Magic Cruise, March 18-25, 2012

[k2excursion]

We just got off the Magic on Sunday, and I’m trying to figure out how to write this review with the proper tone. I did enjoy the cruise overall, but there are some definite complaints I have, some to do with the ship/Carnival, and many to do with the fellow guests. Even when I get negative, please remember that I mentioned that I liked the cruise overall, but things just need to be said. I’ll start with some negatives, but hang in there. The positives are coming.

We booked this cruise only a month ahead of time. We’ve never done a Spring Break cruise, or at any other peak times. But the price was too good to pass up, and the low price for what we got was only available for about a day. For those that don’t have Spring Break in March, just know that March is Spring Break month for much of the country, and it most certainly is for cruising. An April cruise is not a peak time. Because this was a peak time cruise, almost every single bed was filled. We had over 4600 on board. When we cruised the Dream, the Magic’s sister ship, there were 4100 & 4200. The extra 400 to 500 people on the Magic made a HUGE difference. It was more crowded. The Dream class has more of an issue here than other Carnival ships, because they have so many more 3rd/4th/5th beds than the others. I won’t get into the statistics of it right now. But simply put, a Dream class cruise at peak time is more crowded than other Carnival ships at peak time. However, a Dream class cruise not at peak time is about equally crowded to other Carnival ships not at peak time. --with the exception of Spirit class, which has a very favorable public space to guest ratio. Now, we totally understood all of this before booking this cruise. So the crowds alone did not bother us. In fact, it wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be. Buffet lines were surprisingly not long at all. I still had longer lines on the tiny Holiday & the tiny Celebration. Only the Dream and Miracle had shorter lines than the Magic, in my experiences.

The main problem was with chair hogs. I’ve dealt with those before, but nothing at all like this. On the Dream, I could always get a chair any time. People would pick up their towels when leaving for even 30 minutes or less, because they knew they’d find another one when they were ready to come back. On this cruise, it was the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever seen. I’m guessing that very very early, a few people came out with hundreds of towels & just put towels down on every single chair. A few guards would keep watch in a chair, to turn away people, and they’d switch out, until the chairs finally started getting used around 11:00-noon. People who threw the towels to the side to take a chair would be confronted, and it could get ugly. I chose to avoid it all, and just find somewhere else to relax & get sun. I don’t want to argue with people like that while on vacation. And, no, Carnival was not enforcing any time limit rules. They were siding with the chair hogs.

Another problem was the preferential treatment I saw a few guests in particular getting. I’ve been on many cruises, but I don’t demand to have reserved front row seats in the theater. If I want those premium seats, I show up extra early. I don’t schmooze my way into getting reserved seats, and show up right before showtime, after hundreds of people come down, see the reserved signs, and walk away disappointed. I felt bad for those people. A few guests in particular got all kinds of special attention and special treatment. I’ve cruised with many very loyal guests, some of which are on these boards regularly. And they have never been like this.

I don’t like what they’re doing around the main pool now. It used to be calypso music. Whether it’s one guy or 2 or 3 people, it’s always been Caribbean style music. They play some music & sing, with tracks to back up their music. I don’t need a whole 4, 6, or 8 person band, like some people on these boards recall having. But that Caribbean style music really puts you in the cruising mood. But for the Magic, it’s just a DJ playing popular music. I do like that we get to do the Cupid Shuffle, Cha Cha Slide, and other dances like that more often, and at random times out there. However, the music is usually just today’s popular songs, not calypso music. And they play the same ones over and over. It just doesn’t give you that cruising feel out there. I don’t know who came up with that horrible idea, but I pray that this stays on the Magic only and doesn’t make it’s way onto any other ship.

The ship does seem to have some motion problems, by comparison to the Dream. The Dream handled some rough waters pretty well in our experience. On this cruise, we ran into some very tiny tiny tiny tiny waves. And we would hear crashes and booms all over the ship, constantly. We were told that it was the tiny waves causing that. It happened on the days heading to the port, but not coming back. It’s almost as if the ship wasn’t put together right. It may not be that the ship struggles with rough waters, but more of a problem with how the ship was built.

