We're Only Here For The Boos: Our Halloween '18 Cruise Aboard The Carnival Magic!

[watermelonqueen99]

35 minutes ago, dcgrumpy said:

Thnaks. Geez, my husband will not be happy to hear this.  I may have to keep him drunk all week so he doesn't notice. 

 

That's always a good strategy! 😀

[deedle7544]

!!!!!!!!!!

[watermelonqueen99]

Thursday, November 1st, 2018:

Today we were in Belize, another port we're not really that crazy about. My only goal was to get off the ship and get some Moho chocolate. We slept in pretty late, and ended up going to Cucina for lunch. I didn't have a lot of hope, because we ate here on our first cruise and it wasn't great, but I just couldn't swallow another Guy's. (Too easy, not even gonna bother.) However, it was surprisingly not bad. I don't know if you'll be able to read them, but here are some dinner ($15 upcharge per person) menu pics. Lunch is free, and you mark on a piece of paper what you want. Forgot to get a pic of that menu:

 

 

 

 

 I had linguine with bolognese sauce and mushrooms:

 

 

 C had linguine with Alfredo sauce and chicken. The empty plate next to the bowl used to contain bread. He ate it before I had a chance to take a pic. Rude.:

 

 

After lunch, we went down to deck 0 to catch a tender. (I REFUSE to call it a water shuttle. I am not here for that.):

 

 

Getting closer to the mainland:

 

 

We walked all around the port looking for Moho, and we couldn't find it. I was devastated to learn I would not be getting any chocolate in Belize. We took the tender back to the ship. Passed this pretty girl along the way.:

 

 

We decided to go get cleaned up for the evening. Afterward, we did our usual people watching and card playing in the lobby and Ocean Plaza. We ended up not leaving port until almost 6 PM. A passenger fell ill while in port and was being treated. I sincerely hope they made a full recovery and are safely back home now. We grabbed a drink and decided to run to the room to get a quick bite from room service. We both ordered the $5 chicken quesadilla. I think I had about 2 bites of mine:

 

 

We hung out in the lobby for a little bit, and I want to give a shout out to the man who was in the priority line at guest services with an empty beer bucket on his head. Any time I start to feel bad about some of my questionable choices on the ship, I'll think about you, bro. We spent the evening in the piano bar and had a great time as always hanging with Zach and our new friends. We had to be up early for our Cozumel excursion the next day, so we left a little earlier than normal. We reached our goal of 15, so I can't recall how we made it back to the cabin or what dream I had, but we didn't wake up in the hallway the next morning, so I'm calling this a win.

 

To be continued.......

[watermelonqueen99]

Friday, November 2nd, 2018:

Today, we were in Cozumel. We've been here many, many times, but it's still one of our favorite ports. We were up early and had a small breakfast on Lido, as we knew we were going to be eating on our excursion. I didn't see any flies, so I had a few things. The bacon was actually crispy. What the crunch?! I had never experienced that before on a cruise. We got off the ship and walked around the shops for a little bit. I am obsessed with not having lines or wrinkles on my face, and always pick up plenty of Retin-A when we're in Coz, so we got that out of the way. We had booked the Salsa Salsa tour through Shore Excursioneer, and eventually headed to the Royal Something or Other shopping center near the Hard Rock to meet up with our peeps. Soon we were all headed to Playa Mia. On arrival, we got our wristbands and were instructed to hang out here until our chef arrived:

 

 

 It was open bar, so we ordered some rum punch. It tasted weird, but it was alcohol so I drank it anyway:

 

 

 Eventually we were led up some pretty steep stairs to the room we would be doing our salsa making and dancing:

 

 

We would be making a few different types of salsa and guacamole:

 

 

We had a great host and a great group. The tortilla chips and open bar were flowing, and although the drinks were quite weak, we were having a lot of fun:

 

 

 

A fun twist was that before you could take a sip of your drink, you had to raise your glass and shout "salud!" If we didn't our host brought a shot of tequila we had to down. C and I were the youngest people in our group by a minimum of 15 years, so this part was an absolute hoot. When we were done making our salsas, it was time for the salsa dance lesson portion of the excursion. Like I said earlier, I'm a Zumba girl through and through, so I loved this part. When we were done with that, we had another chef come in with some taquitos and quesadillas for us to try. This was the aftermath. RIP food and drinks:

 

 

To be continued.......

