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Carnival Magic Review March 18-25

mechomper

By mechomper,
in Carnival Cruise Lines

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mechomper

mechomper

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Review of our Carnival Magic Spring Break cruise

Here is my background. I am a mom who has been on 7 previous cruises with Carnival, even though they have only given me credit for 5 of them. I am a gold member, but I don't know how I am ever going to move up from there. I have not cruises since 2005 since I have been busy with kids and I have been taking less expensive vacations. On this cruise, I took my 15 year old son and 11 year old daughter. We live in California, so I had a lot of planning with airfare and hotels prior and after the cruise.

I booked this cruise over 1 year out so I could pay it off over time. I checked prices almost daily and was able to score around $130 in on-board credit with the price drops. I am also a huge planner, so everything was booked ahead of time and I had money set aside for each port.

We flew out on a red-eye on Thursday night and arrived in Orlando at 6:00 am and hit the ground running!! I rented a car from Thrifty. I also booked the car as soon as the dates opened up. I would check prices on the cars constantly and kept re-booking to get a better price. Luckily you don't pre-pay for the rental, so I could re-book and cancel as much as I wanted. We headed straight to our hotel that was on-site for Universal Orlando. Checked out bags into the luggage storage area and were in the park by 8:15. We were able to get in 1 hour early with our hotel which was a great perk. Even though my kids were tired we stayed at the park till about 7:00, ate dinner, swam, and crashed until the next morning.

I knew I wanted to get an early start to the port since I had to add gas to the car, return the rental and take the shuttle to the port. We left at 8:30 and the drive was quick, around an hour. Note, there are toll roads so you either need to pay at the rental for the pass or bring change to cover the tolls. My rental place wanted $20 for the pass, which I did not opt for and only spent around $5-8 dollars to cover the tolls. We returned the car and were told to wait for the shuttle which could be as much as a 30 minute since the shuttle van was in the port picking up passengers.

Finally arrived at the port around 10:45. I had purchased FTTF (more about this later) and skipped by the line and had no wait. Our paperwork was processed in about 7 minutes and now we had to just wait to board. The regular line was long, but seemed to move halfway fast. Loved the fact that there was no wait for FTTF line. We finally were able to board around 12:30 ish.

With FTTF, we were able to drop off our bags in our cabin, which was 10212, a balcony on the Lido deck. Our room was awesome. Anyone considering getting a Lido deck room, do it. I originally booked a balcony on a lower deck, but after reading reviews decided to upgrade to the Lido deck. I will always book that deck or higher from now on. We were towards the front of the ship, and I never heard anyone running in the hallways during the night and I am a very light sleeper. I loved the fact I could pop into my room when I was at the pool and the fact that the bars and the food were so close!! Also helped that I had very considerate and quiet neighbors.

Our first meal, Guy's burgers and they did not disappoint. My kids both loved them and I liked the choices with toppings. We changed and went on the waterslides since there were no lines, even though it was a little cool. We had just left California at 85 degrees and Florida was only about 70. Slides were fun for all. Put shoes on and went on the ropes course also. Super fun. Played cornhole and checked out the rest of the ship prior to sailaway party.

That's it for now. Will continue when I get some more time at work. Ask any questions you want.

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Bosrox

Bosrox

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Review of our Carnival Magic Spring Break cruise

Here is my background. I am a mom who has been on 7 previous cruises with Carnival, even though they have only given me credit for 5 of them. I am a gold member, but I don't know how I am ever going to move up from there. I have not cruises since 2005 since I have been busy with kids and I have been taking less expensive vacations. On this cruise, I took my 15 year old son and 11 year old daughter. We live in California, so I had a lot of planning with airfare and hotels prior and after the cruise.

I booked this cruise over 1 year out so I could pay it off over time. I checked prices almost daily and was able to score around $130 in on-board credit with the price drops. I am also a huge planner, so everything was booked ahead of time and I had money set aside for each port.

We flew out on a red-eye on Thursday night and arrived in Orlando at 6:00 am and hit the ground running!! I rented a car from Thrifty. I also booked the car as soon as the dates opened up. I would check prices on the cars constantly and kept re-booking to get a better price. Luckily you don't pre-pay for the rental, so I could re-book and cancel as much as I wanted. We headed straight to our hotel that was on-site for Universal Orlando. Checked out bags into the luggage storage area and were in the park by 8:15. We were able to get in 1 hour early with our hotel which was a great perk. Even though my kids were tired we stayed at the park till about 7:00, ate dinner, swam, and crashed until the next morning.

