My Magic Review 5/5/13 - 5/12/13

I think I just need to start this, or else I'm never going to get to it!

This was my 19th Carnival cruise, third time on the Magic. I travelled with nine other women, family and friends. We were on the Roatan/Belize/Cozumel itinerary. I tend to ramble at times, so if you have any specific questions, ask away and I'll do my best. I have all the Fun Times and inserts except for Sunday. I'll get them scanned in eventually, but I still have all of my pictures to go through. :eek:

Sunday - boarding day, yay!

Boarding - arrived at 9:45, before security was even open. Around 10 they called for diamond/platinum/FTTF (yes, they were called all at once) to go through security. This was extremely slow as they had to check your name off on a list of priority check-in cabins in addition to verifying photo IDs. Add to that what appeared to be a huge number of platinum cruisers, and as a result this was not the quickest priority check-in we've experienced. They had to place chairs outside the VIP lounge to accommodate everyone.

We boarded around 11:35 and headed straight to the cabin, cove balcony 2427. It was ready, but no luggage. We were among the first to get luggage, but my MIL next door got hers before us, and she was not FTTF/platinum. Luggage still came around 1:30, though, plenty of time. For those wondering, all of our rum runners amongst the four of us (probably 7 or so) made it. We hardly drank any of it, though.

Cabin steward was not good, the worst I've had. We'd leave sticky notes with requests, such as ice in the coolers or extra room service tags. He ignored them. Took us two days to get our robes. We had to flag him down in the hall whenever we could to get the coolers cold for our drinks, and for two more beach towels since we were 4 in the cabin). The first morning I called for a laundry pickup he didn't show up for an hour and a half. It took us until Monday to even figure out who our steward was, he never introduced himself and never saw him. Cabin was cleaned much later than usual during the day, sometimes not until almost 3:00. On Friday morning I finally went down to Guest Services to say something, as I was tired of running down there to grab extra Fun Times since he wouldn't leave any after asking. The service did improve after that, but he never looked me in the eye after. We left the auto-tips on, but it was the first time I ever seriously considered taking them off.

But back to Sunday...

May not be much here, wow those Fun Ships were strong. :o. Spent most of the day exploring, unpacking, drinking...we had lunch in Cucina and it was wonderful. Never made it back up there, but the staff up there was fantastic. A bit slow on the drink service, which is surprising since we were a group of 10 all trying to get refills on those tasty Fun Ships. They did get someone up there for us, but he only had six on his tray. By the time he made it back with the other four, two more were ready for another already.

We had late seating in Southern Lights. I had previously emailed Ante, the maitre'd, requesting a table, and he ended up giving us the exact one I had referenced - lower level right in front, table 623. Our wait staff - Konten, Fritz, and Yuni - were a bit slow to warm up to us, but by mid-week all was well. We had a table for 12 plus a 10 month old - the extra additions were family of our group, and had booked at the last minute and managed to get assigned to our table. The waiters loved playing with the baby, and he ate it up.

Meredith

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A quick note on bartenders - I was busy scouting for the "good" ones, since I'm doing this same itinerary in August. I could never really find any. :(. Especially the casino bartenders on the first day, just not friendly and a bit slow. Now the casino waiters and waitresses on the other hand, were among the best. I had the drinks on us card the second night, and I never went without a drink when I wanted one. They weren't always the quickest to get back to me, but they were quick to check one as soon as they saw me sit down. They knew my name and card number after a couple of orders. I do tip an extra $1 for each drink, though, maybe that helped? I tried to do it in cash, but a couple of times I forgot to grab some dollar bills, so I had to use the extra gratuity line on the receipt.

Later on today - on to Monday...formal night and our FB group's 2 hour semi-open bar meet and greet! :D

Meredith

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Yay! Been looking forward to your review.... Sucks to hear about the cabin steward, that would drive me nuts if someone just flat out ignored a message.

Hope the overall trip was still fun!

On to Monday...

We all woke up around 7:30. I was sleeping on the top bunk and it was just horrible. My lower back didn't even touch the mattress, it was so flat. I have mild scoliosis, comfortable sleep is hard enough for me as it is - I am still trying to recover from the lack of sleep I got last week between the mattress and the galley noise above.

After breakfast, we headed out to the aft pool around 9:30, where there were still plenty of prime chairs available. Surprisingly, I didn't see too many chogs - perhaps they were all chogging by the main pool? We easily found six chairs together. I didn't last very long though - I have a pool at home, so sunbathing by the pool is not much of a cruising activity for me. :). By the time we got up around 10:30, people were asking if we were leaving so they could have our chairs.