 

 

[watermelonqueen99]

Friday, November 2nd, 2018, con't:

Our day pass included transportation to and from the resort, the salsa making and dance lesson, full access to the beach, pools, buffet, open bar, and water toys. I believe chairs and towels were extra. After the cooking and dancing, we walked around and got some pics of the grounds. To be honest, it wasn't that scenic, but here are some photos:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We weren't feeling the whole beach and pool thing, so we headed back to Puerta Maya. We enjoyed this excursion, but we had done the "original" Salsa and Salsa tour through Carnival via our re-routed-due-to-a-hurricane cruise in 2016. We both agreed that one was much better. We got to make our own margaritas on that tour, plus several salsas. Also, instead of open bar, it was basically just unlimited margaritas. We would take 2 sips of our drink, and our waiter was right there refilling us, and they were NOT weak. I actually don't remember the ride back to the ship after we were done. I wish I could say that was the first or even last ride that I don't remember, but that would be a lie. But anyway, we had a good time, but I probably wouldn't book this particular excursion again.

 

We made our way back to the ship. Some of her sisters had joined us. (Take that however you'd like.):

 

 

I gotta give another shout out here. This time, to the guy waiting to re-board, wearing the penis balloon animal on his head with accompanying blue dangly bits and a female part replica in the back. The dance you performed while stroking said balloon animal ranks up there with any live performance art we've ever seen. Rock on, my man. You belong on Broadway.

 

We got back on the ship, cleaned up, then headed to the lobby and did some people watching. We caught up on notes and emails. Pretty soon, the most exciting event on any cruise was about to go down. The event that everyone looks forward to from day one: the Invicta watch sale. There were also other riveting activities being offered such as the puffy eye seminar. As exciting as those things sounded, we decided to roam around the ship for a bit. We ended up visiting again with our karaoke bartender buddy. Later we grabbed some pizza on Lido before heading to the piano bar. We closed down both it and the casino bar, enjoying the company of our new friends. We headed back to our room, sad that we would be waking up to our last sea day. We crashed, and I dreamed that we woke up the next morning on the Lido deck wearing nothing but towel animals and Invicta watches.....

 

To be continued......

Edited November 27, 2018 by watermelonqueen99

[grandmarnnurse]

2 hours ago, watermelonqueen99 said:

Wednesday, October 31st, 2018, con't:

When Guess Who was over, we headed back to our room to get ready for the evening. Afterward, we headed up to Lido to look for some food. I got in line at the buffet and loaded my plate with blackened chicken, a baked potato, and a salad. At the end of the line, as I was getting some shredded cheese, a fly flew up deep out of the bowl. It was so disgusting. I had made this entire plate of food, and I had to waste it all because no way in hell was I eating it after seeing that little bastard come out the cheese:

 

 

C was in line at the deli, so I went over and asked him to get me a meatball sandwich. It was scorching on the outside, and ice cold on the inside:

 

 

They did have a cute dessert out, but I just couldn't eat anything off the buffet after Flygate:

 

 

We went down to the Ocean Plaza to see what was going on. There wasn't much, so we kept walking through the casino. We peeked down into the lobby and there was some sort of story time going on:

 

 

We headed down to the lobby bar to grab a drink. We both had Blue Long Island's.:

 

 

My notes get vague here, and I can't find my FunTimes from Halloween, but I know we hung out with our bartender friend in the karaoke lounge for a while, watched a little bit of the Halloween costume party in the lobby (we normally would dress up but I had some last minute costume issues before we left home, so I just dressed as I normally do so people probably thought I was dressed up anyway), and eventually headed up to find something to eat at the deli. I think this might have been a Reuben, can't remember. The best thing on the plate was the truffle sauce on the fries, and it was just okay.:

