January 15, 2011 - Magic

[croppincolburn]

Welcome dgkjh!

"Reminder: DISMeet at 3:00 p.m. Saturday - Promenade Lounge (Deck 3 Forward). This is a great chance for kids (and adults) to make friends. We'll break into small groups by kids' ages - with a few parents in each group - to do a simple activity designed to get everyone to talk and work together. Let's get in the spirit of the week together! See you there!"

If you want to do the scavenger hunt for the port I can e-mail it to you. You would need to get your address to me. PM if you can.

 

[disneyfan19712006]

10 hours til we are on the plane. I was able to snag Business Class upgrades on Air Tran so we are ready to go. Guess I should try to get some sleep though. None last night. See eveyone tomorrow at the Promenade.

 

[Bytor01]

Donald bus out of the Hyatt...hope everyone has a great trip. See you on the ship.

 

[AverysMommy]

Welcome back Cruisers - if you have a few moments - can you answer a few questions for us:

1. Did you find the condition of the ship as bad as some people were saying back in December - pails to catch water, smells, etc?

2. The feedback on the servers is still pretty mixed. How were your Servers? If you had good service, can you share names as we may ask for specific people. How were the rest of the Cast Members?

3. Castaway Cay - how was the air temperature? how was the water temperature? Were people swimming?

4. Other Ports' Weather?

5. Was Brent the Cruise Director?

Thanks

 

[Eric Julie and Hailey]

Welcome back Cruisers - if you have a few moments - can you answer a few questions for us:

1. Did you find the condition of the ship as bad as some people were saying back in December - pails to catch water, smells, etc?

I WAS VERY NERVOUS GOING BASED ON WHAT I READ. TURNS OUT THERE WAS NO NEED TO BE. THE SHIP IS IN FINE SHAPE. THE WORST THING I WOULD SAY IS SHE LOST A BIT OF "SPARKLE". I WOULD SAIL THE MAGIC AGAIN IN A HEARTBEAT.

2. The feedback on the servers is still pretty mixed. How were your Servers? If you had good service, can you share names as we may ask for specific people. How were the rest of the Cast Members?

TO ME, THE SERVICE OVERALL WAS AS GREAT AS ALWAYS. THERE ARE MANY NEW CAST MEMBERS, AND IT DOES SHOW -- BUT, NOT ENOUGH TO BE A CONCERN.

3. Castaway Cay - how was the air temperature? how was the water temperature? Were people swimming?

WE HAD A NICE DAY (ABOUT 75 DEGREES) UNTIL 200, THEN AN AWFUL STORM HIT. THE WATER WAS COLD AT FIRST, BUT A BIT WARMER AS THE DAY PROGRESSED.

4. Other Ports' Weather?

GORGEOUS. 80+ DEGREES.

5. Was Brent the Cruise Director?

NO. PETER. HE SAID BRENT IS NOT RETURNING TO THE MAGIC - AT LEAST NOT FULL TIME. HE'S HELPING THE DREAM AND THEN WILL BE THE CD FOR THE FANTASY.

Thanks

.

 

[TimmyTown]

Welcome back from the Caribbean everyone! Amanda, Nate & I wish to thank everyone for the wonderful fish extender gifts we received all week. While this was our third Disney cruise, it was our first "fish extender" cruise. It added a lot of fun to the cruise, both giving and receiving. We also wish to extend a special thanks to the organizers of the Fish Extender exchange, the Scavenger Hunt, and the "meet" at the Promenade Lounge. Once again, all of these activities really added a lot of fun to the cruise and we are very appreciative of your efforts.

Until we cruise again,
Tim, Amanda & Nate

 

[adventure_woman]

Welcome back everyone! I hope everyone had a magical time. We are cruising the Eastern in 1 week!

Did anyone do the Under 2 Flags Tour in St. Maarten? What did you think?

Also, just a reminder if someone could please post/send me copies of the schedule of the Navigator I would REALLY appreciate it!!

 

[sopandbass]

Back Home!!

We hope everyone had a wonderful experience on our cruise. And for those of you still hopping around the parks, hope you are still having a great time!

We had a marvelous time - it's difficult to not have a good time on a cruise. Thank you for all the nice fish extender gifts - it was so fun to find new things waiting for us when we returned to the room.

It was 7 degrees when we arrived back last night. Stay warm and I hope you have many magical memories from the cruise!

Sharon

 

[heymoonkid]

Also, just a reminder if someone could please post/send me copies of the schedule of the Navigator I would REALLY appreciate it!!

I'd be thrilled to see these as well!!! Anybody who gets these up real soon will be my hero forever!