Off to play Where's Waldo with our pictures - for some reason I had a really tough time finding pictures this cruise. And I didn't notice this last July, but the facial recognition the TVs in the photo gallery used to show you your pictures that was there in 2011 (which I had to use since I never found our boarding picture) is gone. It wasn't perfect, but I'm not sure why it would've been removed completely?

There is, however, a rewards program of sorts with picture purchases, which was kind of nice since I usually end up buying a lot of pictures. Reprints don't count, but any size does. On your third purchase you get a small picture of the ship. On the sixth I was told it would be a coffee cup, but I got a wooden picture frame instead. On the tenth I got an 8gb flash drive, which for $9.95 they would load up with digital copies of 10 pictures. I chose not to do this as we have received digital copies from them before, and I don't think they were even 1 mb in size - extremely low res, I can get better copies by scanning them at home to post online. There are rewards for the 20th and 30th pictures bought, but needless to say I never got that far, and I never asked.

At 2:30 our group of 106 had a 2 hour meet and greet party. We had two hours of unlimited drinks. You could take a pre-made drink, or order anything up to $6.25 in value. Or gracious organizer also arranged for the DJ for an hour since we were in the disco. Needless to say, it was a fun party! So much I don't remember too much of the trip to Red Frog afterwards...

Formal night menu was the usual lobster and prime rib. This was also the first night we got to hear Darwin sing. And holy cow, he makes Ken Byrne sound like an American Idol reject. He sang a few more times over the course of the week, and he is just amazing, and so entertaining. I have a video I need to put on You Tube, I'll have to come back and post the link when I do. I think he was a waiter in Northern Lights, as after singing one evening he left the dining room, and right before singing another night I saw him walk into the dining room.

For those who want to see or avoid some evenings of entertainment, this is what we had:

Monday - Darwin singing

Tuesday - none

Wednesday - Gangham Style and I think Darwin?

Thursday - Shake shake shake

Friday - Low low low (apple bottom jeans) and Darwin

Saturday - the usual leaving the fun ship song and Darwin

Meredith

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After dinner it was my usual casino time, where I got the Drinks on Us card the second evening.

Earlier in the day was the first slot tournament. Didn't come close to qualifying, but two in our group did. They got blue t-shirts in the finals. Unfortunately, neither won. This was also the first time to meet Mihai and Zelia, the casino hosts. They were both very friendly and very visible throughout the week, not just at the tournaments. My mom didn't play as much in the casino as I did (she still won over $600!), but Mihai gave my mom a free drink on her birthday, which was Thursday.

I think it was this afternoon that Jennifer dealt me a straight flush in 3 Card. Got my drink card and a straight flush. Also hit the 8 quick hit jackpot that night for around $1000. You would think I came home with money. (You would be wrong if you thought that, BTW!). Slot tip - I hit my biggest wins, as did my mom, after 12:30 am. Later in the week I hit almost $800 on jackpot party. This same night a woman near me was waiting for a slot tech to release her $1800 win. Just found that interesting to see so many wins late in the evening.

Next up - Tuesday, another fun day at sea.

Meredith

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Great review! Keep it coming! :)

Tuesday was wine pairing day. I almost always go, and I almost always wonder why. This one was a little different, the sommelier used a couple different items on the food plate for pairing. And the wines were different, as they tend to vary. Nothing top dollar, of course, but all were decent. I can't remember the sommelier's name as he didn't make a big impression on me. And I was dead-on with that as my impression of him went down the tubes some more at our steakhouse dinner on Thursday. But more on that when I get to Thursday. ;). He seemed knowledgable enough, though. My friend and I like to indulge in some nice wines in the steakhouse, so we chatted with him about that in preparation for Thursday. He quickly gathered what we liked and ended up making a very good recommendation for us. But, I digress. That's for Thursday.

I honestly can't remember what all I did on Tuesday. Casino, of course. Around 4:00 I was getting sleepy so I left the casino and went right outside to a deck chair and took a nap. It was a nice, quiet, peaceful hour for the most part. There was some happy hollering going on down by the entrance to Ocean Plaza, but nothing that was bothering me. I had that section of the deck all to myself. :)

Dinner, I think I'm ready for a change in the menus, they've been the same for a while now. Except for my favorites, of course. Tonight was onion soup, at least, which I love on the ship. I ended up just having a flat iron steak for dinner, but it just tasted bland tonight for some reason. But it could've just been me. I was tired and feeling blah, so I went straight to bed after dinner (a rarity for me that I would do tomorrow as well!).

Next is Wednesday - Roatan and an "interesting" greeting awaiting us on the catamaran we sailed for the day!

Meredith

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Another thing I remembered.. (Told you I'm random!)

