pamelajean
Earning My Ears
- Joined
- Feb 8, 2002
Well, we have been back from our 06/01/02 Magic cruise for a couple of weeks now and I wanted to post a short list of impressions, tips, ideas, etc since I got so much out of reading everyone elses reports! So here goes (not necessarily in order):
Cast of characters - Me, DH, DS 10, and DD 9
Check in, parking, luggage handling no problems at all. We arrived at the port between 10:15 and 10:30 and were allowed in to drop off, park, and enter the terminal. In fact we were not the first to arrive. We did have to wait for check in to open though. We were about the 4th or 5th family in line to board the ship. If you want your kids to help with countdown to board you need to be one of the first 2 families.
Boarding On the ship by 12:15. Even though rooms were not yet ready, we dropped off our carry on bags in our room - do this if you at all can! - Many people were lugging stuff around with them for the first several hours. After, we headed for the Topsider buffet, but it was not yet open and we had to wait about 10 minutes. I think the restaurant buffet opened earlier so if you board early, you may want to go there instead of Topsiders to save time for making reservations.
Reservations for Palo the starting time in the navigator was 1pm and for the Spa it was 1:30. I left the family at Topsiders and went to make Palo reservations at about 12:45. There was a line but they were not yet open. Lady behind me said Spa was already taking reservations so I headed there got what I wanted (Surial Bath) and headed back to Palo which of course was now taking reservations. No problem still got what I wanted brunch Monday and dinner Wednesday. Note here On our cruise at least, dinner was sold out for the whole cruise, but brunch was still available for Thursday when we checked on Wednesday night. So if you want to do brunch or maybe dinner twice, be sure to check back after the first day.
Palo both dinner and brunch are wonderful and not to be missed. I actually preferred the brunch. Our server was Marco and he was great. Get the soufflé for dessert at dinner even if you dont think you will like soufflé nothing could top it! Definitely add an additional gratuity. Note I saw a number of people at Palo who did not follow the dress suggestion even remotely tee shirts, shorts, and sneakers. While it did not bother me, I think it takes away from the overall experience. They do not ask for formal attire, just a nice resort casual outfit for women and a jacket and tie for men. Do it right.
Dinner Restaurants and servers we had the PLAPLAP rotation and liked them all. The kids liked AP the best. Mostly because of what goes on there not the food. DH and I both liked the food, which I would say was very good for dinner. The kids were not usually that interested in dinner since we had the late sitting and they had usually eaten something by 6pm. So we did not make a big deal out of dinner and a couple of times they did not even come with us. OK with us! Our servers were very good and one tip always go with the servers recommendation. We did not go wrong when we did this. One time I ordered the second choice recommendation and DH got the first and I know I would have preferred his!!
Other meals mostly we ate at Topsiders for breakfast and lunch although we did eat lunch at Lumieres once. Topsiders was very good every day, but I think the salad bar needs to be expanded a little - it was very basic. As for the day we ate lunch at Lumieres - the food was very good dont miss the banana cream pie if it is on the menu, I never saw it on the dinner menu. Other than debarkation day the only time we ate breakfast at the restaurants was for the Character breakfast. This was a disappointment though. Pass on the character breakfast unless you or the kids really want to go. It was nothing like the character breakfasts at the resorts (especially the food). I ordered the blueberry pancakes awful is the only word! They were two small regular pancakes with 3, count them, 3 blueberries dropped in while they were cooking (you could tell). Why even have them on the menu? Last day menu was the same so DCL really needs to work on breakfast at the restaurants.
An interesting side note at our Lumieres lunch the four of were seated at a table for six (lunch is open seating) and then a gentlemen was seated with us. We struck up a conversation with him and it turns out he was one of the entertainers on the ship (John Charles I think was his name). I remembered him from the Welcome Aboard show but I did not recognize him. We had a nice discussion over lunch. He does the back half of one cruise and then the first half of the next (flies in and out of St Thomas or St Martin I dont remember which). He said that before 09/11 DCL even let his wife travel with him, but no more.
Other places to get something to eat Pizza, hamburgers, hot dogs, chicken sandwiches, chicken tenders, brats, fries, ice cream, cookies, fresh fruit are all available on the pool deck most of the day. Check times carefully though if kids want this for dinner as (at least pizza) they are closed from 6 pm until sometime later (8-9?). All were good and the kids really liked the idea of getting it themselves (caught DS eating 3 hamburgers between lunch and dinner!)
Room service limited but good and speedy. Tip I picked up on these boards and used myself order room service to take for snack at shows or movies. All Hands on Deck cheese and crackers was especially good for this but a sandwich or order of fries or piece of cake would work too. Kids loved doing this and many people said to me where/how did you get that!
Morning Coffee important to me (but no one else in my family) so it gets its own section. Some people suggest ordering coffee from room service the night before or in the morning. But unless you will not be seen before having coffee in the morning or you get up really early I would pass on that and run up to the deck nine beverage station. From 6:30-7:30 not only can you get coffee or tea or milk or hot chocolate, there is also a nice selection of pastries. This is even before Topsiders opens. I would go up in the morning, get my coffee and bring a plate of pastries back for DH, DD, and DS to have while waking up and getting ready to go to breakfast.
