A fun and relaxing cruise!
Carnival Magic Cruise Review to Caribbean - Eastern
Contributor Level:
Third Mate
Cruises: 2-3 cruises
Reviews: 2
Helpful Votes: 62
7 Night Eastern Caribbean (Miami Roundtrip)
Sail date: April 21, 2019
Ship: Carnival Magic
Cabin type: Inside
Cabin number: 2205
Traveled as: Family (older children)
Reviewed: 5 years ago
Review summary
Overall, this was probably the worst of the 3 cruises I have been on with Carnival, but it was still great. The issues we had were minor and we would definitely sail with Carnival again!Embarkation
This was the best embarkation experience ive ever had. We sailed right through and were probably on the ship in less than 15 minutes!
Ship experiences
Food and Dining
Loved the pizza, ice cream and guys burgers 😋
The main dining room was the same as previous cruises, still good food with great service!
Onboard Activities
There was lots to do! This was the first time i really got to enjoy the serenity deck and it was amazing. Also loved the water slides and mini golf. Didnt really go to the theatre shows, we usually hit up the hot tubs after dinner instead. And there was plenty to choose from which was great. The only thing is that i wish there was an adults only or 18+ pool.
Entertainment
We didnt really watch many of the theatre shows. We did see the hasbro game show and the love and marriage show which were both amazing! The comedy shows we went to were also great
Children's Programs
Had one child with us who did not participate in the program
Service and Staff
Our main dining room staff was amazing!! I dont remember 2 of their names unfortunately, but our head waiter Ajith mightve been the best ive had on Carnival! We were the only fixed dining time table in his section, the rest of the tables were your time dining. This is probably why he was able to be so attentive to us. He would frequently ask if we needed anything and near the end of our dinner he would come and chat with us about what we did that day and our plans for the next. Im really glad we got him as our waiter!
Our room steward Supinya was also very sweet and would chat with us in the halls.
Ship Quality
I really dont like the layout of this class of ship, I find it pretty confusing. But it was a very beautiful ship that was kept clean and maintained from what we could tell. The only issue was on debarkation they were doing some cleaning and we sat in some black dirt on the lounge chairs and our clothes got stained 🙁
Cabin / Stateroom
We went smaller than we probably should have to save money. The room definitely was not big enough for a couple of young adults and a teenager. It felt very cramped and we found it had to keep all of our things neat and organized. I found there wasnt quite enough storage for all of our things, but maybe we just packed a lot. We would definitely go bigger next time if we were to have more than 2 people.
Ports of call
I love cruising out of Miami, its a beautiful port. Embarkation was very easy. We stayed in Miami a few days after our cruise and went to Miami beach which was beautiful, however, it was a little pricey for rentals and storage for our luggage.
Thumbs Up
6
Amber Cove (Puerto Plata), Dominican Republic
We did an ATV excursion since it was what my sister and boyfriend wanted to do. Its not something I would do again as I feel it is overpriced and you had to go slow and stay with the group, which included first time riders. I know this was for safety reasons, but considering we were a little bit more experienced riders, it was not quite what we were expecting. However, it was nice to see the country side and interact with a few locals. Bandanas were also required which we didnt realize. We had to buy them in the gift shop for $6 which i feel was a bit of a rip off. After the ATV part of the tour, however, we did get to go to the tour provider’s private beach which was beautiful with free lounge chairs and umbrellas. We got to take a picture with a little monkey too!
St. Thomas is one of my absolute favour ports of call! We just took a taxi to Magen’s Bay and spent the day at the beach. We rented a few chairs and a floaty which were very reasonably priced! Magen’s Bay is beautiful and i definitely recommend it, even though it can get pretty crowded.
Puerto Rico is another port I really enjoyed. We didnt do an excursion, we just walked to the nearest fort, which took about 5 minutes. After we were done there we shopped and walked around old san juan for a couple of hours. Definitely a good port for shopping! Its where we got the majority of our souvineirs.
We did a snorkelling and sting rays excursion in Grand Turk. The snorkelling was good for the most part, however the tour guides made us all stay as close to him as possible rather than looking on our own. Again, i know this is a safety issue, it was just hard to see and pay attention to the sea life when youre too worried about swimming into someone else since we all had to stay close together. That being said, there was so many fish to see and the sea life was beautiful and colourful. We even saw a shark!
The stingrays part of the excursion was amazing! I loved how the just swim up to you, theyre so friendly. We got to get pictures with them as well and hold and kiss them. While not quite as good as sting ray city in Grand Cayman, it was still one of my favourite parts of the trip.
The biggest downside here was the photos and its he main reason Grand Turk is getting 4 stars. They were ridiculously overpriced. It cost us $60 for 10 pictures. (For comparison it cost us $45 for all of our pictures last year in Grand Cayman) and we had to wait near 45 minutes to look at and select our photos. Because of this we didnt get any time on the beach.
Disembarkation
It was pretty standard. We were one of the last ones off the ship so the waiting was the worst part since they were an hour behind. However once we were able to go it went very quickly. It was very chaotic once we got off he ship and struggled to find where to go to get a taxi, i feel the signs and directions at the port could be better
Traveler Photos
