LuckyZ

The Breeze is one of my favorite ships. Decor is nice and I didn’t feel as crowded.

Thanks for the reply

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We have been on Magic twice and Breeze once. Our last time on Magic (Sept. 2016) and on Breeze (Oct. 2017) we were fortunate enough to have Pocholo as our waiter (Magic) and Bartender (Breeze). Absolutely wonderful individual!! Always smiling, always laughing, and always memorable!!

Agreed. He was wonderful with his service and humor

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Thanks

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Any other thoughts on the Magic ?

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All in all a good cruise despite the negative things that happened . There are always many good things that outweigh the bad.

I realize Carnival is most reasonable cost but it’s still a lot of money for us and of course everyone wants things to go perfectly. Hopefully this helps future Magic cruisers

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I called Carnival's 800 number yesterday and talked with a rep who seemed pretty aware of the issues with Magic. She volunteered information telling me that an email has been prepared for the 6/30 sailing stating a port would be dropped, but that the email had not been sent yet. She said no emails have been prepared beyond the 6/30 sailing.

 

 

 

Now maybe they haven't sent the email yet because they are hopeful that repairs can be made before then and the itinerary will not be affected. That would be the best scenario and the one we're probably all rooting for.

Seems reasonable that they’d wait. I’m sure they are trying to do repairs while on water and in port but no idea of how extensive the damage is. Best of luck on June 30th sailing

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Question for the hot cabins. Just curious, Did you notice if they were warmer when in port or on sea days? I ask because as part of “fuel savings” many cruise lines have initiated a system to try to only operate on minimal generator power in port (like 1 DG in port) which leads to some A/C being affected. Top floors seem to get the warmest quickest as they are less insulated. The best thing to do is to make sure to file complaints with guest services, they compile that data which helps them understand their power needs. If there are temperature issues, then they can be adjusted.

Both Port and Sea days

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Nuff said on this topic.

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I know for sure Mr Heald as it was my boys room and I was able to go in and experience it myself.

Not appreciating being called a liar by the Carnival brass

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That's ok, I'm fairly certain you're wrong. Let's see what the actual engineers think instead of you Google engineers.

:rolleyes:

The fact that you use the phrases “pretty sure” and “fairly certain” says it all Mr Heald.

As I was there, I “know for sure” I’m right

Just curious, but if you had adjoining rooms why did you need extra keys? You could enter the other room directly from yours, couldn't you?

Let’s just say it was a Cheers program workaround

Wrong.

 

Now we can debate whether the Magic is having HVAC issues or not, but they're not related to failure of propulsion motors.

 

Neither are the so-called hot tub issues. I'm pretty sure the hot tubs aren't driven by the propulsion motors

 

If anything, the ship should have an abundance of excess power available.

Wrong again Mr Heald. I don’t know where to start but suffice it to say that I was on the ship last week and there were A/C issues as our boys room was directly affected. And for sure there were hot tub issues .

I’m fairly certain there was a lack of available power .

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Additional items

Platinum / Diamond party - as we had Cheers it just didn’t make sense to go given it’s such a terrible event to start with. And they held it on the last day at 5pm (we preferred to enjoy our last day on the ship instead)

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Day Food - Omelette bar, Mongolian Grille, outside 5th level BBQ, Pizza, Guys burgers were very good. Sandwich bar was mostly good but meatball sandwich on 1st day dinner was cold (ate here due to 1st night dining changes due to delays). Cucina Capitano for lunch has slow terrible service.

Dining - actually food was good almost every night (pleasantly surprised) but service on the 1st few nights was very slow (still eating when most of the dining room was leaving). After one of our group brought this up to guest services, it got a little better. Several tables around us didn’t return after the 1st few nights (no idea why). Also dining room seemed very loud. Maitre’D seemed full of himself (calls himself 007 and plays James Bond music in the dining room during dinner).

Chefs Table - one of the best experiences and we’ve don’t this 4 other times on other ships.

Cheers - I gave it a shot but would not so this again as I found myself forcing myself to get a drink to break even.

Bar service - most service on the deck was good. Back pool bar was very good. Pocholo (deck bartender) was great. Bar service at casino and Alchemy bars were very very slow.

Elevators - slow

Live Music - all were very good including the 3 violin guys that played over the lobby (just seemed a little loud but entertaining).

Shops - nothing special

Pixels - awful . We had many photos they took that we could not locate on their iPad system. Even using their facial recognition system. They’re staff seemed ill prepared to help me find them. Their loss. Also they required a deposit to schedule a group photo (used to be free) even though they had photographers standing around their stations for hours with no action .

Shows - The only show we saw was Flick. 1st 10 minutes are strange and hokey but if you can get past that, show was not so bad. Punchliner was always packed and didn’t bother. Piano bar we never did but heard the entertainer got drunk a lot

Debarkation - docked at 6am . We decided to carry off our own luggage as we had 11am flights that we made with no problem .

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Just off the June 16th Magic sailing. I’m not one for long reviews and photos so I’ll hit some high (and low) points

Group - we are a large group of 31 family and friends cruising together.