Regarding casino comps...last July I accumulated just over 3k points in the slots along with a good chunk of table time. I called OPC beforehand and was given $25 in cash. When I went to pick it up there was no record of it. They told me to check back later that evening, and when I did, they were able to get it confirmed. But back to the comps..

I was talking to the casino host about my new "strategy" - what I do now is play the slots at least until I get the 1500 points for the drinks on us card before I move to the tables, since I can get free drinks at the tables also, not just slots. Your table doesn't count towards this card. It was mentioned that unless you're betting big $25-$50/hand over a significant period of time - there aren't really any comps to be had just with table play. But slot play combined with table play (see below) may get you somewhere if you're like me and primarily stick to $5-$10/hand. The best way for most people to get comps in the casino is via slot points.

Also, a tip I picked up here - when sitting down at a table, NEVER give them chips to break down for you. ALWAYS use cash. When you use cash, they are now always asking for your card for a potential rating. They do not ask when you sit down with chips, they are only tracking how much money you're pumping into the table. If you change tables, pocket the chips and sit down at the next table and pull out cash. If you don't have any cash, go cash out your chips and then use that. I still don't know what kind of rating system they're using at the tables, but I do know they're only using it if you start out with cash.

At the end of the week I was given the VIP casino letter with the BBC code. The casino host talked told me to make sure I called about my upcoming cruise for comps, as getting the letter will get me something. What, I don't know. Probably not much, I'm no high roller, but when I finally do call I will post it here! The letter was also good for making a booking, but it didn't look to be anything specific to the premier cruises. For those who are curious, I ended up with about 5200 points on the slots, which was higher than anyone else I saw on the slots that week, and probably sat down at the tables with around $1,000 (but using the tip above, a lot of that was recycled, so to speak). I definitely saw quite a few people playing $25/hand for long periods of time at the tables, but I was not one of them.

Meredith

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Wednesday. Wednesday, Wednesday. Today we booked a private excursion on a catamaran for a sail and snorkel in Roatan. We were the only cruisers on the excursion. The rest appeared to be resort guests on the island.

We found our check-in point outside the pier area fine, and met up with some others who had booked different excursions with the company. Our driver - a blonde-haired, blue-eyed, 5th generation native to the island who's never been to the US and who's great-great grandfather came from South Carolina - dropped them off and then took us away to our catamaran. Where we were apparently the last arrivals, as it appears a group of 6 French Canadians had beaten us to the catamaran and were waiting on us.

Now, I have nothing against the Québécois. But it is obvious this particular group was very proud of their bodies, especially the one in particular who chose to greet us in a rather suggestive pose, sitting next to his apparent wife, in a very see-through white Speedo. With his legs spread rather wide open, hands behind his head. :eek: And while he was thin and trim, his wife was much better suited for her white thing bikini than he was for a white Speedo. It's not what he was wearing that made us giggle all afternoon, it's the fact that he thought and acted that he was all that and really wasn't that made the afternoon so entertaining.

So back to the actual excursion. Six of us went, and we had a wonderful, relaxing afternoon sailing. We had a good chunk of time to snorkel in the Blue Channel, before the other boats got there, our captain said. And the snorkeling there was just amazing. Huge wall of coral, all kinds of fish all over. Despite the relatively shallow water, there were divers swimming around as well, if that gives you an indication of how amazing it was down there (sort of the opposite of Mr. White Speedo...).

The excursion got us back in plenty of time, but hungry. After discovering there was no where to eat in the immediate port area, we headed to Mohogany Beach for food. I went for a dip in the water and found it very cloudy compared to the West Bay where our catamaran was. Still nice and refreshing, and shortly after getting out I was greeted with my attitube glass. Now here they are apparently very proud and protective of these glasses. My cabin mate, who also ordered one of these glasses, was sucking her drink down very quickly - or so I thought. We noticed a puddle around her glass. Now I was drinking mine pretty fast and she was twice as far into hers as I was, so it was obvious it was leaking. Still, it was a tough sell to get them to put even just a little bit more into a fresh cup to make up for what had leaked all over the table. They took it away with about a quarter remaining, and brought it back about a third full. My glass was rocking severely, so I requested a different glass. I poured my drink into the new glass, tested it, and the bartender says, "no difference, huh?" When in actuality it was much better.

So two of us return to the ship to ride waterslides, while the other four shop some more. We went to ride the slides, and wow, they were FAST. Way faster than I remember. We had a blast on both of them until we got tired of climbing the stairs - no lines, lots of stairs! So we found some shaded chairs in Serenity where we proceeded to take naps for about an hour and a half. We were in the chairs right by the entrance port side, so we could hear the TV and music from Lido - if you want real quiet, don't sit right by the entrance. It was enough for us, though.

