Costa Magica Dining Rooms

[Newlyweds28]

We are going on the Costa Magica on Dec 10, 2006. Which dining room is better? The Portofino Restaurant or the Smerelda Restaurant? We want to make sure we are in the right cabin for getting the best restaurant. Thank you!

[joetrizeo]

hey there michelle

 

both restraunts as you probably know have the same look and feel and obveously serve the same food and have the same activities and mini-shows during dinner (waiters dancing and singing etc).

 

so really it's mostly about location i guess. and from being on the carnival glory (sister ship) you are probably fimiliar with the locations of the two main restraunts. deck 3 and 4, portofino in the center and smelalda in the rear.

[Newlyweds28]

We were in the Golden Restaurant on the Glory. I always thought the Platinum must be better! :-) Being on the back of the ship would make for better views, wouldnt it?

 

Thanks for mentioning the Glory as well....I thought I was going crazy about the ships being almost identical. I was sure of it when I was looking at deck plans.

[joetrizeo]

it is true that being in the back of the ship with the large windows, you can obtain a better view than in the mid ship with no windows (i think) but really you could only see outside if you were by the windows, and it was breakfast or lunch. by late dinner, it's already dark there's nothing to see but black windows :)

 

there are approx 10 ships which are identical or so close that it'll make you think twice. i have a full list posted somewhere of the 'destiny' class sister ships

[cruisingtheword]

Actually there are windows in the mid-ship dining room along the sides. That is where we were assigned for our 17 day transatlantic crossing on Magica last May. For breakfast and lunch they prefer if you eat in your assigned dining room but there is nothing to stop you from having breakfast or lunch in either dining room so we did have one meal in the back dining room to see what it was like. There are very similar but as someone else said, unless you are near the back windows, the view is no different. Frankly, we preferred Portofino - somehow it seemed a little more intimate but the differences are really small plus it may be an advantage to being able to enter and exit the dining room from either end - I didn't notice because I was always in the mid-ship dining room at dinner but it might get rather bottled up with everyone having to enter from one end of the back dining room.

 

Have a great trip!

 

Susan

[JoeAndrew]

Is there a specialty restuarant on the Magica? If so, was it difficult to get a reservation on a 6-day Cruise? Our Vacations To Go booking agent was not sure about his answers. Thanks!

[joetrizeo]

Actually there are windows in the mid-ship dining room along the sides. That is where we were assigned for our 17 day transatlantic crossing on Magica last May. For breakfast and lunch they prefer if you eat in your assigned dining room but there is nothing to stop you from having breakfast or lunch in either dining room so we did have one meal in the back dining room to see what it was like. There are very similar but as someone else said, unless you are near the back windows, the view is no different. Frankly, we preferred Portofino - somehow it seemed a little more intimate but the differences are really small plus it may be an advantage to being able to enter and exit the dining room from either end - I didn't notice because I was always in the mid-ship dining room at dinner but it might get rather bottled up with everyone having to enter from one end of the back dining room.

 

Have a great trip!

 

Susan

 

yes thanks susan

 

here's a great tip to save hassel the first night. if you are at the rear restraunt (i think this goes for all destiny class ships as well) you must take the rear elevator to deck 3 (or rear stairs). there's no other way to get to the aft restraunt. if you are in the middle restarunt, take the mid elevator. you can also take the forward most elevator but you will have to take a short walk thru the atrium.

once you get your seat (after the first night), if you are on tier 2 of the restarunt (deck 4) i'm pretty sure you can enter from deck4. i was on deck 3 so i never tried but the deck plans look as such.

[joetrizeo]

Is there a specialty restuarant on the Magica? If so, was it difficult to get a reservation on a 6-day Cruise? Our Vacations To Go booking agent was not sure about his answers. Thanks!

 

yes there is, it's called the club vincenza

much like carnival it's 23$/p res. i dont know about availability, i did not eat there but i'll assume its a lot less crowded and thus easy to get a res.

 

http://www.costacruise.com/B2C/USA/before_board/dining/default.htm

[JoeAndrew]

Thanks for the info! I saw the restuarant listed but there was no spcific information on the website. We found the specialty restuarant on Disney Ships (Palo) and ones on the Pride of Hawaii book up fast so we will head straight to the reservation area as soon as we board.

[Yeldarb]

Glory is a conquest class ship.

 

 

We were in the portofino restaurant on the magica. It was very nice. We had friends on the same cruise that we're in the smeralda and they said they thought there was too much vibration.

 

We loved the magica. Thought it was a beautiful ship.

 

Cheers,

Brad

[joetrizeo]

Glory is a conquest class ship.

 

 

We were in the portofino restaurant on the magica. It was very nice. We had friends on the same cruise that we're in the smeralda and they said they thought there was too much vibration.

 

We loved the magica. Thought it was a beautiful ship.

 

Cheers,

Brad

 

oh

 

what is the difference between Destiny and Conquest class ships?

[Yeldarb]

Well they're laid out fairly similarly, Conquest ships are just bigger.

110,000 tons for Glory 2974 passengers, 102,000 tons for victory 2754 passengers. All the latest carnival ships (with exception of miracle) are conquest class: Conquest, Glory, Liberty and soon to be freedom. cruisedeckplans.com has all the ships deck plans for comparison. They both have the tiered main pool deck.

[brandy3415]

Just returned from the Magica. Ate in the Smerelda. There was no vibration there that I noticed. Mostly we were there for dinner only and they close the shades at night--all is black outside. Perhaps in Caribbean this is not the case on earlier seating, but it surely got dark early in Spain!!