It was great other than a bit of lack-of-communication between the ship and one of the ports
Carnival Magic Cruise Review to Caribbean - Bahamas
Contributor Level:
Purser
Cruises: 1 cruise (first)
Review: 1
Helpful Votes: 14
6 Night The Bahamas (Norfolk Roundtrip)
Sail date: August 13, 2023
Ship: Carnival Magic
Cabin type: Inside
Cabin number: 1348
Traveled as: Family (young children)
Reviewed: 9 months ago
Review summary
Overall it was an okay trip. Some things could have been better. Maybe my expectations were too high but i was a little disappointed. For the amount of money I paid for this trip, I didnt feel like it was necessarily worth it. My mom went on this same cruise a few years ago for a fraction of the cost and it sounds like she had a better time. I am hoping now that I have a bit of experience with a cruise ship and how they are laid out, i might have more fun next time and be more willing to participate in some of the different activities offered on board. And now i know to keep an eye out for discounted tickets and to make sure to check what destination we are going to and whether it is rainy season. Definitely a learning experience.Embarkation
It was a bit disorganized. They essentially checked everyones documents and let us board the ship with little to no direction.
Ship experiences
Food and Dining
food and drinks were fantastic. Although some of the bars were able to make special orders and others said they werent able to. It was kind-of strange since they were the same bars. Meaning the Red Frog rum bar on the lido deck said they couldnt make special orders but the Red Frog bar within the ship would. It was odd.
Onboard Activities
We went to the pool, spa, arcade, shopping, etc. We did not expect the pool to be saltwater. That caught us off guard. The splash pad with the slides had regular pool water but the others were saltwater. Bit of a shock for our eyes when we came up from under the water. Literally everything on the ship was trying to sucker you into spending more money. I bought pretty much all the packages i wanted in advance including drinks, wifi, some souvineers (which they didnt even end up having. not sure how that works when they were ordered MONTHS in advance), Build-A-Bear coupons, gratuities, etc. And then still wanted more money. It was a little bit annoying. The arcade was a lot of fun. Spent entirely too much time and money in there.
Entertainment
we didnt go to any of the shows. We didnt know they were happening other than the movies at the lido deck pool and that was just because we happened to be at the pool when they started.
Children's Programs
My kiddo didnt go to any of the kids programs. She hung out with me the whole time. She is very mature for an 11 year old and would have been more interested in the older kids clubs. the younger kids clubs were just not something that interested her.
Service and Staff
The staff was incredibly friendly and made a point to learn our names and greet us every time they saw us. Made us feel super welcome and like family. Everyone was super attentive and willing to help meet any needs we had.
Ship Quality
The layout of this ship is essentially a massive maze. If you take the forward elevators, you can only get to things around the sides of the ship. If you took the middle elevators, you could only get to things at the center of each level unless you took some zig-zag side corridor to the outer hallways. Some of the elevators would drop you off at what SAID it was the level but you couldnt get to the area you wanted so you had to walk up or down the steps to get to the area you wanted. I will say that by the 5th day, we were finally able to read the map of the ship that is posted by each elevator and plan our paths to get where we wanted, but still got lost a few times. In terms of cleanliness, everything was super clean... If there were any accidental spills or anything, the staff was incredibly fast to clean it. The lido deck was kept as dry as possible with staff constantly using squeegies to remove any water from the pool or rain. the bathrooms always had plenty of toilet paper and soap and they were kept incredibly clean. The buffet area was regularly wiped down throughout meals to clean up any food that spilled out of the containers. Overall, the cleanliness and speed of service was incredible.
Cabin / Stateroom
The cabin itself was not as small as i expected. We had plenty of room to move around and lots of closet/drawer space for our clothing and other belongings. The only downside was the shower. I am a bigger girl and had a bit of trouble manuvering within the small corner shower. Ultimately i made it work but I do wish it was somewhat larger so the curtain wasnt constantly touching me.
