Miracle Review 8/7-8/14 Part 1

[alprzy]

I just returned yesterday from the Miracle with my wife, daughter (20) and son (17). New York to Part Canaveral, Nassau, Freeport, back to NY. I took a bus from central CT to Port Authority and hopped a cab from there to the piers. Arrived at the piers about 11:30, traffic was brutal all around the area, very glad I didn't drive and park. Our first Carnival experience, but our third cruise overall. Royal Carribean to Bermuda and NCL Sun were the others. I signed in the Cruise Critics Log Book located in the Library, the prior entry was 7/18. Get in there and jot down a note if you're going on this ship!!!!

 

Weather was great for the week, dodged a couple of hurricanes or tropical depressions but sailing was real smooth. Had 5-7 foot action for a couple hours on the way back from Freeport which was nothing. This ship sails extremely steady. Full capacity, 2600+ on board, not a cabin available.

 

Embarkation: Smooth as silk. I dropped the luggage with the porters curbside. Took about 10 minutes waiting in line for one. Proceeded into the big hall and did the usual security stuff, all pretty painless. We waited about 10 minutes in line for the check in. had the fun pass paperwork filled out but they also handed us an entry form for the Bahamas which had to be filled out while you were moving rather quickly in line, no pens anywhere. Luckily we found one and rushed through filling out 4 of these in about 5 minutes. Would be a nice idea, since they know ahead of time that you are going to the Bahamas, to include one of those in your cruise package so it can be filled out earlier. Anyway, the sign in was quick and were on the ship by 12:10. Our cabin wasn't ready until 1, so we took advantage of the early lunch at Horatio's. I'll talk about them later.

 

Cabin: I'm from the mindset of getting the lower costing/smaller cabin since the amount of time you spend there is minimal yada, yada, yada... and this was our second vacation of the summer, sort of a bonus, so I was trying to keep expenses reasonable.

Well this one changed my mind. The 4 of us have traveled together in a single cabin and survived nicely. The advertisements for the Miracle say that the rooms are X % bigger than all other cruiselines or something like that, so we felt it was an OK chance to survive again. Wrong. We had an inside aft cabin on the 6th deck Empress. It was the smallest room I had ever seen. No joke. On the last day I measured it for Ha Ha's, and I came up with 162 square feet. Including bathroom and closets. After a good laugh, we got unpacked. Lets put it this way, we were a very close family last week. All in all, we did survive, but I learned that if the 4 of us ever cruise as a family again it will be in a larger room or seperate. The beds were ultra comfortable, just perfect. There was ample closet space for 2, but we jammed in 4. The 4 life jackets took about 1/3 of a closet and I wasn't moving those!! 4 Suitcases fit nicely under the beds. The 2 second beds were from the ceiling and when turned down at night including the ladders they put out, it was pretty comical. It made for some funny pictures with the kids and we have some good cruise memories from the laughs. Honestly, the only time it was a pain was changing for dinner. We had to do it in shifts. The balcony cabins seemed appreciably larger from my random peeks I caught during the week. As about 80% of the ship is balcony, have no fear- you'll most likely be in good shape. The bathroom was great, larger than I expected. Ample room for toiletries, shower was large, plenty of on demand shower gel and shampoo. Also a nice 19" TV which was nice since we had the opening night of the Olympics, and while in the cabin we had it on. I took all the stuff out of the refrigirator and put in wine. Steward had no problem with that. Wife and I are wine drinkers for the most part. I brought on 8 bottles worth (6 litres). I found some decent boxed wine in our local store, not the basic stuff you see everywhere. Boxed in 3 litre cartons you can now get some extremely good California, French and Australian wines. About $17-$29 for 3 litres. These were great for travelling, we brought on 2 of them. Also used a Coke plastic bottle for Amaretto and a Sprite plastic bottle for my Peppermint Schnaaps we like after dinner. NO problems at all bringing on board.

 

Room Steward: Nice fellow. But there when you didn't need or want him and not around when you did. My needs are ice, clean towels couple times a day, clean wine/rocks glasses, and turndown service. We're neat people and he doesn't have to pick up after us. I gave him an envelope on day 2 with an extra gratuity, knowing that the 4 of us were going to go through towels and glasses, and would like them stocked. I rarely, if ever, got glasses restocked daily. The room was originally set with 4 water glasses, 4 rocks glasses, 4 wine and 4 chamapgne glasses. When I did find him and ask for glasses, it took at least a day to see them, and then not the ones I asked for. Since we took wine from our room to walk around the ship, we would stop by for refills and eventually during the evening leave the empty glasses in a lounge. Nice thing, we would make a drink up in our room and could go in any lounge or bar with it, no questions. But I still did more than my fair share of buying cocktails on board. Anyway, Steward was average at best.

 

The Ship: She is just beautiful. Bow to Stern we all found her public areas just spectacular. Albeit, sometimes a bit overdone in decoration, it is just a beauty of a ship.

