REVIEW: 15 day Eastbound Transatlantic Cruise on Disney Magic

[Sundodger]

We just got back from the 15-day eastbound TransAtlantic Cruise that went from Port Canaveral to Copenhagen and figured I'd give a review.

 

In a nutshell: It was awesome. On a scale of 1-100, I'd give it a 97.

 

The cruise had high expectations -- we were dipping into savings and pulling the kids (7 and 5 years old) out of school as we felt this kind of length of cruise and ports it was visiting was probably a once-in-a-blue-moon opportunity on Disney (and it appears to be so. The 2016 EBTA isn't as great as itinerary, IMO) . We've cruised a little before -- this was our 13th cruise in the last 10 years and third Disney Cruise (Wonder and Fantasy) so we knew kind of what to expect and were thus VERY eager to do this.

 

They didn't disappoint.

 

Embarkation in Port Canaveral was a breeze -- we were a bit later getting there so it wasn't crowded in the port.

 

CABIN: 93

 

We decided if we were going to do 15 days at sea with 2 little kids, we were going to go a little more for the larger balcony. We had a 4A Family Balcony room (8536) which was midship on the 8th deck. Very convenient location near the midship elevators and just a short flight of stairs up to the pool deck. The room was comfortable and we appreciated the difference between the Family balcony and the regular balcony (the class 5s). The Family balcony has about, oh 4 feet of extra space between the edge of the couch and the balcony door to have room for the 5th person Murphy Bed (which we didn't use). It also had quite the nice dresser/drawer set in that extra space that gave us plenty of storage for clothes and the toys the kids brought.

 

The only hiccup on the entire cruise was in the cabin, although it wasn't our cabin's fault directly. The closets have sliding doors that have Velcro on the sides to fasten them to the closet walls so when the ship is moving, the doors won't slam around. Unfortunately, someone on Deck 7 had faulty doors and apparently, were the most sound sleepers on the planet. We were SO lucky that the seas were nearly flat for just about the entire cruise - even in the middle of the Atlantic. But the two nights where we had a little movement, all day and night long you would hear occasional "SLAM!......Slam" --the two doors rolling and then slamming into the side of the closet. It was so loud it actually shook our bed and could be heard over about a 5 cabin radius on our deck. A call to guest services brought a senior staff member to our room right away to hear it, and then they tried to find the source. But all of the cabins below us on Deck 7 were occupied and signed "Do not disturb" so they could not enter. So they apologized and said they would check back in the morning. So a second night of loud banging… ugh. That morning, the cabin attendants on the 7th floor apparently were to scour the cabins there to make sure the doors were fastened, but could not locate the issue and as I mentioned, despite what must sound like cannon fire every 20 seconds inside the room where it was happening, it was apparently not loud enough to bother who ever had that cabin. Eventually their solution was to give our neighbors ear plugs, but thankfully, the seas calmed and it wasn't much of an issue the rest of the trip.

 

Aside from that, you can tell the Magic is aged a bit more -- we had an issue with a loose hinge on the bathroom door and then on one of the cabinets, and the bathroom drain needed attention around Day 9. But each time they came to fix it pronto. Minor stuff.

 

 

FOOD: 102

 

Simply put, the dining experience was perfect. Our wait staff was off the charts amazing and the best pair we've ever had on any of our cruises, even the prior Disney cruises. Some days the kids were a bit sleepy but the staff could always perk them up. Our youngest is super picky and relegates herself to plain spaghetti or cheese pizza - and she wasn't a fan of the pizza on board (yes our daughter was the first person in nautical history to go hungry on a cruise ship). But she did like the pasta and by Day 3, the staff would have the special-order spaghetti there as soon as we arrived. My wife is a big fan of escargot, and when she ordered 2 on Day 3 in Lumiere's, the wait staff took note. And then on about 5-6 more nights through the cruise, they would surprise her with a special escargot order.

