Review: Carnival Magic June 4,2016 Eastern Caribbean cruise

[SMSACE6]

thanks for your review! Enjoying very much. this is a ship, that I am hoping to sail in the next year or two. I have another cruise line booked for 2017 with friends, but am hoping Magic will still be in Port Canaveral, or somewhere that I can get to easily in 2018. She is a ship that I am hoping to sail, and the itinerary, may or may not make a difference. Just looks like a ship I want to sail:)

[CruzieSue]

Thank you so much for this wonderful review and beautiful photos!! We are seriously thinking about booking this same cruise next year for my son's high school graduation and now I know it would be a great choice!! If we do, this will be our first Carnival cruise. :)

[newNCLcruiser2010]

Thanks for this review! We will be on the magic this Saturday! Less than 2 days away! I want to do basically what you did in San Juan, going to the forts and walking around the town. I am a little anxious about this though because I have never been there. Is it easy to find your way around? Did you go somewhere and get a map/schedule for the trolleys? Just wondering if this was all pretty easy to do without much planning.

Thanks!

 

 

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[cruisebound2011]

Thank you so much for this wonderful review and beautiful photos!! We are seriously thinking about booking this same cruise next year for my son's high school graduation and now I know it would be a great choice!! If we do, this will be our first Carnival cruise. :)

 

 

There were quite a few high school graduates in the cruise, including my niece. Many people decorated their cabin doors in honor of their graduate. We definitely had a blast and the kids and teens with us had so much fun too!

 

 

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[cruisebound2011]

Thanks for this review! We will be on the magic this Saturday! Less than 2 days away! I want to do basically what you did in San Juan, going to the forts and walking around the town. I am a little anxious about this though because I have never been there. Is it easy to find your way around? Did you go somewhere and get a map/schedule for the trolleys? Just wondering if this was all pretty easy to do without much planning.

Thanks!

 

 

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It is definitely fairly easy to find your way around. There are many of the free trolley stops around town. There are even some as soon as you get off the ship. Just ask the many tour guides/taxi drivers standing around. They are all very friendly.

 

What we did was walk straight across the street after getting off the boat. We walked along the sidewalk to the right of the big hotel across from the port (Hilton I think?) and then kind of veered to the right towards the smaller fort. That is where the little square with vendors was and two trolley stops are also there. It's the little white trolley that you want to ride for free. Just a heads up though....I only saw three free trolleys. So it was a bit of a wait for one to come around. But it was worth the wait!

 

I think there is a map in the FunTimes the night before. But a nice local man also gave us a free map and there was a large map in the square we went to first. Everyone there was very nice.

 

Have fun!

 

 

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[cruisebound2011]

I wanted to add that all of the locals were very nice and helpful in San Juan. That includes the taxi drivers and tour guides at the port. They were very calm and not aggressive at all. Complete opposite of what we experienced in St Thomas. I never once felt unsafe in Puerto Rico.

 

 

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[cruisebound2011]

GRAND TURK

 

 

Since we weren't docking in Grand Turk until noon, we didn't wake up as early this morning. We took our time and went to breakfast on lido a little later. I thought for sure there would be a line since we were eating later. Nope. Still no line at the buffet.

 

My husband and a few other family members ate a breakfast burrito from the Blue Iguana every morning. They loved them. I'm not crazy about breakfast burritos, so I never tried one.

 

My girls got a kick out of all the towel animals on Lido that morning. Every single chair had a towel animal.

 

 

 

 

 

Of course they talked me into ice cream after breakfast again!

 

 

After we ate, we went back to our cabin to get ready for Grand Turk. We watched Grand Turk come into view from our balcony.

 

 

 

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[cruisebound2011]

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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[cruisebound2011]

 

We knew we wanted to get to the beach early so we could get good seats on the beach. So this was the first port that we went on down before they opened up the gangway. People were already lined up but it wasn't too bad. We only had to wait about 10 min and then we were able to get off the ship.

