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Carnival Miracle 7/15/2014 photo review


alohagirl808
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We cruised on the Carnival Miracle from July 15-22, 20. There were 4 of us traveling, my DH (47), my DS (9), my DD (2.5) and myself (39 turning 40). This cruise was mainly to celebrate my upcoming 40th cruise except this was my DD’s first. This cruise was totally amazing!! Alaska (and Canada) is absolutely gorgeous!! Everywhere you looked was like a postcard! We’ve done a Mexican Riviera and Eastern Caribbean cruise and none of them come close to the beauty and scenery of Alaska!! My DS’s first cruise was when he was 4 so cruising with a 2.5 year old was new to us and it did present some challenges. We had to keep our plans and port activities flexible in order to accommodate naps and her in general.

 

This will be my first review on the boards section so bear with me. I will break the cruise down into sections by category or port and give it a grade. Keep in mind that even though there were some negatives on this cruise, overall we still enjoyed this cruise a lot. In fact, it's ranked #1 so far of all our cruises :)

 

So let's get started.

 

Pre-cruise Hotel (A+): We arrived in Seattle July 13th and stayed 2 nights at the Hyatt Place near Seattle Center. I signed up for the Hyatt credit card and received 2 free nights and used it for this stay. This saved us 250+tax a night. Seattle hotels are very expensive during the summer and this was the lowest price I saw. When I made the reservation I called the hotel directly and requested a 2 queen room since the King rooms do not have bathtubs and they did have that room reserved for us. It was a good sized room with a separate sitting area with a huge L-shaped sofa, desk, fridge/counter area, huge flat screen tv, and the other side of the room had the beds, bathroom with an outside sink, and closet. The hotel had a nice lobby with a convenient snack/coffee shop area. It included free breakfast but by the time we woke up they were closed by 930. There’s a Walgreens across the street to pick up essentials. Seattle Center is a 10 minute walk and there’s a monorail at Seattle Center that will take you to downtown.

 

Here is my first attempt to post pictures so hopefully it will work :o

Edited by alohagirl808
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Seattle attractions (A+): We spent a day at the Seattle Center, specifically the Pacific Science Center, Space Needle, and Chihuly Gardens. We had beautiful weather with little clouds and temps in the 90s. My kids loved the Science Center. They had lots of exhibits with the highlights being for us the Toddler Play area, Butterfly exhibit, Spy exhibit, dinosaurs, and bugs area. We stayed for at least 3 hours and my kids had a blast. My toddler loved her play area which had water play, slides, music room, treehouse, legos, and a helicopter.

 

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The Space Needle views were spectacular that day as it was so clear that we could see Mount Rainier in the distance. The Chihuly glass sculptures were interesting as well and we took some beautiful pictures. Luckily, my DD was napping at that time we did Chihuly and the Space Needle.

 

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Towncar Service (A+): We hired Century Car Service for all our transfers to and from the airport, hotel, and pier. They have great rates and car seats (extra $10) so that we didn’t have to bring ours with us. They were reliable, on-time and had excellent service!! An example of their rates... it was $60 with car seat to go from the airport to our hotel. Other towncar services were quoting about $100. I cannot give these guys enough praise. We had two issues that could have been disastrous but these guys really came through. The first issue was that Delta re-routed one of our suitcases through Las Vegas so it arrived 30 minutes after our flight landed. I informed the Century driver and they were understanding and waited for us. The other issue was kind of my fault. We had a 5pm flight on the day of disembarkation and my plan was to use the Bags program to take our luggage to the airport but I missed the deadline. I thought you could sign up the day before disembarking (Monday) but it’s actually due by Sunday. I panicked and thought about sending my hubby in a taxi to take our bags to the airport and meeting us later at the Aquarium. When I called Century, they suggested storing our bags at the Cruise Terminal ($3 a bag) and they would take us to the Aquarium as scheduled. Then later they would pick us up at the Aquarium, go back to the Terminal to pick up our luggage, and then drop us off at the Airport. That added leg from the Aquarium to the Terminal and then the airport was only $75 which ended up being cheaper than the Bags program. These guys saved our plans and I highly recommend them as a car service in the Seattle area.

