Cabin Review

We decided if we were going to do 15 days at sea with 2 little kids, we were going to go a little more for the larger balcony. We had a 4A Family Balcony room (8536) which was midship on the 8th deck. Very convenient location near the midship elevators and just a short flight of stairs up to the pool deck. The room was comfortable and we appreciated the difference between the Family balcony and the regular balcony (the class 5s). The Family balcony has about, oh 4 feet of extra space between the edge of the couch and the balcony door to have room for the 5th person Murphy Bed (which we didn't use). It also had quite the nice dresser/drawer set in that extra space that gave us plenty of storage for clothes and the toys the kids brought.

The only hiccup on the entire cruise was in the cabin, although it wasn't our cabin's fault directly. The closets have sliding doors that have Velcro on the sides to fasten them to the closet walls so when the ship is moving, the doors won't slam around. Unfortunately, someone on Deck 7 had faulty doors and apparently, were the most sound sleepers on the planet. We were SO lucky that the seas were nearly flat for just about the entire cruise - even in the middle of the Atlantic. But the two nights where we had a little movement, all day and night long you would hear occasional "SLAM!......Slam" --the two doors rolling and then slamming into the side of the closet. It was so loud it actually shook our bed and could be heard over about a 5 cabin radius on our deck. A call to guest services brought a senior staff member to our room right away to hear it, and then they tried to find the source. But all of the cabins below us on Deck 7 were occupied and signed "Do not disturb" so they could not enter. So they apologized and said they would check back in the morning. So a second night of loud banging… ugh. That morning, the cabin attendants on the 7th floor apparently were to scour the cabins there to make sure the doors were fastened, but could not locate the issue and as I mentioned, despite what must sound like cannon fire every 20 seconds inside the room where it was happening, it was apparently not loud enough to bother who ever had that cabin. Eventually their solution was to give our neighbors ear plugs, but thankfully, the seas calmed and it wasn't much of an issue the rest of the trip.

Aside from that, you can tell the Magic is aged a bit more -- we had an issue with a loose hinge on the bathroom door and then on one of the cabinets, and the bathroom drain needed attention around Day 9. But each time they came to fix it pronto. Minor stuff. And Disney staff are super vigilant in making sure the problem is fixed, with multiple phone calls and even little letters delivered to your stateroom making sure the issue is resolved.