Carnival Magic vs. Disney Dream

[davids68girl]

OK, I have been meaning to write this for awhile now but am finally getting around to it and brave enough to post it. :p

 

We sailed the Disney Dream in Oct 2011 and the Carnival Magic in Jan 2013.

 

We are a family of 6 but only 4 of us usually sail. Our two oldest boys are usually busy, one is 21 and in the Army and the other is 22 and in college at Oklahoma University. It’s hard to get everyone together these days. The four of us that sailed both ships were my husband and I (mid 40’s), teenage boy (15 for the Dream sailing and 16 for the Magic sailing) and our youngest son (9 for the Dream, 11 for the Magic).

 

I’ll start by saying we loved both ships. Both new, both full of fun things to do, and both had things we liked on each ship. I’ll break it down into categories and compare those.

 

Décor-

Disney Dream- It was beautiful, really amazingly beautiful. Definitely was “wowed” when we stepped foot on the ship. I loved the atrium, the Disney art throughout the ship, and the stateroom décor. The boys were amazed at how nice it was.

 

Carnival Magic- Not so much “wowed” with the Magic. Not a big Farcus fan. My husband felt the same way. Plus, when you step on a Disney ship you have your name announced and they really make it special. My boys were more impressed with the Magic atrium than the Disney one. They loved that you can look all the way up and out and my youngest loved, loved the elevators.

 

Staterooms-

Disney Dream- We were in a Deluxe Family Oceanview stateroom. We loved it. It had a ton of room and two bathrooms. Plus, the port hole was big enough to sit in. We loved it, all of us. Oh and one big, big plus for Disney, the Wave phones. Please Carnival, look at something like this, they were awesome.

 

Carnival Magic- Our first balcony, and a spa stateroom to boot. Loved it even more than the Disney stateroom but would have liked a little more room. My husband is now a bone fide balcony snob. He doesn’t want to cruise without one. Loved the décor in here-beautiful. All of us liked the Carnival room over the Disney room for the balcony and location (deck 11 on Magic vs. Deck 6 on Dream).

 

Kids Clubs-

Disney Dream- Loved it and my 9 yr old (at the time) loved it. He always wanted to go, didn’t want to leave, great space, great counselors, a big hit with all of us. My 15 yr old used the teen club but not as much as we would have liked.

 

Carnival Magic- Let’s start with the 11 yr old. He was now old enough that we let him check himself in and out. That was a big plus to him. The space on the Magic was really bright and cheery and it looked like they had some games and a big tv. It looked like it could rival Disney, but it couldn’t. It was just missing that “magic”. My son went at least once a day but he spent more time in the cabin on this cruise than I thought he would.

 

My 16 (almost 17) yr old LOVED Club O2. He really loved that adults were kept out. He felt like it was really their space, as opposed to the DCL Dream where parents weren’t encouraged to come in, but they could. The teens on the DCL Dream seemed to use the kids club as a place to meet before heading out to hang out on the rest of the ship. On CCL Magic, they actually used the kids club. There were always teens in there (mine was one of them) and they wanted to stay there because it was “their” space. I think Carnival did a much better job of providing an appealing space that “belonged” to the teens than Disney did.

 

Activities-

Disney Dream- AquaDuck. This was the big draw for my guys-all of them. They really enjoyed it. My youngest is my fish and wanted to swim but the pools were always sooo crowded.

 

We loved the Midship Detective Agency and my son and I spent some time finishing up the “mission” to rescue the pups. It was really fun and I loved the technology.

 

We played mini golf one morning while waiting to get off the ship at Castaway Cay. That was fun.

 

Loved the fireworks at sea as well, very neat.

 

I would say the one thing that felt very special on Disney that I don’t think can be replicated anywhere, was the character interaction. It was amazing. One night my husband and I were walking up the stairs and heard someone behind us. When we turned around it was Pinocchio, and he was sliding down the banister of the stairs. It was great. Another time, we had just picked our 9 yr old up from the kids club and were walking back to the stateroom and we came across Captain Hook and no one was around. My son played and joked with him for a long time before other people showed up. That interaction is something he still remembers fondly and we do as well.

 

We didn’t really do any other activities on the ship-never saw the spa and didn’t go the adults only areas.

