Marauder40

10 minutes ago, ninjacat123 said:

I think she would be fine on Serenity as long as she's not doing cartwheels or stuff like that.

She is very much a rule follower so I doubt she would even try, but like I said she looks very young so I am sure people will question her.

Thanks for all the suggestions, especially the tour and gambling.  She is a huge penny pincher with her own money but might do it if we gave her some of our money.  Although she HATES cigarette smoke so if it smells like the casino on the Carnival Magic, there is no way she would sit in there 

1 minute ago, FlaMommy75 said:

What week are you on? 

We won't be on until next year.  Pretty far in advance, but she is the type of person that she is already concerned about what she will do.

We are getting ready to take our 20 year old daughter (19 now, 20 as of the sailing) on the Carnival Horizon.  She is wondering what types of things will be good for her age range on board.  She just found out the minimum age range for Serenity deck is 21.  This will be her second cruise and the last time she was the age range for Club O2 and participated in a lot of the daytime Club O2 activities.  She didn't like the nighttime activities at all.

Other then trivia contests and the scavenger hunt, any suggestions on formal activities for her?  She is very young looking for her age so suggesting things like "sneaking" onto the Serenity deck isn't an option. 

I like how people are talking about being on lots of cruises and never seeing a fight.  We were on our first cruise ever on the Carnival Magic in August.  While on an excursion at Amber Cove  during the lunch served on the excursion two ladies from the same cruise got into a fight.  Several people from the excursion got called in to break them up.

I was on the Magic 4 weeks ago.  We had the social internet plan.  We had no problem at all, Whatsapp both text and pics worked pretty quick.  Since we had the plan, occasionally I would monitor Facebook, things like pics and vids took awhile to load, but would eventually come in.  Was able to check in for our return flights with Southwest Airlines with no problem, clicked at the 24 hour mark and got the checkin right away.

On Grand Turk we just did a beach day.  At Amber Cove, we did the Big 3 adventure that included both a ropes course and zip-lining over the ocean.

We had late seating in MDR so no comments on any-time dining.   I have a pretty detailed review of my trip, so feel free to look for it in my post history.

This was our first ever cruise so can't answer New Years Eve questions.

13 minutes ago, Joebucks said:

 

If anything, I would like to see more stuff available in the shops.

 

When my son was on the Magic a month ago we tried to find a model of the ship.  We were shocked that we couldn't find a ships model.  The only thing we found was a blow up toy.  He specifically wanted one shaped like the Magic.  The only things we can find online are real expensive models similar to what you would put somewhere on the ship as a display.  He was looking more for either a Lego version, a toy, or something like he got on the USS New Jersey, a small metal version of the ship.

Disembarkation and Everglades Excursion

When we originally booked our airline tickets we were supposed to have a 1:00 p.m. departure from Ft. Lauderdale.  A month before the cruise we were told that due to the 737 Max issues we were bumped to a 4:15 flight.  Due to that we had a tough time figuring out what to do on our final day.  We knew that if we got to the airport to early they wouldn't even accept our bags and we knew we couldn't delay getting off the ship that long.  

We found the Everglades experience through Carnival and decided to try that.  They take you to a location in the Everglades for a swamp boat ride and alligator show.  They also hold your luggage in the bus, so you don't have to worry about it.  On our final sea-day we booked the excursion.  When we booked the excursion they said we could either take our luggage with us or we could get a priority luggage tag.  We took the luggage tags and they were for Zone 4.  We were then supposed to meet in the theater by 8:45.  

So the next day we got dressed, ate a quick meal in the MDR, and went back to our room to pick up our carry-ons and left the room for the final time.

We got into the theater at 8:40 and it seems everyone was waiting for us.  They took us right to the gangway and said that there would be people on the other side of customs looking for us based on a sticker they gave us that we were supposed to wear.

After scanning off the ship we made our way down the ramps and our luggage was very easy to find in area 4.  The line was about 20 minutes long, but kept moving the entire time.  On the other side of customs someone saw our sticker and just said something like "Go that way, its the last bus."  Of course both the people in front of us were confused but we kept going that way.   Of course they didn't say which section of buses, but we eventually found our bus.  You had to tell the driver what airline you were on because they would put your luggage in the bays of the bus based on what terminal/stop they would have to drop you off at.  We were some of the first people on the bus.  We found four seats together and waited for the rest of the people.  It turned out that EVERY seat in the bus was going to be taken.

Since EVERY seat was taken, a few of the last families on board had to split up a little.  They told us that both our carry-ons and our luggage would be safe the entire time so there was no need to worry about them.  They then drove about 20 minutes to Everglades Holiday Park.  During the drive, our guide talked about what to expect at the park and some area sites.