 

 

C had a hot dog.:

 

 

The food kept us alive, that's about all I can say. Zach the PBE had the night off to rest his voice. Rude! We eventually made our way to the casino bar and shut it down while striving for 15 and chatting with a new friend we had made earlier in the cruise. We made our way back to our cabin, while discussing how much more fun the Halloween cruise was out of NOLA last year vs. Miami. We fell asleep, and I dreamed that C and I went trick-or-treating in the nude down on deck 1, asking for liquor instead of candy.

 

To be continued......

 

Omg—-you should hav eaten in the MDR! Food is far better than just grabbing Lido buffet. I love to grab food in buffet for lunch or breakfast, but without a doubt, the main attraction to us is a nice relaxed meal in the MDR. I think you would find it far more than “keeping you alive”. I guess we are just foodies, because the MDR dinners are what we look forward to on a cruise.

[watermelonqueen99]

I'll be back tomorrow with the final installments!

[watermelonqueen99]

5 minutes ago, grandmarnnurse said:

Omg—-you should hav eaten in the MDR! Food is far better than just grabbing Lido buffet. I love to grab food in buffet for lunch or breakfast, but without a doubt, the main attraction to us is a nice relaxed meal in the MDR. I think you would find it far more than “keeping you alive”. I guess we are just foodies, because the MDR dinners are what we look forward to on a cruise.

 

We have eaten in the MDR before, and it just takes too long and it's too late and too much food for us! I wish Carnival had some sort of in-between, fast-casual dining venue in the evenings!

[grandmarnnurse]

13 minutes ago, watermelonqueen99 said:

 

We have eaten in the MDR before, and it just takes too long and it's too late and too much food for us! I wish Carnival had some sort of in-between, fast-casual dining venue in the evenings!

Ok. See, for us, that IS the evening, and we relish it. We are not big drinkers or party people, so our “fun” is in the long dining experience. But if you are looking for something more sit down but faster, try a NCL ship that has an O’Sheehans Irish Pub. It is a full service sit down restaurant that offers a full complimentary menu 24 hours a day. Not to mention, their MDRs are more like restaurants—not big banquet halls—and Freestyle Cruising enables you to dine wherever and whenever you want. It may be more to your liking. We loved it because it is much more casual. 

[Saint Greg]

2 hours ago, watermelonqueen99 said:

 

We have eaten in the MDR before, and it just takes too long and it's too late and too much food for us! I wish Carnival had some sort of in-between, fast-casual dining venue in the evenings!

 

I go to YTD right when they open at 5:45 and usually get out in 45mins. It helps knowing what you want ahead of time and order when they bring the menu. Usually once a cruise they’re really slow and it’ll take an hour or so. That’s usually one of the formal nights.

[DebOinKC]

Girl, so glad you are back to finish your review! (still wish you could have done the Glory with us 😞 ) but enjoying your great sense of humor & review.

[pacruise804]

19 hours ago, watermelonqueen99 said:

This poor review, abandoned just like my morals! Things have been crazy, and we spent Thanksgiving with my family, so I'm still trying to recover from the trauma of that. So, I'm  gonna crack on with some more ship pics and try to wrap this up before next Halloween!

 

Wednesday, Oct 31st, 2018, con't:

I love the grandiose of the atrium. I hate that on the newer ships, it's not open all the way to the top. We always try to ride the glass elevator all the way to the top and back down at least once every cruise just because we're basically 12 year old grown folks:

 

A quick peek into the tablecloth-less MDR, just to piss off those who are triggered by it:

 

Something from an ancient civilization called a "library.":

 

A quick look in the Escape Bar, which I really liked the ambiance of, but there never seemed to be anything going on in there:

 

 

To be continued.......

