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Carnival Magic Review

First time cruise (Honeymoon) 3/31/13 - 4/7/13

Review for the Western Caribbean Cruise on Carnival Magic
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CyFan99
First Time Cruiser • Age 40s

Rating by category

Value for Money
Entertainment
Cabin

Additional details

Sail Date: Mar 2013
Cabin: Balcony

Warning this is pretty long and detailed: This was the first cruise ever for my wife and I. We spent a lot of time discussing possible honeymoon destinations but after hearing the good reviews of Carnival from her parents and other family members we decided this would be a good choice. We live in the middle of the country in Iowa, so travel to a port was a big concern for us. It seems that airfare to places like Miami would cost us almost as much as the cruise itself so we decided we would drive. Once we made that decision I looked into which ports were within driving distance and decided that Galveston was our best choice. It is about 16 hours from our house to Galveston, TX. We broke that into two days travel time which allowed us to take our time and enjoy the trip.

Once we decided this was something that would work for us we looked at which cruises were available out of that port. There was a 7 day cruise on the Magic or a 5 day cruise on the Triumph. Since we had never cruised before we didn't know what the correct length of a cruise should be. We decided to try the 5 day on the Triumph. We booked our cruise and excursions, paid for hotels and parking and then I am sure you can guess where this story is going. There we were finishing up our premarital counselling and my soon to be wife says that everything is going very smoothly and now here only concern is that something happens to our cruise ship and we are stuck in the ocean eating spam and pop tarts for a week. Cut to the next morning when I see on the news that a carnival ship had caught fire the night before. I think to myself, "what are the chances...." Yep that was the ship we were supposed to be on. I tried not to panic but knew that we already had paid for everything and needed to figure out what we were going to do. I went online and saw that the Magic departed the next day and still had balcony rooms available, so when I got home I called Carnival right away. I was on hold for about 2 1/2 hours which is understandable considering how many cruisers had to re-book. Once I got a hold of someone it was pretty easy to re-book our cruise and get what we wanted. We ended up having to pay a few hundred dollars more than what we had paid even with our discount. Carnival got our excursions refunded within a few days and we were able to get all of our new excursions booked quickly. I also purchased the Faster to the Fun program which I will talk more about later.

I should mention that in Galveston we decided to stay at the "Inn at the Water park" which isn't the nicest hotel I have ever stayed at but the rooms were clean and very large, they offered a discount for Carnival cruisers, they had a free shuttle to and from the port and they allowed us to keep our car there during our cruise at no cost. So overall I would recommend them to anyone looking for a place to stay before a cruise.

Cabin Review

Balcony

Cabin 8D

This room was very nice and had a ton of storage space. I got a chance to see an interior room on this ship and I don't think I could do one of those. I like being able to step out on the balcony and get some fresh air. I spent a lot of time just relaxing on the balcony and looking out over the water.

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