A medium-sized Magic reveiw/Modified Eastern 11/4-11/11

We were on the same cruise as well. We had 5 Spa deck balconies in a row on deck 12, sailing with some of our best friends and family. Our steward opened all of the balcony connectors for us so we had one big balcony to share.

I thought Mat was the best cruise director we have had in 9 cruises with Carnival. Had a chance to talk to him at the Mardis Gras party and he is a really nice guy.

Funniest joke I heard all week was in the comedy club first night. Goes like this. Have you met your cruise director Mat yet? Yeah, he's actually not gay......but his boyfriend sure is. In fact, if you cut him, he bleeds glitter.

Enjoying your review so far!

Enjoying your review!! Keep up the good work!!! (y)

Ok gonna try to bust through this in an hour before my meeting. Let's talk...

FOOD

WARNING: this is going to be long and I'm going to ramble a bit here.

First off a little background on us and food. Food is one of the most subjective things ever. I like to know a little more about people as I always wonder when I read reviews: Are you the type that considers the IHOP the finest in international cuisine (no shade, I love me some pancakes)? Are you the type that regularly drops $500 on steak dinners? I always read reviews and think yeah good/bad, but what are you comparing it to?

We like food. I am most certainly not above cheap eats. I love me some Wendy's, Chilli's is our go-to spot when we just want to eat. So while I don't consider us food snobs, I also never hesitate to drop money on dinner. We love trying high end places (think gastropub vs. fancy white tablecloths) and it's one area I take full advantage of our DINK status.

I am also what I like to call a "hella lazy vegetarian". What I mean is I mostly eat vegetarian. I don't eat red meat except bacon (is that red? It looks red) because.....bacon. I'll dabble in ham occasionally (mostly via sandwiches from jimmy john's once every few months) and I'll eat chicken if I have to, but probably 90% of the time I'm a veggie. I hate seafood. (I know, I'm sorry!) I'm also ridiculously picky in things I like and have the palette of a 5 year old most of the time (fries and peanut butter sandwiches? sign me up!) D is a straight up meat and potatoes guy who will eat just about anything so I think we balance each other out.

We made it a goal to eat at every place on the boat. We did it with 3 exceptions: Salad Bar, Red Frog Pub, and the hot dog place (never even got up to deck 12. Meant to play some mini golf, it didn't happen).

The level of what I personally expect from cruise food is what I refer to as "Applebees": Some stuff is good, some stuff is atrocious, but it gets the job done when you're hungry and tastes significantly better when you're drunk.

So now that I've rambled for 900 hours, let's get on to actual food reviews....:confused:

FOOD CONTINUED:

MDR: We had Your Time Dining (told you I'm a control freak, ain't nobody gonna tell me when to eat!) and ate dinner in the Dining Room exactly twice. Once on the first night, the other time on...some other night. I was also "that person" in shorts in the MDR the first night (sorry, my suitcase wasn't in yet and I was hungry!) so if you were also there and my yet to be tanned gams being out in the open offended you, I do apologize. Lines were about 10 minutes. We tried to go the final night too but line was out of control so we nope'd out of there and went to Guys.

ANYWAYS. With YTD they ask you if you want a table for 2, or a table at the window, shared. We picked table for 2. I will confirm it's a joke and as much as I hate forced socialization, we'll probably pick group table next time. The tables for 2 are literally 4 inches apart making you able to overhear everything the people on either side of you say, and them to hear you. At least at shared it's kind of expected you are supposed to socialize. Here I felt like "do they want to be left alone? It's weird to sit this long this close to someone and not say something, WHAT DO I DO?!" At any rate, our awkward dinner with our 4 inches away non-table mates was fine and we made some minimal polite conversation. It's also freezing in the dining room. Bring a sweater

First night service was sloooooowwwww. Dinner took about 2 hours start to finish. I remember nothing about our serve other than she smelled really good. We had:

Me: Caesar salad (good but watery), Indian Vegetarian (delish and HOLY COW that's a lot of food), Warm Chocolate Melting Cake (good as always).

