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A Winter Escape: Was there any Magic?

Indytraveler83

By Indytraveler83,
in Carnival Cruise Lines

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Indytraveler83

Indytraveler83

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Following-glad the mustard drill worked out ok. But how was your SIL's cabin Stewart?

 

Thanks for reminding me! I totally forgot to mention our cabin stewardess and much about our cabins!

 

We booked 4 cove balconies in a row (big thanks to our PVP who was able to made 4 in a row appear that weren't available on the website). We were about mid-ship on the starboard side, just ahead of the mid ship elevators (rooms 2325, 2329, 2333 and 2337).

 

Our room stewardess introduced herself while we were unpacking and first asked us if we wanted 1 or 2 visits per day. We always elect for 1 visit in the morning, and never request the evening service. As she went down the row, everyone made the same request, so she stopped asking by the time she got to my MIL. We made our usual request of spare towels (those bathroom towels seem to be useful once, then never dry). She obliged with not only extra bath towels during the cruise, but dropped a large stack of beach towels on our couch, allowing us to use them without ever worrying about having fresh ones.

 

Our only complaint is that our stewardess consistently forgot to restock the breakfast order hangtags in all of our rooms, then only bringing us 1 or 2 when she did remember, causing us to call her several days to request more.

 

She tended to be visible in the hallways most of the time, making any requests fairly easy, and remembered our names, inquiring about our plans and our day. While not the absolute best steward(ess) we've ever had, she seemed to keep herself well up to the standards and friendliness we expect.

 

On a side note: Yes there is a reason we request once a day service. We tend to enjoy our privacy, and combined with our very inconsistent waking/sleeping schedule on a cruise, our steward(ess) tend to end up in our room at very inconsistent times, and at times on sea days tend to struggle to clean our room without us coming or going at some point. It is much less stressful on both us and the steward(ess) if we just ask for 1 visit a day. I can completely see how some people may want/need more visits, especially if they have more than 2 people in the room. For us, once a day is fine as long as they overstock our towels.

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Indytraveler83

Indytraveler83

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Sea Day 1: Things get interesting

 

Let me first correct what I said the prior post: Our family members saw "Flick" tonight, not on the embarkation day. Let's just say I was not exactly in a position to remember good portions of both nights, and needed a bit of correction on my accounting of events...

 

Ok, Here we go:

 

We woke up on the sea day and all headed to lido for breakfast at different times. Jake and I got eggs, bacon and some yogurt, while his sister and BIL found the omelet station and came back with some amazing looking breakfast. The day was bright and sunny and we looked forward to a very nice day at sea.

 

Shortly after breakfast, the Captain came onto the loudspeakers and announced we would not be calling upon Amber Cove. With his strong accent, it was tough to hear exactly what he was saying, but many of us were quite upset that they were cancelling a non-tender port more than 24 hours before we were scheduled to be there.

 

After a little while, Dr. E came onto the loudspeaker to specify that the reason we were not making Amber Cove was due to an approaching storm, and that we could expect seas to get very rough later in the day, and calling on Amber Cove would have put the ship in 18 foot or higher seas, and that docking would have been impossible.

 

I was very disappointing, and found it hard to ignore the conspiracy theories that Carnival misses ports on purpose (Don't flame me, over the next few days we would learn firsthand why these conspiracy theories make no sense). We'd all scheduled excursions here, since Amber Cove was one of the few East Caribbean ports unaffected by the hurricanes. We spent a good chunk of time looking at excursions and other options. Jake's sister and BIL decided to book a snorkeling excursion for St. Thomas, his mother decided to book a spa appointment and the rest of us decided to simply accept the cancellations and go from there.

 

Come lunch time, we all met up again, and margaritas flowed freely courtesy of Zoey. Jake and I may have gone a little crazy with tacos at this point, I think I may have eaten 7...

 

We spent a good deal of the afternoon talking, and many of our group got to know each other. My parents have barely interacted with Jake's sister and BIL, and many of us got to know each other better. There's not too much interesting to say about the bulk of this afternoon, other than it was meaningful family time.