Carnival can’t ever seem to get the beds right. I guess they just do the opposite of whatever you tell them online. We requested 2 separate beds on there, and it was one bed when we arrived. We requested for them to be separated, which they did. The paper that our room steward got said that my mom & I were a couple. I’ve heard that actual couples seem to always get the 2 separate beds. I don’t know why they even allow us to choose one or the other, if they’re just going to switch it on us anyway. We were also put at a table for 2 in the dining room…again! People who are couples would like this table. They need to stop putting my mom & I at it. We were able to get that changed too, and starting on the 2nd day, we were at a big table with other people.

Embarkation was as smooth as can be. We were on board before 11:00. Self-assist debarkation was a bit of a mess. It’s been worse before, but it’s crazy that the Dream can get people off so quickly while the Magic has people jammed up on deck 3 & the stairways. It took awhile to get off once we got down to deck 3. On the Dream, we walked right up, only stopping to scan our cards. Here, there was a very long line. Part of the problem was that they didn’t do self-assist by decks. They simply called for everybody, all at once. A bigger problem was that the people weren’t doing what they were told. They went down to deck 3 long before they were supposed to. Huge crowds were there, despite the announcements to not come down there yet. I just don’t understand people sometimes. The cruiselines know the best way for it to be done. If we follow their directions instead of deliberately disobeying, we will all be better off. Everyone will walk right off the ship without having to stop, piece of cake.

[k2excursion]

Okay. Now onto some good stuff. I like to start off with the bad so we can work our way up. The ropes course is a very nice addition. I did this right when we got on board. It was closed the first 2 sea days, because of the winds. I did it again on the Jamaica day (our ship-to-ourselves day). It’s a lot of fun. I’m scared of heights, and I don’t always trust my instincts, but I still gave it a shot, and I loved it. The mini golf was fun. It’s 9 holes.

The waterslides are a little different than the Dream’s. The Dream’s waterslides are more bumpy. They’ll leave red marks on your back. The Magic’s can too, but it’s not quite as bumpy. Both ships have Twister & Drainpipe. The Dream’s Drainpipe is sharper & faster, and it allows you to spin around the bowl more than the Magic’s. I like the Dream’s Drainpipe much better. The Twister on the Magic is much different, and it leads to more of a figure 8 pattern, which is a pattern that allows you to really pick up a lot of speed. The Dream’s Twister makes many strange turns, not nearly as good of a pattern. I was flying down the Magic’s Twister. The Magic wins with that one. The Dream has 2 small racing slides, about one story high. Magic doesn’t. Magic instead has a big structure off the side of the slides, that you can climb up to different levels and squirt people with water. There is a drencher that periodically tips over and soaks anyone below. You can go up the steps in this whole structure to reach the waterslide lines, or you can go up the steps along the sides of the ship. I would go up the structure, because I knew the kids got a kick out of squirting me as I made my way up. I liked this structure. Magic wins here. So, overall, their waterpark is better than Dream’s. But both are so much fun! Great for the kids and the big kids like me.

I liked the food overall. There have been some cutbacks on the menu, as has been reported by others. Other cruiselines are getting the same kind of reports though. The food was still good. I’m a picky eater, but I’m not a “foodie”. I’m not that hard to please. I’ve always enjoyed Carnival’s pizza, but the pizza on Magic was not good. I really enjoyed the lanai BBQ. I ate there twice. Neither time had a very long line. The buffet lines were never very long, which shocked me. With over 4600 guests, I could still be grabbing a plate immediately to get food, even when eating at a peak time. At breakfast, there would sometimes be nobody in one of the buffet lines at all. You could walk right up and immediately get anything. The last sea day, with the chocolate buffet taking up one side of the buffet, had longer lines, as expected.

We were very unfortunate on this cruise when it came to the CD and part of the entertainment. We were supposed to have John Heald as our CD, but he got called away, as he usually does. Then, we were supposed to have Butch as our CD, as he was scheduled to come on duty with our cruise. Those are considered the 2 best CDs that Carnival has, although some would certainly argue that. We had Butch ripped away from us on our last cruise in November, and now it happened again. This time, we didn’t find out until we were on board and saw that our CD was James Charlton. He was alright. Not bad, nothing great. We also missed out on the band, Blood Power. I had them on Elation, and they are spectacular!!! They’re on vacation. So we had a substitute band, that was not good at all. They rarely had more than 10 people there listening to them. I felt sorry for them, but they just weren’t good. Having nothing going on at all in that venue would’ve drawn more of a crowd. I think their name was Music Society. The piano bar guy was good. His voice was good enough, and he actually would play songs. Some piano bar guys get distracted, and wind up chatting for 10 minutes between songs. This guy would play songs. A guitarist & singer, named Will, played in the Red Frog Pub, once in the atrium, and once in the piano bar. He was very good. I’ll have to find my fun times to get the full names of these people. The comedians were good, especially Mutsie.