This is already longer than I thought it would be and I still have a bunch of notes. I will write more later if anyone is interested.
Pam
Cast of characters - Me, DH, DS 10, and DD 9
Check in, parking, luggage handling no problems at all. We arrived at the port between 10:15 and 10:30 and were allowed in to drop off, park, and enter the terminal. In fact we were not the first to arrive. We did have to wait for check in to open though. We were about the 4th or 5th family in line to board the ship. If you want your kids to help with countdown to board you need to be one of the first 2 families.
Boarding On the ship by 12:15. Even though rooms were not yet ready, we dropped off our carry on bags in our room - do this if you at all can! - Many people were lugging stuff around with them for the first several hours. After, we headed for the Topsider buffet, but it was not yet open and we had to wait about 10 minutes. I think the restaurant buffet opened earlier so if you board early, you may want to go there instead of Topsiders to save time for making reservations.
Reservations for Palo the starting time in the navigator was 1pm and for the Spa it was 1:30. I left the family at Topsiders and went to make Palo reservations at about 12:45. There was a line but they were not yet open. Lady behind me said Spa was already taking reservations so I headed there got what I wanted (Surial Bath) and headed back to Palo which of course was now taking reservations. No problem still got what I wanted brunch Monday and dinner Wednesday. Note here On our cruise at least, dinner was sold out for the whole cruise, but brunch was still available for Thursday when we checked on Wednesday night. So if you want to do brunch or maybe dinner twice, be sure to check back after the first day.
Palo both dinner and brunch are wonderful and not to be missed. I actually preferred the brunch. Our server was Marco and he was great. Get the soufflé for dessert at dinner even if you dont think you will like soufflé nothing could top it! Definitely add an additional gratuity. Note I saw a number of people at Palo who did not follow the dress suggestion even remotely tee shirts, shorts, and sneakers. While it did not bother me, I think it takes away from the overall experience. They do not ask for formal attire, just a nice resort casual outfit for women and a jacket and tie for men. Do it right.
Dinner Restaurants and servers we had the PLAPLAP rotation and liked them all. The kids liked AP the best. Mostly because of what goes on there not the food. DH and I both liked the food, which I would say was very good for dinner. The kids were not usually that interested in dinner since we had the late sitting and they had usually eaten something by 6pm. So we did not make a big deal out of dinner and a couple of times they did not even come with us. OK with us! Our servers were very good and one tip always go with the servers recommendation. We did not go wrong when we did this. One time I ordered the second choice recommendation and DH got the first and I know I would have preferred his!!
Other meals mostly we ate at Topsiders for breakfast and lunch although we did eat lunch at Lumieres once. Topsiders was very good every day, but I think the salad bar needs to be expanded a little - it was very basic. As for the day we ate lunch at Lumieres - the food was very good dont miss the banana cream pie if it is on the menu, I never saw it on the dinner menu. Other than debarkation day the only time we ate breakfast at the restaurants was for the Character breakfast. This was a disappointment though. Pass on the character breakfast unless you or the kids really want to go. It was nothing like the character breakfasts at the resorts (especially the food). I ordered the blueberry pancakes awful is the only word! They were two small regular pancakes with 3, count them, 3 blueberries dropped in while they were cooking (you could tell). Why even have them on the menu? Last day menu was the same so DCL really needs to work on breakfast at the restaurants.
An interesting side note at our Lumieres lunch the four of were seated at a table for six (lunch is open seating) and then a gentlemen was seated with us. We struck up a conversation with him and it turns out he was one of the entertainers on the ship (John Charles I think was his name). I remembered him from the Welcome Aboard show but I did not recognize him. We had a nice discussion over lunch. He does the back half of one cruise and then the first half of the next (flies in and out of St Thomas or St Martin I dont remember which). He said that before 09/11 DCL even let his wife travel with him, but no more.
Other places to get something to eat Pizza, hamburgers, hot dogs, chicken sandwiches, chicken tenders, brats, fries, ice cream, cookies, fresh fruit are all available on the pool deck most of the day. Check times carefully though if kids want this for dinner as (at least pizza) they are closed from 6 pm until sometime later (8-9?). All were good and the kids really liked the idea of getting it themselves (caught DS eating 3 hamburgers between lunch and dinner!)
Room service limited but good and speedy. Tip I picked up on these boards and used myself order room service to take for snack at shows or movies. All Hands on Deck cheese and crackers was especially good for this but a sandwich or order of fries or piece of cake would work too. Kids loved doing this and many people said to me where/how did you get that!
Morning Coffee important to me (but no one else in my family) so it gets its own section. Some people suggest ordering coffee from room service the night before or in the morning. But unless you will not be seen before having coffee in the morning or you get up really early I would pass on that and run up to the deck nine beverage station. From 6:30-7:30 not only can you get coffee or tea or milk or hot chocolate, there is also a nice selection of pastries. This is even before Topsiders opens. I would go up in the morning, get my coffee and bring a plate of pastries back for DH, DD, and DS to have while waking up and getting ready to go to breakfast.
This is already longer than I thought it would be and I still have a bunch of notes. I will write more later if anyone is interested.
Pam