D: I can not recall for appetizer, Braised Beef I think (he said it was good) and a baked potato, I don't remember what he had for desert either. I am an excellent wife.

Second night, significantly faster. We were in and out in under an hour. I want to say our server was Julian (maybe??) and he and his team were great. We had:

Me: Veggie Spring Rolls (good), stuffed mushrooms (ehhhhhhhh). Some chocolate thing....it involved a chocolate soup. It was ok.

D: Featured Rabbit appetizer (he was not a fan), salmon (he said it was ok), and a cheese plate (he liked it even though I looked at him like he had 9 heads).

Sea Day Brunch in the MDR: We went to sea day brunch both days. First day was SIGNIFICANTLY better than the second. Less crowded, faster service, and WE GOT A WHOLE BOOTH WHAT IS THIS MAGIC?! (again with the puns). We had:

Day one me: Fruit plate (it was fine, it's fruit), blueberry pancakes (surprisingly tasty!), a croissant and a Danish and a piece of lemon cake after I looked longingly at the last one D took so the dude brought me one of my own, unasked for. Thank you, sir!

D on Day one: bagel (good), steak and eggs (he was not a huge fan of the steak), banana cream pie (good), lemon cake

Day Two me: bagel (gave D my salmon. I was not thrilled as my cream cheese tasted like salmon. This is not their fault). Honey nut cherrio crusted French toast (better than expected I ordered this as half a joke). Hash browns (they're little and cute like bigger versions of the Burger King ones and taste about the same).

Day Two D: bagel + my salmon for super salmon, huevos rancheros (he loved them), and pancakes because it was our last day and YOLO (he deemed them ok)

The coffee is atrocious. I generally take mine black. I had to add copious amounts of cream just to make it drinkable. No bread basket the second day, like never saw the guy walking around with one but the woman next to me had a Danish so I guess he existed like some kind of magical lemon cake unicorn? Tables back to the 5 inches of personal space configuration.

I feel like this is turning into a wall of text so I'm gonna break this a bit here. IM SORRY I TALK A LOT.

FOOD PART THREE, LETS TRY TO SPEED IT UP:

Guy's: As mentioned I don't eat beef. D deemed it a hit, comparable to 5 Guys. First night he got a soggy bun which was kinda gross but he tried it again and became a fan. I (at the advice of someone here) just asked the guys for a bun and made a veggie/condiment sandwich at the topping bar which worked out great! Guys working were always super friendly. Never stood in a line longer than 5 minutes.

Blue Iguana: Only went here for breakfast. I had breakfast burritos both times (eggs, hash browns, and cheese) both times. D had one burrito w/ sausage (sausage was burnt) and one Arepa, which he very much liked. Salsa bar was gooooddd and the spicy salsa is actually spicy. The dark red one was my favorite. Overall we both liked it and it was a nice change from Lido for breakfast.

Pizza: Went here a few times late night, we both found it acceptable, bordering on good when it was fresh out of the oven. It's neopolitan style pizza so basically thin crust but not crispy thin crust, it's still chewy. We had cheese, mushroom, the 4 cheese, and pepperoni once after quite a few drinks and a moment of "OMFG I MISS EATING PEPPERONI IMMA DO IT D! IMMA EAT A PEPPERONI!" (that sounds dirtier than intended). Line could get long, typically moved but twice we had people ordering literally 4 whole pizzas and like...ma'am. I understand you may be hungry but you are slowing things down here, get your 2 (or even 4, take the whole pizza if you must) slices and then get back in line. But, we're all on vacation so in line I wait and pizza I shall be rewarded with.

