Finding Doory: The Magic's Mysterious Red Door

When I was on the Magic last month, I rode the AquaDunk a lot.  Before this cruise, I wasn't a big fan of this slide, but I've realized that it's actually really fun.  I'm disappointed that the Wish isn't going to have an AquaDunk equivalent, but maybe the sixth or seventh ship will have one.

On my most recent cruise, I usually rode the AquaDunk in the evenings when the 5:45 dinner was happening.  There was almost never a line, and when there was, there were only ever a few people ahead of me.  The lifeguards operating the slide noticed how much I had been coming back up the slide, and sometimes they liked to mess with me.

After a rider step into the starting capsule, a recording of Donald Duck's nephews Huey, Dewey, and Louie plays, and it counts down, "3, 2, 1, anchors aweigh!"  After the recording, the platform folds in and the rider goes down and into the slide.  At least, that's how it normally works.  Sometimes, the lifeguards would play the recording multiple times before sending me down!  Or, they would play the recording, wait a few seconds, and then send me down.  Both of these really threw me off, and they increased the thrill of the ride.

In addition to having fun with the lifeguards, riding the AquaDunk so much allowed me to notice a red metal door located where the AquaDunk stairs go into the funnel:

When the AquaDunk is closed, this door is usually closed, unless the lifeguards are getting ready to reopen the slide.  This door doesn't seem very interesting, but it's actually responsible for one of the Magic's features that sets it apart from most other cruise ships:  It determines whether or not the When You Wish Upon a Star horn will play!

There's a sign next to the door that's visible in the above picture.  This sign says something along the lines of "This door must be closed for the Mickey Horn to play."  This safeguard makes sense, because the horn is loud.  Nobody wants to be up on top of the funnel when the horn plays.  That would hurt, and it could easily cause hearing loss.  To prevent that, the door should be shut so nobody can be on top of the funnel when the horn plays.

But that's not very interesting, that's just common sense!  So why did I take the time to write about this one random door?  The "Mickey Horn" cannot play when the door is open!

When a DCL ship is about to play its horn, an announcement is played beforehand to warn people who may be sensitive to the loud noise.  When I was up on Deck 10 of the Magic, this announcement was played, so I got out my phone to record the horn.  But the horn didn't play.  That's weird, I thought.  I walked by the AquaDunk entrance, and the red door was open!  From what I understand, closing the red door isn't just a suggested safeguard before blasting the horn, it's a requirement for the horn to play.  Now that's a Safety Smart precaution!

The sign by the door only said that the "Mickey Horn" can't play when the door is open.  The Magic's normal horn probably can play when the door is open in case of situations when there's not enough time for someone to go shut the door.

I love finding hidden details like this, and I wish DCL would hold ship tours that highlighted things like this.  I guess they don't do tours like this because most people probably don't care.  Also, details like the red door aren't exactly great ways to advertise a cruise ship:

But for the people who do care, that red door makes us appreciate the Magic even more.