Pre Cruise - used Cocoa Beach Shuttle and they were great. Stayed at the Hampton Inn Cocoa Beach and they were good although we couldn’t get extended check out despite being told not to come to the pier until 3pm.

Embarkation - awful due to ship returning late (sat 3 hours in the terminal). But it was air conditioned and water/chips provided.

Luggage porters - is it just me or does it seem odd to tip these guys just to get your bags on the ship (I did tip $20 for 4 bags but seemed excessive)

Ports - of course you all know that the best port of the 4 got cancelled (St Thomas) due to propulsion issues with the ship. Fortunately some of the group did enjoy St Thomas on one of the days (when and how they got there I won’t discuss but it did take the sting out a bit). San Juan and Grand Turk are not good stops. Grand Turk is now charging for beachside and poolside seats ($25 and $35 pp respectively). Amber Cove was good as we took a cable car and beach tour with Isaira Tours (class A company and Jose / Cheo was a wonderful tour guide ).

OBC for cancelling St Thomas of $50 pp seemed low given we were also denied most of the 1st day with late embarkation and dining was first come/first serve and long lines. We picked this cruise specifically for St Thomas.

Ship - I liked the Magic but not as much as the Breeze as we felt more crowded on the Magic. But all in all, despite the propulsion issues, a very nice ship. I don’t like that the newer ships don’t have the outside quiet deck off of the lobby (pet peeve). Noise between rooms and floors was louder than usual.

Room - had 8th floor balcony room and it was nice. Storage seemed more than ample . A/C worked but could have been stronger. Many rooms on the ship with no A/C so can’t complain too much.

Room Steward (Pete) was fantastic and honored every request we had.

Platinum gift - was a nice tote bag that was of decent size and a false zippered bottom (very practical).

Pool - we don’t like all the craziness that happens on Lido main pool so we spent our time at the back pool and enjoyed it. Pool got very busy on sea days at around noon. Deck was very hot to walk on. But all in all it was a great place to hang out

Serenity - tried to go there the odd time but chair hogs were in full force so nothing was available at any point during the day.

Guest Services - we had adjoining rooms with family and tried 6 times to get keys made for each other’s room. It worked the 6th time but it shouldn’t have taken so long.

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I seriously doubt there is "No A/C". From reading through this thread it sounds like one or two people have reported warm cabins, which could be from any number of reasons. People report warm cabins on every single cruise. I find it highly unlikely that a ship would sail at all with no A/C, and difficult to believe that a propulsion problem would manifest itself that way. The ship is obviously still generating power and the issue appears to be in the propulsion system's ability to use that power, not in the generation of it.

Was on the Magic last week and there was “No A/C” in many cabins and areas of the ship. Our sons were in one of those rooms. When they complained and tried to get a fan, they were told there were no more fans available as they were being used by others with no A/C. And in talking to various cruisers around the pool, there were others in same situation.

My cabin had A/C but it wasn’t super strong and on the final evening it was very warm in the room.

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If you want high quality at competitive prices and a shop that isn’t taking a cut from the cruise ships, go to the Gold Mine. You will not be disappointed

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If you haven’t been to Grand Turk lately, things changed this year for the negative in my opinion .

First off, the chairs surrounding are now $35pp to rent for the day (new from this year).

Secondly the blue chairs in the beach are free but they are now in the back. You can rent chairs by the beach now for $25pp (used to be free). To me this makes this already throw away port stop even less desireable. Carnival greed strikes again

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I’m guessing 6/30 sailing will cut Mahogany Bay as it’s the farthest port

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Just off the Magic and chair hogs were in full force. One lady every morning would put a pair of her sandals on a chair at 7:30am and there was no sighting of her until after noon. Serenity was awful with people putting stuff on seats and vacating.

In Grand Turk, we had 2 loungers in the shade. When we came back from getting a drink from Margheritaville , someone moved our stuff to a chair in the sun and took over our shade seats. The nerve of some people. Very obnoxious

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We just returned from a cruise and we did a tour with Isaira tours in Amber Cove DR.

We did the cable car to the top of a mountain and beach stop at Blue Jack Tar. Both were amazing.

They provided a nice large air conditioned bus.

The tour guide Jose (nickname Cheo) was incredible and made the trip wonderful with his humor and knowledge.

I would 100% recommend Isaira Tours to anyone.

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Just got off the Magic and we received a tote bag with a zippered false bottom. Very useful

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I’m on the Magic now and news is we will arrive at about 6:30am.

We are definitely not going very fast (no way we’re even close to 15 knots).

Definitely something wrong with the ship and have no idea when they’ll fix it. Heard from many passengers that they’re A/C is not working and not enough fans to go around. We have A/C and it’s comfortable but not crazy cold.

Hot tubs seemed to work on and off as I’m sure they were conserving energy.

General consensus is $50 OBC not enough to compensate for the premier port stop being cancelled but not much you can do.

Will do brief cruise review next week.

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So if I had a built up guys burger and another person “accidentally” knocks it from my hand to the floor, is that person responsible to get me another built up burger or do I have to do it myself ?

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Have they changed the embark time for Sat June 23rd sailing ?

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