Cucina De Capitna or whatever: Only went here for lunch. It was also good. That breaddddddddd omg, best thing I ate on the cruise. I seriously wanted to go snatch the entire basket of bread. Clearly I am not a part of the keto lifestyle movement, give me alllllll the bread. Cesar salad tasted more anchovy heavy up here even though I cant imagine it's any different. I had linguini w/ basic marinara sauce and mushrooms. D had penne with meat sauce, Italian sausage, and peppers. I expected nothing out of this and was pleasantly surprised. It was not fine Italian dining but it wasn't bad. I wish we would have gone to dinner here instead of....

The Steakhouse: Unpopular opinion time! It was......fine. Like.....fine. Admittedly I don't like steak and this was a dumb choice for us, but D really wanted steak and it's his vacation too so steakhouse'ing we did go. We had:

Me: stuffed mushroom appetizer (fine but *** was I supposed to do with that mushroom tea it comes with?? Do I drink it? Do I dunk the mushroom in it? I didn't want to seem like an uncultured swine and ask so it just kind of sat there but I'm very curious to know what I was supposed to do with it. Chicken (I don't love chicken and I really don't love chicken on the bone so I'm biased here. It was eh.) Wasabi mashed potatoes (ok)

D: Both of our amuse bouches (it was a tomato which I don't eat in whole form --told you I'm picky--so he took mine too. He deemed it tasking like a tomato with taco meat and nacho cheese sauce, and disgusting. I have no idea the accuracy of this). Oyster appetizer (he was not a fan of the mango foam), Spice rubbed ribeye (he did not get the salt thing I've seen people talk about here, no idea why. Deemed this meh at best), we shared a chocolate sphere for desert (good!).

Overall....EHHHHHHHHHHHH. Is it better than your standard Outback Steak House? Sure. Is it an excellent steak house? I'd balk at that. D would too, I actually enjoyed it more than he did. It was....fine. Again tastes vary but I don't know that I'd do this experience again. I'd rather buy drinks with that $70 to be quite honest.

Coffee Bar: Decent iced coffee. Necessary when I couldn't stand the Lido stuff anymore.

Gotta run to a meeting still have to discuss Lido but that's all for now! :) Thanks again for reading I'll respond to you all individually soon (I sound like I'm accepting a friggin Oscar. Calm down, Ms. Spearit)

Loving your review!!

Enjoying your review!!! :D

Good Morning! Happy Friday! We're back and it's time to wrap up....

FOOD

Room Service: Ordered once. Being the real adult I am, I got a peanut butter sandwich. It was fine but really if Carnival messed up PB&J I would probably be one of those people who vows to NEVER CRUISE WITH THEM AGAIN! Service was fast, got it in under 10 minutes.

Lido Buffet: Ehhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh. It was pretty bad most nights. I mostly stuck to salad and a baked potato (which they had every night, at least every night we were there). D tried other stuff, only thing that really stuck out is one night they had steak that he said was actually pretty tasty. Deserts were meh. Also lemme tell you I TRIED to go to the chocolate buffet but was apparently in the wrong section (I believe it was aft) and all they had was like 3 cakes and I thought it was the lamest chocolate buffet ever, however there was a ton of signs in the other area later that afternoon (once it was closed) so make sure you're in the right section if you want to go to that.

Breakfast was fine. Eggs are dreadful. Bacon police were out, however both times I got bacon the woman working gave me a big old tong full of bacon and then asked me if I wanted more so they're some pretty relaxed police.

Lines were not awful, I think the longest I stood in one was about 7 minutes for dinner right before it opened on the second formal night when it was pretty busy.

Deli: We had the new deli menu on this voyage. I will confirm all the sandwiches are pre-made. The ones that get panini'd (???) are sitting out on a shelf. This grossed me out. I have a crippling fear of food borne illness (thanks, mom!) and the idea of turkey sitting on a shelf for who knows how long....PASS. I have to imagine it's refrigerated somehow or something but I prefer to keep my gambling in the casino. I had the southwest chicken wrap. It was ENORMOUS and fine, not great. D had Rueben which he said was good.

