Jump to content
Cruise Critic Community

Willdra’s Magnificent Carnival Magic July 9-16 Cruise

willdra

By willdra,
in Carnival Cruise Lines

 Share

Recommended Posts

willdra Great Review Rare

willdra

Posted
  • Author
Posted
LOVE your style of writing!!! This is one of the best ones I've read in some time......:D:D

 

 

 

We were supposed to be on the Magic tomorrow, but GOD FORBID DH miss his players championship at the country club, so we ended up doing Oasis in June.....lol

 

 

 

SO wishing we didn't, because then I'd be sailing tomorrow!:D

 

 

 

Patiently waiting for you next installment.....:D

 

 

64db832435f1d1ee363f5c15db9db4c2.jpg

 

Thank you for the positive feedback!!!

 

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Forums

Link to comment
Share on other sites
willdra Great Review Rare

willdra

Posted
  • Author
Posted
Loving the review so far. We are on the Magic in 4 weeks and I am stalking all reviews or her!!

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Forums mobile app

 

 

Yessssssss!!! Low key cruise review stalking is one of my favorite pastimes! [emoji106]🏾

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Forums

Link to comment
Share on other sites
willdra Great Review Rare

willdra

Posted
  • Author
Posted
Subscribing! we had to change out of a B2B next year on a fantasy ship, and we chose the Magic for Halloween 2017, so I want to know all! Thanks.

 

 

I have tons of pictures of the ship that I will be posting later. Thanks for reading along! [emoji847]

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Forums

Link to comment
Share on other sites
willdra Great Review Rare

willdra

Posted
  • Author
Posted

I got up and went to the Gym which was a little crowded. Afterwards I walked up to Serenity where there were lots of choices for shaded lounge chairs. Sweet! Now I don’t know about anyone else, but we are vampires when it comes to sitting in the hot sun. We run from the sun on Sea Days like we would immediately burst into flames and turn into a pile of smoking ash, if it even so much as touches our skin!

 

Where is everyone?

28344652651_895f7bdf8d_n.jpg

 

 

Our usual Sea Day routine is for me to go to the gym first, and afterwards go up and find a spot. I have my phone with me so I can entertain myself for awhile. Very soon after that, W will roll out of bed and join me so that I can leave and shower and get my gear. Of course on this particular day when I ran extra mileage, the gym was hot as hades, and I smelled like warm garbage, W decides to sleep in!

Really Dude? Really? You pick the WORST possible day to leave me stinking up Serenity?

 

As I was sending W subliminal messages (which he was either not getting or ignoring), K and T came through. We moved to where there were 2 clamshells side by side. Double Yay! That's a major score for the first Sea Day! Basking in our good chair karma, I start to think that maybe I will allow W to live another day! He was spared ya’ll! I don’t want to undo all of the positive energy in the air. Plus, lots of other passengers must have had the same idea as W, because Serenity was wide open for awhile!

 

 

Eventually, W finally decided to make an appearance. By this time I started to think Serenity was so empty because I was smelling like the funk of 1000 years! So I handled my hygiene because if I didn’t, I think one of the crew would probably have come over and asked me to leave! I could just hear them….. “Excuse me ma’am, I’m sorry to bother you, but some of the passengers just fainted from your stench, so will you please utilize the shower in your cabin?”

 

Once I was fresh and clean, W and I went to the Sea Day Brunch. I cannot stress enough that I LIVE for the Chocolate Chip Pancakes and Cheddar Grits at the brunch! Those 2 dishes are the truth! I think that they are both made with a sprinkle of unicorn fur and essence of mermaid, because they are magical!! These brunch items give me clarity, peace, a harp playing that soothing music in the background, and everything is suddenly right with the world! Let’s pause here for a second to pay our respects…….

 

Chocolate Chip Pancake Heaven!

28249082972_1cd5292c56_n.jpg

 

Cheddar Grits Greatness!

