Carnival Magic- 6/17, Day at Sea
June 17th, 2018- Day at Sea
We enjoyed sleeping in a bit and woke up around 8:30 to get ready for our first day at sea. We looked out our balcony in the morning and noticed we were going really slowly, which was weird because we hadn't ever seen a ship move that slow during a sea day. It definitely seemed to indicate something was malfunctioning with the propulsion/engine system. As a side note about our room, 6434, the main overhead lights took a long time to turn on. It wasn't a huge deal but certainly made us think that the lights were broken a few times. The vanity lights turned on fast so we used those a lot so we didn't need to stand in the dark for ~30 seconds. As we were headed out the door to get breakfast, we found an updated shore excursion list in our mailbox. We had planned to go to the Shore Excursion desk that day to check on our Amber Cove excursion, so this was perfect that the info came to us. We noticed that our excursion was still happening (Yay!) but it was scheduled for the time we had our couples massage booked. The itinerary change moved around the port days, so we had previously scheduled the massage for the afternoon of San Juan, but now that it was on the Amber Cove day, we had an issue. We went to the spa to reschedule our couples massage from 3 to 4 and headed down to breakfast.
Just look at how calm the ocean is!
The Tides aft pool again on our way to breakfast. We saw this view many times over the week since we always walked from our room on 6 aft to the food on 10.
The lido area at 9:30 on the first sea day:
If you've read my previous reviews, you know that we LOVE a good Blue Iguana Cantina breakfast, so we had been looking forward to our huevos rancheros and burritos for a long time before the trip. The time had finally come! My husband got in his line for the breakfast burrito, and I headed to the other counter to get my huevos rancheros. The worker asked me how many I wanted and how I wanted my eggs, which confused me because on the Liberty and Vista, I just said huevos rancheros please and I received my food. I stumbled my way through answering the questions, got my food, and found a seat. Unfortunately the food wasn't as good as I remembered from my two previous cruises so that was a sad start to the day. My husband loved his burrito though, so that's good! We walked around the ship enjoying the weather and sat outside reading for a bit before heading to Trivial Pursuit in the Ocean Plaza at 11. We totally under-performed but we love trivia so we still had fun.
We sat on the lanai (deck 5) for a while reading and soaking up the sun before getting BBQ for lunch. I don't want to give away the best-kept-secret of newer Carnival ships, but since you're reading along, you must be pretty awesome, so I will. If you need somewhere to sit, the lanai is a fantastic place to find beach chairs to lay out and catch some rays while also enjoying some quiet time away from the hairy chest contest or other lido deck games. We probably sat on the lanai almost every day of the cruise, and rarely sat on the lido deck because it was so packed. The BBQ line was shorter than the Vista, which was nice, and it moved quickly so my husband only waited a few minutes before returning with a plate full of food.
Here's a short compilation of the Lido deck (from embarkation day, whoops) and the ocean on our sea day. (Make it full screen for better viewing)
In my last review on the Vista, I wrote about our first balcony room as a splurge item since it was our honeymoon. I also wrote that while we liked the balcony and were glad we bought it, we didn't think that we would be buying one in the future. We didn't feel like we used it enough to get our money's worth, and we'd be sticking to oceanview rooms. Well, fast-forward to February 2018 when I got an upsell email from Carnival to get a balcony room for super cheap, so I went for it. I'm not entirely sure why but I did- whoops! We had to make a conscious effort to use the balcony but we definitely did use it more than on the Vista and I actually liked our balcony up on deck 6 better since it was further from the water and therefore a lot more quiet. I also felt more safe in this balcony than the previous one. We sat on the balcony for a while and talked about life, as married couples do, and enjoyed our time together.
My husband looking out from our balcony. That water is so unreal!
(Yay Hawkeye tattoo)
Enjoying our balcony!