 

In the theater, there was a dead night once again. At least it fell on a night with comedians and the deck party, so there was actually stuff going on, unlike the Miracle, which had the whole ship shut down on the dead night. The best show of the week was certainly the magic show. My mom isn’t into illusions, but I totally love these kind of shows. Having only been to a few in my life, I can’t adequately judge the quality and execution of the tricks, but I did really enjoy them. The singers & dancers play a big part of this show, which really added to it. The magician did not speak in the show, but it worked the way they put it all together. Don’t miss this show! My 2nd favorite show was actually the comedy juggler. I saw him on the Miracle too. He is really good, and very funny! The humor is kind of dry & subtle, just the way I like it. He had us rolling in the aisles, at least those of us who can appreciate this kind of humor. We got to see the new Legends Show, which I think is much better than the old one. There are some of the same ones with the same songs, but some needed deletions and additions. I don’t like the new Welcome Aboard Show as much. The old songs that the singers & dancers did here were better. The other 2 song & dance, production shows were not that good. These are usually my favorite shows, and often the highlights of my cruises. The 2 they did this week were not that good. The singers & dancers were certainly great. But the shows were just odd. The songs & themes were very obscure, & not nearly as entertaining as I’ve seen on all my other cruises. So a little bit of a mixed entertainment report from me.

[k2excursion]

We got a spa interior room on deck 11. It’s a great location for daytime stuff, but an inconvenient location for nighttime entertainment, getting off & back on in ports, and for debarkation. The spa part of it was nice. The therapy pool was great. I really enjoyed the sauna-like rooms. There were 4 different kinds of rooms. Two were very hot. One was a little hot. The other was warm. They had different scents in the rooms, and 3 of the rooms overlooked the ocean, although you could barely see out the hot room that had the view. The shower for rinsing off was really nice. This was all included with having a spa room. Day passes and weekly passes can be purchased by others, but those are limited. So it will not get crowded in there, unless everyone goes at the same time. We didn’t partake of the free classes that came with our room. The pool & those 4 rooms are the main things, and those were nice. They were great to have, for getting away from chair hogs & get some great relaxation. For me, it would refresh me, so that I could return to watersliding!

I brought a tape measurer, so that I could measure our interior room. I’ve always told people than interior rooms on these larger ships are much smaller than the indoors part of a balcony, even though Carnival claims them both to be 185 sq.ft. I just knew this couldn’t be true. I’ve had a regular interior on Dream & Valor. We had a 195 sq.ft. room (indoors) on Conquest, plus a 185 sq.ft. French Door room on Miracle (I measured that), and we had what turned out to be a true 185 sq.ft. 1A porthole room. All 3 of those were much larger than the regular interiors we had. Or, could it be that our perception was deceiving us? I finally got a chance to measure and find out. Perception was absolutely not deceiving. Our regular interior room (category 4 spa interior, with 2 regular beds), was only 150 sq.ft. This room is listed as being 185 sq.ft. I don’t know why Carnival doesn’t just report the size of rooms accurately. Trying to boost those stats, to make it seem like they have larger interiors than other cruiselines’ interiors, is not cool. My mom thinks that our other 2 regular interiors (Dream & Valor) may have been slightly longer. I don’t think so, but she thinks it’s possible. If so, it can’t be by much more than a foot, which would make those 160 sq.ft. So from now on, when I talk about room sizes on these boards, I will report that the regular interiors on Carnival ships (except Fantasy class) are 150-160 sq.ft, and not the 185 that they claim. I’m also doubting the Fantasy classes universal 185 sq.ft. room claims for all their regular rooms. But since I’ve only been in a 1A & GS on those, I’ll give them the benefit of the doubt. A 150 sq.ft. room is still enough space for 2 people. For 3, it can still work out alright. 4 could get cramped. A true 185 sq.ft. room (like the indoors of a balcony) or a 220-230 sq.ft. oceanview room would work better if you’ve got 4 people.

[gelo7]

Very interesting review. Thanks for sharing.

[prettyrainyday]

Great review! Thanks! I'll be on the Magic in 6 weeks, so it's good to hear the good and the bad. Looking forward to the waterpark!