ryan_tls

On 1/22/2020 at 4:00 PM, cbowls30 said:

 

We've had two brilliant ones on vista - Matt mitchem and breeze Schwartz and one fairly dull on magic Simon london and a terrible one on spirit Chloe loddo 

It's funny you say that, because I used to think that CDs didn't make a difference until I cruised with Simon London. We thought he was great, and definitely made our cruise much more enjoyable. 

On 10/18/2019 at 7:23 AM, dtsh said:

Thanks for the informative review. 

 

Can I ask what time you arrived at the port for embarkation?

 

Which room did you have in Deck 7 and did you experience the smell in other places on Deck 7? What other places on the ship did you experience the smell?

 

I sail Magic on Dec. 1 with Deck 7 cabin and I would be super pissed if I experienced the same cabin issues along with the smell.

We got to the port around 12:30. The line was long and we were a little annoyed, but it never stopped moving and it was one of the fastest embarkations we've ever had.

We were in room 7407. I don't remember the smell anywhere else on deck 7, but there were definitely a few other places around the ship that it was noticeable from time to time. It was never a constant smell in one specific place, and we concluded that there were just some major issues with the ventilation system because during our muster drill (which was in the Southern Lights dining room) we could smell cigarette smoke - and obviously nobody was smoking in the dining room.

31 minutes ago, shaharis1701 said:

Have they switched Tandor to The Seafood Shack? If so was it any good?

Yes, the Seafood Shack is on the lido deck by the aft pool. Nobody in our group ate there though, so I couldn't say whether it's any good or not (not a big seafood person myself).

12 minutes ago, homeofthedog said:

Thank you for your informative and thorough review. We sail Magic in a couple weeks and have never sailed the dream class before. Was wondering how you charge on the ship before we are able to get to our cabin for our key card? Also, is the safe a key pad or card swipe? Any help is appreciated!!👍😉

You can make purchases onboard using your boarding pass before you get to your cabin for your key card. 

And the safe was a key pad. In our cabin the safe was located in a cabinet beneath the TV. 

10 minutes ago, havanadaydreaming said:

We stayed one deck above you midship on this cruise. Didnt have any noises in room or sea motion. We did feel it walking in hallways however.  

The noises were odd - like I said, I'd never experienced anything like that on previous cruises, so I didn't know if it was something with the entire ship or just our room. I did see a couple other people complaining about it in the Facebook group, but our friends on the ship said they didn't have the same problem in their room. 

The Home Away From Home was incredible. If you get back to Grand Turk and are looking for a beach day, I'd highly recommend it. There were a few people who were expecting a "resort" and were making rude comments when they saw that it was only a small house, and one woman who was very rude to the staff because they made us sit through a short (less than 5 minute) "briefing" on the amenities before we could go pick out our beach chairs, but other than that everybody seemed to have a great time.

Just off the Magic, so I thought it would be a good time to write my first review! This was my fifth cruise and my girlfriend's third, and the first on the Magic for both of us. It was also our first time sailing out of Fort Lauderdale.

Pre-Cruise/Embarkation

We drove to Fort Lauderdale and used Park N Go as opposed to parking at the port, and we feel like we made a GREAT choice. I think it was a little more than half as expensive as parking at the port, and they have a shuttle that takes you to and from the parking lot. When we got to the lot, the attendants unloaded our bags for us and put them right on the shuttle, we gave them our keys, and were on our way to the port within about 5 minutes.

Our check-in time at the port was 12:30, and there was a long line once we got inside but it moved very fast. I saw a couple boarding passes in front of us for later check-in times, so it doesn't seem like they were enforcing the times at all. It didn't really matter though, because I don't think we ever stopped moving once we got in line, and were on the ship within about 20 minutes of being dropped off at the port.

Stateroom

We had a balcony on deck 7, and were very impressed with the room itself. It seemed bigger than the balcony staterooms we've had on other ships, and it had plenty of storage for all of our stuff. It also had a refrigerator that kept things pretty cool, even without keeping the door to the cabinet open. There was a hairdryer in the cabin as well, and my girlfriend made a note not to bring her own next time because the one in the cabin worked so well. Our steward, David, was incredible the whole week. We're pretty low maintenance, but any time we needed something he was right there for us. I'm always impressed with the quality of the stateroom stewards on Carnival, and this time was no exception.