28249080682_57c7b52df2_n.jpg

 

Alright, back to the story! T and K watched our spot while we were gone. Now before anyone calls the “chair hog” police, we were gone exactly 30 minutes. I started my timer when we got up to leave, so that we would stay within the guidelines. That’s a rule that we don't break. Shade is too precious to gamble with! We don’t want those problems!

 

After W and I came back from brunch, K and T went down to Guys Pig and Anchor Bar B Que. They LOVED the chicken and Mac and Cheese. W went around 2 and he said there was no line. He also raved about the food. He was on his best behavior too, because he brought me back a sample! Let me find out W’s trying to stay on my good side! LOL

 

Chicken with Mac and Cheese from Guy's Pig and Anchor

28249079562_a8dab8a74c_n.jpg

 

We lay around and chilaxed the afternoon away in Serenity. The hardest thing that we did was digest all of the food that we consumed! At some point in the day, the Captain came on with an important “safe a tee” message. Umm, most of the time important “safe a tee” messages in the middle of the day are bad news. So we all instantly sit up and tune in. Now, if you happen to be in Serenity when announcements are made, you will only hear what sounds like Charlie Brown’s teacher talking. Or for those who are unfamiliar with that, this is close: “Wha wha wha wha whaaaaa………….” Then Repeat. Twice. The bar tenders will be of no help with the messages, and I think they are actually trained NOT to pay attention!

 

 

The only person in our group who could make any of it out was T. He had his head cocked to the side and was really concentrating on listening to the Captain’s voice. It reminded me of that scene from Lassie…”Ruff! Ruff! Ruff!” ”What’s that Lassie? Timmy fell down a well?” “Ruff! Ruff!”

After the conclusion of the message, T says he thinks there is a medical emergency and that we were going to Miami to drop the family off, but that was all that he understood. Um Houston we have a problem! We need to be crystal clear on our itinerary because we were really looking forward to Costa Maya. K looks T square in the eyes and says “Now think carefully, the Captain didn’t say we were skipping Costa Maya right?!?!” He blinked rapidly a few times, saw the crazed look in our eyes, decided quickly that he didn’t want to take any chances with his life by giving us the incorrect info, then hastily went to go and check it out which also equals he escaped! W was in the cabin getting something when the announcement was made, so he and T came back and verified that we were definitely still going to Costa Maya. Crisis averted. For now. Maybe.

 

A short time later, the Coast Guard came and met our ship right outside of Miami. They evacuated the family with the emergency, and we executed that cool 180 degree turn swag and sailed back out to sea. I sent up a quick prayer for the passenger and the family, then I resumed my best impression of Jabba The Hut! Wait a minute though, the ship was still moving extremely slow. Why are we still in chill mode? We should be barreling towards a port at this point, right?? It honestly did not seem like we were on our way ANYWHERE much less Costa Maya! Since I am a human being and fully flawed, I started to wonder if the cruise gods had deemed us unworthy of another great cruise, and had in fact placed a “horrible cruise hex” on us!! Were we going to be on the struggle bus this whole week? Oh well, nothing to do at this point but wait and see. You know, control your controllables and all.

 

Days go by twice as fast on a cruise ship, and before we knew it, it was time to get ready for dinner. We were meeting K and T for elegant evening at 7, so we hauled our butts off of the loungers, and trekked back to get dressed. During my shower time, the Captain came on to make another announcement. I couldn’t hear that well in there either, so I stuck my head out of the bathroom door while keeping my whole body in the shower. Hey this could be important news, so a girl has to do what a girl has to do! Don’t judge me, this review is a safety zone, unless you are an Italian Captain, then it’s a “safe a tee” zone!

 

Basically, the Captain stated that we will miss Roatan, but tomorrow we will go to Key West instead. The other ports were rearranged, but we would still make them. This was fine with us! We love Key West and we were still visiting 4 ports after a bomb threat, a possible voodoo curse, and a medical emergency! #WINNING!!!!!

