Magic 4-night January 2024 - A quick Mexican getaway from Galveston

[anricat]

Embarkation - January 17, 2024

We seem to like cruising in January. To be honest, it's nice to get away after all the craziness of the holidays. And our anniversary is in January so we get to celebrate with a little vacation. In fact, we've already booked for our anniversary for next year!

As for this one, we decided to push the easy button and sail out of Galveston once again. Even though the itineraries aren't usually super compelling, we decided to give Progreso a try since we'd never been there and we found some interesting looking excursions we thought we could do. And we haven't been on the Magic in over five years so it seemed like time.

We left the house around 8:30 in the morning. We had originally intended to leave earlier. You never know what the traffic will be like, especially through Houston. We made good time though, even with two stops for bathrooms, snacks and gas (so we wouldn’t have to get any on the way home). We arrived at the port at 12:30. Last time we paid to park with a third party company and then shuttle over. This time, for not much more money I reserved in advance parking directly with the Port of Galveston and sprang for the Express Lot. This, my friends, was a great choice. It’s literally feet from the main doorway. Before we parked, we dropped the bags (it’s on the way to the lot). We were about 15 minutes early so we hung out in the car until about 12:40 and then walked over for our 12:45 PAT.

The line for security was a little bit long, but not too bad and all in all we were through security and check-in in about 20 minutes and they were already on open boarding so we went right in and up to Cabana’s for lunch at around 1:10. Since rooms were ready at 1:30, after we were done with lunch at around 1:50, we were able to go right to our room. We dropped off our stuff and Emmaline spotted some dolphins outside our porthole so we watched those for a bit before going to Disney Tunes Trivia at 2:15 while Roger relaxed in the room. After that, Emmaline went off to see when Vibe would be open and I went up to Cove and got a coffee. When I got back to the room, one of our bags had arrived so we began to unpack.






The app said the muster drill was at 3:30, which would have been really odd since it’s usually at 4. The app was, in fact, incorrect. After the muster drill, Roger went to deck 1 to speak with them about an item in our luggage they were concerned about (it was some compressed gas for his wine preservation system, which when they figured out what it was, was fine) and Emmaline and I went to look at some art at Vista. One of her teachers from last year has art on some of the ships (but apparently not this one). When we got back to the room we had our second bag (from security) so we did some more unpacking, relaxed, watched some stateroom TV and sailed away. We didn’t go to the (icy cold) sail away party.

The show for the evening was Tangled: The Musical, which we haven’t seen in a little over 5 years so we went to go see it again. After the show Emmaline went to Vibe and Roger and I did a little shopping. I got a 2023 shirt on sale, which is fine with me since we did cruise last year too (twice) so I was happy to have a shirt at about 70% off.

Dinner for our first night was in Animator’s Palate. We got to know our table mates who, we were happy to learn, not crazy. In fact their daughter and Emmaline ended up spending time together outside of dinners as well. The parents were delighted as she is apparently quite introverted. Emmaline is a lot like my dad was, instantly friends with just about anyone.

After dinner Emmaline and her new friend went off to Vibe and we stayed and chatted with our table mates for awhile before heading back to the room and collapsing into bed. I was tired from the drive and just the hustle and bustle of the day. Emmaline stayed out pretty late (until at least midnight I think).

 

[anricat]

At Sea - January 18, 2024

I usually get up early and go to the gym or running on Deck 4. I must have been really tired because I slept all the way until 7:30 which is really unusual for me. I rolled out of bed, tossed on my workout costume and headed for the gym which was dead. Only about four other people were there. Weird. I did my workout there while Roger ran on Deck 4 and then went back to the room and showered. We got Emmaline up and went to breakfast at Lumiere’s.

After breakfast Emmaline went to meet up with her friends, Roger went to the room and I decided to go to drawing class. It said that it was going to be Mickey. Even though I have taken a Mickey drawing class before I figured it was always good to practice. I was happy to find that this was a slightly different version of Mickey and I was also a little disappointed to find that it wasn’t a live teacher doing the class, but instead a video. Womp womp. I get that they can’t always have members of the entertainment team that can draw really well teaching, but I have to say I have a hard time with the videos. They are like “keep it light and sketchy” but the dude in the video is keeping it light and sketchy too and it’s really hard to see what he’s doing about 80% of the time. I actually get more out of the little board they put up with the steps. I was pretty happy with how my Mickey came out and I ended up practicing my Mickey at other opportunities throughout the rest of the cruise.