 

Come the evening we went to dinner, which would be the first formal night. The dining room didn't seem to strict on the letter of the dress code, as long as people looked fairly decent (and I fully support this). Our table was fairly evenly split between ordering lobster and steak. We ordered bottles of wine for the table, and quickly stuffed our faces with good food and drink.

 

I had sworn not to overeat on formal night, being one of those fools that can't get enough lobster. I ordered a single dish of lobster and felt very proud of myself. And then... our wait staff proudly placed 3 extra lobster dishes on our table, telling us they though our family would appreciate some extra. We thanked them, as we've never been offered extra like that before.

 

I scowled as I ate my 2nd lobster tail and a whole bunch more shrimp. Dining staff: 1, Self Control 0.

 

After dinner my parents, Jake and I took the 12 year old to the Sports square and we played a game of putt putt golf that got increasingly wacky as the wind blew the ship around and the waves rocked the decks around. We attempted to play ping poing, but the ball hilariously flew in opposite directions from where it was being hit. After a little while, the 12 year old headed off with his parents, and my parents Jake and I headed to the piano bar.

 

At the piano bar, we met Jeff "True" Jones, whose voice and talent was quickly apparent. Equally apparent was the very limited song choice the rest of the passengers desired. Jeff repeatedly begged for someone to request something other than "Piano Man." We also met Suzy, the primary bartender at the piano bar.

 

The regular barstaff on the Magic was making stronger drinks, probably to help the spirits of the passengers. Zoey seemed determined to get us drunk. Suzy... well she wanted to kill us. I swear my margaritas were simply tequilla with some lime juice. Not fully sober when I entered and with the ship really starting to rock and roll around us, simply sitting up on the barstool became an epic struggle after just a couple of drinks.

 

I remember leaning on my Dad most of the way to the room, feeling like the ship was just rolling and shaking around me, trying to figure out how I'd gotten so intoxicated off of just a few drinks. After stepping into my room, I went for the bed, and remember the floor rising up to meet me on my second step, causing me to faceplant into the floor next to the bed.

 

I had a fairly rough night as you can quite imagine, still fairly certain the spinning room and rising floor was Suzy's fault.

 

It wasn't. At least not completely...

 

Next up: Sea day 2- Rock N Roll and not in a good way...

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Riley's Mom

Riley's Mom

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Following this thread. We were on the Magic last May and are going again this May with your same ports.

Did they sub a port for Amber Cove?

Just wondering, what excursions were you planning on for Amber Cove?

I cant find anything that really appeals to me.

 

Thank you,

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Hogladyrider

Hogladyrider

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Following this thread. We were on the Magic last May and are going again this May with your same ports.

Did they sub a port for Amber Cove?

Just wondering' date=' what excursions were you planning on for Amber Cove?

I cant find anything that really appeals to me.

 

Thank you,[/quote']

 

I am going to jump in here as we were on the same cruise. Carnival did not substitute another port for Amber Cove. Credits were applied to sign & sail cards for the missed port.

Our plans for Amber Cove were to just hang out at the pool at the port.

Based on the comments by crew members and the comedians missing Amber Cove was really not a big loss that there is not much to do and the area is very poor. We were fine with missing this stop. Carnival added many onboard activities, a Q&A with John Heald, additional karaoke in Red Frog along with several other activities.

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Indytraveler83

Indytraveler83

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I am going to jump in here as we were on the same cruise. Carnival did not substitute another port for Amber Cove. Credits were applied to sign & sail cards for the missed port.

Our plans for Amber Cove were to just hang out at the pool at the port.

Based on the comments by crew members and the comedians missing Amber Cove was really not a big loss that there is not much to do and the area is very poor. We were fine with missing this stop. Carnival added many onboard activities, a Q&A with John Heald, additional karaoke in Red Frog along with several other activities.

 

That is correct. We had planned on an excursion called "Waterfalls of Damajagua" that sounded like quite a bit of fun. The BIL and SIL had planned on a swimming with dolphins excursion.

 

Will try to add another entry tonight, but I've got taxes to work on first... Ugh...

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