Eastern Caribbean Cruise – Carnival Magic Travel & Cruise Ship – Part 1 of 5

We finally got to go on another cruise. We’ve been talking about it for several years now and have been wanting to take Ashlyn.  I have too many photo’s to share (took over 750), so I made a 5 part series to cover a sampling of them. Let’s jump right in !

Here she is. The Carnival Magic. For us, we would have chosen a cruise line a little less busy and less active. But we wanted Ashlyn to have fun, so we needed some fun activities on the boat. We’d be happy just lounging, watching the water pass by, and being involved in as less as possible.

We sailed out of the Port of Miami and stopped at Amber Cove, Dominican Republic; St Thomas, US Virgin Islands; San Juan, Puerto Rico; and Grand Turk, Turks & Caicos. Having 4 stops made this cruise feel a little busy. Only 2 days at sea. Seemed like we rushed on the islands a little, and rushed on the boat to get everything in that we wanted to do. We had a little time to sit and swim. But in the past we’ve had only 3 stops, so there’s an extra sea day in there. But squeezing in 4 stops is a great way to see places you might not otherwise ever visit. Either way, we had fun !

Ashlyn’s 1st time on an airplane. She got broke in with snow, sleet and ice.  Flying at night and on a sunny day. Had some not so fun turbulence, but I’ve definitely had worse. She wasn’t fond of that at all, but overall it went great. Just delayed a little getting out of our hometown from bad weather. A day or two after we left, 4,000 flights were cancelled from -30+ degrees real temp, and -50+ wind chill temps. Not sure how we picked such a good week to leave. Very thankful we got out !!

I do think we could have spent the whole week right here and she’d have had just as much fun.

This was just a cool solid floor of clouds. Was pretty cool looking.

Just another shot of the boat from more of the back end.

Fun Facts: This boat was built in 2011. It’s average speed is 26 mph. It costs $740 million to build it. It’s 1001′ long (roughly 2 3/4 football fields). 14 levels on the ship and 9 of those have cabins. 1,386 crew members. 3,690 passengers.

We think it’s so funny how lost everyone is trying to find their rooms and different areas on the boat.

I didn’t get many shots of the pretty inside of the boat. But here’s the atrium where the glass elevators are. Down in the open area of the atrium there was always entertainment going on.

Here’s what the inside staterooms look like. They all very a little. Small of course but doable since we are rarely in there. My parents room was similar but a little more floor space and their desk and fridge area ran all together on same side.

More closet space than I expected. We had more than enough room, but we did pack pretty light. I’ve over packed before and that sucks.

The bathroom itself is ok but that shower is small. And there’s no room at all for your shower toiletries. Just one tiny little soap tray.

This part of the bathroom had plenty of room though.

Ashlyn’s bed was pretty cool. It lowered down from the ceiling. Funny story: when it’s not pulled down it’s flush with the ceiling. There is a small label and a key hole. It says “Please contact your steward for assistance with this bed”. After awhile she says, “Hey, when are we calling Steward to get my bed down”?  The room stewards name was Avis, but after that he was Steward from then on all week. Ha Ha.

Here’s the center of the Lido Deck. The majority of fun things happen here. Parties, games, contests, movies, music….a pool and a hot tub for families, kids too. There are 2 adult only hot tubs, and a small adult only section with lounging and hammocks in a different area. We never went there so I didn’t get a picture. They show movies here at night with popcorn.

Up another level, more games !  Workout area. Walking track.

Game room for the kids. AKA = Money Sucking Room.

Another pool and 2 more hot tubs in the back of the boat. For families, kids and all. Everywhere on the boat, except for the 1 small adult only section, is all family oriented. This one was usually less busy. Plus you didn’t have music blaring. I sound like an old fart now !!!

Any free time was usually spent in something involving water. It was pretty windy all week, and when the boat swayed it would suck the pool water in and out, haha.  Was very similar to a wave pool.

She made 2 good friends during the week. One only lives in the next state over from us, the other lives much further. But both were nice kids to see around the boat and for her to hang out with.

Mini golf. On days where the boat is swaying this can get a little tricky. Pretty sure one of them was cheating, and it wasn’t Grandpa.

There is a candy store too. They had a lot of the older style candy. It’s way over priced but was a neat store.

One evening we came back to our room and there was a box with a stuffed animal head sticking out, sitting in front of our door. Her and I both looked around like we just robbed a store. We took it inside, I knew we didn’t get it for her. We called Grandpa and Grandma, they didn’t get it. After further digging in the box, we found a certificate. Carnival gave it to Ashlyn for her birthday !!!  It’s a very nice good quality stuffed animal too. A very nice thing for them to do since we never made a point to tell them it was her birthday.

