in the buffet.

 

Entertainment - The entertainment on the Magic is kid-focused. You won't find the typical cruiseline entertainment here.

 

Service - Disney is better. All of the staff that I met had English as a first language. On Royal, there is sometimes communication difficulties - staff, especially guest services, say that they understand, but they really don't.

 

Ship - The Magic is an older ship. It has a darker interior. The Serenade of the Seas will have a lot of glass everywhere which is great for viewing scenery.

 

Hope this helps!

[Missus Makkem]

Do not forget the Serenade has just had a major refit and is beautiful

Never had a problem with the staff and their understanding and speaking English.

[MOSusan]

My last cruise was on the Serenade. I had previously sailed on her in Alaska and loved the ship. Our last cruise was the Southern Caribbean which was very port intensive like most of the Med cruises. I can honestly say that I was so tired after being in port every day that the ship meant very little to me. The food was good and the bed was comfortable! My kids still laugh about the 2 or 3 shows that Mom slept through! "The show is over - wake mom up."

[DeeAlsh13]

Disney Magic and Serenade of the Seas are not pretty dissimilar. I did an 11 night Med cruise on Disney Magic 3 years ago. I haven't sailed Serenade, but I've sailed her sister ship Radiance of the Seas.

 

Thanks for all that info! Means a ton!

[DeeAlsh13]

Do not forget the Serenade has just had a major refit and is beautiful

 

The Magic is having a refit done at the moment! So they'll both be fairly new! Which is what leaves me absolutely confused!

[boulders]

I've had communication difficulties a couple of times on Royal - once where I told them that they lost my luggage (my only piece!) on my very first cruise. The person I spoke to only understood the words "luggage" and "airport" and thought the airline had it. I had given it to the RCI transfer person at the airport. I didn't see it again for the entire cruise. Someone from a transportation company called me on my cell and dropped it off to me at MIA. I'm still not sure what happened - it had my RCI luggage tags still on it. And just so I finish the story - when I called RCI customer service to complain about what had happened to my luggage, they said it was my fault for not purchasing insurance!!! So... if I don't purchase your insurance, you have the right to not deliver my luggage??!

 

I take it back re: Disney and food. I always forget - DD got food poisoning on the last day from the pasta alfredo. She was terribly sick, ending up in the sick bay and needing an IV.

[orville99]

Disney Magic is our favorite Disney ship, and Radiance Class is our favorite RCL class of ship. For us it would come down to itinerary and price - if the prices were close, I'd choose the better itinerary. If the prices are far apart and the itineraries are close, I'd choose based on price. Either way, they're both great ships. You'd enjoy either one.:)

[xxHadleyxx]

My kids grew up sailing on The Magic. She is a great ship (in fact, we like her more than Disney's newer bigger ships--even my teens do).

 

I have not been on the Serenade yet (will be next week).

 

I did write a comparison of back to back Med cruises on the Magic and the Liberty in 2011, if you are interested in hearing what I thought then on how the two lines compared while in Europe. That was on the DISboards, here is a link:

http://www.disboards.com/showthread.php?t=2803659

 

 

The Magic is having a refit done at the moment! So they'll both be fairly new! Which is what leaves me absolutely confused!

 

http://disneycruiselineblog.com/2013/10/disney-magic-dry-dock-update-week-5-the-transformation-in-cadiz-is-almost-complete/

 

Here are some photos from the current renovations, if you are interested.

[DeeAlsh13]

My kids grew up sailing on The Magic. She is a great ship (in fact, we like her more than Disney's newer bigger ships--even my teens do).

 

Hahah! This is what I needed to hear, as I am 16 years old. I've heard so much about the bigger ones, because they have more for teens. I was a little worried about the Magic.

 

 

 

I did write a comparison of back to back Med cruises on the Magic and the Liberty in 2011

 

This is greatly appreciated! I'll go right to it! Thank you so much!

[xxHadleyxx]

Hahah! This is what I needed to hear, as I am 16 years old. I've heard so much about the bigger ones, because they have more for teens. I was a little worried about the Magic.

 

 

 

 

 

This is greatly appreciated! I'll go right to it! Thank you so much!

 

I'll try to find this thread after our Oct 22 Serenade sailing and have my 16 year old daughter write up her comparisons for you if you think ti would help :)

[DeeAlsh13]

I'll try to find this thread after our Oct 22 Serenade sailing and have my 16 year old daughter write up her comparisons for you if you think ti would help :)

 

I would love that! If it isn't a bother to her, that is. Thank you so much for the thought, anyway!

[xxHadleyxx]

She says she would be happy too.

 

In the meantime, she says to say that in general as teens they (her and her brother) tend to prefer RCI over Disney--as it is more active and does a better job overall with youth staff working with teens from all nationalities and helpign them form friendships--but both are good.

