allears
"If I were not upon the sea..." I'd want to be!
- Joined
- Jul 20, 2002
- Messages
- 2,864
This was my 10th Disney cruise and my DPs first. I wanted to do an overview report of our impressions of our February 4th sailing of the Magic, which was the ten year anniversary of my first sailing on her. So here goes, a kind of outline:
Travel: We flew down the day before, via South West and took Magical Express to the resort. We played at Downtown Disney and Disney Quest in the afternoon and had dinner with a couple we met through the boards at Boma. We retired early (as we left home at 3:45 am that morning) at our room at the Pop Century.
Had a private car pick us up the next morning and got to the port for our arrival time of 11 am. Super smooth, quick check in and on board by noon! So great to be back!
We used the DCL bus back to the airport on debarkation day and after a bit of a wait for our 3 pm flight, were early landing at home and met with snow. All went like clockwork!
The ship: I have read some of the isolated posts about the Magic looking worn and tired, we couldnt disagree more! She looked every bit as beautiful as she did ten years ago and every time Ive sailed her! Yes there were some patches of rust, but they were being scraped and painted constantly. She is truly a classic and so very well maintained. Everything was in working order, looked clean and fresh. My DP, who has never cruised before, thought she was spectacular.
Dining: We had second seating and a table for two. The food and service were excellent and we ate almost non-stop the entire week! Palo brunch on Sunday, dinner or Tuesday and high tea on Thursday. The food and experience were beyond excellent, simply superb!!! Ciao Romano was our server and he is the BEST!!! We enjoyed Topsiders, the quick service outlets as well as ice cream, pretty much every time we passed the station!
Entertainment: The shows were outstanding! Saw Villains Tonight, for the first time and loved it! Very cool, very funny! DP was super impressed by the quality of the shows and enjoyed all of them as well as the entertainers.
We had three acts that Ive not seen before, Danny Buckler, a magician from the UK, Buckets and Boards, a duo who played plastic buckets, did comedy and music, Michael Dubois a juggler and finally John Charles, who is always great! We made sure to catch all of their performances and enjoyed each one.
Spent a good bit of time each night at Rockin Bar D Tisa was the hostess and was AWESOME! We danced, participated in some of the game shows and just had a great time!
The deck parties were incredible, especially the Pirate Party! We were in full pirate costumes and had a lot of fun that night. And what is better than fireworks at sea!!!!
Weather: All of the days were pretty nice with the exception of Sunday at Key West, where it rained non-stop. Castaway Cay day started out a little cloudy and a bit rainy, but by 12:30 turned out to be spectacular! We enjoyed a lot of time in the sun by the adult pool pretty much every day.
Ports: Key West is one of my favorites despite the rain. We walked around a bit and visited the Ship Wreck Historium. We did the island tour at Grand Cayman, and the day was beautiful. Spent some time shopping in Cozumel. Castaway Cay day was great! Explored the island a bit, spent time at Serenity Bay, where we also had lunch. On the way back to the ship, did a little shopping and played at Pelican Plunge!
All in all as excellent and magical as all of my previous voyages! And it successfully sold my DP on future cruises! I was worried that I had oversold the experience to him, but he found everything to be just as great as I described, so very many times.
Weve booked out next cruise for the same time next year, on the Fantasy. We are eager to check out the amazing new ship and know that it will be fun, but Im kind of thinking Ill miss the Magic! Well see.
Please feel free to hit us up with any questions or details we might not have covered!
Oh and woooohoooo! Ive hit platinum!!!!!
Travel: We flew down the day before, via South West and took Magical Express to the resort. We played at Downtown Disney and Disney Quest in the afternoon and had dinner with a couple we met through the boards at Boma. We retired early (as we left home at 3:45 am that morning) at our room at the Pop Century.
Had a private car pick us up the next morning and got to the port for our arrival time of 11 am. Super smooth, quick check in and on board by noon! So great to be back!
We used the DCL bus back to the airport on debarkation day and after a bit of a wait for our 3 pm flight, were early landing at home and met with snow. All went like clockwork!
The ship: I have read some of the isolated posts about the Magic looking worn and tired, we couldnt disagree more! She looked every bit as beautiful as she did ten years ago and every time Ive sailed her! Yes there were some patches of rust, but they were being scraped and painted constantly. She is truly a classic and so very well maintained. Everything was in working order, looked clean and fresh. My DP, who has never cruised before, thought she was spectacular.
Dining: We had second seating and a table for two. The food and service were excellent and we ate almost non-stop the entire week! Palo brunch on Sunday, dinner or Tuesday and high tea on Thursday. The food and experience were beyond excellent, simply superb!!! Ciao Romano was our server and he is the BEST!!! We enjoyed Topsiders, the quick service outlets as well as ice cream, pretty much every time we passed the station!
Entertainment: The shows were outstanding! Saw Villains Tonight, for the first time and loved it! Very cool, very funny! DP was super impressed by the quality of the shows and enjoyed all of them as well as the entertainers.
We had three acts that Ive not seen before, Danny Buckler, a magician from the UK, Buckets and Boards, a duo who played plastic buckets, did comedy and music, Michael Dubois a juggler and finally John Charles, who is always great! We made sure to catch all of their performances and enjoyed each one.
Spent a good bit of time each night at Rockin Bar D Tisa was the hostess and was AWESOME! We danced, participated in some of the game shows and just had a great time!
The deck parties were incredible, especially the Pirate Party! We were in full pirate costumes and had a lot of fun that night. And what is better than fireworks at sea!!!!
Weather: All of the days were pretty nice with the exception of Sunday at Key West, where it rained non-stop. Castaway Cay day started out a little cloudy and a bit rainy, but by 12:30 turned out to be spectacular! We enjoyed a lot of time in the sun by the adult pool pretty much every day.
Ports: Key West is one of my favorites despite the rain. We walked around a bit and visited the Ship Wreck Historium. We did the island tour at Grand Cayman, and the day was beautiful. Spent some time shopping in Cozumel. Castaway Cay day was great! Explored the island a bit, spent time at Serenity Bay, where we also had lunch. On the way back to the ship, did a little shopping and played at Pelican Plunge!
All in all as excellent and magical as all of my previous voyages! And it successfully sold my DP on future cruises! I was worried that I had oversold the experience to him, but he found everything to be just as great as I described, so very many times.
Weve booked out next cruise for the same time next year, on the Fantasy. We are eager to check out the amazing new ship and know that it will be fun, but Im kind of thinking Ill miss the Magic! Well see.
Please feel free to hit us up with any questions or details we might not have covered!
Oh and woooohoooo! Ive hit platinum!!!!!
