Carnival Magic Review

4.0 / 5.0
1,504 reviews

Carnival's lost it's Magic

Review for the Western Mediterranean Cruise on Carnival Magic
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LGA2CHS
6-10 Cruises • Age 50s

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Sail Date: Jul 2011
Cabin: Balcony

I was excited to get on board Carnival's new ship, the Magic, when I booked our sailing back in the early part of the year. She looked like she was going to be an amazing ship and one we would enjoy immensely. The itinerary was absolutely outstanding sailing out of Barcelona and hitting the ports of Monaco, Civitavecchia, Livorno, Naples, Venice, Dubrovnick and Messina. The itinerary and ports of call did not disappoint, however, the Magic did!

While the ship is beautiful and magnificent in many ways, at the end of the day it is simply too big. Finding space on the deck during the sea days was next to impossible unless you were able to get up at 6am to secure a chair. There was never enough seating in the theater, part of the problem here was the fact there were at least 25-30 Carnival employees taking up seating for the paying passengers, but even had they not been there, the seating capacity was simply not enough. While I'm on the subject of the theater, specifically the entertainment, outside of 1 show (the 70's show the first show of the trip) the entertainment was below average at best. The comedians and juggler were the best shows the entire trip. The piano bar, usually a frequent stop for me, was not the case this trip. The piano player had a very small selection of songs that he knew and even with some of those, he didn't know all of the lyrics. Back to the Carnival employees that were ever present in the theater and in the Red Frog pub and Vibe dance club. I had never seen so many employees hanging out, drinking, socializing before on a cruise. Maybe it was the fact that this cruise was longer than 7 days that the company allowed them to be out in force like they were but I found it to be very unprofessional. At times the employees would be engaging in public displays of affection with children and families present, which in my eyes is just wrong. As a business owner, it would seem like they are setting themselves up for potential lawsuits or other problems should a passenger take offense to an employees advances or overindulgence. Back to what I found to be another major problem, we joined some friends for anytime seating and had to wait for nearly an hour to be seated. The buffet lines were ridiculously long for breakfast and many other meals as well. I met a gentleman while waiting in one of these lines who informed me that he had taken 17, yes that's right, SEVENTEEN Carnival sailings and he'd never written a complaint before but he was going to for the first time after this trip on the Magic. There simply just isn't enough space to handle all the passengers on this ship.

At the end of the day we made some amazing new friends and saw some wonderfully, beautiful places and the trip was one we will remember forever. However, there simply was no Magic provided by Carnival.

Cabin Review

Balcony

Cabin 8E

The cabin we had was great. It was a balcony on the Lido Deck and we never had any problems with noise or anything else. I would highly recommend this location.

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