When we got to the park they dropped us off in the parking lot and told us where to line up and where to take a bathroom break if needed.  After a short wait they took our pictures (that we received for free) and assigned us to boats.  Each boat was assigned about 10 people (nowhere near full) and we were off.  The boats are all designed and made at the park, they aren't what you think about when you think about a swamp boat.  They are covered and have a plastic windshield.  They probably could hold about 30 people if crammed in but I bet the weight might cause bottoming out in places.

The took us through the park looking for alligators.  The driver of the boat gave lots of information about the Everglades.  Occasionally they would take the boat up to full speed, other times we were just wandering out.  At one point they stopped to feed some birds that ate bread right out of your hands.

The swamp tour section is about an hour long and towards the end we didn't think we would ever see an alligator.  They kept on saying "So and So alligator usually hangs out here but they are wild animals and don't always come out on our timing."  Towards the end we finally saw three alligators.

After the hour was up they took us back to the dock and we could either go to the gift shop, the snack bar or go to a gator show.  It turns out the gator shows are all run by volunteers, so you never know who you will get, but it turned out we got the lead person from the Animal Planet show "Gator Boys" (a show that nobody in our family had seen.)  He talked about the fact that this wasn't your typical gator show where the people show you how dangerous and scary gators are.  That this was a rescue location and even though you have to respect the gators and they are dangerous, that they aren't what TV likes to make them out to be.  Ironic coming from someone that was on a TV show that would do that.

After that we went to the gift shop and snack bar.  I bought some gator bites for my family to try.  I had them before but they never did.  They seemed to like them.  "Tastes like chicken."  At one point we had about 15 minutes until we were supposed to be back at the bus and saw the guide.  We asked him to verify the time to be back on the bus and he said, no problem, just be back in 15 minutes at the bus.  10 minutes later we were the last people back at the bus and people had taken our seats on the bus even though we had left our stuff on the bus.  We were ticked considering part of the stuff we had left was a very expensive medical device that the person doesn't need to wear if it is real hot. 

One of the people that was on the bus (who was traveling alone) was upset about their seat so they took it upon them self to move to the front.  Of course that caused a snowball effect that instead of complaining to the guide or driver and them doing anything about it other people that came back on the bus and moved their locations without doing anything, so since we were last on the bus we ended up having to split up and make sure nothing was damaged in our stuff.  I appeared nobody had moved the medical device since they probably didn't know what it was, but my son's bag was being stepped on by the family that took his seat.  Luckily everything was fine but we were still upset that even though they claimed we didn't have to take anything with us our stuff still got messed with because they wouldn't confront the one person that caused the entire issue.

They ended up getting us back to the airport by about 1:00.

All in all it was an OK excursion.  It was a good first time excursion for my kids who had never done anything like that and a good waste of time that would have just been waiting at the airport otherwise.  But I doubt we would do it a second time.  Sort of a "been there done that" type of thing.

On the way to the airport, via text message, we found out they delayed our flight by another 50 minutes but at the airport they let us check our bags in anyway, even though we were over the typical 3 hour limit where they normally let you check your bags.  I guess since it was within the 3 hour limit for when our flight was supposed to take off before the delay.  During our wait the airport was shutdown for flights for about 20 minutes due a storm, but it didn't affect our flight at all beyond the existing delay.  It turned out the delay was caused by a delay in the flight arriving at Fort Lauderdale.  As soon as that flight landed and everyone deplaned they started calling people to board, and by the scheduled/delayed time to take off we were on our way back home to BWI, which was the sunset on our trip.

Yes HMC requires a tender.  Never had FTTF, but I don't think it allows you to skip the line, but it give allows you to get a higher boarding number, but no differences back from the island.

I was in B4 3 weeks ago.  B3 is in Northern Lights Dining room, the mid-ship dining room, lower level.  B4 was on the upper level of the dining room.

28 minutes ago, richbum said:

Thanks for the review. My granddaughter would like to get one of the bracelets/charms from Diamond International. I remember doing this with y daughter back on our first cruise in 2006...but that was on a royal ship. Do you have to go to one of the shopping talks to get a coupon...or can you just walk into the store and ask for them?

My wife and daughter did go to the shopping talk.  They even bought the book.  They wanted to get as many deals and free things as they could.  I think you don't have to for the bracelet and the charms, but there are additional things you can get for "free" by picking up the coupon book.  They also gave a couple charms for just attending the talk.

In our cabin the TV came with two remotes, one to turn on and off the TV and the other to change the channel.

When we couldn't find the one to turn on and off the TV we looked to see if there was a power button on the TV itself and couldn't find ANYTHING.  No buttons or places to plug things in other then what they used to plug in the box itself, not sure what type of connector that was.

Today's topic will just be a catch-all for all the remaining items that we did on the ship except for Disembarkation and our Ft. Lauderdale excursion.

