Gina and Brian
Earning My Ears
- Joined
- Feb 16, 2002
I just kind of winged it with this report. I hope you all find it somewhat helpful.
Our May 4th Magic Cruise overview- I will try not to bore you with to much detail but just touch on some of the things I think you might be interested in hearing about. We (my wife and 2 children 3 ½ and 6 ½)
Arrived the day before and stayed at the Radisson at the Port. Great pool. The kids loved it. I would definitely stay there again. After the kids got a taste of the Radisson pool and then saw the small pools on the ship I think they were in shock but they got over it fast and really enjoyed the pools on the ship too!
We tried to set up a meet with about 5 other families but we only met 3 out of the 5. We were very disappointed that we ALL did not meet since we posted back and forth on the magical mouse website for about 2 months prior to the cruise. If I tried to set something up again I would either find out all the room numbers or pick a specifice spot like say the promenade lounge at a certain time. Enough about that.
We decided before went on the cruise that we were not going to rush around frantically trying to get this reservation and that reservation because we wanted this to be a relaxing vacation. So we decided to hang around the pool at the Radisson in the morning and take our time getting over to the terminal. I called the desk Saturday morning to reserve a shuttle and the earliest time they had was 1:20 so I asked the girl at the desk to call a taxi for us at 12:00 which she did. The reason we wanted the taxi was because we wanted to stop for beer and wine to bring on with us. Well while we were waiting for the taxi an empty Radisson shuttle pulled up and the guy said no problem jump in and I will drive you to the beer store and then drop you off. GREAT!!!! This was a nice surprise for us. Next we got to the terminal about 12:30 or so and it was busy but the lines to check in were not bad but the line to board the ship was long and confusing to find the end of the line. We were told to look for the guy holding a sign (he was the end of the line). They could organize this much better. The should have roped lines throughout the terminal. There are roped lines but only when your close to entering the security area . But we were all so excited it really did not bother us. After all we were on vacation. All in all it was a pretty smooth process. Once we were aboard we went straight to our room to check it out. We had room 2618 (outside ocean view room. Porthole) and we would definitely stay there again. It was surprisingly quiet. I wanted a verandah but when I called back to book one they were all sold out but the porthole was fine. One thing we prepared ourselves for was the lounge chair issue by the pool. We expected the worse and discovered that it really is not that bad. Crowded pools?
Yes at times but other times it was not. There is always a place to put your things and sit down somewhere.
We were in no hurry to get to the pool areas in the morning and went with the attitude that nothing was going to bother us and I think that helps a lot. Before we left for the cruise reading this board I thought it was not right for people to put a towel or shoes or whatever on a lounge chair but we discovered that this IS what you have to do regardless of what anybody else says. I mean if you have a chair and you want to go in the pool or take a stroll what are you supposed to do? Give up your chair when your only going to be gone for a few minutes. We didnt see any issues with the lounge chairs. The Mickey pool could use better supervison though. I saw a lot of kids losing their temper because other kids were jumping on them or splashing them. My son lost his temper once because another kid held his head under water. If that were my kid I would have dragged him out of the pool and had a nice long talk with him back in the room. Know what I mean? But the parents are probably not any better. I felt bad for one kid. This poor kid was swimming in the Goofy pool by himself. He was about 5 years old and could barely keep his head above the water. No mother or father in sight. I asked him several times where his mother or father was but only his mother was with him and she was sitting at a table far away from the pool. I decided to keep an eye on him for about an hour before his mother came to check on him. Can you belive it?
Now I will skip ahead to St. Martin. We had decided to go to Dawn Beach on our own before the cruise. Dawn Beach is nice and Im sure there are a lot of nice beaches there but thats it. Sorry but you could not pay me to got to St. Martin again. We did not feel comfortable at all there. The locals will bother you about hair braiding and jewelry etc but they stop after awhile. I made a big mistake and did not make sure I had small bills with me when we left for the beach. I had a $100 dollar bill and nobody could break it. The beach bars had just opened and they did not have enough change. My wife in the mean time was buying jewelry, having my daughters hair braided and we couldnt pay the lady. Ha Ha Ha. Here I am running around like a fool trying to get change. Well eventually I got change. So let that be a good tip for you all.
