Review and Videos - Carnival Magic Oct 5-12, 2014

[aggie182]

The wife and I were lucky enough to sail on the Magic from October 5-12. Our itinerary included Key West, Freeport, and Nassau. I wanted to write a quick review and share some videos. More videos/slideshows will be coming in the next few days.

 

The Ship (sailaway video below):

Very clean and very nice. It really doesn’t feel like there are close to 5000 passengers and crew, it feels very uncrowded. We were in cabin 9446. I was concerned about the noise from above but it wasn’t too bad. We did hear the typical chair scraping but it didn’t bother us. The location was awesome. A quick trip to the aft Lido bar or Lido Marketplace was always nice for drinks and ice cream. Putt putt was fun. The water slides were ok but the seams hurt as you slid over them.

 

FTTF:

We got to the terminal around 10:30am and were on board about 11:45am. Our room wasn’t ready yet but only lacked being vacuumed. They came and vacuumed it once they saw we were there. Out suitcase arrived while we were eating lunch. That was definitely nice!

 

Cheers:

After getting ~$200 OBC from price reductions and buying a $500 Carnival gift card through Verizon for $450, I convinced the wife to do Cheers. It was a great value for us and it was especially nice to not have to worry about what our bar bill would be at the end. I never hit 15 drinks but hit 13 the last 2 nights. I had between 5 and 10 on the other days. My wife liked being able to try new wines and not feeling like she was wasting money if she hated it. We spent a lot of time at the Atrium Bar. I will budget Cheers in on future cruises.

 

Casino:

This seemed like the most crowded area of the ship. We only lost about $40 but didn’t play very much. We had 6 match plays on the first day and each took 3 and sat down at a $10 BJ table. We each lost 3 hands in a row. We ended up with about 8 more and went to Roulette and I bet red and she bet black and we made $20 off those 8 match plays since 0 or 00 didn’t show. We lost a bit more on other match plays and ran about $20 through slots.

 

Food:

We had any time dining but were typically there at 5:45pm. The food ranged from good to great. It was weird seeing shorts in the dining room but I joined in once I realized the dress code was more relaxed than the last time I sailed. I would have liked an earlier breakfast in the MDR other than the sea day brunch starting at 8:30 but the Lido buffet was just fine. The omelets were cooked to order and very good. We ate all sea day lunches in the Italian restaurant and it was very good. We requested the same section in the MDR the last five nights and enjoyed having the same wait staff and above average service. The Suess breakfast was a lot of fun and quite enjoyable as well.

 

Key West (video below):

We booked a guided fishing trip through Key West Pro Guides and I requested Capt. Dave Irwin. He was awesome. I told Capt. Dave our goal was to catch fish. I didn’t care what kind but I wanted to catch anything that would eat a fly. I caught a bunch of barracuda, a jack, and had good shots at snook and redfish. The highlight for me was when a small bonnet head shark ate my fly and ran for Cuba. It was a great battle on a 7 weight fly rod. The biggest highlight though, was my wife hooking and fighting a 6’ lemon shark using conventional tackle and a small barracuda I caught. We estimated the shark to be in the 75-100 pound range. Capt. Dave met and exceeded all of out needs and wants.

 

Freeport (video to come):

We booked the Beach Getaway with Open Bar through Carnival. This was a nice relaxing excursion. The beach was nice and they set up umbrellas between your chairs. We got in the water some but mostly relaxed under the umbrella. The drinks were typical watered down fruity drinks but were good. We ordered conch salad ($11.50) and we were not impressed. We wanted to try it though. The gift shops there were typical and had the normal tourist junk. We enjoyed the excursion and would recommend it for a nice relaxing time.

 

Nassau (video to come):

We booked the Full Day Atlantis with Lunch excursion through Carnival. We had a good time at Atlantis but wouldn’t go back and spend a week there. There didn’t seem to be as many water slides as we thought there would be. We enjoyed the (no so lazy) lazy river and probably made 8-10 trips around it. The lunch was typical waterpark food and if you wanted a beer, it’s $7. I stayed with the included burger, fries, and soda. When we left, we talked about how we really enjoyed it and were glad we did it but couldn’t see ourselves vacationing there.

 

This was our 4th cruise, 2nd with Carnival, and we really enjoyed the break from the daily grind.

 

Key West!

 

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Sailaway!

 

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[aggie182]

I am having issues trying to embed the photos but the links are there too. I should have Freeport, Nassau, and some footage/pictures from around the ship in a few days.

[tkportersat]

Enjoyed reading the beginning of your review! I hope you come back.

[Gumbiscool]

Lurker here!

We were on that ship at the same time as you for our honeymoon.

Room 9441 (right across the hall!).

I enjoyed reading this post, thank you!

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Forums

[MichelleChell]

Love the videos