kctwinmommy

Yep! Used it on the Magic 2 weeks ago and it was great. I think because our booking was linked to our friends, when I logged in to chat, it showed all the guests on both rooms. So I could message any of them, it was nice. And yes, it was nice having the schedule of events at your fingertips. I will say it was a killer on my phone's battery. But my phone is 3 years old, so I have to be a little more careful on constant use. And I don't use WiFi on my phone normally.

We got to the terminal around 10:15 2 weeks ago when we boarded on the 12th, and pretty much walked right through everything. We had the FTTF and went right through with our Platinum friends. Never waited in a single line. We were in the Cucina eating lunch by like 11:15!

Do you mind sharing the other excursions you did?

Here's my trip report, with all my excursion info...

http://boards.cruisecritic.com/showthread.php?t=2382500

Just curious, were the chairs, being rented, located by Reflextions restaurant and pool area, or were they further down, near the inflatables in the water?

If you paid money at Reflexions, you got a chair, use of the pool, etc... We didn't see the sign until we were leaving. They had a couple options. But there was a guy sitting out there renting the chairs, just past Reflexions and the scuba dive shop, he would move the chairs where you wanted them.

My son was part of Circle C last week, on the Magic. The schedule seems to be most of the same stuff he's done on the past 2 cruises. And they often deviate from it too. They played a lot of video games, Just Dance, karaoke, Family Feud, Apple to Apples, deck party, sports, dress to impress party, etc... I know they also hung out with the Club O2 kids on occasion.

One other thing I will mention. Casino had some sort of promotion with land based casinos for a wheel of fortune slot tournament.

 

Understand they gave away 375 cabins mostly balconies to people who generally had not cruised before. One of our tablemates got a very nice balcony on 9.

 

Tournament gave away $ 100' date='000 we understand and even after never saw such a crowded casino with so many machines being used. Casino must have earned the cost of the tourney back numerous times[/quote']

 

Based on the conversations in our roll call here, I already suspected many of the cruisers would be casino people. There were several references to it there. And yes, it was crowded a lot, which is fine with me, couldn't care less, never went there except to walk through (although I tried not to, nasty with the amount of smoke!).

 

And our friends thought the wooden box was cute. I guess, not being at that level, it didn't matter to me. We're at gold, probably will be there for awhile, and we were happy with our free water and drink ;) I'm sure there have been many gifts over the years with a variety of responses.

I know food and service are subjective, but how did you find them?

 

Glad you had a great cruise!

The service for the most part was great. But, we did have a couple problems in the MDR for dinner. One night, we waited I think about 50 minutes until we got our appetizers. Our waiters were very apologetic, saying something about a group/table that needed to be done by 7 p.m. for some reason. Wasn't totally sure what the deal was. It wasn't a huge deal, but it was a little annoying. I mean, we didn't have anywhere to be, but that was a long wait. I thought it was wrong of one table/group to dictate a schedule for everyone else though.

The food was also good for the most part. A few problems with steaks being cooked properly, but it was fixed. As I said, we didn't care that much for Pig & Anchor, Guys was great. The salad bar was good. Blue Iguana my son loved!

Thank you kctwinmommy, where did they get the snorkeling equipment from?

We have our own. You can get it pretty cheap from many of places here before you sail. I did see some table and vendors renting it on the beach, but honestly, it looked pretty used. ;)

Thank you for posting the December movies. I also saw that on John Heald's blog. I do have the list of November movies but was wondering which of those will be on the Magic next week.

I have the Fun Times somewhere, just not sure if I'll find them anytime soon! LOL! I did reply, maybe to you, in another post, with all the movies I can remember being on the Magic this past week. Keep in mind, we had an 8-day cruise. I guess ours was a little different than it's normal schedule. For example, we went to Curacao, the first time the Magic went there.

Excited to hear you were on deck 11. Have a balcony room on 11 in January. Were you Starboard or Port side? Could you smell smoke while on your balcony? What was your room # and could you hear noise from the slides above?? What was the general feel of this deck? First time on 11 for us.

We were on the port side, about 6-7 cabins in from the Lido deck. Never heard anything from above, below, or outside! And I think I smelled smoke once or twice, but that was probably people on the balcony. Smoking on 11 was on the starboard side. We always love being near the top of the ship, so we have usually booked a deck near the top, always a balcony.

We just came back from there and my husband, son, friend and his son all snorkeled right off the beach, in front of our cruise ship! They saw amazing fish, tons of them, a huge variety, and a canon sunk in the water, oh and an anchor. They went out like 2-3 times and loved it! Didn't cost them a penny and they saw a ton of things. My husband and our friend have both snorkeled and dived. By both boys hadn't done much snorkeling, never diving. My son had tried it last year but got freaked out, this time he loved it. They went past the ropes there, closer to the ship.

We were just there this week and we loved having it! They only have 10 and they were all booked. We were 7 people (2 families), and the dads/sons were able to walk to the beach and snorkel. Us ladies hung out at the cabana. The other mom had surgery recently, so she has to be more careful with the sun and just trying to be comfortable, so it was perfect. Plus, having been to the restaurant last year and dealt with crazy busy, long service, it was nice to have our own server. We ordered some drinks at one point, and the nachos, which are HUGE and delicious!!