 Hasbro Game Show

On the final sea-day we attended the Hasbro Game Show.  My daughter is REALLY into game shows.  She loves watching any type of game show she can so we went to this.  Just as a warning, make sure you sit in the main theater area, not on the balconies.  The cruise director was the MC for the event and he specifically said that all people selected for the game would only come from the main floor, but could be ANYWHERE on that level and he did go throughout the theater.  He looked for real enthusiastic people to go up on stage, it didn't surprise me that my daughter tried real hard, but what did surprise me was that my son was jumping up and down to get on stage (that is very unusual for him.) 

They ran a few different games, a lot less then I thought they would, but they did the large Connect 4.  That ran a lot longer then I think they expected due to people being real bad shots.  

When they got to the game Simon Flash they said that they were going to pick one kid and 4 adults.  My teenage daughter was picked as one of the adults.  The reason they wanted larger people was because the box contraption wouldn't fit on a small kid.  The kid was used to lock in the guess when they thought the group had it.

My daughter's group won the first group outright because they were quickest.  The second time they won because the other team locked in the wrong order and the third time it turned out they didn't even have to change positions so they won.  

Everyone that was selected for the show received a small Hasbro game.  My daughter placed second in the final round got a small Jenga set.  The winning kid received a bunch of Hasbro games (that would be mailed to him after the cruise.)

Comedy

On the first evening we went to the see the comic.  Since we had two kids we had to go to the PG show.  I can't remember the comic's name but he was pretty funny.  Everything was pretty safe in his bit, things like air travel, cruise ship life.  My kids loved it.  Guess it was fine for a PG rated show.

Evening Shows

Due to the fact that we had late dining it wasn't always easy to get to the evening shows.  On the night of 88 keys my family went back to the cabin, but I caught the very end of the show.  Not enough to really get an impression.

My family as a whole went to see both America Rocks and Flick.  America Rocks is a rock show with a heavily American theme to it.  Flick was a show based on movies with a pre-show that involved Simon pretending to interview "celebrities" from the ship.  Both shows were pretty good.  The lead male singer wasn't to good.  Not sure how he got to be the lead, he is way overboard in his singing.  Think early Adam Lambert style, before he got the additional training from American Idol in method of singing but not as good, all the strength needed for Broadway style singing but without the tonal control in his voice to really pull it off.  Several of the backup male singers were better and the female lead was very good.

My kids preferred Flick to America Rocks because they recognized more songs in Flick then they did in America Rocks.

Bars

We did not get the drink package.  I probably would have if you were allowed to get one in a room, but my wife is not a big enough drinker to warrant paying for her to get it.  She is more of a one drink a day person of specialty coffees and maybe taking a sip or two out of my drinks.  We did bring our two bottles of wine on board and I would either drink some in the room, or pour wine into the water glass in the room and take it elsewhere on the ship with me.  I only got maybe three more drinks the entire cruise.  One was on the final sea day because my son REALLY wanted the whale-tale cup, so I forced myself to get the drink of the day while laying out on deck.  The other two times was just while waiting in the atrium for different things to happen.   I had no problems ordering my drinks.  The waiters and bartenders were very friendly.  One of the drinks served in the atrium came with the new paper straws and they were useless. Within two sips, nothing came through the straw and then they started to crumble.

The biggest way to save money would be to not dump grey water, sewage, trash where they aren’t allowed to.  Would save lawyer fees, fines, and bad publicity.

If you are talking the whale tail cup, we got one on the Magic 3 weeks ago.  Not all of the bars have them.  The bars on Lido had that one.  The mirror ball one seemed to be available in the theatre, I know the people taking drink orders had them.

Amber Cove & Big 3 Excursion

While preparing for the cruise we decided that we would save our actual paid excursion for Amber Cove.  We weren't real excited to just hang out by a big pool for the day and one of my kids was to young for the zip line at the port so we figured we do beach days at the other two ports and do an excursion at Amber Cove.  We had a tough time deciding between the zip line adventures and the water fall adventure.  When we opened the choice up to the kids they picked the zip-line adventure.

There were 3 different zip-line adventures and we researched all of them.  It turned out that the "zip-line over the ocean" and the "Big 3: Zip-line with ropes course" were the same exact zip-lines, so that narrowed it down to 2 different adventures.  One had more zip-lines but you mainly saw tree tops and a river.  We waited until the week before the trip to book the adventure and the "zip-line over the ocean" sold out, so we signed up tor the Big 3 adventure.  The main difference between the two is that Big 3 adds in the ropes course.  The 3rd thing in the big 3 is just the ride to the location that ALL the different adventures at this location offers.  It turns out that there are 4 different excursions to the same exact area.  One excursion is just a beach excursion that includes just going to the beach with lunch.  The second option is doing the beach and getting all-inclusive drinks and lunch.  The third option is beach with zip lines and lunch.  The fourth option is beach with zip-lines, ropes course, and lunch.  The 2nd option is the only one that included the alcohol but you could buy it there.

We purposely went with a Carnival booked adventure for two reasons.  The first was that this was our first cruise and second because the location of the excursion was so far from the port, didn't want to get stuck.