 

 

 

With the port crisis behind us, we made it up to Anytime Dining around 7. Let me tell you the wait to just get a pager was back up the stairs and all of the way up to deck 4! In case you missed the important part, this line of eternity was just to GET THE PAGER! Since this was definitely not our first rodeo, we knew there would be a wait, so we planned to get the pager, and then take pictures until our table was ready. We took our rightful place in the back of the line, which was actually moving a little. However, when we were coming down the stairs, we noticed that another line had formed around the Lobby Bar. W wanted to tell the people down there that they were in the wrong line, and I gently reminded him again that this was STILL the “Mind your own business tour!” It took a minute, but he did admit that I was right. Again. Which happens 99,9% of the time, so I don’t know why he doesn’t just listen to me in the beginning! I’m seriously considering having a sign printed up!

 

It took us around 30 minutes to get the pager, then another 30 minutes to be seated, and we took lots of pictures, so the time was not wasted. Dinner went by fast! It was 75 minutes from start to finish, which put us right at the Guess That Motown Song Party with Dr E. in the Lobby. We sang along for only about 45 minutes, because we wanted to catch the 10:30 comedy show. This show featured the same guy from the previous night, Mike Speenberg. We also caught the next show at 11:30, which featured Chas Elstner. I liked him better than Mike.

 

 

It was late after that, so we got a few midnight snacks then went to bed.

 

Here are my favorite pictures from Elegant Evening Number 1

(I added the stickers to disguise K and T because IRL they are spies!)

 

“Ciao, Ciao, Double Chizow!”-Dr. E.

 

 

28378739352_aaaa017a42_n.jpg

 

27867371774_a568718427_n.jpg

Link to comment
Share on other sites
willdra Great Review Rare

willdra

Posted
  • Author
Posted

I have no idea why this is so long, please don’t hate me!!!

 

I woke up because I heard the ship’s thrusters at around 7:20, but I ”officially” got up around 8:30. We were on Deck 2 Aft, so when we docked or set sail, we could tell. It really didn’t bother me at all because I slept through it, and actually, I thought it was a good pseudo alarm clock. W snores so loud that he sounds like Darth Vader, so I know for a fact that he was not bothered either!

 

This is going to be a relaxed Port day for us. We have all been to Key West before, so we were in no rush for anything, We would take our time and see what popped off. We moseyed, yes moseyed up to Lido breakfast at 10ish.

 

The reason that we’ve been excited about Costa Maya was that we had reservations at Yaya Beach which looked A-Mazing!!! It was a little tense there for awhile in the planning stages because the first 2 excursion choices that we made were full! I did a lot of digging and reading different sources and I found Yaya which looked like it would fill all of our needs. Now because of the unavoidable delay, our Costa Maya day was changed from Monday to Thursday. K and I emailed Yaya on Sunday when we got close to Miami to let them know of the change, and maybe 15 minutes later, we were delighted to see that Gabriel had already responded saying that he had us and that he would see us Thursday! We are back in business!!!

 

Another reason that we were not mad with Key West is because we could use our phones to communicate! When we are on a cruise, we really try to stay unplugged as much as possible. Unless we get to an American Port with cell service. Then all bets are off. It’s every man for himself, and God for us all!! I typed all of those words to say that K sent me a text at 10 asking where we were because that was our meet up time. Well we were still moseying, so we told them to go ahead and we would catch up. We ate breakfast and leisurely strolled off of the ship around 11, and who do we see standing on the dock with their heads buried in their phones??? Yep, you guessed it K and T!!!!

 

Alright we are all together now, so let’s get this Key West Party Poppin’!!! We all took a quick stroll down to the Hop On Hop Off Trolley stand and paid $23/person for the tour. We located the nearest Trolley which is just about ready to pull off. The driver gets back on, greets everyone then starts the tour. So about a mile or 2 down the road, it dawns on me that she never took or asked for our tickets. Hmmmmmmmm Alright then. It’s a good thing we are honest! We did the entire tour and it took around an hour 45 minutes. Aside from not taking my $23 ticket, the driver was really good. I know it cannot be easy to talk and drive and say the same thing over and over and over again all day in the hot Key West Sun, but she handled it. We really enjoyed it.