Dont forget to negotiate your drink prices with the bar too! One guy charged me $1.50 for a beer and the guy we sat next to said "oh I only paid .75 cents. So theres another tip for you. I figured I was still getting a deal compared the $4.00 I paid for Heineken on the Magic. Once again I will tell you that Dawn Beach was beautiful but after the beach we couldnt wait to get back to the ship. Near where the ship docks there are a couple of stores and I bought a bottle of Rum for $4.75. I mixed up a few rum and coked during the week in my room to save alittle $$$. I never finished the bottle though. Shame on me!
St. Thomas was Wonderful. We had a major change of plans though. We had planned on going to Megans bay to spend a few hours on the beach but we all had pretty bad sunburns from St. Martin. You ever burn the tops of your feet. OUCH!!! I did. Anyways I was thinking of renting a car and then I met JR. He owns RoadRunner taxi service. Somehow he convinced me to skip the car rental and we would take us on an island tour. Boy am I glad we went with him. If I rented a car my wife and I probably would have been arguing with each other because I know I would have gotten lost. JR knows the island because he lives there. No worries about making a wrong turn, stopping to read the map etc JR was so laid back and friendly. We didnt think it was too bad a price either. We toured from 9:30 until 2:30 and he stopped at different hotels like Sapphire and Coki and waited there for us. He took us to the mountain top overlooking Megans Bay and pointed out different things. Basically he did the whold island tour thing and even dropped us off shopping and asked us when we wanted to be picked up. 5 hour tour for $100. We didnt think that was too bad and we had the 15 passenger van to ourselves. So theres an option incase you end up sunburned like we did. The views on St. Thomas are spectacular. If your going to take an island tour skip the Paradise point gondola. Im glad we didnt do it because we drove right by the top of paradise point with JR. Plus we had awsome views on our ride and got out to take many pictures.
Castaway Cay is everything you have been reading about. We could live there if they would let us. It is a real issue to get a good spot with chairs and umbrella but if your prepared to get off the ship early you will
Have no problem. My wife stayed in the room and took her sweet time while my son and I were off to the races to get the chairs/umbrella. We lucked out. We went down to deck one and walked all the way forward and we discovered other people standing next to a closed door. We asked if this is the way off the ship and they said yes. When we are cleared to exit the ship they will open this door and we will be one of the first ones off. They were right. The door opened and were were right next to the gangway near the elevators.
All of a suden the elevator opened and who walks out but Captain Hook. My son was thrilled. I forgot to mention that I had told my wife where I would try to get a chair and that we would meet there. A good tip I got from this board is to skip the trolley and walk. This is what we did. My son and I were one of the first people on the beach and had our pick of chairs/umbrellas. We sat right in front of the rope jungle jim thing out in the water. The water temperature was 74 degrees. Cooler than St. Martin and St. Thomas but still felt like a bathtub for us since we are from Massachusetts. Well the next priority for me was to order a Konk Cooler. Wow!!!! They are Awsome! We had a few of those and several beers. Yee haaaaa!!!!!
The best part is they serve you right on the beach. No need to leave your chair. Oh those blue mats you float on are great too! The only problem with Castaway is that your only there for a few hours. We personally wished Disney would skip St. Martin and do Castaway twice. Maybe stop at Castaway on the way to St. Thomas and then go back to Castaway. My wife and I each had a chance to got to the Adult Beach. I watched the kids and she went and then vise versa. Awsome!!!!
Disney Dreams was great. Dueling Pianos was great. We watched the Kareoke (sp?) one night and there were some really talented singers up there. I cannot tell you much about the kids club because my son would not stay. He would go for a half hour and then beep us. My daughter stayed longer than my son and liked it better. My son said it reminded him too much of school. Ha ha. He just like being in the pool all day. We gave up on the kids club but my wife and I did not care as long as the kids were happy. There is so much going on that it is hard to see everything. Its quite overwhelming. Bring the Highligher as suggested many times on this board and do yourself a favor and just prioritize what you want to do. If you try to do everything it will be hectic. Almost every night before dinner (late seating) we would go the promenade lounge because we all love music and there was a 2 man band called High Society playing there and they were really great. They were from Scotland. The singer (I forget her name) was so nice to the kids. She would bring them up on stage and dance with them. Cant say enough about High Society.
She even passed my son in the hallway one day and remembered his name.