Ship tip
Keep an open mind. I feel like now that I have an idea of how the layout of a cruise ship works, it will be much easier and more fun/less stressful for me if/when i cruise again :)
Thumbs up
0
Ports of call
we werent in norfolk for very long. Just long enough to fly in, take an uber to the dock, and get on the ship. And on the way back, same thing. Docked, uber to airport. Overall the area was clean and the people were friendly.
We had an excursion PLANNED (Stingray Adventure) but it was raining. The people who were in charge of the excursions didnt communicate with the cruise ship at all. So we all waited in the showtime theater for an hour, then took forever to get out of the ship because they had to check all our ID's, walked down the dock to the connection with the encounter staff just to be told that the encounters were being post-poned because of the rain and they were going to try again at 5:30pm. We had to be back on the ship by 7:30pm for departure. But then we had to walk all the way back to the ship in the rain, wait an hour in line to get back onto the ship because it was single-file and they had to check everyones ID's again and our bags and things had to go through a xray machine to make sure we werent bringing anything back on board that we werent supposed to... you know... in the walk down the pier... So we hung out around the ship and then later I happened to overhear from another passenger that the excursions had been cancelled completely. Did not hear this from the captain or any of the cruise staff. This was never announced.. I learned from another passenger. Incredibly bad communication and left a really bad taste in my mouth. This was the one excursion my daughter and i were super excited about and disappointed us tremendously.
Nassau was beautiful. it was the only port we saw that didnt have rainy weather. We did the Dolphin Encounter at the Blue Lagoon. The lagoon itself... STUNNING. I have never seen water so blue. The little inflatable agility course thing that was supposed to be part of this excursion left much to be desired. it was pretty small and lame tbh. Nothing like what was advertised. The dolphin encounter was fun but i thought it was going to be swimming with the dolphins. It was actually just watching the dolphin do some tricks, petting the dolphin, and getting hugs and kisses from the dolphin. Dont get me wrong, it was still fun, but not quite what i expected. The photo package for the encounter was INCREDIBLY expensive. Considering how much the excursion itself cost, youd think they would have included at least a couple of photos, but nope. Gotta pay for those additionally. So keep that in mind.
We did the Beaches, Caves and conch burger excursion in Freeport. It was raining for this excursion too, but we were able to go because it was cave tours. The caves were much smaller than we anticipated. We went to two different locations and basically all you do is walk down some steps, they have a platform built where you can stand and look at the cave, and thats it. No exploring, no walking through the caves, just stand there and look and come back out. Rather disappointing. The island itself im sure would be more beautiful if it wasnt raining but there were still so many dead trees. Just black trunks sticking up out of the ground like spikes... This was the result of a hurricane some time ago but youd think they would have cut those trees down. The tour guide told us that the trees will never grow back because the soil has so much salt in it after being flooded by the ocean. So it was kind-of depressing to see the island barren and looking somewhat dead. The conch burger was pretty good. I am not a huge fan of seafood so it wasnt ideal for me, but im sure it was good to others. as for the beaches, we werent really able to enjoy them because it was raining. They were beautiful... But we couldnt swim or lay out in the sun or anything. Not that the rain is the fault of the excursion or anything... But it was still a bit of a letdown. After the excursion, we returned to freeport dock and explored the shops that were set up around the area. That was a lot of fun. They had music playing and people were dancing and eating food from the vendors and we got to purchase some really cool souvineers like hand carved bahamian masks and and elephant. Super cool.
Disembarkation
It was essentially like "Thanks for coming and spending lots of money. Now get off. We dont care where you go, but you cant stay here". They had the center elevators completely shut down. They had areas roped off so that once you left your room, you couldnt go back. Even though the people who had their luggage taken out for them werent supposed to disembark until like 10ish. It was kinda strange. There also appeared to be a line of people waiting to go through the check-in and boarding process we did when we embarked. So it was like they had back to back cruises planned. Which is fine and all, but makes me wonder how they were planning to clean and re-set up the ship in that amount of time. Makes me question just how clean the state rooms really were if they were turning around that quickly.