3/27/04 Western report

[benebire]

Disney Magic 7 Day Western cruise 3/27/04


Background info: This was our 3rd Disney cruise having previously done the 7 day Eastern and a 4 day on the Wonder. Myself 42, DH 42, DS16,DS13 we also sailed with our neighbors from across the street so we had built in buddies.

Entertainment: 1st nights variety show was great Freddy Fusion and John Charles. Very funny stuff. Had some good laughs. A giant sized balloon which he First put over his head and then managed to fit his entire body into it. Wish i could of gotten a picture of this.
Skipped Hercules (never was a favorite of mine)

The Golden Mickeys is now my 2nd favorite show. Don’t miss it.
Disney Dreams wonderful as always. Gave me goosebumps
Enjoyed the evening caberet shows, always gave us a good laugh.
Mousketeer was fun watching a family win the cruise. Wished it was us.Sailaway was a blast and Mexifragilistic was the most fun we ever had. Loved the line dances, lots of fun. Was disappointed that the dancers only Did one number. On the eastern they did 2 or 3 if I remember correctly.
Went to rockin bar d to see the charles marshalll band and they were excellent what a high energy group.
Went to Name that TV tune at Rockin bar D and we won 1st place. They give you medals that say Winner on them. This was for naming the most Tv tunes correctly. They play just a snippet and you write down your Answer then you swap your sheet with someone else while they give the Correct answers. We had a good time and my husband loves to win.



Food & Servers-Enjoyed almost all the dinners we had. Roast Duck was a highlight. Only had 1 problem with food the entire trip and that was resolved quickly and appropriately. (Cold undercooked entrée for my son). Our servers were Carmen from Romania. Very efficient and professional, we learned that
she has been on the Magic for about 2 years. She gave us a
recommendation for dinner every night. Our assistant server was David and he had only been on the ship for 2 months. We could tell he was new but it was a pleasure to get to know him and see the progress he made through the week. Took awhile to get to know our drinks etc.. Its an amazing difference how much closer you feel to your servers as the week progresses. By the end we were hugging them and taking pictures And they were telling us jokes and doing magic tricks at dessert time. Our Head server was Alain and he stopped by each night to chat and on
Lobster night he came by and took the lobster out of the shell for some of Us. For those who like tip info: We tipped Carmen extra and David and Alain received the recommended amounts.
Mexifragilistic night – food on deck 10 pretty good barbecue chicken and Tons of desserts.


Ports-
Key West- Didn’t get to do as much as we wanted here. Did some
Shopping and had a quick look around. Didn’t want to miss our dinner So therefore didn’t get to see the street performers. Guess we have to come back.

Grand Cayman- Did the Capt. Marvins stingray excursion. This was a Favorite for all of us. They did a great job and were very courteous. We Just enjoyed the whole excursion tremendously. We would do this excursion again. Got some great photos too.

Cozumel- Did the shopping and had a look around and that was it.We definitely need to come back again.
Castaway Cay- Day started out looked overcast and felt a bit chilly at 9 am but it warmed up beautifully and we had a great day lounging in the sun, swimming and snorkeling. We brought the safe sea lotion and never used It. Never saw or heard of anyone stung or with rashes. We had Konk Koolers both on the ship and here and they definitely are different. The ones on Castaway Cay are premade and have more of a creamy texture vs The ones onboard made with ice in blender. Both were delicious. Had the lobster burgers, ribs, corn and everything was tasty. Don’t forget your mugs as you can get them filled at the bars on the island. If not you will have to pay for cans of pop or drink the freebie ice tea and punch.

Cabin & Server-Our cabin steward was Nick, who looked to be quite young. He did a fine job taking care of our room for the week. We received towel animals each night and he was always friendly and said hi in the halls. He also saved me a walk to guest services when I locked myself out with the laundry.

Shutters photos-Ugh, I wish the prices were better. I love the pictures but it is so darn expensive. We bought too many as usual but when else will I ever get such nice photos of my boys dressed to the nines.



Attire-We enjoyed dressing up for formal night and the boys wore tuxes and I wore a long formal gown. Semi formal they wore suits with mickey ties and I wore a black cocktail dress. Tropical night we had tropical shirts. Casual nights the boys wore dockers and polos. We had a few fights about dressing up when they saw other teens not as dressed up as they were. I was too busy to notice what most people were |wearing but I did think that there were less people dressed formally than from our Eastern cruise.
I did have one lady in front of me going into Lumieres who I thought was dressed inappropriately (tank top, Capri,flip flops, but this didn’t affect my dinner experience at all. I probably wouldnt even have noticed if we didnt talk about this on the boards so much. (LOL)



