Disney Girls try the Carnival Magic
I love reading the comparison cruise reports, and thought I should offer one in return, as you often see people trying to make that decision to 'leave Disney' for a different line.
Background - I am a single mom and been cruising with my daughter since she was 8 years old, she is now 20. We have also done many, many
Disneyland and Disney World trips over the years. We live near Vancouver, BC so trips to cruise out of PC are harder on the pocketbook for us.
We are Gold on Disney Cruises. We have done a Mexican Rivera out of LA, Alaskan out of Vancouver, and a few western/eastern out of PC. We have been on all ships but the Dream. We only do a cruise that is at least 7 days if we fly all that way.
We also have cruised little 1-2 night repo cruises out of Vancouver to Seattle - they are cheap and fun and have done these on NCL and Princess (We really don't love princess at all - won't ever book a longer cruise on that line - food was awful on both cruises we took). NCL we really enjoyed, but all of their upcharges have put me off booking a longer cruise with them. I don't feel we should pay to see shows on board, pay for room service, etc...
So now it was time to plan our annual vacation. We originally booked Harmony of the Seas for Nov 26th (I think that was the date) about 19 months prior to sailing for an amazing deal of $2200 total for ocean view balcony. Insane deal! When it came to final payment date, my daughter had just changed jobs and they were not going to allow her the black friday weekend off. Sadly, we cancelled it. Well go figure 2 weeks later my daughter was offered a role in a movie and had to quit her 'day job'. We would have been able to go after all - I looked and tried to get the reservation back but it was now up to $6000 for the 2 of us! So lesson there -book those big ships EARLY!
So now we had a decision to make. We had $5000 cdn to work with. That is for airfare, excursions, transfers, parking, hotels, etc....
We had a choice -
DCL verandah for about $3600 USD plus everything else, which put us over budget, but I was going to deal with it. Or go inside room (which I wasn't fond of) for I think it was about $2800 at the time.
OR - GASP - Try Carnival and also get a few days of Disney World in.
Being 20, the Carnival 'fun ship' did appeal to my daughter.
For me, I didn't mind much as long as I had somewhere to relax for a week. 2016 was not good to me and my stress level. I have had a horrible year with so much stress my hair started to fall out and I almost ended up in the hospital twice.
I researched what Carnival had to offer. I hadn't paid much attention before.
I knew I wanted a newer larger ship, a good spa area, a balcony, decent food choices and some entertainment.
After a few days, we decided on the Dec 3-10 sailing of the Carnival Magic. I booked a spa balcony room for $1680 taxes/fees included. This gave us full access to all of the fun stuff in the spa like the thasselotherapy (spelling?) pool, steam rooms, hot loungers, tea relaxation room, etc..etc.
This sounded great - I was happy with a stateroom that was 10 steps from the elevator and we were quite excited about our choice.
We added on 3 nights at All Star Movies (first time staying there and first time staying value in about 10 years) with park hoppers,
MVMCP and dining plan. (Hindsight - should have booked 4 nights as there were many things we wanted to do that didn't get done in 3 days -being park veterans we were not there for a relaxing stroll around the parks, but we did it full on 9am-11pm every day, doing xmas shopping, looking at the xmas stuff and riding fave rides only).
Rather than a full trip report I am going to just do some highlights of the Carnival portion of the trip:
NOTE: We went in with a VERY open mindset. We knew this was not DCL. We knew this would be a different type of vacation, and as long as I had somewhere to have a nice nap, relax, take in a couple movies under the stars, and spend quality time with my daughter, I was happy. We did NOT go in expecting DCL at all! When you are paying HALF PRICE of DCL, you get what you pay for and I fully expected this. Any 'complaints' I have did not really ruin my trip in anyway, as I went in expecting things not to be DCL!
Embarkation: Our embarkation was wide open from 12:30-3:30pm. We did not buy the faster to the fun they offered. We arrived at 12pm and were on the ship by 12:30pm. Very fast and easy. I would say Disney and Carnival comparable on that one.
First day Lido Buffet Lunch: Comparable food options. I honestly have never found DCL's buffet to be stellar, and would say Carnival was similar. Crowded, lined up, busy, crazy - typical first day.
First Impressions of the ship: Ugly! That is all I can say -I had seen photos and knew it looked like a floating vegas, but in person - it really is just awful. LOL. Green everywhere - and green is my least fave color, but at least I just convinced myself it went with xmas
They had these giant lights that looked like eyeballs with slime coming out of them. I can't believe someone designed this! lol.
