Anyone Cruise on the Magic Lately?

[tonyfall1]

Hello,

I have a cruise booked on the Magic in August. It will be my first Carnival Cruise. I have done NCL, Princess and MSC and have enjoyed all of them. I am seeing lots of recent comments about the condition of the Magic and that it is in rough shape. Just wondering if anyone has been on lately and your thoughts. We are bringing a couple of people and it will be their first cruise, I would hate for them to be disappointed. I did a last minute switch from the Vista (recently renovated) to the Magic, same itinerary. The flights I found were cheaper going to FLL instead of MCO, but now I am concerned.

Edited June 9 by tonyfall1

[mz-s]

Carnival is not known for their immaculate maintenance and Magic is an older ship at this point by those standards. I was last on Magic over Labor Day 2023 so I can't speak to her current condition. Back then, basically all the carpet all over the ship had stains and most chairs and loungers were stained as well.

 

I did notice that the crew were replacing carpets on port days so I am hopeful that they have taken care of a lot of those issues between then and now.

[MRVEGAS711]

She's tired

 

[havanadaydreaming]

We sailed her last Dec. Party of six. 

 

Everyone had a great time. 

 

Its a middle aged ship and if you look hard there will be some wear and tear somewhere.  Most public spaces are immaculate. All 3 of our cabins didnt show wear and tear. 

[KKB]

I asked a similar question awhile back as we have Magic booked for March.

I had read reviews that weren't exciting--tho I look for patterns in complaints & they were all over the board. So that's a good thing, actually.

But overall here people had few complaints.

Seems complainers are more likely to write a review.

We did our 1st Carnival last year after 25+ cruises on most other mainstream lines & were told we would hate it.

We did NOT--we enjoyed it just as much as our other cruises!

NOW our bartenders said the key to Carnival is to avoid short cruises--they tend to be "booze" cruises.

1st time cruisers have nothing to compare to, so your response will set the stage for them. 

Plan to have a good time & you most likely will!

And sailing from FLL is SO SO much easier than MCO--MCO is a PAIN since the airport is an hour inland.

 

[Essiesmom]

At the top of the Carnival board page are a bunch of ovals.  Below them are See posts about…and then Select Ship.  Clicking on Select ship, you get a dropdown menu of the ships.  Click on Magic and you will get a list of threads about her.  EM

[mz-s]

3 minutes ago, KKB said:

I asked a similar question awhile back as we have Magic booked for March.

I had read reviews that weren't exciting--tho I look for patterns in complaints & they were all over the board. So that's a good thing, actually.

But overall here people had few complaints.

Seems complainers are more likely to write a review.

We did our 1st Carnival last year after 25+ cruises on most other mainstream lines & were told we would hate it.

We did NOT--we enjoyed it just as much as our other cruises!

NOW our bartenders said the key to Carnival is to avoid short cruises--they tend to be "booze" cruises.

1st time cruisers have nothing to compare to, so your response will set the stage for them. 

Plan to have a good time & you most likely will!

And sailing from FLL is SO SO much easier than MCO--MCO is a PAIN since the airport is an hour inland.

 

 

Carnival doesn't sail from FLL currently, so I am not sure what OP is talking about here. Perhaps OP means they're flying into FLL? But what does that have to do with the Magic...lots of folks fly into FLL and sail out of MIA.

[Essiesmom]

4 minutes ago, KKB said:

I asked a similar question awhile back as we have Magic booked for March.

I had read reviews that weren't exciting--tho I look for patterns in complaints & they were all over the board. So that's a good thing, actually.

But overall here people had few complaints.

Seems complainers are more likely to write a review.

We did our 1st Carnival last year after 25+ cruises on most other mainstream lines & were told we would hate it.

We did NOT--we enjoyed it just as much as our other cruises!

NOW our bartenders said the key to Carnival is to avoid short cruises--they tend to be "booze" cruises.

1st time cruisers have nothing to compare to, so your response will set the stage for them. 

Plan to have a good time & you most likely will!

And sailing from FLL is SO SO much easier than MCO--MCO is a PAIN since the airport is an hour inland.

 

He may be flying into FLL but will have to make his way to Miami to board Magic.  EM

[Joanne G.]

I was on the Magic in April and did not notice any glaring maintenance or cleaning issues in the public areas or my cabin.   

 

It is not a new ship.  Thousands and thousands of passengers, week in and week out for years, plus sea air, make it pretty hard for any ship to look brand new for very long.  There was rust on the trough along the bottom of my balcony, which in no way affected the enjoyment of my cruise.  

 

Everyone's expectations are different.  I hope you and your friends have fun on your Magic cruise, even if you encounter something that is less than perfect.  