That day we woke up to us pulling into Amber Cove.  We were supposed to dock around 8:00 a.m. and we had to be at our excursion meetup location by 8:30 a.m.

We quickly went to the MDR for breakfast while we were docking, went back to our room, put on our swim suits, shoes, etc. and as soon as the opened up the gangways, we made our way to the pier.  After the long walk on the pier we found the meetup location for the excursion.  It was the same exact meetup location for all four of the different excursions to Coconut Cove.  My wife was all of a sudden concerned because she heard that part of our "Big 3" excursion included a wild ride to the resort.  I had to explain to her that it was the same exact ride that all 3 of the excursions had to the beach.  At the meetup location they gave us colored wristbands that were different from the other 3 groups.  After awhile waiting for everyone to show up they took us to our vehicles.

The vehicles were open cabs, my wife's concern about being on a wilder ride then the other excursions was lowered when a couple people from one of the other 3 excursions was placed in the same exact vehicle as us.

Our guide got in and they informed everyone that we had a 45 minute ride ahead of us.  Some people must not research things because some of them were surprised.  They offered everyone bottles of water and we head off.  We quickly made our way through the streets of Puerto Plata and then turned off on a rocky, dirty road for the rest of the trip.  I highly advise making sure you wear sun glasses and bring along a bandanna for the dust.  We had bandannas based on other reviews but didn't need them, but you could tell anyone that wasn't wearing glasses of any type were having issues with the dust.  Even though the Big 3 write-up talks about a guided tour showing the life of the DR, the guide barely spoke.  On the way back he showed us a closed school and we stopped at a couple picture spots, but that was about it.

After 45 minutes you make it to their compound/beach area.  They first walk you through their gift shop.  Make sure you wear shorts that come down to your knees and closed-toe shoes if doing the zip-line adventure.  If you don't they will offer to sell you some at their gift shop.  You then need to rent a locker for $5.  ALL your items go into your locker. They let you use the bathroom and change then they put your helmets and harnesses on.  They then give you the safety talk and explain how to zip-line.  They explain that every person has two devices, one stays connected to lines the entire time you are on the zip-lining and ropes courses (except when on land,) the other is only connected when you are zip-lining.   They give suggestions on the best way to zip-line and things like that.

They then take you up steps directly to the first zip-line.  Just note that the first tower can be nerve raking for people with height issues.  Not only is it high, but the tower shakes as people climb it.  I did take a few pictures from the beach when we were done, but I couldn't bring by camera with me.  After zip-lining on a couple lines, you come to an island.  On the island you disconnect from the safety lines and those people that have the ropes course wristband are directed to the ropes course.  The ones with just the zip-line wrist-band are directed to the next line.

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The ropes course is in the distance.

There are two separate ropes courses a higher one for people 15 and over and a lower one for 14 and under.  My son was upset when he found out he couldn't do the same exact course as everyone else. Even if he wanted to, he wouldn't have been able to, many of the obstacles were set up for people much taller then him.  The course is much more tiring and had a lot more elements then the one on the ship.  My wife was exhausted and dehydrated by the end of the ropes course.  My daughter loved it, she even bragged when she caught up to me (of course I kept stopping to watch all 3 of them.)

My son complained that the lower course was "way to easy."  That course is designed for people 8 - 14, so it had to be easier.  After the course you walk up to the next zip-line and this is the big one that they advertise as the zip-line over the ocean.  It was a nice long zip-line and you go fast enough that they have to send a break into your zip-line to slow you down.

Then one final zip-line and you are at the beach.  The final zip-line actually takes you over the beach itself.  After I got off the course I found out that my son was a little upset  that almost every time he was on a zip-line his light weight didn't carry him to the end of the line so someone had to come to get him off the line.  He was a little embarrassed about that and having to use the lower course, but after he got over that embarrassment he talked about how fun it was.

They then walk you back to your lockers and you can get your stuff and either head to lunch or head to the beach.  Since we finished within 15 minutes of the start of lunch we just waited for lunch.

Lunch was very average, it included a few rice dishes, salads and other things like that.  They also had someone cooking chicken on a grill with two different sauces.  You could also get more bottled water and then a rice pudding dessert.  It was good that we didn't have to pay extra for it, but it was just average. Of course you could also buy mixed drinks or beer.

During lunch we had two sets of "entertainment".  The first set was two people from the ship getting into a fight and shouting match with lots of cussing.  The second set was the people from the excursion played some music and had some local dancing.

After lunch we went down to the beach and had our choice of chairs and umbrellas. 

We actually picked some chairs that were under a set of trees.  The had a monkey that you could get a picture with that would climb through the trees.  We went into the water.  The waves were VERY rough, but it was refreshing after the ropes course. The kids did like swimming around in the water.  Between rocks in the water and the rough surf it was hard to stay standing but it was nowhere near as rough as the ocean can get in Maryland.  While on the beach they tried to sell us pictures from the zip-line and they did the soft sell for souvenirs and drinks.

