12/2 - 12/9 Magic Review

[wegiekat]

:D Well, I will try to get this started. Am at work and forgot my notes. Just a little background. I am 45 and traveled with my 67 yr old mother on this trip. We have cruised 6 times on Carnival and once on RCI so we are not new to cruising but new to Disney.

 

Embarkation - Easiest in 8 cruises. Checked the bags in at the Airport in Indy and saw them again outside my stateroom door. Landed in Orlando at 11:45 and was walking in the stateroom at 1:30. That was even after making our reservations Palo's (spelling) and changing our dinner time from 8:30 to 6:00.

 

Stateroom - Deck 6 verandah. Absolutely loved the split bathroom. Took us awhile to remember we had that. Our stateroom hostess was wonderful. Kept the cabin immaculate and was always quick with a friendly hello, how was your day.

 

I am not a food - food person so I really won't comment on the quality of the food in the dining rooms, as I took a look at the menu the 1st night and immediately wanted to order off the children's menu. It was nice that they did offer, the vegetarian menu and standard steak, chicken and baked potato offerings nightly.

 

We ate all our breakfast and lunches on 9 at the buffet for mom and Pluto's for me. Great chicken tenders - Yum. Carnival has better pizza.

 

I loved rotating restuarants nightly and thoroughly enjoyed the character breakfast. Our waiter Roberto from Peru and assistant Gerry from the Phillipines were excellent. Never a hitch in their service.

 

The Christmas decorations were very nice as they did not go overboard on the decorations. For great pics check out momx4, grandma x4 11/25 review.

 

I was very impressed with the shows. I'm sure they get old for repeat cruisers but for me they were a refreshing change from the standard cruise show fare. Twice Charmed was my favorite.

 

I won't touch the ports as we have been to all of them except Castaway Cay before and therefore did no excursions. Castaway Cay is my 1st private island on a cruise and was I impressed. Beautiful and what can you say about the Barbeque for lunch. Yum. That was actually our only day of bad weather. Sunshine from about 11 - 2 and then it turned and the families were coming back to the ship in droves.

 

Docking at Cozumel was a blessing and tendering at Cayman was a snap. We went to get our tender tickets at 8:45 and were on the tender by 9.

 

Pirate night was fun and the fireworks were neat. We did miss the shuttle launch on Thursday night when it was scrubbed. Would have been awesome to see that from the ship. Michael from South Africa from the cruise staff was on top of things with his radio to let us know the launch was a no go. I do need to talk to him about our poor Bingo winnings though.

 

Thanks for the info about the pillow cases as I had two signed by the characters for a co-worker's son. That is a great service.

 

Debarkation was also a breeze. Off the ship at 7:30 (we had an early flight), checked our bags and received our boarding passes right at the cruise terminal and we were at our gate by 9:00. Then to top it all off, we were upgraded to 1st class for the flight home.

 

In eight cruises I can truthfuly say I have never had a bad cruise, but I would rate this one as the best. The service and helpfulness with a smile from every crew member we encountered was refreshing.

 

If anyone has any questions about adults cruising on Disney without children I will try to answer best that I can.

 

Thanks again for all the advice I received from the cruise critic members here. It made my cruise more enjoyable since I didn't go into it blind.

 

Mindy

[mom x4,grandma x4]

Mindy,

it is so nice to hear you had a good cruise. I love the pillowcases too. I got some on our last crusie again, but this time I gave them to the grandkids. They were really excited by them.

 

Do you think you will do DCL again sometime???

We go again in April,

 

mom x4,grandma x4

[disneygirl2]

Great review....we are not going for 1 year, but this info. just excites me even more.

[Majesty Fan]

Good Review,

We cruise in about 6 weeks for thhe 3 night.

Lexi