mz-s

Great itinerary, and I like the Magic a lot.

Carnival does still offer an afternoon tea on sea days, usually around 3PM. But to the rest, no.

Do you have any specific questions about Carnival? I have no idea what people are asking for when they ask for "tips"

The Carnival airport transfers are dead simple. Don't worry about it!

Mardi Gras is Carnival's flagship. I would much rather go to Half Moon Cay than Nassau however and I don't think anyone would disagree with that. So it really depends, are you more of a ship cruiser or a destination cruiser. If the ship is your destination, then Mardi Gras. If you're more interested in the ports of call, then Vista. Frankly although I love Half Moon Cay I don't hate Nassau and I am more of a ship as the destination cruiser anyway so I'd pick Mardi Gras.

Usually it's 8:30 you must be out of your room.

https://www.carnival.com/vifp/benefits

The key to using third party parking/shuttles like this is to take advantage of priority/self-assist disembarkation and being one of the first off the ship. Otherwise yeah I agree you are going to be waiting for a bit to have a seat on the shuttle. While I haven't sailed Mardi Gras with 6000 guests, I have sailed on ships with ~3000 and the longest I had to wait for a parking shuttle was 15-20 minutes.

Sounds I need to book another cruise on Magic!

You should raise that concern at the next shareholder meeting or quarterly earnings report.

She was drydocked in 2021, but they didn't really do anything besides paint the hull and expand the casino.

As Carnival learned during the restart when their ship had to be escorted into NY Harbor because of the brawls onboard and almost weekly they were featured on Inside Edition, they do not want to offer free cruises to all of them.

Cheap - good - easy --- pick any two. Cruise terminal - good and easy. Offsite parking - cheap and good. Recommend you look into: Go Port 3345 N Courtenay Pkwy, Merritt Island, FL 32953 If you are platinum/diamond or otherwise have priority disembark, then you shouldn't have any issues getting back to Go Port after the cruise because you'll be on one of the first shuttles back. JMO...

Pretty sure if you booked with a TA, they will have to add it for you. That's probably your issue.

Free pizza and frozen non-dairy dessert.

I mean it's your money but if this were my only cruise, or planning to be my only cruise, I'd just go with an ID and birth certificate .... each to their own.

It's funny because the only time I can get notifications from the hub app at all is when I have forgotten to delete the app from my phone and I'm back home. For some reason it rarely ever works onboard. I have to leave the app open and be staring at it for it to tell me when my table is ready.

The decision may indeed end up being reversed if enough casino rats revolt. Carnival's entire house of cards collapses without the casino.

It's just a way for some folks on here to avoid blaming Carnival directly even though it's a complete red herring.

Sorry, sometimes we focus on unimportant details in threads like this 😉

If I were discussing Carnival Corporation & PLC specifically, I would say Carnival Corp rather than CCL. To me, CCL singles out the flagship cruise line of Carnival Corporation.

Plenty of cruise ships sail out of Lauderdale, but not Carnival. I would much rather sail out of Miami than Canaveral if I'm flying, personally. But then again, if I were sailing Carnival out of either port I would only consider Mardi Gras or Celebration.

Carnival doesn't sail from FLL currently, so I am not sure what OP is talking about here. Perhaps OP means they're flying into FLL? But what does that have to do with the Magic...lots of folks fly into FLL and sail out of MIA.

Carnival is not known for their immaculate maintenance and Magic is an older ship at this point by those standards. I was last on Magic over Labor Day 2023 so I can't speak to her current condition. Back then, basically all the carpet all over the ship had stains and most chairs and loungers were stained as well. I did notice that the crew were replacing carpets on port days so I am hopeful that they have taken care of a lot of those issues between then and now.

On the Legend last week, the crew just asked guests to eat over trash cans. (sarcasm)