 

Me on the trolley:

27740546663_8822f26804_n.jpg

 

 

 

In every group indecisiveness likes to set in from time to time, which can be extremely annoying depending on the severity. Unfortunately, this was our group’s time for indecisiveness. Ya’ll know how it goes……

Person 1: “Where do you want to get off?”

Person 2:” I don’t care, where do you want to get off?”

Person 3: “Oh it doesn’t matter to me, I could do anything.”

Person 1: “Ok let’s go to xyz. “

Person 4: “Um I really didn’t want to go there.”

Person 1: “No problem, where would you like to go instead?”

Person 4: “I don’t know, just not xyz.” And so on and so forth until some brave soul finally takes a stand, or someone gets throat punched!

 

 

In this scenario, I was that brave soul! I made an executive decision that we would all get off on stop 13, and I’m happy to report, that I’m still alive! We walked down Duval to Walgreens then to Kermit's Key Lime Pie Shop for Key Lime Pie. We sat in the garden area of Kermit’s and ate our pie which was delightful (the pie and the garden!) Next, we walked back to Duval, did some shop hopping, then casually strolled back to The Magic. We were some of the first passengers back, so W and I took advantage of Serenity. The hot tub was empty so we got in. OMG it was so HOT!!!!!!! They were not playing when they named it a HOT tub!!! I felt like I was boiling and I kept checking to see if I had 3rd degree burns on my bum, or if my swimsuit was melting off! Needless to say, we got the H outta there as fast as we could, and cooled off with a quick splash from the shower up there.

 

Kermit holding his Key Lime Pie!

28318832622_f93e16d09d_n.jpg

 

Me and The Magic

28140680460_41af34d287_n.jpg

 

Key West from Serenity

28277445421_8b871a6e9c_n.jpg

 

 

Everything was starting to fall into place, and it “appeared” that the cruise curse had been reversed, so I started wondering if we should change our Belize Excursion from the private one that we booked to the Carnival one that we looked at originally. I mean, what could go wrong??? Our time in Belize was shorter with the itinerary change, and I just didn’t want to worry about tendering off after the Carnival Excursions, even though all of us are Platinum, then fighting our way through that port and back. I ran it by K (because as you can see, W and T wisely leave all of the important decisions to us), and she agreed that we should look into it. The Shore Excursion desk was closed, but you could still book through the TV in your cabin, so we threw caution to the wind, and did it!

All of the nothing that I was doing worked up an appetite, so we went to Guy's around 4:30. There was no line, which really is pretty close to winning the lottery. Maybe not the Powerball, but definitely a scratch off ticket!

 

Carbs plus lazy doing nothing afternoon equals the need for a nap, so I checked that off of my list for today also! Man, I was getting a lot accomplished!

 

 

This cruise day vaporized right before our eyes, and it was time to get ready for dinner again. On this night we got our pager for dinner, and waited maybe 10 minutes before the pager went off. Service was very slow. It was almost as if the waiters were still tired from Elegant Evening. No worries though, we were not pressed for time, so we enjoyed talking and laughing about randomness, which made the time fly by.

 

After dinner we ran down to the theater for the magician show. It was packed!!! We sat all the way upstairs in the back row. We watched it for a few minutes then we realized it was a kid show and it was lame!! Plus there were kids next to us who were talking the entire time. About 8 minutes into it, (yes I know it was 8 minutes, because I could literally FEEL the minutes ticking away one by freakin one!!) K leaned over to me and said let us know when you guys are ready to leave and I jumped up right then like my skirt was on fire and bolted out! You don't have for tell me twice!! It took them a minute to realize that I was outta there, and then they all followed my lead! Hey there is no shame in my game! All of the minutes on a cruise are very precious, and I can’t waste them on something I don’t enjoy! After a really good belly laugh about that, we went up to gather pictures.

