navybaby1113

We stayed on the balcony for a little while and then started getting hungry. We originally had plans to eat at Cucina tonight, but with the recent menu changes, we decided to cancel.

Before we headed to the dining room for dinner though, we wanted to stop by the tree lighting which was held at 5:45pm in the lobby. They had caroling and lit up the tree to songs. It was fun and pretty.

After we were done exploring the ship, we can back to the room to find all our bags had arrived. We went ahead and unpacked to get it over with. There was plenty of space in the room for all our stuff and we were able to fit our empty suitcases under the bed.

For items you need to secure, there is plenty of room in the safe. We were able to fit my iPad, a DSLR camera, two cell phones, two wallets, and our passports without any problem. The safe used a pin code instead of a card, which was nice.

I knew muster was going to be called soon, so I gave my mom a quick call to say goodbye before we turned our phones on airplane mode.

Finally 3:15pm we heard the announcements for muster. On the Magic, the muster drill is a little different than other ships. Instead of having to go out on deck, they put you in different places around the ship. Our Muster Station was on the top floor of the Southern Lights Dining Room. One thing that was new was they used iPads to scan your card as you entered the room. It made it easier for them to keep track of who was missing. The muster drill took a while, but it was nice to be sitting in the air conditioning instead of standing on the hot deck.

After muster, we went and enjoyed sailaway on our balcony. Port Canaveral isn't the prettiest of departure ports, but it's still fun to hang out on the balcony and take in the sites. We had fun watching the Coast Guard boat zipping around.

At the aft of Deck 15, Sky, you'll find the Serenity Deck, which is Carnival's Adults Only area. There are two hot tubs located up here and you won't find any kids in these. 😃

The outdoor areas of Deck 12 are amazing. First up, we have the Carnival Waterworks area.

You also have the Sports Square which includes a ropes course, mini golf, and and other fun activities for the entire family.

Next public deck is the Lido Deck, Deck 10. Starting off, we have the main pool, which is midship. Here you'll find the Blue Iguana Tequila Bar and Red Frog Rum Bar. A lot of the outdoor activities are held in this area.

You have another pool on the aft of the Lido Deck along with a couple of hot tubs. This area is normally less crowded and quieter than the midship pool.

The last thing I want to share about Deck 5 is the Lanai Promenade. This is special to the Dream Class and is a great addition, in my opinion. You can make a full lap around the ship on the deck, which was one of my favorite things to do in the evening.

There are 4 hot tubs located on this deck and they're not normally near as busy as the Lido Deck ones.

This is also where you'll find the Guy's Pig and Anchor BBQ Smokehouse, which is a nice addition to this ship! You'll hear more about the food from here later.

Sorry for the delay. Things have been absolutely crazy this week. Let's get some more done while I have some free time. :)

The Piano Bar, one of my favorite locations on a ship, it located on Deck 5.

All the way to the aft is the Spotlight Lounge, which is where they hold the comedy shows. Make sure not to sit behind one of the giant poles or you won't be able to see the stage.

How did you get into the hallway to go back to your room early? The last 3 times we cruised we would take the elevator up our floor, always 7 or 8 aft balcony, and once off the elevator the doors to all the hallway are locked with a sign that says room access is not available until 1:30. We didn't know what to do the first two times, and our last was on th Magic and we had the same issue. Hoping you can tell me the "secret" passage to my room, that's the biggest perk of FTTF and we have been ripped off 3 times now. We are aft balcony again in January so appreciate any help or advice. Thank you.

 

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The fire doors are always shut and there's typically a sign that says something like rooms not being available until 1:30pm, but there's also usually a sign that says Diamond/Platinum/FTTF, come on in! We just open the doors and go on in. Never had an issue with them being locked before.

You have the Red Frog Pub which is a fun little place to hang out. They have great drinks and small snacks (for an additional fee). There is also a foosball table and shuffleboard table in the back and dominoes on all the tables. We spent a good bit of time here throughout the cruise and this was my go to bar for soda.

The Vibe Dance Club is towards the back of Deck 5. We're not really big club people, we didn't spend any time in here at all.

One of my favorite features of the Dream Class is the Ocean Plaza area. It's the perfect place for trivia and relaxing during the day. The Plaza Cafe and Alchemy Bar are located right there so you can easily get pretty much any type of beverage you want. FYI, the Plaza Cafe does not sell soda, so you have to go inside Red Frog to get that. They also had a little area in between the Plaza Cafe and the Alchemy Bar where they served a continental breakfast in the morning.