Now to the negatives with our room. I know there's quite a bit of talk about the sewage smells on the Magic, and we definitely experienced that for ourselves in our stateroom (among other places on the ship). It wasn't there all the time, and it seemed like it was coming through the AC or the vents in the room, but it was definitely noticeable and was quite strong at times. Another problem we had was the noise that our stateroom made during the evening from the rocking of the ship. Now, this trip in general was quite a bit more rocky than others we've been on, so it may have just been more noticeable this time than it has in the past, but every time the ship rocked back and forth, there was a creaking or clanging sound that sounded like the metal from the ceiling clanging against the metal on the walls. It looked like people before us have noticed it before too, because there was paper wedged in between the wall and the ceiling in quite a few places, but it didn't seem to help much and the room was pretty noisy during the night. Also, the stateroom shower was pretty inconsistent in its water temperature. There was one time where we couldn't get the water warm at all, but there was another time where the shower was so hot that I couldn't even get in and just had to wait until later in the day.

All in all though, none of these bothered us enough to ruin our cruise, so please don't take it as that, but these are all issues that we've never had before on previous cruises so they definitely stood out to us this time.

Food/Dining

I think we tried just about every food option on the ship, and were never disappointed! We had anytime dining, and it never took more than about 5 minutes from the time we requested a table on the Hub app to the time we got a notification that our table was ready. The food options in the main dining room seemed to be a little more limited on some nights than they had been on past cruises, but everything we had was great.

We ate at Cucina del Capitano for lunch on embarkation day - and liked it so much that we went back for lunch on our last day too. The service was pretty slow in there, but the food was great and worth the wait. My girlfriend also had the sushi from the promenade deck and said that it was amazing, but as somebody who doesn't eat sushi I'll have to just take her word for that. And of course we had our fair share of Guy's Burgers, Blue Iguana Cantina, and pizza from the lido deck. 

Guy's Pig and Anchor was also fantastic, but because it's only open on for lunch on sea days, there was almost always a line whenever we tried to go there. 

One thing that we really enjoyed on this ship was that they had a late night buffet option available. We hit that up three times, and it was always the same offerings - meatball subs, pasta, macaroni salad, grilled ham and cheese, and a couple other options. So it wasn't a huge selection, but it was great for late-night food options when you didn't want to wait in line for pizza. I don't think this has been available on any of our previous cruises, so we really loved having this as an option.

We also tried the pizza delivery through the Hub App, and both times the pizza was there in probably less than 15 minutes. It's even delivered in a pizza delivery bag so it's hot and fresh when it gets to you! This is definitely a great feature that Carnival has added, and was worth the $5 when we didn't feel like walking up to the Lido deck.

The best meal we had the entire cruise, though, was in the steakhouse. Oh man, was it worth the $38. The steak in the main dining room just doesn't compare to what you get in the steakhouse. I got the cowboy ribeye, and it was as good or better than any steakhouse meal I've ever had at home, including those that cost much, much more. I can't recommend the steakhouse enough if you're on the fence. You won't regret it.

Entertainment

We thought the entertainment on this cruise was better than any we've had on our previous cruises. There was a string trio playing in the lobby most evenings and they were fantastic, and we spent quite a bit of time listening to the Sea Monkeys play in the Ocean Plaza area of the ship. The Playlist Production shows on this cruise were 88 Keys, Flick and America Rocks. 88 Keys was absolutely incredible, so we went to both of the others too. Flick was just as good as 88 Keys, but we weren't big fans of America Rocks. Some of the singers just didn't have the voice for the songs they were trying to sing, and it seemed a little more corny than the others. Overall though, the theater shows were absolutely some of the best we've seen.

We went to the comedy club two nights, and both nights it was standing room only about 15 minutes before the show started. One night there was a line that ran all the way from the lounge on the back of the ship to the midship casino waiting to get into the comedy show. It's a little ridiculous that Carnival won't have these shows in the main theater, especially when there's nothing else going on in there at the time. 

Our cruise director, Simon London, is one of our favorites, and he didn't disappoint. This is our second time sailing with him, and he's the only cruise director who's ever really made a difference in my cruise one way or the other. Everything that he hosted, from the music trivia to the Love and Marriage Show to the dance parties, was such a blast. I don't know how he manages to be everywhere at once, but his energy and humor really made our cruise that much better. We don't necessarily pick a cruise based on the CD, but if all else were equal and we had a chance to sail with Simon again, we absolutely would choose to go on the ship on which he's the CD.

Ports

We were originally scheduled to go to Half Moon Cay, Amber Cove and Grand Turk, but Hurricane Dorian's damage to Half Moon Cay forced us to go to Nassau instead. Because we had been to Nassau before we weren't thrilled with the change, but since it was our first port day we decided to get off the ship to find something to do. We weren't able to book excursions until we got onto the ship due to the last-minute port change, so we decided just to play it by ear once we got off the ship. We ended up doing a "glass bottom boat" tour that we booked at a stand right outside of the port area, and it was...ok. We only paid $35 each so we were fine with it, but the "glass bottom" was really just a hole in the floor that they uncovered for a few minutes, and they never delivered on their promise to drop us off at the beach after the tour so we ended up just going back to the ship once it was over. Like I said, we were fine with it for only $35, but it's definitely not something we would do again.

