Magic August 20, 2011 Mediterranean - NOT GOOD!

knorth

Earning My Ears
Joined
Aug 31, 2011
Messages
1
We took 12 family members on the Magic for the Cruise of a lifetime. The European sights were fantastic. We did three excursions (Monaco, the Marina and the little Train, Easy Pisa and The Best of Rome) all which were fantastic. We experienced some schedule issues but everything worked out fine. We traveled with 5 kids ages 8,7,6,5 and 4. The food on the ship was good but they didn't have much open after 12 am. With a time zone change coming from the States, we were definitely up after 12 am. The shows were excellent and the characters walking around the ship were such a wonderful sight!

Now to the really unfortunate part. Our room, Stateroom 2648 had sewer smells the entire trip. Disney brought us a portable air purifier, but that only masked the problem. Just a few days later, the sewer lines exploded and there was leaking feces in the hallway to the aft elevators. In order to get from our room to the elevators, we had to pass this area. We had Disney people erecting a tarp over our heads to protect us from leaking sewage. The smell was horrid and all of our family was gagging and ill. The smells perforated into our rooms and there was no escaping the contamination.

We thought clearly they would try to move us because even the Disney people were wearing masks in the halls. They didn't. We asked to be moved and they said no and there was nothing they would do for us. I couldn't believe it. We were stuck on the boat, with no where to go!

We have stayed at WDW multiple times (Polynesian, Bay Lake Towers) and never been treated so poorly. What in the world? Is this just the way Disney is in the European countries....we don't know? We don't recommend traveling on the Magic until Disney addresses the serious customer service issues. Clearly living in these conditions is also a potential health risk.

Better to be safe and stay in the confines of WDW or DL. So sad, but so true. If you want to travel the Mediterranean, do so on a more experienced cruise line. Disney has some work to do.
 
That's so icky, to say the least! I wonder if they didn't have anywhere to move you to? And this is one of the things that has me worried about cruising in the first place. What can they do when there is no where to put you? If the boat is completely booked and you are so far from home/shore/land, what can they do? It's scary when you hear about this kind of thing and like when another cruise line had a fire on board and all the power went out and the ship was stranded? Honestly, you have me very worried!
 
WOW. How many cabins did this impact? Did anyone say what happened? this is the first I have seen of this. Hope its not a sign of things to come as these ships get older
 
We had problems with 2579 in January (2011). The carpet was damp the whole time and smelled pretty yucky. They gave us slippers to wear around the cabin (which did not fit our two kids) but that was it. They tried everything they could short of moving us (which we would have accepted but we were with my in-laws on their first cruise and we had connecting cabins so we'd have hated to give that up). I honestly don't think that there was anything else they could have done.

The Magic really needs to go into dry dock again for a longer period of time than the last time. I'm a little anxious about our 6/2012 cruises. Hope they get these problems resolved.
 

I am so sorry - there are not the right words. But the fact that they can't seem to correct the issue us even larger. I certainly hope that you wrote is all up on your comment card and will follow up with a letter directly to DCL regarding the issue. I know that things happen but that is beyond belief.
 
Oh! That reminded me...I think they had a similar issue when we were on it this past May. I remember leaving the restaurant and walking past the aft elevators to the stairs. I remember the CMs had the area blocked off and what a smell! I guess it really is something they need to take a better look at. How unfortunate for the people in the cabins that were affected.
 
THat's a huge bummer. On sold out cruises, there's not much they can do immediately. But they should have offered SOMETHING, like a bigger percentage off your next cruise, or some onboard credit for you current cruise. Anything to make it look like they at least cared. I'm really surprised, as I my experience with Disney is that they really care about their brand. Have you emailed or written about your experience to DCL, i.e., to people in a managerial position outside the ship? I wonder if that would make a difference.

Sorry you had such a bad cabin and experience. :sad2:
 
I'm really sorry you had that AWFUL experience. I have a very weak stomach for these kinds of things, I think I would have been SICK.

I really hope the reason the were unable to move you is because they had no other cabins available rather than an unwillingness.

I also hope that you and your family received some sort of compensation for what must have been a disgusting and uncomfortable experience.

It's nice to hear despite the issues you found some enjoyment.
 
