The Magic is better than the Dream....I'll be the judge of that!!

[tweis]

Just found your TR, I'm really enjoying reading it. Oh how we miss Palo, the lobster ravioli is my favorite. I also love the bean soup, can't wait to sail again just to have those two things.

Thanks and

Palo is delish and I can't wait to have it again. I really wish I liked lobster.

Loving your trip report, cruising on Magic in August and reading all the reports really builds the excitement!!

Thanks and

I love reading trip reports prior to my cruises also. It really helps me to get an idea of what to expect.

 

[tweis]

After the Pirate Party, we were pretty pooped and my sunburn was giving me fits (apparently, Banana Boat does NOT work for me) so we headed back to our room for the night. We found this guy waiting for us.



Of course after getting back to the room, the boys are hungry. We thought about ordering room service but Mark decided to take them up on deck and bring a few things back. Pizza, of course.

After the pirate party, there is a 30 minute buffet set up in Cabanas but we have skipped it the last two cruises due to us having dinner in Palo.

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[Lisa Lisa]

Welcome back! I hope you had a great trip. Looking forward to reading the rest of your TR.

 

[tweis]

Welcome back! I hope you had a great trip. Looking forward to reading the rest of your TR.

Thanks Lisa. We had a wonderful time and can't wait to visit again. I am hoping to finish this TR soon before I forget everything.

 

[TLovesDisney]

Thanks for an awesome trip report!! Makes me wish Oct would come faster so we could be on our cruise.

 

[tweis]

Thanks for an awesome trip report!! Makes me wish Oct would come faster so we could be on our cruise.

Thanks and I hope to finish it up very soon. Trip reports are a great way to get ready for a cruise.

 

[tweis]

We all slept a little later today since we would not be in port. Mark and I had a brunch reservation for 11:00 (I think) but we took the boys to breakfast in Cabanas first. The place was a mad house with zero seating inside or outside on the deck. CM's were placing silverware and napkins on the tables on the POOL deck! We ended up sitting out there since that was our only option.

After breakfast, we dropped the boys off at the theater and headed back to the room to change for brunch. We were delighted to be seated in Andre's section again. We were given the choice of Prosecco or a mimosa. We both chose a mimosa.



Andre then proceeded to take through all the tables and explained about the hot dishes.



















hot dishes

 

[tweis]

My first plate from brunch-seared spicy tuna, caviar on toast, bresola, prosciutto wrapped melon, scallop w/onion tomato "relish" and a selection of cheeses. Everything was very good.



Mark's first plate-prosciutto wrapped asparagus w/Bearnaise sauce, bresola, a roll of some kind and cheese and crackers.



My 2nd plate - almond croissant, bloody mary shrimp shooter and some kind of fruit and nut bread. The croissant was a little dry and the bloody mary shooter actually kind of disgusting because the shrimp was soggy. The bread was very good though.



I can't seem to find a picture of Mark's second plate but he DID have one. Our mimosas were "magically" refilled during our 2nd trip to the buffet, according to Andre.

We then each ordered the chicken parm. The chicken was crisp yet moist and tender absolutely delicious. The risotto on the other hand, did not have much flavor at all.



By this point, we were ready to be finished but Andre would have none of it. He insisted that we order more food so Mark and I decided to split the goat cheese and sun dried tomato pizza. This was very very good.



After the pizza, we waddled back up to the dessert table.

Mark's plate-tiramasu, chocolate mousse and I'm not sure..... But he liked it!



My plate- tiramasu and chocolate mousse. Delicious!



We loved brunch and absolutely adored Andre. I really hope that we have the pleasure of sailing with him again in the future. He was so nice yet so very funny. He commented to the table beside us, that he had been trying to feed my husband since last night! My husband has NO trouble eating but Andre was set on him trying everything and wanting everything to taste better than on the Dream. He is truly a warm and caring person and I hope to see him again soon. He hugged my husband and kissed me on the cheek when we left. I think we bonded more with Andre than we ever have to any of our MDR servers. So, if you are sailing the Magic next year or in the fall of this year (he was going home in 2 weeks) and plan to dine in Palo, ask for Andre. You will not be disappointed.

We will definitely try to have brunch on every cruise in the future if offered but dinner is still our favorite.

 

[tweis]

I hope to have you guys an update later today or tomorrow morning. Thanks for staying with me.

 

[tweis]

The boys called during brunch to let us know that they were going to see another movie. I think they ended up seeing Muppets Most Wanted and Frozen. We headed back to our room to change into comfy clothing with elastic and to start packing.

We then went to check out what the shops had to offer but didn't buy anything because their selection seemed rather limited. Of course that could be because we had waited until the last day to shop. We decided to wait outside of the theater and catch the boys before they could take off without us again.




There was a couple of fun things happening and I really wanted to us to take part in some of the activities together. We decided on family Magic Quest in Fathoms. This was alot of fun and definitely G-rated. We didn't win but we had lots of fun.




This was a picture Trystan had to take as part of the game. Definitely take your cell phone with you to play.




After Magic Quest, the boys just didn't seem interested in any of the organized activities that were going on. I decided to go by the future cruise desk because I was yet to receive any kind of confirmation and the 3 boys decided to go up to the pool deck.

 

[ALMinVA]

so happy to be reading and catching up with your report and trip on the Magic!
Can't believe how fast time has gone by.
We still have 175 days to go and are just getting ready to have our list ready for shoreside concierge. I love all of your pictures and reviews and you are making me so hungry for Palo

 

[tweis]

so happy to be reading and catching up with your report and trip on the Magic!
Can't believe how fast time has gone by.
We still have 175 days to go and are just getting ready to have our list ready for shoreside concierge. I love all of your pictures and reviews and you are making me so hungry for Palo

Hi Amanda

Thanks for reading and

I can't believe how quickly the time has passed either. Your cruise will be here before you know it.