 

Anyway--more to come (directly from here) in about 3 weeks :)

[DeeAlsh13]

She says she would be happy too.

 

In the meantime, she says to say that in general as teens they (her and her brother) tend to prefer RCI over Disney)

 

Thank you!

And what RCI ships have you been on? Have you ever been on the Radiance class? Because from my experience, I liked the Independence (same class as Liberty) far more than the Brilliance (same class as Serenade) in the teen program because we had more areas and far more to do. In the Brilliance we were just cooped up in a hallway-like room, so we never really spent time in there!!

So this being a Radiance class ship VS. Disney (not to mention I'm a Disney geek, forever and always!) is what's leaving me absolutely confused (also for my parents! No idea if they would enjoy the feel of a Disney ship, because I've heard so many contradicting reviews about it! They do tend to enjoy almost anything, though, so they're very easy to please. As long as the service is good, the staff friendly, and there are enough things to keep the day moving, they're fine!)

[lv2bcruzin]

The Serenade is my favorite ship in my favorite class. The staff has been awesome and the food is comparable to every other cruise I've been on in the MDR. Nothing fantastic, but nothing I didn't like. Chops of course is a different story. The food there has always been fantastic. I've never felt over crowded and the amount of activities is always enough if you don't feel like just relaxing. I've always enjoyed the Solarium for an adults only area.

 

You can view some photos I have taken of the Serenade HERE.

[boulders]

Thank you!

And what RCI ships have you been on? Have you ever been on the Radiance class? Because from my experience, I liked the Independence (same class as Liberty) far more than the Brilliance (same class as Serenade) in the teen program because we had more areas and far more to do. In the Brilliance we were just cooped up in a hallway-like room, so we never really spent time in there!!

So this being a Radiance class ship VS. Disney (not to mention I'm a Disney geek, forever and always!) is what's leaving me absolutely confused (also for my parents! No idea if they would enjoy the feel of a Disney ship, because I've heard so many contradicting reviews about it! They do tend to enjoy almost anything, though, so they're very easy to please. As long as the service is good, the staff friendly, and there are enough things to keep the day moving, they're fine!)

 

If price is not an object, then go with Disney. However, for the price that they're asking for their Med cruises, you may be able to book something on a luxury ship. Also, don't expect more activities and amenities for teens on Disney, because they won't have any more than Serenade. They will, of course, have Disney characters, but on our Med cruise, they tended to be heavy on princesses, and Mickey and Minnie. And the characters were not around the ship interacting with the guests, not very much anyway - Beast walked through the dining room one night and Mickey danced through the dining room one night - characters tended to be just in the atrium for pictures. If price is an object, then go with Serenade. Both will give you very good cruises.

[xxHadleyxx]

Thank you!

And what RCI ships have you been on? Have you ever been on the Radiance class? Because from my experience, I liked the Independence (same class as Liberty) far more than the Brilliance (same class as Serenade) in the teen program because we had more areas and far more to do. In the Brilliance we were just cooped up in a hallway-like room, so we never really spent time in there!!

So this being a Radiance class ship VS. Disney (not to mention I'm a Disney geek, forever and always!) is what's leaving me absolutely confused (also for my parents! No idea if they would enjoy the feel of a Disney ship, because I've heard so many contradicting reviews about it! They do tend to enjoy almost anything, though, so they're very easy to please. As long as the service is good, the staff friendly, and there are enough things to keep the day moving, they're fine!)

 

My teens have been on Liberty (just the one in that thread I linked), Mariner, Adventure, Legend and Splendour.

 

They enjoy all the ships, even the small ones (Legend and Splendour are the smallest in the fleet). They were fine on Legend for 14 days this spring and had a great time--the teen staff was excellent, so they didn't really mind the small space at all.

There isn't a huge space on the Magic for teens either--and as of yet they have yet to have very good staff in the teen clubs on any of our DCL cruises since they were old enough to be in there. It's really too bad, DCL was so great with the younger kids and tweens.

But it is still a great line with an excellent cruise staff who are more than happy to have teens join in to various activities around the ship tat are for all ages, etc.

 

Personally, I think the lines are about equally good--which makes the premium cost for DCL not worthwhile (possibly in the Caribbean that would be different, DCL's private island is incredible)

 

If you tend to take shore excursions, you may be interested to know that DCL has offered teen only shore excursions in the past. My kids never did any of them (I am too cheap to pay!) but they looked pretty interesting. I have never seen that offered on RCI.

[DeeAlsh13]

There isn't a huge space on the Magic for teens either--and as of yet they have yet to have very good staff in the teen clubs on any of our DCL cruises since they were old enough to be in there.

 

But from what I've seen (In photos and videos) it still seems to be a little roomier than what I experienced on the Brilliance. I do, however, hope you have a great time on the Serenade! and Hope to hear from you after (fingers crossed you find the thread!)