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Have had an ocean suite on hold for Madi Gras. Going to pay the deposit today. More then we're used to spending compared to other cruise I don't feel to bad. $3500 for 3 of us.

I found the pool decks way to crowded. Lucky the Havana solves that issue but not with a kid.

We love Vista class because of the Havana. Not sure we could cruise that class without that. We did magic last year and had a great cruise. But after 8 cruises with carnival in excited to try a completely new ship in madi gras

So have we, but we're ready to try one of the new ships. If our son wasn't with us we would be on horizon in a cabana.

If we decide to pull the trigger on this 6 day it will be $1k more then we have ever spent on a cruise. I just keep telling myself that even at that price point cruises are still our best bang for our buck.

Yeah it's just strange we always book this time if year without any problem. I was shocked when I looked at the prices of RC double what we would pay with carnival. Ncl was a decent amount more as well.

Thanks for the great insight!!!

I just extend are courtesy hold on our cabin for madi gras. We're from Maryland and love the convenience of going out of NY. But we won't do Vista class unless we can have the Havana so ny was out for us this year.

Well not everything, but hopefully I got your attention. We cruise every year in August as my wife is a teacher and runs a summer program. Our window is the first 3 weeks of August. I would say for the most part we always book this time of year for our August cruise if not a little later. I'm floored by the limited amount of availability. We were looking to go on the madi gras or celebration and they are almost completely if not totally sold out. Something else that doesn't help us is the fact we need a room with occupancy for 3 because our 6 year old is coming. Pricing has also went up since last year but I guess that's no surprise as everything is up. So what gives. Is this a post Covid rush and people just wanting to vacation again? I guess my best bet is just to keep an eye out and hope some rooms open up.

One of our most memorable and fun cruises was on the Liberty 10 or so years ago. We had an awesome cruise director that really made the cruise. I went in nervous only sailing the mega ships prior to this but man we had a blast.

Strange, completely opposite of what we had. Wonder why the change?

Sounds like you were a lot luckier then we were. Much better movie selection as well. On the day when only one movie was shown do you recall what time it started? My main complaint wasn't really about not having two movies but having them start at 5:30 or 6 pm. I understand that deck parties are important for a lot of cruisers. I assuming they just started them earlier then usual on our cruise, which is why the movies had to be shown so early.

I believe the only deck without through access is 5. So if you go up one deck you should be able to walk the entire distance to the front of the ship.

I have never seen him mention CC. Although I don't really follow him closely. I will say any time he post a complaint from someone, people are vultures on the comments defending him and carnival.

Between this and my review thread seems like a ton of people enjoy the Dive In Movies just as much as I do. Maybe I should forward this onto John Heald? Also wondering if anyone else has anymore feedback if these changes are happening fleet wide or we just lucked out on the Magic.

Generally they will show one R rated movie a cruise and start it late to deter kids would assume. Im guessing this was rated R.

We are not buffet people at all but I can agree with what you are saying. NCL and RCCL win in the buffet department. It has been some time since we had a spa room on a dream class ship. I will say we had a spa room on getaway or escape and it was wonderful and our escape from the crowds on the pool deck.

Just check in before you go from the room or the bar. No need to go wait with the heard of the people outside of the restaurant. If you have any time dining the entrance will be at the front of the ship in the atrium.

I had not heard about the curfew. Like I said I guess we were just lucky and really didn't notice many kids. There were nights we were out past 1am and don't remember seeing many kids or kids causing a problem anyway.

Yes we have sailed NCL twice. I think the two 7 day cruised combined they showed maybe 5 movies in the back are of getaway and escape. We have sailed Royal 8 times. It has been some time and some of the ships may have pool side theaters but they did not when we sailed. Best we got was a movie or two in the aqua theater on Allure. I know princess puts a big focus on their movies but I think were about 15 years shy of our first princess cruise lol.

I would just like to add that it may be a small group compared to others but it is still a fairly large group that enjoy the movies. When a decent movie is showing you cant find a deck chair on the pool deck and the next deck up is always packed. I will say they do sell a good bit of drinks, I am sure not as much as they would during a deck party. I would say pop corn was only available about half the time. While is sucks to have to pay for it we still enjoy it, even though its bland lol. One thing somebody else mentioned was lack of atrium parties. I didn't think of that but since mentioned it was true on our cruise. I used to enjoy those as well.

Yes spoke to them and got the run around for the most part. However no movie was scheduled on Sunday and I was able to convince them to play one so that was a win, however it started at 6:00 : (

We recently returned from a 7 day Bermuda cruise on the Magic. I was really disappointed in the Dive in movies. It may seem strange to some but the main reason I come back to Carnival is because of the dive in movies. Imho there is nothing better then being under the stars with a Caribbean breeze in your face, drink in hand and watching a movie. This was a big bust here. I don't know if this is something new or just how they are doing things on the Magic but it was a big fail. Normally they would show an early movie more kid friendly around 5:30-6:00 followed by another movie around 8ish. Worked out perfect for us. Early dinner, go to the early show, watch a movie then late night comedy. The odd thing is almost all the movies were shown around 5:30 or 6 with no late movie. Sitting out in the son when its still hot with people still swimming kind of takes away from the whole experience. Looking at the fun times it appears they did this because they had deck parties every night. Which I am all for, but they must have started earlier then normal. On all of our past cruises they found time to do both. Looking at the list of movies John Heald posted we were excited. For some reason the played to movies twice. Not sure why they would do this, so there were several movies we looked forward to seeing that were never shown. Again it might seem like a petty gripe but I was kind of bummed. I hope this was just a Magic thing and not something they are moving towards across the fleet. If anybody else has sailed on any other ships and is a fan

