MAGIC Halloween Cruise

[okgirl]

Just a brief review of our most recent cruise.

 

A little background I travel with my sister, we are in our late 50's and both retired from AT&T. This was our 31st Carnival cruise, I turned Diamond on embarkation day but Donna is 7 days behind me because she won a cruise for 2 at Bingo and it doesn't count as a revenue cruise for her.

 

We took our time traveling from Tulsa to Galveston with a night in Dallas on Thursday and then 2 nights in Galveston. Many of our Crazies friends that we've sailed with many times were on this cruise and were arriving in Galveston on Friday.

 

We stayed at the Inn at Waterpark for the 2 nights in Galveston ($57 per night). It's not on the Seawall, but very close (it's at 81st and a couple blocks off Seawall). They offer free cruise parking and a shuttle to and from the pier. They have also opened a small restaurant on the premises but there isn't a convenience store within walking distance.

 

We enjoyed all our favorite places in Galveston pre-cruise, and had our fill of Shrimp Kisses. We didn't go onto the new Pleasure Pier ($10 walk on fee), but it was very active and looked like lots of fun.

 

Embarkation morning it was pouring down rain, but we caught a break and got on a handicapped shuttle that was leaving around 9:45 with only 2 others on it. $5 tip to both the shuttle driver and to the porter.

 

This was a Premier Casino Cruise and the 1st of that type that I had been on so I wasn't sure what to expect. They weren't checking in people when we 1st got to the pier, but the security machines opened up about 10:15.

 

About 1/2 of my friends had received the letter for late embarkation, but we didn't get one and would have ignored it even if we had. I would rather be checked in and sitting in the VIP lounge than sitting at the hotel.

 

Security was fast, then up the escalators to the VIP lounge. They had 3 shoreside agents for check in and we had no delay. I did not see a separate area for FTTF guests, so I suppose they were in the VIP lounge with us.

 

I guess the letter was accurate this time because we didn't actually start embarking the ship until after 12pm. This is where my 1st complaint comes in. The Premier Casino Cruisers had "special" embarkation. I was a member of that group but had checked in via the VIP lounge as usual. Apparently once they were identified, they were seated in a special area and were the 1st group to board after a wedding party. There were 250 of them. I don't think any special groups should be allowed to board before weddings, priority or FTTF. We've earned or bought the priviledge and they haven't.

 

On the ship we stopped at the lobby bar for our usual Bloody Mary, visited with our good friend Agnes who is a bartender and we've sailed with many times then on to our cabin. We had a 1A porthole cabin 2216 with a twin and convertable sofa. Very spacious and just what we wanted. However, on the Magic the breakfast and brunch are done in the aft Southern Lights dining room, so it was quite a long walk everyday for breakfast or lunch. YTD dinner was in the forward Northern Lights.

 

I found out that on our upcoming Sunshine cruise that YTD is also done in the aft dining room, so I called today to change our cabin from 2102 (1a PT) to a midship regular cabin on deck 6. There was no extra charge and I even retained the ES OBC that I had received.

 

I'll be back in a bit to continue.............

[okgirl]

So we got to our cabins and met our steward Hartongo. He seemed nice enough but for the 1st time I felt that he had very little grasp of conversational english. I was a bit disappointed in that our cabin was often not made up until well after 1pm (I'm just use to it being much earlier), we don't use much ice in the room and didn't request any but the bucket was left empty all week even though champagne was delivered one evening.

 

I would leave notes regarding removal of dirty dishes and they were ignored. On several days the cabin was cleaned but the bathroom was left undone. I also found a pile of dirty towels on the seat at the vanity table one day. We also had plumbing problems that were reported to him, but went unresolved for several days after several complaints. I'll get into that later.

 

As I said earlier, we love the configuration of the 1A PT cabins, but the trek to the rear of the ship several times a day took it's toll on our hips and backs.....so it's back to IS deck 6 for us........

 

Our luggage was delivered long before muster drill, but we don't usually unpack until much later so that was okay. Speaking of muster drill it was held inside, sitting down in the main show theater and was uncomplicated and swift.

 

We were part of the Premier Casino Cruisers so we had red lanyards in our cabin at embarkation that gave us free drinks in the casino while gaming. There were several special events in the casino and other venues throughout the cruise. We had a really nice cocktail party with abundant drinks and hors d'oeuvres, we got something special in the cabin every evening, a dozen cookies from the cafe, prosecco, strawberries, beach towels....it was something every evening. We also got a voucher for $250 casino cash, but when we went to redeem it they actually gave us $500.......nice way to start a cruise........They had a special slot tournament for us....I made it to the finals but placed 8th, so I got $50.

 

I will have to say that as usual of late even though we had free drinks in the casino the bar waiters are few and far between averaging 45 minutes from order to delivery. I would usually find a bar waiter, place my order then sit down near by waiting for delivery.

 

Between the cheap casino cabin rate and all the extras I will definitely do another casino cruise in the future.

 

Now for more general stuff about the ship.

