Just Off of My First Cruise on Magic and Her First out Of Dry Dock March 6-13

My family's very first cruise and I have to say, we loved every single minute of it. We cruised with another family who were on their fifth cruise, first time on Magic. Two 50-something couples and two 14 year old boys.

I learned soooo much from this forum and I thank all of you for your posts. Since this was my first time on the Magic, I don't think I'll be the best person to compare pre- and post- dry dock. I'm sure others will be able to do that. If you are in any of my pictures, I'm sorry I didn't ask your permission.

I didn't go looking for the Magic. Since this was our first cruise, I was looking for a cruise out of Galveston because that is the closest port and I didn't want to travel far in case I hated it - although I knew I wouldn't. The Magic was the ship that had the best dates for us. Then I found out she was going to dry dock and some didn't think it would be smart to sail on her first thing out of dry dock. So, I panicked a little up until the cruise. That was a waste of good time!

Overall, my random thoughts:

• FTTF was so worth it for the embarkation and debarkation alone.
  
• We had cabin service twice a day. I had been expecting just once a day.
  
• The first elegant dining night was on Monday evening, as expected. I was surprised that the second elegant night was on Thursday evening, based on what I had read on this board.
  
• I expected the Hub app to be working and even though the app said it was available on the Magic, I could never get it to work and I heard that from others. Maybe it wasn't working, maybe I was just a dork - either is a possibility.
  
• We had late dining. I learned I don't like a set dining time. I felt like I missed a lot of things I wanted to do. Yet I kept it because that's what we had decided as a group of 6, and I loved our serving team.
  
• Looked like the carpets in the common areas were replaced. I am guessing that because the carpets were shedding a.lot.lot. They did not shed in our cabin and I know those weren't replaced.
  
• We had new mattresses - I thought they were very nice.
  
• Guy's Burgers...meh.
  
• Read about the Behind the Fun tour on here. Such a great tour - I give it two thumbs up!
  
• Serenity got a makeover, although I don't know how much of one. When we boarded, one side of it was closed off while they completed renovations. I was back up there on the last sea day. I had wanted to spend more time up there, but wind closed it several times and I gave up.
  

We live north of Dallas, so we drove down Saturday afternoon to my brother's ranch south of College Station and spent the night. That broke up our drive a little; although I don't think it would have been difficult to drive it all on Sunday morning. I just wanted to be on vacation already. We got up and left for Galveston at 9am. Both families had FTTF and check in times for 11am. We made a stop to fill our tanks and purchase a few things before getting to Galveston and arrived around 11. As we drove down Harborside, I was so excited to see the ship. This was the highlight of my day:

We dropped off our luggage in the front circle of Terminal 1 and I waited at the terminal with our carry-ons while the others took the cars to Lot B. We had pre-purchased parking. I'm not sure if that was valuable or not. There were lots that were more expensive and some that were less.

By the time everyone got back to the terminal, they were calling the 11:30 group. Really, we breezed through the priority line. The non-priority line at that time looked long. I'm not sure how long it really was, though. We walked into the terminal and right up to security. It was quick - they gave us something about Zika, checked our passports and boarding pass and then scanned our carry on luggage. There was a table in back where they were checking wine bottles and cans. It was a little hectic around those tables, and if we had just kept walking, I don't think anyone would have stopped us. They took off the foil on the wine bottles and opened the 12 pack. They took all of the loose cans out of my kid's backpack. Painless

Up the escalator to the Carnival check in counter. Waited less than a minute in the priority line and they gave us our sign and sail cards, a deck plan and collected our health forms. We sat down and only had been sitting for 10 minutes before they called for Diamond/Platinum to board. Then FTTF. Lots of Disney-like lines that moved much quicker than Disney. Another check of our sign and sail cards and we were walking onto the ship. This is not our room; ours were on the other side.

Our room was ready, thank you FTTF, and we dropped off what we carried on into the room. We were in 2280, a cove balcony room. Great room - near the midship elevators, no life boat above us so we got some sun. It was a connecting room. Our next door neighbors, on their first cruise too, were very quiet and we never saw them. I was very impressed at how well designed the rooms were. There was no unused space. There were two very large drawers under the convertible sofa that my kiddo used, leaving every other cubby for Dad and Mom. There was a safe, mini frig, 2 robes, 4 life jackets. I will say I was surprised that there was live network television. I liked having that throughout the week.