I have seen the Magic get a ton of flack on here lately. We returned not to long ago from a 7 day Bermuda cruise out of NY. I figured I would give you a quick un biased review of our cruise. This was the 8th Carnival cruise for my wife and I and only the second bringing our 6 year old son along with us. We are in our late 30s enjoy the shows, comedy, movies on the pool deck, and always get the drink package. Our previous cruise was on the Horizon in a Havana Cabana right after things got going again. To say I was a little nervous after reading such bad things about the Magic would be a fair statement. We have sailed her sister ships Dream and Breeze though. With my wife being a teacher we always cruise in August with crowds and a lot of kids. I will hit on a couple of key components that will maybe clear some things up for certain people debating on going on the Magic or cruising out of NY. Embarkation in NY We live in Maryland and love cruising out of NY. Its a short 2hr ride for us the Weehawken and we take the ferry to Manhattan. Couldn't be more simple. We arrived right at 10 for our 10:30 embarkation. It was definitely not the smoothest but I have seen far worse. There did seem to be a bit of confusion among employees in giving directions on where people should go. I was surprised to see them actually checking boarding passes for the boarding times and enforcing this. We were on the boat just before noon. Reading in the Facebook group it seems like things may have gotten worse later in the day. Fellow Cruisers We all know Carnival gets a bad rap for its clientele. Especially when cruising out of NY with a lot of New Yorkers and people from NJ on board. This was one of the biggest complaints I saw before the cruise took place. I have to say I was pleasantly surprised. I really think this was a great group of cruisers. Call us lucky but I thought this was one of the better crowds we have ever cruised with. We never really ran into any rude on entitled people the entire cruise. Another thing to note for a cruise in August I really didn't feel like there was that many kids on the ship. We also never ran into any large group of crazy teenagers running the halls. Food Another big complaint I have been hearing is how poor dining room service has been with staffing issues. Again maybe we were just lucky we had any time dining and had a great crew and requested them every night. Service was always under an hour and food was always average or above. We don't really do the buffet much. The few times we did go in the morning it was a bit of a zoo and I found myself regretting it. I did manage to get Mongolian wok during lunch time without much of a wait. Guy's lines were never long and moved fast. We ate at the Steakhouse one night. Food was decent and service was slow. My mother in law who joined us on the cruise treated us so I couldn't complain. If I would have paid $42pp I would have been a little disappointed. Entertainment This is where Carnival usually shines and I feel like we were disappointed. The comedians on the cruise were bad. Really bad, the worse we have seen with Carnival. I believe there were 3 or 4 and we gave them all a chance and wished we had that 40 minutes of our life back. Guess we were just unlucky here because Carnivals comedians are usually very funny. The 4 main shows were all very good and the cast was probably the best we have seen in a long time. The strange thing is it seemed there were nights where nothing was happening in the main theater. Usually you would get a magician or something. They did do comedy in the main theater during peak hours one night so that was a bust. Dive in Movies It may seem strange to some but the main reason I come back to Carnival is because of the dive in movies. Imho there is nothing better then being under the stars with a Caribbean breeze in your face, drink in hand and watching a movie. This was a big bust here. I don't know if this is something new or just how they are doing things on the Magic but it was a big fail. Normally they would show an early movie more kid friendly around 5:30-6:00 followed by another movie around 8ish. Worked out perfect for us. Early dinner, go to the early show, watch a movie then late night comedy. The odd thing is almost all the movies were shown around 5:30 or 6 with no late movie. Sitting out in the son when its still hot with people still swimming kind of takes away from the whole experience. Looking at the fun times it appears they did this because they had deck parties every night. Which I am all for, but they must have started earlier then normal. On all of our past cruises they found time to do both. Looking at the list of movies John Heald posted we were excited. For some reason the played to movies twice. Not sure why they would do this, so there were several movies we looked forward to seeing that were never shown. Again it might seem like a petty gripe but I was kind of bummed. I hope this was just a Magic thing and not something they are moving towards across the fleet. Ship All I read was how the Magic was in shambles lol. Maybe I just don't care but the ship seemed to be in just as good of shape as any other ship we have sailed on. Yes the hand rails were worn in places and even getting replaced in some. Carpet seemed in decent shape. Nothing stood out to me as a glaring problem. I will say this we cruised Breeze in 2019 and I think Magic was in better shape then her. The TV in our room did seem extra small this time around though. Wrap Up All in all we had a great cruise. This was really a test to see if we could cruise with our 6 year old and still enjoy ourselves as adults. We found at that we very much could and he was great. He did enjoy the kids club, probably not as much as some but enough for us to feel like we still got some us time. Bermuda is Bermuda. Very nice and very expensive. The lack of a free transport that NCL offered made things tricky and an added expense. Our room steward was ok but that seems to be a spot that they are hit the hardest and they seem very overworked. We had the drink package and the bar staff throughout the boat was awesome. Debarkation was pretty smooth. Feel free to ask any questions and I will do my best to answer.

Appreciate that insight. We are going to have this issue on Monday. My fathers EX girlfriend will not be joining us. My father paid her fair anyway. So sounds like we should just keep our mouth shut? Would be nice to get the fee's back in the form of onboard credit but not at the risk of a cancellation fee.