Towards the front of Deck 5 you will find the Fun Shops. Cherry on Top is also located here. This is where you'll find tons of sweet treats to indulge in (at an additional fee.)

The Hat Trick Casino is located right in the middle of Deck 5. You have to walk through it to get from the front to the aft on this deck. Thankfully you can stop outside onto the Promenade to bypass it, which is what we often did. The smoke smell throughout the casino is very strong as people are smoking right on the main pathway.

There are two dining rooms (Southern Lights and Northern Lights) on the ship, one midship and one in the aft on Deck 3 and 4. Both dining rooms have a very similar look.

The Northern Lights dining room is located midship and this is where Anytime Dining is held. The Southern Lights dining room is in the aft of the ship and was open for breakfast, brunch, and dinner.

I somehow have no pictures of either dining room...

On Deck 4, you'll find the photo gallery towards the front of the ship. On the Magic, they have started using a digital system for pictures, so you can purchase them through your Hub app and download them straight to your phone.

There is a small bar and the library near the entrance to the Northern Lights dining room on the 4th floor. I never got the opportunity to photograph either.

Before I finish up with the rest of the day, I'm going to go ahead and do a quick ship tour to get it out of the way. These pictures were taken throughout the cruise.

When you step foot on to the Carnival Magic, the first thing you see is the Magic Lobby. This is where the Shore Excursions and Guest Services desks are located. There is also a bar with some additional seating. In there evenings there was usually some type of music players here (usually a string trio).

At the front of the ship is the Showtime Theater. This is where all the main shows are held. This spans 3 different decks with an entrance on each one.

I didn't notice any issues with flies. The occasionally gnat was flying around, but nothing to be too annoyed with.

I'm back at work today, so I'll be posting more of the review tonight. Stay tuned!

Navybaby, did you try the warm chocolate melting cake? It was so good. One night in the dining room they had frog legs , and me being an old Florida country boy I ordered them as my appetizer. Well guess what, they were naked. Not breaded and fried, just plain Nasty. I'm ready to go again. Doing a 3 day in Feb. for my recent retirement on the Disney Dream and taking all of the kids and grands with us to celebrate.

I ate like 3 Melting Cakes. And they were all declicious. lol

I debated on trying the frog legs and now I'm glad I didn't!

Overall, we loved the stateroom. The balcony is absolutely amazing and we didn't really miss the couch much. The location was also awesome because we were only 2 floors below the Lido Deck and 3 floors above the Promenade. Since the room was further aft on the ship, the Promenade doesn't stick out as far, so we had more privacy and a better view looking down at the ocean. It's also a lot quieter back there because you don't get as much random foot traffic. The biggest downside is that there was a smoking area on deck 5 a little forward of our cabin, so a lot of the smoke drifted up our way (especially when the ship was docked). The yellow umbrellas in the picture are where the smoking area is.

The Carnival Magic has the new card reader slot to keep the lights/power on in the room. We brought an extra card with us to leave in the slot so that we could charge things while we were out of the room. Our steward had put one of his cards in it though, so we didn’t end up needing it.

Our room steward had left our copy of the Fun Times in our room, so we glanced over those to see what was going on the rest of the day. Since they don't have the tear off section on the Fun Times anymore, it made them kind of a pain to carry around. We downloaded the Carnival Hub app before the cruise, so we ended up using that the majority of the time. I brought the Fun Times home with me, so I will try to scan and upload at some point.

After we got settled into our cabin, it was time for our Noles to play, so we headed to the Red Frog Pub to see if they were airing the game. They only had the Georgia v. GA Tech game on. We asked if they could change one of the TVs, but they said all 3 had to be on the same channel. That was a little frustrating. The Casino Bar was airing the game, but it’s a smoking area, so I didn’t want to breath all of that in. Unfortunately our cabin TV didn’t have ESPN, so we didn’t get to watch any of the game. My BFF kept us updated on the score through text though and we ended up winning!

The bathroom is your standard Carnival bathroom. We found there to be tons of storage for our stuff. I do wish there was a little more shelving in the shower because I like to bring my own shampoo and conditioner. We made do with what we had though.

Now the best part of the room is the amazing balcony. We had two regular chairs, a table, and a lounger. We were surprised by how dirty the chairs were when we walked out there and then realized that it was actually just paint splatter all over them. One of the awesome things about this balcony is that even though it isn’t an aft wrap, you can still see both the side of the ship and the aft.

