the_lovely_voyage

Once we were done zip-lining, we dropped off our equipment, had a bathroom break, and headed over to the stables to see the horses. It took a little bit of time for us to be assigned our horses, but once we were all saddled up and ready to go, we had a great ride. We only spent about 30 minutes on the actual trails and riding, and it would've been fun to do a little bit longer, but I was also ready for lunch so I don't have too many complaints. My horse's name was Colombia and he was a horse who loved being in the front and had a mind of his own at times. My husband was stuck in the very back of the pack because his horse was an old stallion and would get ornery with other horses if he wasn't in the back with a trail guide. He did have good conversations with another cruise passenger that was stuck in the back as well. It was unfortunate that we couldn't ride together though. Colombia did some galloping and riding off the path which was fun, but also slightly terrifying haha.

This is Colombia before the storm...

...And this is Colombia at a solid gallop- the trail guide had to help me slow down.

Poor husband stuck at the back

About to cross the "river"; I think it was more like a stream

Make it full screen to get the real experience!

[YOUTUBE]yalvmjL6-oY[/YOUTUBE]

That being said, after the first zip-line, I was hooked! Wow, what a thrilling experience. The second route was over a river and was really long, so that was super awesome. The last route was the longest and was so crazy fun. The routes offered a lot of great views of the Dominican Republic mountainside. There was a fair amount of hiking up steps and hills, so we definitely see why it's rated "intermediate" on the activity level. We would almost say it's expert level, especially when it's warm and sunny and depending on how fit that you feel you are. My husband loved the hiking part of the zip-lining and actually wanted to do more haha. It was very warm outside and we were all sweating, so I was going to pass on wanting more hiking.

Wheeee!

"Hiking" to get to the last zip-line route

The views were remarkable

The longest, best, and last zip-line of the day. If you follow the cord up with your mouse you can see the platform I started at!

He had SO much fun!

I've never zip-lined before so I didn't know I was going to get turned around on the line while flying at high speeds, so I started to panic and used my hand incorrectly and ended up with a burn through my glove. Lesson learned. The guides along the routes were really great and helpful, but also fun and would joke around with people. Aside from jumping off platforms high in the trees and hanging by a wire, I did feel safe throughout the whole process. We zip-lined for just under an hour which did feel like a good amount of time, but of course I would've loved more now that I knew how much fun it was! The guides did bring water and cups for us, so we were able to stay at least somewhat hydrated.

Our group zip-lined first, which was definitely to our advantage as we ended up eating lunch first after the ziplining and horseback riding, whereas the other group arrived after us and did the two activities in reverse from us and ate second. We got our harnesses put on and the team went over all the safety features of the entire system. They stated a lot of numbers and facts and I can't say for sure that it's the truth but I had no reason to think they were lying about the safety of their equipment. After the safety briefing, we were off! I will say that zip-lining was the part that I was dreading the most, but my husband has this magical way of opening my mind to new experiences and feeling at least semi-comfortable while jumping in.

Obviously these helmets are the hottest new trend:

The stairs up to the first platform

Look at that handsome man ready to go!

Bye bye!

That's the look of a successful zip-line:

Follow along here!

https://thelovelyvoyage.blogspot.com/2018/07/carnival-magic-amber-cove-dominican.html

Wednesday, June 20th- Amber Cove, Dominican Republic

We started our day off with breakfast in the Lido Marketplace and some entertainment while we waited in line. There was a group of 6 staff members dancing in a conga line around the dining area with a boombox. It was certainly a fun way to start the day! After eating, we debarked the ship and walked the VERY long pier to find our shore excursion group at zone one, as listed on our tickets. Real talk, this pier was long. You'll want to give yourself at least 5 minutes just to get from the ship to the shore excursion group area.

