The ship's intercom system in our room came on briefly out of the blue about 4:30 A.M. It was a man saying something along the lines of, "Red Party report to aft funnell" in a calm voice. (remember we were asleep, so things are blurry at this point.) I sat up in bed and said "what was that about?" two or three times because we NEVER get announcements at wierd times like that. My husband said maybe they pushed the wrong button to call someone on the crew.
Around ten minutes later, Jackie the cruise director said in a calm voice that there was a fire in the aft funnell of the ship and at that point we could stay in our rooms. Of course there was no sleeping from then on out! Then just a few minutes later the captain came on and said in a very calm voice where the fire was, that it seemed to be isolated, and that they had evacuated the rooms around the aft funnel. About five minutes later, Jackie came on again and said that we would all need to report in our life jackets to our assembly stations. She did seem a bit flustered here because one or two of her words were unintelligible - but she repeated herself. I would have been a bit flustered too - after all, she probably knew little more about the fire than we did. She was a terrific cruise director IMHO.
We reported to our station in the Walt Disney Theater (tough assignment) so we didn't see any flames. My boys 7 & 9 and all the other kids in our area were great. One little girl did get sick to her stomach, and I'm sure we were all worried about what was going on. One very little child across the theater was scared and uncomfortable and cried loudly pretty much the entire time. We did hear periodic updates over the announcements, and the crew reassured us that they had just done a life boat drill that very week. Some smoke was coming in the theater near the ceiling by the stage corner, but we were all in the back sections of the theater. We were told through announcements that the smoke was coming from the funnel area through the ventilation system. A Carnival ship came and sat by us until about 6:30 which was also nice to know. I hope it didn't mess up those passengers schedule too much! Around 6:30, we were released to go back to our rooms. Those in the back of the ship were released a bit later.
On the last night, the Captain explained some before the Farewell Variety Show. He said that sensors reported smoke all up and down the stack, and the evacuation was in attempts to err on the side of caution. He did not say however what they thought caused the fire. He also said that the subsequent cruise would probably have to leave late - which sounds like what did happen.
My husband and I checked out the crew pool which they gave adults access to since they let families use the quiet cove pool. It was nice and clean with many of the same deck chairs. There were signs and crew telling us how to get there.
Although this may have changed, you could walk by the Mickey area on the far starboard side. Even Saturday A.M. you could smell smoke or burned rubber - not too strong - on a few parts of the ship. We had a forward room, so no smell for us there. The heat damage made the funnel look as if something heavy had fallen on the port side of the funnel and crumpled it above the white Mickey silhouette. The pipes sticking out it looked a bit singed as well.
Although Disney is under no obligation and we were happy to receive the $100 credit, we were pretty nervous there for a while and extremely tired the next few days. Especially since we did have to do the customs at 6:30 on St. Thomas the day before. We felt our time and inconvenience was worth more than that, but were happy with what we received and that things turned out O.K.
We even proceeded to
Castaway Cay which was the kids' favorite part. (We did arrive one hour late) Hey - maybe they will send us an exclusive "I survived the fire on the Magic" pin! LOL We are planning on going again because the crew was great, the shows were fun and we all had a great time!
