The one with the bunk beds - Magic to Bermuda October 16-21

[Ronneeaght]

Hello! I’ve never done a trip report before, but since there aren’t too many for the Bermuda itinerary I thought I would give it a try. I know CampbellzSoup is doing one for this sailing as well, and I’m excited to hear how their cruise went since I didn’t see them until the last night so I think we did a bunch of different things.

Our sailing party was myself Sarah, DH John, DD7 Jenna, and DS4 Nathan. We also sailed with DH’s sister and her family, including her husband and DNiece5 and DNephew2. I have no posed pictures at all of all eight of us or even the four of us in my family. The kids were hit or miss on getting their pictures taken.

I do however have this beauty…

 

[Ronneeaght]

We had been looking forward to this trip for a LONG time. We booked opening week for the September 30th cruise. In the middle of September various people started feeling sick, and the Monday of the week we were supposed to embark, one whole family tested positive for COVID

Luckily we weren’t flying in or anything, and Disney has a nice flexible Covid policy. Our DU agent was at WDW in the middle of a hurricane, so he reached out to a colleague and she quickly got us moved to the October 16th sailing. Our excursion company in Bermuda also allowed us to push back our reservation. I was so glad to be working with a travel agent, since I knew Ian was mucking up the phone lines. It was hard to not be going on our cruise, but the October 16 sailing turned out to be much better weather and smoother seas.

 

[Ronneeaght]

Day 1 - embarking from NYC

We live near Philadelphia, so we just drove into Manhattan the morning of the cruise. Traffic wasn’t bad at all, and there were still a number of parking spots available at the terminal when we got there at 1pm. There were porters waiting to take our luggage right when we pulled in. We hadn’t received new luggage tags for the October 16 sailing, but that was fine. The porter filled some out for us. All the porters that we interacted with were super friendly. We parked the car and walked back to the terminal.



The kids were in awe of the “big boat”. It was right here! It was really happening! We took the escalator down and met up with DSil and her family. They had been there for about 30 minutes. They stood in a long line for the port testing and were waiting for the results, which came pretty quickly after we arrived. They said they had been waiting for maybe 20 minutes. I had just enough time to check and see that things were NOT going well for my fantasy team, and then we were walking towards check in.



After that we didn’t wait in any lines at all. Just walked from one checkpoint to another to another, showing our port arrival document, our Bermuda Travel Authorization, our passports, etc.

 

[Ronneeaght]

Day 1 - embarking from NYC

Before long we were walking onto the ship! The kids were so excited to see Donald on the staircase in the atrium. We got shepherded into Fathoms to pull up the muster drill on the app. I love the new muster drill process. This was the second cruise for DH, DD7, and I. We went on the same itinerary back in 2019. We left DS behind with my parents because he was just barely 1 at the time and while he would have enjoyed it, he also enjoyed a week with Grammy and Papa and leaving him home let us do some more adventurous things with DD. So it was his first cruise and he was over the moon with excitement pretty much the whole time. It was also the first cruise for DSil and family.

Once we got the muster drill done we went and got some lunch. Most people got something from Cabanas with a few of the kids opting for pizza instead. I had been curious about lunch options and timing since I knew we’d be getting on the ship towards the end of the scheduled PATs. I took this screenshot later in the day.

 

[Ronneeaght]

Day 1 - embarking from NYC

As we finished up lunch the kids started to notice other kids in bathing suits and asked if they could go swimming, too. My son has been watching POV videos of the Twist and Spout for months now. He was so excited to go down “the yellow slide” because he is too short for the one at our town pool. Since it was now 2:30 our rooms were ready, so we went downstairs to change rather than trying to do it in the bathrooms. Our luggage started to arrive right away, so DH stayed behind to do some unpacking while the kids and I went back up to the pool.

This seems as good a time as any to talk about the room. We were in 2612, with DSil and her family next door in 2614. When we booked this sailing just a couple weeks out, I was simply grateful that they still had deck 2 ocean view rooms available, and two of them side by side. I went in with the mantra “You get what you get and you don’t get upset.” The rooms worked out pretty well for us. I was a little sad because it felt like we had less storage than we did on our 2019 cruise in a similar room (deck 2, close to the aft/midship line). White blank wall I’m looking at you.