At 1:40 we headed up to the water park. Well, my husband went to the water park and I camped out in a clamshell on the Serenity deck. While I was relaxing and reading, my husband was doing the hard work of filming his rides on the two waterslides. It took him about 30 minutes to wait in line and ride both rides before returning to the clamshell. The first ride he did recorded fine, but the second one stopped right as he started the ride, which was weird and unfortunate. Guess that means more water park later in the week! My husband said both of the rides were fun, but the Twister (yellow slide) was better. He also said the lines moved pretty quickly. We must've fallen asleep in the clamshell because we were waking up at 3pm and headed to the deli in the lido to grab a quick meal. The deli doesn't have clear lines of where to order, who is next, where to wait, etc., so it was a little chaotic. I had the turkey sandwich on a pretzel roll, which was good, and my husband had the falafel which was just okay. Pro Tip: get the truffle aioli and use it on your fries. That was amazing!
Waterslide time!
Here's my husband going on the Drainpipe! (Make it full screen for better viewing)
We grabbed frozen yogurt from the self-service machine and went down to the Ocean Plaza to read before playing two rounds of trivia: TV theme music and 90's music. We did terribly, but no worries, you'll read about our trivia success later in the week! We decided to go to the cabin to relax before getting ready for dinner. I had read on Cruise Critic that the Carnival TV channel options are continuously getting smaller and more limited, and that was very apparent on the Magic. There were maybe 15 channels that were about Carnival stops/excursions/advertising, and maybe 8-10 stations that aired other content, but usually nothing desirable. While hanging out in our room, we were talking about how friendly the staff has been, as is Carnival's standard. Our one letdown so far was our room steward who wasn't very chatty, which was slightly disappointing. We love seeing our room steward in the hallway and sharing small talk about our day or how the trip is going, but we usually just exchanged "hellos" or "good mornings." Other than that, we had great service from our steward and we have no complaints.
Our room steward always made awesome towel animals, starting with the elephant:
We gussied up for the first elegant night and headed down to dinner. We were standing in the atrium on deck 3 in a line that seemed super long and wasn't moving at all, which seemed odd since the dining room was open. We finally realized we were in a line for a photo op and not the line to enter the dining room. Whoops!! To our credit, the two lines were blending together but once we discovered our mistake and scooted over to the correct line, things moved quickly and we were seated shortly after, at 6:13. We quickly noticed that service was VERY slow. It took us about 30 minutes to receive our appetizers, and we finally received our entrees at 7:15pm, a full hour after we entered the restaurant. I'm not sure what the issue was but it was very frustrating.
I really need to figure out how to ask people to take a picture of us without feeling bad about it, because no one wants to see a million selfies:
Elegant Night, American Feast:
The dessert menu that I screen-shotted from the HUB App since we missed dessert:
The first night of the American Feast did bring us the cranberry bread rolls which I love. My husband had the fried oysters and said they were good but it was a small serving. He also had the sea bass ("delicious, well cooked, well seasoned, potatoes pretty decent") and the spaghetti carbonara ("nice and creamy, lacked real flavor other than the egg and cheese"). He did regret getting two entrees but he polished them off. I had the Italian wedding soup for my appetizer and found it to be mediocre and maybe undersalted/underseasoned. I also had the lobster which was good but not super memorable and the shrimp were large and tasty. It wasn't a very filling plate but I do appreciate being able to eat lobster and not pay for it!
My husband's two entrees:
The look of regret at ordering too much food:
We had to skip dessert since we really wanted to see 88 Keys and the service took so long it was almost showtime. We got a great seat on deck 4, and I absolutely agree that this classic style of theatre is way better than the Vista theatre. 88 Keys was an AWESOME show, and I'm so glad we saw it! It was totally worth missing dessert, lol. The lead male singer was phenomenal and the two female singers were fantastic too. My husband loved the choreography and the set design, and was very impressed by the show.
After the show, we found some dessert in the Lido Marketplace to satisfy our sweet tooth (...sweet teeth?). We sat in the Ocean Plaza and listened to Hitsville with Whiskey Business and Tower of Brass. Oh wow they were super talented!! The saxophonist was crazy good. Like, hot damn! We had a blast listening to music and playing cards for a bit before heading to the Punchliner. We saw Michael Issac at 10pm and he was hilarious. I really wish they did more than 30 minutes of a show, I seriously need more comedy and laughter in my life. I'll have to look this guy up online to get another dose of hilarity. We headed to the cabin to read and watch TV after the show and rested up for another day at sea.