I returned to the room and Roger and I looked at the Navigator to make plans for the day while Emmaline got changed to go swimming with her friends. We decided to start at O’ Gills to see what the craft was. It was dumb so we left and instead went to the Vibe open house at 11:00 and played some old Donkey Kong and Ms. Pac Man arcade cabinets.


After that we went to Imagineering Trivia in O’ Gills, which we didn’t win but also didn’t do too badly at. Then it was time for lunch. We decided to go for the sit down lunch in Rapunzel’s. (Emmaline went back to the room and showered and then had lunch with her friends.) After lunch it was time for a little rest so we returned to the room and relaxed a bit. After rest it was time for an afternoon coffee so we went up to Cove and got some coffee that we enjoyed in the Quiet Cove adult area. Someone we had cruised with before came along and we chatted with him briefly.


After our coffee break we went back to the room and organized our things for the excursion for the next day before it was time for the next trivia. It was a trivia-heavy cruise. I don’t know that I’ve ever seen so much trivia on a single Navigator before. I guess different cruise directors have different things they pick for entertainment. I don’t know. This time it was Disney Food Trivia. That was fine and we did a little better than I would have thought. Then it was time for more drawing. This time it was Olaf and Emmaline and her friends were also there along with our table mates so I sat with them. Olaf was harder than I anticipated but I still feel okay about it for my first attempt.


Emmaline went off with her friends and I went up to Deck 9 and got some snacks to hold me until our late dinner. The show for the evening was Twice Charmed which, like Rapunzel, we hadn’t seen in five years so we went to see it again and it was cuter than I remembered so that was nice. Emmaline went with her friends so Roger and I went together and then went to Keys to listen to some piano music before dinner.

Dinner was in Rapunzel’s that night. It’s funny because none of us remembered the menu and couldn’t remember what we ordered when we went to Rapunzel’s for the first time in 2018. Not our favorite menu, but actually I enjoyed it more than I thought I would. After dinner Emmaline went off with her friends but I cautioned her about staying out too late since we had a long excursion day planned. Roger and I decided to check out “Majority Minds” in Fathoms. We had seen the tail end of the game once before and it looked fun. The club host calls out a category and each team writes down what they think the majority of the people in the room will also choose for that. So for example, one of them (that we actually got) was “sexiest celebrity” and we picked Ryan Gosling and many others did too making him the most popular for that category so we got a point. Another one was “most annoying song.” The winner was “Baby Shark” but I can’t remember what we put.

After that we went back to the room and got into bed and Emmaline came in not long after.

 

[anricat]

Progreso, Mexico - January 19, 2024

If you've read any of my previous trip reports you know that we don't usually book ship sponsored tours. But the port situation in Progreso is a little unique and the main tour that we wanted was also offered as a DCL sponsored excursion at around the same price so we just decided to push the easy button and book the tour through DCL: Mayapan Ruins, Lazy River Tubing and Cave Swim.

Our meeting time was 8:30 in the Walt Disney Theatre so we woke up at 7 AM, had breakfast at Cabana's and arrived right at 8:30. We waited there for about 15 minutes where about three full rows of people arrived for our tour and I worried that we made a horrible mistake.


They took us off row by row and we loaded onto tour buses of about 40-45 people per bus. From there we drove for about an hour to Cenotes Hacienda Mucuyché. On the way, one of our tour guides explained the region, the people, how the cenotes were formed, what was farmed at the haciendas in the area (a certain species of agave used to make sisal rope) and how the day would work for us. When we arrived at the hacienda, the previous bus had already arrived and were a little bit ahead of us. We had our swimwear on under our clothes (as they had instructed us) so we stripped off our outer layer, got on our life jackets, put our bags up on some shelves and headed for the cenotes.




The other group had just finished the first cenote so the timing was perfect. We came to find that they were pros at all the timing and clearly did this regularly as a well-oiled machine. We never once felt rushed or that there were too many people. I was pleasantly surprised. The first cenote was partially open and reminded me a little bit of our day in Dominica in 2022 when we went to Titu Gorge. But the water was much warmer. When a lot of people were getting in they were freaking out that it was so cold so we were ready for a repeat of Dominica but the water was fantastic and perfect.







