For a good look at the future ships of Carnival Cruise Line, book a ride on the new 3,690-passenger Carnival Magic.
The Magic, which debuted in May in the Mediterranean, is the first ship fully designed by the current top management team at Carnival. Although it is structurally the same as the Carnival Dream, which was launched in 2009, President Gerry Cahill’s group has made some significant changes.
Dare I say it? Carnival Magic seems slightly upscale in focus, away from a Las Vegas approach, more modern, less glitzy, with lighter, fresher, more cheerful colors than Carnival ships past.
Carnival is not evolving into a luxury product. Au contraire. “We are not going upscale,” says Cahill. “Everybody else wants to be luxury. We do not. For instance, we used a group of our own employees under age 35 to plan the nightclub. Our guests are not wealthy. They are Middle America. We are fun, memorable, and affordable.”
Still, the Magic has a more sophisticated atmosphere, at least partly because the Cahill gang has changed the familiar passenger flow. On other Carnival ships, passengers tend to move around public areas in never-ending waves, as if they are at a gigantic party, sort of a Mardi Gras at sea, day and night. Bars offer different themes, colors and furniture, but they are like rooms in the same house, and seldom is there a place to get away from crowds.
On Magic, Carnival’s new approach is to disperse crowds to venues that offer different experiences — a family Italian restaurant, an inviting Caribbean pub, a sports deck with enough games and water attractions to while away a day.
This grand design will follow on the 130,000-ton sister ship Carnival Breeze, which is due out next summer in Europe, as well as on the next generation of Carnival ships that will be somewhat smaller. The Breeze will cruise the Caribbean from Miami starting in fall 2012; the Magic will stay in Europe until late October, when it will move to Galveston, Texas, and sail Caribbean cruises.
Cahill said he wanted each venue aboard ship to have its own personality, to be not just a place to stop for a few minutes but a destination to savor for the experience.
The Magic’s RedFrog Pub, for instance, is not just a place to have a beer. It offers live music; images of patrons that flash on big screens throughout the pub; tasty pub grub at $3.33 each ranging from spicy conch fritters (with several choices of bottled hot sauce) to coconut shrimp that can be dipped in a pina colada sauce; themed cocktails and assorted rums; bottles of Caribbean beer; and two beers on tap, Stella Artois, and Thirsty Frog Red, a brew labeled specially for Carnival.
The RedFrog, which Cahill believes will become the heart of the ship, was a big hit from the moment Carnival Magic began its inaugural cruise in Venice May 1 — so big that in less than two days passengers drained the kegs of Thirsty Frog Red. Carnival sent out an emergency signal for new kegs that were air-freighted to Messina, Sicily. In less than a week on the first cruise, passengers consumed 20 kegs of Frog, 50 liters to a keg.
Expect Carnival to publicize Thirsty Frog Red — a smooth draught beer, a bit malty, a bit sweet — and place it on some of its other ships. Cahill didn’t give away his plans, but he did say that some retrofitting on other ships will happen.