Isn’t there usually a second chest of drawers along that wall, or am I completely making that up? Maybe it just felt more crowded with four people and all their stuff instead of three. We also had a room with a connecting door in 2019, so I’m wondering if the cabin was a little wider with more space at the foot of the bed to allow the door to open.

I had read a couple reviews of the room before the cruise and people mentioned hearing a sound like something dragging across the floor. We did hear that occasionally but it wasn’t loud enough to keep us awake or wake up the kids. The first time it happened though, I thought “Oh no, we hit an iceberg!!” inspired not by the Titanic but from being in the middle of Cass’s second Alaska trippie when we left.

The only problem we had was that the one closet door was swaying open with the ship movement, and when it opened the light would come on. The first night we jammed all sorts of stuff in between the two doors to try to get it to stay closed, but then we realized it would stick *open* and the light would turn off eventually, so we just kept it all the way open for the remaining nights.

We loved the location being so close to the aft elevator bank and just a hop up the stairs to the restaurants. The kids LOVED the bunk beds. There was a negotiation each night as to who would get the top bunk. Whenever the beds were down they would both be up there watching TV or playing games or reading. I wouldn’t seek this room out on a future cruise but I certainly wouldn’t be upset if I ended up with it.

 

[Timon]

Great start!

Can't wait to read the rest! I'm heading to NYC on Tuesday for a B2B on the Magic.

 

[Ronneeaght]

Great start!

Can't wait to read the rest! I'm heading to NYC on Tuesday for a B2B on the Magic.

So fun!! I’ve got my eye on that NYC-PR repositioning cruise when the kids get older and have the stamina to walk around the forts.

 

[Ronneeaght]

Oh, and one more thing I wanted to mention about the room. I’d read various reports of the mini fridges not keeping things cold enough. Our fridge kept things VERY cold. We bought some of the canned water from room service for convenience, and they were ice cold whenever we pulled one out.

Continuing…
Day 1 - embarking from NYC

The kids had a blast going down the Twist and Spout, splashing in the toddler pool, and hanging out in the hot tubs. There were hardly any lines today or any other days that we rode the slides. Usually we were just a couple steps down from the platform. I’m not sure if we got lucky or if that held true for the whole cruise. The weather was hovering around 70, so after a while everyone got cold and we headed down to the room to get dressed for the sail a wave party. This was another thing we had watched videos of and DS4 was looking forward to, but we took too long at the pool and getting ready and by the time we made it back up on deck it was pretty crowded and hard to see the stage. The kids were overwhelmed and just wanted to leave, so we wandered around the ship a bit and then ended up in one of the clubs for open house.

Our dining rotation was LARRL. On our way down to dinner we spotted a photo opportunity with Pluto in the atrium.



There were a TON of character meet and greet sessions. I think pretty much every time I walked through the atrium there was a photo line somewhere. We didn’t do too many of them, but I think anyone you wanted to meet was available at some point.

Dinner was CRAZY with four very excited kids 7 and under. I took no pictures of any food ever, haha. Our servers did a good job. They didn’t do anything extra, no magic tricks or anything. I think they could see that we had our hands full. The food was good, although not as tasty as I remember it being in 2019. I know that I have a super positive edit on pretty much all my memories (when I truly don’t enjoy something I have to tell my husband to remind me in the future, ha), so I’m not sure if the food was actually better in the past or if I just remember it so. Certainly everyone found something they liked at each meal. I think the only thing that was actually bad was a crème brûlée that DH had. Some of the dishes were as wonderful as I remembered, but not as many stood out.

 

[Ronneeaght]

Day 1 - embarking from NYC
So the food was good-not-great and our servers were good-not-great, but it was all food that I didn’t have to prepare or clean up from, so it met the needs of a vacation for me.

During dinner a couple of kids needed to use the restroom so we walked back aft to the bathrooms right outside of RRT, and the kids found this cool porthole they could stand in. We accidentally timed it so that we got to watch the ship pass under the Verrazzano-Narrows Bridge which was very neat. DS4 was concerned that the water slide would hit the bridge, but we made it all the way under


This photo was taken a bit after the bridge at 6:49, so we probably went under between 6:30 and 6:45pm.

