toolmanjan
Love DVC Vero Beach
- Joined
- Nov 6, 2008
- Messages
- 376
Random Thoughts on our
Nov. 9-16 Eastern Caribbean on the
Disney Magic Merritime Cruise
Myself and DW
Previous cruises:
’87 4 day Big Red Boat Oceanic
’02 Magic 7 day WC
’09 Magic 7 day WC
’11 Magic 7 day EC
We started this vacation with 3 days at Myrtle Beach. Visiting friends and touring a collage with our daughter. Saturday morning my DW and I drove to Port Canaveral.
We had reservations at the Country Inn and Suites through AAA. All my wife talked about was having a nice warm bath (the hotel in Myrtle Beach was not the cleanest, she opted to take showers there) When we got to our room we realized that the hotel had given us a handicapped room with no bathtub. I went to the front desk to get our room changed. I was told that AAA had booked a handicapped room and I would have to take it up with AAA. (no where on our printed reservation did it state any special requests) My guess is that the young man at the desk didn’t expect us to call AAA. Long story short we were upgraded to a suite with a bathtub at no charge.
More about the Country Inn & Suites:
The rooms were very clean and well maintained. Their continental breakfast was great lots of food choices.
“Room service” was ordering out from a local Italian restaurant the food was very good although the portions were on the small side. You could order domestic beer for $2 ea.
FYI: if you are not parking at the hotel for your cruise but want to use their shuttle to the port there is a $5 charge per person.
I parked our car at the Disney terminal because we wanted to get right off the boat and hit the road without waiting for a shuttle bus. At the terminal we were directed to the parking garage. On the ground floor there was an area to stop and drop off our luggage. We parked on the 3rd floor and walked across the bridge to the terminal. Our PAT was 10:30 we were right on time. We waited about 45min until our boarding group (#6) was called.
Our stateroom was 7634 category 6a. I enquired about an upgrade once we checked in. The only available was a concierge for $1800.
We were apprehensive about the location of our cabin because it was so far aft. In the passed we were mid ship decks 6,7 or 8. We found the advantage of being aft to be:
1-oversized veranda
2-the aft elevators were never busy
3-2 floors to walk up for Cabana’s and the beverage station
4-Quiet never heard anyone in the hallways unlike mid ship
The Quiet Cove Pool filled up early on sea days. Most of the chairs were taken by 8:45. We were always there early so this was not an issue. BTW there are always those entitled few that feel that they can reserve their chairs by throwing a book or beach bag on multiple chairs. (ie- “reserve” 4 chairs at 8:30 return at 10:00 to swim, go play bingo at 10:45 leaving your chairs “reserved”) Some people are so selfish.
The Cove Café still has pastries but they are not in the self serve case. I never asked for any pastries there. I did however make up for lack of pastries by having 30+ soft serve cones at the self serve machines over the course of the cruise.
The food at the main dinning rooms was above average. We enjoyed the re-imagined Animators Pallet much more than its predecessor which was disappointing. The last night when our drawings came to life was a lot of fun.
We booked Palo for the same night as pirate night. We don’t see the appeal of the pirate festivities in addition the MDR menu that night is usually not the best. Palo was a nice dinner. The food and service were great. But I can’t say we were wowed.
Cabana’s also new since re-imagined I have no preference over the old Topsider. I did notice some people had a hard time grasping the idea that you could jump in at any point of the “line”.
The day at Castaway Cay was great as always. This was our first time using the beach at Serenity Bay. We arrived early.
FYI Those that arrived later to SB had to walk a long way down the beach to find a chair.
Lunch this time at CC was really good all around.
Shutter’s/Photos
We really like the new system/options at shutters. We didn’t have to commit to a package until the last night.
We had booked the Orient Beach excursion in St Maartin. Unfortunately I didn’t feel up to it when the ship arrived at St Maartin. I assumed that we would have to eat the cost of the excursion (our tickets said no refunds). I’m happy to say that our account was credited the price of the excursion with out asking.
In St Thomas we headed out early and took the cable car to the top of the mountain about 700ft up. What a great view. There are shops and restaurants at the top. In retrospect I would do this later in the day (lunchtime) so we could eat there. After that we walked around the shops in the port.
Mixology Class was fun and informative
Bingo sucked me in again 3 sessions $280.
The Magic’s service and staff were excellent in every respect. When we sailed in 2011 the service and food were terrible. I would guess because the DCL was trying to staff the new ships at the time.
Cast Members that stood out:
Aris and April our main dinning room servers. Great service & Just the right amount of interaction.
Ryan server at the Promenade Lounge – Our nightly pre dinner routine was to stop for a cocktail the Promenade Lounge. Ryan gave us great service with a smile.
Gerald gave us great service when we were by the Quiet Cove Pool everyday.
Ferman our cabin host - What can I say we’ve never had a cabin host that was so attentive to our requests.
Express disembarkation:
We got on line to disembark at 7am. We disembarked at 7:05. We had lots of bags. More than we could move any distance.
The DCL warns you that there will be no porters to help you in the port if you leave early. We found this to be untrue. We took the elevator to the ground floor. There were several of porters there to help us. As it turns out the porters are required to unload all of the “over night baggage” before they can help the early people. A porter helped us to our car gave him a $25 tip worth every penny.
We made it to the Earl of Sandwich in Downtown Disney for breakfast by 8:30.
