Carnival Miracle 5/6/18 - My Review and What I Learned On This Cruise

Well, we just got home a few hours ago after a looooong drive from Tampa after spending a week on the Carnival Miracle!

A little too tired to write much now, but I'm off work tomorrow, so I'll add more then.

Stay tuned!

Side note: I must apologize to my fellow CC shipmates that I didn't attend the Meet & Mingle. I found my invitation in a pile of various flyers couple hours after the scheduled time. So, unfortunately I missed meeting y'all...well I may have met or seen some of y'all, just wouldn't have known if you were a CC member or not! :D

Look forward to your review... if you happened to take photos of the daily fun times or menus can you post those as well please... we sail out on the miracle the 27th... 13 more days, so excited

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Also, I saved my FunTimes, so I'll be scanning and posting links to them soon.

Sweet.. thank you

Hopefully you have time this week.. that would be awesome to have before I go the follow week... thanks again

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Can't wait to read!! I'm excited to see the FunTimes too!:hearteyes:;p

Alright, here we go.

We arrived in Tampa on Friday night and met up with the In-Laws at the Sailport Waterfront Suites. We had a 2-bedroom suite, it had a kitchen, living room, 2 bathrooms and a balcony. I wasn't fancy, but it was fine for 2 nights and it was only $200 a night, which is less than what we would have spent for two rooms at other hotels.

Sunday morning just before 10 AM, we loaded up the car and headed to Port Tampa Bay Terminal 3. It took awhile to get down Channelside Dr to the terminal, but once we got the luggage unloaded, and my FIL and I took the cars to the parking garage, it was pretty easy getting checked in and on the ship. We had FTTF, which we thought was worth it. They were boarding Wedding and D&P guests as we were checking in, and almost as soon as we sat down at the FTTF row, they called us to start boarding. We were on the ship and to our cabins around 11:30.

Boarding the Miracle was different than any other ship I've boarded. You go across from the terminal on the zig-zag gangway over to the exterior promenade on deck 3 and enter the ship at the midships elevators. Now, here's a tip, 4 of these elevators are being used for luggage and such so they are locked out, so this leaves only the 3 glass elevators and it creates congestion. But, if you stroll down further and take the aft elevators, you can get up to your cabin or Lido much faster. We were in 6226 and 6228 and the aft elevators were the best way to get up and down for us.

Having FTTF we were able to go right to our cabins and dropped off our carry-on bags, freshened up a bit and headed to Lido for lunch. It was still early, so it wasn't too crowded yet, so we managed to get food and a table pretty quickly. A waiter came by and we got our mandatory first Funship drinks of the cruise :D

After lunch we got another round of drinks and explored the ship a bit and found our muster station. The muster drill was another thing that was different than on our previous cruises. Instead of meeting at an interior lounge, we were to to report directly to the outdoor muster station and they lined us up and as soon as everyone was there, they did the safety spiel and the horns blew and we were dismissed. It didn't seem to take as long as in the past. So, we went and sat down at Gotham lounge and waited a few minutes for the crowds to disperse and then headed to the cabin to get ready for dinner.

So, all and all, not a bad first day. Next I'll discuss my impressions of our cabin and the public areas.

I love hear about the ships we're about to board!

Did they have a White Party on your sailing?

I love hear about the ships we're about to board!

Did they have a White Party on your sailing?

I don't remember seeing anything about there being one. The only party type event I remember was an 80's Glow Party.

And now to the cabin:

We were in 6226, which is classified as a midships cabin, but was closer to being aft. It was an extended balcony cabin, which gives you a bit more room outwards than a standard balcony, but your downward view is of lifeboats. The cabin itself was pretty standard and some of the furnishings were a little worse for wear, but not too bad. The bed was very comfortable, not too soft, but not too firm, and the bedding was very nice, the pillows were nice and fluffy! Now, the temperature in the room was a different story, even set at the coolest setting, our A/C never got the cabin cool enough for our liking. Last year on the Ecstasy it stayed like an icebox and we loved it! :D The bathroom was a good size for a cruise ship and had little shelves on both sides of the huge mirror and those held pretty much all our toiletries. Our cabin steward Reggie kept everything clean and promptly picked up our laundry when we called, but other than that, we barely ever saw him.