At Amber Cove, we got off the ship to do a little exploring in the port area, but we were a little late getting off the ship and the pool was so packed that we just did some shopping and got back on to enjoy the empty ship. We ended up spending most of our time in Amber Cove on the Serenity Deck, which was a ghost town. It was pretty much the only time we could get a clamshell, and the hot tubs were empty, so we felt like this was a day well spent.

In Grand Turk we booked an excursion through Carnival called Home Away From Home, and it was the best day of the entire cruise! The shuttle took us to a private home about 10 minutes from the port, where we had an open bar and an amazing buffet lunch of jerk pork, roasted chicken, rice, corn, macaroni salad. They also had a trampoline in the water, kayaks and snorkels that were all free to use, and there were less than 100 people there so it never felt crowded at all. We absolutely loved this excursion, and would do it again in a second. There was a natural rock barrier in the water, so I would recommend water shoes, but I can't think of a single thing to complain about from this entire excursion...although that may be the result of the open bar.

Debarkation

We always do the self-assist debark and just carry our own luggage off. Getting off the ship was no problem at all, and we were off the ship and into the port about 5 minutes after we left our stateroom. Now, getting out of the port was a different story. There were only 4 customs officers at the port checking 4k passports, and the line snaked around the entire port. We were probably inside the port for about 40 minutes waiting in line to go through customs after we actually got off the ship. It was a mess. At one point they even closed the gangway off the ship to let the line for customs clear out. Like I said, this is the first time we've sailed out of Fort Lauderdale so I'm not sure if this is normal or not, but this was by far the worst experience going through customs that I've had in 4 previous cruises. 

Getting back to our car, though, was just as easy as getting to the port before the cruise. The shuttle was waiting when we got off the ship, they loaded our bags on, and we were in our car in about 10 minutes. The shuttle driver even dropped us off right beside our car in the lot and unloaded our bags from the bus for us. If we cruise out of FLL again, we'll definitely be using Park N Go. 

Final Thoughts

This was probably the best time that we've ever had on a cruise! Sure, there were little things that we could complain about, but we don't really sweat the small stuff and definitely don't let it ruin our cruise. The Magic seemed to handle the crowds as well or better than any ship we've been on before, with the exception of the usual crowds in the buffet area. I wouldn't hesitate to sail on the Magic again, but would like to try the other Dream-class ships as well.

Hope this is helpful (or at least informative), and if you have any other specific questions please feel free to ask!

50 minutes ago, crazycruzer68 said:

Dis he on e of the CD's that gets involved  with the activates or just sends the Fun Squad to do it all?

We sailed with Simon on the Triumph about a year ago and he was EVERYWHERE. Very involved and high-energy. Great CD - one of the best we've sailed with.

I've never understood the people who claim that Carnival should allow only one person to buy the package if their cabin mate "doesn't drink," like Carnival is just supposed to take somebody's word that they don't drink. Can you imagine all of the people claiming that they "don't drink" just so they could share the Cheers package? That would be a horrible exception for Carnival to make, imo.

On 8/15/2019 at 5:40 AM, Erna87 said:

We‘re on the same cruise, second time on the Horizon and travelled the long way from Europe. I also got this mail. We‘ll contact our lawyer to get a refund after the cruise.

If your lawyer actually takes this case, you need a better lawyer.

Just off the Triumph on Thursday. They had one side of the deck 7 cabins closed off for construction, and a couple of the aft elevators, but other than that, that's all that we could see. And nothing that impacted our experience at all.

We leave on Triumph Monday, on Deck 7. Now I'm nervous...

Just off the Triumph yesterday. We noticed some construction, but nothing that impacted our cruise at all.

Just off the Triumph and got this picture from one of the secret decks as we passed the Dream on our way out of the Mississippi.

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We are on the 9/15 sailing of the Triumph this weekend. We got an email saying our departure will now be 5:00 instead of 4:00. Does anyone know why they are pushing back the departure time?

I'm on the same cruise, and the email I got didn't say anything about pushing back the departure time. All it said was that they would be loading and unloading supplies, so be on time for our arrival appointment at 1:30 and that we would sail "as soon as our loading is complete." I know others have gotten emails pushing their arrival time back by an hour, but that seems to be for the earlier arrival times. So maybe the ship will be late getting back into port on Saturday?

Sorry if this is a dumb question, but does this new procedure eliminate the check-in line completely, so that you now go straight from security to boarding? Or do you still have to go through the check-in line after security, and you just don't get your sail and sign card when you check in?