Day Six and Debarkation

The saddest day of a cruise…the last day. You’ve finally gotten into a routine and learned to love it. And then you know that there is only this one last day of ship life and cruising. One more lunch in the Lido buffet, one more show in the theater, and one more night to be rocked to sleep by the movement of the ship.

Time to get our luggage debarkation tags

We knew that we didn’t want to self disembark. That’s when you take all of your luggage and belongings off by yourself. You can get off the ship earlier if you do that, but if you pack by us, it would definitely not be easy.

So, we headed down to the Ocean Plaza area of the ship to get debarkation tags. The earlier the number of the tag, the earlier you can get off of the ship. We ended up with tag number 14, which was higher than we wanted, but we went to the customer service desk, and she was able to trade me for #4. Not bad at all. As you can see, I also put a pompom on my luggage. Makes it easier to find when I get off of the ship.

We ran into Vanburen, the Maitre d’, and talked with him for a while and got a picture. He is such a nice person. That has been the rule instead of the exception to people that I’ve met on Cruise ships.

Magic Show

We decided to go to the Magic Show in the Theater at 12:45 before lunch. It turned out to be Aylish, the magician that we’d met in the Dining Room at dinner a few nights before. This was a simple show, mostly magic tricks with audience participation, but it was good. Something nice to watch in the afternoon.

One last lunch on the ship

After that we decided to try Guy’s Pig & Anchor BBQ restaurant in the Ocean Plaza area on deck five outside for lunch. We’d eaten there before on a different ship and liked it. They do have a number of picnic tables with umbrellas on the deck, and it was a very pleasant afternoon to eat outside. I got baked beans, cole slaw, potato salad, pulled pork, and a sausage. I wasn’t really very impressed with the meal this time. The beans were cold and not very tasty, and the rest was just so-so. The cole slaw and potato salad were probably the best part of the meal. The only thing to drink was water, and it was empty. We ended up not finishing our food and went down to the buffet to get something else and some iced tea.

Time to pack back up

I hate repacking everything. One thing that helps is to bring compressions bags and put all your dirty clothes into them. That way you can compress the bag and take up less space. We put everything into our large suitcases that we could put away, and then we could put everything from debarkation morning into our carry on luggage.

Last walks around the ship

We then went to the Pixels shop to decide which photograph from Elegant night that we wanted to buy. We found an 8×10 that we both liked and bought it. We actually have part of our kitchen wall dedicated to one photo from each cruise we’ve been on. This one was lucky 13. We also picked up our VIFP (Very Important Fun Person) gold card pins from Pixels.

We went around and got more photos of different ship venues. I’ll be doing a review of the entire ship later. We went to the Fun Shop and got two T-shirts on the 2 for $20 table as souvenirs. I normally collect an ornament of each ship but I didn’t see any of the Magic. I think that I have one from last time so all is good.

Then on the way back to the cabin to work, we ran into Adi, our Steward. He has been exceptional. Always a towel animal, and our room is taken care of well. Always ready to have a conversation. He’s only supposed to come in each morning, but I know he comes in each evening also because we always have a fresh bucket of ice. Another of the great crew that I’ve had a pleasure to meet on the Magic. And these guys work so hard.

Dinner

One last dinner on the ship. Tomorrow someone else would be sitting at our table, 635. I stopped at the Red Frog Pub to get my free VIFP drink, a glass of red wine. Once we got to the table I gave our crew their tips. We had Jhoanna, Camille, and Jay as waiters. Once again we had exceptional service. Cobb Salad for appetizer today. Then we had Braised Short Ribs, potatoes, and green beans. For dessert I really felt like I’d had too much sugar free so I had fruit. Good choice. After Vanburen gave a speech, they sang the farewell song and I wanted to cry.

Last show

The last think that we did was go to the Rock and Roll show in the theater. It featured the entertainment crew and had a lot of songs from the 80s and 90s. It was an enjoyable show. Overall, the entertainment on the Magic is good, but not exceptional. I kind of miss the shows that they used to do on the ships in years past. But that’s just me. This was certainly better than the opera on MSC.

That reminds me that we had planned on sailing on the MSC Divina this week instead of Carnival Magic. But when they tacked on a $1000 charge and customer service wouldn’t help, we cancelled that one and booked the Magic. And I’m so glad that I did. From what I heard, the Divina cruise had only 400 paying passengers. I’m sure that we had much more fun than they did.

And then it was time to relax on the balcony a bit and watch the lightening in the distance and three cruise ships heading out. And time to put our checked luggage in the hallway so they could pick it up. It had to be out between 9 and 11 pm.

Debarkation – Day 7

We got up pretty early on debarkation day, got dressed, and finished packing up everything that was left. We had to be out of the room by 8:15 am. We headed out to the Lido Buffet for breakfast and got a real surprise. It was incredibly windy and cold for Central Florida. Thankfully I had brought a jacket. I had heard that there was a storm system all the way home. Not looking forward to that drive.

I grabbed a small breakfast. I had eaten so much this trip I didn’t want a lot. We then took an elevator down to the fourth floor to wait. I saw that people were sitting in the area near the Customer Service desk, so we went there and sat down to wait. Masks are required this entire disembarkation process. They started allowing those who were self-disembarking off at around 8 am, then at around 9 am they called luggage tags 1-4. We immediately left. I’d say that from the time we left the ship till we were out on the GoPort shuttle was around 30 minutes.

To the terminal

We walked through the gangplank into the terminal. We had to wait in two lines for a bit there but it was just because of the escalators. They keep space between people because people are trying to pull luggage behind them onto the escalators. After that you walk through one line if you have a passport, and another if you are using a birth certificate for ID. We had passports so we took that line. It was so much easier than it used to be. You go to a screen that scans your face without your mask. I scanned fine, it recognized me, and that was it. I was free to leave the building, no questions asked.

And to find the GoPort shuttle

We headed out to find the GoPort shuttle. It wasn’t hard. We crossed the street and there was a sign that said GoPort to the right. We stood in the right side line because we were going to the parking lot. The bus goes to the airport. I will do a review of GoPort later, but I was happy with them. This was the first time we used them. We were on the shuttle soon, and at the parking lot about fifteen minutes later. He took our luggage out of the trailer and let us off the shuttle, and we were ready to head home.