Now, it's been like 10 years since I was on the Pride, and DH and my In-laws have never been on a Spirit Class ship, so we all had to learn our way around the ship. It was a bit confusing at first, being used to Fantasy class ships with their "like riding a bike" layout and everything being up above the cabin decks, but after a day or so, we got it figured out. We liked the decor, with it's nod to literary characters and various styles of artwork. A couple areas were a bit over the top *cough* Bacchus *cough*, but all and all pretty nice. The Lido and the Promenade could get kinda crowded at times, the Mad Hatter's Ball lounge where the Punchliner Comedy was filled up every for show and you had to get there almost 30 minutes early to get a good seat. But other than that, the ship as a whole never felt too crowded.

I'll be back later with our dining experiences and follow up with some tips and tricks I learned.

Great review.. can't wait to hear more

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Thanks again for the review. Glad to hear muster went by quickly. I have a few more questions!

What time was muster? Did the ship leave the port on time? The Miracle is new to us. We sailed on the Paradise out of Tampa once. Really liked the port. Got to meet "Captain Carnival" who played music for us and kept us entertained while we waited to board. (The Paradise was late that day.)

I haven't been on the Miracle since 2008 I think... but at the time I loved it. I loved the "Fountainhead" area and that yummy desert café (will never forget that white forest cake... to die for). I liked that it was a more subtle layout. I live in Tampa so I hope to go on it again soon!

Thanks again for the review. Glad to hear muster went by quickly. I have a few more questions!

What time was muster? Did the ship leave the port on time? The Miracle is new to us. We sailed on the Paradise out of Tampa once. Really liked the port. Got to meet "Captain Carnival" who played music for us and kept us entertained while we waited to board. (The Paradise was late that day.)

They started making muster drill announcements at 3:30 on the dot and it started at 4. As we were lining up, there were a few last minute passenger arrivals. After everyone was accounted for, the Captain came on the PA system and after he finished speaking and the CD started with the safety info, we were starting to depart. So, we pretty much left on time.

Great! Thank you.

I haven't been on the Miracle since 2008 I think... but at the time I loved it. I loved the "Fountainhead" area and that yummy desert café (will never forget that white forest cake... to die for). I liked that it was a more subtle layout. I live in Tampa so I hope to go on it again soon!

We loved the Fountianhead Cafe too, we are big coffee drinkers, so it was our first stop every morning. Savina and Apple were the baristas we've ever had on a cruise. We shared a slice of the carrot cake one night and it was reeeeeally good!! :D

Okay, on to dining.

I would love to be able to say that we had an awesome overall dining experience, but unfortunately, I can't. Some was really good, some was average, some was pretty disappointing.

MDR: We had early assigned dining and were seated in a booth for 4. We only ate dinner here the first 3 nights, after that we opted for the Lido. This is why; we had a team of 3 waiters who were very disorganized, the first night I can forgive and understand, but they made little to no effort to try to remember our names or preferences for the next two nights after that. The Head Team Waiter acted totally disinterested and almost to the point of being rude, the Assistant Team Waiters were friendly enough, but English was definitely not their strong suit, they were very hard to understand and we had to repeat ourselves a lot and really seemed like the head waiter had to tell them how to do everything and he acted very frustrated with them. That part aside, the food came out pretty quickly, but the quality was inconsistent, now most dishes we had were good, there were others that totally missed the mark. But really the overall experience was kinda poor compared to previous cruises, so when it got to the fourth night, we just didn't feel like going there anymore and gave the Lido a shot, now this is were it gets better.

Lido dinner: OMG! The food was surprisingly good! This was some of the best food I have ever eaten in a buffet, some things were the best I've eaten period! a few of the highlights from the 3 nights we ate there were; perfectly cooked salmon, moist and delicious, the flat iron steaks, I got med rare and DH got med well and both were perfect, we forgot to grab steak knives, but it didn't matter, because we could cut them with our butter knives! The carvery items like roast pork leg, leg of lamb, and roasted turkey were excellent! Other items of mention were fried shrimp, spanakopita, fried stuffed mushrooms, frutti di mare pasta, and veal parmesan that was better than what I had in the MDR. I can highly recommend having dinner in the Lido on the Miracle!