The Stack:
My boys 16 and 13 really enjoyed this new club. They made a ton of friends and stuck with a group of kids all week, even took photos and emails at the end so they could stay in touch. This had not happened on our prior 2 cruises. They had gone to Common grounds once or twice and pronounced it lame and not returned. The new stack seems to be a hit with them although when I asked what was different they couldn’t really give me any details. This turned out to be a mixed blessing because we had to kind of force them into some family time otherwise, I don’t think we would have ever seen them for the week. I insisted on dinner with us each night and that worked out well. One point for others with teens make a curfew and stick with it. Unfortunately some teens were allowed to be out to all hours and ours had curfew which made for a few fights over coming in for the night. I had a bad experience on deck one night and it just made me more aware that it could have been one of my teens who stumbled into the situation. The teen club is open till 2 am most nights and I think this is just to late for teens to be out. While I wasn’t concerned with problems in the club, I was greatly concerned with what happened when they came out of the club onto deck 10. I wrote a long comment letter regarding my concerns before I left the ship. As a whole the counselors were quite capable and both the boys enjoyed their time in the club tremendously. They want us to book spring break for next year.

Final thoughts-
We did not book another cruise while on board and that was very hard.We will be back for another Disney cruise at some point but we are considering trying one of the huge RCCL ships. My teens are way past enjoying the Disney characters ( I have to beg for them to pose with them) We all had a wonderful cruise and it is so hard to come back to the reality of cooking and cleaning for ourselves. My only comfort is my 60 day coundown to Disney World. Hope you enjoyed my report if you have any questions about the cruise feel free to ask. To those yet to cruise- You will have the time of your lives. Enjoy!

 

[staylor]

Get report. It sounds like you had a wonderful time. When we go in Jan. my DS's will be 9 & 5. It seems like a lifetime away for them to be your DS's ages. But I'm sure it will be here before I know it.

 

[CB4U]

Benebire,

I enjoyed your report. Thanks for taking the time to share it! I am also the mom to 3 boys so I can relate to the curfew issue!

One question, did you get stickers on your KTTW card? I am just wondering why you would be charged for soda on CC if you have a sticker as opposed to a carrying around the mugs.

Thanks.

 

[maminnie]

Thanks for your report. The family we are travelling with has a 13 year old. So glad to hear your teens liked the Stack.

 

[mm126]

Would you recommend the Western over the Eastern? We would like to try a 7 day cruise and are having the hard time deciding. We are looking at the first 2 weeks in March 2005.

 

[IrishCowboy]

Thanks for the report!

 

[monkeygirl]

Originally posted by benebire
Disney Magic 7 Day Western cruise 3/27/04

~I had a bad experience on deck one night and it just made me more aware that it could have been one of my teens who stumbled into the situation. The teen club is open till 2 am most nights and I think this is just to late for teens to be out. While I wasn’t concerned with problems in the club, I was greatly concerned with what happened when they came out of the club onto deck 10. I wrote a long comment letter regarding my concerns before I left the ship.~



Just wondering......what was the bad experience?? I don't want to run into the same thing.

 

[benebire]

Hi All,

I think I enjoyed the ports on the Western a bit more but I would do either of them again.

I actually had 2 bad experiences on deck 10.


The first was on deck one night was a drunkin woman who nearly fell on me beggin me to get her to her room. I was trying to find a DCL person and couldnt, then all of a sudden some guy comes walking up and takes ahold of her arm. He says shes with me and that he had gone to the bathroom and she had wandered off... So I said oh ok you will make sure she gets to her room she seems very drunk and a little sick. He says yes. 20-30 Mins later I was walking the deck again and the same couple were up on deck 10 making out. Its the only time I in 3 disney cruises that I have seen a drunkin person. I was just concerned that deck 10 is where the teens come out and I dont think she would of known the difference between an adult and teen in the shape she was in. This was very late at night. I'm guessing they were pretty young maybe early mid 20's so probably a night of fun that got a bit out of hand.

The second issue was also deck 10 at the very front of the ship some kids were climbing up that pole thing at the front and sticking their arms out like they did in the movie titanic. I told them they should get down and they did. On my trip back around they were up there again. The wind was pretty strong up there and I told them to get down and said I'm sure your mother wouldnt want you doing that, and one of the kids says "she wouldnt care". Typical kid huh? I went to a phone and called the guest services desk and reported what I had seen and she said she would send someone from security up. The kids ended up leaving before security came.

Anyway, hope I dont sound like I spent my cruise policing deck 10 because other than these two things I had a great time. When I talked to security later, I was told they do have someone walking around checking things out but that they dont police the teens or deck 10 constantly because of course that would be no fun for the teens if they were constantly being watched. I think Disney is trying pretty hard to make it fun for all age groups. Bottom line is parents have to make some rules even on vacation. My teens still had a great time even tho I made them come in before the club closed.

 

[monkeygirl]

Thank you for the full report. You don't sound like you were patrolling Deck 10 at all. What a lovely ending to your evening....having a drunk stranger falling all over you. LOL

Glad you had a good trip despite it!!