 

We had YTD in the forward Northern Lights dining room. We were seated in Joels section the 1st night (table 262) and stayed there the whole week. He is an excellent Head Waiter and his team was great too. We ordered a wine package and he set it up and never let our glasses get empty throughout the evening. Service was prompt and all meals were served according to order and appropriately warm/hot. Joel is very friendly and always came to speak to us when we were in other eating venues.

 

We also ate in the Red Frog (hello to Denish the bartender that we've sailed with before), wraps and salads at the Taste Bar on the Ocean Plaza, Donna had pizza, I had Tandoori Grill, we had Room Service and I ate breakfast and/or brunch almost every day in the MDR. I do like that they have scrambled eggs and hard boiled eggs at the Taste bar every morning, plus warm breads and cold/hot cereals......it's completely uncrowded so a great place to start the day.......all of the food that we had was good to very good....I had one steak at the brunch that was under seasoned and a bit tough.......

 

Given that this was a casino cruise we spent most of our time there. And since we've cruised so often we tend not to spend too much time outside. We did go on a private excursion in MoBay with Javia Shaw and had a great time just shopping, sight seeing and a stop at Scotchies for some great jerk pork........will use him the next time we're there.

 

We also went to Nachi in Coz, but only spent a little time. One of our friends had a medical emergency and was taken to the hospital, just before our arrival. He and his wife ended up having to stay behind in Coz. We went back to the ship to notify the Care Team, who immediately contacted the hospital, assigned a Care Team member to the family and along with the Carnival agent took great care of them both. He was hospitalized until Sunday, then they were flown back to Houston and had transportation back to Galveston to get their car for the drive back to Little Rock........we're thankful that he is recovering and that Carnival made the incident as easy as it could be for them. I'm not aware of the insurance situation but hope that it wasn't too costly for them.

 

We were so involved in Casino stuff and we were winning, that the only other thing we did on the ship was go to the past guest party. The drinks and the snacks were abundant. At the end of the evening, the Captain and senior staff were up on the stage and the Diamond guests were invited to come up. There were only 5 Diamonds on the ship and there were only 3 of us in the theater. We had a nice picture made and it was delivered to my cabin the next evening in a nice foulder with a picture of the ship and the group photo.

 

On Friday evening I received an invitation to have Tea with the Captain on the bridge, but I declined because by that time I had a pretty bad Chest Cold and was coughing my head off. Donna and I will both be Diamond on our next cruise in February, so we'll try to stay healthy enough to attend this event.

 

Now for the only real negative during the whole week. I said earlier that I didn't think our cabin steward had a very good grasp of english. Well, we started having toilet problems on Monday. You would push the button and it just wouldn't flush, but at the same time it would fill with more water. Well, you could only attempt this a couple of times without being in jeopardy of overflowing the bowl.

 

We reported it to our cabin steward, who smiled and said okay and sure enough when we came back to the cabin Monday afternoon all was okay.........until Monday evening when it quit working again.....this time we reported it to Guest Services, who said they would send a Plumber the next day (so we went up to 3 in the middle of the night to use the bathroom), the plumber came and the toilet was fixed......until Wednesday, when it started again..........another report to GS (this time during the day)........all was well until Thursday at 4am.......Donna woke me up to say it wouldn't flush and she was going upstairs, so I got semi-dressed and went to GS.......I explained that this had happened several times and each time we were told it was fixed but clearly it was not.....

 

They appologized again and said they would send a plumber again tomorrow, and sure enough by about 10am it was "fixed"....they called later in the day to ensure that all was in good working order, and I said it was for now, but I didn't feel like they were actually fixing anything. They ask if they could send a plumber up right then to more thoroughly check the system and they did.........After about 45 minutes of flushing the toilet from both the service closet and in the bathroom he FINALLY found a valve that wasn't working 100% of the time and replaced it.......

 

YEAH!!!!!!!!! Problem finally fully resolved..........It was a bit of a hassle, but we were only one deck away from a public restroom, so it could have been worse........It did give me a better appreciation of what the Triumph passengers went through..........

 

Funny thing is that they started calling about 3 times a day to check on us......I was very pleasant and kept assuring them that all was well......On Saturday they called again to appologize and said they were going to give us an OBC of $34.98 each for our inconvenience........I said that really wasn't necessary, but they insisted........what an odd amount $34.98.....

 

This was a great cruise and a Halloween cruise on top of all that......we didn't dress up ourselves, but we did see lots of fun costumes with a guy dressed as Dolly Parton as our favorite..........

 

The Magic is a great ship and Galveston is my homeport, so I'm sure that we will have many more great cruises on her in the future. We're looking forward to Bloggers Cruise 7 on the Sunshine in February, but we've decided to not book anything in the future until we see what Casino Offers come out.

 

We really had a great time in the casino and won quite alot.......At one point after putting $20 in a .01 Quick Hit machine I had it up to $1200........since we got off the ship with about $500, that was a win for us......I usually lose all that I took on the ship with me.

[Kingtro]

Thank you for your review. I will be sailing on the Magic two weeks from today!