 

Welcome back! The escape bar does look like a nice place to hang out and visit with good music in the back ground.  I love a good live band, but sometimes the band is just mediocre.

 

The table cloth thing doesn't really bother me, but the chairs not being pushed in - 😮- that made me a little twitchy 😉 

 

17 hours ago, watermelonqueen99 said:

 

I believe there was a Latin band, maybe an acoustic player here and there. But no upbeat variety band. The evening entertainment was usually the string band. Fortunately the piano bar was on fire, so it made up for it. Thanks for reading, and have a great cruise!

 

We had a great variety band two cruises ago, but our last cruise on the same ship was very new and the Karaoke was often more entertaining.  I have been impressed with the talent level of my fellow cruisers both times, but ship entertainers should be better entertainers than passengers.

 

13 hours ago, watermelonqueen99 said:

 

We have eaten in the MDR before, and it just takes too long and it's too late and too much food for us! I wish Carnival had some sort of in-between, fast-casual dining venue in the evenings!

 

That's a really good idea!  Something similar to O'Sheehans on NCL or maybe what I've read of Solarium Bistro on Royal (trying it next year).  It is hard to pass up all the courses in MDR, but honestly much of that food is "kept us alive" vs. fine dining.  I think a quick, casual, full-service (or at least semi-full) restaurant would be a very welcome addition.

 

I don't remember if you did sea day brunch, but it might be worth trying sometime too if you do want a switch up of table service.  It's nice to not have to fight to find a seat and the presentation is nice.  The service is still pretty slow, but on a sea day that's usually ok.

[watermelonqueen99]

On 11/27/2018 at 5:34 PM, grandmarnnurse said:

Ok. See, for us, that IS the evening, and we relish it. We are not big drinkers or party people, so our “fun” is in the long dining experience. But if you are looking for something more sit down but faster, try a NCL ship that has an O’Sheehans Irish Pub. It is a full service sit down restaurant that offers a full complimentary menu 24 hours a day. Not to mention, their MDRs are more like restaurants—not big banquet halls—and Freestyle Cruising enables you to dine wherever and whenever you want. It may be more to your liking. We loved it because it is much more casual. 

 

Thanks, good to know! We plan on trying NCL after we turn Platinum with Carnival next year.

[watermelonqueen99]

22 hours ago, Saint Greg said:

 

I go to YTD right when they open at 5:45 and usually get out in 45mins. It helps knowing what you want ahead of time and order when they bring the menu. Usually once a cruise they’re really slow and it’ll take an hour or so. That’s usually one of the formal nights.

 

45 mins I could do.

[watermelonqueen99]

21 hours ago, DebOinKC said:

Girl, so glad you are back to finish your review! (still wish you could have done the Glory with us 😞 ) but enjoying your great sense of humor & review.

 

So glad you're reading along! Sorry about the Glory, lol! It was pretty much a last minute decision to switch. But hopefully we'll cross paths on a ship at some point! 😀

[watermelonqueen99]

10 hours ago, pacruise804 said:

Welcome back! The escape bar does look like a nice place to hang out and visit with good music in the back ground.  I love a good live band, but sometimes the band is just mediocre.

 

The table cloth thing doesn't really bother me, but the chairs not being pushed in - 😮- that made me a little twitchy 😉 

 

 

We had a great variety band two cruises ago, but our last cruise on the same ship was very new and the Karaoke was often more entertaining.  I have been impressed with the talent level of my fellow cruisers both times, but ship entertainers should be better entertainers than passengers.

 

 

That's a really good idea!  Something similar to O'Sheehans on NCL or maybe what I've read of Solarium Bistro on Royal (trying it next year).  It is hard to pass up all the courses in MDR, but honestly much of that food is "kept us alive" vs. fine dining.  I think a quick, casual, full-service (or at least semi-full) restaurant would be a very welcome addition.

