Carnival Magic September 24, 2016 -Report

[Danacat222]

I booked this cruise a year ago and presented this to my Mom (75 years old but very young at heart) on Mother's Day this year, this was my 7th Carnival Cruise and my Mom's 5th. Her 6th cruise and my 11th.

 

Pre-cruise we stayed at the Hampton Inn Cocoa Beach, I booked that online at a discount, we had a great room, it was very quiet and comfortable, but not ideal if you are truly wanting oceanfront. It's near the beach, but we couldn't see the ocean or beach from the hotel. Beautiful pool, average breakfast included, i had a few hard boiled eggs and some fruit.

 

Parking- By staying at Hampton Inn, we received a voucher for 40% parking a the port. There are hotels that participate in the port parking discount voucher program. I was given the voucher and at check-out my check out statement was stapled to the voucher to prove the hotel stay.

 

We were parked at the port at 9:20am, and all checked in by 9:42am. At 11:30am we walked on the ship. We had Faster to the Fun, and we were the first to check in with that. We had no line at all, and those without FTTF had a line but not terrible. We enjoy getting to the port early and people watching and meeting new people while waiting.

 

Cheers. We pre-purchased Cheers, we don't drink a lot at home but enjoy trying new drinks on the ship. With Cheers now including bottled water, specialty coffees, and higher priced glasses of wine and cocktails, we felt it was a good option for us. We did not need to think about the cost, we just enjoyed ourselves. We enjoyed some great drinks and a few we did not care for so we did not feel like we wasted money. We got bottled water occasionally throughout the day from different bars, never had a problem. We had a few coffees and iced coffee from the Plaza Cafe.

 

The ship. It's huge, and it accommodates a lot of people. It never really felt terribly crowded, probably because the ship is crammed with so many features. For us, the ship lacked the charm of the smaller and older ships, we felt that the features just were one on top of the other. You came from the shops to the casino, from the casino, right to where Alchemy Bar is, and so the cigarette smoke lingered into that area. At the Alchemy Bar, there is a little dance floor and place where a duo and or band would perform, it could get loud and so if enjoying the Alchemy bar you sometimes couldn't hear each other or the bar tenders talk. The Red Frog Pub is right around the corner from the Alchemy bar just beyond the Plaza Cafe. And then there is the Vibe night club and the Piano bar and then the Spotlight Lounge, where the comedy is held. Lots and lots of attractions on deck 5.

 

The casino is really pretty, probably the nicest on the ships I have been on, but also the smokiest. I enjoy slots and Blackjack but I have asthma and I did not spend a dine in the casino this cruise, a first for me.

 

Our cabin. First, we had robes in our closet, we did not get any kind of service card form about our service preference (we had this on Pride last year), We received cabin service twice a day and we asked for ice the first night and had it twice a day without needing to ask for it again. We had great service in that respect.

 

When I booked this, I was at first going to go with a cove balcony, but being the it would be hurricane season I thought, well, just in case, we might not want to be that close to the water if we had some rough waters. We chose a mid ship balcony on deck 7 port side, cabin 7338. We liked the location, while very close to the mid ship elevators, there was never noise from the hallway. This was very convenient to go up to the main "Beach Pool" and Lido Marketplace, also convenient to go down to deck 5 for coffee.

 