Since we were taking pictures and videos and texting them to my brother (I was with his fiancée), I suppose at this point I should mention that I purchased the most expensive Internet package. It was $135 for unlimited Internet, unlimited devices, but only one at a time. I did this to face time with DH and DS who were at home. I tested the connection from my iPhone (the only device I really used it on), and found it to average around 2-2.5 Mbps wherever I was - pretty good for satellite Internet. The face time connection was choppy at times, but we were always able to at least have a conversation. I won't purchase it in August when they're on the cruise with me, but it was worth the money to me to keep in touch with them - and to make all my FB friends jealous with pictures and videos. ;)

Meredith

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Dinner that night was more of the same. I don't know if I'm just bored with the food, or it really wasn't that great, but overall it was just fairly blah. Not horrible - everything was cooked properly, and served hot - but was just blah. It didn't excite me. My mom hated the buffet. This was her first Carnival cruise in 3 1/2 years, so she was pretty disappointed in the buffet. She agreed with me on the dining room - not terrible, just no "WOW" to it.

I should also mention that the Magic now has the "new" pizza. I honestly hated it at first - the sauce was bland, and there wasn't nearly enough cheese, even though what was there was good. However, it grew on me by the end of the week to the point where I can't say which one I really prefer. I love thin crust pizza, and love the new cheese, but the sauce is a bit lacking in flavor to me compared to the old pizza. Still edible for that midnight snack, though, and I even had some during lunch one day, something I never did with the old stuff. :)

This was another night where I was tired and worn out, so once again I went to bed right after dinner. I needed to rest up for my exciting day in Belize Thursday - on the ship.

Meredith

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I'm enjoying your review - thanks for posting. What is the e-mail address for the Magic's maitre'd?

I'm really enjoying your review!! We board the Magic Sunday for the first time!!

Good review Meredith!!:) Some good with the not so good!! My next 2 cruises are on the Magic, with March on the same ports!! BTW, you may not remember me but I cruised with you on the S&S Destiny cruise!!:)

Thanks everyone! I'll get to Thursday later this morning - I need to find some toothpicks to hold my eyes open, I'm still not caught up on sleep. :(

I'm enjoying your review - thanks for posting. What is the e-mail address for the Magic's maitre'd?

Email address is mcmaitred@carnival.com. I got a response from Ante within an hour.

Meredith

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Good review Meredith!!:) Some good with the not so good!! My next 2 cruises are on the Magic, with March on the same ports!! BTW, you may not remember me but I cruised with you on the S&S Destiny cruise!!:)

Hi there! What a fun cruise that was. That was #1 and 2 for our soon-to-be little platinum cruiser Ryan. The ones that got him hooked. :)

Meredith

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Toothpicks in place. On to Belize..

I've been to Belize, but not since 2005. However, since I'm doing this itinerary in August, and this was originally supposed to be a cheap 5 day on the Triumph, my mom and I opted to have a quiet ship day, which it definitely was. I was surprised at the number of people who got off the ship. We enjoyed sleeping while the rest of our group got ready to go - five were doing the Altun Ha tour, the other three were cave tubing, all booked through the ship.

I will say that this is a port you need to plan in advance on. It's not very easy to wing it here, and there's really nothing right around the pier area.

For those for you who have never been to Belize, tendering is a bear and a half. In the Fun Times, they announced that relaxed tendering would begin around 11:30 - prior to that your entire group has to meet in Ocean Plaza to get a tender ticket. I would say they actually started relaxed tendering around 11. I have no idea how long of a wait it was to get on a tender after getting a ticket, but they do start handing them out very early. For all three of our ports, people began disembarking prior to our posted arrival time of 8:00, so if you have an early private excursion and are not diamond, platinum, or FTTF, get there really early to get a ticket and you'll be fine. It seemed like it was around 9:30 or so that I started seeing a lot of people walking around with their tender number stickers. Then again, I didn't get to breakfast until 9. :o

At 9:15, an interesting announcement was made. At 10:45, they were going to be shutting the water off for 30 minutes for "routine maintenance". Routine, huh? Yeah, right. Still, we appreciated the heads up of no working toilets, showers, or running water. However, at 11:19, they made the announcement that they were now shutting off the water. It was at this time that I got out of the pool... (Waterworks and the pools were not affected by this announcement. But given that we had been preparing for a 10:45 shut-off and they actually shut it off right when it was supposed to be coming back up, I imagine a few people might've been caught with a full bladder, if you get my drift). No announcement was made on this again, so I'm assuming the water was turned back on as scheduled around 11:50.