Other meals like breakfast, brunch, lunch and snacks were all pretty much of the usual Carnival standard we have experienced before. All pretty good, but nothing outstanding. The old style Off the Grill was pretty good, as was Chopsticks. The deli was still the old menu and every sandwich was made to order, and we enjoyed it. the pizza was as good as always. The regular lunch buffet items that I tried ranged from good to mediocre and the salad bar was good and fresh. Lido breakfast was decent and had the usual offerings. it was good for a quick meal and then off to our port day plans. Sea day brunch was good the first day, the last day wasn't quite as good.

I tried the Sushi at Sea one day for lunch and it was really good, equal to the kinda pricey sushi place near home.

Now lastly, I come to the steakhouse. Oh I really hate that I can't can't write the glowing review I was expecting to be able to write. We went to Nick and Nora's on the last night to celebrate Mother's Day for my MIL, and we had been looking forward to it all week, thought it'd be a perfect ending to our cruise, but unfortunately it was not. It started well, our servers were friendly and professional, brought us some bread and a pea soup amuse bouche, followed by their Caesar salads and my jumbo shrimp cocktail, all were excellent. That's were the good ended and the trouble began. I ordered the Grilled Prime Cowboy Steak, everyone else ordered the Filet Mignon, and we all got the Yukon gold mash. Well, my FIL and I both ordered our steaks med rare, MIL and DH ordered theirs med well, what we got was bloody rare for mine, medium for FIL, and almost well done for DH and MIL.To add insult to injury, the potatoes were of the consistency and flavor of instant mash. Our server came back over and well, my In-laws are the "we don't want to be any trouble" type and even though I know they weren't happy with it, they said theirs was fine, I pointed out that mine was under-cooked and DH's was over-cooked and she apologized and said she'd take care of it and took the steaks away. I encouraged my in-laws to go ahead and eat so theirs wouldn't just sit there and get cold, and they began to pick at their food pretending to comply, you gotta love them Our server returns a little while later with my same steak, cut out pieces and all, sloppily re-plated, and now just a little pink inside, DH receives a butterflied Filet that is medium and obviously they just tried to cook it on the fly. Okay, I was a little irritated before, now I'm getting upset that now that what was supposed to be a very special dinner was becoming a huge disappointment. I could expect this to happen at a chain restaurant that doesn't specialize in steaks, but at a restaurant that bills itself as a premium steak house, this isn't what I expected. To make a long story short (too late), I spoke to both the maitre d and the manager and they apologized and our meal was comped. We all left very disappointed that it wasn't the perfect night we had thought it would be. I think it must have been an off night for them, because as the manager was finishing talking to me, a server came over and told him that there was a guest who wished to speak to him and I looked over and saw a large party at a table and they didn't look happy.

Oh well, we went for drinks and made the best out of the rest of the night.

Back with more in a few.

Okay, just a couple things I learned with Cheers:

We had Cheers for the first time this cruise and it was nice to get pretty much what we wanted and not worry about the price tag. I feel we got our money's worth out of it even with 4 ports. We learned that if you order an alcoholic drink, you can order a non-alcoholic drink at the same time without having to wait 5 minutes between (say for example, you can get a cocktail and a soda together or a beer and a bottle of water together) or if you order a specialty coffee you can get a bottle of water with it. This wasn't a case of just one bartender skirting the rules, it was anytime we ordered at any bar. This is something I hadn't heard about before going and I don't know if it's something new, so I'd thought I'd share that.

We hit up the coffee bar a good bit and learned you're not just limited to the menu, you can pretty much customize your drink in several ways, my morning go to was a triple espresso with amaretto syrup and milk. Everything at the coffee bar is all included in Cheers, with the exception of one thing, Odwalla bottled smoothies, they are $3.99 a piece.

I'm gonna take a break for a bit, when I come back I'll cover the ports and the spa.