I have mentioned this on other deli-specific posts but YES they will make you one fresh if you ask or ask for a modification. I asked about how much tomato was in the wrap, she showed me, I told her I'd get something else (recall I don't eat that devil fruit unless it's in salsa). She then offered to make me a new one sans devil fruit but said it would be 5 minutes. Guy then brought it out from the kitchen for me. There was a very minimal line when I was there. I don't know if they'd be as accommodating if there was a large line (typically during dinner. D said he did hear people making requests when he got his Rueben). I'm sure people in line won't love you for this but it is what it is and a tip if you want a fresh one.

Tandoor: I lied, we didn't eat here either. Not sure why.

Mongolian Wok: This is the one place lines were out of control. Embarkation day we actually tried to go here before Guy's. Waited in line 20 minutes, it did not move. D made a second attempt the day I went to the deli. Took him 30 minutes to make it through. 2 guys working, line significantly slowed by people hemming and hawing at the front and making weird requests ("ok is that all the sauces you have or can I get a different sauce?" PICK A SAUCE FROM THE LIST AND KEEP IT MOVING, SIR. :mad:) It was good but D did not think it was worth the 30 minute wait. I tried it and would concur. Get it if the line is short, don't wait more than 15 minutes or so for it.

And I think that's it for food! A couple food photos I found:

My very adult pb&j, they just gave me cookies, I'm sure they thought I was 5 and would appreciate it. I am 5+29 and still appreciated it!

D's oysters from the steakhouse

My also very adult Cheerio crusted French toast

Ok I wanted to talk about on board entertainment/music but I need my fun times to check on the name of some bands so we're going to jump into ports of call here and come back to that at the end.

AMBER COVE

Holland America Oosterdam also in port with us today.

We had nothing booked for this port. Plan was to just chill by the pool and that's exactly what we did. We both thought this port was very nice and Carnival has done a great job with it. It's extremely generic and sanitized. But overall it is clean, there's a decent amount of shops selling cheap booze and smokes, and various island tchotchkes you can bring back home. Chairs by the pool are free. Zero annoying vendors we encountered. We moseyed off the boat a little after 10:30am and went over to the pool. No issues finding a chair at that time. Pool was not overly crowded, water was cool but not freezing, waiters from the Cocoa Cana restaurant nearby walking around to take drink orders. Basic mixed drinks are about $8. Beers run about $5. You can get an assortment of souvenir type drinks for anywhere from about $15-$35. Made friends with the nice guys next to us and watched each others stuff while we were in the pool. There also is lockers and I also saw a LOT of people just leaving stuff with no issues.

Started raining quite a bit after noon. A ton of people left. We went to the Cocoa Cana to drink a bit more and wait it out. We did not get food here. The cheap $8 drinks are weak. Stir it if you get a frozen, all the booze is on top. Stopped raining after about an hour and a half but still was cloudy. Port was EMPTY after that. There is a nice area with some fake waterfalls and what I think is a fake amber thing that talks about Jurassic Park etc. D did the zipline a few times, it is $20 for the day. They do take credit cards for it. FYI weight limit is 265, he's 10lbs over at 275 and they let him do it anyways and he did not fall to his death. He said it was fun. I enjoyed the mostly empty pool while he ziplined. Overall I liked this port and it was a very nice relaxing day. I think we headed back to the ship around 3:30 or so. I can't recall onboard time, I think 5:30. No real line to get back onboard. Duty free store was giving out free "taste tests" of booze, some people were clearly taking advantage of this.

Pics coming....

Magic in port with the Oosterdam

Main port entrance.

View from our balcony, here you can see the cabanas you can rent via shore excursion

Fake waterfalls

Pool, note how empty it was after the rain

Zipline way up there! PASS. Also note the lack of people again....almost had the whole place to myself!

Awesome review so far.....

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Thanks for sharing! We sale Magic in January for first time. :)

Love your review!! Awesome mix of review and pics, keep it up!!! We'll be cruising on the Magic this Christmas , so i'm reading everything and anything I can get my hands on, lol! We loved the Dream And the Breeze so we figured why not try the Magic! Once again keep up the great work!