Prior to this, I headed up for more waterslide time. Maybe someone complained about the slides being too fast, because they weren't nearly as quick - way more fun Wednesday! Still rode them a few times until my legs begged for mercy from all the stairs - no lines again means no rest!

After some waterslide time, we headed down to the pool area for some sun. At 11:20 I noticed people already lining up for burgers - even though they weren't supposed to open until 12, I thought. Maybe it was 11:30? Regardless, they finally opened at around 11:45. I just sat in my chair in the sun until the line died down and sat down with my burger at 11:55. Little tip here - no need to queue up for burgers on a port day before they open. You're really not beating that many people. ;). And it was all still fresh when I got there.

As usual, I was hungry a couple hours later. I really wanted some BBQ wings from Red Frog, but another tip - when the ship is in port (including Galveston), they do not start serving food until 4:00. So don't waste your time - like I did three times thinking the outcome was going to somehow magically change on me. :(

We stuck around the pub for a while and enjoyed the peace and quiet outside. When the ship is not moving, the area right outside of the pub doesn't get much breeze, so it gets pretty warm. We just stepped right outside the wind barriers and enjoyed a wonderful breeze - and since we were port side, my mom enjoyed a smoke. I sat upwind. ;). Very comfy chairs out in this area right outside the pub, don't think I'd ever sat in this area before.

Another quick random comment before I move on to the evening - bean bag tournament. There is a new guy in charge, and he does things very differently. On our previous two Magic trips we enjoyed the tournaments played in teams - DH and his best friend are probably the reason for the change, as I think they each brought home 10 trophies over the two trips. Anyway, we were looking forward to us ladies teaming up and playing. Alas, it was not meant to be.

The "tournament" is played twice on sea days - 9 and 3. 9 is family time, they wouldn't even let us adults play. They also played at 3 on port days. 3:00 was 18+. Anyway, they only do the solo tournament now -no team style. Bit disappointing, but the bar quickly took care of any and all negative feelings related to this.

So back to Thursday - today was my mom's birthday and our steakhouse dinner. I made an online reservation for the 10 of us at 8:00 about 4 weeks out (since we technically didn't book until 6 weeks out...). We decided to get our showers out of the way before our cabin mates got back. I suppose this was around 3 ish? It was a lukewarm shower - previous showers had been nice and toasty, but I was wondering if the "maintenance" had jacked with the hot water somehow. When the other two came back, they noticed it also. But all was well by the next day. Maybe the hot water just had a really long way to travel to get to us?

Coming up - the wonderful steakhouse meal with the lackluster sommelier and stubborn chef, and the case of the not-meant-to-be room service. And I finally make it out to the disco!

Meredith

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Before our picture taking and dinner, we stopped by early seating for the dining room entertainment. We had been told that this was the night for my favorite, Low Low Low (which I jam to every morning in my car on the way to work. Guess you cold call this song my toothpicks). Alas, tonight was Shake Shake Shake, still another good one. We - well, I; the rest of them watched - danced with our waiters since I guess his early seating table wasn't a dancing group. After crashing early seating, we took off to take pictures whilst being twisted around like a pretzel.

I forgot to add that the other eight in our group who did ship tours loved them. The cave tubing group was late getting back. Traffic, I think. To my knowledge, we didn't leave anyone behind, so if anyone else was late, the cave tubers helped cover them.

Eight of us went to check in for our 8:00 steakhouse reservation while the other two went to pick up their new watches. They were ready right on time, so we all got to the steakhouse a few minutes early. We had to sit at the bar for about two minutes before our table was ready five minutes early. So far, so good. But that didn't last long.

We sat down, got our menus, watched the meat presentation which had most of us drooling...and then sat. And sat. And sat. I know this is supposed to be an experience, but we sat for almost 40 minutes before they took our order. I know this because I timed it. (Habit of mine.). I watched the servers rush to clear tables around us as soon as people got up, and then watched them sit empty for 15 minutes. I watched a couple who sat down about 15 minutes after us get their appetizers before we had even ordered. I understand this is not to be a rushed experience, but it does not take 40 minutes to decide what you want to eat. I finally had to flag someone down and let them know we were ready to order. I've eaten with big groups in the steakhouse before and it's never taken this long to order.

Before this, the sommelier had taken the wine order of the two of us sharing the nice wine. We chose a glass of white to go with our appetizers. This was chosen on his recommendation after hearing what we had last time and what we liked and didn't like about it. I will say he chose very well, it was an excellent recommendation and not the most expensive by the glass on the menu. I'm normally not a big white fan but I loved this one. We also chose our steakhouse favorite for dinner that we can it find anywhere except here - we first ordered it in 2011 and he said they were down to six bottles. Well, they're at least down to five now. It was not cheap at $130. However, we have found a different vintage at Spec's for around $100, so the markup on the more expensive wines does not appear to be nearly as bad as the $26 they charge for the cheap Smoking Loon I can get at HEB for $6. But back to the sommelier...