Towards the end they did a few official competitions, including a Frisbee competition that my daughter placed second in.  If she had won, she would have loved to tell her friends that she won a bottle of rum (of course she would have to give it to me.)

Eventually they told everyone that time was up and everyone had to get back in the vehicles to head back to the ship.  One interesting note was that at one point a chicken was crossing the road and someone pointed at it yelling "pollo, pollo, chicken, chicken" while looked at the side of the bus they then said, "Wow, they really made interesting chicken coops for the chicken."  They were pointing at cemetery with above ground internment areas.  She was entirely serious that she thought the graves were chicken coops.  Everyone in the vehicle had a laugh at that.  After the long 45 minute bumpy, dusty, drive back to the port area, we could finally see the ship again.

After getting out of the vehicle, tipping the guide (he was not only the guide for the ride, he was also one of the zip-lining guides) we decided to look around the port area.  We split up, two of us went shopping, the other two went to the bathrooms and then to the pool area.

My daughter was able to get her charm bracelet and free charms from Diamonds International and look around for souvenirs.  My son and I headed for the pool.  We got a virgin mixed drink at the pool and then he did the water slides a couple times.  There wasn't a lot of people at the pool, you could tell a lot had been there but they had already made there way back to the ship.  I camped out underneath a chair and umbrella setup that you could tell someone earlier in the day had rented.  Nobody at the port had an issue with us doing that.  After awhile my wife and daughter met up with us and we made our way back to the ship.  We were honestly happy that we hadn't spent the entire day at the port since my son quickly got bored there.

Impression of Amber Cove

* Lots of activity based excursions each a certain distance from the port

* Nice pool with zip-line at port (if your kid is old enough for the zip-line)

* Pretty port with shopping

* Not a big fan, honestly if we didn't have an excursion, probably would have gotten bored pretty quickly or just stayed on the ship. Needs an area with free beach access.

* long pier makes it harder for being able to go back to the ship for lunch and/or changing

3 minutes ago, dctravel said:

My kids loved the sky course, each going multiple times on several different days. I did it once, hung on to my harness for dear life at some point (I don't love heights) and decided that once was enough! I was really glad I did it though, as that is something I wouldn't do normally!

I went on it once and didn't have any problems with it, but didn't do it again because I was getting hot.  The interesting thing is that my son claims he is afraid of heights but he had no problem doing it multiple times.  In a future post I will be talking about our adventure on a zip-line/ropes course at Amber Cove.

Grand Turk

We weren't due to pull into our next port until 11:00 a.m. so it was a slow morning getting ready.  Went to the MDR for breakfast and slowly got ready. As we were pulling in we noticed that we were pulling in with the Carnival Pride.  That was special for us since we live in the Baltimore area and see the Pride in port all the time (just this past weekend we saw both the Pride in port and the Grandeur of the Seas anchored off-shore due to its engine problems.)

Although we were excited to see the Pride we knew that since the Pride was already in port that meant that things would be crowded and all the best spots would already be taken and we were right.

Soon after they opened the gangway we went ashore.  We quickly walked through the duty-free shop and made our way to the beach.  The goal was to go to Jack's Shack based on reviews from on here.   We quickly saw that ALL of the port green chairs and umbrellas were taken.  Based on previously viewing videos of Grand Turk it looks like they are putting out less and less of the free umbrellas and chairs and more and more of the privately owned ones are going up.

As we were walking LOTS of people kept offering us chairs and other services (i.e. hair braiding, excursions, etc.)  as we walked.  We turned most of them down.

We went past the first swimming area with very few seats available, past the boat pull up area to an area with a blow-up waterpark set up.    I quickly re-thought what I was doing and decided that it might be best to stop here.  We weren't planning on eating a Jack's shack and there was another restaurant/bar with Fee Wifi right there so if we really wanted to we could get something there so we decided to get some chairs near the floating water park.  All the front row seats in that area were taken by people from the Pride, so we quickly paid $20 for our two seats, and the guy got us an umbrella and put it up for us.  $20 for an arm band for our son for the water park and our beach day was on.

Luckily you could swim on either side of the water park for free, so my daughter got out the snorkeling gear and swam on each side of the water park while my son was on the water park.  Within 5 minutes he had hurt himself jumping off the high section and didn't want to go back, but we quickly convinced him to go back.  It turned out on the right side side of the water park underwater was an old sunken ship frame that we could look at and surface dive down to.  One warning about the water park is that your really need to watch your kid, there are people from the island also watching but they seem to be there to just help the kids get back on if they fall or up the tall thing.  Occasionally they would be talking with each other and not paying attention, don't assume they are life-guards.  

The sand on the beach was nowhere near as soft as Half Moon Cay but it was fine, there were a lot more rocks in the actual water, almost considered putting on the water shoes but was able to get by without them.

