Just Off of My First Cruise on Magic and Her First out Of Dry Dock March 6-13

[mrpayroll]

Enjoying your review. Will experience it ourselves in September.

[sjn911]

Just a great review...I can tell by your words you are cruisers and know how to go with flow..enjoy another family, the people and what it is all about, a Happy Carnival Cruise....thanks so much!!

[Tzutse]

Ports - Montego Bay

My husband and I had spent a week in Ochos Rios so we had no desire to sit in a van/taxi for that long. We wanted to do a ziplining excursion and it was full when we went to book it. So we decided on Doctor's Cave Beach, the CruiseCritic way. Because there were so many people on the ship, this port was a freaking crazy madhouse.

 

We arrived at 10am. Apparently there were people filling the stairwells, hallways, elevators. Wee Jimmy made several pleas for people to back it up, although I don't think many did. It looked like a Jimmy Buffett concert, except people were pushy. I think they may have only had one gangway open. We decided to hang out in our room until 11:30. There were still a lot of people on the boat and it probably took us 1/2 hour to make it outside from deck 2.

 

First option was the Hop On/Hop Off bus ($20pp all day) but the line to get on those was long, so we went outside to get one of the Juta vans. We got on one and they said it would be $7 one way per person. Once we left the terminal, the hard sales began. There was a shortage of buses; you will get a much better tour for $25; it's hot today; don't you want to go on the best tour? Don't talk to anyone else that was wearing a white shirt, they were fakes.

 

When she asked if anyone did not want to take the tour, we raised our hands and said we were meeting our family at Doctor's Cave and we had to go there. Lie. She was deflated because that was 6 of us. She also wanted us to prepay her $7pp for the ride back and she would pick us up. I told her our family was taking us back to the ship. Lie. As we were waiting to get out of the bus in front of the beach, some guy tried to sell my kid a joint. That was probably the highlight of his trip. The lady sitting by the window opened the window and exchanged money for the joint. Probably the next best highlight from kid's trip.

 

We were the last boat into MB so there were no more umbrellas. We just paid the $6 to get in and sat up on the top deck at a table with chairs. It was perfect. Everyone used it as home base and had a great time at the beach.

 

Craig was one of the fakes in a white shirt. He tried hard to sell us on going with him on a tour and then back to the ship. I told him we were waiting for our families to join us from another ship. Lie. He must have asked 20 times.

 

Late in the afternoon we walked over to Margaritaville, had lunch, and went down the water slide a lot. There were a lot of locals set up there selling stuff. After lunch we asked our waitress if she could get us a taxi back to the ship. She took us downstairs and called over one of her friends who gladly took us back - $7pp. We found out that the guys in the white shirts aren't fakes, although some of them are a little sketchy. He said there is not a shortage of buses and taxis; it's quite the opposite. There are too many. He was really nice and got us back to the terminal. We did have some guys wash the taxi's windows. They looked to us for money. I told the taxi guy that whatever I gave him came out of his fare. So he paid them a few coins.

 

The young ones saw the last folks onto the boat and were excited to get to cheer them on with everyone watching. Fun day!

 

 

 

 

Edited March 14, 2016 by Tzutse

[jonboy9756]

Thank you so much for doing this review. We will be on the Magic in September.

Did you happen to see or eat at the barbecue on Deck 5 Lanai. Did you notice if it had been remade into Fat Jimmy's C-Side BBQ?

[Tzutse]

Ports - Grand Cayman

This is a place we have never been to. The only way I knew about it was it was the island in The Firm where the files were and where Gene Hackman met his demise.

 

I think we pulled into Cayman at 7am. What a beautiful sight! There were two other ships there, an NCL and RC. Tenders were ready. And, it was windy! I was afraid they might not let us off the boat. They did!

 

 

 

 

 

So, I really wanted to rent jet skis out to Stingray City through a non-carnival excursion. But my 14 year old wanted nothing to do with the animal that killed the Crocodile Hunter. So we didn't do that. The other family wanted to do a pirate cruise, but I had no interest in that. So we decided to do a snorkel excursion. We had to book what was left and that excursion was at 9. This is one of the ports that FTTF would have helped us get out to the island faster. Instead, we met in the Showtime lounge at 8:00 and they put us on a tender. Worked out well. Except that when we got to shore, we found out our excursion had been cancelled because of the high winds. Bum.mer. The only things left were things the boys weren't interested in. So we shlepped back to the boat to change into non water clothes and explored the island on foot.

 

Because the boys had so much fun at Margaritaville the day before, they wanted to go to the one on Grand Cayman as well. So off we went. again. Except that the pool at this one was full of drunk college boys and our boys were a little nervous so they never got in. If I would have known that I would have gone to one of the fish places that was recommended by this board. This was a bigger, cleaner Margaritaville than the one in MoBay. And there was entertainment!

 

 

 

The Norwegian ship as they were leaving:

 

[Tzutse]

Ports - Cozumel

I have spent many weeks on Cozumel. Some I remember, some I do not remember. :rolleyes: This was my family's favorite port. That was surprising to me. We pulled into Cozumel at 10am. There were at least 5 other ships there. They hadn't been there long because there were people still pouring off of the ship.

 

 

We got off of the ship fairly quickly. They opened 3 gangways and I think that helped a lot.

 

 

We had 45 minutes before our excursion met so we wandered around in the port village. Again, my 14 year old found this funny. We came up with lots of sections in the store - Pot and Pepperoni, Barbituates and Bologna, Heroin and Ham. He learned a lot about street drugs. #motheroftheyeareveryday

 

We did find a zipline excursion in Cozumel and that's what my kid wanted to do. So we did. It was cheap - I think $50pp so I thought it would be trashy. I was wrong. It was a lot of fun and exactly what we needed. It was close by and the staff were very professional. It was like a ropes course but with a collection of zip lines. Afterwards, they took us to the otherside of the port and dropped us off at a little beach club. No one was interested in the beach. We shopped the town a little and then headed back to the port area. We had appetizers and drinks at Tres Amigos and headed back on board at 4:30.

 

We were supposed to sail away at 6. That did not happen. When we first got back, we saw this man standing just outside of the ship, apparently waiting for someone. My husband saw the staff take him inside, probably to see if the person he was waiting for had come back. Then he stood outside some more. Not long before 6, this lone person came through the gate and he headed that way. They walked back with a lot of space between them. And got a lot of cheers.

 

But they didn't take up the gangways. They took up one and we kept seeing one of the staff looking at their watches. At that point we knew we weren't waiting for one or two lone pier runners but many more, because they left two gangways open. As the last RC ship pulled away at around 6:15, a water taxi came running past that ship and up to the pier. Must have been 200-300 people pouring off of that water taxi and hauling it to the ship. A short video of the first of them. You can see the water taxi in the back and people still coming off of the boat. It was after dark when we left Cozumel.

[Tzutse]

Behind The Fun Tour

Once we got on board, I forgot to ask about the tour. I think it was the second day at sea before I remembered. There were 6 places still open so we snagged three.

 

I almost forgot about the tour. Saturday morning was so rough I had planned to sit in a lobby and read. Then I remembered and almost thought I would skip it. I'm soooo glad we didn't!

 

The tour was almost 4 hours long. Two HR Coordinators led the tour and had people from each of the departments talk to us about what they do. We went to the

• Main Galley, between Northern and Southern Lights. If you dine on deck 4, know that your servers roll on fast moving escalators down to 3 to get your food
  
• Up to where the lifeboats are. If you ever need them, drink lots of water, dress warmly and make sure you go potty before you get in them!
  
• Crew training facility
  
• Crew dining room
  
• Morgue and Jail
  
• Crew fitness center
  
• Storeroom
  
• Steakhouse galley
  
• Engine Control Room
  
• Laundry
  
• Crew outside facilities
  
• Incinerator
  
• Loading area
  
• Bridge
  

 

I loved seeing everything behind the scenes. It's like a little city. We took pictures with the Captain, drank champagne, and left with a lot of goodies. When we got back to our room, there were plates of pastries waiting for us, compliments of the pastry chef.

 

Hard Working Crew

I was so impressed with Carnival's staff. They take a lot of young people from so many countries and help them become a team. They work h.a.r.d. I would see our dinner servers at the late seating and then see them up in the Lido at 6am. A bartender from the pub serving drinks at dinner in the main dining room. And they were the.nicest.people. I work in HR so did ask alot of them about their hours and asked the tour folks too. Carnival apparently treats them well. They get time off during the day to rest as well as days off. They seem to work hard to make their employee's lives on the ship as engaging as possible.

 

That's it for our first cruise. It definitely won't be our last. My son told me that when he's in college, he wants to go on a cruise with his friends - no parents. Uh oh......

 

 

Is it a bat, a stingray, or a baby elephant in a hammock??

 

 

 

And I made this one for our cabin steward one afternoon:

 

[Tzutse]

Thank you so much for doing this review. We will be on the Magic in September.

Did you happen to see or eat at the barbecue on Deck 5 Lanai. Did you notice if it had been remade into Fat Jimmy's C-Side BBQ?

 

I didn't eat there but it's called Oceanside Barbecue. I remember hearing some people talking about being disappointed there was not a Fat Jimmy's.

[Tzutse]

Thanks so much for this review! We're sailing on Magic on the 27th, and I've been dying to read what she's like out of dry dock! Did you notice if there is still a barbecue on sea days???

 

There was! 12-2:30pm

[Tzutse]

We are sailing with B/G twins that will be 13 this October :) and I am also wondering about Circle C opinions/interactions, etc. On our last cruise the teen club staff could not have seemed more disinterested and it was a disappointment.

 

The boys said there was someone in Circle C 'just to make sure you didn't tear the place apart'. If there were kids in there just sitting around doing nothing, the staff person came up and talked to them and started a game.

 

They had a dodgeball tournament, video games, bingo, and on the last night they had a T-shirt signing party.

 

Circle C was a meeting place and hang out for them sometimes. Although most of the time, they walked around the decks, played basketball and soccer a TON. They watched the later movie almost every night. My 14 year old kiddo had to check in with me every hour and had a 1am curfew. I met all of the kids he was hanging out with. They were all sweet kids!

[Tzutse]

Thanks so much for the review - I JUST booked a cruise on her for Summer 2017 (SO far away!) but we are excited nonetheless.

 

Did you try the Indian restaurant? We loved it on the Breeze - wondering if you enjoyed it (if you're into that) on the Magic.

 

My boys (twins) will be 13 at the time of the cruise - Can you share your kids' experiences in Circle C? Staff, activities, etc..

 

Not a fan of Indian food, so I skipped Tandoor.

[Tzutse]

Thank you for your review, would you happen to know th name of the band that plays outside the casino?

 

Maybe it was Alterr Band, Bradley Edge (Pub guitar at RedFrog Pub), or Joe Perri (Pub Guitar at RedFrog Pub)

[Tzutse]

You said that they removed the foil from your wine bottles, I have not heard that one before, did they say why?

 

I didn't ask, because I just wanted to keep moving. My husband thought they did that to ensure the bottle hadn't been opened and replaced with liquor. Man, that would be a lot of work!

[Tzutse]

Could you tell us a little more about the cheers program, you must of had the new program. Were the coffees included? what was the limit on the prices of the drinks? were there any expensive drinks on the menu? The water was supposed to be included also. Thanks

 

I'm not the best person to ask about it, probably. I don't drink coffee. There was no limit on the prices of the drinks we had, but most of them were $8.25. I might have had a glass of wine at dinner that was over $10.

 

I never looked at a menu so I don't know if there was anything super expensive.

 

Bummer about the water. I didn't know that. But it wouldn't have mattered - I had already purchased the bottled water before we left.

[T2C]

My family's very first cruise and I have to say, we loved every single minute of it. We cruised with another family who were on their fifth cruise, first time on Magic. Two 50-something couples and two 14 year old boys.

 

I learned soooo much from this forum and I thank all of you for your posts. Since this was my first time on the Magic, I don't think I'll be the best person to compare pre- and post- dry dock. I'm sure others will be able to do that. If you are in any of my pictures, I'm sorry I didn't ask your permission.

 

I didn't go looking for the Magic. Since this was our first cruise, I was looking for a cruise out of Galveston because that is the closest port and I didn't want to travel far in case I hated it - although I knew I wouldn't. The Magic was the ship that had the best dates for us. Then I found out she was going to dry dock and some didn't think it would be smart to sail on her first thing out of dry dock. So, I panicked a little up until the cruise. That was a waste of good time!

 

Overall, my random thoughts:

• FTTF was so worth it for the embarkation and debarkation alone.
  
• We had cabin service twice a day. I had been expecting just once a day.
  
• The first elegant dining night was on Monday evening, as expected. I was surprised that the second elegant night was on Thursday evening, based on what I had read on this board.
  
• I expected the Hub app to be working and even though the app said it was available on the Magic, I could never get it to work and I heard that from others. Maybe it wasn't working, maybe I was just a dork - either is a possibility.
  
• We had late dining. I learned I don't like a set dining time. I felt like I missed a lot of things I wanted to do. Yet I kept it because that's what we had decided as a group of 6, and I loved our serving team.
  
• Looked like the carpets in the common areas were replaced. I am guessing that because the carpets were shedding a.lot.lot. They did not shed in our cabin and I know those weren't replaced.
  
• We had new mattresses - I thought they were very nice.
  
• Guy's Burgers...meh.
  
• Read about the Behind the Fun tour on here. Such a great tour - I give it two thumbs up!
  
• Serenity got a makeover, although I don't know how much of one. When we boarded, one side of it was closed off while they completed renovations. I was back up there on the last sea day. I had wanted to spend more time up there, but wind closed it several times and I gave up.
  