He came back with the decanter and candle - the candle being used to see if there's any sediment in the wine. We had to take his word on there being no sediment as he poured it behind us. It was at this point we all noticed the table of 6 with Carnival name tags that had sat down across the restaurant. This was not a group of staff. It was a table of six important-looking men in suits in their 40s and 50s.

So we still have our full glass of white wine, and the fancy red has just been decanted. Normally a bottle is supposed to sit in the decanter a bit, to breathe. However, he grabs the decanter and my glass, and proceeds to fill it up, without even pouring me a taste first - standard practice for ordering a bottle of wine. Then he fills up the other glass of the other wino, and takes off. This is the last we would see of him until it came time to pay the bill. Now, the wine was just as wonderful as we remembered, and I will still order a bottle in August if there's any left. But the presentation was terrible. Not letting it decant properly, not pouring a taste, pouring us each a full glass when we still had a full glass of white in front of us - all seemed to be a rush job to just get over to the big wig table ASAP. And we saw him hovering over that table the rest of the time we were there. I did not say anything about it to him, because my bottle sharing buddy was saying more than enough for both of us when the checks came - a bit too much, IMO, we had to take her down a notch. :)

Back to the food. As I mentioned earlier, the appetizers came fairly quick. The main entrees did not. I will say that the sommelier did do a good thing for us, even if he didn't ever come back to the table - we saw him look at our table and notice we had no food. He went into overdrive and rushed around and we got our food pretty quick after that. But enter stubborn chef.

I ordered my ribeye medium rare. I have been ordering steaks like this in this same steakhouse, and in the dining room for three trips on this ship now, and they have always been perfect - or pretty close. My steak was still raw when I got it. My mom ordered hers medium. It looked perfectly medium rare to me. She decided to make a go of hers, but I sent mine back. It came back still raw. I sent it back again. It came back with a message - "The chef says this is medium rare." When it's still raw. While explaining this to the server, and that apparently the chef and I have a different opinion and that I don't want it raw - the chef comes to the table, which appears to impress the servers. But all he came out to say was that it was medium rare, not to apologize. I explained to him that it appeared we had a difference of opinion and that's fine, but I did not want my steak raw, and pointed to my mom's and said that's how I wanted it. It came back overcooked for me - a perfect medium. Sigh. My mom and I ended up just switching steaks, and all was well. They offered to cook a new one for me, and the hostess and servers were very apologetic (which they really didn't need to be, they didn't cook it), but there was no need when my mom and I could just switch and we were both happy.

I failed to mention that earlier in the evening, the sommelier had come by the table asking who Meredith was. I raised my hand and he informed me that the casino wished to send me off from the steakhouse with a nice bottle to enjoy for the evening. I was surprised because 1 - I'd never played enough on the slots for my play to get tracked, usually I sat at the tables, and 2 - I couldn't remember telling Mihai I was eating in the steakhouse, how the heck did he find me? (I never did figure it out!). They sent me with a bottle of Hess Chardonnay, which sells for about $38 on the ship. Not bad. :). But because of the drinks on us card, the bottle came home with me. I think it will be quite tasty poolside this weekend.

And now I will explain why you pick and choose your battles, and when you do choose your battles, you can still not be rude about it. We went back to the cabin after dinner to change for disco time. It was at that moment I was asked if I grabbed my camera. Oh, %#+*! For you camera buffs, I was about to cry because said camera was my Canon 7D with a 28-70L on it. For you non camera buffs, this is a $2,000+ setup. I ran back up to the steakhouse and found the hostess who, after apologizing profusely for the steak mishap, I told she didn't cook it and didn't blame her for it and the steak I did eat was great. She said they had just sent the camera down to Guest Services. Once leaving the steakhouse (hey, I do have some class to wait!) I took my shoes off and sprinted across the ship to Guest Services. After asking me to describe the camera and looking at a couple of pictures on it, I was reunited with my Beast (if you've ever held a getup like that you know why I call it my Beast!). Crisis over, it was time to drink and party in the disco - after returning the Beast safely to the cabin and grabbing my smaller waterproof/shockproof Nikon (I know, I know, Canon and Nikon? The horror!) to capture those pictures that must never see the light of day.

I rambled way too much on the steakhouse, so disco and room service will have to wait until I actually get some more work done!

Meredith

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Excellent and straight from the heart review Meredith! Thanks.

Traveling on this same itinerary in November on the Magic! Looking forward to the next log.