 

I don't remember if you did sea day brunch, but it might be worth trying sometime too if you do want a switch up of table service.  It's nice to not have to fight to find a seat and the presentation is nice.  The service is still pretty slow, but on a sea day that's usually ok.

 

Thanks for reading along! I agree about the chairs not being pushed in! Lol We do sea day brunch every sea day, I actually really like the steak!

[watermelonqueen99]

Saturday, November 3rd, 2018:

Today was our last day at sea. We slept in (shocker!), then headed to sea day brunch. I'm very critical of the food on Carnival, because most of it is inedible to us. But we really enjoy the brunch. I tried the tomato soup for the first time and it was actually really good:

 

 

Surprise, surprise, I had the steak again:

 

 

The steak was good as always. C had the huevos rancheros thingys and he said it wasn't good. We grabbed a drink and spent the day doing the usual. We played cards, played a little in the casino, and just enjoyed our last sea day being lazy. We knew there were children and other unpleasant things waiting at home, so we wanted to enjoy not having responsibilities a little longer. Eventually we ended up in the OP, and decided to grab a white chocolate cake from the coffee shop:

 

 

 I was enjoying it, and all was well until I turned to C and said "what is this f*#@ery?? He scolded me for swearing so loudly, and asked what was wrong. I had forgotten, AGAIN, that there is fruit in this cake. Tragic:

 

 

After I recovered from the trauma of being unwillingly exposed to fruit, we got ready for the evening. This was waiting in our room when we got there to remind us:

 

 

The debark info was very confusing. They don't put the tags in your mailbox anymore, you have to go get them yourself off of a rack now. By the time we figured this out, we were left with zone 31, so basically we would be last off the ship. Ugh. But we put our bags out and went to say our goodbyes to our bartender friend in the karaoke lounge, then headed to the piano bar. We closed it down, and loved on all of our new friends we had made there, crew and passengers alike. We skipped the casino bar since we had to be up early for debark.

 

Last post and final thoughts coming up....

 

[pacruise804]

I find Blue Iguana makes a better huevos rancheros. 

 

The piazza desserts always look good, but I'm usually never hungry enough to get one when we are near it.  Other than having fruit (are you allergic, or just avoiding "healthy" while cruising?) was it good?  I remember that lido desserts usually don't taste as good as they look.

[watermelonqueen99]

Sunday, November 4th, 2018:

This is the day they were kicking us off the ship. Rude. We were up and out of our cabin by 8. We headed to Lido to wait. There was a very long delay getting off the ship. Malcolm kept making announcements saying the terminal was very busy and that there were only 4 officers working customs. Then he came on saying there was a technical glitch with the gangway, and it had to be readjusted. We waited and waited and waited and waited. Once they finally did start calling zones, it moved fairly quickly. We were off the ship around 10:45, literally among some of the last passengers off.

 

What happened next was pure and utter chaos. A literal madhouse. The sea of confused people was unending. There is a huge carousel now where you have to get your luggage, just like at the airport. So you're standing shoulder to shoulder with other confused people who are looking for their luggage. Once you get your luggage, you have to make your way through the herd of people to get in line for customs. We stood in line forever. Once Malcolm came out and started directing people to several different lines, it moved faster. We finally made it through customs and went to wait for the Alamo shuttle, since we had a car reserved. We waited for 30 minutes in the Miami sun before the shuttle showed up. At this point, I was done. This was our worst debark experience in 9 Carnival cruises. Miami went from our favorite port to sail out of, to we'll have to think real hard before sailing from Miami again.

 

We finally got on the shuttle. Our driver obviously thought we were on a rumway (typo and it stays), and that our bus had wings and we needed to get lift. Because of this, we got to the airport in about 112 seconds. We got our car and stopped at Publix to get some snacks, then stopped by the liquor store since we were technically still on vacay. My liver at this point had put in it's 2 week notice, it can be such a moody b$%^h.