There was a larger pool and then a little narrow channel to get from the first cenote to the second cenote. They told us we could talk in the first one, but that the second one would be silent. The second one was in a cave completely enclosed. They had lights in there to light it up and massive stalactites could be seen coming down from the ceiling into the water. We were given goggles so that we could look down into the crystal clear water at the beautiful rock formations. Photos do not do any of this justice. It was a really cool experience.






After we finished at the cenote at around 11:30 it was time for lunch. They served us up two tacos and an empanada made with local ingredients. The empanada in particular has a sort of local spinach-like leaf that they mix with corn for the outside. On the bus ride over they had asked who needed a vegetarian meal and called it in ahead so I had veggies and Emmaline and Roger had chicken on theirs. We all agreed that lunch was delicious.

After lunch we changed into dry clothes (I had thought to pack dry undergarments for all of us) and then we got back on the bus for an hour and a half drive to Aké, the Mayan ruins we would be visiting. We were apparently supposed to visit Mayapan, but it is presently closed due to protests. The same thing recently happened at Chichén Itzá. Apparently the boundaries of the sites are unclear for these sites and local Mayan people want to be able to sell their handicrafts at the site. However security guards are keeping them out saying that their presence at the site is "invasive" and all they really want to sell is cheap Chinese crap. Not sure what the answer is there. When we were coming back through the port we were absolutely harassed by vendors selling cheap crap in the shops at the port. I honestly wish I saw more unique local handicrafts. I hope they can find a balance between allowing the native Mayans to sell their wares, while also allowing visitors to fully appreciate these sites without being bombarded by vendors.

Alright, back to Aké. We arrived there around 2:00 PM. I confess to taking a short nap on the bus ride over. When we arrived we had a different tour guide who was Mayan who explained some things about the Mayan calendar, how the Mayans arranged their pyramids and why and a little bit about their culture. Then we were told what we could and couldn't climb on and set loose for about 20 minutes. Roger and I have actually been to two other Mayan sites: Chichén Itzá and Tulum. All three are different and impressive for different reasons. This was the first time I had seen columns at a Mayan site and the pyramids looked slightly different. It was a small site, but there weren't many people there and it was pretty chill. Next door was a production facility that made the aforementioned sisal rope.








We left there at 2:45 or so and made the hour and a half drive back to the ship. If you're thinking, "wow, that was a lot of time on a bus" you would be right. It was a lot of driving. Would I do it again? Well, I probably would have been fine without the ruins since I have seen two others before. But Emmaline never had and I think it's important to appreciate local history and culture when you visit a place. The cenotes were definitely cool.

When we got back to the port (incidentally, the longest ship pier in the world at 4 miles long) we bought some cheap vanilla and a fridge magnet before getting back on the ship. While we started cycling through the shower, I ran up to deck 9 and grabbed some snacks. Emmaline ran off dressed in her pirate outfit (well, actually, it was my pirate outfit that she borrowed) to meet up with her friends in Vibe. Roger and I got ourselves ready for dinner at Palo because we're tired of the pirate night menu.


We saw in the Navigator that they would be doing early fireworks that night - at 7:30 PM which I didn't remember them doing previous. I guess there was concerns about weather at 10:30 so they picked the time between normal dinner and show (which was a movie, Wish, that night). So that meant that Roger and I would miss the fireworks. Turned out Emmaline didn't go earlier because she was with friends and they decided they didn't feel like going.

Our Palo dinner was absolutely amazing. We've been to two Palo dinners previously and they were fine, but we didn't feel they were worth the uncharge. But now that we're Platinum cruisers and don't have to pay the uncharge any more, we figured we might as well go. I've done brunch three times (Roger has been to brunch twice, I went with my parents on one cruise) and I thought I preferred brunch, but now I'm not so sure because our dinner was so phenomenal. Our server (Sandro from Portugal, ask for him on the Magic) was incredible, the best Palo server we've ever had, hands down.


After Palo it was late and we were tired from our long day so we changed out of our nice clothes and just sort of chilled in the room until bedtime. Emmaline came in late again after hanging out with her friends.