After dinner we went back down to the room where the kids got to see the bunk beds for the first time. They immediately scampered up the ladder to the top and we finished unpacking and then headed up to Twice Charmed. We sat in the very back because we weren’t sure if the kids would last for the whole show, which was a good call since only DD7 and I stayed for the whole thing. I was really impressed with the story, songs, and special effects. I had a bit of trouble understanding some of the lyrics, perhaps the acoustics weren’t as good in the last row. It was only now and then and I was able to understand the gist of the song each time. DD7 and I wandered around the ship a bit after the show, snagging an ice cream cone to enjoy on our travels.



At this point the hectic day was catching up to me, so we headed back to the room and went to bed. The kids were much more keyed up than the adults, and there was chattering and giggling on the other side of the curtain for quite some time. Eventually we all settled down and fell asleep, happily satisfied with our first day of cruising.

 

[Timon]

Sorry to hear the food and service wasn’t fantastic but I hear you on the not cooking and cleaning thing.

Do you recall when you sailed past the Statue of Liberty? Was it before your dinner or during?

 

[Ronneeaght]

Sorry to hear the food and service wasn’t fantastic but I hear you on the not cooking and cleaning thing.

Do you recall when you sailed past the Statue of Liberty? Was it before your dinner or during?

It was during first seating. Before dinner we were still passing Manhattan. I took the photo below at 5:40. For our next cruise (which we haven’t settled which it will be yet) I will strongly consider second seating, especially for this itinerary. It would let us see more of the sail away and more daylight that first day in Bermuda.

 

[Ronneeaght]

Day 2 - our first sea day

Due to staying up waaaay past their bedtime, the kids slept right through breakfast. When it became obvious that they weren’t going to be joining us, DH and I took turns going up to Cabanas. I brought back a couple boxes of cereal they could eat when they finally joined the land of the living around 11.

Since the kids REALLY enjoyed the pool and the slides the day before I figured they would wake up clamoring to put bathing suits on and get back to it, but they actually wanted to spend some time in the open house kids club. I was surprised how often the Club and the Lab were in open house mode. They were actually very rarely both in closed programming at the same time. I’m not sure if we just didn’t notice that fact in 2019 or if it is new due to being short staffed. It worked out incredibly well for us because DNephew2 was too young for closed programming, but during open house we could have all four kids hanging out together.

We got a late lunch in Cabanas. They had Mexican food on the first sea day, with really tasty tacos. I especially loved that I could add as much cilantro as I wanted. There were churros for dessert and I really meant to go back for some when I was done eating my tacos, but somehow forgot.

This guy didn’t forget dessert, though. Just a boy, munching his chocolate chip cookies, watching Spidey and His Amazing Friends in cruise mode. (We asked our stateroom host to leave the bunks up for the first sea day since the kids were having so much fun with them).


He caught me snapping pictures and wanted to take one of me:

 

[Ronneeaght]

Day 2 - our first sea day

We spent from lunch until dinner at the pools and slides. Dinner tonight was in AP and optional Halloween costumes. DD7 and DNiece5 put on fancy princess dresses, and I did a very light Goofy DisneyBound. There were plenty of people both dressed up and not dressed up, so whichever you choose you won’t feel like you stand out.

We had the draw your character show in AP, which was different from the B&W to color show that we had in 2019. For some reason DD7 really didn’t want to draw a character and pitched a bit of a fit over it. I consider both of my kids to be about average on the well-behaved vs utter-meltdown continuum, and I was pleasantly surprised that we had fewer issues on the cruise overall than I expected. But she was just not having any of it with this character thing. I quickly dashed something off then spent some time distracting her with questions about what she wanted to eat. I’m actually pretty happy with it though, since I’m not very artistic. I don’t think I would have come up with something better if I thought about it more.


DH and DS4 also created one.



Nathan wasn’t thrilled that I wrote his name since he had so obviously done so already, but I wasn’t sure what the names would be used for and if it would be so obvious to anyone else.

DD7 perked up after eating some dinner and actually enjoyed the show with all the characters marching around the room. I let her use my phone to try to catch a picture of the ones that we drew.