 

The main event for me on any cruise is lobster (spoiler alert, Going on NCL to Alaska? Don't count on Lobster night). This cruise had *2* lobster nights, and we're not talking tiny lobsters. These are big 'uns. Awesome. We love the rotating restaurants, especially when you get each one for 5 nights. We got the Sorcerer Mickey Show and the "draw your own character" night in Animator's Palate. I loved the food up top on the pool deck. Cabanas could use a little more variety for lunch -- yes, it's a buffet so there was a lot there but sometimes it was a lot of food in the similar realm, instead of spreading across food types. But minor stuff here. No complaints.

 

We eat at Pete's Boiler Bites quite often as we spend a lot of time near the pool and that was great. And the all you can drink soda/coffee is *so* useful. Room service was great too.

 

POOL/DECK: 100

 

The kids loved the pool deck and spent equal times on the water slide, the kiddie pool/water spray area and the main pool and hot tubs. I LOVE the movies they play on the Funnel Vision and for me, this is my favorite thing to do on the cruise -- sit in/by/around the pool with a soft serve ice cream watching movies as the kids swim. We did that for hours on some of the at sea days. Perfection for vacation. Our 7 year old was the only one to brave the Aqua Dunk and she only did it once, but we all went on the big yellow slide multiple times. Youngest kid went on it like 60 times.

 

*Bonus*-- Disney now has full time lifeguards in all pools when the pool is open -- even the kiddie pool. Sometimes they're quite lonely, especially when we got into the far northern reaches of our trip and it's 50 degrees and raining and no one's on deck except the lifeguards, but they were super friendly. But it was great peace of mind to have them there. Also cool: Disney now supplies dozens of life vests for the kids -- a huge help for my 5yo daughter who can sorta swim but can't touch in the 4 ft big pool. This gave her the freedom to swim around and not be so tied to the side. Also cool -- they gradually warmed the pools as the weather got colder. So the pool was refreshingly cool in the first few days when it's in the 80s/90s off the East Coast, and then warmed the water temps into the 80s when the outside temp dropped into the 50s and 60s. So the pool was useable in the chilly north, especially for us hearty northernerns who are used to swimming in chilly weather in the summer (we're from Seattle.)

 

ENTERTAINMENT: 100

 

We don't do the main shows that much -- we're second seating and not usually ready to be done with our day by 6:45. But we did see about 4 of the shows, including the biggies, and they were well worth the time, especially the Disney Dreams one. Having first run movies is great too -- got to see the new Avengers movie and as per Disney tradition, if a Disney movie premiers on your cruise, you'll get to see it on the ship. We got to see Tomorrowland the day it debuted even though we were 2 days from Halifax.

 

We were also lucky that we got both Pirate night AND the Frozen "Freeze the Night Away" deck party. That wasn't supposed to debut until the cruise after ours (the first cruise from Copenhagen) BUT! We had an edited itinerary -- days before we left, they decided there was too much sea ice off Newfoundland. So gone were the ports of St. John and Iceland (aaah!) but was replaced with Halifax (better than St John IMO) and Stavanger, Norway. We've been to Iceland before and it was a short port anyway (7:30-1:45) limiting our options, but had never been to Norway so I was actually excited to get the second Norway port, but a lot of people were super bummed for missing Iceland.

 

So I think they moved up the Frozen stuff to make up for it, especially since we were now going to 2 Norway ports. So they were rehearsing the show several nights on deck around midnight (They let you watch as long as you didn't take pics), then we actually got the show on Stavanger night!! Plus they brought out all the Frozen merchandise in the stores, so it was a big hit and we were so excited we got to do the Frozen experiences that we were originally bummed we were going to be one cruise too early.

 

They had the Elsa/Anna/Olaf characters and Marvel characters on board (Capt America, Thor, Spiderman) but you had to get free tickets to get a set time/date to do so -- sorta kinda like a Fast Pass at Disneyland/World (So be sure to check the Navigator on Day 1 and get these tickets early at Guest Services to be able to choose the time/date you want. If you miss it, they'll still have tickets, just more limited choices on times) but it was nice that this way they could crowd control and limit the number of people there at any given time because if Anna and Elsa were just out in the atrium, there would be 1,000 kids there and the line would be an hour. The character breakfast also needed a free reservation ticket. And of course, the traditional Disney characters are there along with 3 princesses (Belle, Tiana, and Cinderella on this cruise). No Snow White/Aurora but guessing they only had so many royal cabins on board for them to all live J

 

KIDS CLUB: 100

 

As always, Disney does the kids club right, and is the way to take kids on the cruise and then have enough alone time as well. This is where DCL totally blows away the other cruise lines, as you'd expect.