Are you able to post the fun times along with your port reviews? You are doing an awesome review btw... loving it

Great job, very useful

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Are you able to post the fun times along with your port reviews? You are doing an awesome review btw... loving it

Great job, very useful

 

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Thanks! :D

And I'm going to scan them at work tomorrow , I don't have anyway to do it here, and I'll post them when I get home.

Thanks! :D

 

And I'm going to scan them at work tomorrow , I don't have anyway to do it here, and I'll post them when I get home.

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@scuzzy

Hope you have time to do another update tonight your review so far is awesome. We will be on the same ship in like 11 days and we're so excited

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Alrighty, sorry for the delay, I had a rough first day back at work yesterday, didn't get a chance to scan anything and came home dead tired, so yeah, but today I got everything that I thought might be useful to y'all scanned and uploaded today. Follow the links below for Fun Times and others.

Fun Times:

https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B0a2OsBJMKAaV1ZoeTdMUDRmdlk0VklHXy1uR2Z5VTFiWWVJ

https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B0a2OsBJMKAaZDc5QzZYNGtjSTFXYk5lUjB1TnVLRkxUVGZR

Tendering info:

https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B0a2OsBJMKAaRlc4QVZYb0kwVmVjeFEtMHNCUzJrdmxTSEc0

FTTF info:

https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B0a2OsBJMKAaZ0stUktuT0dURk5fSkZfT0hSVTFtVlpDX1Fr

Misc. Info:

https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B0a2OsBJMKAaMjA2MFd0U1FCdkFWZkFEU3NFS2dwc2gxU2pJ

This is great... when you have a moment to breathe we would love to hear about your port days.. glad you had such a wonderful time

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Thanks for the review, look forward to more. We set sail may 27

Okay, on to ports:

Cozumel: We all had spa appointments in the morning, In-laws did a couples massage and we all had pedicures, we all enjoyed our spa services. After a quick lunch, we headed off the ship and did a little shopping and exploring the port area. After almost a couple hours, we headed back to the ship and found a good spot to watch for pier runners :D and there were a few to our ship and to the Fantasy that was also docked there that day.

Belize: We booked the Altun Ha & City Tour excursion for here. We met at the SkyBox sports bar and a guest services person escorted us down to the tender and after the boat filled up, we were on our way. The water was very calm and the ride was pretty smooth and it took about 15 minutes from ship to pier. We easily found our tour group and were loaded on to the bus and left out on time. The city tour was interesting to say the least, Belize City wasn't quite as bad as I was imagining it would be, but still pretty poor. The city streets were in rough shape in several places and made for a bit of a bumpy ride. Our guide was very informative and we saw some of the wealthier areas along the waterfront and the Prime Minister's house, passed thru some of the poorer areas and then out of the city. The road out to Altun Ha was actually in pretty good shape and we saw a good bit of the countryside, we made a couple of stops for our guide to point out some interesting local plant life, including a tree covered in cactus and a cashew tree laden with fruit with the "nut", our guide got out and grabbed one off the ground for us to get a closer look at. We finally arrived at Altun Ha and we were guided around and a local guide told us about the history of the ruins and the Mayans who inhabited the area. We got an opportunity to actually climb the pyramids and explore on our own and shop at a small marketplace where locals are selling souvenirs and handicrafts. We got back on the bus and returned to the city and saw abit more of it and then returned to the cruise terminal. It was a pretty good and interesting experience.

Mahogany Bay, Isla Roatan: We did the Relax on the beach package that included a round-trip on the chairlift and lounge chairs, a clameshell and two floats. It was no Half Moon Cay, but it was nice and a good beach day.

Grand Cayman: We slept in a bit and had a leisurely breakfast and waited around until they announced there was no longer a wait for tendering and rode over. We didn't have anything pre-planed and we found a local taxi tour and took a 2 hour trip around the West End. We saw the Turtle Farm and Dolphin center, the Tortuga rum cake store, 7-mile beach, governor's residence and various other points of interest. Our driver/guide Hyacinth was very knowledgeable, informative and entertaining. We got back to the terminal and did a little shopping and it started raining, so we tendered back to the ship.

Well, it's bedtime, I'll be back with more tomorrow.