 

[anricat]

At Sea - January 20, 2024

I actually really like sea days. When I was a new cruiser, I wasn't so sure about them, but now I find that they can bring a nice balance between activities and relaxation. I woke up at 7 AM before anyone else, put on my workout gear and headed for the gym. It was surprisingly not busy once again. I found a piece of real estate, of which there is quite a lot compared to the larger ships in Disney's fleet. The gym on "The Classics" is definitely the best with the best view.

After my workout I went up to Deck 9 to grab a snack since Roger was just beginning his run, having slept in a bit. Around 9 AM I went back to the room and showered then Roger returned and showered and then we went to breakfast at Cabana's.




After breakfast we returned to the room to regroup before setting out for Star Wars trivia. Emmaline went off to hang out with her friends. We didn't do too badly at Star Wars trivia (but not good either). Then it was time for another drawing class, this time BB8. BB8 is a lot of circles and lines. Honestly, not my favorite character to draw but good practice for circles, I guess?



I also practiced my Mickey and even colored him in with some of the markers they had out for coloring. They pretty much had coloring pages and markers out in Soul Cat most of the time during the day, which I thought was brilliant. Especially on this day because as the day wore on, the weather got colder and colder and the seas got rougher and rougher and eventually they closed the pools because the water was sloshing all over making waves.

Roger left a little early to stake out a spot for Jack Jack's Incredible Diaper Dash. It's definitely a favorite activity of ours. This was actually a pretty good race this time. There were enough crawling babies that we were able to have three heats of four babies each and then each of the winning babies got to race in a final.



After laughing ourselves silly at the baby racing, we went to lunch in Rapunzel's. It's funny how little we ate at Cabana's on this cruise. Only on embarkation day for lunch and then for breakfast on our port day. We had a nice little lunch at Rapunzel's and then returned to the room to relax and then begin to pack. Four night cruises don't go by quite as fast as three night cruises, but after cruising for nine and ten nights on previous cruises, it feels pretty quick!

At 2 PM we headed out again for more activities. We actually grabbed a table in Soul Cat Lounge and pretty much just hung out there for about two hours. First we did Disney Parks Trivia Level 2. Uh, no. We were not great at it. I'm okay at Disney Parks trivia until the answer is something at an overseas park, then I'm clueless.

After Disney Parks Trivia Level 2 I ordered us some coffee and zeppoli (singular would be zeppole), which is apparently an Italian equivalent to a beignet. They do cost extra, but not overly much and they tasted nice with the coffees. While we ate those, we participated in Marvel Trivia, which we actually did pretty well at, surprisingly. However, we did not win. Then it was time to learn to draw Groot, which was actually Baby Groot. Mine ended up looking more like Teen Groot. Oh well. (Did I mention this was a trivia and drawing heavy cruise, in terms of the activities on offer?)

​

We returned to the room around 4 PM and I ran up to deck 9 because I hadn't eaten nearly enough food that day, apparently (it had been a whole two hours, people, and this is vacation). We relaxed in the room, I made some notes for my trip report and we did a little more organizing and packing. At 5:30 PM we went down to Soul Cat Lounge again to see Soul Duo play. We've been on a fair number of cruises where they have been performing so it was nice to see them again. After their set we said hello and they actually recognized us, which is hilarious. We chatted for a few minutes and they are super nice people.



At 6 PM we went up to Vibe for open house because we wanted to play some more Donkey Kong (Roger) and Ms. Pac-Mac (me). We were there for about 30 minutes before returning to the room to chill for a bit. I think I started writing my trip report and Roger may have flipped through the TV a bit. We had decided to skip the show for the evening (Disney Dreams) but Emmaline went with her friends. It's a good show but that one we have seen quite a few times.

At 7:30 PM we found a spot in Fathoms to see Vivienne Carlyle who we had seen in two of the shows in the Walt Disney Theatre (Lady Tremaine and Mother Gothel) and was fabulous. She did a show of various Disney songs and was really quite great. After her show, it was time for dinner for our final night, which was in Lumiere's, one of our favorite menus. After dinner, Emmaline went off with her friends and we returned to the room, finished organizing our things, filled out the survey and went to bed since we had to get up early for disembarkation and drive home the following morning.

 

[anricat]

Disembarkation - January 21, 2024

I woke up at 7 AM, showered, got everyone else up and we all finished getting ready and packing. We got ready somehow in record time and had some time to chill before breakfast. I feel like this was our least stressful disembarkation morning in memory. I think we're getting the hang of it. I think it helps to hang on to one regular suitcase to put everything we have left into. We used to try to stuff things into little bags and stuff and it was a mess. We just leave the suitcase outside the restaurant. It works fine.