I knew I wanted to get an early start to the port since I had to add gas to the car, return the rental and take the shuttle to the port. We left at 8:30 and the drive was quick, around an hour. Note, there are toll roads so you either need to pay at the rental for the pass or bring change to cover the tolls. My rental place wanted $20 for the pass, which I did not opt for and only spent around $5-8 dollars to cover the tolls. We returned the car and were told to wait for the shuttle which could be as much as a 30 minute since the shuttle van was in the port picking up passengers.

Finally arrived at the port around 10:45. I had purchased FTTF (more about this later) and skipped by the line and had no wait. Our paperwork was processed in about 7 minutes and now we had to just wait to board. The regular line was long, but seemed to move halfway fast. Loved the fact that there was no wait for FTTF line. We finally were able to board around 12:30 ish.

With FTTF, we were able to drop off our bags in our cabin, which was 10212, a balcony on the Lido deck. Our room was awesome. Anyone considering getting a Lido deck room, do it. I originally booked a balcony on a lower deck, but after reading reviews decided to upgrade to the Lido deck. I will always book that deck or higher from now on. We were towards the front of the ship, and I never heard anyone running in the hallways during the night and I am a very light sleeper. I loved the fact I could pop into my room when I was at the pool and the fact that the bars and the food were so close!! Also helped that I had very considerate and quiet neighbors.

Our first meal, Guy's burgers and they did not disappoint. My kids both loved them and I liked the choices with toppings. We changed and went on the waterslides since there were no lines, even though it was a little cool. We had just left California at 85 degrees and Florida was only about 70. Slides were fun for all. Put shoes on and went on the ropes course also. Super fun. Played cornhole and checked out the rest of the ship prior to sailaway party.

That's it for now. Will continue when I get some more time at work. Ask any questions you want.

 

Following. Looking forward to more

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mechomper

mechomper

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So a couple of room tips I forgot. We brought magnetic clips that we hung on the wall to hang up our lanyards with our sign and sail cards. Never misplaced them and the kids each were responsible for them. A note about lanyards. I purchased mine on Amazon and you could un-clip your card and these were great. It was $9.99 for 2 of them. Some people don't like them hanging around their neck, but my kids never lost them and it was so easy to remove them to make a purchase. Two of my cards had hole punches, but mine did not. The company I purchased the lanyards from offered a free hole punch if I reviewed them, which I did. That hole punch came in handy, but I know Guest Services could do it also. The bathroom has no nightlight. I purchased glow sticks from Dollar Tree and would snap a new one every night so we didn't have to turn on the light if you needed to go to the restroom at night. Bring an alarm clock and a outlet expander since there are only two outlets in the room. Hairdryer is pretty weak, so you might want to bring your own.

Back to the review:

First Sea Day: I am a runner, so I got up around 7:00 to jog on the treadmills. The gym is on deck 12 and super close to my lido balcony room. The gym had about 20 treadmills and around 10 elliptical machines, weight machines, and free weights. They provide free towels and there is a drinking fountain in the gym. Finished up around 8:15, went back to the room to grab a towel and get changed to enjoy the deck. Towel hogs were in full swing by 9:00 on the high deck 11. I wanted to be on the port side because I could smell smoke on the other side. Ended up having to go to the back of the ship, which was very windy but more mellow. My kids ate pizza for breakfast (why not since its their vacation too). Pizza was excellent. Made to order with super thin crust. Pizza was 24 hours and I always saw them making busy. The wait was around 10-20 minutes everytime we ate there. Remember this is a Spring Break Cruise, so it was loaded with kids. Pools were very busy with kids and the spas were always full with kids. A note on the jacuzzi-they never got super warm, at best around 99. I have a pool and spa at home and I know temperatures. It was a bummer they really never got warm because our nights were a little cool. Ate at Guy's Pig BBQ for lunch. This is on deck five on the side of the ship. Note there are two lines. The one coming from the front of the ship was about a 20 minute wait. The one from the aft was a five minute wait. We had the pulled pork and BBQ beef, both which were very good. Sides were good, but not great. My son could have eaten that meat all cruise long. There was a ton going on during the day on the ship. By the way, the Carnival HUB app worked well for following the days activities. We didn't purchase any of the internet packages or the text package with the HUB app. I went old school and just kept the Fun Times with me.