On the long pier walk

It was SO hard to get a good picture of the sign without people in front of it

A waterfall in port

Today's excursion was booked through Carnival and called "Amazing Ultimate Adventure with Lunch" and ran from 9:30am to 2:45pm. It was $115 a person and included a safari truck ride (old military truck) to and from the adventure park, zip-lining on 6 or 7 routes, horseback riding, and a traditional lunch. So we found our group and were waiting about a minute or two when another tour guide came up to our group looking for two or three people to come with him to leave now instead of waiting. I volunteered and we were whisked away to a truck that was fully loaded and ready to go. Woohoo! Our tour guide's name was "Papa Alex" and he said our ride would be about 30 minutes. It was an incredibly bumpy ride to the park, and honestly I didn't feel super safe since there were a lot of road on the edge of cliffs with no guard rails. We did get there safely, thanks to our driver Orlando, around 10:15 and were off for the next stage of our adventure!

I loved how these red plants framed the famous whale tail!

The safari trucks

On the Magic in 316 days (Southern) out of Ft. Lauderdale for my son's graduation cruise and on the Fascination departing from San Juan in 30 days. Make sure you do the Bacardi tour next time you're there. Looking forward to the rest of your review as haven't been on the Magic yet. What were you planning for St. Thomas? That's one of our ports on our cruise next month and only one haven't decided. We've been before and not one of our favs so any suggestions are welcome.

Thanks so much for the helpful comments! I'll be sure to keep Bacardi on the To-Do list. We were planning on doing a Carnival-sponsored excursion to Magen's Bay and Paradise Point. Still SO bummed we couldn't go! Enjoy your future cruising adventures, whatever you end up doing!

I am going on the Magic in September and have cabin 6430. Did you have any obstruction to the water below? Still reading your review and enjoying it!

So glad you're liking it! If you look at post 38, you can see my husband looking off our balcony and you can see the lanai below us. We were right at the point where the lanai widens from just a little walkway to the actual lanai with chairs and tables, so part of our view was pretty much water and part of it was the deck. I do have a few more pictures coming up in the review that will show it a little better. When looking our of the balcony, your room is two spaces to the right, so you'll be fully over the lanai. I think it's still going to be a great spot though!

Keep it coming. Fellow Iowan here going on the Magic in two weeks - same itinerary. With that said...

 

Go Big Red

This gave me a good laugh. I'll look past your last comment and just be happy I have a fellow Iowan here! :p Have a great time on the Magic!

I am loving your review so much! Thank you for the beautiful pictures and commentary.

I really appreciate that, thank you so much for reading along!

Just saw your review, and I'm subscribing. Thanks for sharing your vacation with us, and I just love the pictures.

That's very kind of you, thank you!

Really enjoying your review. Can’t wait to hear about San Juan!

Thank you so much! I hope you enjoy the massive picture dump of San Juan I just posted :p

Following along- I'm trying to talk my DH into same ship/itinerary sailing out of Miami in March!

Fingers crossed that this review helps sway him into saying yes!

I had the wagyu steak and ordered it medium-well, and it was medium at best. It was very red/pink and I wasn't a fan. The mac and cheese side was super delicious. The onion rings were mostly bread with a thin piece of onion, but still tasty if you want breaded rings. My husband ordered the garlic ratin, which the server said was like a broccoli rabe, but he didn't like it and found it too bitter. He also ordered the 14oz NY Strip Steak and said it was perfectly cooked medium rare with a nice crust, and that it was perfectly good without a sauce but did like to add a dab of the bernaise to it.

For dessert, we shared two plates. The chocolate sphere was good but the chocolate was untempered, meaning it didn't have the shine or crispness that it should. We also had the apple tarte tatan and it wasn't that good. The crust was hard and the apples didn't seem to have the right flavor or sweetness that we were looking for. The couple next to us ordered the table art dessert and it was really cool to see being done. We obviously can't comment on the flavor but it looked pretty and they seemed to enjoy it. Shoutout to the couple who let us film it!

Make it full screen for better viewing pleasure. I sped it up to 3x but the original video was about 2.5 minutes.