After dinner all the kids went to watch a movie in DSil’s room and DH and I grabbed one of the big tables in the atrium on Deck 4 and played half a game of Twilight Inscription. DD7 still wasn’t tired after the movie (sleeping in until 11am will do that!) so we based ourselves on the midship staircase and walked around a bit of each deck looking for ducks. No luck yet! Eventually we gave up and headed to bed. We had big plans for tomorrow in Bermuda…

 

[Ronneeaght]

Day 3 - first day in Bermuda!

We considered a lot of different options for Bermuda, and in the end chose a couple things that let us break the day into shorter chunks without being away from the ship for the little kids too long. When the kids get older I’d definitely like to go back and get to St. George. I’m jealous of the six night offerings next year that get a full day in Bermuda (two overnights). We’ve got two family weddings in the Fall of 2023, so I don’t think it will be next year, but I’m excited about future possibilities.

We knew we wanted to go to Horseshoe Bay Beach one day because it is so easy and reasonably priced to get there. We decided to save that for day 2 because the return time is so flexible. For day 1 we were looking at taking one of the catamaran excursions. It seemed like a way to see more of Bermuda and also be fun for the kids. (And honesty, fun for the adults )

Since we had 8 people in our party, the price was pretty comparable to go on an excursion or to get a private charter. So I’m guessing you can figure out what we did.



We had SO MUCH FUN! We chartered the A Lil' Restless catamaran with Restless Native Tours. It was a great size for us. Captain Brian first took us over to the Vixen shipwreck where we fed the fish with some bread that he had brought. That was so cool that none of us thought to grab a picture, ha. Then he took us to a little island cove where we were the only people and we got to hang out for an hour and swim and snorkel and paddle board and play in the sand. The snorkeling wasn’t epic, but there were TONS of little fish and it was a nice addition to the available activities. For pretty much the whole time we could see the Magic’s funnels peeking over at us.





Then on the way back to the dock we sailed right past her. You have to zoom in to see on that second photo, but there were people perched on the OUTSIDE of the barriers on Deck 9 doing ship maintenance.





Everyone agreed that this was a fantastic part of our trip. I would absolutely book with Restless Native again. When we were getting back the big catamaran from another company Rising Son was headed out and playing music and looked like they were having a great time also.

We got back right around 2pm so we went up to Deck 9 and got some quick service options for lunch. I had to chuckle because the specialty sandwich at Duck-In Diner was called a Philly Cheesesteak. It definitely was not, but it did look like a nice steak sandwich. DH and DBil both got the schwarma and raved about it. DH said it was one of the best he’s ever had. I got chicken fingers and fries, yummmm

 

[Ronneeaght]

Day 3 - first day in Bermuda!

DH got this great picture of our little private swimming cove:


Back on the ship after lunch, the kids wanted to take advantage of being in bathing suits and do more slides/pool/hot tub, so we did that for a bit and then we went back to the rooms and got cleaned up for our next Bermuda activity - the National Museum of Bermuda. This is something I often recommend to anyone with kids ~3-8 because:
1. It is so convenient to the ship
2. There are cool museum exhibits for the grownups to tag team and read while…
3. The kids can play on the biggest slide I’ve ever seen
4. Dolphin Quest is inside so the kids can also see dolphins

I’m telling you, this slide is awesome.
Here’s Jenna when she was 4, and then Nathan on this trip.



At this point we split up and DBil stayed on the ship with DNephew2 (I think they hit up one of the clubs or possibly took a nap in the room). DH and DSil took DS4 and DNiece5 to the museum. DD7 and I planned to join them about 15 minutes later, after I grabbed a quick shower. I knew the museum closed at 5 but what I didn’t know was that they stopped letting people in at 4. So DD7 and I walked up at 4:16 to closed doors. Luckily the others had made it inside and my daughter was happy for some Mommy-Daughter time wandering around the shopping area together.

We found some chickens and bought some souvenirs.




Then we headed back to the ship for dinner.

 

[Ronneeaght]

Day 3 - first day in Bermuda!

Dinner tonight was in RRT. The girls were excited about the chance to meet Rapunzel and Flynn Rider. I was excited about the food! This is our favorite bread service (yay for pretzels ), and my favorite dessert. Mmmm, Rapunzel’s Fry Bread. I was trying to describe it to my brother-in-law before we got the dessert menu, and couldn’t do much better than “Well, it’s basically a doughnut. But a really really good doughnut!!” After the kids got to talk to Rapunzel we took them to the Lab for closed programming where they were doing a Lava activity. DH and I were therefore the first ones back to the room to see the friend our wonderful stateroom host had made for one of the kids toys.