Eventually it was time for the people on the Pride to make their way back to the ship.  We quickly moved from the third row of chairs to the front row of chairs.  The person watching the chairs had no problem with this, but he was constantly on anyone trying to sit down without paying.

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Things quickly got less crowed as more and more people from the Pride left.  The kids continued to play around, taking turns with the snorkeling gear and my son going back to the water park.  We also found out that we were within a five minute walk of the bathrooms, so this area seemed a pretty good place to set up.  The kids also liked snorkeling because there were a lot more fish then we actually saw in HMC.

After awhile we decided to start heading back to the ship.  The plan was to make a QUICK stop at Margaritaville, all four of us get food on the ship, and then 2 of us head back to the island for some shopping while the other 2 hang out at the pool or whirlpools.

As we walked back they cleared the swimming area for safety reasons since the Pride was pulling out.

As we approached Magaritaville we used a foot-washing station then found two chairs in the sun near the pool and dropped all our stuff.  3 of us cooled off in the pool while the fourth person watched our things.  Everyone quickly got bored with the pool and we collected all our stuff and started to head out.  We went to another foot wash station to clean our shoes off and headed for the duty free station. 

While in the duty free station I noticed I was missing my normal prescription glasses.  I was wearing my prescription sunglasses and usually hung my other glasses from my shirt.  I knew I had for a fact had my glasses when we got to Margaritaville but didn't know where they were.  So I went back and looked at all the places I had been within Margaritaville.  Someone had already taken over our spot at the pool and they weren't there.  I looked around and couldn't find anything.  I considered it a lost cause, so went back to meet with everyone else and my wife decided to take another look.   

While this was going on my daughter was real upset because she wanted to get her charms and things from Diamonds International.

She looked around, got the DJ to make an announcement,  and even walked all the way back to the area on the beach we were.  On the way back she found them hanging on a board near one of the foot wash stations.  I guess I had accidentally dropped them there.  It looks like they had been stepped on at least once since they were very bent but at least I got them back.  Thanks wifey 😉

After the delay we made our way back to the ship, quickly had lunch and my wife and daughter went off the ship to Diamonds International and other souvenir shopping.  They were able to get the free charm, but they were out of the bracelets.  

After all of us were back on the ship, we watched for pier runners and the process of leaving port.  There were a couple of late families but no pier runners.  The interesting thing was before people got off the ship they warned people about bringing back shells and sand.  After the last person was on-board, security from the aft gangway brought out a blanket filled with shells ranging in size from small to the large conch shells and sand.  They dumped them on the dock.  We were surprised by the amount of stuff confiscated.   Then from the forward gangway they brought out another blanket, with a lot more shells and sand.  You could tell by the reactions from the crew, this was a lot more then they normally confiscate. They also dumped this stuff on the pier.  One of the workers from the ship that is responsible for carrying things and pushing up the gangways tried to take one of the shells, but an officer saw him and told him to get rid of it.  He threw it down.

Impressions of Grand Turk

* Good beach and water, but more rocky then HMC

* better free snorkeling then HMC

* not a fan of the constantly getting hit up for things 

* not a fan of there being so few "free" chairs, umbrellas even though they advertise them

* short pier, easy to get back on the ship for a meal or to switch between swimming and shopping

* not a fan of being the second ship in port, first ship gets all the best locations

According to Holland America cruise lines there was only minor beach erosion that will be fixed.

Half Moon Cay

Early in the morning we were awakened to a real loud banding beneath us and a few minutes later we went onto the balcony and saw this.

The first tender boat was docking to start taking over the crew to the island.  We watched them load up that boat and then load up a cargo boat.  We quickly got dressed and headed up for breakfast.  The announcements kept saying that whenever you are ready for heading for the island, with your entire party, head to the lounge on Deck 5.  After a quick breakfast we headed to Deck 5 and there was a long line winding through the casino.  Why did they have to wind through the smokey casino, couldn't they have wound the line the other direction?  I sent my kids and wife out of the casino so they didn't have to deal with the smoke and I waited in line.  They then said that only one person per party had to wait in line.  I wish they had told us that earlier.

We receive boarding number 42.  They were pretty quick at running through the numbers.  We went to the atrium and waited there for them to call our number.  We were the last number in one of the sections called and headed down to deck 1.  At the deck 1 stairwell the person said they hadn't called our number yet and was going to stop us, but I let them know that they did call our number and she quickly let us through to the boat, just like the one in the picture above.  I wish I had a lower number because we ended up sitting in the sun, but it was only about 20 minutes to get to the island.  Of course as a person that burns easy, would have preferred to be on the bottom level of the boat.

Our view of the Magic from the tender boat.

Since we were such a high number lots of people were already on the island so we started walking up the path.  We knew it wasn't worth it to head to the beach right there because it was packed.  Since our kids are older we didn't bother with the splash pad.  We walked up the path, past the bar and the lobster shack and then headed for the beach.  We found a row of chairs within the shade of a tree and laid down our towels. 