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We tried to watch the Hasbro game show but it was really slow moving and not super entertaining. We're also pretty sure that that cruise director Cookie made a kid cry by asking her too many questions. Woops! We left the show and sat in the atrium and listened to the strings trio. They were incredibly talented and we really enjoyed people watching and listening to the music. We took the time to write some of this review while we were there as well.

At 8:40, we went into the dining room to get the S'more parfait for dessert. Yes, we really did go there just for dessert. The S'mores parfait is SO delicious and very much worth the trip, even if you eat somewhere else for dinner. We had a nice conversation with the couple seated next to us while we were there and of course recommended the parfait for dessert 😆 We were in and out of the dining room within 20 minutes. We went back to the atrium to listen to more music and play cards before seeing the Love and Marriage gameshow. It was an absolutely blast, as always, and Cookie really helped take it over the top. We were laughing the whole time and really loved it. The newlywed couple was the couple we met while waiting to board the ship on embarkation day, so that was really cool to see. Our last stop of the day was our room to prepare for our next day of adventure.

UP NEXT: Amber Cove, Dominican Republic

We started off dinner with different types of bread served with cool butters. The swirl bread, whatever that's called, was delicious. The pretzels were also pretty good. We had a complimentary dish from the chef which was Parmesan cheese three ways. It was cool but not really a substantive dish. I ordered the french onion soup and it came out very very very hot, but it was really good. My husband had the shrimp cocktail with "gorgeous shrimp," and the guacamole-type topping was fun. The salad he had was very fresh and the ranch dressing was delicious. During our dinner, I did learn something new about my husband, even after 5.5 years together. He was moving the radishes off his plate and said he doesn't like them because they're too spicy for a vegetable. LOL. He likes spicy things but apparently not in vegetable format. He also tried to make a radish pun: "They should decide what they want to be, rad or not. There's no time for indecisive vegetables"..... it's a slow burn, I'll just let it sink in.

Spot the rainbow!

We took a quick nap before dinner since walking around all day was pretty exhausting. Since we had all of this extra onboard credit for missing St. Thomas, we decided to treat ourselves to a dinner in the steakhouse. Turns out, I forgot that I don't really like steak, so there's that... I really have a thing for hating red bleeding meat so even when I ask for my meat for be medium-well or well-done, it's rarely at the brown/pink color I'm looking for. I'm also a really slow eater naturally, and when you add chewing chunks of meat fifty times per bite, it is all a torturous process. On the plus side, we had a seat next to the window which gave us a great view! The staff was also wonderful.

A panorama from the bastion we found:

We took some time to shop while we were on our way back to the ship. While we were in a store, there was another heavy burst of rain that lasted maybe 5 minutes, and then it was dry once again. We had a fun conversation with the cashier while we were stuck in the rain and bought a few trinkets to remember our trip by. We didn't want to leave the street of San Juan but we were hungry and very sweaty so we made our way back to the ship to shower and change. My husband got food from Guys Burger and I found some things to eat at the Lido Marketplace. While on the deck, we had someone take our picture with the well-traveled Hawkeye flag. I'm really bummed I forgot about it on the ship and we didn't get a picture with it at one of the forts, so I suppose this has to do. We watched the Royal Anthem of the Seas sail away and sat in the Serenity for a bit. The area was pretty empty at 2:30 so we had no problem finding a seat. We ordered a drink and enjoyed the Serenity until the sun became too intense. We headed down to the lanai to find some shade and watched our sail away from there. We saw a rainbow too, which was fun. San Juan was such a beautiful stop and we can't wait to come back!!

Taking advantage of the empty Serenity to use a cuddle clam and drink a piña colada

We walked to La Fortaleza, where the governor lives. Along the way we saw all of these beautifully bright colored buildings, and it really hit me that we're in San Juan. It's so crazy to see things in pictures and then finally be face to face with it. On our walk, we stumbled upon a bastion with wonderful views of Puerto Rico. While staring out over the country, we had this awesome conversation about how it's so weird that we unintentionally equate San Juan with all of Puerto Rico, but really this huge city is just one piece of an entire country. There's so much to see and do in San Juan, but there's no way that can provide the entire picture of the country. It would be like going to New York City and saying that sums up all of America.