 

The Lounges: All extremely nicely decorated, usually nearly empty most of the night and can get seating anywhere. The hot spots were Frankie and Johnnie's which had live music nightly, Frankensteins Lounge which after 11 p.m. is available to the 16 and over crowd and stays open and rockin until at least 3 a.m.. and Mad Hatters Ball (I liked this one) which had the Karoake nightly and the late adult comedian shows. I preferred the Gotham Lounge which had a Jazz trio most nights and they were just terrific, cigar smoking allowed here, and cigars sold here too. Couple of times passengers got up and jammed on guitar and drums with the band, nice touch. Sam's piano bar was almost always empty, the nightly player just didn't do it for me either. Maguires Sports bar was Ok, saw some of the Olympics there and they had on Monday night football. Must be 20 TV's in there, all flat screen, nice set up. Daily drink specials in most lounges for $2.95, beers were $3.75 for Corona's, Cosmo's were $5.95 or $7.95 if you wanted premium vodka. I thought the prices were certainly reasonable for the most part. We dine out alot and can easily pay more than that at any local restaurant. Wines ranged from $4.25 per glass to the extremes if you wanted to. Our 8 bottles worth didn't last the whole week, but it was a good move.

 

The Food: I personally, as well as my family, thought the food was very good. Not excellent, but most evenings had a choice that suited us. I tried several different types of foods but ended up with a meat selection for the entree on most nights. NY strip was good, Chateaubriand was a bit rare for me, it came either rare or medium well-nothing in the middle? Lobster tails were good, mine (2 of them) were not rubbery. Very good size too. Beef Wellington was good, although I took off the goose liver that was on top. It did permeate the flavor of the beef but was still good. Soups, salads and starters were all very good. Desserts were always good and had choices that appealed to us every night. Upon request, Chef made us cherries jubilee on last night. Just for our table, was very nice of them. It's my wife's favorite dessert, and she was sad not to see it on the menu during the week, so we asked our server if it was upcoming, and she said no. But came back a bit later and had arranged it for us. Nice touch.

We had breakfast every morning and most lunches in the main dining room, while cruising I'm not a buffet lover. The lunch selections were just great. Much better than the upstairs Hometown Buffet stuff.

The Grand midnight buffet was on Thursday night, we took pictures but didn't wait in the long lines to eat. Was mostly dessert stuff. Actually went back to our room and ordered room service instead. After midnight until 1:30, Horatio's upstairs had a nice offering of salmon steaks, buffalo wings, soup, barbecued pulled pork grinders, fries, rings etc. This was about the only time I ate there during the week except for day 1, and it served the purpose. My wife and I did it almost nightly.

Room service menu was good and delivered quickly.

 

Part 2 coming right up

[miketbone]

WHAT TIME DO THE SHUTTLE BUSES STOP RUNNING AFTER YOU DROP THE RENTAL CAR OFF. iF I MISS IT,ANY CABS AROUND:confused: :p :p :eek: :cool:

[NJsharon]

Thanks so much for taking the time to type out this review... really great review. Nice to know what to expect or to look forward to, appreciate it. ;)

 

~Sharon~

[Lefty1]

i am scheduled for miracle 8/21 - a little nervous with the storms - was it really okay - a lot of message boards state ships know in advance to avoid ships yet people comment about rough seas and boat rocks - is it really that bad.

now about the miracle - we want to get there by 11:00 hopefully we will be on board by noon - we are on the verandah deck - can we bring a case of water and if so do we have to hide it.

how was the pool area - was it crowded?

any other reviews to share we would like to hear it.

don't forget u need to write a part II

[alprzy]

Lefty, Carry on water should be no problem. I figured the refrigirator would hold about just under a case of soda cans, I put wine in there so it's just an estimate. The seas were no problem, this ship is steady. I was deck 6 aft and it was great. I think the cruise in process may have some rougher seas. Only seeing 5-8 foot swells was no issue at all. Pool areas are very crowded. I stayed at the adult pool on deck 9 aft. Still crowded but a little quieter. My kids are 20/17. Part 2 just posted, part 3 in about an hour.

 

alprzy

[MrPete]

I Would be a nice idea, since they know ahead of time that you are going to the Bahamas, to include one of those in your cruise package so it can be filled out earlier.

The Bahamas form should have been in your cruise packette. Ours was. With the Funpass, it was the easiest and quickest embarkation I've ever had.

 

Thanks for the review. I was beginning to think the fizzle was going out of the Miracle, as weekly reviews out of NY were becoming hard to come by.

[alprzy]

MrPeteLI,

 

Yeagh, would have been nice to have the Bahama papers ahead of time. No one had them. we received them after security check. Hardest thing was filling them out while moving so quick through the embarkation line (so not a real problem). It was the smoothest I've seen. Getting there early helped. Never been on a ship that quick. Welcome aboard lunch had no lines yet, now that's quick. Saw your post in the log book in the library, not many after yours though, couldn't figure it out. I think anyone who sails her will have a ball. Moves to Baltimore soon, the crew we spoke with said they heard up to 10 days in drydock to do the repairs required on one of the engines.

