Carnival Magic Review

Great time but lousy food!

Review for the Western Caribbean Cruise on Carnival Magic
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cruisecrunch63
6-10 Cruises • Age 60s

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Sail Date: Nov 2014
Cabin: Spa Balcony

This was our 6th cruise and all have been with Carnival. We have heard so many stories from frustrated guests that have had miserable times with Carnival. Ourselves, we have always had a great time on all of our cruises. We believe your vacation is what you make of it. You can sit around and do nothing and complain later that you had a boring time or you can stay involved and do fun things. I must say we had a fantastic time with our excursions. We stayed in a Spa balcony. We highly recommend everybody try it at least once if your budget will allow it. We spent a lot of time on the Serenity deck which was quiet most of the time. Nice to have a place to retreat too with no children around.

Now I can talk about the food. Our worst experience with Carnival. Our first night we ate at the Prime Steak House for an additional $35 pp.. For the money, it wasn't worth it. I had the Filet Mignon and my husband had the Cowboy cut steak. Our steaks were okay. The mashed potatoes were runny and barely warm. He also had Lobster bisque which was on the cool side and watered down. If you book ahead of time for the first night in the Steak House you will get a free bottle of wine with dinner. The wine was okay. You don't get to choose off the wine list itself of something you might be familiar with. They decide from a winery they are trying to promote. Us being from the Napa area, we never even heard of the winery and we've had much better. But hey, it was free! The second night was our first elegant night and we had anytime dining in the dining room. After waiting 15 minutes for our waiter to come by and acknowledge us I chose to have the Salmon entree and my husband went with the Surf and Turf. Another 45 minutes went by before we had our entrees served to us. Salmon was cool and hard and I found it difficult to choke it down to say the least. The lobster tail was okay, but the Filet Mignon that came with it was more like a small hockey puck. Hard and dry. We left without ordering anything else, since we'd already been in there for an hour and 20 minutes. We ate dinner the next two nights in the Cucina Italian restaurant that was an additional $15 pp.. This was the best food on the entire ship from appetizers, entrees and desserts. The staff in there were amazing. The other dining areas on the ship could really learn a lot from them.

We did drop by the 24 hr pizza 3-4 times before we were able to catch them open. Still trying to figure out what "open 24 hrs" means! It was just "okay". It's been way better on the other ships. We dropped by the Lido Buffet breakfast most mornings to get a little something in our bellies before heading out to do something. Food was horrible for the most part. Bacon wasn't even edible! Imitation cheddar cheese for the omelets. Hard eggs on the Eggs Benedict. McDonald's hash browns are better than the round tater tots they were serving. That for sure says something! The fruit wasn't ripe until the 5th day or so. We usually grabbed a yogurt or cereal before heading over to the soft ice cream machine. This is the truth here with all of this. We must've eaten 4-5 ice cream cones every day, since this and the Cucina Italian place were on the top of our lists of places to get something yummy to eat! Although, on the last Sea day we decided to try the brunch in the Southern Lights dining room. I munched on a little chocolate muffin that was delicious. My pork chop had great flavor, but was really dry. Hubby's Caesar salad was warm and drenched with thick dressing. One bite and he had to push it off to the side! At this point we lost our appetites after witnessing one of the hostess girls that serve the roll and pastry baskets to the tables bump into another waitperson and drop a full basket on the floor. She left them on the floor for guests to step over or around for a few minutes since apparently she was so so mad as to pick them up right away. When she did pick them up and place them back into a basket she sat it down on a counter right behind her. Yep, you guessed it! Another hostess walks over and picks it up and doesn't know they were just picked up off the floor and them passes them out. Too late for me to jump up and say anything.

Cabin Review

Spa Balcony

Cabin 8P

Nice room and our steward was always available for us if we needed anything. Room was well kept with fresh towels provided 2-3 times per day.

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