Dinner in MDR-We had early dining in the Southern Lights Dining Room table 529, which sat next to a window in the rear of the boat. I have never had such a great table in all my sailings. It was awesome to dine where we could look out on the water. We had a table of 10. So our table was made up of three families, all of which had balconies on deck 10. Our kids were all around the same age and the funny thing was that we were all from the West Coast-Arizona, Colorado, and California. My daughter made a great friend with one of the boys at our table. We had a female waitress name Duangporn, or DD for short. She was the best server I have ever encountered. We would sit down and our drink of choice was always served within minutes. She was quick and had our food coming out so fast. My family enjoyed the food and liked the American Table. None of the kids ordered from the kids menu and they could always find something to order. My son is a carnivore and would order 2-3 plates of food with no sides. One of his new favorites, was braised Ox tongue which was on the "Have you ever tried" part on the menu. I ate the chocolate melting cake every night, except for the night that had the Smore parfait. Loved both of these desserts. We ate in the dining room every night, except for the night we had reservations for the Steakhouse. Thought the food was very good. Only had one problem with American Table--my son had a difficult time cutting steak because the plates would slide on the table without the tablecloths.

Costa Maya-I had narrowed my choices of activities down to Blue Kay or the Lost Kingdom Water park. My kids wanted to do the waterpark, so that's where we ended up. Its a long walk from the pier to the port, but they do have a free shuttle that runs if you don't want to make the walk. We always do excursions with outside vendors or on our own. You have to go thru the commercialized port area to either get a taxi, find the shuttle, or like we did walk to the water park. Its about a 7 minute walk and felt very safe in the town. Not much in the town outside of the port. The waterpark does offer a free shuttle that runs every 15 minutes which we used on the way back. Prices were $89 for adults and $79 for kids. Includes all activities in the park. The park was pretty empty and we never waited more than 5 minutes in line. One of the workers said they were expecting 160 people in the park that day. They have two zipline courses that have between 7-10 ziplines each and end with a zipline into water. They do a good job of checking your harnesses before going on the course. There is also a zipline coaster that was really fun also. There is a lazy river and of course the slides, which you get to access from an elevator or you could walk the steps. We had a blast at the park. We put our valuables in the lockers and they had showers and a place to change. On the ziplines they take pictures. I paid $5 to have 4 of our pictures emailed to me. Went back to the port and ate a taco and shopped for a couple of minutes before getting back to the ship. I would have like to have gone to the Malecon to see the actual town since the port is not the real Mexico.

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sturderick

sturderick

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Which side of the ship is the smoking side? We are on Lido starboard forward (almost at the very front of the ship). Hopefully we won't smell the smoke since we are so close to the front and the wind will blow it behind us (yn).

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mechomper

mechomper

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Steakhouse: With all of my onboard credit, I decided to book the Steakhouse for the day we were at Costa Maya. I chose 6:30, but wanted to make it later, but they were sold out. I reserved it a couple months before we went. Received a confirmation email. Well worth every cent. I started with the crabcake and my son tried the beef carpaccio, which he didn't care for, but I thought was good. My crabcake was delicious. My daughter and I had the surf and turf (which my daughter gave her "turf" to her brother) and my son had the 18 oz ribeye. My steak and lobster were very good and my son who ate all of his 18oz steak and his sister's lobster loved it. For desert, I had the chocolate sampler---so tasty. My son has some fruit and it had lots of different fruit like mango and kiwi. My daughter just had vanilla ice cream. Its a small restaurant and dress is smart casual. They have a dedicated bar, so our drinks came super quick.

