Magic 6/9: A few "negatives" before the long report of a GREAT cruise

[FLfamilyof 4]

Our cruise on the Magic was delightful and enjoyable. I am still working on a report that is turning out longer than I expected. Since the overwhelming majority of what we experienced was great, I am listing the very FEW things that bothered me separately. First, upon boarding the ship, no announcement of families was made. No big deal, knew it was a possibility, just hoped for it because I knew DD and DS would have enjoyed it. (They didn't know the difference since I didn't tell them of this happening sometimes) Then, the WORST part of the WHOLE cruise was a CM "jumping on us" right in the atrium as we were headed to the aft part of the ship for the lunch buffet. He was extremely pushy and aggressive, IMO, trying to get us to listen to the wine packages for sale and getting us to sign up for it right then. We were with NZ KIWI and family as we boarded the ship. I know they felt the same. Hey, we just got on the ship and are excited to go eat, explore and make ressies. We were not interested in a sales pitch upon boarding! Anyway, after about 1 minute of his speech, I just walked away with the others following me. At dinner that night, our server also gave us the sales pitch. Much less aggresive, but left me with the feeling that perhaps the CMs who sell the package get a commission or something. No more about the wine package after those 2 incidents. Another thing that happened to me twice was my KTTW became demagnetized and wouldn't work at all even though I had it in a protective plastic cover on my lanyard. Guest services quickly took care of issuing me another KTTW. It was just an inconvenience is all. DH had the experience of all the restaurants, except Palo's, being so busy with activity, it was difficult to rleax during dinner. I didn't notice this at first, but once he pointed it out, I felt the same. Power of suggestion?! The servers are working very hard to keep everyone happy, which we appreciated. However, all the running back and forth to tables, serving stations and the kitchen, was a bit distracting. After months of preparing and memorizing the ship's deck plan, I was surprised that it took Saturday and some of Sunday to find and remember where everything was. Not that this was a bad thing, just was not expecting it. I generally have a good sense of direction and all; but be prepared, you may be overwhelmed, as I was, with how large and magnificent this ship really is. Castaway Cay was beautiful. I have read others' posts with the same "complaint"--too short of time there. I felt very rushed to snorkel, eat, swim and shop. Did not get much relaxing time. It may have even felt more compressed if we hadn't eaten early. Thanks to the boards, I knew to do that before the lines got long. Finally, I was so tired after dinner every night (late seating). Regretfully, we did not enjoy much in the way of "after hours" entertainment. Never saw the dueling pianos or cabaret shows. This isn't a negative comment towards DCL obviously. I was just disappointed not to do everything I had hoped to. The good news is, we'll go again!

 

[fergusonjlf]

I too have spent much time looking at the maps so that I'll be familiar with the ship layout. But I like having a map at first, so I created one for me to carry around. I wanted only the decks with public rooms -- 10, 9, 5, 4, 3. I went to the Disney website and copied the deck plans for only those decks into a PowerPoint file. I sized them until they fit nicely on part of a page. I printed it on a color laser printer at work. I plan to crop the page to keep it small and maybe laminate it.

I suspect I'll carry this only for the first day or so, but I think it will be useful (and I had fun making them for me and my family!).


JoAn

 

[FLfamilyof 4]

That was smart thinking! I just tore out the deck plan page from our DCL brochure and brought it along (every where for 2 days) How clever you are!

 

[cruzindon]

Merricki,
I was surprised about the encounter that you and NZ KIWI had. We were in front of you in line and probably in front of you going to lunch and were not told about the wine deal. The only encounter we had then with a CM was that they tried to direct us to Topsiders for lunch and I said is Parrot Cay closed?
The CM then pointed us toward Parrot Cay.
Did miss being announced though.

 

[FLfamilyof 4]

Hey cruzindon, maybe we just looked more like "wine people" or an easy sell?! Hpoe your DS gets his Wonder #2 card. Sorry can't help with that one!

 

[sbbaer]

We have been on 3 cruise lines other than Disney. I am very suprised you got a hard sell for alcohol on Disney. Disney was the only cruise line where alcohol did not get pushed.

After being on Enchantment of the Seas, the Magic was a breeze to get around. We still could not find some places on EOS after 7 days. They had decks where you could not go all the way forward. You had to go up or down find the next set of stairs or elevator then go back to the original deck. (I hope that was not too confusing!) After that experience we packed the deck plans from our brochures, but never needed them. We all agreed that the Magic is the easiest ship to get around of any of the ships we have been on.

We did so much on Disney that we were pretty tired at night also and didn't get to do all of the things we wanted to do. This is definetly a positive point. It is much better than the alternative of not enough to do. On the EOS we were searching for things to do... (needless to say we will NOT be cruising on EOS or RCCL ever again).

These are just 3 of the many reasons we will continue to cruise on Disney unless they change.

I am glad you had a great trip! I look forward to reading your full trip report!

 

[Yo Ho Yo Ho]

We were right with Cruzindon in line. No wine package hard sell either. The CM's did not direct us to either place to eat ( did we act like we were not to be deterred from Parrot Cay?), just gave us the option as we got close to PC. We did get the wine talk when we sat down at our table, but it was never mentioned again.

 

[brich]

We encountered the "Wine Guy" as well. We humored him and told him we would think about it. It's funny, normally a pitch like that would bother me but I was so excited and filled with adrenaline, I didn't give it a second thought. I laugh at the fact that I even entertained the "Wine Guy", I don't even like wine...Although after my encounter with Guest Services, I may have been able to use a bottle or two!

 

[paulhackett]

We were on the magic 5/26 and i agree the only things that i found undisney like were the hard sell of the drinks ect but still had an exelent cruise
PaulH

 

[cruzindon]

We ate in Lumiere's every morning, and there was some person pushing "Waker Uppers" every dayfrom a cart.

 

[NZ KIWI]

I have to agree with FLfamilyof4 regarding the "ambush" we experienced boarding the ship!
I'm not certain who was more surprised, judging by the looks on their faces... the CM's (there were two of them as I recall) or my DH! This was a first time cruise for us, and neither one of us were expecting that! As for me, I had my agenda (and my mind) set on getting to Palo's ASAP! I barely listened to the CM once I realised what the 'sell' was about, and didn't really even stop, just slowed down a bit. I also remembered another CM trying to "guide" us to Topsiders, but we were fortunate to zip right up to Palo's and arrived first in line!
The remainder of the cruise was excellent, except for the lack of service at Guest Services, which is another story altogether!!

 

[Chattyaholic]

IMHO you didn't miss anything by missing out on the dueling pianos. We went to see them and stayed a whole 10 minutes. There were only 6-8 couples in the room, it was kinda early, yet they wanted "everybody to sing" with them and were quick to point out the tip cup for special requests. We left, went next door to Rockin' D bar and that's where we spent most of our evenings after dinner/show! Maybe the pianos would have been better had there been more people in the room, I dunno. But I doubt we'll give them a second chance on our next cruise.

 

[BlazerGB]

Can someone please fill me in on the "wine guy" stuff? We took the 4 day Wonder last year and no wine package then! In fact we brought some aboard and also spent $$$ each night on more! :confused

 

[jlima]

You buy 10 bottles for the price of 8, I believe. They give you a paper that the assistant server keeps; and at dinner you ask the assitant server for the paper and pick the one you want for that night. There are check off boxes on the paper that the server initials as you order, to keep track of what you've used. There's about 12 to chose from. Hope this helps.