 

[LuvtheEars]

Welcome back everyone! I hope everyone had a magical time. We are cruising the Eastern in 1 week!

Did anyone do the Under 2 Flags Tour in St. Maarten? What did you think?

We did this excursion and had a great tour guide. It was nice to just relax and see the whole island. We shopped on the French side and the driver let us off the bus to shop on the dutch side. We ended up spending all of our cash so we walked back to the ship. It was not a bad walk at all.

Welcome back Cruisers - if you have a few moments - can you answer a few questions for us:

1. Did you find the condition of the ship as bad as some people were saying back in December - pails to catch water, smells, etc?

I did not think the Magic was bad at all! We sailed on her in 2008 right out of dry dock and did not see much difference. The garbage smelled, but only when we were getting on and off the ship aft. Still a great ship and I would return in a heartbeat!

2. The feedback on the servers is still pretty mixed. How were your Servers? If you had good service, can you share names as we may ask for specific people. How were the rest of the Cast Members?

Our servers were good - Not Magical like the last time. Our asst. server seemed new, but got into the groove after a few days. This trip was the most I've ever seen the Head Servers work. They were everywhere making sure the servers and asst. servers were able to keep up.

Welcome back from the Caribbean everyone! Amanda, Nate & I wish to thank everyone for the wonderful fish extender gifts we received all week. While this was our third Disney cruise, it was our first "fish extender" cruise. It added a lot of fun to the cruise, both giving and receiving. We also wish to extend a special thanks to the organizers of the Fish Extender exchange, the Scavenger Hunt, and the "meet" at the Promenade Lounge. Once again, all of these activities really added a lot of fun to the cruise and we are very appreciative of your efforts.

Until we cruise again,
Tim, Amanda & Nate

I also want to say Welcome Home and Thank You! The scavenger hunt was excellent. We finished it up just as they were calling our number to board. It sure made the time go fast!

The map for the FE list was wonderful! It made delivering the gifts so much easier than trying to guess where the rooms were and backtracking. We enjoyed all the gifts. Thank you all for putting so much time into making/putting them together to help make the cruise that much more memorable.

Stay warm everyone! We drove home yesterday and woke up to 19 degree temps today!

We booked the Fantasy onboard and now will begin the planning process - even though it's over a year away.

 

[croppincolburn]

Here is my point of view

Welcome back Cruisers - if you have a few moments - can you answer a few questions for us:

1. Did you find the condition of the ship as bad as some people were saying back in December - pails to catch water, smells, etc?

Wonderful on deck 6. When I was delivering FE gifts parts of deck 2 smelled like engine exhaust or something.

2. The feedback on the servers is still pretty mixed. How were your Servers? If you had good service, can you share names as we may ask for specific people. How were the rest of the Cast Members?

Our servers were excellent Levent and Non. Alvin in Palo. Everybody I came into contact with was excellent. Everybody was so polite and friendly, and helpful, on the ship. I was amazed.

3. Castaway Cay - how was the air temperature? how was the water temperature? Were people swimming?

We swam. (Not as warm as St Marteen.) Our port adventures were canceled due to the wind. After it started raining we finished shopping and headed back to the ship. Dh jumped in the jacuzzi. January is not the best month for CC.

4. Other Ports' Weather?

Perfect!

5. Was Brent the Cruise Director?

Thanks

What does my ticker say now?

 

[Bytor01]

Welcome back Cruisers - if you have a few moments - can you answer a few questions for us:

1. Did you find the condition of the ship as bad as some people were saying back in December - pails to catch water, smells, etc?

I did not smell anything funky at all anywhere, but yet my wife always says my sense of smell is really bad or is that really a bad thing?


2. The feedback on the servers is still pretty mixed. How were your Servers? If you had good service, can you share names as we may ask for specific people. How were the rest of the Cast Members?

Oh man, our servers were great. In the dining rotation, we had Isaac and Lazim as our servers and Dogan was the head. they were all wonderful. Lazim kept the kids busy with magic tricks and always had our first round ready upon our arrival. Isaac was alo fantastic and gave us good advice, even if we ewnt with something different. Dogan also worked hard and was following up and making sure we were taken care of. We also went to Palo for Brunch and dinner and had Mo. He was great and damn him...he fed us way too much, in fact they all did, how dare they

3. Castaway Cay - how was the air temperature? how was the water temperature? Were people swimming?

The air temperature was normal for this time of year, 75 degrees and for my taste the water was chilly. My kids did swim but we kind of called it a day and good we did because a nice rain came down about 2pm, as we were just walking on the ship.

