Carnival Almost Gets It Right

Carnival Magic Cruise Review to Europe - Mediterranean

KenC5

Contributor Level: Deck Hand

Cruises: 4-6 cruises

Reviews: 0

Helpful Votes: 31

Overall rating:

4 out of 5

Verified Review

12 Night Grand Mediterranean (Barcelona Roundtrip)

Sail date: September 04, 2011

Ship: Carnival Magic

Cabin type: Balcony

Traveled as: Couple

Reviewed: 13 years ago

Review summary

Excellent ship; well thought out functionality; Operationally very efficient - embarkation, debarkation, excursion egress/ingress, and good (but not overbearing) communication by the Cruise Director. Plenty of amenities - could always find something to do and/or quiet space. Serenity Deck - good concept that is frequently oversubscribed; in spite of crew members doing a good job enforcing the rules. Smoking on-board is only real negative with this (Carnival) ship(s).

Ship experiences

Food and Dining

3 out of 5

Ranged from fair (lacking taste) to excellent (most of the fish dishes). No real bad meals at all. Variety of cuisines served was very good, providing a change of pace.

Entertainment

5 out of 5

Best we've experienced over 4 cruises (Celebrity and RCI).

Service and Staff

5 out of 5

Dining room staff just OK - not very engaging or personable; mostly efficient and accommodating to special requests; if you did not order a (alcoholic) drink the day before, you were not asked the next day if you wanted a drink (duh?).

Ship Quality

5 out of 5

New ship - stateroom amenities well thought out.

Cabin / Stateroom

5 out of 5

Felt very comfortable in our balcony stateroom. Our room steward was the best - almost invisible, but always there to clean up, even on our shortest duration absences from the stateroom.

Ports of call

Venice, Italy

3 out of 5

Was somewhat disappointed in Venice - very crowded, very commercial and the "dirtiest" of all the ports we visited. Enjoyed walking around Venice in the less congested areas, though.

Thumbs Up 0

Don't Miss: Gondola Ride, Grand Canal Tour, St Mark's Basillica

Monte Carlo, Monaco

5 out of 5

Beautiful place - interesting to see how the rich live (from the outside, anyway).

Thumbs Up 0

Don't Miss: Train tour

Dubrovnik, Croatia

5 out of 5

The surprise port of the trip . . . very, very nice stop.

Thumbs Up 0

Don't Miss: "Old City" Dubrovnik