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Embarkation (A): Century Car service was there right on-time to take us to the Cruise Terminal. We booked an Ocean suite so we had priority boarding. It took us about 25 minutes from curbside to the time we were on the boat. The priority line was longer than I expected but it was a lot shorter than the regular line which I appreciated.

 

Cabin (A+), Steward ©: We had an Ocean suite on Deck 6 mid-ship. It was in a very good location and we really enjoyed the extra space. The room had a King bed, couch, chairs, desk, 2 big closets, a vanity/dressing area, dual sinks, bathtub, and a larger balcony. We normally book balcony cabins but we wanted a bathtub for our DD and we wanted the extra space for a playpen that we brought with us. I really liked the separate vanity/dressing area that was next to the bathroom. I would close the sliding door to get ready and not wake anyone up. Our cabin steward was okay. Sorry, I don’t remember her name. When I asked for her to make space in the fridge for my daughter’s milk, she acted like it was a lot of trouble so she barely made enough room for us. I also found some hair in the bathtub when we first checked in. I always bring Lysol spray and wipes so I cleaned it myself but it showed that she doesn’t clean very well. There were a couple of sea days where our room wasn’t cleaned until the evening time. We would sleep in to about 930 then go to breakfast for about an hour and even if we put the “service please” sign on the door, somehow our room was never cleaned before they took their afternoon break. So we would have to wait until they started back up at 6pm to get our room serviced. We were out of the room by 9am on port days so our room was always cleaned by the time we got back. But besides the steward issues, we loved our suite cabin and we’re spoiled now! It will be hard to go back to a regular cabin (until I look at the price tag and then it will be easy, lol).

 

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Vanity/Dressing Area

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One side of one of the closets

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Edited by alohagirl808
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Ship Activities (A): There were lots of ship activities but because of DD, we weren’t able to partake as much as we wanted. We did play penny slots in the casino about 5 out of the 7 days. Some of the slots were tight but there were others that we could play an hour or two on $20. My gambling budget was about $500 for the cruise but I only used $200 so I was happy. My husband only used $100 of his gambling budget. We also used the arcade (which is really expensive, about $1 a game), pool tables, ping-pong tables, and my DS went swimming in the covered pool twice and enjoyed it. The covered pool was always crowded since the weather was mostly nice and the roof helped keep it warm. I went to the Steakhouse cooking demonstration and the food was really good. I wish we had the opportunity to go for dinner but there just wasn’t enough time. Unfortunately even though we wanted to, we didn’t get to see any comedy or regular shows. After the 3rd day, my daughter started refusing to go to Kids club (more on that later) so we weren’t able to have alone time at night to do any of the shows.

 

Dining Room (A+)/Buffet ©: We ate all our breakfasts and lunches at the buffet. Breakfast had the normal choices: eggs, bacon, sausage, oatmeal, grits, yogurt, cereal, danishes, muffins, and omelet stations with alternating days of pancakes, waffles and French toast. For lunch, the hours were weird and because we always ate late (230ish), the regular buffet was never open when we were hungry. They only had the 24hr pizza, Deli station, and outside grill which had chicken strips, hotdogs, fries, and chips/cheese. We also ate dinners at the buffet except for one elegant night that we ate in the Dining Room. The dinner buffet had varying choices but it opened after 530 (I think) and only a few things stuck out like their steak and ham. Overall, the lido buffet was average but I wished that the lunch buffet was open a lot later and the dinner buffet a lot earlier. It just seemed there were a lot of times that were hungry and nothing much was open. The one night we ate in the Dining Room (since the kids were at Camp Carnival), the food and service was excellent! For appetizers, we had the stuffed mushrooms, shrimp cocktail, and pumpkin soup (all excellent). Then we had lobster and shrimp for our main course and chocolate melting cake for dessert (again all excellent). The servers were efficient and we were out in 1 hour! I wish we could have ate in the Dining Room more but just didn't have enough time.