Food? For breakfast we either did room service or went to Topsiders for the buffet. Room service was very efficient except for one day but when we called they brought our order within 5 minutes and kept appologizing to us. We really didnt care. No problem Mon!!! The lunch buffet at Topsiderss we thought was excellent. A lot of choices. My wife and I do not consider ourselves picky or fussy over food and our overall opinion of the dinners was a rating of just Good. Not very good or Excellent. We had late seating which at first we thought would work out great but my daughter fell asleep at least twice in her chair. Its a lot to ask for a 3 ½ year old to be on the go all day long out in the sun being dragged here there and eveywhere and then be wide awake at dinner. We made the best of it. We really had no other choice. One night we decided to got to Topsiders instead of the dining room but we were alittle disappointed in the offerings there. I mean it was just ok. You pick your own appetizer and then order off of a menu and then you pick you own dessert. We would have been much happier if they had a FULL buffet at Topsiders set up like the lunch buffet. Our servers Ritesh (India) and Tiago (Brazil) were both excellent. For our room we had Eric (Jamaica). All of these guys work their you know what off. We tipped them all more than what Disney suggested. Oh, I almost forgot to mention the soda mug thing. Unless you really drink a lot of soda I feel there is no need for the mug. Save the $35.00. There is a coffee station on deck 9 with water etc and its good water. We drank it all week. If you want an occaisonal soda its $1.50. The mug may be good for others but we are not soda drinkers. At lunch they have fruit punch,ice tea,etc all free. I did by one mug but shouldnt have since I only used it about 5 times to mix my rum and cokes. I did buy the ESPN mug too for my beer. $10.00 for a 22oz. Mug (I think 22oz) that they fill for the price of a regular beer. One more tip. The over the door organizer really did come in handy. Its a must to keep things organized because the bathrooms are really small. My wife is so glad she got this tip. She brought a 6 foot extenstion cord also and was glad she brought it. She is also glad she brought her own hair dryer. She said the one on the ship was wimpy. We never did need an iron. We could care less that there were a few wrinkled items. The band playing by the Goofy Pool during the afternoons were great too. We sat near them quite often. The only problem with sitting up near the gazebo and the stage is that in the afternoons the crew organizes this fun and games thing and they look for volunteers. Well if they dont get volunteers they come and grab you. Guess who got chose twice? Yup Me! Once I snuck away because I was going to have to dance in front of everybody on stage for 30 seconds to impress the judges. Well thats not my style so sorry to say I made a quick escape. The next time I was just coming back to the area with a round of drinks when I see this girl (part of the crew) say oh good your just the guy Im looking for and all I could say was oh no. Not again. All this time my wife and our new friends are all laughing at me hysterically. So I said what did I get myself into this time. It wasnt so bad. The game went like this:
There were about 10 guys but only 9 out of 10 had a mexican hat (sombrero) and music played and the DJ would shout out either a 1,2,3 or 4. 1 meaning to grab the hat from the guy to the right of you. 2 grab the hat from the guy on the left of you. 3 shake hands. 4 take a bow. Well all hell broke loose with this game as you can imagine. Guys stacking hats,passing them the wrong way. Just Chaos. But funny. I did ok. I made it until there were 4 left. The guy who won was one of our friends we had met on the magical mouse website. Bob the Marine. Way to go Bob.
Anyways Im sorrry I kind of Rambled on with some things out of sequence. I tried hard to remember some key things. I hope you all find some of it helpful and enjoy your cruise. One of the best tips I got from this board was to not let things bother you and focus on your family without worry about anyone else.
Just smile and remember you are on vacation and PLEASE try to Enjoy it.
If you have any more questions just ask me and I can try to help. But most everything you need to know is on this site anyways. I can't believe I almost forgot to mention all the wonderful people we met on the cruise. That was one of the best parts. Meeting people and having lots of laughs. we can't wait to sail again. Just hope the stock market recovers! I didn't have time to proof read this so I hope it came out ok.
See ya
Gina and Brian (I was also known as wishiwasgolfing on this site too! My secret identity). We are from Massachusetts.