We went up to Lido and looked for lunch. We took the stairs from 2 up to 10 because we would have never gotten an elevator. That would be a theme for the week. It was a crazy house on the Lido deck. We got in the shortest line for the first thing we saw - Blue Iguana Cantina. We had burritos. They weren't bad, although I wished I had gotten into the line on the other side where they had street tacos.

We wandered around a lot because we had a lot of time and I was so excited to be on this ship. We were on board by 12:45 and we didn't sail until 7pm. I forgot to take pictures, and didn't notice we had left port until I looked up from my seat at the RedFrog Rum Bar, which would be one of the most crowded places during the week.

Thanks for your report.

I'm so excited to read this! We sail on her in 8 weeks! Thank you for the report.

Can you elaborate on the street tacos? Is this a new thing?! [emoji7]

yes! a Magic review! was hoping someone would wright one post dry dock. I sail on her in 2 months, can't wait! Other than serenity, was there a lot of construction still going on? Or was it pretty much finished on time? Looking forward to hearing about the rest of your trip!

Yeah!! I'm excited for your review. Great start.

SeaSickness

Just before we sailed away on Sunday, my husband put a patch behind his ear. Wow, a lot of people had those on! He was so afraid he would get seasick - we had patches, seabands, Dramamine and Bonine. The patch worked for him, although he never knew if it was the patch or not. Kid and I braved it and had no problems at all throughout the trip. We did not have any issues when we got off the boat; although as I'm typing this, I am feeling a little woozy. I'm sure it's because I am back to reality.

Carnival Hub App/Internet

We all downloaded the Carnival Hub App before we boarded and none of us were ever able to get it to work - after a while I just stopped trying and carried around the deck plan and the FunTimes. The kids got the social internet package and I had the all-in internet. We also downloaded Whatsapp and used that to communicate to each other and with our parents back home. I didn't lose the ability to imessage until an hour out of Galveston. And, whenever we got close to our ports, I would start to receive imessages and could receive them on the ship until we left that port. Really though, Whatsapp and the social internet package was all that we needed to keep track of each other on the ship. Once I figured out how to get connected to the internet, it was easy when I needed to reconnect. My husband is not on an iphone; he's on a Galaxy, and he seemed to have more problems with his connection dropping. He said paying for internet wasn't worth it to him.

Dining Times

We chose the late seating for dinner in the Southern Lights dining room. Our serving team, Rodolfo/Gede/Michael were so nice and attentive the entire trip. Whether they were working in the Lido Marketplace, restaurant, bar, etc - they were quick to smile and say hello. As I stated earlier, I found out that I prefer not to have a set dinner time. Our two families had decided on the late seating and the other family really liked having a consistent time for dinner and serving team. I felt that it messed with what I wanted to do or not do during the week. My kid wanted to go hang out with his friends and do something that usually conflicted with our seating time. We let the boys skip dinner one night and let them leave before dessert twice. I loved that it was just our two families at the table and we had such a great time during the week. And, I will do something different next time.

Food

I liked the main dining room food. The menu was posted every day somewhere on deck 3 or 4. We thought the options were varied - my kid tried frog legs as an appetizer on Saturday night and my husband had Oxtail something one night. The only thing I didn't like was the flatiron and the prime rib. I am a snob about my steak since I don't eat it very often and I like ribeye. I liked the creme brulee, not a big fan of the melting chocolate cake. My favorite appetizer was the escargot. My favorite entrees were the lobster and the shrimp.

We ate breakfast in the Lido marketplace most days. Eggs and omelets made to order were good. Nice variety of fruits. Kids loved TruMoo and Borden chocolate milk. Never had lunch or dinner there. My son said they had a chocolate dessert bar one night and said it was great. The most popular thing was the 24/7 ice cream, based on the number of people I saw with ice cream. That was a favorite late night snack of the teens too.

I had a burger from Guy's twice. It was good, although I think the hype was bigger than reality for me. And, it was c.r.o.w.d.e.d. When it opened at noon every day, there was a big line. The boys always waited until a little later in the afternoon when there were no lines. It also was a big hit for everyone when they came back late afternoon from excursions. Their fixin's bar was well stocked.

Ate dinner one night in the Cucina del Capitano, thanks to our friends winning in the casino. It was good. The portions were huge - a little too big, in my opinion. It felt like a neighborhood italian restaurant, which was cool. I had pasta carbonara for an entree and a small portion of eggplant parmigiana as an appetizer. Dessert was the lemon sherbet (yummo).

