I just got off the Magic on Sunday morning. It is Thursday, today. It was an ok cruise. I had read lots of negative reviews for the Magic prior to booking, but I still wanted to give it a try for myself since I know lots of people find so many things to complain about. I last cruised on RCL's Liberty, which was in the neighborhood of 3 years old, I think. At that time, I was thinking there were quite a few things I liked better on Carnival. Two months prior to that cruise I had sailed on the Carnival Freedom.

Generally speaking, I would have to say the Carnival ships are so much the same as each other. I expected the newer, bigger ship to have more, but it didn't. It had a nicer, bigger water slide, which I did not go on. It had a sky-walk thing (can't remember exactly what it was called) that I did not try, either. The decor was nice. There didn't seem to be much "theme" to it, like other ships have had (such as statues of liberty all over the place). The RCL ship had a skating rink, rock climbing wall, surf boarding thing, main street with shops, etc. The Magic didn't have any of that. I can't say how many bars there were on the Magic, and I don't care that much, but it seemed like a lot fewer than previous ships.

There didn't seem to be much entertainment staff. The dancers ran the Bingo. The cruise director did a few shows and announcements. There wasn't anybody entertaining around the pool area, for example, hardly ever. Read more