My Magic review

[karrie]

My friend and I are just back from our wonderful cruise. We went to Venice 3 days early and walked all over Venice. We stayed at Ca dei Dogi. It was a very nice hotel a couple minutes from St Mark's square. The staff were very friendly and helpful. We had a twin room. The room was the tiniest room I have ever seen. Think half the size of our balcony room on the Magic! However it was very clean and the location was perfect. We decided to take a water taxi to the ship and arrived about 10AM. Check in was fast but we waited until about 11 to board. We were in the first 500 to board so we got tickets to the naming ceremony.

The ship is beautiful. We were able to go to our rooms right away since this was the first cruise. It was fun roaming the ship when it was so empty. There are many open areas with many comfortable seats. The casino is mostly non smoking and we never noticed any smoke. There is an Internet area with about 10 computers. They charge 50cents a page to print.I have not noticed that on my other cruises. There are many other computers all over the ship. The Red Frog Pub was nice. We did not try the food or the beer but people seemed to like it. They ran out of thirsty frog beer after the first day. The adult serenity area was beautiful with many loungers and hammocks.

I thought the entertainment was very good.There was only one big production show though. I am not sure why. It was the big magic show. I thought it was just ok. One night wasMarcus Allan a singer who was great and another night was Karin Grainger a female impressionist. She was awesome. One night Karin and Marcus performed in the lobby together. Everyone loved this show.

I wll post more on the ports later. Any questions?

Karrie

[Sew4me]

Thanks for your review. I leave on the 5/22 Magic so I was eagerly awaiting the reviews of the ship.

[sparkscruiser]

Karrie, thanks for the review - I think it was mewntioned somewhere that the performance staff was unable to practice their shows ... or something like that, thus they were unable to do the big production stuff. But it does sound like the trip was still a great time.

 

Thanks again.

[Jimnbigd]

I'm looking forward to the Magic coming to Galveston.

[Rstone88]

Can't wait to hear more....

[mooshipalmdale]

We leave June 12 on the Magic; would love to hear everything!!

What was your favorite port? What tours did you do?

 

Tell us everything!:)

[cruisinskier]

Karrie, thanks for the review. Hope you had as good of a trip as we did! The Magic was great and the ports were fantastic. We arrived home yesterday and need a vacation from our vacation :D

[LBumb]

thanks for posting

[imatexan]

Just got off the Magic, here are some videos you may enjoy :)

 

Magic 1

 

Magic 2

 

Magic 3

 

Magic 4

 

Magic 5

[douglinc@msn.com]

Really great videos, thanks. We will be on the 1st. sailing out of Galveston on 11-14. Can't wait.

 

Doug

[karrie]

Sorry for the delay. So much to catch up on now that I am home. I loved all the ports. We did all our excursions through Carnival. Just a note check your on board account often. I checked on the first sea day and my account was $1,119. Yikes I didn't drink that much. Shore excursion had charged a bunch of excursions to my account. It all was taken care of but I think someone got some free excursions.

Croatia- We did the Konvale home in the country. It was very nice.Lovely country and nice lunch. At the end the bus dropped off at the old town for one hour or you could stay longer and take the shuttle back. This was our one day of rain so we did not stay long.

 

Messina- We did Taormina on your own tour. It just included bus ride there and back with about 5hrs at the town. This was a great day. The town is beautiful. The weather for the rest of the cruise was great.

 

Naples- We did Amalfi coast by boat. Another nice day. We had done a private tour of Pompeii and Amalfi a couple years ago so we thought this would be a little different. This included lunch and free time in Amalfi and Sorrento.

 

Rome- We stayed on the ship! On our last trip we spent 3 days in Rome. We had a great day laying by the pool and going to the spa. The ship was very quiet. We loved it!

 

Florence -We did the Florence on your own. Again it just included the bus. We had about 5 hrs in Florence. I ordered tickets online for the Accademia museum to see the David.This cut out the long line and was much cheaper than the cruise line.

 

We could not go to Monaco due to high winds. The authorities closed the port so we had another sea day. No one seemed to mind. This was the only sea day it was a little difficult to find a deck chair.

 

The debarkation was the easiest ever. They started about 530. We did self debark and walked off at 700. At that time more than half were already off.There is no customs to go through. There were plenty of cabs and no lines.

 

Barcelna- We stayed at the Hotel Curious for 2 nights. This was a great hotel just off Las Ramblas. The staff was friendly and very helpful. We had an early flight and they had coffee,yogurt and toast waiting for us at 430 AM! They usually served breakfast at 8. I thought that was really nice. I loved Barcelona and wished we had planned more time there. We used the HOHO bus and walked to get around. Barcelona is much cheaper than Venice.

 

All in all it was a great vacation. I loved every minute about it. I have very little minor complaints. The production shows weren't ready but the entertainment they had was good. The room service was not up to par at the beginning of the week but did improve as the cruise went on. For the first time ever I had a room steward who was not friendly. He never introduced himself or spoke to us in the corridor. The rest of the staff we met were great. I loved the ship. I thought it was beautiful and laid out well. I am hoping to book the Breeze for next year.

 

Hope this review was helpful. I am happy to answer any questions.

Karrie

[Roz]

Karrie,

 

Thank you so much for posting. Sounds like for a first voyage, there weren't too many kinks. I'm sailing her on the last cruise before she departs for Galveston, so I'm hoping by then things will be down to a regular routine.

 

How was the food in the main dining room?

 

Roz

[realtrip]

Thank you for the review!

[unfdoug]

Thanks so much for the review. I was impressed on how subdued the colors were. Very un-Carnival'ish.

[karrie]

I loved the colors. I agree it was subdued for carnival. The lights in the atrium reminded me of eyeballs! The food in the main dining room was good. I have never been disappointed in the food in the main dining room. We ate in the Italian restaurant and liked it very much. We did not do the steak house this trip.

Karrie

[Jacky01]

Thank, Karrie, gives a bit an idea of what to expect in September.

We are not sure yet what to do in ports, we go with the flow when we get there :D

[Roz]

Karrie,

 

Glad to hear the food in the main DR is good; I've always like Carnival's food. You answered another question I had which is does the Magic have both the Italian restaurant AND the steakhouse. With all the ports and long excursions and getting back late, I told my sister I'm probably end up ordering a club sandwich from room service!

 

Roz

[JennLuvs2Cruise]

Thanks Karrie for the review. Seems like the inaugural cruise was great & you did many fun, exciting excursions. This makes me very excited to sail her next year out of Galveston! :)