Palo is delish and I can't wait to have it again.

 

[tweis]

The line was VERY long at the future cruise desk which was a little frustrating since I really just needed to confirm that my cruise had been booked. I waited in line a good 45 minutes before I made it to the only desk that was open. The CM looked it up and confirmed that I was booked. I asked him for a printed confirmation and he said he was unable to print me anything but that I would receive an email as would Beth at Dreams Unlimited. He confirmed my email address and I got him to write down my confirmation number.

I finally caught up with the guys on the pool deck. A tiny bit of Palo had worn off so I treated myself to my first and last chicken tenders on this cruise. The boys had a little snack and then we headed back to the room to relax and pack a little more before dinner.




Dinner tonight was in Animator's Palate. Our servers and our head waiter couldn't wait to tell us how well the boys had behaved at dinner the night before. That's my boys.

 

[lizzyb]

Great review!

 

[tweis]

Great review!

Thank you so much!

 

[tweis]

I had expressed my disappointment from missing Lumiere's the night before and I had been reassured that I could order from Lumiere's menu tonight, so that is what I did. Mark and I both had the french onion soup. As always, it was delicious.





Oops. Just realized that I skipped appetizers and I have a picture of the menu. This menu was a little different from other AP menus.





The appetizer was a set trio and I was the only one that opted to give it a try. It included duck comfit, mozzarella with tomato and shrimp with a lobster medallion. It was very tasty.




For my entree, I requested the Chateaubriand that was on Lumiere's menu the night before as did Mark and the boys. I saw our server speaking to the head waiter before coming back to our table. He asked wouldn't we prefer the tenderloin that was on the menu tonight? It was tastier and he highly recommended it. Fine. I found it rather odd that we were being talked out of our choice after we were assured that we could order anything from last night's menu.

The tenderloin was a good choice but we knew it was since we had had it on our other cruises. I forgot to take a picture of mine and Mark's which were cooked medium but here is a picture of Trystan's all cut up and cooked medium well.




For dessert Mark and I had the Grand Marnier Souffle, Jacob had the cupcake option from the kids' menu and Trystan had the trio.








Actually, Mark asked for some vanilla ice cream with chocolate syrup but was brought a scoop of chocolate ice cream and a scoop of vanilla. Luckily, our server brought him a Grand Marnier Souffle also. Trystan did not like the trio so he had some of my souffle. I LOVE this souffle.

 

[tweis]

As you can see from the photos above, Animator's has beautiful lighting.

At the beginning of the meal we were given markers and a place mat that we were instructed to draw a character on. We had lots of fun with this. Our waiter told us which screen our characters would be displayed on and I was able to capture a couple of pictures.










We were not expecting to have this show and were really excited to be able to take part in it. After the Magic was revamped, only 7 night cruises were having the animation show. I do not know if this is a permanent change or if they were simply getting all the bugs worked out before the Magic headed to the Med for the season.

The only slightly disappointing part of AP for this cruise was the fact that we never had the regular menu which meant no pasta purseittes.

 

[tweis]

After dinner we checked our folder at Shutters and realized some of our pictures were missing. We spoke with someone and they showed us how to find it. She said that it would take a couple of hours and that we should come back later.

I am really having trouble remembering what all we did on our last night. I know that the boys did not want to see the show and that Mark and I kicked around the idea of seeing but decided not to. I know the boys got in the hot tub for a little while and watched Funnel Vision and Mark and I sat in one of the bars listening to music for a little bit. We also had ourselves a drink of the day.




This was the High Tide and it was very good.

We went and sat out on the pool deck with the boys for a good little while and went around taking some pictures of the ship.

 

[tweis]

We finally had the boys get out of the hot tub and we all headed back to the room. We found this guy along with our survey.




I should mention that we went ahead and gave our dining team their vouchers at dinner because we were planning to have breakfast in Cabanas.

We finished our packing and decided to order chocolate chip cookies and milk from room service. Til We Meet Again was coming up and I wanted to take the boys for pictures with the characters AND our pictures from shutters should be ready soon also.

After waiting about 45 minutes with no cookies and milk, I called room service to see when we could expect them because the first call they said around 30 minutes and well that obviously didn't happen. I was told that they should be there within 15 minutes. Ok.......it was getting very close to Til We Meet Again and I didn't want to miss it.

After waiting another 30 minutes, I called room service again to find out what the problem was. She actually called the delivery guy and found out that he was on our floor and should be to our door shortly. This was getting ridiculous. After an hour and a half wait, we finally received our cookies and milk from room service. The boys decided that they did NOT want to go see the characters, so instead, Mark and I went up to Shutters to get our pictures. The pictures that we could not find earlier still were not in our folder. We asked about this and were told that the "digital" print had been found but had not been printed. This was very confusing to me because we had told the rep earlier that we wanted to buy those pictures. He told us that we could order them on screen and they would be ready for pick up in the morning. I hoped so, because we were doing the express walk off and wanted to debark as soon as the ship was cleared.

We got up around 6 and headed to Cabanas for breakfast. Their selections are a little more limited on the last morning but I was able to find my muesli. We saw Andre in Cabanas and he wished us farewell. We debarked the ship as soon as we were cleared and quickly made our way to our car. We were pulling out of the parking lot at around 7:20.

Navigators

 

[tweis]

I just remembered something from day 2! We played Who Wants To Be a Mousketeer in the D Lounge. It didn't last very long though because neither of the boy's numbers were called so they quickly lost interest in the game and we moved on to something else. Here is a couple of pictures though.





Melon Vine- it was ok....

Oh yeah! This is a picture of our plate that was delivered to our room on the last day.