August 26, 2006 Magic

[alexcturner]

Hi kaceyisme, I'm here...We are in Florida(have been here since last Friday!) but connected by high speed internet! We will leave here Sat am and drive over...See you then!

 

[Jacob's Mom]

We are still here! Not leaving until Sat.AM....which is good as we still haven't packed! Oh well, at least I did the laundry. Will attempt to pack tonight!

 

[Cindy B]

leaving early am... on Friday!

 

[kaceyisme]

leaving early am... on Friday!

We're leaving early am tomorrow too! Staying at the Portofino Bay at Universal on Friday night.

Looking forward to seeing everyone on Saturday!

Safe travels everyone - bye!!

 

[Neverland]

We're leaving early am tomorrow too! Staying at the Portofino Bay at Universal on Friday night.

Looking forward to seeing everyone on Saturday!

Safe travels everyone - bye!!

Portofino is a NICE hotel. We were just there in June. Have a gelato & take in the Italian music in the courtyard. Enjoy your day!

 

[zzzzjohnzzzz]

We just got back from 8/12 western. If you look at National Hurricane center 5 day plot for ERNESTO TD 5 you will see that you go right thru it on the way to Grand Cayman. If the forecast holds my guess and preference would be to do the Eastern route.
I hope everything works out for all of you and the ship and crew were great!!!

 

[Cindi0511]

Hey, y'all, I'm on the Sept. 17 cruise and found a discount that might apply to some of you as well. SOrry it's so late. If you're a WDW annual passholder, you can get a $75 stateroom credit IN ADDITION to your FL resident rate, if that applies. Any WDW annual passholder gets it, whether or not your a fla res, but although they always say nothing can be combined, Disney told me last night that THIS one is combinable, and they did it for my TA this morning. Hope it helps someone, and y'all have FUN!

 

[lcborn2run]

Well, I didn't get to meet most of you this trip. Not too many showed up at our Meet at 3:00 on Saturday. The ones I met were so friendly and nice. I hope everyone had a great time!!! We definitely did and I rebooked on board; however I plan to switch it to a 2008 cruise (only reserving until 12/07 at this point).

The flight home was horrible. We flew into a storm in NYC courtesy of Hurricane Ernesto! I guess since he couldn't find us on the Magic, he had to get us here!!!!

All in all a fabulous trip!

Lisa

 

[Cindy B]

We looked around for the meet at about 315 and didn't see anyone.. I guess the rain took everyone away.

My stateroom was near the BV theater and no one was there either.

I hate to be blaspemous, but the cruise wasn't quite what we expected. It was good almost very good, but not excellent. Due to inattentive service, we got our dining team switched.

I had great table mates... and that was fun. It was great meeting your family!

It took my daughter 3 days to get over being seasick. I spent many of the early dinners in the bathroom with her.

St. Maarten we were constantly harassed by the locals, enough for us to go back early.

St. Thomas was fun.. if you like liquor, that is the place to go! The prices for jewelry and liquor were very good. Most stores had all the same things. There were a few R rated postcards out in plain view (topless women) so you had to be discerning about the postcards.

There were unruly teens that were actually hitting others and that was bothersome. The preteens need more structure in the programming. Ocean Quest was a great addition, but to have 10-14's there it was a bit much. 10 year old could be just turned 10 4th graders to 14 almost 15 year old 8/9th graders. I popped into Ocean Q a lot and saw some very unruly kids. I know that Ocean Quest that it is minimally supervised and they should have either more structured programs or more counselors in there.

there was a lot of rowdiness in the elevators, and before anyone else says it..I caught my son doing it once. After that, he was not allowed to go anywhere unsupervised .

Castaway Cay was crowded! The family beach was packed. We got a table near the snorkeling lagoon and that was nice. After fighting for a seat at Cookies, we decided to go to the adult beach to eat. Serenity Bay was peaceful, quiet and no fighting for tables... and they had lobster tail!

The shows were good. I wasn't too fond of Rich Pupura, but other than that they were very good. I enjoyed the guy with the guitar--his show in Rocking Bar D was fabulous. Disney Dreams was so good, that we saw it twice. My favorite show was Dreams and then Twice Charmed. Golden Mickeys was only good.

My daughter loved the kids club 8-9. They were fabulous. My son wasn't too fond of the 10-12 once he saw Ocean Quest.

We liked it, we enjoyed it, but we think we like the parks better.

 

[Beachbabybongo]

This was my third cruise with Disney and I thought it was just OK.

I'm not sure what has happened, but the service was terrible, the shipped was not maintained as well, and the food was just so so. Maybe my expectations were too high.

My last cruise on the Magic was in August of 2002 and everything was amazing. This time I was really disappointed. I think I'm going to write a letter to Disney. I also spoke with several other return cruisers who felt the same way. One woman from New York said it was her 4th cruise on the Magic and probably her last. There were 26 of us in our family group, a total of 7 cabins. We love Disney, but we all talked and decided to try another cruise line next time. We will definitely go back on another Disney cruise, but hopefully enough people will let them know the quality is suffering and they will change things.