Drinks

This is where we messed up; although we know now. Before we left, we got all three of us Bottomless Bubbles and purchased a 5-tickets for bottles of wine. We brought two bottles of wine on board . We brought on a 12 pack of Fresca and another 6 cans of Dr. Pepper for the room. We also purchased 4 12-packs of water. We had one of our bottles of wine at our first dinner on Sunday night. Then on the second day, my husband decided we should get Cheers, because he didn't want to be thinking of how much his bar tab would or wouldn't be. So, we had it all. No really, all.

I was able to get a refund of the Bottomless bubbles for my husband and I because we had purchased it before we sailed and then bought Cheers. We did not drink the 4 bottles of wine we purchased, or the two bottles we brought on board. We took those 6 bottles off the boat with us when we came home. We did drink all of the water and most of the Fresca. My kid drank the DP in the room. As for the Cheers package, it was definitely worth it on the three sea days. And, I think we broke even on port days. I don't drink very much, although the Carribean Coladas were good as was my staple, Vodka & Cranberry. I did get a few cocktails for my friend...shhhh.

I'm so excited to read this! We sail on her in 8 weeks! Thank you for the report.

 

Can you elaborate on the street tacos? Is this a new thing?! [emoji7]

I don't know if they were called street tacos, I'm sure they weren't. I call any taco in little soft corn taco shells street tacos.

yes! a Magic review! was hoping someone would wright one post dry dock. I sail on her in 2 months, can't wait! Other than serenity, was there a lot of construction still going on? Or was it pretty much finished on time? Looking forward to hearing about the rest of your trip!

They were doing some varnishing of the upper deck rails on one side one afternoon. I did see maintenance guys on the ship, but always just walking. I'm sure they were doing something. For me, it looked very put together, except for the carpet shedding.

When we were down in the engine control room, they told us they were still working through some of the tweaks they had done to some systems during dry dock. They didn't elaborate, I didn't ask. They did say that it usually takes them 1 to 2 weeks after dry dock to get everything running like clockwork again.

They did a lot of crew training during the week. They do once a year hazardous rescue training and the vendor was onboard this week. We saw their drills during our Behind the Fun tour. They also did crew safety training when we docked in Montego Bay. They said they do that very infrequently, and hopefully when everyone is off the ship. But a lot of us were still on the ship.

Love your review! The lines at Guys are crazy, but we always think its worth it- i could really go for one now!

Your posts are absolutely a delight.

Keith

We leave on Sunday, so I was hoping someone would post a review!

I don't know if they were called street tacos, I'm sure they weren't. I call any taco in little soft corn taco shells street tacos.

Thats what I call them, too

I have been anxiously waiting for someone to post a review after dry dock. Our family will be sailing in 131 days!!! We have been on several cruises with Carnival but this will be the first for Magic. Can't wait to hear more!!!!:D

Weather

From the start, the upfront sea days were win.deee! And the winds were coming directly from the south at the front of the boat. I felt it most in the main dining room - our table was on deck 3 in the very back of the boat. It was a constant, jerky back and forth kind of chop. Only once did I lay down on the bed the opposite way. It was a topic of conversation amongst some of the crew too. During the sea days, it was cold and windy on deck, even when the sun was out. I think it was on Monday they closed the doors out to decks 11 and up. Serenity was closed during those first two sea days, which is a shame because I wanted to hang out there. In all of the ports, it was breezy, sunny and beautiful. On the way back, the jerky chop changed to a rolling roll. On our last sea day back (Saturday), there was an hour where we went through a little bit of a storm. My husband and I were on Lido grabbing some breakfast when the boat started listing heavily to one side. The fruitbowls on the buffet went sliding. My husband lost his appetite and just wanted to go back to the room - I think he was legitimately scared. This short video was the front end of the storm. It got a little worse for a short period of time.

By noon, the weather cleared and it turned out to be the most gorgeous sea day. I parked it on a lounger and didn't move until almost 6pm.

Crowds

If you are not a fan of crowds, this might have been a frustrating week and I imagine the remainder of March and April might be the same. There were 4K passengers on board and 1 in 3 were kids. The elevators were crowded alot in the mornings and at dinner time. There were times the elevators were quick. At some point, I just stopped taking the elevators and took the stairs. Better for me anyway. Although going from deck 2 to deck 11 on the stairs was easy for my 14 year old, not always the case for this mama. Sometimes I took the stairs to deck 5 or 7, walked around the circle of shops and then went on up to 10. I usually took the stairs down.

There were hoards of people waiting for the main dining room doors to open. We learned to leave our cabin at 8:13 and by the time we got up to the Southern Lights it was fine and we could walk right in.