 

AlPrzy

[MrPete]

Saw your post in the log book in the library, not many after yours though, couldn't figure it out.

I felt like an idiot, but did it anyway. It was locked most of the times I went there, so I got this determined feeling I needed to accomplish something.

 

:confused: :confused: :confused:

[JenAMR]

I too was on the Miracle out of NYC 8/7. I agree that it was the easiest embarkation EVER. The traffic getting to the pier is a little crazy (I had drop-off/pick-up service) and then when you are dropped off because the old passengers are still around trying to getpicked up the porters aren't right there to take your luggage so you have to carry (cart) them yourselves for just a little bit..however, once you checked your luggage in it was so easy, smooth, and fast. We were also eating lunch around 12.

 

I don't have time to go into much detail right now (had a great time even though it wasn' the greatest cruise I've taken) - but a few things stand out: I rarely love my room stewards over my waiters but this time it was my two stewards who exceeded my expectations and my waiter and his non-existing assistant who didn't even meet them. My biggest complaint was the fact that I told my waiter (btw, the assistant was never introduced, rarely available and it took him minimum 10 minutes to do anything - get more water, which we had to ask for; see a wine list; replace a fork, etc.) on the very first night that I am vegetarian and I don't eat any meat, fish, or poultry. Now, I have been on cruises in the past and have been a vegetarian for over 20 years - I have never ever encountered the problems I had on this cruise. My waiter continued to recommend items on teh menu for me that have meat (or meat products such as beef stock) in them. The first time it happened, I thought it was an accident. From that point on I specificallyh asked can you find out if this is vegetarian. He ignored this request and he then proceeded to point out items that had meat in them (but didn't say it in the description) and twice I ate meat. Our ass't maitre d helped us after this second incident (oh the upstairs maitre d was also non-existent) and came over to talk about what happened. Our waiter then told her that he first recommended the buffalo mozz and tom which he did, but i told him I didn't really like buff mozz and was there anything else that was vegetarian. He then pointed to the spring roll which I ordered and bit into chicken. I still know he tried really hard and he was sweet, I'm just used to 4 and 5 star dining in NYC and if that ever happened at a restaurant here I expect a free glass or bottle of wine or something and not arguments from the waiter. (who by the way I still tipped an extra $20 at the end of the cruise because I would normally tip an extra $50-100 depending on service becauswe i just don't think they make enough $$)

 

Enough about the complaints about waitstaff - the most annoying part of this trip was an incident that happened in Nassau. We ended up doing Pearl Island snorkel because we wanted the morning to shop and walk around. After the It was a challenging excursion because the waters are very choppy near the edge where you enter. Many people gave up and did swim out the 15-20 feet you neededd to in order to get to the great fish! My boyfriend and I did and we had an amazing experience and some great pictures. When we got back on the boat that takes us back tot he pier everyone was complaining about how much the excursion sucked. We actually got ina n argument with someone defending the excursion. There were probably at least 100 on teh excursion and maybe only 30 of us stayed and swam to where the fish were. It really wasn't that difficult but apparently many people who chose snorkeling as an excursion don't know how to really swim (which I find a little odd) and want to be able to stay right next to shore (which they couldn't do because the water was too rough). I understand if that's what you need or feel like you want to do, but don't start yelling at people who said they had an enjoyable time and call us morons who don't know what snorkeling trips are suppose to be like. I do know as I have gone at least 30 snorkeling trips (both organized and unorganized - i.e. went to the Caymans last year with a friend and we wen tout on our own with some fish food in hand - kinda scary but fun just as well!)

 

The cruise staff was ok. As ridiculous as Mark was, I actually liked him. He was so dorky he was funny. The rest were ok - I like having the colors compete (go white team!!!) - but what was with Amy? We thought maybe she had a bad week or a death in the family or something because she rarely came out to the group events and on teh lounge crawl she looked miserable.

 

The food (other than the minor incidents) was great (and my BF eats meat so he had all the steaks, etc.) We ate at the buffet for breakfast and lunch and it was good - although the lines could be unpredictable at times AND sometimes the waitstaff was so fast in cleaning the tables that we'd get up to get seconds and we'd come back to see new people eating at our table. We learned to leave a hat or a book on the table (not just on the seats) if we were in the middle of the meal so we wouldn't lose our table (note we DID NOT reserve the table before we had food and were ready to sit down for our first part of the meal). The midnight buffet did have some casualties as a result of the slight rocking caused by the hurricanes/storms. A few of the deocrative and intricate desserts had pieces fall off:( But it was still a great presentation!!!

 

All in all we had a great time and even though it was the "smoothest" of cruises (literally and figuratively) we definitely had a vacation to remember and I would certainly go on Carnival again!

[alprzy]

Hey I was WHITE TEAM too!!!!!!!!!!!!! We were awesome, no competition virtually all week...

 

AlPrzy