 

Carnival Magic- Waterworks was awesome. My guys loved it and said it was so much more fun than the AquaDuck. They both spent a lot of time here and both had a blast.

Both boys swam in the lido deck pool and were able to get in there without a million other people. That was nice and was better than the Disney pools.

Sportsquare was another huge hit. They both did the ropes course several times, they played mini golf a couple times (I joined them once too!), played pool, and ate hot dogs. Nothing like it to compare it to on Disney.

 

My boys also loved the arcade on the Magic and my 11 yr old especially. He kept telling us he was going to win an iPad and had been saying this since he heard me tell my husband that they had them in the machines in the arcade (which was before we sailed). He was so sure it was going to happen and darned if that kid didn’t spend about $9 and won an iPad mini. So the arcade on the Magic held some special magic for my kiddo and he will always love that place and remember it.

 

Another activity we took part in was the spa. My husband and I loved it there. We went every day and really, really enjoyed it. Very relaxing and nothing in the world was better to me than sitting on one of those heated tile loungers looking out at the sea. That was one of those perfect moments in life to me.

 

Oh and I almost forgot the cooking demonstration in the steakhouse. Oh my gosh. What an awesome thing. We watch a lot of cooking shows & Food Network and I felt like we were live on one of those shows. Oh and the food was amazing to boot. I think we’d really enjoy the Chef’s Table some time.

 

 

 

Entertainment-

Disney Dream- We loved the evening shows. I loved them especially. I am a big Disney fan and just loved everything about their shows. They were so well done. I looked forward to them every night. My husband could take them or leave them and my boys were the same way. Although, on the first night they have the Golden Mickeys and my son really loved being “interviewed” outside the theater. He was a star. ;)

 

We didn’t go to any of the clubs or even the adult areas. We were too busy with the boys. We did love the sail away party and the Pirates in the Caribbean party was our favorite party at sea.

 

No casino on the Dream and we didn’t miss it. Nothing against a casino, it’s just not our thing.

 

Carnival Magic- We went to two shows and I wasn’t impressed. One was the illusion show and I had read about how great that was but it was only ok to me. My husband thought the same thing and we couldn’t ever get the boys to go. The other was a musical show that went through different ages of music-60’s, 70’s, etc. I don’t even know what it was called. It was ok. We weren’t excited by it but it wasn’t the worst. Just sort of ‘eh.

 

We don’t usually use the casino and I didn’t ever go in there except to walk through it. My husband went in a couple times and played a little bit. Again, it’s not our “thing”.

 

Food-

Disney Dream- We loved everything about the dining experience with Disney. The food was great and varied, the service was incredible, and the restaurants themselves were amazing. We loved rotating through the dining rooms and having our servers going with us. We really missed this on the Magic.

 

The buffet on Disney was varied, fresh and always well attended.

 

There was 24/7 ice cream and free soda.

 

We didn’t go to any of the upcharge restaurants so can’t comment on those.

 

We also never ordered room service.

 

MDR food was wonderful! We loved the different food-like wild boar-that they offered. It was a fun experience to try all that new and different food.

 

Carnival Magic- The main dining room was ok but the servers were overworked and it was not anywhere as enjoyable as the Disney dining experience. We really missed Disney a lot when it came to the dining rooms. The food was pretty good but we liked the Disney food better.

 

The buffet on the Magic was bad. We didn’t like the food, it was always busy, didn’t flow well, and we just avoided it at all costs. We did love the Mongolian Wok, the Tandoor and the Pizza Pirate. My son lived on pizza on the Magic. He loved it and I thought it was pretty good too-probably the best pizza we had on any ship. We had it several times.

 

My guys all loved the ice cream on the Magic too. :)

 

The boys had the drink package and my husband and I didn’t miss the sodas as we don’t usually drink them.

 

We ate in both Cucina del Capitano and the steakhouse. I did not like the sauce on the spaghetti in Cucina but everyone else loved their food.

Only my 16 yr old went to the steakhouse with us as the 11 yr old had no interest and wanted pizza. Go figure. We loved the steakhouse. Loved it. We would really love to go again.

 

We tried the food in the Red Frog Pub and it wasn’t very good, in fact, it was pretty bad.