We ate breakfast at Lumiere's and then tried to find a bathroom that didn't have a mile long line. We finished up, joined the line to disembark, which was growing shorter by the moment and went to find our other suitcase before proceeding to border control and out the door. Then we bypassed the insanely long line for people waiting for a parking lot shuttle and walked the one minute walk to our car in the express lot. Worth. Every. Penny.

Final Thoughts

The Good

• It was fun being on the Magic again. We hadn't sailed her since 2018 and I love that ship. I've heard some people complaining about the age of the ship (25 years old) but if I didn't know it, I would be surprised to learn it. The ship was in great shape and the redesign of Promenade to Soul Cat Lounge was nice. I felt like there was more seating and it was better designed.
• We had a nice ship-sponsored tour in Progreso.
• It's nice to be able to drive four hours to the port and get on a ship.
• It's always good to be on a Disney Cruise!
• Emmaline made some friends and our table mates were really nice.
• Our meal at Palo ranks as one of the best we've ever had.
• The food in the main dining rooms seemed better than we remembered vs. the ships we've been on of late (the Fantasy, Dream, and Wish).

The Not As Good

• The Gulf always seems to have rough seas.
• Our servers weren't the best we've ever had. We had a really good one at lunch one day. We should have noted his name. We just don't know anyone on the Magic any more.
• The variety of activities was lacking. It was trivia, trivia, trivia. We needed something else.
• I'm not sure if there was a recent change of cast in the Walt Disney Theatre productions because they seemed a little less strong than we're used to. Maybe they are finding their footing?
• This cruise had a ridiculous number of very small children. There were multiple children in Cove Cafe and the whole cruise just felt rowdy and loud and people everywhere that seemed clueless or rude. It was the first time I ever had an encounter with a truly rude and inconsiderate fellow cruiser that was really surprising and uncomfortable to me. I was thankful it wasn't a longer voyage and I didn't have to see that individual again repeatedly for three more days.
• The weather on the sea days was cold and windy. That combined with rough seas that shut down the pool made the indoor activities jam packed. They needed to add more stuff.

 

[disneyfan314]

We are cruising out of New Orleans on the Magic in less than 2 weeks. Thanks for the update on your Progreso excursion. We are booked to do the same one you did and I was wondering how it was going to play out with the land disputes in Mexico. I'm happy to see we will still get to do the cenote and cave swim since that's mainly the reason we chose that excursion. We've never seen ruins before so any ruins will be great for us!

Your report is getting me even more excited for our cruise. We have only sailed on the Dream previously so we are excited to get on the Magic!

 

[GOOFY D]

We are cruising out of New Orleans on the Magic in less than 2 weeks. Thanks for the update on your Progreso excursion. We are booked to do the same one you did and I was wondering how it was going to play out with the land disputes in Mexico. I'm happy to see we will still get to do the cenote and cave swim since that's mainly the reason we chose that excursion. We've never seen ruins before so any ruins will be great for us!

Your report is getting me even more excited for our cruise. We have only sailed on the Dream previously so we are excited to get on the Magic!

We were on the Feb 4-9 cruise out of NOLA. I second the rough seas part. The captain warned us that winds would exceed 50 knots and waves would be over 23 feet. It was quit rough. Oddly, on our cruise, I found many couples with no children. Maybe that was due to the cruise disembarking the weekend before Mardi Gras. We had 2 of the 3 shows in WD Theatre cancelled due to mechanical issues (15 minutes into Twice Charmed, the set malfunctioned and that was it).

 

[anricat]

We had 2 of the 3 shows in WD Theatre cancelled due to mechanical issues (15 minutes into Twice Charmed, the set malfunctioned and that was it).

Whoa! That's nuts. We were on the Wish when they had a problem with The Little Mermaid but we just waited for a few minutes while they sorted it out and they restarted the scene and carried on from there. Which other show was cancelled?

 

[GOOFY D]

Whoa! That's nuts. We were on the Wish when they had a problem with The Little Mermaid but we just waited for a few minutes while they sorted it out and they restarted the scene and carried on from there. Which other show was cancelled?

Twice Charmed and Disney Dreams.