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Carnival Magic video and thoughts

steilkurve

By steilkurve,
in Carnival Cruise Lines

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steilkurve

steilkurve

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Hello all! Just back from a magnificent 12-night European cruise on Carnival Magic. We disembarked last Friday.

 

Below is a link to our video tour of the ship as well as our impressions of the cruise and ship. Please don't hesitate if you have any questions. Happy to help.

 

VIDEO

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vKQX5V7uCnA

 

THOUGHTS

 

My wife and I were traveling with our 8 and 6-year old daughters. This was our 20th cruise, 4th on Carnival (last in 2003). We've sailed mostly on RCI and Celebrity.

 

Highlights for us:

 

- Itinerary: This 12-night route takes you to gorgeous places (Portofino, Capri, Rome, Venice among others). While researching, we found few other itineraries with such an all-star port line up.

 

- Facilities: The ship was a perfect balance for us. It took the adults to Europe while offering diversions to the kids with the impressive water park (for a ship), rope course, mini golf, baby foot and ping pong tables, magicians in the dining room, etc.

 

- Food: While likely not as elaborate as other mass lines, the quality did still impress us both in the dining room and specialty restaurants. We were expecting less of Carnival.

 

- Value: All of this delivered at rock bottom prices. We paid more for our 7-day spring break cruise to the Caribbean than we did for 12 nights in Europe!

 

- Ship: We liked some of the innovative design ideas. The Lanai giving passengers a quieter outdoor area closer to the sea, the many computer stations throughout the ship idea and how all entrainment is clustered together on deck 5.

 

Now, there were a few things that we enjoyed a bit less.

 

- Crowds: Lots of people everywhere, more so than we've felt on RCI's more populated Oasis and Allure oddly enough. Finding a deck chair is especially challenging. Perhaps Carnival has crowded this class of ships with one too many extra cabins.

 

- Pools: While there are many hot tubs and the water park, the pools are lacking. They would either need to be larger or have an extra one. On our European cruise which is arguably less fun in the sun than the Caribbean, the pools were literally standing room only a lot of the time.

 

- Wear: Already worn out decking material, lighting fixtures damaged in the elevators, power outlets falling off the wall in the cabin, furniture covering showing wear, etc. After a few months only, the ship already shows wear.

 

Now, none of these were deal breakers for us. Just nit picks from experienced cruisers.

 

Would we sail a Magic-class ship or Carnival again? If we got the same kind of value, likely. For us, this was the big draw here. Outstanding ports and great entertainment for the kids, all at a great price.

 

If the price were higher, then we'd probably consider other options.

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T. Advisor King

T. Advisor King

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Hello all! Just back from a magnificent 12-night European cruise on Carnival Magic. We disembarked last Friday.

 

Below is a link to our video tour of the ship as well as our impressions of the cruise and ship. Please don't hesitate if you have any questions. Happy to help.

 

VIDEO

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vKQX5V7uCnA

 

THOUGHTS

 

My wife and I were traveling with our 8 and 6-year old daughters. This was our 20th cruise, 4th on Carnival (last in 2003). We've sailed mostly on RCI and Celebrity.

 

...

 

 

We were on the 7-day July 17 sailing. I can't say I noticed the "wear", but I seem to recall one of the electrical outlet panels in our cabin didn't seem to be seated properly against the wall. But more generally, I found that the ship didn't seem "shiny new" -- at least not compared to the rest of Carnival's fleet. I'm still undecided as to whether this just reflects that all their ships are kept very clean and in a good state of repair.

 

I agree with your comments on the pools. When we did our first self-tour, we almost felt like we must have missed the "big pool" the first time.

 

I'm not sure I agree with your comment about crowds. It was busy, and we had a bit of a hard time finding a deck chair at 11:00 on our one sea day. But it was 11:00 and there only was one sea day. It didn't feel any more or less busy than our last outing on the Conquest.

 

Overall, it was good value, but for a brand new ship, it didn't really feel like anything special.