Another thing that really messed up embarkation day, was the staff completely shut down about 8 elevators midship to bring luggage to staterooms. I have never seen luggage being brought to staterooms off guest elevators. So not only are we watching these guys clearly in bad moods trying to get luggage everywhere and shoving it around like it was the worst thing they had to do in their lives, it clogged up elevators that were open. Picture about 150 scooters on this ship, with no elevators, or having to travel from one end to the other to try to find one open to get on. This went on for hours on embarkation day. At least until muster drill and then a bit after as well.
On DCL (and other lines I have been on), the luggage magically appears in your hallway from crew elevators hidden behind the scenes, so to see this was odd to me. That was the first time I really realized this was not a DCL ship.
Lifeboat Drill was painless. No jackets needed, sat in the theater. Done in 15 mins. Comparable to DCL.
As we walked around, we were next to the Fantasy and could hear their music, the crowd pumping and could feel the excitement from it. On our ship we could barely hear any music, people were just getting drunk fast and swimming, lounging. We didn't really bother with the sail away party, as I had seen videos of it and knew it was the basic cruise line dances and drinking type thing.
We decided to go to our room, unpack and get sorted out, then go for dinner.
Stateroom: This was a good size and comparable to a Fantasy family balcony class DCL stateroom. We had a sofa that could turn into a bed, king bed, good size bathroom and shower. Lots of storage space, good size balcony. No complaints. Better tv channel options than what I can remember on DCL. But they only had pay per view movies, no on demand for free. They also had 2 movie channels that rotated 2 different movies a day. I actually watched a couple of them over the week while relaxing. Bed was comfortable. I would say DCL and Carnival equal on this one. DCL colors/furnishings a bit nicer, but overall the same for comfort/space. As for room steward he was very good, very friendly. Left a large towel animal every night, ice every day, etc....
One thing I will point out is when we arrived at our stateroom the balcony was FILTHY. Cookie crumbs, bird poop, ashes, etc... all over it. I had to ask for it to be cleaned.
Spa: Carnival Magic was incredible. We spent a lot of time in there using the different facilities. Probably at least 2 hours a day. I can't compare to DCL as I never did get a spa pass there, but if you look up info on the Carnival Magic/Dream spa (there is a good
youtube out there somewhere) you will be able to compare for yourself. It was never too busy, never had to wait our turn for anything.
I have had facials on DCL and they were incredible. I treated myself to a facial on the magic and it was honestly horrible. 20 mins spent explaining the layers of my skin and drawing a diagram of it. I finally was like 'listen I took 10th grade science, im good, can we do the facial'. LOL. It was an awful experience. She barely massaged my face, did not use a hot towel at any point and started using tools that make loud buzzing noises and sounded like I was in the dentist, not a spa. Later on I spoke to the girl who booked me in and explained my disappointment. I wasn't looking for my money back, but maybe a good discount on another service or 50% back would have been nice, but all she did was say she would speak to her manager and get back to me. They never did. I guess they figure they won't see me again who cares. The spa staff were not overly friendly and very pushy on selling stuff.
Main Dining Room: We had anytime dining and quite liked it for this trip. On DCL I love early dining, as we eat, then go to the shows, then back to cabin for a room service snack and bedtime.
For this trip, we were limited to one dining room, but the menu changed quite a bit night to night. We went 4 out of 7 nights. Food was good overall. I liked the variety. In the past I often found the DCL menus not offering enough variety -I remember a lack of pasta -sometimes spaghetti or an alfredo dish can be yummy. I would give food to Carnival on this one, as I did enjoy the variety more, and the food was good. I would give desserts a tie between DCL and Carnival.
One thing about this way of dining is there are MANY tables for 2 available. BUT what they don't tell you is that your table of 2 is literally a table for 6-8 but they leave 2" beside each table, so while you are sitting at your own table, you are still literally sitting next to another couple. Sometimes I like to just sit with my daughter and have dinner and chat, and sometimes I like tablemates, but this way of doing table for 2 did not give that option at all.
Other Food:
Carnival Magic has Guys Burgers, and I can't even describe how delicious these are. There is always a line up from 12pm-6pm when they are open, but it goes fast. We had Guys about 4 times. They also have Guys BBQ open on sea days only, for about 2 hours only. Long lines that go fairly fast. Very good food and worth going to. But I heard many complain they couldn't get near it and couldn't try it. Also lots of people have trouble finding it for some reason.
One of the things that helped me decide on Carnival Magic was to see so many food offerings other than the buffet. Guys, the taco/burrito place, tandoor (indian food- not for me, but its an option), 24 hour pizza, mongolian wok, lunch is free in the italian pay restaurant, hot dog cart, taste bar, deli, etc...... I actually wondered how I was going to 'eat it all' in 7 days and get to try everything.