 

PORTS:

 

We do ports ourselves and don’t use the Di$ney Port Adventure$ because… good grief they're spendy!

 

New York was amazing. We docked right next to the Intrepid museum around 49th and 12th -- about a mile walk to Times Square. That's what we did, and then took the subway as needed from there. Went all over, and great experience for the kids.

Halifax: we walked along the waterfront, there's a little playground in town, and then we went to the Children's Discovery Museum and… Starbucks and Menchies (Kids needed some connection to home)

Stavanger: Just walked around town, did some shopping. Their Starbucks had their grand opening that day, so exciting to be among the first there! (I see that eyeroll… Remember- Seattle family!)

Oslo: We did an Oslo fjord tour via Costco instead of through Disney and paid 25% the price. Disney wanted $400 for 4 for a 3 hour Fjord tour. We spent about $110 for a 2 hour tour. And, the weather was pretty crummy this day with steady rains/fog in the upper 40s so it wasn't the best day to be on the water.

Copenhagen: Our favorite port. Such an amazing city. The cruise schedule was great in that Disney gave us a full day here and didn't kick us off the ship till the next morning, so we had the luxury of visiting Copenhagen with no time worries. We took one of the hop on-hop off buses that also included the harbor/canal tour. It takes about 1 hr 20 mins for the bus loop and the canal tour with no stops is an hour. Also, book this in town -- don't buy on the pier or ahead of time, you might be able to get a deal as there's a few competing companies. The free cruise shuttle dropped us off right across from the train station next to Tivoli and our bus sales guy gave us our kids free when it should have been about $30 each.

 

There is TONS to explore in this town. If you are going to a Europe cruise that starts or ends here, be sure to book an extra day or two to explore.

 

Just remember: Food is SUPER expensive (relative to U.S.) in Norway and Copenhagen. Hamburger in Stavanger restaurant was about $31 US; personal pizza was over $20. A Big Mac Value meal (no we didn't order one, but I went into a McDonalds for price research) was about $12 US; a medium coke was just over $5. (On the Olso fjord tour, a *can* of coke was $5.90). Starbucks latte in Stavanger? Just under $7. Fill up on breakfast before going ashore!

 

DEBARK:

 

Only complaint here is it took quite a while (50 minutes) to get a Disney bus to Copenhagen Airport. We were off the ship toward the later time -- about 9:10, but they only had like 2-3 buses that were driving the 20-25 mins to Copenhagen Airport, then back. So long wait between buses. They need more. Luckily our flight wasn't until 2:30 so no hurry.

 

INTERNET:

 

Disney Internet now sells data plans instead of the old fashioned "50 cents a min" online. This was great as it gave you the freedom to use your phone/laptop/tablet. Just be sure to really shut EVERYTHING off for data -- particularly your auto update of apps, which your phone will do thinking it's on free WiFi. That blew out my data in 2 minutes. Disney was VERY nice about these sort of things and gave me my data back. They have a site where you can keep current tabs on your data usage and it's $19 for 100 mb; $39 for 300 mb and $89 for a gig. Also make sure your mail programs are in manual download mode and not automatically fetching as that will eat up data in the background.

 

TIME CHANGES: UGH! :eek:

 

 

One thing if you ever do a transatlantic cruise, especially Eastbound, the time changes are a significant factor. We had to go forward 5 hours in 6 days between Halifax and Stavanger, so each night (save 1) we had to move the clocks ahead one hour. It's like Groundhog Day met Daylight Savings Day. And it really does mess you up. Because you eat dinner at 8:30, done around 10, go meet some characters, get kids ready for bed, and it's 11pm. Only now it's midnight. Repeat night 2, and now it's 11pm, only it feels like 10 pm, but wait, now it's midnight.