Our dining room server told us that Disney has cut the crew on the Magic and a lot of service people are over worked. One night he was so tired, we asked him if he was okay and he said he had served breakfast, lunch, dinner and then was off to work room service. I would say half the time, half of our group didn’t get what they ordered and my daughter never received drinks at dinner. Our server also told us they have a new chief chef who maintains a tight food budget. (This we noticed!) I'm not saying there wasn’t a lot of food because there was; it just wasn’t the quality we experienced on our previous cruises.

At first, I was discouraged about doing the Eastern Caribbean again because this would have been my first Western Caribbean, but it turned out fine. We went on a really fun excursion in St. Thomas, and the shopping in St. Maarten was great. I loved the big movie screen over the family pool and my daughter and her friend had a blast in the Stack (teen club). I love Castaway Cay and wouldn’t mind being shipped wrecked there for a few months.

 

[Cindy B]

I'm glad to hear that it was only ok. I thought it was just me.

I know the waitstaff was suffering. Our table got our waiters changed due to inattentive service. One night it took 45 minutes for us to get drinks-- and we hadn't even ordered yet!

There were times when people didn't get correct orders or any orders at all!

After our switch to another serving team , service was much better. The server and assistant server are both leaving the Magic soon. The server is leaving after this week, and the assistant is leaving in two weeks.

Our stateroom host (who was excellent--without even giving the excellent speech) is leaving in 7 weeks....

 

[kaceyisme]

I also looked for everyone at around 3:10 on the first day, but like Cindy, I didn't see anyone

I have to disagree about the cruise being just ok. We had a great time, and I didn't notice any maintenance problems. We also thought the food was much better than our cruise last year on the Wonder, when we did think it was just ok. Our family was seated with Cindy B's family, and as Cindy B mentioned, the service that we received the first few nights was definitely off, and we requested to be switched. After that, we did have great service, but it was just for show. If I received the "excellent speech" one more time, I was going to be ill. Once they receive their tips, the honeymoon is over. We experienced the same exact thing on both of our cruises - the servers are always "on" and so friendly - until the last morning. That last breakfast is so painful. You almost feel used, like it was all an act, and now they don't care anymore. When we cruise again, we will skip the last morning's breakfast for this reason. The one exception to this was our Assistant Server, Naomi from Australia. She seemed to be the only "genuine" one. Unfortunately she is leaving for good in two weeks.

Putting the dining server issue aside, we absolutely loved every aspect of the trip. My DS13 didn't spend any time at all at The Stack, he preferred to do the family things with us, and for us, that is what a vacation is about. He did go to Ocean Quest a few times, but spent the rest of the time with us. We loved the shows (except for the juggler on the last night, but thankfully that was just a small portion of the show). We weren't really disappointed about the change from Western to Eastern since we had never been to any of the islands before. We enjoyed our excursions, but really don't feel the need to visit St. Martin or St. Thomas again. One complaint I do have is the temperature of the Goofy Pool. It was absolutely HOT. Just as hot as a hot bath, absolutely disgusting. The adult pool, on the other hand, was cool and refreshing. I don't understand why they can't control the temperature of the Goofy pool to make it more comfortable. Who would want to swim in such disgustingly hot water??

Cindy B - my son had a great time with your's! We enjoyed sitting with you!

We are definitely planning to cruise again!

 

[spoohs]

I did find some people at the drink station about 3:05 and we all had stuck around for about 10-15 minutes. What might have happenend is a few of us who had little girls with us wanted to meet their friends that they were emailing and they happenend to be in the Mickey pool so we moved over a bit to the edge of the pool.

We had a great time and a great dinning team (even at the last breakfast!). I would have to say my biggest dissapointment was Castaway Cay, the family beach was crowded and the snorkeling wasn't very good. I did have a good time at the family whale dig with my daughter though. My husbands biggest dissapointment was his luke warm burger with a cold slab of cheese on it from Pluto's. Other than that we enjoyed the Disney cruise over the other cruises we have taken in the past (this was number 8 for me and number 5 for DH).

I enjoyed meeting the few of you that I met and my daughter had a great time making some new friends.

 

[mkygrl]

It is so weird being home! Where are my towel animals and chocolate! Where is all I can eat! Where is the hot tub!

I had a tough time locating people..saw one door sign and I decided to leave a note! It was rainy so BF and I didn't head out to the meet...didn't think anyone would be there!

BF and I sat with a family from Cali (mom & dad and kids) we had a blast (lots of laughs!) with them and our server!

We had fun but I have to say I get uncomfortable with the locals asking to braid my hair! The adult entertainer's shows were very funny! I was in pain after the ventrilliquist! My face hurt from laughing sooo hard!

 

[cinderella_mom]

Hi everyone. I want to add that we absolutely had a wonderful time on the cruise. I was disappointed that we missed Grand Caymen and Stingray City, though after the Steve Irwin stingray incident, maybe not that disappointed. We had the best time. We weren't that impressed by St. Martin, but St. Thomas and CC were wonderful. We even enjoyed getting caught in the storm on CC. It was like a pirate adventure. Our servers were great. Very attentive to us and the kids. Our tablemates will be lifelong friends.