That's so awful. I would have been very upset about Disney's lack of trying to help you in some way..either immediate OBC or by offering you future discounts since they couldn't clean up the area in question.. We're sailing the Magic next June and now Iam kind of worried about her general upkeep. Thank you for sharing your trip report, it helps to know these things, I'm sorry your trip was so spoiled:sad1:
 
We were also on this cruise and I am sure that DCL has no other rooms available for you to move to. There were almost 2700 passengers onboard and all rooms must have completely sold out. It was the busiest cruise that I have ever been on and queues for character photo's were longest ever.

Sewage smell problems seem very common on DCL (as well as other cruiselines).
We had some minor smell problems but just dealt with it. DCL can't do much except provide some air purifiers. I agree that DCL should offer some sort of OBC to guests staying in those severely affected cabins but apparently they don't.
 
We are not just talking about dealing with a smell. OP and Post#4 were exposed to sewer water, E.Coli, Hepatitis and who knows what else. I would not want to walk through sewer water.
 
We were also on this cruise in 2629 I didnt see anything in the hallway and appart from the smell for a few days in the hallway, not in our cabin at all we didnt have any problem in there with smells.

I know that our next door cabin got moved in the middle of the night as the tap in the bathroom flooded the the floor in the middle of the night. So im guessing they has a few rooms. But on for extreme cases.

We had a fantastic holiday and the only really downer was the lack of attention our head server paid to us. Totally ignored us after the 1st night but was very attentive to the tables all around. Not sure what we did to upset him.
Also the lack of pirate Characters for us to see as we were 1st seating so they only came out while we were at dinner, appart from Captian jack. Asthey were all getting ready for the pirate party apparently so instead of pirate stich coming out 2 times he only came out once. :( very dissapointing as last year they came out for both sittings.

Its a shame you didnt join in with the dis/dibb meet up we had shirts, wristbands, a private cocktail tasting, Fish extenders, Scout meet up and patch/pin swap. Rum tasting sesion, private rome trip with about 40 of us. We had a fab time and it really made up for all the little things, that didnt go quite right.
 
Hi Lindy, I think the head servers must have issues with British People, as we only saw ours three times, once at the second dinner, another time when I didn't eat my pasta and on the last night when when he was roaming the tables for his tips. Our head server was George and we were on first sitting.

Everytime I got in line for the characters, some CM came along and stopped the queue forming. I too would have liked to have seen more characters after dinner.

We too had a blast and all of us are looking forward to going again, hopefully in the Med.
 
I think you were unfortunate with your sewage issues. We have travelled on the Magic 5 time, 3 of which were in Europe and have had no issues at all.

Its a shame that this spoiled your trip, but do think it must have been a one off. I hope this doesn't put you off travelling on DCL again :)

I also don't think the servers have an issue with Bristish people, we have had good server each time (some better than others), but none to complain about.

I guess I should feel lucky I had none of these issues on my trips! :worship:
 
I think you were unfortunate with your sewage issues. We have travelled on the Magic 5 time, 3 of which were in Europe and have had no issues at all.

Its a shame that this spoiled your trip, but do think it must have been a one off. I hope this doesn't put you off travelling on DCL again :)

I also don't think the servers have an issue with Bristish people, we have had good server each time (some better than others), but none to complain about.

I guess I should feel lucky I had none of these issues on my trips! :worship:

It wasn't the servers, they were excellent, it was the head server.
 
I think you were unfortunate with your sewage issues. We have travelled on the Magic 5 time, 3 of which were in Europe and have had no issues at all.

Its a shame that this spoiled your trip, but do think it must have been a one off. I hope this doesn't put you off travelling on DCL again :)

I'm the person from post #4. First I want to say that although Disney didn't offer to move us, we recognize that they didn't have much choice in the matter (although a little OBC would not have "dampened" our spirits :lmao: but wouldn't have dried out our carpet). Our attempt to look on the bright side was, if we had to move, we'd be further away from my in-laws on their first cruise, so by staying where we were, we'd still have connecting rooms (because if they didn't have a place to put US, they certainly wouldn't be able to move them). Their experience was more important than ours since we've cruised many times and had great service etc. all of those times. We just didn't want to make a "stink" :lmao: about it.