 

Camp Carnival (D): In our past cruises, we could not pull our DS away from Camp Carnival and was hoping that it would be similar during this cruise but it was not the case. My son enjoyed it but he did state that several times the leaders didn’t do what was on the schedule. There was one time he said that 2 boys got into a fight and so the leader punished everyone by taking away the games and making them watch Power Puff Girls. She also was scolding all the kids saying “Shame on you, shame on you”. He went for a couple of hours a day and one day he skipped it all together which unlike him.

My DD went to Camp the first couple of days, both with her age group and also during the night where they would combine the small kids with the big kids after 10pm so she would be with her big brother. After each time, she seemed more hesitant to go back. On the third day we dropped her off to be with her age group. They were doing face painting which she loves and my DH snuck out when it was her turn. We watched the camera monitors to see if she was okay. What we saw was her crying asking for her mommy and daddy and no one was even addressing her. We watched for 5 minutes while she cried and both leaders went about there business not even going up to her to console her or just “it’s okay” or “Mommy and Daddy are coming back”. No, absolutely nothing. As I’m watching the monitor and I see them ignoring, I’m getting more upset by the minute. Finally, I went to get her and I asked the leader, Mariann, if they console the kids or at least say it’s okay….something. And her response was “Well she doesn’t want to be here”. So I said, “Well no wonder she doesn’t want to be here. No one is even addressing her and she’s crying”. So she said “well you can always bring her back during the under 2’s program to play with her”. At that point to keep my cool, I just asked her what her name was so I could put in a complaint. Now my daughter is not new to kids clubs. She goes to our community center’s kids club while my DH and I go to the gym and sometimes it takes her a little bit to warm up to the idea of staying there, but she does go and then by the time we pick her up so wants to stay. She was not having that at Camp Carnival. We tried taking her back during the combined sessions so she could at least be with her big brother and I felt better with him there so he could watch over her, but she outright refused to even try. So, in the past we’ve had good experiences with Camp Carnival, but I think some of the Camp workers on the Miracle had a bad attitude and I would not recommend the Camp on this ship. I even asked the Circle C kids once when we passed through if they like it. Their response was, "Yes but we have no idea where our leader is".

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Tracy Arm (A++ for the small boat excursion)

Wow, what a beautiful day in Tracy Arm :D The weather was nice and sunny and the scenery was just breathtaking. Since I wanted to go on the small boat excursion and my DH didn't, he stayed on the ship with my DD and my DS took the excursion with me. I wanted all of us to go but the minimum age for the small boat excursion is 5. You book the excursion by sending an email (details are on the Carnival shore excursion page) requesting the time you want and they send you a confirmation email in a day or two. Then you get your tickets in your stateroom on the first sea day and don't forget them because you need them to board the boat. It cost $183 for me and $99 for my DS and believe me when I say it was worth every penny! We took the 11am excursion which worked out perfect since we had great weather in the morning and it started to get cloudy in the afternoon. It's a 3 hour tour. The boat, the St Peter, had 3 decks with 2 of them having open decks and 2 having indoor seating. It had a small snack area where they served free hot chocolate. They also had other snacks, some local, that you could purchase. About 15 minutes after our journey started, we spotted a brown bear along the shoreline. It was amazing to see a bear for the first time! Being in the small boat, we were able to pull very close to the shoreline to see it up close.

 

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Then we arrived at the South Sawyer glacier and we slowed down to maneuver around the many icebergs. We got within a quarter mile of the glacier and it was absolutely stunning. The glacier actually calved while we were there (a huge chunk) but I didn’t catch it on camera, just the splash afterwards which you can kind of see in the second picture. We stayed for about 20 minutes or so then we started heading out towards North Sawyer glacier.

 

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This is how close (or shall I say how far) the cruise ship got to this glacier. I took this picture as the small boat approached the cruise ship.

 

 

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And here is the Miracle in Tracy Arm.

 

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Thanks everyone for the positive feedback:D

 

Next, we headed out towards North Sawyer glacier. We got within a few hundred feet of the North glacier and it was just amazing, peaceful, and really cold! Sometimes it was hard finding a good spot to take photos but we managed to swap with other families who would take photos of us and then we’d take photos of them.