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steilkurve

steilkurve

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We were on the 7-day July 17 sailing. I can't say I noticed the "wear", but I seem to recall one of the electrical outlet panels in our cabin didn't seem to be seated properly against the wall. But more generally, I found that the ship didn't seem "shiny new" -- at least not compared to the rest of Carnival's fleet. I'm still undecided as to whether this just reflects that all their ships are kept very clean and in a good state of repair.

 

I agree with your comments on the pools. When we did our first self-tour, we almost felt like we must have missed the "big pool" the first time.

 

I'm not sure I agree with your comment about crowds. It was busy, and we had a bit of a hard time finding a deck chair at 11:00 on our one sea day. But it was 11:00 and there only was one sea day. It didn't feel any more or less busy than our last outing on the Conquest.

 

Overall, it was good value, but for a brand new ship, it didn't really feel like anything special.

 

Could be that our cruise was really full with over 4500 passengers, 1500 of which were under 16. Might have crowded up the ship a bit more.

 

And I agree with you, nice ship. Just missing a wow.

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Silverman

Silverman

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I knew the pool issue was a fail from the beginning. To bad too but after reading about the Dream and now watching this video I wont be going on either. To many better options for me. Thanks for taking the time to do this. I just dont understand Carnival building a bigger ship and not putting in 3 pools. Oh well maybe next time.

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steilkurve

steilkurve

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I'm thinking they assumed Waterworks and hot tubs on the Lanai would draw a number of passenger therefore making the additional pool unnecessary. That's where they were wrong. In Europe where our focus was the ports themselves, less of an issue. in the Caribbean where it's all about the sun, it'll be a bigger problem I'm afraid.

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T. Advisor King

T. Advisor King

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Could be that our cruise was really full with over 4500 passengers, 1500 of which were under 16. Might have crowded up the ship a bit more.

 

And I agree with you, nice ship. Just missing a wow.

 

Your comment above, which I think was to explain why you may have found it more crowded on your recent 12-day itinerary than we did on our 7-day in July doesn't convince me. I'm certain our sailing was as full as it could have been. I remember checking the booking site and finding that there only a few cabins here and there available on the whole ship in the weeks before we sailed. I would also think that our 7-day sailing would be more likely to have more kids than your 12-day sailing. If I'm wrong about that, I'm wrong.

 

We're a family of 4 with 2 teens, so maybe it really was crowded and I'm just immune! It was still a great time. But it just didn't have a "new car smell", if you know what I mean.

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steilkurve

steilkurve

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Your comment above, which I think was to explain why you may have found it more crowded on your recent 12-day itinerary than we did on our 7-day in July doesn't convince me. I'm certain our sailing was as full as it could have been. I remember checking the booking site and finding that there only a few cabins here and there available on the whole ship in the weeks before we sailed. I would also think that our 7-day sailing would be more likely to have more kids than your 12-day sailing. If I'm wrong about that, I'm wrong.

 

We're a family of 4 with 2 teens, so maybe it really was crowded and I'm just immune! It was still a great time. But it just didn't have a "new car smell", if you know what I mean.

 

Perhaps but then again, we were on in the 2 weeks in August when large parts of Europe is on vacation. There were lots of Spanish, British and Russian families, likely filling all those 3rd and 4th births.

 

Regardless, we had a great time too. We just felt it more tight than our last two cruises on Oasis and Allure. All a matter of individual perception though.

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steilkurve

steilkurve

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Your comment above, which I think was to explain why you may have found it more crowded on your recent 12-day itinerary than we did on our 7-day in July doesn't convince me. I'm certain our sailing was as full as it could have been. I remember checking the booking site and finding that there only a few cabins here and there available on the whole ship in the weeks before we sailed. I would also think that our 7-day sailing would be more likely to have more kids than your 12-day sailing. If I'm wrong about that, I'm wrong.

 

We're a family of 4 with 2 teens, so maybe it really was crowded and I'm just immune! It was still a great time. But it just didn't have a "new car smell", if you know what I mean.

 

Meant to add. The one thing that did impress me with regards to crowds though is that despite the 4500 guests and 1500 kids under 16, port and shore excursions logistics were impressive. That's the one area we didn't feel the crowds. Getting on and off was easy, as was getting to your shore excursion. Well managed and organized.

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