I am so excited to be able to bring you another post-Covid guest trip report! This times it’s from Rachel, whose family sailed concierge on back-to-back sailings on the Disney Magic – first a 5 night Marvel Day at Sea, followed by a 4 night Bahamian itinerary. These sailings were well-deserved for their family as they had a family member tested positive at port last September, and then AGAIN in January! Thankfully the third time was a charm and they finally made it on board!
Guest Trip Report: 5 Night Marvel Day at Sea on the Disney Magic from Miami
Day 1
This cruise was rescheduled from last year (2021) for us. We traveled with friends who have boys the same age as ours (11 and 13). We flew into Miami the night before our cruise and stayed at the Intercontinental Miami hotel, which is very close to the port. About a 5 minute drive door-to-terminal.
The morning of embarkation, we ate breakfast in the hotel and took an Uber to the port right at 10:15am. We sailed in concierge and could arrive anytime 10:30am or later. We like to get on the ship ASAP to enjoy that first full day on board and we also wanted to get the pre-cruise testing over with!
The actual testing took about 5 minutes. Only my oldest son and my husband had to test. My younger son and I had 90-day recovery letters and therefore, did not have to test. We waited about 45 minutes for our results despite being in the first batch of tests that morning. After we were “all clear to sail” we got checked in (using the concierge priority lane) and only waited in the terminal another 10 minutes before boarding with the other concierge guests.
We had our family name announced and we got to wave to Captain Mickey in the atrium before being directed to the Fathoms lounge. They were sending everyone in there to set up their Navigator app to be used on board. We had already done this so we were in and out of there quickly and on to check in at our muster station.
There were cast members all over the ship at each station. You used your app to “scan” the muster station sign with your phone’s camera and the app would register that you’d been there. On the app there was also a video and then later on in the afternoon the stateroom TVs played a full video of all safety procedures. But that’s it! No standing out in the sun squished up next to people for 30 minutes! (We always seemed to get outdoor Deck 4 muster stations in the past). This is definitely an upgrade in the process and only took us about 2 minutes!
Now that we had that checked off our list, we headed to the concierge lunch in Lumiere’s.
One of the wonderful concierge hostesses, Kamesha, went over our plans with us and we made a couple of adjustments. Then we enjoyed our yummy lunch. I had a glass of champagne to celebrate actually being on board and we had probably the best dessert of the trip – chocolate lava cake with coffee gelato.
After lunch, we explored the ship completely. This was our first sailing on the Magic so we wanted to see all the spaces and get a feel for where everything was.
Even though our boys are aged out (or prefer Edge), we always have a look at the kids’ club spaces to see how they are themed. Embarkation day is the perfect time to do this – there are very few people right after lunch and the spaces are open to everyone at that time. The Magic Oceaneer Club is very similar to the Wonder and has a slightly different Marvel area that the boys enjoyed.
When we made it up to deck 9 to look around, the soft serve ice cream station was open, so of course, we got some. They were still not self-serve yet, although the drink station on deck 9 was self-serve.
We checked out the Edge and took some time at the basketball area until our room was ready. We were told it would be ready at 2pm, but we were able to get in slightly before that.
We were staying in stateroom 8516, a 2 bedroom suite, for the first time (full stateroom review here). We loved this stateroom. Our boys had their own room with twin beds. And their own bathroom. There was also a half-bath near the living area as well as a 6-person dining table. Our verandah was extra long too.
After we got settled (our luggage had already been delivered), and put our magnets on our stateroom door, we headed up to Deck 10, midship to visit the concierge lounge.
It’s a very nice space with a lovely view of the adult pool area. There is a concierge deck accessible through the lounge. There were always towels and sunscreen out there for our use. And there were always treats and snacks in the lounge. At this time, there is still someone to serve these for you. Our server was Shelley Anne and we got to know her well. She even had some of our favorite treats sent to our stateroom so we wouldn’t miss out.
Back in our stateroom, we met up with the other family we were traveling with. They had a later port arrival time than us so we met them after they had boarded and eaten lunch in Cabanas. About the time we met up in our room, the drink cart for concierge guests arrived at our door. This is a new post-COVID thing. This cart was the embarkation day drink – more sparkling wine. We could have also gotten this in the lounge. Each day of the cruise the full drink cart came around between 5-6pm and also between 7-8pm to account for both dinner seatings. The early card rounds never made it to our room before we had to leave for dinner, but I always went to the lounge for my glass of wine and took it to dinner. We always did after-dinner activities, so we didn’t see the later cart either. But this is a fun addition to the concierge offerings right now.
We chatted with our friends in our stateroom and our boys went up to deck 9 to play basketball until sail away time. There is no sail away deck party right now, but we watched the ship pull away from the terminal from deck 9. This was the first time I noticed how great it would be to be sailing at just about half capacity (we had been told the actual numbers at lunch, but I forget what they were).
We had the early dinner seating and our first dining room was Lumiere’s. Three princesses were out on the staircase when we went in for dinner.
There is a QR code on each table for you to access the menu (it is also in the app), but we prefer paper menus and our server was happy to bring them (and every subsequent night as well).
My son particularly enjoyed the shrimp and lobster appetizer – he ordered three of them and ate every bite! The fried brie is also a great choice. Most of the adults had the tenderloin for a main course that night.
During dinner, the Fab 5 make an appearance and dance around the dining room for a few minutes. They don’t stop, but they do wave. It was fun to have a little show in this dining room.
After dinner our group all went to the Family Time Game Show. They picked three parent/child combos and had them guess what their family member’s answer would be to various questions. One question was, “what’s your favorite Marvel character.” I 100% could have answered that for either of my boys!
We saw “Tangled, the Musica”l in the Walt Disney Theater after the game show. They are still not allowing food or drinks in there and as of our sailing, they were still showing us to our seats and spacing everyone out. I actually loved them skipping rows because it ensured you would have a good view of the show. And we loved the show – it was amazing, as always.
On the way back to our staterooms after the show, we saw Goofy and Captain Mickey in the atrium areas. There were always characters out in those areas throughout the cruise. The app would say, “character appearance” but didn’t say which character like they used to in the Navigator. This was a little annoying because you never knew who would be there. Some of the character cast members could sometimes tell you more details on this, but sometimes they didn’t know either.
Our boys actually wanted to play some more basketball so I went up to deck 9 too – and took some night time photos of the ship.
Every day, my last photo was of the towel animal our wonderful stateroom attendant, Ganesh, made for us. They’re also putting out Dove chocolates and, for concierge guests, a little bottle of fragrant mask spray (we were one of the last cruises that still required masks inside, but we could take them off for photos inside AND with characters inside, which was a fairly new policy since Omicron). I actually used the mask spray frequently and appreciated that little touch.
What a great first day. We were all so thrilled to be sailing again and on board the ship. And our next day would be at beautiful Castaway Cay!
Up Next: Day 2 – Castaway Cay
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