Carnival Magic Review
Tons of fun, lots to do and like, but some improvements could be made!
Rating by category
Additional details
I cruised on the Magic on 11/25/2017 out of Port Canaveral. The Embarkation process was pretty smooth and didn't take too long at all. We had 8 in our group, and have all been on between 8-14 Carnival cruises and at least a few with competing lines (RC, Princess, Norwegian, HAL). We had a fantastic time, but also observed some things that left more to be desired.
The Good Stuff: Layout of the ship, deck seating, activities/shows, specialty food options, and more! The layout of the ship with the lanai on deck 5 and the additional middle covered deck 11 above lido, as well as the serenity and waterworks areas meant a lot of outside seating and a good variety of it. We were generally always able to quickly find lounge chairs and never felt overly crowded during the big days on the deck.
The activities/shows were plentiful, varied, and it felt like there were good offerings for all demographics. Carnival used to film ship activities all over and replay these on stateroom TVs, but with the exception of the love and marriage show, this didn't occur on our sailing. Not a big deal, but used to be fun to watch competitions and activities that you missed. The highlight for us were the comedy shows, magic shows, and Flick. Comedy was overall pretty funny, magic shows were really engaging, and Flick (in our opinion) was really the only good show.
Cabin Review
Balcony
Our cabin was as you would expect, nothing special, but overall in good condition and was a nice experience. I did notice that the cabins of those folks traveling with us got much cooler when set to cool on the thermostat, but ours was cool enough to be comfortable. I could imagine this not being the case during a Summer sailing. We had no issues with our cabin or our steward and this was a plus for us during the trip!
Port Reviews
Roatan
Roatan was fun, but not the best port in our opinion. Mahogany Beach was nice and a short walk away, with nice nature trails in between. Shopping was pretty bland, maybe 20 stores, but they're actually like 5 stores that are repeated over and over with different names. People weren't bad about hounding us to buy though, which was nice.
Costa Maya
Costa Maya was nice. We stayed in the shopping area and watched the shows put on by the costumed actors. We did a little bit of shopping, but were put off again here by the relentless hounding and solicitation. After a while you get tired of saying no thanks, or I'll come back later, over and over and over. Not much to see here unless you book an excursion.