Roatan: This was the only new port for me, so I was super excited. I had done a ton of research for this port and knew my kids would love to zipline. I know you can go to the beach for free at this port, but I prefer to see the island and get away from the crowds. We chose to use Victor Bodden and do the "Zip and Dip". The cost was $65/pp and this was way cheaper than the Carnival one which was like $100/ We got off the ship quickly, because I knew I wanted to shop in the port before we met our group. The port is super clean and the walk from the boat is very short. Lots of stores in the main port area to find all the tourist things. To get to the outside vendors, you have to walk thru the port store area and turn left and walk up a small hill. If mobility is an issue, you can take a taxi for I think $3. Once you get to the top of the hill, all of the "non" Carnival vendors are there with signs. Very easy to find our tour and we just had to wait for the rest of the group that had booked the same excursion from our ship. We ended up with a party of 8 from the Magic. There were 3 ships in port that day, but we were the first to arrive. We loaded into an van with A/C and headed to Victor Bodden's property where the ziplines were. Its about a 30-40 minute drive and the driver did a great job of pointing out things to us. We arrived at the property, paid for the tour, and were quickly moved onto the zipline. Zipline was awesome. Kids flew upside down!! We had 3 guides with us that helped with all the safety and made it a lot of fun. I think we went on like 15 different ziplines. Great views of the ocean near the end of the zipline. There was a person who took pictures, and you could purchase all of the pictures on a disc for $20. Great deal!! After ziplining, you get to tour his private little zoo where you entered the monkey cage. Took pictures with the monkeys. Petted a lemur and also took our own pictures with parrots. Several other animals to see also. After we finished, we headed to the West End Beach for the rest of the day. We had chairs at Banarama that were included in the tour. We chose to eat at Banarama and enjoyed shrimp tacos. I had read about a Banana soda that they had in Roatan and it was sooooo goood. My son and I enjoyed them. I wish I could have brought some back with me. I tried to find it in Belize, but only available in Roatan. The beach was nice. Quite a few vendors, but after they heard me say no they finally stopped asking to braid my daughter's hair or buy something else. I did buy some banana donuts for my daughter, who thought they were quite tasty. There was a small platform you could swim to in front of banarama. We had brought our snorkel gear and headed down the beach to were all the fish were. We are really good swimmers, so we just swam out to the reef. Snorkeling was really good and we didn't have to pay someone on a boat to take us out. Our driver picked us up at the arranged time and we headed back to the port. He drove us a different way, so we got to see other parts of the island. One of the guys in the other party saw someone BBQing corn, so the driver turned around to get some for our group. So delicious!!. I would highly recommend Victor Bodden Tours. If you would rather be on your own, I think it would have cost me an extra $60. I would love to come back to Roatan on another cruise because there were lots of things I wanted to do on this island.

Belize: I had been to Belize back in 2005, but at the time I was pregnant with my daughter. We took the ferry over to Caye Caulker for the day to hang out at the beach. I remember I loved that little island, so I knew I wanted to go back. Since we loved snorkeling, I chose an excursion with snorkeling at Coral Gardens and swimming with Sharks and Rays with Coral Breeze Tours. Belize is a tender port, so you have to give yourself enough time to get off and meet with your tour. Since we had FTTF, we were taken from a lounge on a private elevator and onto the tender. It tooks us all of 5 minutes to get from the boat to the tender. The tender ride is about 10-15 minutes. We got to the port super early because remember we are on Florida time, not Belize time. Most of the shops were not even open, which was kinda a bummer. We took some pictures with the Belize sign which is outside of the port area and came back and did some shopping. I knew I wanted to buy some Maria Sharpe's Habenero sauce and exotic sauce, which we found pretty easily. Directions to our meeting place were emailed to me a couple of weeks before our cruise and we easily found our tour. We waited for the rest of our group and then paid for our tour. The tour price was $75/adult and $63/kid. You have to leave a small deposit ($38) and pay the remainder the day of the tour. Our group consisted of 14 people all from the Magic. Headed out to Caye Caulker. We had 2 tour guides and the driver. The guides sat with us and gave us a little background on Belize and answered any questions. We spotted dolphins on the way to the island and the driver stopped while we all took pictures. The boat ride is around 45 minutes. Once we got to the island, we placed our lunch order with a restaurant, used the bathroom, and got fitted with our fins (we brought our own snorkel and mask). Quick boat ride to Coral gardens. They broke us into groups of 7 and the two guides took us out. Because we were in the middle of the ocean, life vests are mandatory. What was nice its that they let us tie them to our wrists, so we could still dive down to get a closer look. Like I said, we are very good swimmers so my whole family chose this option. This was probably the best snorkeling I have done. The reef was alive and saw so many fish. We had an eagle ray swim bye, saw a sea urchin moving, and saw a barracuda. The guide would point things out and tell us what type of fish we saw. We snorkeled for about 45-1 hour. When we got back to the boat, a teenage boy in the other group, had been stung by a jellyfish. They had a first aid kit and had put ointment on it, but he was in a lot of pain. They took us back to Caye Caulker so he could go to the medical clinic. After dropping him off, we continued to Shark Ray Ally. Sharks and Rays were everywhere when we pulled up and started throwing food into the water. Got some great pictures of my kids petting the sharks and rays. Awesome experience. After about 45 minutes, we went back to Caye Caulker where we had our lunch waiting for us. My son had grilled conch and I had conch ceviche. Delicious. Both of my kids had pineapple juice and thought it was so good. They use real sugar cane and that's what made it so tasty. Finished our lunch and had about an 30 minutes to walk around and check out the island. Cool little island where everyone was either on foot, bike, or golf cart. Took the boat ride back to the mainland and had plenty of time to get back to the ship on time. 2 local beers for $5.00. Way better price than on the ship!!

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