We were delayed getting on board the ship due to fog. Now, the fog was not Carnival's fault, but the way the embarkation process was carried out was certainly their fault. We received e-mail messages Saturday night and again Sunday morning to give us information about the fog. We were told not to proceed to the ship as the Port Authority of Galveston had closed the port to all incoming and outgoing ships. A little after noon, we received an updated message saying that the ship would arrive in port around 2:30 and embarkation would begin about 5:30. Since we were already in Galveston, we decided to kill a little time and go to a movie. We arrived at the terminal at 5:44 pm. The traffic was horrendous. Other cruisers had disregarded that message and had already arrived and we were all herded into a Walmart sized room. I looked in and said, "Are we getting on a Holocaust ship?" People were sitting on benches, on the floor and against the wall while others were in line to be processed. We got on board at 10:45 PM! We were told when we got our Sign and Sail Card that the dining rooms and buffet lines would be open until everyone was fed. What a big lie! All that was open was the pizza line and ice cream. Our traveling mates decided to order room service rather than wait in the pizza line. It was delivered at 3 AM!

Monday was much better as we were finally at sea and the night before seemed like a bad dream. During the week, we had a good time, but the food on the Carnival Magic is subpar! The buffet lines were always crowded and the food was mediocre at best. The best thing we found was the omelet line and I liked the stir fry line. We did find a little sandwich bar on Deck 5 that was pretty good, but it had limited hours. Overall, if you are hungry after about 9 at night, you are out of luck unless you want to stand in line to get some pizza or eat ice cream! We ordered room service one time and the food was disgusting.

Our dining room wait staff was exceptional, but the food was only mediocre. We ate there every night and for the brunch on the days at sea. While I enjoyed several meals, I picked at most of them because the entrees were not that good. The lobster tail and shrimp night was good and one night I ordered the flat iron steak and it was tasty, but not exceptional. Read more