 

Repeat Night 3 and now it's 11pm only it feels like 9 pm, but wait, it's now midnight! Night 4: It's 11pm, but feels like 8 pm, no wait, now… it's midnight!

 

Some of the nights we weren't going to bed until 1:30-2am because it only *felt* like 10-11 pm. On the other hand, we're sleeping in until 10-11am the next day. Get up, get kids up, shower and… it's noon! Half the day is gone. At least they kept breakfast going with extended hours on the clock-change days. Far and away the hardest part of the cruise. In that sense, going westbound transatlantic is better -- there you're gaining an extra hour each day!

 

But I'd do eastbound again in a heartbeat on Disney. Thanks for making the trip so memorable! Can't wait for our next adventure! :)

[LesaL]

Thanks for posting the review. I love reading people's experiences and yours sounds awesome.

[transitary]

What was your fjord tour like? We did the disney "fjords by boat" and it was pretty much a harbor tour. It was the only disney excursion we booked and I was disappointed in it. Other than that, the trip was great.

[moki'smommy]

Trans-Atlantics are the best. This one didn't fit into the school schedule for us, but they really are our favorite cruises.

[Sundodger]

What was your fjord tour like? We did the disney "fjords by boat" and it was pretty much a harbor tour. It was the only disney excursion we booked and I was disappointed in it. Other than that, the trip was great.

 

They went out a bit out to the end of the fjord - about 10-15 or so minutes straight out from the dock. It began as a quick drive-by of like the Opera House, then we spent the next 45 minutes or so drifting or heading alog the homes and islands along the eastern Fjord and cut into some pretty narrow spots, then we cut across the Sound to the western side of the fjords and pretty much same thing -- 30 or so minutes on that side, then came back. It was only 2 hours but really glad we didn't do the Disney one as we were seriously considering it, but it was nearly $400 for the 4 of us. They didn't feed you on this one (I heard the Disney one had at least a snack or something?) and it was a bit hard to see with the rain and foggy windows. But I'd do it again on a sunny day.

[Sundodger]

Trans-Atlantics are the best. This one didn't fit into the school schedule for us' date=' but they really are our favorite cruises.[/quote']

 

Agree! If we didn't have little kids we'd make it our yearly trip :) But as it is, they're at terrible times. We figured go now while oldest was in 2nd grade before she gets too far into school as it'd be harder to miss that much school in later grades. Would love to do westbound too, but it's right as school starts, which we felt was worse than trying to do it at the end of the year :)

[transitary]

They went out a bit out to the end of the fjord - about 10-15 or so minutes straight out from the dock. It began as a quick drive-by of like the Opera House, then we spent the next 45 minutes or so drifting or heading alog the homes and islands along the eastern Fjord and cut into some pretty narrow spots, then we cut across the Sound to the western side of the fjords and pretty much same thing -- 30 or so minutes on that side, then came back. It was only 2 hours but really glad we didn't do the Disney one as we were seriously considering it, but it was nearly $400 for the 4 of us. They didn't feed you on this one (I heard the Disney one had at least a snack or something?) and it was a bit hard to see with the rain and foggy windows. But I'd do it again on a sunny day.

 

We did our own excursions in the other cities BC we felt confident wed have time to get back to the ship, this one we decided to go with disney. We saw cabins, saw the opera house. Never saw the high cliffs we had been hoping to see, sounds like you might have in the narrow spots (we didn't go anywhere narrow). Trip was prob under 2.5 hours but half hour of that was bobbing around the magic, the captain of the fjord boat asking the magic if he could let us off there. We got a drink, some tasty bread, and shrimp. The disney excursion was not worth it. Pretty much saw what we did from the magic.

[BullDawg91]

I'm so jealous ! I really want to do a transatlantic, but I guess I'll have to wait until my kids are grown! Many years to go!

 

I wish our school system would give you so many freebie days off!

[STHCruising]

We were also on the EBTA and agree with everything you wrote. But, here is the funny part, we were in stateroom 8538 (your neighbors) and were the recipients of the earplugs referenced in your post! We actually thought it was your closet doors making the noise; after being persistent with the deck manager we discovered that it was actually the floor of the deck, but only when there was a lot of motion. It was like someone was stepping on and off an empty oil drum. Had the deck manager been willing to stand on a specific spot in our cabin for the entire night, the noise would have gone away! He did concede that it was a problem he had not seen before.

