Carnival Magic Review

4.0 / 5.0
1,506 reviews

Love this boat and it's staff!

Review for the Western Caribbean Cruise on Carnival Magic
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limeyosu
2-5 Cruises • Age 50s

Rating by category

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Additional details

Sail Date: Aug 2015
Cabin: Balcony

This was our second cruise with Carnival and definitely the best! we managed to get a steal of a deal on a balcony cabin which is the best way to go! I do not think we will ever book a room without a balcony from now on! the waterworks is a lot of fun, just get up early so you do not have to wait in line for too long by 12 o clock ish you will be in a 15 to 20 min line the rest of the day (especially for the yellow one twister). The main man of the show was Reverend Dr E, a very entertaining and friendly chap, who was fun to listen to, and was always ready to give a hug or a high five. My only main gripe about the cruise was we were under the impression that all of the newer ships had Guys burger joint even the last boat Triumph had it on there and that was a much older ship. We bought the booze pass which is $350 each and only available for purchase on day 2 onwards. It has a limit of 15 drinks a day, and each drink to be completely covered has to be under $10. I drank Guinness so my beers were $6.25 a can. We estimated that you need to drink about 9 or 10 a day of these in order to get your money's worth out of the pass, and on port days that was a little hard to do when you are off the boat for most of the day. Still worth the money as there are no surprises at the end! the buffet was well buffet food so it was ok for lunch and breakfast, the evening meals were superb and the service at dinner was really first class. We had 2 excellent waiters that did magic tricks for the kids, and basically made us feel very welcome. Most nights the wait staff sang songs such as gungnum style and Ferrell Williams Happy.

The excursions we went on were in Cayman, and Jamaica we decided not to do one in Cozumel. The Cayman one was a mess getting off the boat and took time away from our excursion at 7 mile beach quite badly! as the Cayman Islands do not have a pier the boat has to sit out, and you have to be "tindered" on a smaller boat. This process was a mess it took 2+ hours! we lined up in the restaurant with a number waiting to get a seat on the boat! we were supposed to be on the beach at 11:30 we did not get off the boat till around 12:00 the tour company got a little funny about taking us because we were so late. They put us on a bus full of Royal Caribbean people to get us there. We found out later that anyone with a booked excursion was supposed to skip the long lines to get off the boat to help with the time crunch! this was not told to us at all. So if you are doing this cruise make sure you get off the boat asap and they let you off it! I would hate for this to happen to anyone else. We only got 3 hours or so on the beach after all was said and done. Jamaica does have a pier so you just walk off no problem man! we decided to take a bus to Margharitaville , and shop on that strip around there. Bus was $7 a head one way we managed to negotiate a $20 ride back in a taxi. The boat was clean, and we really liked all of the staff on board. The piano bar is definitely worth a visit at least once. The Redfrog pub was ok not as busy as I had expected though, I though it would be a busy spot, but it really was not, they take random pictures of you at the bar and post them on the TV's in there that was cool! we found the best service was at the magic bar as you enter the ship! the staff there are amazing and learnt our names fast and wot we liked to drink too. The Magic will move from Galveston next April to Port Canaveral and the Breeze will take its place, this is cool as they are sister ships so no one will miss out on any fun items! as the Breeze is one year newer I believe it gets guys burger bar which is a must if you cruise with Carnival! Bar the excursion problem at Cayman I think we got a good deal on this 7 day getaway!

Cabin Review

Balcony

Cabin 8A

Cabin was clean and plenty of hot water! our last cruise the hot water ran out very fast you had to be the king of 2 minute showers! all 4 of us took showers and never once ran out of hot water! yay for carnival! in my view get a balcony cabin once you go balcony you never want to go back!

Port Reviews

Galveston

Galveston is ok bit of a mess! although felt slightly more organized than 2 years ago when we sailed.

Cozumel

Cozumel port itself is very clean and new with nice shops.

Montego Bay

Jamaica is a bit of a dump, but most people know this going in. The band playing as we left was nice touch though.

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