-Boomer

Thursday night - I finally made it to the disco, yay! Though I think this one night is the reason I didn't gain any weight this time - besides all the dancing, first there were my shoes. They were hurting my feet so I took them off. Security didn't like that too much (a first for me), so off to the cabin to change. Then the battery died in my camera. Off to change that. Then I had to run back to the cabin for some other not-remembered reason.

This was the night of the white party. Wear white and get $1 off drinks all night. Not really sure how this worked. Others in our group were wearing white, but no one got $1 off. Maybe they meant head to toe white? No clue, but we didn't care. My mom had tipped a waitress who had been taking care of her all week $20 to keep taking care of us, and boy, did she. When I knocked down my friend's margarita and ordered her another one, she came back with frozen instead of the requested on the rocks. She just apologized and said she'd leave that one there, and brought back the correct one and just charged me for one. Somehow my friend made do drinking both. ;)

Song requests - said friend was requesting songs and they would get played - eventually. He was always saying it's coming right up. If 30 minutes is coming right up, I'd hate to see his version of "in a little bit!" Still, the song got played. And we were having plenty of fun in the meantime. They played all of the usual favorites, though as the evening went on the hip hop songs were getting closer and closer to full-on rap. Which I don't necessarily mind, I just didn't recognize any of the songs. Wow, am I getting old already?

Until I did get bored after a while, not too sure why. Maybe I was just going through casino withdrawals since I had stayed in the last two nights? Whatever the reason was, I made my way down to the casino and sat down in front of jackpot party. Four spins in - thank goodness, since it was $6/spin, I think the alcohol caught me from catching that right away, but in this case, I'm glad I didn't catch it! - I hit the bonus game, which ended up rolling on to the tune of $790. Again, after 12:30. This was after 1:30, I think. Wandered around the casino a bit, chatting with my buddy Rohan the slot tech who was great to talk to, before I decided to grab my pizza and call it. Pizza was tasting pretty good to me now by this point - I may survive the new pizza yet! I will say the pepperonis are delilciously crispy - love me some crispy pepperonis!

Arrive to the room to find my mom and our friend waiting on BLTs they ordered from room service. I think it's about 2:30 at this point. And at about 3:00 they fell asleep, hungry. This was the night we had tried to get extra room service door tags from our steward. My friend saw a cabin steward in the hall earlier and asked him for some, and the response was, "Ask your cabin steward, he can get them for you." Ummm, no, apparently he can't, which is why we asked you...so no BLTs, no room service tags, so up to breakfast we would go in the morning. 6:45 was going to come reeaaallly early - with a short port time, we wanted to be ready by 7:30 in case they let us off the ship early (they did) so we could get shopping out of the way and head to the beach.

Friday - Paradise Beach, and an Allure of the Seas photo-bombing (no, I don't have the picture, before you get excited - never could find it! :()

Meredith

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Great job Meredith!!!....Were you playing any Blackjack or just 3 Card???

Great job Meredith!!!....Were you playing any Blackjack or just 3 Card???

Thanks. :). I played a bit of blackjack and broke even. Tried to get $100 off my card, but the my credit card got de-linked from my S&S card, so Leslie got $100 off her card for me. Played for a bit, went up, and went I got down to $105 I just gave it to her to pay off my debt, so to speak. I played Let It Ride for a bit. I love that game, but it just hates me for some reason. It ate my breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Twice. :eek:

Meredith

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Just got off the phone with OPC. I'll have $50 and the drinks on us card waiting for me in August. :D. Now off to work on Friday.

Meredith

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Thanks. :). I played Let It Ride for a bit. I love that game, but it just hates me for some reason. It ate my breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Twice. :eek:

 

 

Meredith

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LOL

Just got off the phone with OPC. I'll have $50 and the drinks on us card waiting for me in August. :D.

 

Meredith

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Sweet!!!

Thanks for the review and the maitre'd's e-mail address. We sail on Magic on May 19. I just e-mailed Ante and received a reply about thirty minutes later.

Oh, how early 6:45 came Friday morning..

We verrrryyy sllooooowwwly woke up, got dressed, beach bags packed, and made our way to breakfast. We stuck close to the original schedule, and got off the ship right around 8:00.

This was the morning I finally went to complain to Guest Services about ours cabin steward, and get some $1 bills since the machine didn't spit them out. I tried not to feel bad about using the VIP line, but I've earned that right. And it's not my fault there were 6 people in line and only one person working the desk. I got some glares, all right, but the glares really should've been going to Guest Services for not having anyone else working the desk. Got my bills broken out, gave the list of things we'd asked for but weren't getting, and went on our way. As I was leaving a second person did come out to help, and the line seemed to be moving pretty quick after that.