 

We went straight to the beach and found chairs right up front. The clam shells and chairs were free, but the umbrellas are extra. We ended up getting an umbrella because the clam shells didn't allow a breeze to come though and it was so hot! We pretty much had to stay in the water to stay cool. My kids were fine with that though. They loved snorkeling and seeing fish right there off the beach. The beach gets crowded quickly!

 

 

I took this picture when we first got there before the crowd hit!

 

 

 

I bought small ring floats from the dollar store before we left home. My girls liked having them to float on and they made it easy to snorkel.

 

 

 

 

After we had gotten our fill of snorkeling and swimming, we went to Margaritaville for lunch and shade! There were tables open and there was a nice breeze up there. The food and drinks were good! We watched people on the Flowrider and checked out the pool. It was very crowded.

 

 

 

 

 

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[cruisebound2011]

 

The Volcano nachos are always good at Margaritaville.

 

 

We went shopping and then headed back to the ship.

 

 

 

 

 

 

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[cruisebound2011]

We watched sail away from our balcony and relaxed for a while before getting ready for dinner.

 

 

We mixed things up tonight because the "Win" show started at 7:15. We were usually at dinner during that time, so we decided to go eat after the show. That's why I love Your Time Dining. You aren't stuck with a specific time every night. Anyway, we enjoyed the Win show, and made it to dinner around 8:30. We were afraid we wouldn't get Christian's table, but it was still available thankfully.

 

 

For appetizer, I ordered escargot. I let some of our group try them for the first time. They were good!

 

 

My main course was lasagna. It was pretty good. Nothing spectacular.

 

 

Dessert was cheesecake, and it was yummy.

 

 

One of my girls ordered the popcorn dessert (can't remember the exact name!) and she loved it.

 

 

 

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[cruisebound2011]

Sebastian entertaining my youngest during dinner. I'm telling you, we had the best waiters!

 

 

 

 

The magician also came to our table. He was really good and my girls were impressed by his magic.

 

 

 

After dinner, we hung out in the atrium for a while and listened to Dr E's Oldie Goldie sing-a-long. Then some went to the casino and some of us took the kids to the BlueIguana Fiesta Party on Lido. First we went back to the cabin to freshen up. This was our towel animal and it was the best one of the week! It was on the toilet and had my daughters swim suit top and goggles on. It looked like a little old lady. It cracked us up because we didn't expect it to be I the toilet.

 

 

The fiesta party on Lido was fun. We danced a lot, then we let the kids dance more while I videoed them.

 

 

 

 

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[cruisebound2011]

The older kids hit the Vibe night club. They had fun dancing there during the cruise. We took the younger kids to get ice cream of course! Then it was bedtime!

 

 

 

SEA DAY

 

We had made reservations for the Dr Seuss breakfast. Now my kids didn't care if we did it or not, but some of the adults in our group insisted we do it. I'm glad we did because it was fun. The food was just ok, but it was cute. Younger kids would definitely enjoy it a lot! It was worth the $5pp.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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[cruisebound2011]

They had a photographer taking pictures of you with the characters. But they didn't care if you also took some with your own camera.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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[cruisebound2011]

I had the pancakes and my girls had the waffles. Most of the others had the green eggs and ham or the steak and eggs. They all said their food was very good.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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[cruisebound2011]

The rest of the day was spent roaming around the ship doing what we could to make our last day great. Water slides, arcade, fun on Lido.......We didn't want it to end! It started raining mid afternoon. Thankfully that was the only rain we saw all week.

 

 

 

 

 

We arrived at dinner around 6:30 and our usual table with Christian was taken!! We had him our entire cruise and were so disappointed that we would have him and Sebastian on our final night. We lucked up and at least got a table next to his tables. So we were able to still talk to them.

 

Our servers this night were awful. I don't know if it's because it was the last night, they didn't know us, and didn't care? But they never smiled once and acted like we were bothering them. They were both females. When it came time for the waiters to perform their farewell song and dance, the ladies tried to get my girls up to dance with them and my girls declined. Not long after, Christian and Sebastian came over to get us all to dance with them and my kids hopped up immediately and enjoyed dancing. They were more than excited to dance with them!