Our May 4th Magic Cruise overview- I will try not to bore you with to much detail but just touch on some of the things I think you might be interested in hearing about. We (my wife and 2 children 3 ½ and 6 ½)
Arrived the day before and stayed at the Radisson at the Port. Great pool. The kids loved it. I would definitely stay there again. After the kids got a taste of the Radisson pool and then saw the small pools on the ship I think they were in shock but they got over it fast and really enjoyed the pools on the ship too!
We tried to set up a meet with about 5 other families but we only met 3 out of the 5. We were very disappointed that we ALL did not meet since we posted back and forth on the magical mouse website for about 2 months prior to the cruise. If I tried to set something up again I would either find out all the room numbers or pick a specifice spot like say the promenade lounge at a certain time. Enough about that.
We decided before went on the cruise that we were not going to rush around frantically trying to get this reservation and that reservation because we wanted this to be a relaxing vacation. So we decided to hang around the pool at the Radisson in the morning and take our time getting over to the terminal. I called the desk Saturday morning to reserve a shuttle and the earliest time they had was 1:20 so I asked the girl at the desk to call a taxi for us at 12:00 which she did. The reason we wanted the taxi was because we wanted to stop for beer and wine to bring on with us. Well while we were waiting for the taxi an empty Radisson shuttle pulled up and the guy said no problem jump in and I will drive you to the beer store and then drop you off. GREAT!!!! This was a nice surprise for us. Next we got to the terminal about 12:30 or so and it was busy but the lines to check in were not bad but the line to board the ship was long and confusing to find the end of the line. We were told to look for the guy holding a sign (he was the end of the line). They could organize this much better. The should have roped lines throughout the terminal. There are roped lines but only when your close to entering the security area . But we were all so excited it really did not bother us. After all we were on vacation. All in all it was a pretty smooth process. Once we were aboard we went straight to our room to check it out. We had room 2618 (outside ocean view room. Porthole) and we would definitely stay there again. It was surprisingly quiet. I wanted a verandah but when I called back to book one they were all sold out but the porthole was fine. One thing we prepared ourselves for was the lounge chair issue by the pool. We expected the worse and discovered that it really is not that bad. Crowded pools?
Yes at times but other times it was not. There is always a place to put your things and sit down somewhere.
We were in no hurry to get to the pool areas in the morning and went with the attitude that nothing was going to bother us and I think that helps a lot. Before we left for the cruise reading this board I thought it was not right for people to put a towel or shoes or whatever on a lounge chair but we discovered that this IS what you have to do regardless of what anybody else says. I mean if you have a chair and you want to go in the pool or take a stroll what are you supposed to do? Give up your chair when your only going to be gone for a few minutes. We didnt see any issues with the lounge chairs. The Mickey pool could use better supervison though. I saw a lot of kids losing their temper because other kids were jumping on them or splashing them. My son lost his temper once because another kid held his head under water. If that were my kid I would have dragged him out of the pool and had a nice long talk with him back in the room. Know what I mean? But the parents are probably not any better. I felt bad for one kid. This poor kid was swimming in the Goofy pool by himself. He was about 5 years old and could barely keep his head above the water. No mother or father in sight. I asked him several times where his mother or father was but only his mother was with him and she was sitting at a table far away from the pool. I decided to keep an eye on him for about an hour before his mother came to check on him. Can you belive it?
Now I will skip ahead to St. Martin. We had decided to go to Dawn Beach on our own before the cruise. Dawn Beach is nice and Im sure there are a lot of nice beaches there but thats it. Sorry but you could not pay me to got to St. Martin again. We did not feel comfortable at all there. The locals will bother you about hair braiding and jewelry etc but they stop after awhile. I made a big mistake and did not make sure I had small bills with me when we left for the beach. I had a $100 dollar bill and nobody could break it. The beach bars had just opened and they did not have enough change. My wife in the mean time was buying jewelry, having my daughters hair braided and we couldnt pay the lady. Ha Ha Ha. Here I am running around like a fool trying to get change. Well eventually I got change. So let that be a good tip for you all.
Dont forget to negotiate your drink prices with the bar too! One guy charged me $1.50 for a beer and the guy we sat next to said "oh I only paid .75 cents. So theres another tip for you. I figured I was still getting a deal compared the $4.00 I paid for Heineken on the Magic. Once again I will tell you that Dawn Beach was beautiful but after the beach we couldnt wait to get back to the ship. Near where the ship docks there are a couple of stores and I bought a bottle of Rum for $4.75. I mixed up a few rum and coked during the week in my room to save alittle $$$. I never finished the bottle though. Shame on me!