Well, no worries, as this stuff has VERY limited hours and most of the time you have the choice of guys burgers, pizza, deli or lido buffet only.
It just seemed that everything was open for lunch only, and for about 2 hours. If you missed that window (and with 4 port days you are off the ship away from that food when it is actually open), you are out of luck. OR if you do catch it open, the lines are so long it is insane. 30 min wait at the Mongolian grill, taco/burrito place huge line (I did manage to try one day and it was good), deli always had a massive line up (my daughter got a turkey sandwich one day after a 20 min line up and said it was not good at all), etc..
The buffet was typical all salad, breads for the first bit, then into random stuff - couple types of pasta, chicken, some kind of meat they carved, etc..... Was good enough, but not great. I did like the option of the buffet at dinner though, and DCL does not offer this (they offer the same dining room meal in a more casual setting of the buffet area).
Although there were so many food options on Carnival, I actually felt hungry at times and like I couldn't find anything to eat because everything was closed.
The pizza was GROSS - ok seriously this was THE MOST disgusting pizza I have ever seen or eaten in my entire life. I actually rarely saw anyone eating it. My computer paper is thicker than this pizza. In fact, I think my paper has more flavour than this pizza as well. It tasted like 'nothing' really and it was just horrible. I ate half a piece and paid for that about 2am with massive indigestion from it.
So food options just seemed limited many times of the day.
They also had serve yourself ice cream and frozen yogurt 24 hours- strawberry, vanilla, chocolate. There is a pay for gelato and milkshake place on board too.
Room Service - DCL wins this one hands down. Carnival is limited to sandwiches/chips/potato salad type stuff unless you want to pay. It is $5 to order chicken fingers or something hot. Breakfast I would say is the same on both ships. We ordered PB&J sandwiches one night with tea and cookies and got toasted sandwiches, no cookies, tea and NO mugs, no sugar, no milk. I tried to phone to get mugs and stuff and sat on hold for 20 mins. Could not get through to them. Tried again after another 10 mins, still on hold. Gave up and went to bed. Also, not a fan of toasted sandwiches so these went to waste.
We often had mistakes on the room service order, probably 50% of the time.
Cookies go to DCL! Carnival cookies are awful in comparison!
Entertainment- well you know Disney wins this one hands down, probably over ANY cruise line.
This is where we had to go in with open minds, knowing we were not going to have our regular DCL style evenings.
There is a comedy club on board. We caught a couple shows, some were funny, one was awful and offensive (he kept asking people how long they had been married, and if an older couple said something like 5-6 years he would say stuff like 'oh you got rid of the other old ***** and traded up?' - well then the one guy actually says 'no my 'other old ***** died of cancer'. Awkward! I kept thinking this as he was making jokes about previous marriages and trading up. I actually said to my daughter 'OMG they could be widowed and he is making it sound like they dumped someone and moved on'. Yep!
We didn't bother with the 'vegas style shows' as we already knew we would be walking back out of them. Checked out a couple from the door way, and yes, I was right. I will say the theater seating there is MUCH nicer than DCL. They had nice long comfy sofa bench style seating with tables for drinks. I wish DCL would use this format, as it made our time in the theater way more comfortable.
We went to Hasbro game night, and it was 'ok'. More for the younger kids. We went to see one juggling comedy show and it had some funny moments and was entertaining enough.
The most fun we had for entertainment was getting the comfy seats on Deck 11 that are covered, bringing pillows and the duvet from our room and watching the movies by the pool. We saw Finding Dory, Bad Moms and Suicide Squad. They give out popcorn, but its not good at all. Its pretty awful. We would go get a plate of cheese, crackers, fruits and veggies from the buffet and have a little mini buffet and watch the movies. We enjoyed this. One night we were disappointed because the movie that was to be playing was Mrs. Peregrim home for unusual children, and they ended up showing X-Men.
There also seemed to be a TON of trivia every day, lots of people playing cards, some doing jigsaw puzzles, etc... Personally this does not appeal to me, as I can play cards at home and really hate puzzles.
Adult Area on deck - Carnival's was super nice. I loved how they had the round loungers and hammocks. We had many naps. I find typical lounge chairs a bit uncomfortable for my back at times, so having a 'bed' to spread out on, cover myself with a towel and have a good nap in the sea air was the best thing ever. There were 2 hot tubs that were not too hot, just right for a quick visit. We didn't ever have much trouble finding a spot, except for one time. I loved having a spa cabin, as if you are on deck 11-12, you can take the spa elevator right up to deck 15 adult area!