Those colors!

Can I paint my house this color?

The ground and a camera timer help us get some photos together lol

We enjoyed a great walk along Calle Norzagaray west towards Castillo San Felipe del Morro. We way the La Perla community and pieces of the fort along the walk and werw able to read some history about the area on the journey over. My husband thought it was crazy that you could see the income differences in communities based on where your home was located in respect to the fort and the water. We made it to the second fort and I was really pumped to see people flying kites on the giant lawn. All of the pictures I've seen of Castillo San Felipe del Morro have had people flying kites and I finally got to see it in person! It was a very long hike up the road to the fort, especially in the sun.

We showed the desk attendant our receipt from the first fort and got in with no problems. It was a very different fort style than the first one. It was painted and had many more rooms with designated jobs, such as "church" or "kitchen." There were many more awesome views, probably even better than the first fort. We also saw a lighthouse up close which was really cool. There was a random rain storm for about 1 minute then it stopped and we were able to stay dry the rest of the time at the forts.

The kites!

So it was a little windy...

Ooh artsy.

I'll just stay here all day, thanks

Here's the route we took originally and realized our mistake:

We headed from the ship north along the yellow line to the star. Once we were there and realized that wasn't the entrance we headed back down the hill and went up the blue route towards the triangle, which is where the main entrance is. Hopefully that helps someone so they don't make the same mistake!

We paid the $7pp charge and got a receipt to keep to take to the other fort so we can get in. It was so awesome to see all of the history and amazing views from the fort. I did a lot of reading about the history of the forts before we got there, so to finally be there was pretty amazing. My husband liked seeing all of the history and going into the sentry turrets. He pointed out that the people who used to defend the forts were very short because the turrets and doorways were pretty short. The A/C and facilities at the main entrance were nice too, lol. It was VERY humid and warm already for early in the day and we quickly became sweaty and gross. We had to walk through a dark creepy tunnel to get into the main plaza in the fort. Once there, we climbed more stairs and ramps which was slightly strenuous but well worth the effort for the beautiful views. Seeing San Juan from that perspective was truly remarkable.

June 19, 2018- San Juan, Puerto Rico

We finally get to get off the ship! Alright so it wasn't that bad, but it was really nice to finally be at a port after a second unexpected day at sea. It was our first time in San Juan and we were very excited to be there. We were supposed to have visited on our Vista honeymoon sailing in November 2017, but due to the slew of hurricanes that went through the Caribbean, our Eastern route was switched to a Southern. We had to cancel our tour at the Bacardi factory and we were bummed. After that all happened, we had to decide if we wanted to stick with our original plans to visit the forts and walk around San Juan or reschedule our Bacardi visit for this trip. We ultimately made the decision to stick with the plan of seeing the forts since that's more important to understanding and experiencing San Juan. We would definitely like to see the Bacardi factory in the future though, so it's still on the to-do list!

We woke up at 7:45, which is pretty late considering we could get off the ship at 8:15. We knew the forts didn't even open until 9am so there wasn't a huge rush to get off with the massive crowd that might be leaving the ship.We packed our day bag and headed to the Lido for breakfast. Unfortunately it was a lot more packed than the day before and the lines were long, but it moved pretty quickly. We also joked about being able to enjoy a meal without the room shaking. For some reason, the aft of the Lido Marketplace really shakes when the ship is in motion, so it was nice and still since the ship was docked. The ice and drink machine have to be on the verge of breaking from rattling so hard, and there's one particular light that also shook terribly and seemed like it was going to fall off the ceiling at any moment.