If you love being in the middle of it all during the day, mid deck, decks 10-12 was where it was at. DJBlendz was a great DJ and did a great job with the music.

The Tides Pool area at the back of the ship was super crowded on sea days. I wanted to sit back there the first two sea days because it was so warm out there, but it was a little too crowded for me. Lots of little ones in the two jacuzzi tubs. If you want to sit in relatively uncrowded spas outside of the Cloud 9 spa, the ones on the side(s) of the ship are your best bet, I think.

Movies

There were usually two movies each night. An early one for the little ones and a late one that started at 10. One night there was just one movie (Friday), and on Thursday night there were three movies, with one (Mad Max) starting at midnight. Movies were usually crowded - get there early to get a seat! Before we left I saw a list of March movies and all of the ones on our ship were on that list.

Shopping

We didn't do much shopping. I think we went into the shops twice. Every day, they had a lot of stuff outside of the shops. Watches, wraps, jewelry. And every day they had a special. Because you all prepared me so well for our trip, there wasn't anything I needed or wanted. I think our kid bought a couple of things at the candy store, Cherry on Top.

My Favorite People on Board

There were so many favorites, and two stand out. From the first day there was a cute family and I think Dad's name was Mitch. He was always on Lido participating in every.single.activity. Every where I turned, there was Mitch. I only took this one video during the WIN! Pre-show of Mitch, which doesn't do him justice. Loved you and your family, Mitch!

Every early evening, I took a bloody mary up to deck 4 and tried to go through pictures. After that beat down, I sat on the couch that looked down on the deck 3 lobby and watched this freaking adorable couple dance. I imagine they have been dancing like this since they were dating and they still had all of the moves. I loved them and I hope to be dancing when I'm their age! I wished I had taken a video because they really were awesome. All I have is this little picture:

Pictures

Everywhere, someone wants to take your picture. No joke. And, they print off every one of those pictures they've taken of you and 4,000 other people and put them on Deck 4 for you to find and buy. They try to label the sections so you at least know what you are looking for, and they move them off the board into a condensed section and you can take the whole section and look through them.

I was overwhelmed at this process from the get-go. All I could think about was the waste of printing each of those pictures, sometimes twice. They really need to move to a process where they take advantage of the picture they have of you on your sign and sail card and use it for facial recognition. Disney does a great job of this, in my opinion. I would rather scan my sign and sail card whenever they took a picture, and then scan my card at a kiosk and see all of my awesome awesome pictures and buy a CD or a thumb drive or print them. Some pictures I never found, a lot we didn't buy.

If you wanted, you could never take a picture on board and still leave with a lot of cute pics of your family. If you can find the pictures.

Ports, Our Behind the Fun tour and the hard working staff are coming up. But first back to the grind!

Great stuff! We sail on the Magic in two weeks, really looking forward to it! Thank you for posting.

Could you tell us a little more about the cheers program, you must of had the new program. Were the coffees included? what was the limit on the prices of the drinks? were there any expensive drinks on the menu? The water was supposed to be included also. Thanks

We sail the Magic, in October! And will HIT Platinum, on the Magic:) Thanks for your review!

You said that they removed the foil from your wine bottles, I have not heard that one before, did they say why?

Thanks so much for the review - I JUST booked a cruise on her for Summer 2017 (SO far away!) but we are excited nonetheless.

Did you try the Indian restaurant? We loved it on the Breeze - wondering if you enjoyed it (if you're into that) on the Magic.

My boys (twins) will be 13 at the time of the cruise - Can you share your kids' experiences in Circle C? Staff, activities, etc..

Thank you for your review, would you happen to know th name of the band that plays outside the casino?

My boys (twins) will be 13 at the time of the cruise - Can you share your kids' experiences in Circle C? Staff, activities, etc..

We are sailing with B/G twins that will be 13 this October :) and I am also wondering about Circle C opinions/interactions, etc. On our last cruise the teen club staff could not have seemed more disinterested and it was a disappointment.

Thanks so much for this review! We're sailing on Magic on the 27th, and I've been dying to read what she's like out of dry dock! Did you notice if there is still a barbecue on sea days???

Now I'm craving a Guy's burger.....and some melting cake....and creme brulee....

Really enjoying your review. We have a B2B booked for next January. We will be in a cove (2260) and will become Diamond on the first week. :)

Maybe the carpet will have quit shedding by then. :D

I'm missing the Magic today, so I picked a random review to read. Yours was a good one so far! Thanks! *sigh*

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