I loved meeting my fellow disers. I especially want to thank Kinseysmom, Celestine and Doccath. Megan(DD) loved meeting your girls and spending time with them at the pool and the club. Thanks for letting them send email before the trip. It was a real treat.

And we rebooked, so I'll be around.

 

[Celestine]

Well we've arrived back in the UK & have reached some semblance of normalcy - back to school, work etc. We enjoyeds the cruise, but not as much as we hoped, not helped by the youngest having an ear infection (expnsive trip to the health center) & both Paul & Lauren now being on antibiotics for something they both picked up. Stateroom host (Garry) was excellent, whilst our server got better as hte week progressed & the assistant was naturally quiet. Their service was acceptable, but not amazing. The dining room manager, John, was very good. Our table mates will become lifelong friends. It was good to meet up with a few of you that first afternoon, & I know Lauren enjoyed meeting up with everyone she had e-mailed previously. Have rebooked on board for 2007, but will shift it to 2008 (hoping for something special like a Panama canal repo).

Checked my CC statement today & have received a very small refund from DCL (?difference in port charges?)

 

[wjbc]

Hi,

Sorry we didn't get to meet up with everyone. I was not feeling well on embarkation day. The cruise didn't start out so well with the rain at Sailaway, but we ended up having a great time.

This was our 8th Disney cruise, and I thought the ship was still in excellent condition. We had no issues with our servers - we've had better and worse during the last cruises. So, I guess it just depends on the luck of the draw. I agree the food was just okay, but that is not one of the main reasons we cruise. If someone is cooking for me, it's better than me having to cook

We thought the new things since we'd been on last time were good additions - Ocean Quest and the big screen over the Goofy pool.

We had a great time with the activities onboard. My 9 year old still loves the characters. We also had fun at the ports. We were a little disappointed about missing Key West and Cozumel, but got over it quickly.

Oh - I agree about the Goofy pool water being way too warm.

I am going to post a trip report shortly.

Wendy

 

[pamjb]

I too am sorry that we missed the 3 pm meet the the drink station. After 2 sailaway drinks (which I needed after spending 4 days with my MIL at WDW) I forgot all about it. We sat by the Goofy pool for a while before the rains hit.
All in all we had a good time. Was the food great? No. But as far as I am concerned, if I don't have to cook it, or clean up after it, it is great to me. Our service wasn't nearly as good as our cruise in Jan 2005. Our main server seemed confused most of the time, especially when we would order 2 appetizers and no salads. Our assistant warmed up to us after the second day, when we found out he knew our server from the first cruise. He even came to talk with us at CC. My DH and our friend found a favorite bar server (Eddie!) who kept track of us at all times.
I was glad that we made Castaway Cay. We had fun, even if we got stuck in the rainstorm. Wish I had pictures left in the waterproof camera to take of the lightening bolts that hit on either side of the ship. That was an awesome sight.
I wish I had thought of rebooking on the ship for 2007 and then changing to 2008 when those dates came out. Guess I should pay more attention to the Dis. Nicholas is disappointed that we missed swimming with the stingrays (again). We had it booked for our cruise in Jan 2005, but weren't able to get to Grand Caymen. We made it to Guest Services too late to make it at the CC one. So we have to go again, according to him.
The food at Palo was WONDERFUL . If you didn't have a chance to go this cruise, make sure you do it if you cruise on the Magic.
Gotta go and make plans for my return to WDW in 24 days for F&W fest.

 

[tor]

Did this happen to anyone else? I inquired about future cruises while on board and got a quote but made it clear i would think about it. Today I got a confirmation in the mail and my credit card was charged for the deposit. I am sure that they will refund my money but I am curious if this happened to anyone else.

Also the wait staff on the cruise was way understaffed my waiter had five tables at the early seating mine was a table of 7 another table of 6 and three tables of 4. They were running like mad men and barely kept up.

 

[cinderella_mom]

Did this happen to anyone else? I inquired about future cruises while on board and got a quote but made it clear i would think about it. Today I got a confirmation in the mail and my credit card was charged for the deposit. I am sure that they will refund my money but I am curious if this happened to anyone else.

Also the wait staff on the cruise was way understaffed my waiter had five tables at the early seating mine was a table of 7 another table of 6 and three tables of 4. They were running like mad men and barely kept up.

Yes, it happened to me, too. I asked for a 7day quote for three people, knowing I'd be changing to 2008 once the dates were announced. I ended up booking a 4-day so I'd only have to put down a $600 deposit instead of a $750 deposit. When we got home there was a confirmation in the mail for the 7 day. When I checked online the cruise had been changed to the 4 day but they still kept it at a $750 deposit. I'm just going to leave it since I'm changing to a 7 day very soon, but I didn't authorize the charge on the original quote. I should probably call and complain.

As for the wait staff, I'm sorry you didn't have the best experience. I was very pleased with our servers. They were attentive and friendly. We never waited for anything and they always had food ready for all four kids (1 ours, 3 our tablemates) so no one got bored.