We went to see the Tangled show tonight, but again the kids didn’t make it all the way through. This time I took the ones who didn’t want to stay and dropped them off in the kids club for a while to learn web slinging from Spider-man. Meanwhile I got to do some reading on deck 4 looking out at the harbor, then I picked up the kids and went back to the room to call it a night.

 

[Ronneeaght]

Day 4 — second day in Bermuda

The kids slept in again this morning, as was becoming a pattern. DH and I took turns getting breakfast. The sun was shining and we wanted to go to the beach!



We took the $7 shuttle over to Horseshoe Bay Beach. The shuttles are very convenient to the ships. Our driver kept up a running commentary on the drive over leading DD7 to exclaim, “You talk a lot, like me!” She’s the extrovert of the family and doesn’t usually meet someone who can match her for chattiness.

The beach was gorgeous. There were quite a few people there, but we found a good spot for our blanket. After a while DSil and family moved camp over to the little shallow cove to the right of the beach. I think this is part of the charm of Horseshoe. The younger kids were able to play in calmer waters, while the more adventurous ones could play in the bigger waves. DD7 and DH also walked over to explore the string of coves to the left, which are cool to explore if you have the time and the inclination to walk. You can actually walk all the way to Warwick Long Bay Beach through the coves, but we’ve never done it.





We had meant to eat lunch at beach - they’ve got an outdoor restaurant that serves things like burgers and mozzarella sticks and such. But since we overslept and ate a late breakfast we weren’t very hungry and didn’t want to spend any of our beach time eating food. Around 2 we started packing up to head back since all aboard was at 4pm. We went over to the shuttle area and got right on a shuttle that filled up pretty quickly and headed back to the Dockyard! We did the same ship-return-plan as yesterday where we headed up to deck 9 for rinsing off and quick service food. Pretty much each afternoon we got a plate of fresh fruit from Daisy De-lites to share. DD7 especially liked the watermelon and the grapes, and I really liked the pineapple and the cantaloupe. DS4 liked the plate of chocolate chip cookies that we got at the same time, haha. The sandwich of the day at the duck in diner was a grilled salmon sandwich.

Before too long I noticed that we were pushing off! Goodbye Bermuda, you were beautiful as always.

 

[Ronneeaght]

Day 4 — second day in Bermuda

I forget if it was Captain Brian on the catamaran or the chatty shuttle driver, but one of them mentioned that even though we dock at the northwest corner of Bermuda, we actually sail around to the east when arriving and leaving. I wasn’t awake for the sail in yesterday, but this is apparently so, because for an hour you could still look out and see us sailing past the shore. I took this one right before dinner.



Also right before dinner this little man visited one of his favorite things: the milk machine. He drinks a lot of milk at home, so he loved getting a coffee cup full of milk from the self-serve drink station.


We were back in RRT for Pirate night. I’m not sure why the Pirate menu gets such a bad rap. I had the hardest time choosing between options tonight and thought the samosa was the best appetizer of the whole cruise. The kids hung out in the clubs a bit tonight and then DS4 went back to the room with DH while DD7 and I checked out a couple things we hadn’t done yet. First we went to the Silent Dance Party, which was as fun as I thought it would be.


DD7 was still on a duck quest, though, so we didn’t stay for the whole thing. Her dedication finally paid off and she found a duck!! She was so excited and proud.


Duck-finding accomplished we went to check out the open house at Vibe. We played some Connect 4 and some of the arcade games and then headed back to the room, where we discovered that DS4 had fallen asleep. I knew that he was excited about the pirate party, but I was also feeling like we needed to break the cycle of sleeping in so late since we had an early embarkation morning coming up fast. DD7 was also feeling tired, so we let her watch some TV while DH and I read books. When the fireworks went off she could see them from our window, then we all went to bed.

