Johnleehooker7
Earning My Ears
- Joined
- Nov 8, 2013
- Messages
- 1
My family was on the Nov 1 Magic Cruise. We had two cabins on Deck two. This was the first time on the Magic and the first time without a balcony. We have been on the Dream twice before. I was concerned about the cancellation of the first cruise and the reported issues, but I can say that we had no real problems in the staterooms with plumbing, etc. One of the refrigerators barely cooled at all, but the plumbing, etc, all worked fine. We had a different issue altogether which I still cannot believe, however. Our stateroom attendant clearly was over his job, and made no effort whatsoever to hide it. I have never experienced this type of attitude before in a disney park or on the Disney Dream, and I am still baffled by it. On our previous cruises, the stateroom attendants literally made the experience spectacular for us. And that is a common theme among almost everyone on a disney cruise. I brought a family member along for their first disney cruise on the Magic, and I dont think they felt the disney magic on this one. We had been on the ship for a full day before we ever met the attendant. I would see the attendants for the adjacent cabins in the halls smiling and speaking with the guests, but our guy was nowhere to be found. When I finally met him, I asked if he could bring some ice to the stateroom at his convenience sometime in the afternoon, and he told me that he would be on break and I should call housekeeping to get someone else to bring it. I dont so much have a problem with that, as these guys work hard, but something was just a little odd about it. It turned out to be the tip of the iceberg. The next day, I told him about the inoperative refrigerator, and he asked if I could call guest services about it, because the would " pay more attention to a guest" that to him reporting it. ok, whatever. But it goes downhill from there. It was days before my wife ever met him, and she made the mistake of asking him how his day was. He told her "terrible, its a terrible day." I kid you not. He then proceeded to tell her how much he missed his kids, and how he had to work on the ship and send money back home for them. This is literally her first meeting with him. He went on a bit making her very uncomfortable, and she basically left him in the room and walked out on the conversation. Now, if you have ever talked to the staff, this is not an uncommon situation, and it truly can be heartbreaking and make you appreciate their sacrifice and hard work. But I have never had a crewmember share something like that unbidden, and I have never had any of them complain to the point of making us depressed before. It went on like this for literally the entire cruise, except for the fact that we did not dare ask him for anything or expect anything above the bare minimum of service. And once you have experienced what a disney cruise is supposed to be like, it is hard to appreciate that level of service. He would literally see us in the hallway and turn around or go into another room to avoid us. Which was fine by us, at that point. He mentioned at one point that he had previously worked on an upper deck and recently moved down to the second deck. I am not sure if this was a demotion or not. I called three times the first night because he did not set up the bed for my daughter, but we finally figured it out ourselves when no one came (it is quite easy). Did he not know how many people were in the room? For a cabin of 3, he left only two luggage tags...2....the night before departure. I tracked him down in another cabin and he even seemed annoyed at this request. I literally am still baffled by this entire experience. I considered whether it could be the fact that we were on a lower deck this time, but the other sections on the deck seemed to have wonderful stewards who were interacting normally with their guests. At the end of the cruise, he could not have told you any of our names, nor had he so much as spoken to either of my daughters. His depression was contagious. There were days when he forgot to leave any washcloths...we just borrowed from our other cabin so as not to have to call housekeeping. I often read reviews and think that people must be overly picky or demanding, and perhaps this is coming across that way. But what is so special about a disney cruise is the way that it makes you feel, and we got little of that this trip thanks to this guy. As to why I did not report this to Disney, i am not going to contribute to someone possibly losing their job. Disney is going to have to figure this one out on their own. I would have mentioned it on the end of cruise comment card, but there was really no place to put it. If it had been my first disney cruise, I would not be coming back. But the fact is that the other cruises on the Dream were nothing short of the trips of a lifetime, and I know that this was an anomaly. But it has clouded us on the Magic. In any event, the Aqua Dunk truly is fantastic, but not enough to choose the magic over the dream next time. Somehow the magic seemed to be more crowded that the dream did, even with less people. In fairness, the rest of the staff was as magical as ever. We all agreed, however, that the lack of a day a castaway cay was something that we really missed. As for the port of miami, it is certainly more of a hassle that port everglades, and the arrival in particular is a much longer process. If you have a magic cruise coming up, I dont think you have much to worry about...there were no major issues on board. The shows were also spectacular.
We are next to a suite I don't know if they share stateroom hosts or if the suites have their own stateroom hosts that are dedicated to concierge.