One thing I noticed in Roatan and Cozumel was despite us getting off fairly early (8:30 in Roatan and 8:00 in Belize) I saw none of the crowds we used to see on the stairs. Used to seeing the stairs backed up to deck 2 in some cases. Both times we walked right to deck 0 and got right off. I could get used to this!

Getting off in Cozumel is always a bit frustrating. I like to take the gangway pictures, and the picture of the wheel with the ship in the background, but pictures with random people in traditional clothing does nothing for me. Well, one year I did buy the picture of my son with the skeleton guy, he had a funny expression on his face. My son, not the skeleton guy. But it's always quicker to just take the picture than it is to try and refuse, so I went along with a smile and stopped every 10 inches to pose with a random person.

Now I didn't notice this at the time, but when I went to look for the pictures (I always like to see the even if I never buy them!), I noticed the photographer royally screwed up his placement of the shot with the Mexican woman. You see, the Allure of the Seas was docked at the International pier. Right next door. So guess what was in the background of every single picture with this woman? A beautiful shot of the flagship for their main competition. An entire wall of the Allure of the Seas over. And over. And over. I actually wanted to buy that picture because it was just so funny at how great the picture came out - of the Allure. Unfortunately, I couldn't find it, so on the shelf it stayed - wherever it was. Maybe it was one of those "you had to be there" moments. But it was really funny.

Back to Cozumel. We got off, did some shopping, and five of us headed to Paradise Beach for the day. The cab ride was $20 total for the five of us, and admission to the facility was $2/pp. Some may balk at this, but to me it is well worth it. We have been going to PB for years, and I have seen them reinvest so much money in the property. I don't mind paying a little more over the years when so much of it is reinvested for the enjoyment of their guests. (For those wondering, the bracelet for the water toys is still $12).

We really just hung out at the pool for the day. About four drinks and a couple bottles of water each, and three meals for the five of us to split, and the total was $200. It may sound like a lot, but that's 20 drinks and 10 bottles of water, plus the three meals. $40/pp for the day was a great deal to us. It was just a wonderful, relaxing day with best service I've ever had there. Possibly because there were only two ships in port (granted, those two ships probably carried around 10k passengers total, but it was still just two ships), possibly because we stayed at the pool and most everyone else goes to the beach - I don't know, and I don't care. It was a near-perfect day.

We got back to the ship around 2:00. I don't really remember what I did. Oh, yeah, past guest party. Who plans a past guest party at 4:30 when we don't leave Cozumel until 4:00? We got back early enough, so we went, and it was the same ol', same ol', but with better drinks and appetizers. The first drink was the Fun Ship. They also walked around with beer. My wino buddy and I asked if they had any red wine, and we were offered Fun Ships. Took them, but they were pretty sweet after drinking the red stuff all week. We found another who took pity on us and tipped to keep bringing us red wine, which she happily agreed to. We saw a few others drinking red wine also, and a couple of people getting served different drinks. So it's possible,but you may have to ask a couple of times. BTW, party was in the big show time theater forward.

The appetizers was a bit of a sore spot. In our particular row, it seemed they thought none of us were hungry. I watched three trays of food go down one row, but our row and the one in front and behind us were getting nothing. Had to flag someone down and ask them to send someone our way. When they finally did come over, they didn't make it even halfway before running out. The drinks were plentiful, I don't know how anyone would go thirsty at this party!

So they had first time gold cruisers stand up, then first time platinum cruisers stand up, and then they had the diamonds on stage. Did I hear the one woman correctly when she said she had over 1500 days? :eek: Sat at the three card table with her and her husband Saturday night, they were a lot of fun. Even a cane didn't stop them from dancing at the party, so cute! And, yes, they played the video. And I laughed when James laughed when he called out the Triumph. So it seems the ship employees can laugh about it. Or so I thought. More on that when I get to Saturday...

Went to the Red Frog to hang out a bit and get some more food since let's face it, h'or d'oeuvres (did I spell that even close to right?) are not a meal. So for the third time of the week, I had some of those wonderfully yummy BBQ chicken wings I love so much. We ended up sitting next to three guys who were apparently in big trouble with their wives, so spent a good hour or so just hanging out and cracking up. Except we might've gotten them into more trouble for talking to us. Oops.

Dinner that night was filet mignon, yummy! (Cooked perfectly medium rare, take that stubborn stakehouse chef!). Can't remember what I did that night, but I'm sure it involved the disco and casino at some point. Tidal waves combined with fun ship combined with lots of red wine can do a number on your memory, it seems. Whatever I did, it was fun!

Next up - last sea day :(, and maybe the Triumph jokes aren't so funny after all...

Meredith

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