Carnival Magic Review

[okrunnergirl]

My family and I just sailed on the Carnival Magic from July 1-8th. After reading some of the reviews here (and elsewhere) I wasn't sure what to expect. I must say that for the most part I thoroughly enjoyed our cruise.

Our first pleasant experience began while at the terminal during the boarding process. My 11-year-old son in Autistic and was very overwhelmed by the boarding process and was unexpectedly frightened by the size of the ship. Every Carnival agent was extremely understanding of our situation and we were allowed to use the priority boarding line to speed the process up for him.

We were also blessed to have the most amazing crew members during the cruise. Our room steward, Merta took time to show my son how to fold a few towel animals and overall did a wonderful job with our room. We also had the most patient and compassionate service staff at dinner each night. Puta was wonderful with my son. Puta was very attentive to our needs and even got my son a grilled cheese sandwich from room service one night when there wasn't anything on the menu he wanted.

Overall, I was very happy with the Magic. I will go through each area that we spent a lot of time at and give my opinion.

Water Works - a lot of fun to play on with the kids and I did not have any of the issues with getting burns from the tubes.

Cloud 9 - I did not use any of the spa services but did use the gym. The gym area was very small and cramped. It was also very stuffy in there. They did have a nice selection of machines and free weights, as well as, treadmills, elliptical, and bikes but there was not a lot of extra room.

Sky court - My two youngest loved the ropes course and were on it every time it opened. The other activities in the sky court area were very enjoyable as well.

Sushi bar - We LOVED the sushi bar. Every night we would make multiple trips to get the sushi of the day. My only complaint is that it was only open for three hours each day.

Food - We ate every dinner in the MDR. Overall, I would agree with most of the comments on here that the food was good but not great. There were a few standouts though. The chilled soups each night were very good. The best main dish I had was the tenderloin (I think that was Friday). The deserts were the best part of the meal. We got melting cake every night. But I also really liked the bitter and blanc and the cappuccino pie. We had lunch at the pasta bar once and it wasn't that great. The food in the Lido was good, nothing that really stood out. I did get a pretty good Ruben sandwich from the grill one afternoon though.

We stopped in Montego Bay, Jamaica, George Town, Grand Cayman, and Cozumel.

While Montego Bay had the prettiest beach, overall I did not like Montego Bay. We were hassled everywhere for pictures with the locals (i.e. tips) or to buy things. This was extremely stressful since I was traveling with four kids. Doctor's Cave beach was very nice though. I would recommend just renting an umbrella for shade and saving the money on the chairs. We were fine just sitting on our towels.

In Grand Cayman, we went to Stingray City and the Coral Gardens. We originally booked this with Frank's Water sports but I guess we were the only ones booked with him that day so his agent arranged for us to go with Carob Water sports and even got us a better deal that what he was charging. This was the highlight of our trip. The guides were wonderful and really understanding of my Autistic son. He freaked out at Stingray City and wouldn't get off the boat. It took me coaxing him for the entire time just to get in the water. However, our guides took the extra time to make sure he got to interact with the stingrays, as well.

In Cozumel, we just went to Paradise Beach. I loved the cheap admission price and this included sturdy chairs and umbrellas. If you want to play on the water toys that is an extra $10pp. We did have the servers hassle us to buy food and were told there was a $10pp minimum food order. We did oblige with this. I would recommend just bringing your own water though and ordering food. The mixed drinks I got were watered down and could barely taste the alcohol in them. Then our server included a 20% gratuity on our tab. I'm fine with tipping but I just don't like it automatically added and it's not like he was there every minute and did a lot of work for us. Anyway, I will probably go to a different beach next time. The water was murky until you got 15-20 feet from the shore. The pool area was beautiful but did not have any shade and I did not come to the beach to sit at a pool.

[cccer]

Thanks for the review, two weeks to go for us.

One questions if you don't mind, you mentioned the gym being cramped and I was wondering if it was overcrowded. Was there a line for the bikes or treadmills? We are not morning people so by the time we get there it is usually packed and I end up going around the track.

[okrunnergirl]

I only went in the morning. 8:30 was the latest I was there and at least the first day or two there were lines for them and I hate running on the treadmill so I did go out and run on the deck. They do have a short track around the sky court area. 7 times around equals a mile. But by the third day the crowds in the gym had thinned out. Kinda like what happens at the regular gym at new year's and by end of February there all gone just on a much faster scale.