St. Thomas was Wonderful. We had a major change of plans though. We had planned on going to Megans bay to spend a few hours on the beach but we all had pretty bad sunburns from St. Martin. You ever burn the tops of your feet. OUCH!!! I did. Anyways I was thinking of renting a car and then I met JR. He owns RoadRunner taxi service. Somehow he convinced me to skip the car rental and we would take us on an island tour. Boy am I glad we went with him. If I rented a car my wife and I probably would have been arguing with each other because I know I would have gotten lost. JR knows the island because he lives there. No worries about making a wrong turn, stopping to read the map etc JR was so laid back and friendly. We didnt think it was too bad a price either. We toured from 9:30 until 2:30 and he stopped at different hotels like Sapphire and Coki and waited there for us. He took us to the mountain top overlooking Megans Bay and pointed out different things. Basically he did the whold island tour thing and even dropped us off shopping and asked us when we wanted to be picked up. 5 hour tour for $100. We didnt think that was too bad and we had the 15 passenger van to ourselves. So theres an option incase you end up sunburned like we did. The views on St. Thomas are spectacular. If your going to take an island tour skip the Paradise point gondola. Im glad we didnt do it because we drove right by the top of paradise point with JR. Plus we had awsome views on our ride and got out to take many pictures.
Castaway Cay is everything you have been reading about. We could live there if they would let us. It is a real issue to get a good spot with chairs and umbrella but if your prepared to get off the ship early you will
Have no problem. My wife stayed in the room and took her sweet time while my son and I were off to the races to get the chairs/umbrella. We lucked out. We went down to deck one and walked all the way forward and we discovered other people standing next to a closed door. We asked if this is the way off the ship and they said yes. When we are cleared to exit the ship they will open this door and we will be one of the first ones off. They were right. The door opened and were were right next to the gangway near the elevators.
All of a suden the elevator opened and who walks out but Captain Hook. My son was thrilled. I forgot to mention that I had told my wife where I would try to get a chair and that we would meet there. A good tip I got from this board is to skip the trolley and walk. This is what we did. My son and I were one of the first people on the beach and had our pick of chairs/umbrellas. We sat right in front of the rope jungle jim thing out in the water. The water temperature was 74 degrees. Cooler than St. Martin and St. Thomas but still felt like a bathtub for us since we are from Massachusetts. Well the next priority for me was to order a Konk Cooler. Wow!!!! They are Awsome! We had a few of those and several beers. Yee haaaaa!!!!!
The best part is they serve you right on the beach. No need to leave your chair. Oh those blue mats you float on are great too! The only problem with Castaway is that your only there for a few hours. We personally wished Disney would skip St. Martin and do Castaway twice. Maybe stop at Castaway on the way to St. Thomas and then go back to Castaway. My wife and I each had a chance to got to the Adult Beach. I watched the kids and she went and then vise versa. Awsome!!!!
Disney Dreams was great. Dueling Pianos was great. We watched the Kareoke (sp?) one night and there were some really talented singers up there. I cannot tell you much about the kids club because my son would not stay. He would go for a half hour and then beep us. My daughter stayed longer than my son and liked it better. My son said it reminded him too much of school. Ha ha. He just like being in the pool all day. We gave up on the kids club but my wife and I did not care as long as the kids were happy. There is so much going on that it is hard to see everything. Its quite overwhelming. Bring the Highligher as suggested many times on this board and do yourself a favor and just prioritize what you want to do. If you try to do everything it will be hectic. Almost every night before dinner (late seating) we would go the promenade lounge because we all love music and there was a 2 man band called High Society playing there and they were really great. They were from Scotland. The singer (I forget her name) was so nice to the kids. She would bring them up on stage and dance with them. Cant say enough about High Society.
She even passed my son in the hallway one day and remembered his name.
