Just off the Miracle to Hawaii 12/6 - 12/21

[cwb34]

Please take everything said in this review with a grain of salt. I am sorry that they had high seas and bad weather, but.....

Four of us were on the 16 day Hawaii on September 18 that started in Vancouver and ended in Long Beach (Carnival Miracle, also).

We had the very best time! As frequent cruisers, we have a lot to compare to and the Miracle was wonderful. Food was great, service was great, and Hawaii is now my very favorite itinerary. It was our first time there, and every port was spectacular. We rented cars on each island and loved every one of our days in port. Carnival went out of their way to provide special touches for this extended cruise - a Hawaiian party with free drinks, decorations, ice sculptures; Polynesian entertainers flown in from Oahu (on the day you are in Maui), and specialty items on the menu. We thoroughly enjoyed everything about this cruise - the Miracle, its crew, the islands, and the sea days - and are thinking about doing it again in 2016.

[love my grandkids]

Please take everything said in this review with a grain of salt. I am sorry that they had high seas and bad weather, but.....

Four of us were on the 16 day Hawaii on September 18 that started in Vancouver and ended in Long Beach (Carnival Miracle, also).

We had the very best time! As frequent cruisers, we have a lot to compare to and the Miracle was wonderful. Food was great, service was great, and Hawaii is now my very favorite itinerary. It was our first time there, and every port was spectacular. We rented cars on each island and loved every one of our days in port. Carnival went out of their way to provide special touches for this extended cruise - a Hawaiian party with free drinks, decorations, ice sculptures; Polynesian entertainers flown in from Oahu (on the day you are in Maui), and specialty items on the menu. We thoroughly enjoyed everything about this cruise - the Miracle, its crew, the islands, and the sea days - and are thinking about doing it again in 2016.

 

Only complaint we had was due to propulsion problems we didnt get the Hawaii experience we expected. Everything else was fine or even better.

[lynda037]

OP, thank you for your review of the Miracle. We are on the next Hawaiian cruise on the Miracle that they have in January, so the information you shared is etremely helpful. I am sorry you had such a bad time. Was Hawaii at least worth going to?

 

I'm so sorry to say, i saved for a long time to go on this Cruise to Hawaii, and I honestly would have to say it is not worth going when you don't get to go to the ports you booked it to go to. I had something planned for each day, and I did have a good time, because I will always make the best of a bad situation, but for the trip that I was so excited to go to HAWAII, I did not get to enjoy HAWAII, I did enjoy the ship, but I could have don that cruising anyplace for a lot less. I hope you don't experiance what we did, this was our 4th cruise and I've always loved evey minute of every cruise, I can't say it for this one

Edited December 28, 2014 by lynda037

[lynda037]

OP, thank you for your review of the Miracle. We are on the next Hawaiian cruise on the Miracle that they have in January, so the information you shared is etremely helpful. I am sorry you had such a bad time. Was Hawaii at least worth going to?

 

I'm so sorry to say, i saved for a long time to go on this Cruise to Hawaii, and I honestly would have to say it is not worth going when you don't get to go to the ports you booked it to go to. I had something planned for each day, and I did have a good time, because I will always make the best of a bad situation, but for the trip that I was so excited to go to HAWAII, I did not get to enjoy HAWAII, I did enjoy the ship, but I could have don that cruising anyplace for a lot less. I hope you don't experiance what we did, this was our 4th cruise and I've always loved everything about it, First time at the Steak House, it was Amazing

[lynda037]

Only complaint we had was due to propulsion problems we didnt get the Hawaii experience we expected. Everything else was fine or even better.

CWB34 I am jealous of your cruise to Hawaii, unfortunately this was not the case Dec 6th 2014

[jakeT]

We were on the Oct cruise. Can someone please explane what ports were missed or late getting into ??

[YourCruiseGurl]

We were on the Oct cruise. Can someone please explane what ports were missed or late getting into ??

 

 

We missed Maui and were late to Ensenada. We spent a day and a half in Kona. Hilo was shortened as well.

[love my grandkids]

We missed Maui and were late to Ensenada. We spent a day and a half in Kona. Hilo was shortened as well.

 

One of the highlights of our trip was to be Volcano nat park on Hilo.

 

We were supposed to get there about 8 am and had an 8 hour tour booked.

 

As it turned out we got in about 2 pm with sunset about 5 pm. As a result we cancelled our tour and hooked up with two other couples and rented a van and drove right there. Very interesting place and we just had time to see a few things including walking thru the lava tube.