You had me at “1. It's very pink and very pineapple-y in the rooms. I felt very Blanche from Golden Girls.”

Any reviewer who expertly weaves in a Golden Girls reference, is extremely talented! Can’t wait for the rest. :')

Hey HolySpearit

I guess we were on the same boat!! I'm enjoying your reviews.

I am a foodie. I love seafood and, because Mrs Optimusprime2529 does not, any time that I can get some, I'm on it. However, I don't go to McDonalds for the Fish sammach.

In the MDR, we had early dining in Northern Lights. There, we met our hostess Dijuanna who would seat us daily, including when we were on Half Moon Cay and/or eating in Southern Lights for breakfast. I could tell she enjoyed her job, she loved her home country of Belarus, and since I was stationed in Germany AND had visited (I told her she was in Kindergarden when I was there), we had some other things to make nice and talk about. She offered (or tried to offer in my wife's case) things that she liked. However, I was there for the sea food!

We also had to sit as a couple amongst people who were close to us that we could read the menu from our table. We chatted always with people to our left and right, sometimes two tables over, but when it was time to eat, it was as if there was no one there until dessert. The first night in the MDR, we were seated right away (6:30 pm) and was in and out in one hour, 15 minutes (I ordered two apps, two mains, one dessert and coffee). They brought the plates one at a time this night. We were next to some immature children who tried to give the waiter a hard time. He kinda deserved it as his serving style was not good, but I think those young adults would be a little more appreciative if they ever worked at a Golden Corral, IHOP or Olive Garden and had themselves this night as a customer.

Critique time: On my earlier cruises, there was a show where the wait staff would dance to music while the maitre-d acted as the set up man. We had a female maitre-d and all she said was: "its SHOWTIME!" But, there were none this first night and I only remember the first elegant night and a couple of nights thereafter. Carnival, where did my showtime go?

Amber Cove

We got off the boat at 9:30 AM HolySpearit noted that Holland America Oosterdam ship was 30 minutes ahead of us into the port, although we were abreast of each other coming in - they were on our starboard side for the trip in. I noted I was a foodie. Ms Optimusprime2529 is a shoppie, so we spent the first hours visiting each shop. I was searching for free wifi to contact family back home (we had an expected death in our family). It was not crowded and she stayed on budget. We also "toured" the island and found the fake falls (picturesque nonetheless) and the amber resin display, then we headed to the boat for a quick meal before returning to the cruise. That was when the rain came. We ate, got back off the boat, headed out to the bar on top of the hill next to the zip line station and zip lined a few times. The pool was not croweded and we were able to enjoy some water sports before heading back to the ship at 3:45. I must say that I will love to revisit Amber Cove again. I could see why Carnival invested in this site - the views were great!

Reading HolySpearit's posts and I think we passed each other a time or two, and enjoyed the free popcorn during the movies (Hidden Figures and Pirates of the Carribean). The lines for Lido Deck fair were long at times. But, what are you going to do - you are on a cruise with 3,000 people. I did find the Taste Bar, but hated that I had to go through or near the casino/smoke to get there. I ate at Tandoor and found its offerings also very good. and supplemented my Lido Buffet plates with its offerings daily. Ditto for the Pizza. It was good enough to return again and again.

Ok we're back!!! Thank you again for reading if any of you are haha and Optimus I bet we did pass each other a few times! I think when we left off, we were in Amber Cove so let's move to port #2, Grand Turk. This is going to be pic heavy and word light (ha! yeah right...)

GRAND TURK

So we were one of the first boats to return to Grand Turk post hurricane. I was nervous about this but figured we'd make the best of it. About 3 weeks out, I reserved a golf cart via Max Kart Auto Rentals. Web site is pretty primitive and I was a little leery if he'd even get my reservation, but I figured with PayPal payment, it would be pretty easy to get my money back if anything went wrong.

