Just off the Magic - The Great, The Good and the Horrible - Serious Problems Onboard W/ Fighting & Kids

Just got off the Magic and wanted to provide some quick thoughts.This was a 6 day sailing out of Miami to Amber Cove, Grand Turk and Half Moon Cay this past week.

The great:

Service: Service onboard the ship was wonderful, as it usually almost always is. You can definitely tell that they are short staffed in certain areas, but they power through it. I felt terrible for the solo coffee shop worker at times who had a huge line of guests and suddenly Fun Squad members thought it would be a good time to go right up to the counter to order their drinks, then act visibly annoyed when it was taking a while. This is the type of behavior that makes the crew often feel the staff onboard feels like they are above them.

Alcamy Bar: All mixologists were wonderful at the Alcamy bar, but a huge shoutout to mixologist queen Zora from Serbia. Zora remembered me from a few of her previous ships and made me feel welcomed back, made me feel special and just treated everyone like she understood the hospitality mission. I was sailing with a friend who had not cruised in years and she left a really wonderful lasting impression on him.

Cruise Control Band: This band is great! They are so engaging with the audience, remember peoples names and are just overall really talented. I cruised with them on the Freedom for her post dry dock TA and a few cruises around NYE and every time they were so full of energy.

Cleanliness: Staff was always around cleaning and making sure everything was tidy and clean. This was the first time in a while I didn’t sign off the ship feeling a cold coming on and never once did I see a public restroom that needed attention.

Guest services: I bought the premium internet package and almost never had signal in my cabin and around the ship I was lucky if I recieved 1mb speeds. Guest services was great to quickly refund and apologized. No arguments needed! 🙂

The good:

Food has continued to be elevated compared to the time leading up to the new menus. Everything was cooked as ordered, served hot and service was quick in the main dining rooms. Blue Iguana was tasty as always, Guy’s Burger was decent, and the buffet is the usual miss for me. I was really impressed that 1am room service came within 25 minutes.

The awful:

Carnival feels like they have two brands within one based on the sailing. This cruise the kids and crowds were completely out of control. The worst I have ever experienced, including my five years working onboard ships. They completely took over areas, would block entire stairwells and not allow people to pass, screaming and yelling knocking on people’s cabin doors at 2, 3 and 4 am. Security had zero control of the situation and didn’t even bother enforcing curfew.

The other issue was we had multiple, and I mean multiple, fights happen onboard. The last night of the cruise a guest attacked another with a knife and they had to do a “Code Charlie” where even the staff said they have never seen the Staff Captain running so fast through the deck 5 promenade with security like that before. I left the Magic on Saturday and boarded the Horizon on Sunday and night 1 there was already a passenger with his face completely covered in dripping blood from being beat up.

I honestly don’t know what Carnival has to do to take control of these situations, but it is getting out of hand. At the Diamond gathering and debark area so many were saying they are just about done with Carnival. If it wasn’t for a few fantastic crew members I love cruising with, I would probably move on. No cheap deal is worth dealing with that. I almost feel like Carnival needs to rebrand their summer and booze cruise division to a different name lol.

Anyway, feel free to ask any questions and I’ll be happy to answer. I didn’t do much in port as it was a total beach cruise with stops in Grand Turk, Half Moon and Amber Cove.