 

We wanted a really high end dinner to bring our vacation to a close, so we had chicken sandwiches from Checker's and ate them in the car. We were exhausted by now, and headed to our hotel. We got cleaned up and settled in to catch up on The Walking Dead and to watch the new one. We were led to believe that Rick was going to die that night, so I put on my mourning veil. (A pair of black lace draws I found in my suitcase. I wasn't sure if they were mine or not, but there were nights I reached 15, so who knows.) Rick didn't die, so I removed my draws veil. After a small incident involving a lizard getting into our room, me screaming bloody murder and running to hide in the bathroom, and C having a full on fist fight with said lizard, we finally crashed.

 

Final post coming up....

[watermelonqueen99]

Monday, November 5th, 2018

We made it to the airport and dropped our car. Our flight boarded on time, and soon we were Houston bound:

 

 

The pilot had come on and said we were gonna have some bumps when we got over the Gulf, so I used this as an excuse to order a double vodka on the rocks. We watched an episode of Chopped on our relatively short flight.:

 

 

I'm just gonna say it, Southwest. I miss the damn peanuts. Dry-ass pretzels and crackers just don't do it for me. Also, long leg problems. *eyeroll*  Why I don't try for an exit row, I'll never know:

 

 

Pretty soon, we were descending into Houston:

 

 

We were bummed to learn that our flight to Tulsa was delayed:

 

 

But, Southwest was on it, and when our plane arrived, they turned it around very quickly. We didn't end up departing much later than originally scheduled. We had a very short, uneventful flight, and pretty soon we were back on Tulsa time:

 

 

We were off the plane, bags in hand, in our car, and home by 10 PM. And that concluded our vacation, it was sadly back to reality.

 

Some final thoughts on this cruise. The elevators were AWFUL. We have never experienced such slow elevators before. We ended up taking the stairs most of the time. The Lido buffet quality and the fly situation was horrendous. Or room steward was not good. There was a plastic fork by my side of the bed from the previous cruise almost the entire week. He let plastic water bottles and empty drink glasses pile up. The live music on this cruise was terrible aside from Zack the PBE. The lobby bar staff left much to be desired. The debark was absolutely horrible. But overall, we had a great time, met some great people, and still think very highly of the Magic. We firmly believe a cruise, or any vacation, is what you make of it, and we made the best with what we had.

 

I hope you guys enjoyed my review and found it at least somewhat helpfu!. Join me here in April as I review our 7 day cruise aboard the Carnival Dream to celebrate our 20th wedding anniversary! Cheers!

 

[watermelonqueen99]

27 minutes ago, pacruise804 said:

I find Blue Iguana makes a better huevos rancheros. 

 

The piazza desserts always look good, but I'm usually never hungry enough to get one when we are near it.  Other than having fruit (are you allergic, or just avoiding "healthy" while cruising?) was it good?  I remember that lido desserts usually don't taste as good as they look.

 

Nah, not allergic. I eat healthy at home so I try to avoid healthy food on the ship. 😂 And yes, it was pretty good. And no, Lido desserts don't taste anywhere near as good as they look.

[Saint Greg]

55 minutes ago, watermelonqueen99 said:

 

 

The debark info was very confusing. They don't put the tags in your mailbox anymore, you have to go get them yourself off of a rack now. By the time we figured this out, we were left with zone 31, so basically we would be last off the ship.

 

 

Someone wasn’t paying attention in my last review. 

 

 

 

 

 

[watermelonqueen99]

12 minutes ago, Saint Greg said:

 

Someone wasn’t paying attention in my last review. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Spanked again by Saint Greg. 😂 Sorry, I'd had many drinks between reading your review and cruising. 😂

[Saint Greg]

2 minutes ago, watermelonqueen99 said:

 

Spanked again by Saint Greg. 😂 Sorry, I'd had many drinks between reading your review and cruising. 😂

 

I wouldn’t be surprised if I forget about it again on my next cruise.

[watermelonqueen99]

2 hours ago, Saint Greg said:

 

I wouldn’t be surprised if I forget about it again on my next cruise.

I'll remind you. 😛