4. Other Ports' Weather?
Fantastic, St Maarten was probably 80-82 degrees and St Thomas was a little warmer than that, 85 or so.


5. Was Brent the Cruise Director? I have had Christiaan twice, Brent once and know Peter. They are all wonderful. I would have to say Christaan is our favorite, probably because he was on our first cruise. But, it is really unfair to Brent and Peter because of how really good they are also.

Thanks

I also posted on facebook but for all you returners, does anyone know why Mickey didn't zip line in during the Pirate Party?

We also booked our 4 day on the Dream in late August and a 7 day Eastern on the Fantasy that we will push back to this exact time in 2013. I really like the fact that they lowered the deposit amount. I was ready to drop 2k on deposits and I got out of there with only about $600. Of course, I have to pay more later....

Tim

 

[coachycp]

I agree with all the responses -no need to fear - the ship is in good order -it's not perfect but considering they only have a few hours to do any major work while in the various ports it is in good shape. There wasn't a day that you didn't see groups of cast members touching up the ship while at sea, at night or early am. This was our second trip on the Magic -you could tell they had a lot of "newer" cast members and they were trying hard. If something wasn't right or if we needed something all we had to do was ask and they were very willing to please as is the Disney way! The food was good, not always great but certainly didn't feel we ever had a bad meal. And if one of us got a dish we didn't like all we had to do was ask to try something different and they were very accomodating. Palo's was awesome as usual, I thought the service was fantastic and it was a nice evening out for my wife and I.

I think if everyone keeps their expectations in check, ask nicely and explains what they want or what is wrong you will have a great trip. I heard some complaints on the ship and the way the families handled it was embarassing. The few I observed went to the 50,000 ft level, right away versus handling it in a calm manor. There is definetely a language barrier with most of the cast members so it pays to start off slow and understand this before creating a major scene, there is always a senior cast member to go to if your issue wasn't resolved.

All that said, it was a great trip and we reserved for the Dream Aug 2nd -putting our own land and sea package together -

 

[lori123]

We had an AMAZING cruise with you all - it was nice to put faces to names. We can't wait to start planning another!

 

[TimmyTown]

Welcome back everyone! I hope everyone had a magical time. We are cruising the Eastern in 1 week!

Did anyone do the Under 2 Flags Tour in St. Maarten? What did you think?

Also, just a reminder if someone could please post/send me copies of the schedule of the Navigator I would REALLY appreciate it!!

This is my 10th post. Perhaps after this one, I can post attachments, i.e. personal navigators. If not, I've sent them to wdwinfo via e-mail. Perhaps they will post them quickly. If all else fails, please PM your e-mail and we can try that route. Does anyone else have other ideas?

 

[TimmyTown]

Okay, I figured it out. Here's a link to my remarkably rudimentary personal website that has links to each day's Personal Navigator as well as the 7-day Voyage Navigator and finally, the TV & Movie listings.

I hope that this works for those interested:

http://home.comcast.net/~haaskent

Enjoy!
TimmyTown

 

[adventure_woman]

Okay, I figured it out. Here's a link to my remarkably rudimentary personal website that has links to each day's Personal Navigator as well as the 7-day Voyage Navigator and finally, the TV & Movie listings.

I hope that this works for those interested:

http://home.comcast.net/~haaskent

Enjoy!
TimmyTown

YOU ARE MY HERO!!!!!

 

[croppincolburn]

Okay, I figured it out. Here's a link to my remarkably rudimentary personal website that has links to each day's Personal Navigator as well as the 7-day Voyage Navigator and finally, the TV & Movie listings.

I hope that this works for those interested:

http://home.comcast.net/~haaskent

Enjoy!
TimmyTown

Worked great. You got to it before I did.
My ticker rolled over so I will have to remove it. Wish I really was going again in a year.

 

[weavers1995]

We had the most AMAZING vacation ever. I cannot thank everyone enough for all the wonderful fish extender treats. My three kids loved running to the room to see if there was anything there. Someone made a sign for Frankie's birthday...he got the biggest kick out of that! Thank you!

We did book another! We did dummy dates...need to see the school calendars but it was magical for us!

Thanks again! It was great meeting all of you! Take care!
The Weavers

 

[Meretta]

Just wanted to say thanks to everyone for all the organization that went into making the Fish Extender, Get together Meet and Scavenger Hunt happen.

All around we had a great cruise and the kids really enjoyed coming back (or waking up) and finding treats in the Fish Extender.

Meretta (of the Rubber Duckies -- sorry if the squeaking drove you batty - my girls couldn't resist!)