Our ship buddy for the day

We headed down to deck 0 gangway to get off the ship. We were super excited to finally be in San Juan!! The pier and terminal were very plain and didn't have a lot going on in it, such as a lot of store fronts being empty and/or closed. We got to the street and were able to use Google Maps to help us find Castillo de San Cristóbal. I like to pride myself on doing a lot of research for cruises, but I apparently didn't do enough since I had some issues knowing exactly where the main entrance was. We unnecessarily walked up a hill that wasn't the entrance, so we had to walk back down it and up another hill to the actual entrance. Whoops!

Our first view of the fort

Oh hai there

I had to wear my "Universidad de Iowa" shirt when in Puerto Rico! We actually met a young local man who asked if we go there and we had a conversation about the University of Iowa.

following....great review and awesome pics!!

Thanks so much, I hope you enjoy!

Did the Magic have the new lamps with the cell phone charger built in to them?

Our room did not have that, sorry I can't provide a better answer.

Following. On the Magic in April 2020 for my 50th Anniversary.

Great review and pics! On the Magic on July 21 and can't wait to sail on her again! ������

Thank you for doing a review, looking forward to sailing on the Magic in .....570 days ;p

Thank you all for reading along, I appreciate it! Let me know if you have any questions as you prepare for your journeys!

Also just a reminder, if you'd like to follow along on the blog and catch posts more quickly than I can put them over here, follow the link!

http://thelovelyvoyage.blogspot.com/2018/07/carnival-magic-618-day-at-sea.html

We went to the room to lay down and stretch out so the food could settle. We watched a little bit of Netflix before heading up to decks 3 and 5 to have pictures taken, then went back to the room to continue to relax. We went to the Showtime Theatre to see the country show at 9:30pm. I thought it was really good and the set design and choreography was awesome. I felt like the songs could've included a few more popular/recent country songs, but I did enjoy the story line and we had a good time.

The mega deck party was starting on the lido deck so we made our way up there. Our cruise director Cookie was ridiculously energetic and has awesome dance moves. He really knows how to get the party going! My husband learned a two-step dance and we danced along to a few songs from deck 12 while watching the party and enjoying the Caribbean air. Ice cream was calling me again so we went down to grab a cone and went to the comedy show. We saw Michael Isaac again, and he continued to be hilarious and really had the crowd going. I know it sounds like we lounged a lot this sea day but that's hard work, so we were drained after the comedy show and went to the cabin to sleep.

It's a party!

You all know the song, sing it with me! "Follow the lead-a, lead-a, lead-a, follow the lead-a"

UP NEXT: Tuesday, San Juan!

For dessert, we split two choices. We had the lemon dessert, in which the sorbet is truly phenomenal and tart and I need more right now please.

We also had the sea salt chocolate cookie with coffee gelato. We feel like the gelato was lacking some flavor and too "ice-y" but the cookies were great.

We left SO stuffed. Like wow, food overload! My husband also finished the meal with an espresso (included) and thought it was smooth.

Cucina is right upstairs from the Lido Marketplace. Here's a good view of both at once. We didn't really notice any Lido noise so that's good!

Just before 6pm, we walked up to Cucina del Capitano for our reservations. We got a seat near the window which was really exciting because we typically cruise during winter months when it's dark at dinner time, so we were happy to actually to see the water and enjoy the views this time. Our service team was wonderful and our experience there was fantastic. This was our second time at a Cucina, and we continue to love it. Absolutely check it out if you're considering a little something extra to make your cruise special. Plus, at only $15 a person, it's not an exorbitant price, especially for the huge amount of food they provide.

I had the calamari which was delicious and plentiful. For my entree, I had the risotto and it was very rich and cooked well. If our room had a microwave, I definitely would've taken a to-go box to reheat some of it later, because I couldn't finish the whole bowl.

My husband had the burrata as an appetizer since I had it on the honeymoon, and he said it was yummy and he loved the cherry tomatoes that were very sweet and dessert-like.