UP NEXT: Monday, Sea Day [LINK]
We enjoyed sleeping in a bit and woke up around 8:30 to get ready for our first day at sea. We looked out our balcony in the morning and noticed we were going really slowly, which was weird because we hadn't ever seen a ship move that slow during a sea day. It definitely seemed to indicate something was malfunctioning with the propulsion/engine system. As a side note about our room, 6434, the main overhead lights took a long time to turn on. It wasn't a huge deal but certainly made us think that the lights were broken a few times. The vanity lights turned on fast so we used those a lot so we didn't need to stand in the dark for ~30 seconds. As we were headed out the door to get breakfast, we found an updated shore excursion list in our mailbox. We had planned to go to the Shore Excursion desk that day to check on our Amber Cove excursion, so this was perfect that the info came to us. We noticed that our excursion was still happening (Yay!) but it was scheduled for the time we had our couples massage booked. The itinerary change moved around the port days, so we had previously scheduled the massage for the afternoon of San Juan, but now that it was on the Amber Cove day, we had an issue. We went to the spa to reschedule our couples massage from 3 to 4 and headed down to breakfast.
Just look at how calm the ocean is!
The Tides aft pool again on our way to breakfast. We saw this view many times over the week since we always walked from our room on 6 aft to the food on 10.
The lido area at 9:30 on the first sea day:
If you've read my previous reviews, you know that we LOVE a good Blue Iguana Cantina breakfast, so we had been looking forward to our huevos rancheros and burritos for a long time before the trip. The time had finally come! My husband got in his line for the breakfast burrito, and I headed to the other counter to get my huevos rancheros. The worker asked me how many I wanted and how I wanted my eggs, which confused me because on the Liberty and Vista, I just said huevos rancheros please and I received my food. I stumbled my way through answering the questions, got my food, and found a seat. Unfortunately the food wasn't as good as I remembered from my two previous cruises so that was a sad start to the day. My husband loved his burrito though, so that's good! We walked around the ship enjoying the weather and sat outside reading for a bit before heading to Trivial Pursuit in the Ocean Plaza at 11. We totally under-performed but we love trivia so we still had fun.
We sat on the lanai (deck 5) for a while reading and soaking up the sun before getting BBQ for lunch. I don't want to give away the best-kept-secret of newer Carnival ships, but since you're reading along, you must be pretty awesome, so I will. If you need somewhere to sit, the lanai is a fantastic place to find beach chairs to lay out and catch some rays while also enjoying some quiet time away from the hairy chest contest or other lido deck games. We probably sat on the lanai almost every day of the cruise, and rarely sat on the lido deck because it was so packed. The BBQ line was shorter than the Vista, which was nice, and it moved quickly so my husband only waited a few minutes before returning with a plate full of food.
Here's a short compilation of the Lido deck (from embarkation day, whoops) and the ocean on our sea day. (Make it full screen for better viewing)
In my last review on the Vista, I wrote about our first balcony room as a splurge item since it was our honeymoon. I also wrote that while we liked the balcony and were glad we bought it, we didn't think that we would be buying one in the future. We didn't feel like we used it enough to get our money's worth, and we'd be sticking to oceanview rooms. Well, fast-forward to February 2018 when I got an upsell email from Carnival to get a balcony room for super cheap, so I went for it. I'm not entirely sure why but I did- whoops! We had to make a conscious effort to use the balcony but we definitely did use it more than on the Vista and I actually liked our balcony up on deck 6 better since it was further from the water and therefore a lot more quiet. I also felt more safe in this balcony than the previous one. We sat on the balcony for a while and talked about life, as married couples do, and enjoyed our time together.
My husband looking out from our balcony. That water is so unreal!
(Yay Hawkeye tattoo)
Enjoying our balcony!