Food? For breakfast we either did room service or went to Topsiders for the buffet. Room service was very efficient except for one day but when we called they brought our order within 5 minutes and kept appologizing to us. We really didnt care. No problem Mon!!! The lunch buffet at Topsiderss we thought was excellent. A lot of choices. My wife and I do not consider ourselves picky or fussy over food and our overall opinion of the dinners was a rating of just Good. Not very good or Excellent. We had late seating which at first we thought would work out great but my daughter fell asleep at least twice in her chair. Its a lot to ask for a 3 ½ year old to be on the go all day long out in the sun being dragged here there and eveywhere and then be wide awake at dinner. We made the best of it. We really had no other choice. One night we decided to got to Topsiders instead of the dining room but we were alittle disappointed in the offerings there. I mean it was just ok. You pick your own appetizer and then order off of a menu and then you pick you own dessert. We would have been much happier if they had a FULL buffet at Topsiders set up like the lunch buffet. Our servers Ritesh (India) and Tiago (Brazil) were both excellent. For our room we had Eric (Jamaica). All of these guys work their you know what off. We tipped them all more than what Disney suggested. Oh, I almost forgot to mention the soda mug thing. Unless you really drink a lot of soda I feel there is no need for the mug. Save the $35.00. There is a coffee station on deck 9 with water etc and its good water. We drank it all week. If you want an occaisonal soda its $1.50. The mug may be good for others but we are not soda drinkers. At lunch they have fruit punch,ice tea,etc all free. I did by one mug but shouldnt have since I only used it about 5 times to mix my rum and cokes. I did buy the ESPN mug too for my beer. $10.00 for a 22oz. Mug (I think 22oz) that they fill for the price of a regular beer. One more tip. The over the door organizer really did come in handy. Its a must to keep things organized because the bathrooms are really small. My wife is so glad she got this tip. She brought a 6 foot extenstion cord also and was glad she brought it. She is also glad she brought her own hair dryer. She said the one on the ship was wimpy. We never did need an iron. We could care less that there were a few wrinkled items. The band playing by the Goofy Pool during the afternoons were great too. We sat near them quite often. The only problem with sitting up near the gazebo and the stage is that in the afternoons the crew organizes this fun and games thing and they look for volunteers. Well if they dont get volunteers they come and grab you. Guess who got chose twice? Yup Me! Once I snuck away because I was going to have to dance in front of everybody on stage for 30 seconds to impress the judges. Well thats not my style so sorry to say I made a quick escape. The next time I was just coming back to the area with a round of drinks when I see this girl (part of the crew) say oh good your just the guy Im looking for and all I could say was oh no. Not again. All this time my wife and our new friends are all laughing at me hysterically. So I said what did I get myself into this time. It wasnt so bad. The game went like this:
There were about 10 guys but only 9 out of 10 had a mexican hat (sombrero) and music played and the DJ would shout out either a 1,2,3 or 4. 1 meaning to grab the hat from the guy to the right of you. 2 grab the hat from the guy on the left of you. 3 shake hands. 4 take a bow. Well all hell broke loose with this game as you can imagine. Guys stacking hats,passing them the wrong way. Just Chaos. But funny. I did ok. I made it until there were 4 left. The guy who won was one of our friends we had met on the magical mouse website. Bob the Marine. Way to go Bob.
Anyways Im sorrry I kind of Rambled on with some things out of sequence. I tried hard to remember some key things. I hope you all find some of it helpful and enjoy your cruise. One of the best tips I got from this board was to not let things bother you and focus on your family without worry about anyone else.
Just smile and remember you are on vacation and PLEASE try to Enjoy it.
If you have any more questions just ask me and I can try to help. But most everything you need to know is on this site anyways. I can't believe I almost forgot to mention all the wonderful people we met on the cruise. That was one of the best parts. Meeting people and having lots of laughs. we can't wait to sail again. Just hope the stock market recovers! I didn't have time to proof read this so I hope it came out ok.
See ya
Gina and Brian (I was also known as wishiwasgolfing on this site too! My secret identity). We are from Massachusetts.
Was 2618 the cabin that you practically walk into when you get off the aft elevators? If so, I looked at your cabin door everyday! I sooo regret not getting the chance to meet you......both dh and I are quite social and were hoping to meet people to hang out with. on our last cruise we were with a group of 12 (my family) and had a blast! the only missing from this cruise was being part of a group....
Glad you guys had fun!
Have Fun.
Don't you think? I wish I would have went to work on a ship when I was in my early 20's in the salon. Cutting hair on land just doesn't seem as nice as that salon on the MAGIC....with a panoramic view of the ocean. 