If you can, try and rent a cabana at Margaritaville, then you'll have a place to hang out. You can always venture down to the beach later on, when people start wandering around.

We were just at Surfside this week. It cost us $10/taxi ride, for up to 5 people. We had 7 people, so we had to take 2 taxis. I just read that there are some buses that are cheaper.

The beach was OK. There is some sort of restaurant (Reflexions), with a pool that you can use I guess, we didn't. The airport is also right there, so we had about 6-8 planes land while we were there for 2-3 hours.

We were just there this week. Our friends we were traveling with, the husband asked in the center when we got off the ship for a beach to go to. I wasn't there, but for some reason they recommended Surfside Beach. Honestly, it wasn't anything exciting, but it was still nice. There were maybe 25-30 people on the beach, all spread out. There were 2 guys renting chairs, but we just laid out our towels. The boys were all in the water anyway. We just stayed there for about 2-3 hours, got some sun, did some snorkeling (the boys said it wasn't that great though). We didn't fully use anything there either. There is the Reflexions place, which appeared to have food and a pool. The taxi cost us $10, for up to 5 people. Since there were 7 of us, we had to take 2 of them. We didn't know/see the bus info, so we just did the taxi. The taxi driver tried getting our friends to change, and they radioed our taxi driver, but we couldn't actually tell if they were communicating with our friends or not, some language issues. But later, our driver said we should have gone to Eagle or Palm beach. Oh well, either way, we just needed a beach, some water and sunshine. We thought it was a little neat to watch the planes land too.

We do exactly what you first asked about doing. Just got back as a matter of fact from doing that. We fly into MCO the night before our cruise, and we book Cocoa Beach shuttle, we pay for the RT shuttle. So they take us to the Radisson that night, and then in the morning we used a local shuttle (well, different this time because of going with friends), and then when we docked this morning we had our Cocoa Beach shuttle return trip reservation there. Walked off the ship at 8:00 and went right over to the desk to check in. We had to wait because our friends had to go get their car by the Radisson and bring us something. But once we were ready, we waited like 15-20 minutes for the next shuttle.

We had a wonderful time on our 8-day cruise on the Magic. I'll do an actual review over the next few days, although it may take a little longer with the holidays coming up so quickly. But if people had some general questions that I can answer, I'll try my best. I don't drink, so don't ask me about the bars/drinks. We went to a couple of the shows, we saw some of the Lido deck activities, we did an excursion in Curacao, my son & husband snorkeled in all 3 islands, my son was in Circle C. We had a balcony room, next to our friends, on deck 11.

Soo... if I can answer anything, I'll try!

We just got off the Magic today! We went to a couple of the live shows, they even premiered a brand new one that had only been on the Vista - Flick. It was really neat! Their one show was supposed to be a guy who was on America's Got Talent, but didn't make the boat in Grand Turk. We went to the other show, 88 Keys, which we enjoyed.

For music that we saw/heard, there was an amazing string trio! Even my 13 year old son thought they were great and would stop to listen when he was out and about the ship. They would play in the magic lounge or outside the dining room. Then there was some band that played 80's night, and I believe their name was something related to that. We did not think they were that good at all. The other was a man & woman (I think they were called Music & Magic), but they would play in the Ocean Plaza or Magic Lounge and we all thought they were great. I have a video of them.

I don't have all of them, but they did include X-Men: Apocalypse, Zootopia, Jungle Book, Finding Dory, The Martian, Deadpool (at midnight), Star Trek Beyond, Batman vs. Superman, Captain America Civil War, & Independence Day Resurgence. We watched a couple of those, and I wrote down a few, plus I remembered a couple.

I didn't take any pictures of the menus, except one just randomly. But the menus didn't repeat. There were the standard entrees and appetizers every night, but the rest changed every night.

Yep! We did Guys several days and their fries were addicting! My husband had Pig & Anchor, my son too, but wasn't super impressed, though Guys was better. My son also had Blue Iguana for lunch I think twice and breakfast like 3-4 times.

Where to snorkel on Grand Turk? Which beach is best?

I'm sure there are plenty of opinions, but having just been there a couple days ago, my husband, son, and friends went right out by the ships. They said everything they saw right there was amazing! My husband has dived and snorkeled several times in other places and he said it was just beautiful. They did that since they just didn't want to go on an excursion or tour, since we had the cabana at Margaritaville. They went out there 2-3 times though. So if you're looking for cheap (AKA - FREE!) just go right there.

Sanmarcosman... go to Page 2 of that thread, someone else said murder. I never said the specific person who said it, so I wasn't talking about you.

Here's the thread with the speculation... In this one, it's said to be a murder! I highly doubt it though, nobody has found anything in the news, nobody has posted anything with actual facts, etc...

http://boards.cruisecritic.com/showthread.php?t=2420625&page=2

A man killed his wife I don't know details but the cabin was sealed with yellow crime scene tape

Seems like something of that nature would be in the news somewhere!! :confused: