Pirate's "MAGIC"al Halloween Cruise Review

[pirate4me2]

 

 

 

 

 

[pirate4me2]

Chris and I sat in the atrium and watched the kids trick or treating, and the costumes that came thru. Some people went ALL OUT on their costumes, we saw some great ones!! I ordered my favorite drink, a Twilight Zone, while we watched.

 

 

We ended up going to eat dinner at 6, and our waitress and her assistant were named Minnie and Melinda. These ladies were ON THE BALL. Each evening they had us taken care of in an hour or less, but they didn't ever seemed rushed or frazzled. They took time to talk to us, and they were so sweet. After meeting them that first night (well, third night of the cruise, but first night in the MDR for us) we asked for them each following evening. They are fantastic.

 

Tonight Chris and I both started off with a Caesar salad, as usual. It was good.

 

For his main dish, Chris ordered both the baked ziti and some type of fish...I forget what kind it is. He said the fish was Ok but not that great, and the ziti was alright.

 

 

 

I couldn't decide between the La Bandera (on the port of call menu) or the crispy Portobello mushrooms, so I got both. The La Bandera was OK, the mushrooms were EXCELLENT!

 

 

[pirate4me2]

Carnival had 2 special desserts for dinner tonight, and Chris and I both got the cheesecake, which was really good!

 

 

After our dinner we went to the theater to see Dana Tison's variety show. We have seen him three times now, but we still enjoy watching his show. He is a comedy juggler, and he didn't disappoint this time. His show had us laughing and clapping, he is really talented. When we left his show, there was a guitar soloist in the atrium, I believe his name was Rob Roy. He was pretty good, so we listened to him for a while.

 

Around 8:30 I decided to go spend some time in the T-pool. My shoulder was hurting pretty good from the swimming activity today, and I figured a good soak in the warm water would loosen it up. I went up to the spa and spent about an hour lounging in that wonderful, bubbly pool. Gosh, why can't I have one of those at home?? Chris, get on that project for me, ok?? :D:p

 

After relaxing until almost closing time in the spa I went back to the room and decided to call it a day. Tomorrow was another port day, but at least we could sleep in some. Our arrival in St Thomas was to be about 11.

[Lew Port]

Enjoying your posts and pics.

We ate at the Italian place the first night and it was great. I shared the tiramisu with my better half as we were both full from the generous portions. It was worth the $15.

 

We really enjoyed Elizabeth at the Piano Bar. On Thursday and Friday she was a bit under the weather.

 

The decorations on the ship were great.

Our excursion at Amber Cove was to Diamonds International.

[Jeff90]

Thanks for sharing your trip with us! Enjoying your review! I'm also from NC! We will be on the Magic on January 7th!

[pirate4me2]

Enjoying your review so far!! We sail on her for Christmas, and I can't wait! Your pictures at Cucina make me want to book it. We've had lunch there on the Breeze but never dinner. Can't wait to read more!

You should try Cucina for dinner, it's incredible!!

HI all!

 

pirate ~ wow, you sure didn't take long to get your review started!:D Great, loving it so far even though I have no plans at present to sail this ship.

Cucina was also my choice for the first lunch on the Vista TA. I tried to sample all the lunchtime offerings.;)

Hope all turned out okay with your shoulder & you had a great cruise.

 

~ Jo ~ :)

Hey Jo! I decided to get started while it's all still fresh on my mind. I can't wait to read your Vista review!!

Enjoying your posts and pics.

We ate at the Italian place the first night and it was great. I shared the tiramisu with my better half as we were both full from the generous portions. It was worth the $15.

 

We really enjoyed Elizabeth at the Piano Bar. On Thursday and Friday she was a bit under the weather.

 

The decorations on the ship were great.

Our excursion at Amber Cove was to Diamonds International.

The portions were huge! It was all amazing.

Thanks for sharing your trip with us! Enjoying your review! I'm also from NC! We will be on the Magic on January 7th!

I hope you have a great cruise on her!

 

Sent from my XT1585 using Forums mobile app

[Micahs Grandad]

Great pictures

[riclop]

Thanks for the review.

[Sjb0704]

Following

[pirate4me2]

One thing I failed to mention about our excursion to Ocean World...they have different packages for photos that you purchase. I failed to take a pic of the prices, but I can tell you we got 5 pictures for $40.

 

Also, I think I forgot to mention that our room steward never asked us if we wanted once or twice a day service, he just automatically serviced our room twice a day.

 

I will post one or two more segments when I get home tonight!

 

Sent from my XT1585 using Forums mobile app

[crusinpsychRN]

I saw people eating those taco salads, went to the burrito place and didn't see anything like it. Is that where you got it?

[tdh8359]

Following, great job so far.

[pirate4me2]

Thanks for the review.

 

Thank you for reading it!

 

Following

 

Thanks for following along! More to come shortly!

[pirate4me2]

Great pictures

 

Thank you! All my photos this time were taken with my phone. The dolphin pics came from Ocean World.

 

I saw people eating those taco salads' date=' went to the burrito place and didn't see anything like it. Is that where you got it?[/quote']

 

It is! This is the first cruise that I have seen them, and I am so glad they started offering them.

[pirate4me2]

Following, great job so far.

 

Thank you!

[pirate4me2]

Today I got to sleep in a little bit. Hooray for our 11 a.m. arrival into St. Thomas! I woke up at 9, and Chris and I decided to try the Open Seating breakfast in the Southern Lights dining room. When we arrived, we were seated at a table for 2 with Jorge and Christopher as our servers. They were excellent servers, although they seemed to be overloaded with tables to wait on.

 

To start off with we were offered bread, and I took a croissant. It was nice and flaky.

 

Chris asked if they happened to have any of the chocolate muffins that he had seen on Lido on previous cruises, and they also offer them at the Sea Day Brunch. He loves those things. They told him that no, they did not offer them at Open Seating breakfast. However, a few minutes later Christopher brought a plate with 3 muffins on it! I do not know where they got them, but it made Chris's day. I tried one, and I have to say, they are really good and super moist!

 

I ordered my usual sit-down breakfast choice: eggs benedict with no meat (it was VERY GOOD today!), pork sausage (yum), and hashbrowns (they were super crispy today!).

 

Chris ordered the banana pancakes with a side of pork sausage. He took one bite of the banana and the look on his face was priceless. He said the pancakes were awesome, but the banana was an epic fail.

 

We finished breakfast about 10:30 and wandered around a little bit to wait while we docked. I took a few pics around the ship.

 

Aft pool area

 

Lido Pool area

[pirate4me2]

Lido seating/waterslides

 

Carnival Glory is in port with us today!

 

We were docked at 11:00, and Chris and I got in line first thing to get off the ship. Today I had booked us an independent excursion, an island tour with Godfrey Tours. I had heard wonderful things about the company and felt good going with them based on what I had heard.

 

However...I can't say that I was all that impressed with our experience with Godfrey. Maybe it was an off day for them, I don't know. But when we got off the ship, we couldn't find them. We asked around, and other vendors had no idea where they were. We asked some nice port workers if they knew where Godfrey Tours were meeting, and they showed us to where the company usually did pickups. Nobody was there. We walked around looking for someone holding a sign saying Godfrey Tours, as my email said they would be, and saw nobody. Finally at 11:30 a nice gentleman holding a sign for Sonny Liston Tours asked us who we were looking for, and he called Godfrey Tours for us. A gentleman said he would be there in a few minutes, and when he showed up he didn't have us down for a reservation. :eek: I showed him my email communication with his office, and he said that he had room for 2 more people so we could come along. It was just a very bad first impression for me, but I paid him the $30 per person and said what the heck, the worst that can happen is we are late back to the ship with several others from the Magic...at least we wouldn't be left behind alone!

 

Here's a few pics I snapped as we were looking for Godfrey Tours

 

 

The weather today was not very cooperative, it rained off an on most of our time in St Thomas. That kind of killed some of the picture opportunities.

 

[pirate4me2]

 

 

When we arrived at the Mountain Top, it was so foggy you couldn't really see anything. :(

 

However, we found a Christmas ornament for our tree (we get an ornament from every new port we visit, and on our last stop in St Thomas we didn't get one) and we browsed the shop.

 

Our last stop on the tour was a beach break, and we had a choice between Coki, Sapphire, or Magen's Bay. We chose to go to Sapphire Beach, as did most everyone else on the bus. A few people chose Coki, which I think may have been more of a party beach. We had a nice 2 hours at a beautiful beach though, so I was happy with our choice.

 

[pirate4me2]

 

 

The water felt great, and the view of the mountains was gorgeous. We swam for a bit, then decided to check out the bar.

 

Chris and I were kind of hungry, so we each got a hamburger, which was pretty good. I think they were $10.

 

 

I also decided to try the Bushwacker, which was STRONG and delicious!