We did some shopping then I drove my wife to the airport for her 2:30 flight back to NJ
I stayed at All Star Movies for one night and attended the Christmas party at MK
Thanks for reading
I’ll be posting pictures soon
Nov. 9-16 Eastern Caribbean on the
Disney Magic Merritime Cruise
Myself and DW
Previous cruises:
’87 4 day Big Red Boat Oceanic
’02 Magic 7 day WC
’09 Magic 7 day WC
’11 Magic 7 day EC
We started this vacation with 3 days at Myrtle Beach. Visiting friends and touring a collage with our daughter. Saturday morning my DW and I drove to Port Canaveral.
We had reservations at the Country Inn and Suites through AAA. All my wife talked about was having a nice warm bath (the hotel in Myrtle Beach was not the cleanest, she opted to take showers there) When we got to our room we realized that the hotel had given us a handicapped room with no bathtub. I went to the front desk to get our room changed. I was told that AAA had booked a handicapped room and I would have to take it up with AAA. (no where on our printed reservation did it state any special requests) My guess is that the young man at the desk didn’t expect us to call AAA. Long story short we were upgraded to a suite with a bathtub at no charge.
More about the Country Inn & Suites:
The rooms were very clean and well maintained. Their continental breakfast was great lots of food choices.
“Room service” was ordering out from a local Italian restaurant the food was very good although the portions were on the small side. You could order domestic beer for $2 ea.
FYI: if you are not parking at the hotel for your cruise but want to use their shuttle to the port there is a $5 charge per person.
I parked our car at the Disney terminal because we wanted to get right off the boat and hit the road without waiting for a shuttle bus. At the terminal we were directed to the parking garage. On the ground floor there was an area to stop and drop off our luggage. We parked on the 3rd floor and walked across the bridge to the terminal. Our PAT was 10:30 we were right on time. We waited about 45min until our boarding group (#6) was called.
Our stateroom was 7634 category 6a. I enquired about an upgrade once we checked in. The only available was a concierge for $1800.
We were apprehensive about the location of our cabin because it was so far aft. In the passed we were mid ship decks 6,7 or 8. We found the advantage of being aft to be:
1-oversized veranda
2-the aft elevators were never busy
3-2 floors to walk up for Cabana’s and the beverage station
4-Quiet never heard anyone in the hallways unlike mid ship
The Quiet Cove Pool filled up early on sea days. Most of the chairs were taken by 8:45. We were always there early so this was not an issue. BTW there are always those entitled few that feel that they can reserve their chairs by throwing a book or beach bag on multiple chairs. (ie- “reserve” 4 chairs at 8:30 return at 10:00 to swim, go play bingo at 10:45 leaving your chairs “reserved”) Some people are so selfish.
The Cove Café still has pastries but they are not in the self serve case. I never asked for any pastries there. I did however make up for lack of pastries by having 30+ soft serve cones at the self serve machines over the course of the cruise.
The food at the main dinning rooms was above average. We enjoyed the re-imagined Animators Pallet much more than its predecessor which was disappointing. The last night when our drawings came to life was a lot of fun.
We booked Palo for the same night as pirate night. We don’t see the appeal of the pirate festivities in addition the MDR menu that night is usually not the best. Palo was a nice dinner. The food and service were great. But I can’t say we were wowed.
Cabana’s also new since re-imagined I have no preference over the old Topsider. I did notice some people had a hard time grasping the idea that you could jump in at any point of the “line”.
The day at Castaway Cay was great as always. This was our first time using the beach at Serenity Bay. We arrived early.
FYI Those that arrived later to SB had to walk a long way down the beach to find a chair.
Lunch this time at CC was really good all around.
Shutter’s/Photos
We really like the new system/options at shutters. We didn’t have to commit to a package until the last night.
We had booked the Orient Beach excursion in St Maartin. Unfortunately I didn’t feel up to it when the ship arrived at St Maartin. I assumed that we would have to eat the cost of the excursion (our tickets said no refunds). I’m happy to say that our account was credited the price of the excursion with out asking.
In St Thomas we headed out early and took the cable car to the top of the mountain about 700ft up. What a great view. There are shops and restaurants at the top. In retrospect I would do this later in the day (lunchtime) so we could eat there. After that we walked around the shops in the port.
Mixology Class was fun and informative
Bingo sucked me in again 3 sessions $280.
The Magic’s service and staff were excellent in every respect. When we sailed in 2011 the service and food were terrible. I would guess because the DCL was trying to staff the new ships at the time.
Cast Members that stood out:
Aris and April our main dinning room servers. Great service & Just the right amount of interaction.
Ryan server at the Promenade Lounge – Our nightly pre dinner routine was to stop for a cocktail the Promenade Lounge. Ryan gave us great service with a smile.
Gerald gave us great service when we were by the Quiet Cove Pool everyday.
Ferman our cabin host - What can I say we’ve never had a cabin host that was so attentive to our requests.
Express disembarkation:
We got on line to disembark at 7am. We disembarked at 7:05. We had lots of bags. More than we could move any distance.
The DCL warns you that there will be no porters to help you in the port if you leave early. We found this to be untrue. We took the elevator to the ground floor. There were several of porters there to help us. As it turns out the porters are required to unload all of the “over night baggage” before they can help the early people. A porter helped us to our car gave him a $25 tip worth every penny.
We made it to the Earl of Sandwich in Downtown Disney for breakfast by 8:30.
We did some shopping then I drove my wife to the airport for her 2:30 flight back to NJ
I stayed at All Star Movies for one night and attended the Christmas party at MK
Thanks for reading
I’ll be posting pictures soon