 

 

[Indiansbaseball]

We just did a March Magic cruise. It was our second time on her. We had a great time ! Both our rooms on each cruise, were immaculate. I didn’t see dirty chairs and carpet. There was a couch on deck 5 that was covered the whole cruise, I am assuming it was being recovered or replaced. Didn’t affect my cruise. I am Mrs Neatfreak. Hate hotels. I am very picky.  Everything was great for me. Lots to do …lots of space ! 
You will have a great time ! 

Edited June 9 by Indiansbaseball

[KKB]

3 minutes ago, mz-s said:

 

Carnival doesn't sail from FLL currently, so I am not sure what OP is talking about here. Perhaps OP means they're flying into FLL? But what does that have to do with the Magic...lots of folks fly into FLL and sail out of MIA.

Yep, forgot about that. Hope OP realizes that!

Well, MIA port is a mess but flying into FLL or MIA is easy & both ports very accessible.

[tonyfall1]

27 minutes ago, mz-s said:

 

Carnival doesn't sail from FLL currently, so I am not sure what OP is talking about here. Perhaps OP means they're flying into FLL? But what does that have to do with the Magic...lots of folks fly into FLL and sail out of MIA.

Yes, FLL is an airport. So I am flying into the FLL airport and sailing out of Miami. Correct no cruise ships sail out of the airport. I had originally booked the Vista but flights to MCO were not as good. So I switched at the last second to the Magic. 

Edited June 9 by tonyfall1

[mz-s]

27 minutes ago, tonyfall1 said:

Yes, FLL is an airport. So I am flying into the FLL airport and sailing out of Miami. Correct no cruise ships sail out of the airport. I had originally booked the Vista but flights to MCO were not as good. So I switched at the last second to the Magic. 

 

Plenty of cruise ships sail out of Lauderdale, but not Carnival.

 

I would much rather sail out of Miami than Canaveral if I'm flying, personally. But then again, if I were sailing Carnival out of either port I would only consider Mardi Gras or Celebration.

[tonyfall1]

1 hour ago, mz-s said:

 

Plenty of cruise ships sail out of Lauderdale, but not Carnival.

 

I would much rather sail out of Miami than Canaveral if I'm flying, personally. But then again, if I were sailing Carnival out of either port I would only consider Mardi Gras or Celebration.

Yes I understand that plenty of cruise ships sail out of Lauderdale, somehow the discussion got turned into an airport discussion. I am good on airports was just wondering if anyone has sailed on the Magic recently.

[mz-s]

2 minutes ago, tonyfall1 said:

Yes I understand that plenty of cruise ships sail out of Lauderdale, somehow the discussion got turned into an airport discussion. I am good on airports was just wondering if anyone has sailed on the Magic recently.

 

Sorry, sometimes we focus on unimportant details in threads like this 😉

[danacline]

We just debarked Magic this morning. Party of 16, 6 of us driving from Kansas City, the others flying from California. All in all, a good cruise. However, there are various issues. Most of them were technology related - Carnival relies on an app for everything, and the ship's wifi is very spotty so the app doesn't handle that well. Many messages were lost, notifications took forever, etc. She apparently was not dry-docked during the pandemic as most other ships were. I'll be posting a review later this week with details. Basically, 8 years since we were last on Carnival, on this ship, and it's gone down hill since. We will probably switch to Royal and Princess - they still have a quality product. If you have assigned dining, you should be fine, but they don't handle anytime well. Trivia was good, comedy club and red frog bar were good, piano bar was fun. Everyone should have a good cruise, but there may be disappointments.

 

[mz-s]

15 hours ago, danacline said:

We just debarked Magic this morning. Party of 16, 6 of us driving from Kansas City, the others flying from California. All in all, a good cruise. However, there are various issues. Most of them were technology related - Carnival relies on an app for everything, and the ship's wifi is very spotty so the app doesn't handle that well. Many messages were lost, notifications took forever, etc. She apparently was not dry-docked during the pandemic as most other ships were. I'll be posting a review later this week with details. Basically, 8 years since we were last on Carnival, on this ship, and it's gone down hill since. We will probably switch to Royal and Princess - they still have a quality product. If you have assigned dining, you should be fine, but they don't handle anytime well. Trivia was good, comedy club and red frog bar were good, piano bar was fun. Everyone should have a good cruise, but there may be disappointments.

 

 

She was drydocked in 2021, but they didn't really do anything besides paint the hull and expand the casino.