At 1:40 we headed up to the water park. Well, my husband went to the water park and I camped out in a clamshell on the Serenity deck. While I was relaxing and reading, my husband was doing the hard work of filming his rides on the two waterslides. It took him about 30 minutes to wait in line and ride both rides before returning to the clamshell. The first ride he did recorded fine, but the second one stopped right as he started the ride, which was weird and unfortunate. Guess that means more water park later in the week! My husband said both of the rides were fun, but the Twister (yellow slide) was better. He also said the lines moved pretty quickly. We must've fallen asleep in the clamshell because we were waking up at 3pm and headed to the deli in the lido to grab a quick meal. The deli doesn't have clear lines of where to order, who is next, where to wait, etc., so it was a little chaotic. I had the turkey sandwich on a pretzel roll, which was good, and my husband had the falafel which was just okay. Pro Tip: get the truffle aioli and use it on your fries. That was amazing!
Waterslide time!
Here's my husband going on the Drainpipe! (Make it full screen for better viewing)
We grabbed frozen yogurt from the self-service machine and went down to the Ocean Plaza to read before playing two rounds of trivia: TV theme music and 90's music. We did terribly, but no worries, you'll read about our trivia success later in the week! We decided to go to the cabin to relax before getting ready for dinner. I had read on Cruise Critic that the Carnival TV channel options are continuously getting smaller and more limited, and that was very apparent on the Magic. There were maybe 15 channels that were about Carnival stops/excursions/advertising, and maybe 8-10 stations that aired other content, but usually nothing desirable. While hanging out in our room, we were talking about how friendly the staff has been, as is Carnival's standard. Our one letdown so far was our room steward who wasn't very chatty, which was slightly disappointing. We love seeing our room steward in the hallway and sharing small talk about our day or how the trip is going, but we usually just exchanged "hellos" or "good mornings." Other than that, we had great service from our steward and we have no complaints.
Our room steward always made awesome towel animals, starting with the elephant:
We gussied up for the first elegant night and headed down to dinner. We were standing in the atrium on deck 3 in a line that seemed super long and wasn't moving at all, which seemed odd since the dining room was open. We finally realized we were in a line for a photo op and not the line to enter the dining room. Whoops!! To our credit, the two lines were blending together but once we discovered our mistake and scooted over to the correct line, things moved quickly and we were seated shortly after, at 6:13. We quickly noticed that service was VERY slow. It took us about 30 minutes to receive our appetizers, and we finally received our entrees at 7:15pm, a full hour after we entered the restaurant. I'm not sure what the issue was but it was very frustrating.
I really need to figure out how to ask people to take a picture of us without feeling bad about it, because no one wants to see a million selfies:
Elegant Night, American Feast:
The dessert menu that I screen-shotted from the HUB App since we missed dessert:
The first night of the American Feast did bring us the cranberry bread rolls which I love. My husband had the fried oysters and said they were good but it was a small serving. He also had the sea bass ("delicious, well cooked, well seasoned, potatoes pretty decent") and the spaghetti carbonara ("nice and creamy, lacked real flavor other than the egg and cheese"). He did regret getting two entrees but he polished them off. I had the Italian wedding soup for my appetizer and found it to be mediocre and maybe undersalted/underseasoned. I also had the lobster which was good but not super memorable and the shrimp were large and tasty. It wasn't a very filling plate but I do appreciate being able to eat lobster and not pay for it!
My husband's two entrees:
The look of regret at ordering too much food:
We had to skip dessert since we really wanted to see 88 Keys and the service took so long it was almost showtime. We got a great seat on deck 4, and I absolutely agree that this classic style of theatre is way better than the Vista theatre. 88 Keys was an AWESOME show, and I'm so glad we saw it! It was totally worth missing dessert, lol. The lead male singer was phenomenal and the two female singers were fantastic too. My husband loved the choreography and the set design, and was very impressed by the show.
After the show, we found some dessert in the Lido Marketplace to satisfy our sweet tooth (...sweet teeth?). We sat in the Ocean Plaza and listened to Hitsville with Whiskey Business and Tower of Brass. Oh wow they were super talented!! The saxophonist was crazy good. Like, hot damn! We had a blast listening to music and playing cards for a bit before heading to the Punchliner. We saw Michael Issac at 10pm and he was hilarious. I really wish they did more than 30 minutes of a show, I seriously need more comedy and laughter in my life. I'll have to look this guy up online to get another dose of hilarity. We headed to the cabin to read and watch TV after the show and rested up for another day at sea.
UP NEXT: Monday, Sea Day [LINK]
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