Our Cruise Aboard the Disney Magic, Part 2

Reality check: today’s high was 36°F.

We’ve finally gotten our pile of dirty clothes small enough to fit into the hamper. Solid ground is still rocking for Vicki but not as badly as yesterday.

I think it’s time to focus on the incredible ship on which we sailed.

A BIG SHIP. The Disney Magic is the oldest of the four ships in the Disney Cruise Line fleet, making her maiden voyage in July 1998. She is 964 feet long, has a beam of 106 feet, and a gross tonnage of 83,300. To put the size another way, deck 4 features a promenade which encircles the ship. This is where you report to board the lifeboats should there be a need to evacuate, but normally it serves as the walking/jogging track. Three times around is a mile. She’s a big boat.

Oh, the ship’s horn plays the first seven notes of When You Wish Upon a Star. Really cool!

A FLOATING HOTEL. The Magic has 875 staterooms and a capacity of about 2400 passengers. She has 10 decks (well, 11 if you count the Vibe Teen’s Club in the top of the forward funnel). Decks 2, 6, 7, and 8 are almost completely devoted to staterooms with more scattered about on decks 1 and 5. The rest of the public space is devoted to dining, entertainment, and three swimming pools.

We explored most of the public areas of the ship, but we didn’t quite get to everything, and of course, there’s all the crew areas the public doesn’t have access to. The only part of this we would see was the crew’s pool which is in the bow around deck 6. We were told there are three more decks below the waterline where the engine room and crew’s quarters are located.

A DIVERSE CREW. Speaking of the crew, there’s about 950 serving on board. They come from all over the world and their name tags list their country of origin. As a matter of fact, Jenna was the only one of us to run into a member of the crew from the U.S.

It was fascinating to stop and talk to some of them about their home country. The only trouble I had with this was in trying to adapt to all the accents. I am assuming fluency in English is a requirement, but you’d have to be really good to drop the accent of your mother tongue. I can usually adopt to one person’s accent pretty quickly, but to hear so many in one place, and in a noisy environment at times, was a challenge.

OUR STATEROOM. We were assigned stateroom #8568 which was on the starboard side, aft. My only complaint here was that it was just below the topside area where Mickey’s children’s pool was located. I stole away for a nap on a couple of occasions and could hear kids running and chairs scraping the deck above.

As I understand it, Disney ships have larger staterooms than normal. I can only compare it to living in an RV without the kitchen or dining area. We had a half bath (sink and toilet) and a bathroom (a shower and sink, but no toilet) which is a feature unique to Disney ships. Our stateroom also had a verandah which was a pleasant place to watch the world slide by. Since we were on deck 8 it was a long way down to the water.

Vicki and I shared a queen size bed and there were three twin beds for the kids. The kids’ beds folded up to be out of the way during the day. The couch flipped open to make one bed, a second was stowed in the ceiling above the couch, and the third was on the other end of the couch from our bed and folded up into the wall.

Our stateroom was serviced twice a day. Out host came during the morning to stow away the beds and then while were at dinner to get them back out. This is one of many examples where Disney’s attention to detail and serving their guests, to the point of pampering and extravagance, shines through. We tried not to be slobs (clarification: Vicki, Jenna, and I tried not to be slobs), but even at that our host would straighten all our personal items each time he was there. It felt odd the first night but we quickly got used to it.

I read somewhere that the Magic is capable of desalinating 1200 tons of seawater a day. I know we were never lacking for clean towels, either in the room, at the pool, or to take with us ashore. We also suspect we slept on clean sheets each night. Then consider all the napkins and tablecloths that were washed daily, the demand for fresh water has to be huge.

Speaking of towels, every night there was a towel origami animal waiting for us in our room along with a Sleepy the Dwarf chocolate for each of us (this was a chocolate doubloon on the night of the Pirates IN the Caribbean party). We were hoping to get a towel swan one night but alas, we got an elephant, a dinosaur, a rabbit, a cobra, and a chimp.

OTHER SHIP AMENITIES. I explored practically every part of the ship, but looking at the map I know I missed a few nooks and crannies. If you are curious about the layout and things to do you should look up the Disney Magic on the Disney Cruise Line website. They have pictures and an interactive ship map there.

The Magic has four restaurants as well as several walk-up food service areas. It also has two theaters: the Walt Disney Theatre for stage show performances and the Buena Vista Theater where we saw the following movies: The Avengers, Lincoln, Wreck It Ralph, and Monsters, Inc. (I’ll address our dining and entertainment experiences in the next edition.) There are also a number of lounges and such around the ship, some family oriented, some adult oriented, and some that became adult oriented in the evenings.

Disney is really good about providing entertainment opportunities for all ages. There were several age appropriate areas (such as the teen club I mentioned above) where kids can go. These areas also exist for younger children, though kids of this age have to be checked in and out by their parents.

I mentioned that there are three pools aboard. These are located on deck 9. The forward pool is for adults only. The second pool is open to all ages and is midship between the two funnels. The Funnel Vision, a 24x14 foot screen on the back of the forward funnel, is visible here and you can watch movies, cartoons, and such from the pool or poolside deck. The children’s pool is behind the aft funnel.

If you climb up to deck 10 you’ll find a small basketball court, foosball tables, and ping pong. You can play ping pong all by yourself in a strong wind.

I’ve written a lot about the Magic and only scratched the surface. There’s two gift shops, an art gallery, a health and fitness spa, a video arcade…I could go on. I even found where guests who have service animals take them to use the bathroom (the aft observation deck on deck 7).

You really have to be a stick in the mud to get bored while on board. I did take a book along expecting to find some time to do a little pleasure reading. I never had time to open my book.

There’s still more to come, but it will be later in the week before I have opportunity to write again.

Joe