I love Disney's round cooling off fountain you can sit in on the adult deck, but have to say I found the Carnival one overall more comfortable for me. They were also very strict about the adult only rule and where it was, was hard for kids to access easily. I never once saw a child on this deck, but on DCL I have seen them running through the adult area to get somewhere else quite often.
Casino - of course DCL does not have one, and I thought this might be fun. Wrong! The smoke- OMG the smoke - this place is filled with people who literally spend every waking minute gambling and smoking and drinking. This is why Carnival can sell a cruise half price of DCL - they make up for it in here. I went to a slot tournament and had to leave early because of my allergies. By mid week, the entire atrium from deck 3-11 smelled of cigarette smoke. Our clothes stank just from having to go near this place! Also - it is right mid ship and you have to walk through it to get to many things, including the kids club! Ok you 'could' go up to deck 6, walk across, come down at the other end, but that is a huge pain! So I would hold my breath and get through it was fast as I could. I gambled away about $40 in 5 minutes. That is all I spent.
This is one MAJOR reason I won't ever sail ANY ship that has a casino that is center of the ship, spilling smoke out into everything. I will be looking at ship maps in the future if we decide to sail anything but DCL. By the end of the week I was waking up with ear aches, and had a swollen gland on my left side just under my ear, which is what happens to me when I am around smoke. After 24 hours after the ship everything was back to normal for me.
Shopping on Board:
I have never been a big on board shopper. I don't need watches, chains by the length, perfume, booze, etc.... On DCL I found I usually bought a couple of fun disney things. The magic had your typical logo type stuff, then some roxy clothes, nice hats, sunglasses, etc..... They also have a decent sized jewelry store and perfume store. We browsed but didn't buy. One store always has these $10 special items out there - sarongs, little cosmetic cases, scarves, jewelry, etc..... On a few occasions they had tshirts 2 for $20 and would bring out hundreds and hundreds of tshirts to sell off.
Carnival has build a bear at sea, and I went to check it out. Very cute and well organized. You build your bear in order you arrive. They take your name and you wait, choose a bear (they had a sea turtle, dog, different bears, shark, etc..) then they had outfits. No costs were put anywhere. You were shopping blind. A plush puppy with a 2 piece swimsuit ended up costing $38 total, no idea the breakdown on that.
They do this twice on the cruise, on both sea days. Lots of adults were in there getting them, not just kids.
The candy shop was fun. We got a couple bags of candy for the movies on the top deck.
Cruise Director - Oh how I missed Brent! We had this young guy who I think you either loved or hated. We were the latter. We heard lots of the latter actually. His name was Schwartz and he made soooooooooo many announcements. Every 5 minutes it felt like. But the worst thing is he always ended EVERY one with 'I love you, no I love you more.... ok bye I love you".
First and second time we giggled. After that, all you did was cringe and watch everyone else making fun of him doing it with him, but not in a positive way.
Not a fan of this guy.
Last Goodbye Night:
All day there were announcements of "Come put your fave cruise memory in a balloon on deck 10, put it in the net and then be present at 9:30pm for the big drop, and ONE balloon is going to win a BIG prize, but you had to be present to win. I love you, no I love you more.... ok bye I love you".
So we did it, put our names on the slip, the guy in charge hinted at one person winning a cruise. Got the excitement going.
9pm we secured our spots on deck 3 to watch the balloon drop. 9:30pm we had cool xmas music and a big thank you for coming, hope you enjoyed, hope to see you again, etc.. then the balloons dropped. Kids started popping them and everyone was looking like 'OMG' - pop, pop pop - and then they announced have fun popping them, read each other's fave memories, enjoy and goodnight.
Everyone was standing there like 'where is my prize?'. You have nearly every passenger crammed into the main lobby area hoping to win the 'big prize' and never gave one away? People were pretty upset they left their fave casino game, fave spot for the movies, etc... to come see if they won or not! lol.
Ports:
Cozumel - we went to Naachi Cocum - highly recommend. Please don't bring your loud, high energy kids here, this is a lovely quiet relaxed environment. They would not do well if they are not a very relaxed type and quite kid.
Roatan/Mahogany Bay - Enjoyed this port. Water is not perfectly blue to the bottom, but it was warm and fun. We rented a clamshell that came with floating mats and the sky ride. Enjoyed this a lot. The food we ordered was not good, but no big deal. We spent a better part of the day floating in the ocean and relaxing. Fun little shopping area too.
