After doing thorough research leading up to my cruise on 4/29/12, I was a little concerned about the various reviews I have heard regarding the Carnival Magic. I have to say though, that any concerns you may have with some of the negative reviews shouldn't stop you. I had a great time!

My cruise consisted of my two brothers and I meeting 11 of our friends (all singles) in Galveston on 4/29/12. My brothers and I drove to Houston the night before and stayed overnight in a Hilton hotel. After a nice night's sleep we made the trip down to Galveston the next morning and got to the port around 11:00.

Embarkation process went quite smoothly, after the zigzag of lines and different presentations of paperwork, scanners, and credit cards, they had taken our security photos and we were on to the catwalk and looking at the magnificent ship! We boarded very quickly and walked on to Deck 3 at the Atrium, where we sat down to wait for the rest of our group. After a few minutes looking around in the Atrium, which was very eye popping and chrome lined, our friends arrived. We took a quick look in the main theater on the front of the ship since it was empty, and had our photos taken on the stage. This ship's main theater is huge compared to the Carnival Ecstasy, and we all just looked around for 10 minutes or so. We went up to the lido deck from there and had our first buffet lunch. The Indian food is good and spicy, if you like that sort of thing, and the other buffet food is really good as well. I never had the Mongolian Wok (heard mixed reviews about that) and never tried the burrito bar, though some others in our group did and quite liked it. Read more