[adventuredancer]

we were on her fall of 2023. sometimes the app gets overloaded (but i've found that to be the case on every ship and royal carribean ships too). everything looked clean. there is always some decor that i don't like (but that is the same on every ship and royal's too-taste is subjective). 
the only thing i don't like about the Magic is the layout of the room that they use for comedy shows. i don't feel like it is conductive to comedy and large groups compared to some of the other ships. 
anytime dining was fine. it always told us a 15 min wait even if it was more, however, every ship we have been on tells us that. i did like that the tides pool area was mostly empty most of the time. I didn't like that deck 5 port side was the smoking area because even though our balcony was forward of that area, the smell still went up several decks even when sailing.
and how crowded (crowd flow) on deck 5 in the lanai area gets with so many things in that area. 

so i would say standard complaints you can get from most ships. 

[jayfroman]

My wife and I just got off the Magic yesterday too. I will say, our last cruise prior to this cruise was on the Magic 12 years ago out of Galveston so i cant reference any other ship or experience. 

 

I thought the interior of the ship looked good, our room was on the Spa Deck (12) and it was very nice and clean, nothing worn down or looked old and beat up. The Balcony Area was a tad rough with the white paint having some rust but that's being a little picky. 

 

Other common interior areas were nice and clean and again not worn down.  

 

The wifi on the Lido deck sucked for the most part during peak times, early in the morning it worked very well but once everyone started coming out for the day it slowed down to being non-useable...the access points on the Lido deck (4) are very old and probably cant handle that amount of users at one time. Wifi inside the ship work pretty well for the most part, I had the top tier and my wife had the base package. 

 

Dining, we did not have an assigned time. You would check-in from the app and it would tell you approx waiting time, pretty accurate but not 100%. We would typically eat between 6:30  - 7:15, we knew we would have to wait so it wasnt a big deal, Elegant/Formal Night, the wait was longer for obvious reasons. 

 

Lido Buffet was crowded, we only ate dinner there one night, couple of lunches and it was crowded, but thats to be expected. Guy's burgers were great, line went very fast even though it was long. 

 

We hit the Red Frog Pub and the other bar next to it, had a great time. We did not see any shows on the ship, wasnt really interested in them. 

 

The Crowd/other Passengers, everyone was just fine, no ruckus, fighting, yelling etc...very well mannered crowd. Kids were typical kids but nothing crazy or would make me question their parents on how they raised them, very well mannered. 

 

Staff...all excellent, very nice, warm, not enough good things to say. 

 

When we were at FLL yesterday checking our bags, we spoke to a family that just got off the Celebration, they were not impressed at all! Yes the ship is newer and pretty but they had 6,000 people on the ship, everything was crowded, not enough room for anyone doing anything!! 

 

The exterior of the ship, had some rust which I feel that they need to cover/paint, it would make the ship look much better. We did see a Royal Car. ship in St Marten, it had a lot of rust so my expectations were tamed a little bit! 

 

Overall, we really enjoyed our cruise, very relaxing, had a great time and would do it again. My wife would like to get on a newer ship to see some more of the "foo-foo"(sp) but after speaking to the family off the celebration, she may be changing her mind. 

 

As for someones first cruise, i think they would have a great time.

 

Hope this helps! 

JF

[tonyfall1]

17 minutes ago, jayfroman said:

My wife and I just got off the Magic yesterday too. I will say, our last cruise prior to this cruise was on the Magic 12 years ago out of Galveston so i cant reference any other ship or experience. 

 

I thought the interior of the ship looked good, our room was on the Spa Deck (12) and it was very nice and clean, nothing worn down or looked old and beat up. The Balcony Area was a tad rough with the white paint having some rust but that's being a little picky. 

 

Other common interior areas were nice and clean and again not worn down.  

 

The wifi on the Lido deck sucked for the most part during peak times, early in the morning it worked very well but once everyone started coming out for the day it slowed down to being non-useable...the access points on the Lido deck (4) are very old and probably cant handle that amount of users at one time. Wifi inside the ship work pretty well for the most part, I had the top tier and my wife had the base package. 

 

Dining, we did not have an assigned time. You would check-in from the app and it would tell you approx waiting time, pretty accurate but not 100%. We would typically eat between 6:30  - 7:15, we knew we would have to wait so it wasnt a big deal, Elegant/Formal Night, the wait was longer for obvious reasons. 

 

Lido Buffet was crowded, we only ate dinner there one night, couple of lunches and it was crowded, but thats to be expected. Guy's burgers were great, line went very fast even though it was long. 

 

We hit the Red Frog Pub and the other bar next to it, had a great time. We did not see any shows on the ship, wasnt really interested in them. 

 

The Crowd/other Passengers, everyone was just fine, no ruckus, fighting, yelling etc...very well mannered crowd. Kids were typical kids but nothing crazy or would make me question their parents on how they raised them, very well mannered. 

 

Staff...all excellent, very nice, warm, not enough good things to say. 