Here’s our dinner table all week. Service was always good. Very nice people. Food always came out quick. If you choose the dining room each evening, you eat at the same time each night. Sit at the same table and have the same servers.

Clearly, using our 5 star table manners.

We got to eat “gross” food, while she still ate spaghetti, chicken nuggets and burgers.

A dining room of 200-some people sang Happy Birthday to her. This was a pastel rainbow cake inside.

One of the guys serving our table made her a swan out of a napkin. Then he made her a paper origami, and she made him one too. I’d say they became friends.

Here was all of our servers. Very nice people. Most have a touching story. One of them said his family back home may only eat once a day, so it’s hard to see so much wasted food on the boat. He said he always wishes he could bring it back home to his family.

There was no wasted food from me at the omelet station. These were SO good. So very good. As in, really good !

Probably my biggest and only complaint are the photography people. Not even a complaint, more of a pet peeve. They are always roaming around the boat to take photo’s of you and your group. Which is good. Then you have the option to look them over and buy them. So it’s a good thing but it just seems like they get to be “too much” after awhile. Most were good if you just waved them on and said no thank you. This one caught Ashlyn and I and he commented on my big camera I was carrying. So he let me do like they all do to us….take his picture ! Ha ha. He never came back and bought it though.

The ice carving was pretty cool. Using an ice pick of course making a swan if you can’t see it well.

Oh and then there’s a self serve ice cream station. Actually there are several of them. You can get ice cream, any day, any time. Ashlyn and Grandpa had a contest going on for who could eat the most. Don’t know how many they each had, but it wasn’t just a few. Morning, noon and night.

Guys Burgers were just as good as we heard they were. I ate half the burger before remembering to take a picture of it for you. Even though it’s not a good picture of the burger itself, trust me, it was good. Order them any way you like, add on what ever you like. Messy, not too greasy, but really good.

The 24/7 pizza was good. Not out of this world crazy good, but pretty good.

Just a few of the things we ate all week. It was all really good. The portion size was always a guessing game. Sometimes it came out and it looked like a sample piece. Other times, you got more than enough.

The water slides !!!  Ashlyn said the orange slide “The Drain Pipe” was the better one.

There’s also a splash pad area.

After you shoot out of this…..

…you just keep sliding around and around until you run out of speed. Occasionally the wind was too strong and they’d have to shut the slides down for awhile. And boy if that don’t yank Ashlyn’s chain !!!

The ropes course was a very cool thing for the kids. But the biggest disappointment was that it was closed most of the time. They had short hours for it, and it was mostly when we were docked. Again because of the wind I believe. So I suggest a plexiglass wall around it or don’t build it on the tallest point of the boat so the wind isn’t a factor in it. Just my opinion. She only had 1 opportunity all week to go on this.

It went around in a circle, going from side to side of the boat.

Was really cool. She loved it.

There also was so, so much more to do on the boat that Ashlyn just didn’t have time to do, didn’t bother doing or didn’t know about. They have a Kids Club that comes up with all kinds of fun kids activities. I know there were sections of the boat we probably didn’t even get to. I saw a library for the first time on there, on the last day ! Who knew. There was also a movie theater on the boat, we never made it there though.

A few of the hand made items from islanders she bought from their stands at some of the ports we stopped at. She got a lot more stuff, but this was just the cool hand made stuff. She got a whole bunch of neat items to take home from each stop.

Each night you get a new towel animal on your bed, made by Steward. (ha ha).  The lower left one was an elephant, but Jamie sat on it before we got a picture.

You see a lot of this. One of my favorite sights.

Had a few pretty sunsets. Sunrises were harder to catch, we tried to not set alarms unless we had to for an early port stop.

Love the back of the boat trail. I could sit here all…day….long.

Occasionally we saw a few other cruise boats out there.

A few islands going by.

Until the next cruise.

Here’s a video of mostly the same pictures, but there are some extra’s thrown in there. But mainly it has a few video clips mixed in with photo’s, most of which are from Ashlyn’s underwater camera. Don’t miss the video ride down the Drain Pipe water slide !

Eastern Caribbean Cruise – Carnival Magic Travel & Cruise Ship – Part 1 of 5

Eastern Caribbean Cruise – Amber Cove, Dominican Republic – Part 2 of 5

Eastern Caribbean Cruise – St Thomas, US Virgin Islands – Part 3 of 5

Eastern Caribbean Cruise – San Juan, Puerto Rico – Part 4 of 5

Eastern Caribbean Cruise – Grand Turk, Turks & Caicos – Part 5 of 5