The problem that we had was water coming up from the floor drain in the bathroom. They came many times trying to "unclog" it. After 3 nights the water finally seeped into the cabin and the carpet area around the sofa and out as far as the desk and closet.

Like I said before, we've sailed several times (6) and this was the first real problem we had, although we've had intermittant (sp?) unpleasant odors in the past. But, as far as these being one time occurances, here are some threads that discuss this topic...

This one seems confined to deck 6
http://www.disboards.com/showthread.php?t=2582695&highlight=sewage

http://www.disboards.com/showthread.php?p=38796247&highlight=sewage#post38796247

http://www.disboards.com/showthread.php?p=38400649&highlight=sewage#post38400649

Bottom line is that with that many people, there's bound to be problems with waste removal at times.

One other point to make is that there was a thread awhile back talking about the general state of disrepair on the Magic and they mentioned the dry dock that was done out of the US and done quickly. Our server at Palo mentioned this (the pizza ovens weren't working and he told us that they had nothing but problems since the dry dock). I just think that the Magic is overdue for a good long dry dock.

Somewhere else I read that most ships are retired after something like 10-15 years and that the Magic and Wonder are about due for that as well (which I would feel VERY sad about :sad2:).
 
It wasn't the servers, they were excellent, it was the head server.

Our head servers were all great also each time, its a shame you managed to get a bad one :sad2: I still don't think head servers in general have an issue with British people though.
 
We were also on this cruise in 2629 I didnt see anything in the hallway and appart from the smell for a few days in the hallway, not in our cabin at all we didnt have any problem in there with smells.

I know that our next door cabin got moved in the middle of the night as the tap in the bathroom flooded the the floor in the middle of the night. So im guessing they has a few rooms. But on for extreme cases.

We had a fantastic holiday and the only really downer was the lack of attention our head server paid to us. Totally ignored us after the 1st night but was very attentive to the tables all around. Not sure what we did to upset him.
Also the lack of pirate Characters for us to see as we were 1st seating so they only came out while we were at dinner, appart from Captian jack. Asthey were all getting ready for the pirate party apparently so instead of pirate stich coming out 2 times he only came out once. :( very dissapointing as last year they came out for both sittings.

Its a shame you didnt join in with the dis/dibb meet up we had shirts, wristbands, a private cocktail tasting, Fish extenders, Scout meet up and patch/pin swap. Rum tasting sesion, private rome trip with about 40 of us. We had a fab time and it really made up for all the little things, that didnt go quite right.

we sailed in 2629 on the 29th July cruise, no smells at all in or out of the cabin. My DSIL had the cabin next door ... so I'm very glad it didn't flood while we were onboard!

First time cruisers means we had nothing to compare the Magic to, but I was worried after we booked having read many similar reports about the very poor state of the Magic ... we didn't feel this was true. To our eyes it was in very good repair and we were impressed by the constant painting/varnishing etc we saw.
 
We were on the dream 8/16 sailing and in cabin 7703.. we had the toilet leak and leak..it wasn't coming from the seat area, but behind near the floor (trap maybe?) it never made it to the cabin.. but we called for help and waited for a bit.. finally I called back and asked could we please leave the cabin.. It was fixed before we got back.. I never smelled anything and that ship is new.. It did't ruin our cruise, and I was glad it was fixable... no one ever checked back during the cruise or mentioned it...

Sorry to hear about your problems.. I think I would have been very upset to have to smell that, walk through it or have water in my room..

Maybe the magic does need an overhaul!!
 


GET UP TO A $1000 SHIPBOARD CREDIT AND AN EXCLUSIVE GIFT!

If you make your Disney Cruise Line reservation with Dreams Unlimited Travel you’ll receive these incredible shipboard credits to spend on your cruise!

















Save Up to 30% on Rooms at Walt Disney World!

Save up to 30% on rooms at select Disney Resorts Collection hotels when you stay 5 consecutive nights or longer in late summer and early fall. Plus, enjoy other savings for shorter stays.This offer is valid for stays most nights from August 1 to October 11, 2025.
CLICK HERE













DIS Facebook DIS youtube DIS Instagram DIS Pinterest

Back
Top