Magic 7 night Eastern Caribbean review

[lisajm]

Ahoy, fellow cruisers! My partner and I sailed last week on the Magic out of Port Canaveral and I thought I would give a review. 
Embarkation: We had an assigned time 11:00-1130. Check in was a breeze. We waited about 15 minutes before embarkation started. One thing that was decidedly different was that we were not issued our sign and sail cards upon checking in. We were told that our cards would be found outside our cabin. 
We boarded the ship and headed to the Lido deck for lunch. I some delicious Mongolian Wok while Tim sought out some buffet items. 
After lunch we walked around a bit until our room was ready. We were in a balcony room, 7381. On the way to our Muster Station, we saw our luggage on a cart and asked if we could carry it to our cabin. The luggage handler insisted on delivering it for us. 
We decided to unpack then go to the mandatory check- in. Our muster station was E4, in the Southern Lights Dining Room located aft. We checked in and it took only about 10 minutes and we were done. (we were able to view the safety instructions from our cabin prior to check-in)..

Tim and I walked around to get a feel for the layout. The ship was all decked out for Christmas. A large metallic green tree graced the lobby atrium and there we various other trees throughout the ship. 
Note, masks were required while indoors and social distancing, masks were encouraged on deck for outdoor activities. 
After, sail away we came back to the cabin to shower and get ready for dinner. Tim and I opted to do Our time dining so we were in the forward Northern Lights dining room. 
As we were checking in they asked if we had checked in on the Carnival Hub app. We had not. They hosts explained that we would be seated faster by checking in on the app. Our dining crew were Bryan, Bravesh, and Sigit, who were all fabulous. We asked the hosts how to be seated in their section. She made a note in the system and we sat in their section for the rest of the cruise. 
After dinner, we went to the theater for the welcome aboard show, hosted by Gary, our cruise director. The performers have a short show as a preview. They were all great, giving high energy performances. 
After the show we danced a bit at the mid ship lobby before turning in for the night. 
To be continued…

[groundloop]

1 hour ago, lisajm said:

...... One thing that was decidedly different was that we were not issued our sign and sail cards upon checking in. We were told that our cards would be found outside our cabin......

 

It's been like that for quite some time now, late 2018 or early 2019 if I remember correctly.

[lisajm]

Ahh. It’s been maybe 3-4 years since a Carnival cruise for me. My last cruise was 2 years ago on Royal. 

[Guest BasicSailor]

7 hours ago, lisajm said:

Ahh. It’s been maybe 3-4 years since a Carnival cruise for me. My last cruise was 2 years ago on Royal. 

Whoa ! I'm definitely going be following this review 😉 Did you find cruising with Carnival a bit different this time around?

[matymil]

On 12/23/2021 at 10:43 PM, groundloop said:

 

It's been like that for quite some time now, late 2018 or early 2019 if I remember correctly.

Thats weird. We went in Sept and they issues ours before we even got on the ship.

[Sassafrass'sMom]

We are on the Magic for the first time January 9th.  Looking forward to reading your review.

[larkz]

We cruised Magic Dec 11-19, and were also surprised to not have the sail and sign card until it was delivered (fairly quickly) into our stateroom mailbox. I didn't feel complete without the card in hand!

 

Getting on the ship was pretty smooth and took about 45 minutes. The muster for us was in the theatre and it was over in 10 minutes for us as well.

 

My quick impressions (if I may butt in on your review)...

 

It seemed just like a "normal" cruise pre-Covid with the primary exceptions being the required masks indoors and lots and lots of crew disinfecting handrails, doorknobs, and whatnot around the ship. The ports requested masks to be worn, and we complied with this. Grand Turk did not allow unvaccinated guests and had just reopened -- we were both vaccinated so no problem for us.

 

The food was excellent. I was worried that Carnival would drastically cut back on quality, but it was some of the best chow on any cruise we've taken. We frequently ate at Blue Iguana, in the Lido buffet, and YTD in the main dining room. We tried to walk off the calories as much as possible, of course.

 

I wasn't as thrilled with the musicians -- some were kind of bad, some okay, one couple were very good. And the live shows had great whiz-bang electronics, but occasionally mediocre talent in our opinion. These weren't important to us, just a way to pass the time while relaxing.

 

We mostly do our own thing in the ports, and other than booking the St. Thomas cable ride up the hill or mountain -- whatever it is technically called -- we took roads less travelled. The standard faire of port activities seems to be a game of copycat from one cruise destination to the next: ziplines, catamarans, snorkel, dolphins, stingrays, dune buggies or hummers or segways or whatever, beach getaways, cabanas, town tours, and so on. Each of these is fine, but they can get old if you cruise a lot and like doing your own thing.

 

Disembarking via self-assist was a bit messy because people were trying to get into wrapped lines from all directions and not enough staff to manage the lines -- but it still went fairly fast. We were driving away by 9am.

 

My unofficial impression is that the cruise may have sailed around 75-80 percent capacity. Hardly any wait for anything, lines were short. The Eastern ports on this itinerary were all docked, so no shuttles. Nice!