Carnival Magic - 12 Days in Med review....

Below you will find our 12 Day review of the Carnival Magic sailing, 14 – 26 August.

I am writing this review, so that our family can see what we get up to whilst cruising….

They have no idea….

We are a couple, early 30’s, I am from South Africa & Girlfriend is from Poland. We are living in Dublin, Ireland. I read everything on here, the GF = Girlfriend is allergic to Cruise Critic, but loves John’s blog thingy, and Facebook page.

Here we are, on the TV in the Red Frog Pub

This is cruise # 3 for us on Carnival.

Since the site is called Cruise Critic, I will say it as I see it. I will not sugar coat anything, but we had a great cruise….

So, sailing with John Heald as the cruise director - The guy who walks’ on water here.

The things we loved things we hated, and the things that Carnival should look into….

English is my second language, so, there will be spelling mistakes, we drank too much, so there will be those drunk, I don’t remember taking that picture, pictures, all the lovely people we met, and those we don’t want to see again….

So, here go….

As per Johns blog, 2 things I have to mention first

Total Guests – 4,643 and of those 1198 were kids under 20.

This was the most passengers on the Magic so far. But, did we notice it? You will just have to read to find out….

Wewere flying Dublin to Barcelona.

We left our place around 2pm, got to the airport, went for some late lunch, went through security,

Saw our plane, well one of them....

Normally we will be going this way, as we cruised twice from the states, but not this time. Only a 2h flight this time

That is us, Flight leaves 18:30 getting ready to board. WE are ready for safety drill.

Our Plane

And we are off

All right! I'm in. Sounds like its going to be a GOOD review!!

Snack onboard

Are we there yet....

Got some duty free,well the girlfriend did...

Is that Barcelona? And, there we caught our first glimpse of the Magic. They arrived in Barcelona a day early for some reason only John Heald knows. We were lucky that the plane flew all along the coast of Barcelona.

Gf Waiting for Luggage

We jumped into a taxi, and went to our hotel. €30 later, we were there.

Small TV on wall, it was a basic room, good enough for what we needed, we we arrived after 10:30pm

After we checked in, we went to a local shop around the corner from us, and got 2 x bottles of wine, 24 canes of coke zero, few beers, snacks and few other bits and bobs we needed. Yes, at 11 at night we got this. Total paid was €29 which for us is very cheap.

This was my hand luggage. I was not checked at all going through "security" in Barcelona Port - Note for those of you going some time soon....

FINALLY another Magic review with pics:)

Thank you!!

Can't wait to hear about the cruise from a more 'foreign' perspective! And I love the boxerchips! Never seen those before - so cute! :D

May I also ask the name of your hotel and what the rate was? Was the location good?

Ok, here wre our morning walk pick's

Our Hotel in daylight:

Hotel Grumms, 4* walking distance to LasRamblas, close to port, as in €10 ride to port

A very useful report, which I will follow with eager anticipation.:)

Off to a great start, I am looking forward to reading more. We're thinking of Magic for my 10th cruise :)

We had lunch from the Tandoori place, which is located just at the aft pool, great food, curry in a hurry if you like hot spicy food.

After that we went to explore the ship, which wasn’t comfortable since we were carrying hand luggage. And mine were heavy…. Went to Serenity, looks really nice.

After that we went to explore the ship, which wasn’t comfortable since we were carrying hand luggage. And mine were heavy…. Went to Serenity, looks really nice.

Time for a top up...

Did I mention it was HOT !!!!

Time for a dip in the pool. First and last time it was empty

More people comming

Then we went to our cabin to leave hand luggage and then went to Northern Lights Dining Room to look at our table. Normally have your time dining, but, this time we were on a waitlist, and after checking in, we were assigned early dinging. We got to Northern lights, and there was a queue of about 60 people, wanting to change something or just say hi to the Matre Di or for whatever reason, so we left.

We found our table, and, sweet, table for 2. We did not even had to ask or bribe anybody for it. Yupiii!!!!

We had an inside room this time. 12 Days, most of them port days.

On Miracle, our first cruise, we had balcony – 8 Days

Imagination, Ocean view – 4 Days

This was waiting for us in our room:

We went to explore the ship, as you do on the first day...

this is where I would spend some time

And here

And, since we were "here" we had to try one of these : The Red Frog Beer

Ok, as i am still learning how to do this, I thought I posted this, but I did not,

This is the most important Pictures so far :-)

Nearly there....