It had been about 30 minutes at this point, so once we were done eating, we headed back to the room. Unfortunately, J had already noticed that we were in a balcony room when we came down before so there wasn’t really any surprise. Then, when I mentioned it to him that I was trying to surprise him with the balcony, he thought we had one booked the entire time. Welp, so much for my surprise! lol

The balcony I booked was one of the L-shaped cabins. There are a very limited number of these rooms on the ship (4 on deck 6, 2 on deck 7, and 2 on deck 8). They're located to the very aft of the ship. What makes them special is that the rooms are a little smaller (no couch), but the balconies are extra long (like double the size of a normal balcony). The bathroom is also located near the bed instead of in the hallway with the closets. We were booked in room 8462 on the port side of the ship.

You still have the traditional hallway as you walk in that has the closets. There's also a little nook near the door, which was perfect for keeping our shoes. There’s a little chair there, but we just used it to hold beach towels and bags.

You have the standard desk and bed in the main area of the room. Because of the odd shape, you just have a small table instead of a couch.

The bathroom is located right near the bed, which I actually prefer instead of it being in the hallway. The only downside is that if you turn the light on, it brightens up the entire sleeping space. So I brought a battery powered night to keep in there which worked out well. It has a motion sensor so it turned on automatically when we walked into the bathroom.

One of the perks of FTTF is that your room is ready as soon as you board the ship. This is one of the major reasons we book FTTF because we hate dragging our bags all around the ship until the rooms open up.

Unfortunately, we arrived at our room to find the door still open and that it hadn’t be serviced yet. One of the stewards walked up and asked if we were FTTF. When we told him we were, he said he would have the room ready in 15 minutes. We decided we might as well head up to the Lido deck and grab lunch before the crowds got on board.

We easily got a table in the back of the Lido restaurant and I watched our bags while J went and grabbed his food and then vice versa. Thankfully since the ship wasn’t crowded, it wasn’t too big of an issue. We both enjoyed Guy’s Burgers for lunch and then some caramel cheesecake for dessert.

Great review so far...the Magic is our fav ship been on her 2x with 2 more coming up very soon...:D We will miss her when she leaves next year but looking forward to the Breeze coming into PC...I am glad you mentioned the Salsa, Salsa excursion as this is one we are considering in Coz, we have been to Coz many times and are looking for something different so cannot wait for the details....

I'm definitely looking forward to the Breeze. I'm sure we'll love her just as much as the Magic!

Salsa & Salsa is great. I highly recommend it! There will absolutely be more details (and pictures) to come.

Patrick Duffy is amazing. We have sailed with him twice and have loved every minute of it.

 

 

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I agree with this. Patrick is awesome! Enjoyed every minute in the piano bar on the Magic.

How do you make sure you're not roaming and getting big charges from your cell company? Sorry I'm a bit ignorant.

 

 

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Turn your devices on Airplane mode and then connect to Carnival's wifi.

Will they have phones while on board? If so, you can use the Hub app. It's $5 for the cruise to communicate between your party.

Saturday, November 25th (Embarkation Day)

I was so excited for the cruise that I was up before the alarm even went off. Nothing is better than waking up to a nice breakfast made by my mom. 😃

It's about an hour drive from my mom's house to the port, so we got on the road about 9am. The rental car was due back at 10:30 and since we had FTTF, we wanted to get to the port as early as possible to take advantage of our priority boarding.

We dropped our car off at Enterprise around 10:15am. They're located about 5 minutes away from the cruise port and have a shuttle to take you over to the ship. Returning the car was super quick and then they directed us inside to wait for the next shuttle. The shuttle arrived about 10 minutes later and we all go loaded up. Before we knew it, we had a view of our home for the next 7 days!

We were dropped off directly at the terminal and our bags were unloaded from the vehicle by the driver and given to the porters. Make sure to have your luggage tags on your bags ahead of time and stand at the trailer to grab your carry-ones so there is no confusion as to what should go with them and what should stay with you.

We were dropped off around 10:45am and walked straight through check-in. The FTTF line was super short and there was no wait at all. The Magic is still giving Sail and Sign cards at check-in. Once we checked in, we were directed to seat in the FTTF waiting area until called. After all the priority cruisers were called, they called FTTF and we were on our way to ship.

We officially stepped foot on the ship at 11:15am! I love walking on a new (to us) ship and checking out the lobby. It was already decorated for Christmas!

*Picture taken later in the cruise*