 

My appetizer was a bar-b-que chicken flatbread. It was good.

 

 

I ordered the prime rib for my main course. I forgot to take a picture. Everyone at our table had been raving about how great it was during the week. Well, mine and my aunt's were not good at all. Ours was cut really thick, was tough, and had no flavor at all. My oldest daughter ordered it too, and hers was great! I didn't complain and ate it anyway. But I was disappointed. I ordered one last chocolate melting cake for dessert. No picture since I had already taken one of it earlier in the week.

 

We reluctantly said our goodbyes to our amazing waiters. My girls were almost in tears because they enjoyed them that much.

 

Christian

 

 

Sebastian

 

 

 

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[cruisebound2011]

After dinner, we all attended the PG comedy show. Others in our group had been going to the PG and R shows all week, but this was the only one we took the girls to. The comedian kept it PG and it was very kid appropriate. Sometimes they still use adult jokes and just leave out the cuss words.

 

 

Next, we went to the atrium and watched the introduction of the Captain and his crew as well as the balloon drop.

 

 

 

 

We ended the night with the Legends show in the theatre. Everyone was good and of course Dr E as Beyoncé was hilarious.

 

 

 

One ice cream before bed and we officially finished our last night of our wonderful vacation. We left our luggage outside in the hallway earlier in the night, and it was already gone when we returned to the cabin for the night.

 

 

 

 

 

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[cruisebound2011]

We woke up early the next day just in time to catch the sunrise over Cape Canaveral from our balcony.

 

 

None of us were ready to leave. We had an amazing time on the Magic and would definitely sail her again. That's if Dr E is on there! It wouldn't be the same without him. All of the staff and crew we encountered on a daily basis were great.

 

We went back to deck 11 and ended our vacation in the same place where we started it a week earlier. We were able to debark at 9am.

 

One last ice cream for breakfast!!

 

 

 

 

Not happy at all about leaving the ship!

 

 

Tired kids waiting to disembark!

 

 

Disembarkation was smooth. When our group was called, we easily got an elevator and made our way down. We were off the boat within minutes. Customs didn't take long either. A porter loaded all of our bags on a cart and took us through a shorter line to customs. He also pushed all of our luggage to the car for us. Super easy and quick.

 

 

Feel free to ask any questions. I know I left out many things!

 

 

 

 

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[mrpayroll]

Thanks for the great review. We are doing the same itinerary in September. Looking forward to Amber Cove ( never been there ).

[cruisebound2011]

Thanks for the great review. We are doing the same itinerary in September. Looking forward to Amber Cove ( never been there ).

 

 

Have fun!!

 

 

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[Drazil65]

Nice review and great pictures! We love this itinerary and are on the Magic in December doing it again! First time on Magic for us so very happy to see the ship in your pictures, did you happen to see or take a picture of where the giant chess board is? My son is a chess fanatic and spends a lot of sea days playing.

[mikechass]

Very much enjoyed this.

Thanks again for taking the time to write it all up and post the pictures.

We are 250 days out... uggggg seems like forever!

Have a wonderful summer.

Chass.

[GAcruiser417]

Thank you for your review, enjoyed it!!!

[ctb1]

Thanks for posting the pictures - beautiful ship! It is nice to see so many positive reviews; previously, I saw quite a few negative reviews, which, of course, concerned me. I will also be sailing on the Magic soon - the Eastern Caribbean itinerary as well - along with my family. Can you tell me what nights were formal dining nights?

Edited July 18, 2016 by ctb1

[cruisebound2011]

Thanks for posting the pictures - beautiful ship! It is nice to see so many positive reviews; previously, I saw quite a few negative reviews, which, of course, concerned me. I will also be sailing on the Magic soon - the Eastern Caribbean itinerary as well - along with my family. Can you tell me what nights were formal dining nights?

 

 

The first sea day and the night of stopping in Puerto Rico were formal nights.

 

I honestly couldn't find much to complain about! This is only our second cruise with carnival, so I'm not what they call a cheerleader. But I'm easy going and enjoy vacation! Life is too short to get worked up over little things.

 

 

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