He also had the lamb chop for his entree and said it was really good and almost like a ground lamb patty with crust. I think he meant it was very tender? He liked it so that's all I really know! He also had a side of spaghetti and said it was "out of this world good" and he would definitely order it next time. We also got the veggie side and I feel like the broccoli was burnt and the cauliflower was undercooked, but my husband liked the broccoli.

SO MUCH FOOD!

There was no line when we walked up, so we got our harnesses on right away and the Carnival staff said we could go around as many times as we wanted since there weren't any guests waiting. We did two laps around the course, switching sides after the first lap. The route on the inside of the circle is the easier route and the outside is harder, but I think each route had some challenging sections. There were a few smaller kids on the course that shouldn't have been doing the outside harder section, so we were held up by them. Although, that being said, some could argue that mid-20 somethings shouldn't be on there either 😛 We had a fun time on the course and had beautiful views of the ocean and ship while up there. Honestly, I thought it would be a little more tricky or scary than it actually was, but again maybe that's because it wasn't designed for our age group.

A few screenshot captures from our video:

Here's a video of my husband going on the Sky Course, edited to remove wait times for sections of the course and sped up to 1.25x. Make full screen for better viewing.

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We grabbed our belongings out of the locked cubby that was at the Sky Course (course and locked box free to use) and went down to the Lido Marketplace to grab some ice cream. We ended up in the Ocean Plaza for some trivia about musicals and didn't do as well as I thought we would. We went back to the room to shower, nap, and watch Netflix on my iPad before getting ready for dinner.

Monday, June 18th- Another Day at Sea

We woke up around 8am and made our way up to the Lido Marketplace for breakfast. To our delight, there weren't any lines around 8:40 and our food was super satisfying (which is a weird way to phrase it but that's what my notes say from that morning!).

Breakfast views!

After eating, we went to morning trivia where we scored two points below the winner, so we left feeling pretty good about our performance! We decided to live a lazy lifestyle this morning so after trivia, we lounged on the lanai for about an hour and enjoyed the beautiful weather and gorgeous water views. More trivia was on the agenda and we did not do well, which was a real letdown after our morning's close success. We went up to the lido to take pictures of the ship and grab a drink.

Busy day!

While up there, we started listening to "Caribbean Sounds with Gerrant" but unfortunately his shift ended about 10 minutes after we sat down to listen, so we went back down to the lanai. I said it last post but it's worth saying again: the lanai (deck 5) is really the unsung hero when it comes to lounging chairs and soaking up the rays (there are also shaded spots if Vitamin D isn't your thing.) It's so peaceful and lovely and I'm missing it right now. My husband was sitting in the shade while I was in the sun, but after 15-20 minutes, the sun started creeping onto his seat and he started complaining. I suppose in all fairness, he does burn 10x faster than I do, so we decided to get in line for the BBQ and then go up to the balcony.

Lanai views:

BBQ Menu

The BBQ line moved fast and we climbed the flight of stairs up to our room. Side note, it was awesome to have a room on deck 6 because we're only a few flights of stairs away from basically everything. Now we know that it really is a prime location! Back to the food, the BBQ was pretty disappointing. I thought the beans were flavorless, the mac and cheese was weird and almost chemical-like. The pork was pretty good and the brown sugar bourbon sauce was good, so at least there's that. I will also say that the view from our balcony during lunch is unbeatable, and I wish I could have that view more than once or twice a year! We read on the balcony for a while before decided it was time to try our athletic ability on the Sky Course around 2:30pm.

I mean, it can't get better than this!

your review and pictures are incredible and I can’t thank you enough to take the time for the review- both good and bad. A lot to know for my cruise In August. Looking forward to your next day.

Thank you very much, I really appreciate your kind comments! I'm hoping to post the next day or two today.

Aft pool is open to everyone as long as kids are accompanied / supervised by an adult.

 

Aft pool was OK mid to late morning but got very busy after lunch and through the afternoon

Can confirm the aft pool on the Magic was open to everyone. I found it to be pretty busy most of the times we walked near it.

Great review following!!

Thank you for reading along!