 

When we were at FLL yesterday checking our bags, we spoke to a family that just got off the Celebration, they were not impressed at all! Yes the ship is newer and pretty but they had 6,000 people on the ship, everything was crowded, not enough room for anyone doing anything!! 

 

The exterior of the ship, had some rust which I feel that they need to cover/paint, it would make the ship look much better. We did see a Royal Car. ship in St Marten, it had a lot of rust so my expectations were tamed a little bit! 

 

Overall, we really enjoyed our cruise, very relaxing, had a great time and would do it again. My wife would like to get on a newer ship to see some more of the "foo-foo"(sp) but after speaking to the family off the celebration, she may be changing her mind. 

 

As for someones first cruise, i think they would have a great time.

 

Hope this helps! 

JF

Thank you, this was extremely helpful.

[mz-s]

45 minutes ago, jayfroman said:

My wife and I just got off the Magic yesterday too. I will say, our last cruise prior to this cruise was on the Magic 12 years ago out of Galveston so i cant reference any other ship or experience. 

 

I thought the interior of the ship looked good, our room was on the Spa Deck (12) and it was very nice and clean, nothing worn down or looked old and beat up. The Balcony Area was a tad rough with the white paint having some rust but that's being a little picky. 

 

Other common interior areas were nice and clean and again not worn down.  

 

The wifi on the Lido deck sucked for the most part during peak times, early in the morning it worked very well but once everyone started coming out for the day it slowed down to being non-useable...the access points on the Lido deck (4) are very old and probably cant handle that amount of users at one time. Wifi inside the ship work pretty well for the most part, I had the top tier and my wife had the base package. 

 

Dining, we did not have an assigned time. You would check-in from the app and it would tell you approx waiting time, pretty accurate but not 100%. We would typically eat between 6:30  - 7:15, we knew we would have to wait so it wasnt a big deal, Elegant/Formal Night, the wait was longer for obvious reasons. 

 

Lido Buffet was crowded, we only ate dinner there one night, couple of lunches and it was crowded, but thats to be expected. Guy's burgers were great, line went very fast even though it was long. 

 

We hit the Red Frog Pub and the other bar next to it, had a great time. We did not see any shows on the ship, wasnt really interested in them. 

 

The Crowd/other Passengers, everyone was just fine, no ruckus, fighting, yelling etc...very well mannered crowd. Kids were typical kids but nothing crazy or would make me question their parents on how they raised them, very well mannered. 

 

Staff...all excellent, very nice, warm, not enough good things to say. 

 

When we were at FLL yesterday checking our bags, we spoke to a family that just got off the Celebration, they were not impressed at all! Yes the ship is newer and pretty but they had 6,000 people on the ship, everything was crowded, not enough room for anyone doing anything!! 

 

The exterior of the ship, had some rust which I feel that they need to cover/paint, it would make the ship look much better. We did see a Royal Car. ship in St Marten, it had a lot of rust so my expectations were tamed a little bit! 

 

Overall, we really enjoyed our cruise, very relaxing, had a great time and would do it again. My wife would like to get on a newer ship to see some more of the "foo-foo"(sp) but after speaking to the family off the celebration, she may be changing her mind. 

 

As for someones first cruise, i think they would have a great time.

 

Hope this helps! 

JF

 

Sounds I need to book another cruise on Magic! 

[peanutzmom]

We also just got off on Sunday. Overall, we had a great time with very few complaints! It was an improvement from our last three cruises - Carnival Liberty 3/19, RCCL Allure of the Seas 3/22, and MSC Divina 1/23. We found it to be clean and in decent condition for things like carpet, cabin, common areas, etc., though there is definitely rust that needs addressed in the outdoor areas (including our balcony). Food was good to great (except for a couple of misses), staff was pleasant and attentive, other passengers were mostly polite and kids were mostly under control. We didn’t purchase the ship’s internet plan, and we found the free wi-if to work sufficiently to use the app and to communicate with each other through the Chat feature on the app. I’m putting together a more detailed review and will hopefully post it in the next day or two. The biggest downside was that my husband started feeling under the weather the day we disembarked and tested positive for COVID the next day. According to our sailing’s Facebook page, lots and lots of passengers have tested positive in the last couple of days.

[danacline]

Fortunately no one in our extended party of 16 has reported any Covid issues or any other problems. Already booked on the next cruse, sadly not until November 2025. RCCL Harmony out of Galveston.

 

[Butterbean1000]

We cruised her in May.  We did not notice any major issues.  Only one disappointed, the map channel was mot working. There's some rust on her hull, but this was being addressed while on the ports.  Magic and Breeze are my favorite Carnival ships.

[jakeT]

That’s so SAD.   I love that ship layout. and size.  Bigger enough to have all the specialty restaurants.  But not that big