 

I wanted to try the Taste bar but never got there, never got to the grill on sea days, never tried the deli and never made it to the pasta bar in Cucina del Capitano. Guess we’ll need to go again. ;)

 

Room service was great! We loved it. On the night we decided to skip the MDR and go to the buffet we ended up going back to the room and ordering room service. It was so much better than anything on the buffet (we got the BLT). We also had a standing order for coffee and pastries in the morning. It was always on time and the coffee always hot. What more do you need?

 

Service-

Disney Dream- It was great. Everyone we dealt with was nice and helpful and friendly. We loved, loved our wait staff in the MDRs. We felt like we really got to know them and my son cried when we had to say good-bye to them. Our room steward was nice and left us notes on our whiteboard on our door every day. Loved it. It felt very personal.

 

Carnival Magic- Again, great. Everyone we dealt with nice, friendly and working hard. The room steward was nice, always said hello and smiled and called us by name. The big let down for us was the MDR. One thing we loved so much about our DCL cruise was the MDR experience and it is just not there at CCL. We connected with our wait staff as much as we could but, my gosh, were they overworked. We felt bad for them because they were so friendly and we could tell that they would have been able to give us the same great experience that we had on DCL but they are not given the chance. One morning our head waiter was working the Comedy Brunch and we saw him and asked for him. He smiled and was happy to see us and it was nice to have a friendly face take care of us. That was the closest we got to the connection we felt on the DCL Dream. The MDR was the biggest disappointment on this cruise and it wasn’t because of the food at all. I do feel that it’s not at all the people working in the MDR but the policies set that don’t allow the personal connection to be formed.

 

Overall, we loved both cruises. Disney seemed a little more “upscale” to us and also more subdued. Carnival was, well, more fun. :)

 

I think Disney is a wonderful experience for anyone with young children. The kids clubs can’t be beat, the rooms are bigger, and the characters offer such special experiences. That being said, Carnival seems to fit our family a little bit better right now. The boys are older and the offerings on the Magic were just what they wanted. We all loved the ship and I broke out the computer and looked up future cruises on the way home. I do think we will hit the DCL Dream up again too though because we just loved the Dream and want to sail DCL again now that we will have a few other cruises under our belt. We just love cruising and so far, we have loved both Disney and Carnival. We are turning out to be “those people”, ya know, the ones that just love to cruise and are happy as long as they are on a ship. :D

[lovebelle]

What a great comparison! I used to work for Disney years ago and know that they really try to emphasize the "wow" for their guests. Naturally I wouldnt expect Carnival to be able to rival Disney when it comes to shows and certain entertainment. But both deliver a great product and I think with Disney you pay a premium for an overall experience. I'm glad you had a great time on the magic though and congrats to your son for winning that IPad! How awesome :)

[GeoHack]

If I could ever get a Disney balcony room close to the price of a balcony on Carnival I would love to try Disney. However that will never happen. Closest I can normally find is $300 pp more for a 7 day. Since there is 5 of us that is a pretty big chunk. As a matter of fact for my upcoming trip in December Disney was $1288 and Carnival Magic was $629 for a balcony pp. Just too much a difference for me to try Disney. I would rather cruise twice.

 

Thanks for a great unbiased review of both ships and great detail. Pointing out your kids ages is very good information for everyone to judge benefits and lots of us with kids appreciate it.

[gottacruise@juno.com]

I was able to get a travel agent appreciation price on the Disney Magic in October It was a WONDERFUL cruise. I had wanted to see what Disney was all about, but couldn't afford it.

 

However, for me, I still love Carnival.

[pungo3]

What a wonderful comparison! Thank you so much for this review. I've never cruised Disney but now I really would like to.:D

[davids68girl]

lovebelle- Thanks! We were as excited as he was that he won it. :)

 

GeoHack- Yea, that's why we booked the CCL Magic-we just couldn't spend what DCL wanted for a 4 day. Our CCL Magic 7 day was less than a DCL Dream 4 day. Plus, we are on a quest to try several major lines so we can see who "fits" us best.

 

gottacruise-TA rates are great and they ran some good ones last year. I know several TA's hoping for a repeat of those rates this year for the Wonder. ;)

 

pungo3- Thanks!