 

The annoying cabin noise and the change in itinerary did not ruin our cruise at all however. It was the very best cruise we have taken together. Everything from entertainment to dining to port adventures was over the top, exceeding our expectations. We had servers that were so exceptional we only went up to Palo for one evening, and we were in the Walt Disney Theatre every night for the first time ever because of the terrific entertainment. Stavanger was our favorite port and it wasn't even on the original itinerary. The Lysefjord excursion was terrific.

 

Glad you had a wonderful cruise; we did too!

[moki'smommy]

ANY time you get on a ship, you have to be ready for altered ports...we've had changes near the US due to storms, Africa due to political unrest, etc. It does seem to happen more often on longer cruises, but can occur anywhere. Glad you had a great time and one of your unscheduled stops ended up being a favorite.

[Sundodger]

We were also on the EBTA and agree with everything you wrote. But, here is the funny part, we were in stateroom 8538 (your neighbors) and were the recipients of the earplugs referenced in your post! We actually thought it was your closet doors making the noise; after being persistent with the deck manager we discovered that it was actually the floor of the deck, but only when there was a lot of motion. It was like someone was stepping on and off an empty oil drum. Had the deck manager been willing to stand on a specific spot in our cabin for the entire night, the noise would have gone away! He did concede that it was a problem he had not seen before.

 

Hah! Too funny! Claret mentioned our neighbors (you :) and others I'm sure) thought it was us, and we were really hoping we could get the word out it wasn't and we were suffering just as much. We were pretty sure it was the cabin below ours -- we could feel the floor jump each time it hit, and it always came in twos -- like the first sliding door hit real hard, then the second one hit moments later. It was literally shaking our bed each time. It happened that night we left Halifax but it stopped around 3:30 am so I figured the people in the room below were just out late and didn't know. But then...what was it, sea day 4?... it went all...night...long. I didn't get to sleep till 5 am that night. And then again on Day 5, but not quite as often. And of course, our rockiest night after Olso (at least we weren't in open sea that long)

 

They didn't offer us earplugs, but I'm not sure earplugs would have worked because you could feel it as well as hear it. And it shook the floor more than the wall because I thought it was your cabin at first, but then could tell it was coming from below. We had the manager come stand in our room first -- I was then convinced there was an empty cabin on deck 7 and the doors were just running amok and simply needed to be velcroed. Then he said they were all occupied and they couldn't just barge in to check. I wonder if anyone reading this was on the cruise after ours and near our cabin and could confirm it stopped or kept going. If so, next time a room on the port side! :)

[CI66774]

Could have it been the waves? I was on the eastbound trans (Royal Princess) and one night it was bumpy and sounded like someone banging on a drum. Front desk said it was the waves banging against the ship - they were right.

[STHCruising]

I don't think it was waves. We were in deck 8, the highest deck with rooms, no where near the waterline. Also, it didn't seem be heard except by our stateroom and the one next to us. The deck manager told us it was a new problem for him. I will say that these staterooms are at mid-ship, right on the seam where the front and back half of the Magic were put together when ship was originally built. It's pure speculation that this has anything to do with our issue. The floors and walls are made of metal, and it felt and sounded like sheet metal that wasn't fully supported, but only made the noise when seas were on the rougher side.

[monty913]

I had never even thought about all the time changes! I get messed up just twice a year with the one hour change, I cant imagine that many in that short a time. :confused:

[NancyIL]

Thank you for a very nice review. I was also on your cruise (my 2nd Disney Transatlantic), and I agree that it was a great cruise.

 

The Transatlantic and Panama Canal cruises are usually DCL's best bang for the buck. This cruise had some pretty big price increases, as it was the first EBTA with a decent itinerary. I was fortunate to book this cruise on opening day. I booked a placeholder cruise while onboard - thinking ahead to a Panama Canal cruise in May 2017. DCL's PC itineraries have been pretty unimaginative, but they do a great job filling the sea days with activities.