We had purchased a snorkeling set in advance from Fun Shops and had it delivered to our cabin on the sea day, so we quickly got that out and headed for the beach.  This was both of my kids first time snorkeling so it took them awhile to get use to the it, but they had a lot of fun.  They quickly learned to keep their eyes closed if water got into the mask or when they weren't using the mask because the water was very salty.  The only issue we had was at one point a family tried to take over our chairs, but I just happened to be right there at the time and politely told them not to move our stuff.  The sand was powdery, not many rocks.  Usually the only time we found a rock or two was in the water, but nowhere near needing water shoes or anything like that.  We hardly saw any fish while snorkeling. 

View from our area of the beach and from our chairs, note that we picked one of the back rows due to it being shaded at the time.

Everyone played on the beach for awhile until it was lunch time.  We headed over to the pavilion early based on advice to get there as soon as they open. The lines weren't to long.  My family waited in two separate lines.  The line I was in all of sudden ground to a stop because the family in front of me asked for a vegetarian burger and the person working the line at first was very confused, then had to go elsewhere to find the burgers and of course the family just stood there blocking all access to the rest of the line and no other employees stepped up to serve the burgers and dogs so we had to wait awhile for the guy to come back.  My wife and the kid with her went and found a place to sit at one of the pavilions and got their drinks and were eating by the time we found them.  The drinks on the island are the same exact drinks you get on the ship.  The food is the same exact stuff you can get in the buffet since ALL the food and the chefs come from the ship.  Just your typical burgers, dogs, and chicken with some pasta dishes and some average desserts.  All the food is just average.  Of course after having Guy's burgers on the ship the burgers on the island are nowhere near the same.  The only thing good about the food on the island was that at the pavilion it was free as opposed to having to pay for it like we did at all the rest of the ports.

After eating and making a quick stop at the rest rooms we went back and swam and played at the beach a little longer.  After awhile the sun moved in a way that we no longer had shade at our chairs, so I started exploring the area.  Walking around, going to the bars and the pirate ship.

I found that it wasn't real easy to flag down the bartender here, between the people just hiding in the shade there and the dedicated drinkers it was hard to get their attention.  There was lots of space, just lots of people keeping the bartenders attention.

Earlier then we expected the kids were getting tired of the beach and just wanted to head back to the whirlpool and water slides on the ship after a little souvenir shopping.  We went back to the tender area.  I took all the bags and sat near the Rum Runner bar (which oddly didn't feature Rum Runners) and got a drink, and the rest of the family went to the straw market looking for a souvenir. 

After everyone was done we got into the LONG line to get a tender.  The line moved very slow, the fans barely moved and only a few of the water misters worked.  There has to be a better way to manage getting off the island.  Maybe something similar to the method they use to get on the island, where you get a number then can wait in the straw market area.  Of course I see how that can be abused (i.e. someone getting numbers for their entire party, while they just wait on the beach.)  Something better has to be done, because after a great day on the island waiting in a long hot line to just get on the tender leaves a bad impression.  After we finally got through the island immigration/security area we just happened to be right behind the last people to get on the boat, so we had to wait in the little shack/cattle pen area until the next boat. Since we could pick wherever we wanted on the boat, we sat on the lower level in the shade.  Eventually we made it back to the ship.

Impressions of Half Moon Cay

* Best actual beach we have ever been to, white powdery sand, clear water

* lots of chairs (but we were the only ship there, doubt it would be that way with more ships)

* small amount of shade unless you rent the hot clam shells

* tender to the island was fine, but the long line to leave the island stinks

* food - average to below average

* snorkeling from beach - not much to see

1 minute ago, serene56 said:

yeah   that was wrong about it being on the lido deck   (it was a while ago but now  

Carnival Magic Sushi Bar

The Sushi Bar on the Carnival Magic is on deck 5 and is open from about 5:00 p.m. to 8:15 p.m. each evening. The sushi is complimentary; the saki comes with a fee

 

The sushi wasn't free when I was on board. There were prices for both the rolls and the Nagri style sushi. No mention of them only charging for the saki.   I really doubt it was free because there was NEVER a line at the sushi bar.  If it was free I am sure the line would have been around the deck.  I honestly never saw anyone ordering, but the sushi chefs always seemed busy.

40 minutes ago, coevan said:

HMC is a seaday for us, Serenity area, cheers and no lines for lunch

Always interesting to see people's idea of fun.  In our opinion HMC was the best beach of all the locations we have ever been.  Yes the lines at the pavilion and leaving the island are a pain, but the beach itself is great.   Of course if you aren't into beach, that is mostly what you get.

56 minutes ago, serene56 said:

Kids under 16 do NOT need a photo ID      They should have their boarding passes out in order for the guard to see 

 

 

Thanks for the great review./    Sailing MAgic again in January

The Uber driver told me that everyone needed a photo Id including the kids.  I questioned her on it.   I thought that was a little funny, but took her at her word for it.  Maybe it just makes it easier, better odds at getting through without the more detailed search.