 

After our 2 hours of beach time, we met Godfrey Tours back in the parking lot at 4:10 to go back to the ship. He took us right back to the area in front of our ship, and he was a really nice guide. I wish I could say that I was impressed with the tour and would go with them again, but I honestly feel that the tour was just OK, not great, and I think next time I am in St Thomas I will try another vendor. I tried to have an open mind, and like I said, maybe they just had an off day.

 

Chris and I decided to walk around the shops for a bit since we didn't have to be back on board until 6:30. However, I began to feel a little ill, and it was beginning to rain harder and thunder, so we headed back to Magic around 5:30. We cleaned up and headed to dinner at 6, I thought maybe some food would help ease my headache. We asked for Minnie and Melinda again tonight, and :they ROCKED. We were in and out of dinner by 7:10!

 

I started tonight off with my usual Caesar salad, and I also wanted to be brave and try a new dish, ceviche. It was FABULOUS!

[Lew Port]

After re-reading your posts about Cucina, I just realized we were there at the same time.

Small world on a big ship.

 

We booked the champagne sunset cruise at St. Thomas and the rains cut short our trip. The captain of the catamaran did the right thing to get us back to shore. And Carnival rebated 50 % of the excursion. Which we promptly 'donated' to the casino.

[pirate4me2]

For my main dish, I was pretty sure that I wanted the salmon cakes, as I loved them on the Pride, but I asked Minnie how the shrimp curry was. She ended up bringing me both dishes! The salmon curry was OK, nothing great...I know not to bother with it in the future.

 

Salmon cakes were DELISH!

 

And to finish off my wonderful meal, I chose a favorite from my cruise on the Pride, the S'mores parfait. I LOVE this dessert, even more than I love WCMC!

 

After I was stuffed as full as I could possibly be, I decided to go hit the T-pool and sauna. My shoulder was really hurting tonight, and I was afraid that the excursion that we had planned for tomorrow would really leave it hurting. I relaxed in the spa until 9:30, then headed back to the room to clean up for the Love & Marriage show in the theater at 10:15. It was hilarious as always, one of the couples had the room laughing and hooting at one of their answers. It was for sure not appropriate for underage children on this sailing!

 

When the show ended I decided to call it a night, which was around 11:30. Tomorrow was another early morning for Chris and I, and we were looking forward to San Juan!

[pirate4me2]

After re-reading your posts about Cucina, I just realized we were there at the same time.

Small world on a big ship.

 

We booked the champagne sunset cruise at St. Thomas and the rains cut short our trip. The captain of the catamaran did the right thing to get us back to shore. And Carnival rebated 50 % of the excursion. Which we promptly 'donated' to the casino.

 

Wow, that is funny that we were there at the same time!!! Isn't it funny how it's a small world on a big ship? We met 2 couples from our hometown while onboard, and another couple from a neighboring town!

Sorry your excursion got cut short. The weather on this sailing just didn't cooperate, which I know isn't any fault of Carnival. I enjoyed all the dreary time hanging out in the spa.

[pirate4me2]

I woke up today and just wanted to die.

 

Shoot me please. Put me out of my misery.

 

I was sick. Coughing, sneezing, weak, and a snotty head. I wanted nothing more that to crawl back into bed at 6:45.

 

However, Chris and I had booked an excursion that we were both really, really looking forward to, so I dragged myself out of bed, chugged 2 bottles of my Spark energy drink, and said "bring it on." I got a Blue Iguana breakfast burrito, and then we went down to the shore excursion desk to sort out what time we were supposed to meet our tour. We were confused as our tickets told us to be in the theater at 7:45, but we had gotten a notice on Monday that we were to meet at 11 at the end of the pier due to "operation changes with the vendor." Then last night we got another notice telling us to meet at the end of the pier 15 minutes before the tour time on our tickets. We wanted to sort out if we needed to be at the end of the pier at 7:45 or 10:45. Much to our surprise, the guy working the desk told us to be there at 9:15. Um, OK. That works. That gave me time to run to the Walgreens at the end of the pier to get some cold medicine!

 

After spending $10 on some Dayquill I ran back onboard to take the medicine with ANOTHER dose of Spark (I was really, really dragging!) and grab our excursion tickets. We went to the end of the pier to meet our tour at 9...and were told by the lady that our tour wasn't meeting until 11. She said the tour going out at 9:15 was the Rainforest ATV tour, and our tour (Hacienda ATV) was going out later. So, Chris and I decided to kill some time by walking around downtown. However, I was feeling really tired so we decided to go back to the ship and rest until our tour was to meet.