We did unfortunately have a major problem with the room. EVERY morning between 3:30am and 4:40am, we were awoken by some banging clanging banging, it sounded like it was coming from the floor and at times sounded like the floor might rip apart. We checked the balcony, the closets, under the beds, the bathroom, we could not find the source. We did not complain immediately because we thought it was a fluke, but it happened every morning, and it did not ruin our cruise but it really affected me a lot because if i get woken up I cant fall back to sleep so I got about 3 hours of sleep each night and then I would miss the sunrise and feel cranky and all day. It was also a real cluster dealing with guest services, they acted like they thought we were making it up, they wanted us to call when the noise was happening, and told us we could call anytime 24/7. Sometimes we would call and get no answer for 20+ minutes and give up, we heard the noise twice at midnight and no answer at guest services, we heard it during the day and we called and thy sent the engineer to the wrong room, we waitress for over an hour and found out the guy at guest services wrote the wrong cabin # down. He blamed me, he tried to say i did not give him the cabin # but I went to the desk and was shown the complaint log with the wrong cabin # next to my name and the nature of the complaint. Then finally we got an answer at 4:23am one morning and the person had to put us on hold to "read a report of the complaint" so she would know what to do, by the time the engineer came to the room, the worst of the noise was finished, but i got an audio recording the morning before and played it for him, He was pretty speechlessness and just apologized. We did not ask for any compensation, they said thy could not moved us because the cruise was sold out, but they refunded us 20% of the cruise fare and a discount on a future cruise. Feeling sleep deprived, we decided not to go off the ship in Amber Cove, and then things that normally would never bother us started to affect us. At one point I recall thinking how I could not wait to get off the ship and go home. We stayed on the ship again while in Grand Turk, with another large ship in port when we arrived, which we knew about well in advance, we were just too tired to deal with crowds, heat, and predictably long wait to get back on the ship. That was our choice, but at that point being the 5th morning with disturbed sleep, and facing a 12 hour drive back home coming up, we wanted to rest. We tried to take a nap that day but that was a day the noise was happening during the day too, so no nap. We never did find out what it was, there was never anyone looking into it that we noticed. I pray that whoever is in that cabin now that it was resolved before they checked in.

 

Just listen

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So, a few other things happened on this cruise that turned me off, but i do not want to go into them because I am not really into complaining and like i said some things might not normally have bothered me as much as they did if it were not from being tired from lack of sleep.

 

Food-We had no complaints at all. We ate at Cucina del Capitano the first night and it was amazing, the food, service, ambiance, so we ate there again the second elegant night. It is free at lunch with a different lunch menu. We did not eat lunch there. I had sent a email to the Maitre D a few weeks before asking if we could get Bitter n Blanc (it's not n Magic's menu at all), and so we had that for dessert 3 nights, which was nice, but i would not do a special request again, it delayed our getting out of the dining room those 3 nights. We did NOT have the new BBQ, we couldn't be bothered, plus we have excellent BBQ locally. We missed Tea Time on sea days. Sea Day brunch was great. We had pizza, we love Carnival's pizza. We had Guy's burgers once, tacos twice, Mongolian Wok once, all were awesome.

 

We had very good service in the Northern Nights anytime dining, we had a table for two on the 5 nights we ate there, we never ever had a wait for our table once we checked in with the hostess.

 

Service at the pool was mostly good, a few times we went to the bar to get a drink, no big deal. The bartenders were all good, drinks mostly made well with expected amount of alcohol or better until the last day, at sea, when the drinks seemed to have no alcohol in them.

 

Entertainment-we went to 2 production shows, and they were just OK, i don't care for the shows but my Mom likes them, she thought the one music based one was good but that the magician one was stupid, lol. We went to the Love and marriage show, which was great. We only to went 1 comedy show (no line, now wait, not a funny comedian), we usually go every night but we felt tired the entire cruise.

 

Cruise Director- Everson "Reverend Dr. E" was great. High energy, very present, very engaged, very charismatic, funny, genuine. I did not care for the good morning song every morning but otherwise, best cruise director ever. He did not bombard with constant announcements.

 

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Sea Days and Ports:

Sea Day: Crazy crowded at both pools, barely an empty lounger to be found until 4pm.

Amber Cove-didnt get off the ship

St. Thomas: Tour with Henry EEE Tours, had toured with him before, great tour, he is now completely bling but his sis ter drives and he still guides and tells his wonderful stories.

San Juan: San Juan Tour and Bacardi Rum distillery tour. The Bacardi tour was great, really enjoyed that. The city tour was pretty much non existent. I had been to San Juan before so not a big deal but if it were my first time i would have expected more from the city tour part.

Grand Turk, stayed on the ship.

Sea Day, surprisingly not terribly crowded at the Beach Pool.

 

Pool atmosphere: At times babies in diapers in the pool and kids rough housing. The pool temp was awesome though.

 

Debarking the ship - with FTTF we had a letter instruction to meet in the theater deck 3 at 8am, and we would be escorted off the ship when we were able to. Never happened. All self assist and special needs, early flights...all went first, then they called zone 1-6 and it was a fiasco.

 

Standby and I will post pics tonight and in the coming days, and I am happy to answer questions.