 

Speaking of cold, I wore jeans, fur boots, a sweater, thin waterproof jacket, and a scarf which kept me warm most of the time except when we got to the North glacier. It got really cold here that my fingers starting freezing because we got so close. A pair of gloves would have been good here. My son wore a long sleeve shirt, a sweatshirt with hoodie, jeans, thin waterproof jacket, a beanie, and sneakers. He was cold most of the time but he's always cold. We live in Hawaii and we're not used to cold weather :eek:

 

 

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Awesome review so far! We are taking the Legend next summer with our kids, so I'm loving your momma perspective. Your pics are beautiful. :)

 

Same here. We sail June 9th so I'm enjoying the review and the pictures are great! Ready for some more!!!

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Skagway

We rented a car from Avis (with a car seat) and drove the Yukon highway up to Emerald Lake in Canada. The drive took about 6.5 hours total. We followed Murray’s free guide and made lots of stops along the way. It was cloudy and overcast in the morning which made for some beautiful reflection pictures in the lakes. There also seemed to be a lot more mosquitoes in the morning. As soon as we got out of the car, they would attack us and they were huge! So we skipped a bunch of sites on the way up and decided to hit them on the way back which turned out to be a good idea since the sun came out on the return trip and the mosquitoes disappeared by then. Here's some pictures from the drive.

 

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Really enjoying your review , thanks for taking the time to post. We were on the 06/25 sailing and I agree with a lot of your points. We also had an ocean suite midship on deck six , loved the suite , big difference for us was that our cabin steward , Roy , was excellent. One of the best we've had so far. I also agree with your points on the buffet , especially times everything open. Also , on our cruise trying to find a table , especially for breakfast and lunch was a madhouse. People just circling with their trays waiting for a table. We also did the small boat in Tracy Arm and loved it.

 

Thanks again for the review , especially the pictures. Bringing back a lot of great memories

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We drove for about 2 hours and stopped at Carcross for a little bit. We had some ice cream and used the restrooms at the visitors center. We also stamped our passports at the general store.

 

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Train station

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Edited by alohagirl808
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Then as we were driving up to Emerald Lake, we saw a car stopped on the side of the road and realized that there was big black bear about 25 feet from us eating some berries!! So we stopped and I got out of the car to take a few pics. From what I understand now, getting out of the car was a bad idea even if I was standing right next to the car. But it was amazing to see another bear and up close too!

 

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We watched the bear for about 5 minutes and then he started heading back into the woods. So we continued on to Emerald Lake and the Carcross desert (which is the smallest desert in the world) to take more pictures.

 

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Really enjoying your review , thanks for taking the time to post. We were on the 06/25 sailing and I agree with a lot of your points. We also had an ocean suite midship on deck six , loved the suite , big difference for us was that our cabin steward , Roy , was excellent. One of the best we've had so far. I also agree with your points on the buffet , especially times everything open. Also , on our cruise trying to find a table , especially for breakfast and lunch was a madhouse. People just circling with their trays waiting for a table. We also did the small boat in Tracy Arm and loved it.

 

Thanks again for the review , especially the pictures. Bringing back a lot of great memories

 

Thanks for the kind words and I'm happy to hear that I wasn't delusional in some of my assessments:D But even with those negatives, it was still an awesome cruise! I'm still on a high from the trip:)

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alohagirl, thanks for your review and your amazing photos. We were on the 7/15 sailing as well and were on the 11 am Tracy Arm small boat - we probably tripped over each other taking pictures.:o Your brown bear photos are much better than ours!

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alohagirl, thanks for your review and your amazing photos. We were on the 7/15 sailing as well and were on the 11 am Tracy Arm small boat - we probably tripped over each other taking pictures.:o Your brown bear photos are much better than ours!

 

We probably did trip over each other (or ran into each other on the ship). It was tough sometimes to get a good spot against the rail. If the families that swapped with us didn't do so, we wouldn't have gotten good family pics in front of the glaciers! I'm glad you like the review so far. I like writing it since it helps me to relive the trip!!

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