Belize -we did not get off the ship. The tender boat wait was pretty insane and we opted to stay on the ship and enjoy a quiet time in the spa and adult area.
Costa Maya - we did not dock due to high winds. We were so upset, as this was our one we looked forward to. We were going to try out the big new waterpark there. Our excursion was leaving at 7:30am. At about 6:15am I was on the balcony and saw us near the dock. Maybe 1/4 mile-1/2 mile away? I could see the pilot boat. Good sized waves and some wind and something told me right then we were not docking. Now, I am not a captain, nor do I know what was best, but what I will say is that in my opinion not much attempt to dock was made. We were BARELY even remotely close to trying to dock and the ship started going in the other direction back out to sea. They announced around 7:30am the port was cancelled. The NCG Getaway (I think it was that one) made it in just fine, as did another big ship that day, yet ours could not. Pretty handy we were now all stuck on board and able to gamble and drink all day. Just sayin'....... So they quickly changed the schedule of the day and loaded it with trivia, bingo, casino tournies and other paid events. We couldn't get near the adult area or a lounge chair anywhere. It was also VERY VERY hot that day. I ended up using it as a day to do some laundry and some packing so I could really enjoy our last day at sea. Well our last day at sea it decided to rain all day....lol.
Overall:
I feel we got our monies worth. For $1600 plus another $80 for unlimited pop (but when I figured it out we actually would have been better just paying for them, as I think we only had 1 a day each as we were drinking tons of bottled water (3.99 for a case of 12 delivered to your room) -but no big deal. We are not big drinkers or gamblers, so Carnival didn't make much off of us in the end.
We went in with an open mind - knowing it was not DCL.
Staff seemed exhausted and barely smiled or talked to you, unless they were trying to sell you something. They looked sad and just plain tired. Dining room staff was awful, I had to ask for milk 3 times one night. My daughter put it well when she said she felt like when she asked staff for something they made her feel bad and guilty for asking. When I asked for apple juice at breakfast instead of orange juice, you would have thought I had asked him to go get in a boat, row to shore, pick some apples, squeeze fresh juice and deliver it to my table.
All week we say staff on the guest elevators with cleaning equipment. They didn't seem to try to to use the ones behind the scenes. Often I was made to feel guilty when I wanted to go in an elevator but a staff member with a bucket and a mop was waiting beside me and there was only room for one person.
Carnival 'tried' to decorate for Xmas. They had a nice tree that was about 15' tall and they did a light up ceremony where kids got santa hats and adults got jingle bell necklaces. Another night they had it snow in the lobby. Another time a very poor looking santa arrived (I think that suit and beard has been around awhile). But it wasn't DCL decorations. I had a feeling it wouldn't be, as I had seen their halloween decorations were a bunch of those blow up things you buy at
walmart.
Alot of the public spaces were very crowded in the evenings because anywhere they could put somewhere to take photos, they did. They must have had 10-12 spots per night you could get photos done.
While we were never 'bored' there were often times we were like 'what do you want to do?'. It was not completely our cup of tea, but at the same time, I can say I got in a LOT of much needed relaxation time and spa time. So for this trip, it worked very very well.
Will we sail the Magic again? No - been there, done that, no desire to repeat.
Will we sail Carnival again? Possibly -if the price is right and the casino is in a better spot in the ship, we would consider it. I was able to get a decent relaxing vacation for half the cost of DCL.
We are thinking of trying an RCL mega ship next, just to check it out.
NCL is out for us, as they are upcharging everything it seems.
DCL we will return for sure, but will be watching for a good VGT rate and book last minute. As much as I love DCL, I still can't justify the high costs they are charging. Maybe it is worth it, but I am also happy if I have a cruise with decent enough food, good ports, variety of activities and time for some good napping
Bottom Line - if you have kids, they will probably enjoy the Magic with the waterslides, kids water area, kids clubs. I never once heard a kid say they were bored. They are kids, and having fun. Getting the same unlimited ice cream all day and running around, they are happy.
If you can't handle cig smoke, I would stay away, as it is just such a stench in the atrium area by about day 2.
Young couples would probably very much enjoy the cruise if you are drinkers, partiers and love to gamble and also relax.
If you can't imagine high quality evening entertainment perfectly laid out for you, don't cruise Carnival.
If you are on a budget, and want to spend a lot of time relaxing, taking in a couple movies, having some naps and recharging, this is a great cruise for you.
If you NEED the dining room entertainment to be a highlight, fancy deck parties, high end shows, then don't do Carnival. You won't be happy. We didn't NEED that on this vacation - we needed to relax, and this worked well for us!