I am HAPPY to report nothing went wrong. GT was a short day for us (I believe we were in port like 7am-2pm). We are slowskies in the morning so we got off the boat around 9:30.

We did not get any real instructions from Max about what to do or where to find him. Walked off the boat. A carnival excursion woman asked us if she could help us, D asked where the golf cart rental people were outside the port. The woman said she had never heard of that and doesn't think people do that. Ummmm ok ma'am. I understand you're trying to sell cruise line excursions but don't blatantly lie to me. So we wander around for a bit. If you're looking for a golf cart, exit through the taxi pickup structure (it's a large wooden brown thing) then hang a left. Walk down about a block, through the security gate, and the golf cart companies will all be right there. Very few had signs but a nice man with I think Karib directed us to Max who was hanging out waiting for us. (sorry Max!)

Such a nice guy. He showed us how the golf cart worked and only asked that we put gas in it before we return it, which should run us about $6. He gave us a map and pointed up some places we might want to stop (various beaches and the lighthouse), while warning us the island didn't look good, there's basically no directional signs standing, and most of the beaches would be kind of a wreck. And off we went!

The cruise port here looks beautiful. There was minimal damage. The outside island however, is a wreck. This was truly heartbreaking. Houses destroyed. Downed powerlines EVERYWHERE. This made me extremely nervous. At one point we had no choice but to roll over one and it was literally a "jesus take the golf cart" moment and luckily it was dead but it is rather unnerving to just see downed powerlines literally everywhere and have to roll over one. Houses completely destroyed. But signs of life. Stores were open. Gas stations were open. People were friendly.

At one point we stopped at a beach. Max was driving around the island and came to check in with us to see how everything was going. We chatted for a bit about the damage. He said they just got power back 2-3 weeks ago but need tourists back for the money, so they were all happy to have us back. He apologized numerous times for the state of the island. I thought it was sweet even though it was very clearly not at all his fault! He said his roof blew off but he was surviving. He has 3 golf carts that survived and is trying to make sure they're all rented anytime a ship comes in as he needs the money. He said they hope to be back to somewhat normal in 3-4 years. We drove basically the entire island. It's virtually impossible to get lost, it's tiny.

Overall this was a very humbling experience and gave me a new appreciation for my life. How am I going to complain about a long line at a cruise ship buffet when half these people have no place to live. Reality check for sure.

The lighthouse is open. $3/person, you get that refunded if you buy snacks/drinks from the bar. Zipline is avail there at an additional cost. We saw 2 people get stuck and the dude had to come out and pull them so maybe skip that. There is relatively clean bathrooms and a small gift shop on site. Donkeys seem to have survived the storm and are as abundant as I've heard. I loved them lol.

Filled up with gas, I don't know how much it was, we just gave the guy a 20 and told him to keep it. It didn't feel like enough. Dropped off the golf cart and promised to leave Max a good review, which we have done and will do here. No problems at all, would recommend him for sure especially since I have read Karib has now shut down for all of 2018 which kills me inside. Those poor guys :(

Checked out the port, checked out the John Glenn statue thing (I felt very educated after watching Hidden Figures the night before), moseyed over to Jack's Shack. Let me tell you that is a WALK on the beach good lord. I think D was ready to slap me I'm like "no it's close keep going!" but I think he was ready to strangle me at a few points, walking on sand is WORK.

It was worth the walk. Jerk Chicken is worth alllll of the hype it gets. Topher was out and digging, there was also 2 other less famous dogs roaming about that were friendly. There is also gift shop cats that are very friendly why does nobody mention the cats?!?! Crazy cat ladies such as meself appreciate them too! Ate our food, drank our drinks, left a large tip and went on our way. Overall it is a great place and we will definitely return if we find ourselves in GT again (which I hope we do).

Started absolutely POURING rain on the way back so that was a fun walk but we just pretended we were swimming in the ocean only the ocean was everywhere. Line to get on the boat was about 10 minutes in a downpour. Didn't bother us. Hard to be upset over a little bit of rain after what we just saw.