 

[Ronneeaght]

Day 5 - last sea day

Skipping Pirate Night had apparently been the right decision. DD7 woke up in time for seated breakfast! She was fascinated with the soft boiled eggs in their little egg cups. After breakfast it was time for our Royal Gathering tickets. Since we had switched to this sailing just a couple weeks out, we were stuck with 9:45AM as the latest M&G time I could get. Luckily, everyone was up and ready to go! All 8 of us went through the line, but the boys didn’t want to talk to the princesses. DD7 and DNiece5 both really enjoyed it. They got to talk to Cinderella, Rapunzel, Mulan, and Ariel.





From there we really had just a proper vacation sea day, kind of doing whatever struck our fancy and splitting off and merging groups as we all journeyed about the ship. We headed up to the Lab for Stitch’s slime making (Space Goo, I believe they called it). We got snacks at quick-service and watched TV or funnel vision (sandwich of the day at Duck-in Diner was BBQ pork). We searched for, found, and rehid more ducks. We checked out the buffet at Cabana’s (Indian food today with some tasty samosas that were different from the pirate menu ones). We hung out in the port holes outside of Fathoms.




In the late afternoon we started packing up our luggage to be picked up that evening. I was not good at this. I had given a lot of thought before the trip to what should go in the “checked” luggage and what we would want to carry on with us for the first afternoon. I had a harder time paring down what we needed for just the last night.

 

[Ronneeaght]

Day 5 - last sea day

We still had one last cruise bucket list item to cross off. DS4 wasn’t really interested in meeting the princesses, but had REALLY hoped that he could meet Spider-Man. Nathan’s favorite show is Spidey and his Amazing Friends. There was a public meet tonight at 5:30 in the Club and I knew we wanted to make this a priority.

I was just packing in the room and meant to go up earlier, but kinda lost track of time. The line was alllllll the way down the hallway, past the nursery entrance. A few minutes after I arrived they flipped the line to the other direction and now the line was allllllll the way down the hallway through the atrium. DH came by and dropped off DS4 with me around 5:30 and we decided no one else was excited enough to stand in the line. DS4 was all about it, though. Shortly after 5:30 they moved the line into the Club, which was now in Open House mode. I let DS4 go play in Andy’s room where I could see him while I waited in line, but mostly he lurked in the doorway between Andy’s room and the Marvel area, watching other people meet Spider-Man, and coming back to me every 90 seconds saying “This is going to be so much fun!!”

Once it became obvious that we weren’t going to be done by 5:45 I sent a message in the app to DH and DSil with my dinner order for Lumiere’s, hoping one of them would check. DSil saw it and placed my order and DS4’s order for us.

Finally, at 6:09, a little boy’s dream came true and he stood there, drop jawed and tongue tied, while Spider-Man tried to make conversation with his star-struck little fan.




I collected my charge and we started to walk down to dinner. I wasn’t sure if the experience had lived up to his expectations, since he hadn’t said much to Spider-Man, but I needn’t have worried. He immediately turned to me and said, “That was so fun!!”

After dinner our servers brought out a birthday cake for DSil, which she shared with the rest of the table. We told DD7 she could eat the candle, which was made out of sugar. Someone ate the little chocolate happy birthday placard as well, leading DD7 to question how far the bounds stretched on a ship named the Disney Magic: “Is the plate edible, too?!?”

After dinner I caught the tail end of a beautiful sunset on Deck 4.


I asked DD7 if she wanted to do some of the photo backdrops since we were wearing matching shirts and DNiece5 wanted to come along, too, so I got some good ones of the cousins together. We also ran into CampbellzSoup getting some super cute pictures ahead of us.





We then went back to the room until it was time for the evening show, Disney Dreams. I wasn’t sure if DD7 would want to go, because she was having fun hanging out on the bunk beds with her brother and DNiece5. She decided last minute that she did want to go, so we quickly chucked the suitcases into the hall in case we didn’t get back in time and she and I went up to the show. I probably would have added more to the suitcases if I had more time. We weren’t crazy overburdened getting off the ship, so it worked out ok. Next time, ha.

The last thing I did before bed was run up and buy some of the photos from Shutters. When I got back, my niece had gone back to her room and we got ready for bed. The next morning we would be disembarking, which caused DS4 to do some fond remembering of his favorite parts of the cruise. “My favorite things are the bunk beds and the elevator that says ‘Deck’!”