Winter itinerary on Magica

[jones721]

We have booked the 23 December cruise on the Magica and have a question to ask about one of the ports.

 

When I booked, the UK brochure stated the posts as Catalina Island and the Bahamas. On the US Costa website, they state that the port of call is Casa De Campo, 8 to 5 and Grand Turks. Do you think Casa de Campo involves Catalina Island? I don't understand the difference between Catalina Island, La Romana and Casa De Camp. Are they all separate places? Or can you travel from one to the other. What we would really like, is the private island for a beach day - do you think we will be able to do that?

 

The UK website has only just been updated to include winter sailings and is now different that the UK advance brochure. Catalina Island has now disappeared and this is where we wanted to visit.

 

Anybody else on the Magica over the winter who can shed any light on this?

 

Also, I was on the Glory last February and I have read that Magica is similar to the Glory. I enjoyed the Glory.

 

Thanks

 

Tracey

[mondello]

We have booked the 23 December cruise on the Magica and have a question to ask about one of the ports.

 

When I booked, the UK brochure stated the posts as Catalina Island and the Bahamas. On the US Costa website, they state that the port of call is Casa De Campo, 8 to 5 and Grand Turks. Do you think Casa de Campo involves Catalina Island? I don't understand the difference between Catalina Island, La Romana and Casa De Camp. Are they all separate places? Or can you travel from one to the other. What we would really like, is the private island for a beach day - do you think we will be able to do that?

 

The UK website has only just been updated to include winter sailings and is now different that the UK advance brochure. Catalina Island has now disappeared and this is where we wanted to visit.

 

Anybody else on the Magica over the winter who can shed any light on this?

 

Also, I was on the Glory last February and I have read that Magica is similar to the Glory. I enjoyed the Glory.

 

Thanks

 

Tracey

Hi Tracey, We were at Catalina Island on Thursday 3/9 for a beach day on a private island with a great beach barbeque provided by Costa. This was listed in our cruise docs as Catalina Island 8:00AM-5:00PM. It is located off the coast of the Dominican Republic and was definitely a great beach day, including the buffet spread under the tents and the barbeque. From 5:00 to 6:00PM, we cruised around to the coast of the Dominican Republic for our listed stop of 6:00-11:30PM at Casa De Campo/La Romana. While there was only one excursion offered here, the 9:00PM Kandela Magical Night Beneath the Stars, There were 18 excursions offered from Catalina Island. I know for a fact that the major change for 2007 is changing Friday from a Sea Day to the Port stop at Grand Turk (Turks&Caicos) and dropping the Saturday Port call at Nassau Bahamas. While it is possible that Costa is also dropping the day at Catalina Island, I thought it was just listed wrong by a Costa staffer in Italy. I would really be hard pressed to believe that Costa would drop Catalina Island. Now I'm not so sure; although there is nothing to do at La Romana/Casa de Campo except the Kandela show, I think that most of those 18 excursions offered from Catalina Island were actually for activities that occurred on the mainland. I was looking forward to the addition of Grand Turk to the itinerary because I thought the Nassau visit was too short. However, God forbid that Costa take away a beach day at Catalina Island! Here's to hoping that the 8:00-5:00 port stop is at Catalina Island, as it was this year.

[jones721]

Yes, my thoughts too. Surely they wouldn't take away a private island day and substitute it with a stop that is normally dedicated to evening activities? In the first UK brochure it is listed as Catalina Island so I was hoping too that it was a mistake. Quite happy with the second change as I would imagine that Grand Turks is quite nice.