 

I did grab some pizza to try and give me energy before we got off the ship. Honestly, it was just meh...kinda soggy.

 

We met the tour operator at 11 at the end of the pier, and after signing a waiver and providing her with our driver's license info we boarded a bus for a 20 minute ride to Hacienda. Once we got there, we were led to a little store that they have there to get any supplies we wanted...they had bootie cover things for your shoes (it had rained a LOT prior to our visit and was MUDDY), bandanas to cover your face, little waterproof container for you to put your cellphones in, insect repellent, etc. We were then led to the ATVs and given a quick lesson on how to use them....gas is here, brake is here, turn it on this way, etc. We all grabbed a helmet, chose and ATV, and we were off on an adventure! I was lucky enough to be in the back of the pack...hehehe, I was going to have FUN!

 

As I said, it had rained a LOT in the prior days in Puerto Rico, and the trails were a MESS! We had been told to wear clothing we didn't mind getting dirty and to bring a change of clothes, and it became VERY clear why. Our ATVs ended up covered in mud, and so did we! This was the messiest, most fun excursion we had done in a long time! People got their 4 wheelers stuck, one guy KILLED his machine, and it was just an absolute blast. We spent about 2 hours riding, with 2 rest stops along the way. It was a really, really, REALLY good excursion!

 

My ride for the day, after about 30 minutes of riding

 

Gettin' muddy!

 

 

My trusty steed again....look at the mud...

 

My muddy self near the end of the ride...

[pirate4me2]

Our excursion ended and they took us back to the ship at about 2:55. Back on board for us was 3:30, so we were some of the last people to get back onboard I am sure! Chris and I had not brought a change of clothes with us, all we had done was rinse some of the mess off with the pressure washer at the vendor. We got some funny looks from other cruisers, and when one lady asked what we had done I told her, "We ended up on the wrong side of town...you should see the other guys." Her face was priceless until I told her what we really did. :p

 

Once we were back at our room I tried to just rinse our clothes off in the sink, but quickly realized that was NOT going to get them clean enough to pack away. I sent Chris to find a laundry facility while I showered, and there was one right below us on deck 10. We brought the filthy clothes down and paid $1.5o for detergent, $3 for a wash, and $3 for a dry. $7.50 was still cheaper than the $15 (I think) for sending the laundry out for Carnival to do! The wash cycle took 35 minutes, and the dry took 60. All the machines (detergent vendor, washer, and dryer) took our sail & sign card as payment. Easy peasy!

 

Sailaway was at 4:15, and Chris and I relaxed and waited for our laundry to finish before heading to dinner. Tonight was our second elegant night of this cruise, and I was feeling pretty down and out....my shoulder was throbbing, my head was pounding, and I couldn't smell anything from being so congested. I went to dinner with Chris at 6, but it was kind of miserable because I could hardly taste anything! I ordered my usual favorites from tonight's menu, a Caesar salad (which I am assuming tasted OK, but I left half of it because I couldn't taste it and it depressed me to eat it) and the stuffed mushrooms, which I could taste somewhat and ate all of.

 

 

Tonight's bread basket

 

'Shrooms

 

My main dish, which I adore, the Mushroom Fussili (however you spell that pasta!)

 

Chris's main dish, the filet mignon

[pirate4me2]

For dessert, Chris ordered the Grand Mariner, which he said was really good.

 

 

I ordered the ONE AND ONLY WCMC that I had this whole cruise. HOW DID THAT HAPPEN?? I'm sure my hips are thankful though...

 

After dinner I was feeling pretty rough, so I told Chris to go do his thing and I was going to the spa. However, I got to the spa and got into the T-pool, but I was only able to spend 15 minutes in there. We were hitting some rough seas, and the ship was rocking so bad that the T-pool was like a wave pool and water was sloshing out of it like crazy. The spa ladies never came and told me to get out, but when a wave came and half the water went flying out of the pool I decided to evacuate. I did go into the Oriental steam room to see if that would help my sinuses, and oh my! It was incredible! 15 minutes in there and I was able to breathe again!

 

I went back to the room at about 8 and took some meds and fell asleep. I don't really recall Chris even coming back to the room, I think I was out pretty quick after my head hit the pillow. I was dreaming of tomorrow, when we would be in my happy place, Grand Turk! Maybe I would be all better by then. :)