 

We live north of Dallas, so we drove down Saturday afternoon to my brother's ranch south of College Station and spent the night. That broke up our drive a little; although I don't think it would have been difficult to drive it all on Sunday morning. I just wanted to be on vacation already. We got up and left for Galveston at 9am. Both families had FTTF and check in times for 11am. We made a stop to fill our tanks and purchase a few things before getting to Galveston and arrived around 11. As we drove down Harborside, I was so excited to see the ship. This was the highlight of my day:

 

We dropped off our luggage in the front circle of Terminal 1 and I waited at the terminal with our carry-ons while the others took the cars to Lot B. We had pre-purchased parking. I'm not sure if that was valuable or not. There were lots that were more expensive and some that were less.

 

By the time everyone got back to the terminal, they were calling the 11:30 group. Really, we breezed through the priority line. The non-priority line at that time looked long. I'm not sure how long it really was, though. We walked into the terminal and right up to security. It was quick - they gave us something about Zika, checked our passports and boarding pass and then scanned our carry on luggage. There was a table in back where they were checking wine bottles and cans. It was a little hectic around those tables, and if we had just kept walking, I don't think anyone would have stopped us. They took off the foil on the wine bottles and opened the 12 pack. They took all of the loose cans out of my kid's backpack. Painless

 

Up the escalator to the Carnival check in counter. Waited less than a minute in the priority line and they gave us our sign and sail cards, a deck plan and collected our health forms. We sat down and only had been sitting for 10 minutes before they called for Diamond/Platinum to board. Then FTTF. Lots of Disney-like lines that moved much quicker than Disney. Another check of our sign and sail cards and we were walking onto the ship. This is not our room; ours were on the other side.

 

Our room was ready, thank you FTTF, and we dropped off what we carried on into the room. We were in 2280, a cove balcony room. Great room - near the midship elevators, no life boat above us so we got some sun. It was a connecting room. Our next door neighbors, on their first cruise too, were very quiet and we never saw them. I was very impressed at how well designed the rooms were. There was no unused space. There were two very large drawers under the convertible sofa that my kiddo used, leaving every other cubby for Dad and Mom. There was a safe, mini frig, 2 robes, 4 life jackets. I will say I was surprised that there was live network television. I liked having that throughout the week.

 

 

 

We went up to Lido and looked for lunch. We took the stairs from 2 up to 10 because we would have never gotten an elevator. That would be a theme for the week. It was a crazy house on the Lido deck. We got in the shortest line for the first thing we saw - Blue Iguana Cantina. We had burritos. They weren't bad, although I wished I had gotten into the line on the other side where they had street tacos.

 

We wandered around a lot because we had a lot of time and I was so excited to be on this ship. We were on board by 12:45 and we didn't sail until 7pm. I forgot to take pictures, and didn't notice we had left port until I looked up from my seat at the RedFrog Rum Bar, which would be one of the most crowded places during the week.

 

Couldn't agree more about Guys Burgers. Was really disappointed in them especially after so many people said it was the best they ever had, they must not have good burger joints around :-)

[jonboy9756]

I didn't eat there but it's called Oceanside Barbecue. I remember hearing some people talking about being disappointed there was not a Fat Jimmy's.

 

Thanks again for the confirmation of no Fat Jimmy's. John Heald had posted before the dry dock that it would be added. But everything else appears to be in place, and I can't wait to see it.

[Trish12345]

You said that they removed the foil from your wine bottles, I have not heard that one before, did they say why?

 

Yes, why did they take the foil off the wine bottles? (Following)

[riclop]

Thanks for your thoughts.

[DOCTOR CRUZE]

Thanks for the good news we don't sale until November ...If we can wait that long!!!

[maggie0057]

Loved your review thanks so much for sharing we will be going on our first cruise next February and it will be on the Magic

[The Rivas family Cruisers]

Hi! I was on this cruise too!

This was one of the rockiest cruises I've been on. I actually ran from the back elevators all the way to the front of the ship to my room the second to last night trying not to throw up- it was not pretty!

 

But, the ship was perfect, the food was great, and except for a few less than pleasant passengers, I thought the vacation was perfect.

[TerReuv]

Thanks so much for the review - I JUST booked a cruise on her for Summer 2017 (SO far away!) but we are excited nonetheless.

 

Did you try the Indian restaurant? We loved it on the Breeze - wondering if you enjoyed it (if you're into that) on the Magic.

 

My boys (twins) will be 13 at the time of the cruise - Can you share your kids' experiences in Circle C? Staff, activities, etc..

 

Don't feel bad, we just booked for FALL of 2017! I have been researching Magic like we are sailing this year. It is a bit daunting to log into Carnival and see I have over 500 days until we sail. :(

[Clarea]

Thanks for the report.

[JaniceB]

Thanks for sharing your first cruise with us!

[Rizzorp]

Can't wait! We sail this December!