 

We were planning on still being in the magician’s show, so now we were early for the comedy show. T really wanted to play shuffleboard so we bounced over to the Redfrog Pub and waited for the table. I’m not going to lie, I was thinking to myself “Is this what 50 year olds do???? Randomly and IMMEDIATELY start playing shuffleboard???” T and W played the first game then they FORCED us to play with them next. Just between us Cruise Critic friends, surprisingly I didn't hate it and we tied!

 

Our game ran a little long, so by this time we were late to get in line for the comedy club. I wanted to sit closer to the front, but everyone else looked at me like I was crazy! So I’m all “Look man I have 46 year old eyes and sometimes they don't work so well especially in the dark and after 9 pm!” I was then schooled on how sitting in the front makes you a target, so we went to the back. We ordered drinks, and I had the Jokester which was really good. It was fruity and sweet which has my name written all over it! K had her Kiss on the Lips and W had a Blue Moon. It took awhile to get the drinks and the server fumbled around in the dark. A lot.

 

On with the show! So Chas was excellent this time, go see him if you can! This show was way better, and I legit hollered a few times! After the show, we decided on a rally point for the next day, and split up for the evening. W and I went back to the cabin, changed clothes and shoes, and thank God we did because my dogs were barking, I mean howling!!! Why must we run from one end of the ship to the other 400 times when I am wearing heels?

 

It was time for my nightly tea and snacks around midnight, so we went up to Lido and it was a madhouse! There were tons of people still milling around from the deck party. One side of the ice cream station was closed, and the line for pizza almost touched the Tandoori station. I got my hot water for tea and met back up with W in the cabin. When we got there, I decided I still wanted pizza, so I ordered it on the tv from room service. It was really strange because there was no way to tell what kind of pizza I was getting. It just said we offer cheese, pepperoni, or pineapple. The only one that I couldn’t do was pineapple, so I ordered the pizza and thought maybe they will call and ask. Not! There was a knock on the door 15 minutes later, and there was a waiter standing there with a for real legit pizza warming bag that looked like an electric blanket for pizza. Any pizza that was nestled in the soft folds of this spectacular heated cocoon, has to be good right? After I signed the check and said thanks, I kicked the waiter to the curb, and opened the lid to reveal a smokin’ hot heaping mound of cheese, crust, and pepperoni! I know for a fact that I shed a tear for the toil and labor that went into bringing me this ecstasy in a box, and another tear because I was unworthy! I turned my face gently up to the sky and said “There will be pizza in heaven right God???” I had to let it cool for a few minutes then dug in! After my first slice, I suddenly remembered another little known fact. You see, midnight pizza on a Carnival Cruise Ship that is delivered in a pizza electric blanket cocoon warmer thingy doesn't contain calories! #Stillwinning!!!

 

So I ate two slices, and read for just a few minutes while W went to the casino.

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites
mommamann

mommamann

Posted
Posted

My favorite part of this whole review is how you and yours seem to take everything in stride. Many would have let the port fiasco alone ruin their cruise, but you are a woman after my own heart...it is what you make it, and you made it fun and full of memories/stories to tell for long after it ends. Looking forward to reading the rest!

Link to comment
Share on other sites
willdra Great Review Rare

willdra

Posted
  • Author
Posted
I love your sense of humor! This review is one of the best I have read In a while. Your personality comes shining through. I look forward to the rest of your review.

 

 

OMG this is everything!!! [emoji7][emoji7]

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Please sign in to comment

You will be able to leave a comment after signing in



Sign In Now
 Share
Go to topic listing
  • Forum Jump
    • Categories
      • Welcome to Cruise Critic
      • New Cruisers
      • Cruise Lines “A – O”
      • Cruise Lines “P – Z”
      • River Cruising
      • ROLL CALLS
      • Cruise Critic News & Features
      • Digital Photography & Cruise Technology
      • Special Interest Cruising
      • Cruise Discussion Topics
      • UK Cruising
      • Australia & New Zealand Cruisers
      • Canadian Cruisers
      • North American Homeports
      • Ports of Call
      • Cruise Conversations
×
×
  • Create New...