 

Nice day and enjoyed what we could.

 

Contrast this though with Carnival tour. First stop was macadamian nut factory for about an hour and than drove the Nat park arriving about 5 pm in time for it to start getting dark and on top of it started to rain.

 

Asked someone on this tour why they went to nut factory first and it was because it closed at 5 pm. As if it wouldnt have stayed open later to get busloads of people.

 

Just another reason we do our tours privately.

[arby70]

It sounds like the OP did have a lot of problems on his cruise and it would be bad to have all that stuff happen; especially on a longer cruise like this. I hope all the problems will be taken care of during her dry dock.

 

I never expect to have a perfect cruise. It's just not possible to attain that level. Mother Nature is involved here, so we have to take what she dishes out. I don't particularly care for rough seas, but I know they can happen. The brown water thing...Ugh!!! We are going on this same cruise, but in January of 2016. That is the only time that will work for us. I hope the weather is not too bad then, but I also know it's winter.

 

We were on the Miracle last June to Alaska and thought the dining room food was pretty good. We didn't eat there every night, but plan to eat there a lot more on this next cruise due to all the sea days. The buffet was good for breakfast (to us it was better than the dining room) and lunch was okay too. Dinner was okay in the buffet, but I thought the dining room was much better. But as has been said many times before, food is very subjective.

 

I was very satisfied with the ship and how it was kept, and the crew was also very nice.

[goaties]

I have to say that the October cruise to Hawaii was almost perfect. 4 of us had a very good time. It is what you make it. Yes it was cold, yes it rained, yes we misssed Ensenada almost, yes we ate too much. We did enjoy Hawaii and please go see the islands. I went 30 years ago and i flew there. This time i sailed there. I would do it again in a heartbeat if i could afford it. Hawaii is beautifull.... Please plan on going there whichever way you can get there. Beauty is worth every minute to see it. Enjoy your cruises. there will always be something wrong in life. Just make it enjoyable and move on....

[cruznjan]

We're cruising to Hawaii November 28 on the Miracle, and I've read all the horror stories. I've cruised more than once in rough weather, and with propulsion problems. My thing is I'm on a cruise, and I'm making the best of it.

[goaties]

I do know someone on this cruise and they were comped $600.00 for missing a port because of weather. I do not think Carnival had to do that and also gave them a 25% off on a future cruise with Carnival. I was late to Ensenada so i guess i deserve 25% off my future cruise. LOL.

[love my grandkids]

It was nice that Carnival did give us back quite a lot due to missing port and rearranging Hawaii.

 

However still maintain with propulsion problems they shouldnt have kept doing the Hawaii run.

 

Wonder how the Jan cruise to Hawaii went?

[got2bachef]

I do know someone on this cruise and they were comped $600.00 for missing a port because of weather. I do not think Carnival had to do that and also gave them a 25% off on a future cruise with Carnival. I was late to Ensenada so i guess i deserve 25% off my future cruise. LOL.

 

We were comped $200 per person, and we missed Maui and arrived 5 hours late to Hilo, at 4pm, only 3 hours in Kona on the day we were going to make a 2nd attempt to Maui...and had perfect weather returning and we still arrived 5 hours late to Ensanada....Please get your facts straight before you criticize....

[flahagan]

I wonder if there is ever a "good time" to sail to Hawaii. We did the Miracle from Vancouver to Long Beach the last two weeks of Sept., 2013, and there were several days going over and back that we could barely walk - all the outside decks were sealed off, waves were crashing above the lower decks, it was really a roller coaster. We had about 1 1/2 days going over and the same coming back that were OK, that was it.

 

We had mostly lovely but HOT weather in Hawaii (and I live in Florida). I thought the best part of the trip was getting up early and watching the approaches to the islands - really gorgeous. We really enjoyed the ship, though, other than getting grossed out by 4 or 5 truly morbidly obese people who literally hogged the hot tubs - nobody else could fit in and they stayed in there for hours!

 

I thought Carnival did a very good job with the naturalist talks onboard, the Hawaiian singer who stayed with the cruise and the special luau performers brought onboard the evening we were in Maui. We enjoyed all the food and the service was great.

 

That said, I'd never care to repeat this cruise - as I said, we live in Florida and have much nicer beaches here. I did love Kauai though - that was truly gorgeous and would be the only island I might travel that far again to see.