Overall I really liked GT and can not wait to go back. Pics coming...Told you this wouldn't ACTUALLY be short on words ;p

The cruise port in Grand Turk. I found it such an interesting contrast with the state of the port vs the state of the rest of the island. Money talks, no question about it.

General Island views

A lot of houses looked like this

Seriously so incredibly sad.

I am 99.9% sure I am remembering correctly and this is the high school on the island

Another typical house status on GT.

Some houses were not even that lucky. Breaks my heart but seriously such a good reminder to appreciate every single thing you have and every moment.

Light House is open for business!

Beautiful view up there

We stopped at a beach. I have truly no idea what beach as Max was correct, there are zero directional signs anywhere. We just kind of picked something that looked vaguely like a path to the beach from the main road and took it. It was gorgeous. There's a lot of shells and seaweed washed up on the other side of this photo but such pretty water and sand. I really wish I could have visited this place pre-hurricane but I'm confident that as time passes it will just continue to get even more beautiful.

Same beach

The famous Jack's Shack jerk chicken. Delicious.

We were on the same cruise as well. We had 5 Spa deck balconies in a row on deck 12, sailing with some of our best friends and family. Our steward opened all of the balcony connectors for us so we had one big balcony to share.

 

I thought Mat was the best cruise director we have had in 9 cruises with Carnival. Had a chance to talk to him at the Mardis Gras party and he is a really nice guy.

 

Funniest joke I heard all week was in the comedy club first night. Goes like this. Have you met your cruise director Mat yet? Yeah, he's actually not gay......but his boyfriend sure is. In fact, if you cut him, he bleeds glitter.

How did you like the spa balcony? I am tempted by those heated chairs, I am eternally cold and they look amazing!

And LOL @ the joke. It's basically my life long dream to bleed glitter.

Loving your review and your writing style!

 

FYI on future cruises on Carnival Dream class ships, try a cove balcony we love them, Deck 2 close to the water, no glass, nice breezes and much calmer down there.

 

Anxiously awaiting more of your review, we sail Magic Eastern end of January, we sailed her last January.

 

Susan

You know I've heard so much about these cove balconies, I think we need to check one out for sure!!!

You know I've heard so much about these cove balconies, I think we need to check one out for sure!!!

You should for sure, they are worth it. No noise from our neighbors (maybe we were just lucky), close enough to take the stairs back after a port stop, one flight up to the MDR, sheltered a bit from the sun, and you get a great view of pier runners! Just be careful of what is on the deck above you, the ones under the galley are noisy. We have been in 2272 on the Breeze, and will be close to that again next month, the only thing above us was the shore excursion desk, I think.

I don't know how I missed your review before today! But I sure am glad I found it! You're doing a fabulous job.....really enjoying it!

And yes the cove balconies are great....we always try to get them if they are in a good location.

Thanks for your time and talent in doing this review!

Oh I forgot to mention a little trick to making the coffee taste better. If you have a travel mug this comes in handy, but you can use one of their coffee mugs too. Take coffee mug to the ice cream machine and put enough ice cream to fill about one fourth of your cup and then top it off with the Carnival coffee. You'll thank me for this tip....it's addictive that way!

Oh I forgot to mention a little trick to making the coffee taste better. If you have a travel mug this comes in handy, but you can use one of their coffee mugs too. Take coffee mug to the ice cream machine and put enough ice cream to fill about one fourth of your cup and then top it off with the Carnival coffee. You'll thank me for this tip....it's addictive that way!

Oh my gosh that sounds amazing!!!! Making a note to myself to try it next time!!!!

And sounds like a really need to check out a cove balcony....we are on the fence on balcony vs ocean view for next cruise (we've had a balcony both times before) after we felt like we didn't use the balcony all that much but it was nice to just go hang out there every once in a while....maybe cove is the perfect middle ground for us!