Got back from the Magic last week after dealing with tropical storm Bill and exploring Montego Bay, Grand Cayman, and Cozumel. Kim is doing a major review, so I will try and keep this short. Bill created very rough seas as we tried to scoot around him. They changed the order of our Itinerary, but we still managed to get to all the ports intended. Embarkation was a breeze at 11:45am, as they were already boarding the ship so we had no additional waiting. By 12:30, they opened the doors and two of our four rooms were ready. We made it to a poorly attended meet and greet with our roll call and met a few people. We ended up playing the Red Frog Pub quiz with one of the couples from the meet and greet and won the 101oz beer tube twice during the cruise. That is a lot of fun, but you need to find someone who has done it a few times before, if you want to win.

Our group thought the food on this cruise was very good. We ate in the MDR every night and only had two bad plates the whole trip. The Mahi Mahi was terrible and the Lamb was not much better. We were a little disappointed they hadn’t started the American Table menu yet, but the food was still good. We played quite a bit of trivia and spent the rest of the time on the ship in the bars the comedy club, or the casino. We were in a balcony stateroom 8301, with the kids across the hall in an interior. Rooms were just as expected with plenty of storage. I think I prefer to be a little closer to the elevators, and one or two floors closer to deck 5, were we spend most of our time. The mid ship location was key, however, due to the rough seas. I heard of quite a few sick people at the front of the ship. Won some money the first couple of nights in the casino, but then gave it all back and then some. Two of the people we were traveling with received free cruise vouchers from the casino, but they did play a lot.

At Montego Bay we took the bus to Dr.’s Cave Beach, which was nice, but expensive after you rent chairs and umbrellas. The buckets of beer were $30, and they did not have Ice. We then walked down to Margaritaville, where the kids did the slides, swam, and had lunch. I left the group and walked a few blocks down the road to the Pork Pit by myseld to experience the true jerk chicken we hear so much about. It was overated and expensive, but it was still a worthwhile cultural exchange. There are a lot of pesky street vendors and shop owners, but I felt safe the whole time and had no issues. Wew then caught a private taxi back to the port after a fun day. Read more