[Danacat222]

9:42am vs 10:50am

 

 

 

Lunch

 

 

Sailing away

 

 

 

Magic Lobby

 

 

 

Beach Pool

 

Edited October 7, 2016 by Danacat222

[BoDidly]

This is gonna be a good one ;) . Great pics . The pizza just looks plaid though :p

[Danacat222]

The Cabin 7338 port side

 

 

 

 

 

 

View from balcony looking right

 

 

 

 

View from balcony looking left

 

Edited October 7, 2016 by Danacat222

[riclop]

Thanks for the report.

[Danacat222]

The main dining room/s

 

Not impressed, it's pretty on elegant night with the lights dimmed...otherwise it's kinds dull and the tables are lightweight and seem cheap. They also cram so much stuff on the tables.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited October 7, 2016 by Danacat222

[smarks]

Thanks for the review. Very nice pictures. We are sailing on her for a b2b Christmas and then again in Feb. How would you rate the American Table? I'm not really looking forward to it. Thanks again.

[joeyancho]

Holy cow! That would have ruined my cruise also. Did they ever get to the reason for the noise?

[Clarea]

Nice photos, thanks for the report.

[Micahs Grandad]

Thanks for review doing our first on Magic next month

[Danacat222]

Thanks for the review. Very nice pictures. We are sailing on her for a b2b Christmas and then again in Feb. How would you rate the American Table? I'm not really looking forward to it. Thanks again.

 

It's not my favorite, I first experienced American table on Carnival Liberty a few years ago when it was first introduced and the quality of the food actually seems a little bit better now, but there is a lot of seafood and I don't eat seafood so not as many choices for me, that is why we chose to eat at the Italian restaurant twice. Not only was the food wonderful in the Italian restaurant but better choices for me. In the main dining room one night we ate 3 appetizers for our dinner because there wasn't anything else really wanted , you won't go hungry though.

[Danacat222]

Holy cow! That would have ruined my cruise also. Did they ever get to the reason for the noise?

 

I can't say that it 100% ruined the cruise because I think of all of the other awful things that could have happened, like having the room flooded and nowhere for them to move us, at least we had a clean room and food to eat , but it definitely had a drastic impact on the quality of our cruise . I am waiting for some kind of report about what the cause of the noise was because they were never able to tell us.

[mrpayroll]

Thanks for your review. We were on the same cruise and had a real great time. Agree that Dr. E was full of energy. He knows how to get people involved.

[wampuscat7]

I can't say that it 100% ruined the cruise because I think of all of the other awful things that could have happened, like having the room flooded and nowhere for them to move us, at least we had a clean room and food to eat , but it definitely had a drastic impact on the quality of our cruise . I am waiting for some kind of report about what the cause of the noise was because they were never able to tell us.

 

Thank you for the review and the lovely pictures. We're taking a Magic cruise this winter with the same itinerary. I would've hated to miss Grand Turk. It's been such a nice, relaxing day there when I've been there. I'm so sorry that your cruise was diminished by the noise and lack of sleep. I hope you feel the compensation was adequate.

[Danacat222]

The Beach Pool- kids are allowed in both of Magic's pools, we enjoyed the Beach pool, it got crowded but not bad and not as crowded as the Tides Pool (aft pool). We were almost always able to find a shaded lounger.

 

 

 

 

 

Tides Pool

 

 

Edited October 8, 2016 by Danacat222

[Danacat222]

Plaza cafe

 

 

Alchemy Bar

 

 

Red Frog Pub

 

 

 

 

Piano bar

 

[Danacat222]

Cucina del Capitano

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Danacat222]

Around the ship....

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited October 8, 2016 by Danacat222

[SandyToes2]

Awesome report! Details and pictures were the best. I have a question in regards to the location of your cabin. Was it bothersome being close to the hot tub in regards to noise?

[easyboy]

Thanks for the review and photos.

[Micahs Grandad]

Thanks for review our turn in 9 days

[bunnyette]

I had that same horrible noise on the Magic as well. It woke me up around 3 - 4 am every night. I was able to fall back to sleep but needed a nap to make up for the interrupted sleep everyday.

 

Can anyone answer what this noise was? Carnival really should investigate as disturbing passengers sleep is not a good thing.

[WAHMto5]

Thanks for the review, heading out on the Magic in January and can't wait!