10:45 on Lido

So, from being planning this vacation, to finally being outside the terminal, it only took 13 min to have our first DOD

Showtime Theatre

Gamesroom place

At 3:30 there was a port talk by John Heald – you can’t miss it! It’s really worth to go, as they are not only trying to get you to buy excursions with them, but they are also giving lots of tips which might be really useful while offshore. And to be honest John wasn’t really pushy about excursions with Carnival. It was more about giving good advices.

John also reminded to all that straight after port talk there will be a safety drill and to do not bring life jackets with them, as it is unnecessary. Once he said that, he discovered one man in the whole theatre who actually brought life jacket with him.

More beer, why not, we are on vacation, and, it is nearly 5pm

Safety drill was the easiest one ever, we just had to go to Main Show lounge, they told us what to do in case of emergency, and that was it….

On sail away we had our Cruise Critic Meet and greet, but our timing sucked, and we were late at Meet and Greet. Actually Gf / DG wasn’t attending M&G, but was nearby taking pictures of Barcelona port.

The Holiday leaving...

Love:):p:Dreviews with photos, coming along for the ride.

Dinner on the first night is always good.

It means, you are finally here....

Get readdy for some food porn.

I had 2 x Shrimps, the Ribs, and my “old friend” the Warm chocolate melting cake

GF had – Chicken Tenders, Ribs and Black forest cake.

^ Tenders

My Starter

All this eating stuff makes you thirsty

WE both had the ribs

Deserts

But when they delivered the black forest cake, it tasted old and not fresh. Normally we would just keep quiet, and eat it anyway, but, I called Joey, out head waiter over and asked him for some Crème Brule, as this was no good, he smiled and said no problem. Few min later, 1 times fresh Crème Brule.

After dinner, we just walked around the ship, got to know the place, and went to the comedy club.

Spotlight lounge, Deck 5 aft

I like the system they have here; we arrived for the first adult only show, around 22:15. The show started 22:30. Show was great, if memory serves me correctly, it was Gerry Goodspeed for the first show, and Tony Esposito for the second, but Tony was sick, so Mark Miller, took over

All this comedy makes you thirsty

After show, we just stayed were we were till next show,

On the Imagination, we had to leave lounge, line up outside for like 20 min, than once doors opened, there were a big stampede to get seats, this was much more relaxing way of doing things.

Then we went to check out shops. DG bought “of course” some cosmetics, as they are much cheaper than in Ireland and on every ship she’s taking advantage of this.

I am not sure what time we went to our stateroom, but, we had our town animal, but we did not yet meet our stateroom steward.

Sunset, first day at sea....

And, thios little guy was waiting for us in our room

Day 2 : Monaco

Monaco is the second smallest country in the world; only the Vatican City is smaller. As luck would have it, we will be in the Vatican city in a few days….

That is coming still. So, on this trip we visited the worlds two smallest country's

We woke up at 8, went for breakfast, and were off the ship at 9am

We had a walking tour planned, to see 3 things.

The Castle / Palace

Grace Kelly’s Rose garden, and Monte Carlo’s famous Casino

Found them all, views are great in this place….

Next to the Magic, the Lady Moura was docked. According to John Heald, its Bill Gates Yacht and Beyonce and Jay Z were currently renting it.

But, according to Wikipedia, Lady Moura is a private superyacht. It was the 9th largest private yacht when it was launched in 1990, but has moved down the list in 2011 to number 24. It is owned by Saudi Arabian businessman, Nasser Al-Rashid.

So first we walked up the hill to see palace of Grimaldi family. Not easy walk up the hill, so if you don’t want to walk, or are just lazy, just take the tour bus from the ship or one of the hop on-hop off buses.

Once we got to the top, we could see change of guards at the palace, quite interesting. Also, views from the hill were magnificent. So we stroll around taking pictures. Got two nuns sitting on the bench right beside statue of naked woman……. People were staring at them together, but they didn’t even blink.

Then we walked down and walked one of the main streets to Princess Grace Kelly Rose Gardens. Nice place, but I guess season for roses was gone, as there wasn’t much of them left in there. Anyway, it was nice garden with duck pond and even little island with big family of turtles.