I didn't see that on the Magic.  That doesn't mean I didn't miss it if they had a second location or it may have moved since two weeks ago when I was on the Magic, but the sushi location was on Deck 5 in between Red Frog Pub and the nightclub.

It isn't a pop-up thing, it is more like the coffee shop.  A counter that you walk up to.  It is located pretty close to the nightclub.  The sushi is NOT free.  I eat sushi a lot but wasn't sure about getting it on a cruise ship, not knowing how long ago that fish was caught since all the supplies come from the first location.  Also this was my first cruise so was trying to get by without paying for any additional food on the ship.  There were only a few options and I think I remember the price being around $3 a piece of the Nigiri style, not sure about the rolls.

Sorry for the delay but the Labor Day weekend kept me pretty busy.

Today's update is without many pictures just to get a quick one up, but future posts will be about our ports and excursions, those will have more pictures.

Room 2254 and What's that Yellow Stuff

In the first post I mentioned that we were in Room 2254. It is cove balcony room on the 2nd deck.  We specifically wanted a balcony as low and mid-ship as we could get.  Cove balconies were perfect for us.  It was low to the water.  The room was right next to the forward elevators. If you walked two rooms forward you came right into the elevator bay next to the stairwell, if you walked two rooms aft you came right to the glass elevators.  I loved the location, a short walk and one floor on the stairwell brought you to the atrium, a short walk and down one deck on the stairwell brought you to the area to get ready for the gangways, and if we didn't have our Ft. Lauderdale excursion, we could have only walked a few feet on the same floor and departed that way.

No noise from the elevators them self, but I am sure we heard more people walking by then a cabin all the way aft or forward would hear.  We did have someone that would smoke a little marijuana every day at a certain time based on the smell in our room, but we couldn't tell which room it was.

On the first day we were asked whether we wanted morning, evening or both services.  We choose both since it was our first cruise so we didn't know which would would really prefer and we also wanted it since there was four of us, which meant lots of dirty towels and things like that.

We received towel animals every day and the room was kept very well by our room steward.

One thing that was real great about our room was probably a coincidence but EVERY time we docked the gangways were on our side of the ship.  It was entertaining watching people get on and off the ship and as someone that dealt a lot with the Navy, watching how things happen going in and out of port was interesting.

Problems with the room.  Other then getting use to such a small room, bathroom, etc. like any first time sailing family has to do there was only one real problem with the room and believe it or not we never reported it.

On the sea day we walked out onto our balcony and right next to one of the beams overlooking the ocean there was a pool of yellow stuff.  We couldn't figure out what it was.  I never took a picture of it because it was such a faint shade of yellow it wouldn't really show up well.  It only showed up since it was on top of the white railing, not the wooden railing.  We all had theories on what it was, rust, bird stuff, etc.  Nobody wanted to smell it or put their finger in it just in case it was dangerous. We figured out we would tell our cabin steward about it when we saw him.

It was only when we went on our first Port day that we could figure out what it was.  If you looked at our cabin from off the ship, you would notice two VERY large exhaust fans right above the cabin.  We figured out that they were exhaust fans that lead to one or more kitchens and that the yellow stuff was just oil/grease getting through the fans.  When we got back on board we could tell that was what it was.  We were going to report it but on our bed that day was a note that said they were going to be cleaning all the balconies in Grand Turk since there are only so many ports that allow the cleaning of balconies, so we figured it would get cleaned that day, and it did.  Two days later more appeared.  We did get some on 3 different sets of clothes, since some was actually on the wood railing and you couldn't tell it was there.  We thought it would come out, but we have a few stained shirts.

 Hub App

We loved the Hub app.  It was great to have a copy of everything going on the ship with you at all times and to highlight just what you really want to go to.  You can also quickly select the Kid and Teen club and tell what is going on in those areas right now and during the entire day.  We also enabled the chat feature so that we could all keep in touch.  3 of us had iPhones and one of us had an iPod and there were no problems using it on any of them. The only annoying thing is that you have to keep it open at all times and sometimes it could take awhile for a text to make it to you.  Personally I don't think they should be charging you $5 a person for the chat feature.  Maybe $10 for the entire room would be better or something like that.  It was convenient that if your kid checks them self in and out of the Kid's club the App will tell you where they are going when they check out, the only problem we had with that is whoever entered that information wasn't always exact.  One time my son told the person exactly "Southern Lights Dining Room" and they entered "lounge".  Luckily he was meeting us in the dining room but if we weren't sure where he was going, there is no way lounge would be accurate enough.   The only thing that surprised us was that the maps within the App have no way to indicate exactly where you are on the map.  Probably due to the fact that GPS wouldn't work inside the ship, but I am sure there are ways around using the locations of the different repeaters.