Jump to content
Cruise Critic Community

Live from the Miracle: Feb 17-25

gargoyle999

By gargoyle999,
in Carnival Cruise Lines

Recommended Posts

gargoyle999

gargoyle999

Posted
Posted

Ha ha...ok, not live from the Miracle YET! Tuesday is the day. But since our vacation started last night I thought I'd start early! :)

 

Coming from Lakeville, MN and we've had so many below zero days I lost count awhile ago. This trip is just what we needed.

 

We flew into Ft Lauderdale last night. Today we are driving to Key West for 3 days then will drive back for our cruise on Tuesday.

 

This will be my 2nd Carnival cruise and 3rd overall. We'll be in a Cat 11 aft wrap on deck four! Can't wait to check out the balcony! :D And as everyone on my roll call knows, I'm really looking forward to the burgers and fries. YUM! :D:D

 

Last cruise before the Miracle goes to drydock. Our roll call is waiting to see if that has any impact on our service or experience.

 

Now that I'm enjoying this warm Florida weather I have to try and figure out a reason to go back to Minnesota when this trip is done! Have 12 days to come up with SOME reason!! :D

Link to comment
Share on other sites
papanh

papanh

Posted
Posted
Ha ha...ok, not live from the Miracle YET! Tuesday is the day. But since our vacation started last night I thought I'd start early! :)

 

Coming from Lakeville, MN and we've had so many below zero days I lost count awhile ago. This trip is just what we needed.

 

We flew into Ft Lauderdale last night. Today we are driving to Key West for 3 days then will drive back for our cruise on Tuesday.

 

This will be my 2nd Carnival cruise and 3rd overall. We'll be in a Cat 11 aft wrap on deck four! Can't wait to check out the balcony! :D And as everyone on my roll call knows, I'm really looking forward to the burgers and fries. YUM! :D:D

 

Last cruise before the Miracle goes to drydock. Our roll call is waiting to see if that has any impact on our service or experience.

 

Now that I'm enjoying this warm Florida weather I have to try and figure out a reason to go back to Minnesota when this trip is done! Have 12 days to come up with SOME reason!! :D

keep us posted Gar sailing soon on the Miracle

Link to comment
Share on other sites
gargoyle999

gargoyle999

Posted
  • Author
Posted

Just got back from dinner. Went to El Siboney which was DW's pick, a Cuban restaurant. She liked her roast pork. I had breaded shrimp. Not too Cuban for my choice but DW's was. I did like the Cuban bread though! :D

 

Took us a long time to drive down to Key West. Left the hotel around 9:30 am and didn't get to Key West until about 4:30.

 

Had to go exchange our rental car at the airport since I had reserved a convertible and they didn't have one when our flight got in late Friday night. The manager promised me one would be waiting for me in the morning.

 

Well, get there in the morning and no convertible. They did manage to find one after about 1/2 hour however. So that made me happy. But I may have made a mistake. Since the sun and warmth felt so nice we had the top down the entire trip. Due to several spots with slow or not moving traffic it took us about 6 hours of driving time to get down here. Needless to say I now look like a lobster. Well actually I look like a part lobster, part raccoon (from my sunglasses) and part skunk (from the seatbelt going across my one side where I am still white). Yeah...I'm looking good... :D

 

But that warm sun was just too nice. Guess I should have applied some sunscreen though. :o

 

We are staying at the Nassau house. It's a nice bed and breakfast. Definately has Key West character. Though we won't be able to enjoy the breakfast at all due to our plans on Sunday and Monday having us out and about early both days. And we will be leaving Key West early early Tuesday morning so we hopefully do not miss our cruise ship!

 

For Sunday have parasailing in the morning (DW is kinda chicken about it, told her I'd go twice if she doesn't go), the trolley and sightseeing during the day and then a ghost tour at 9pm.

 

Tomorrow is my 39th birthday. Pretty nice present to be able to be in Key West for it instead of cold Minnesota! :)

Link to comment
Share on other sites
gargoyle999

gargoyle999

Posted
  • Author
Posted
We were on the Miracle last June in cabin 4228 which is a Cat 11 aft wrap on deck 4. Is that your cabin? It is a great cabin. We loved the location and everything about it. Have a wonderful trip. I'm envious.

 

We are in 4237, so the other side. I have been anticipating walking out onto the balcony since the first week of Jan last year. It's going to be a sad sad day when this cruise is over.

Link to comment
Share on other sites
SusieCruisie

SusieCruisie

Posted
Posted
Ha ha...ok, not live from the Miracle YET! Tuesday is the day. But since our vacation started last night I thought I'd start early! :)

 

Coming from Lakeville, MN and we've had so many below zero days I lost count awhile ago. This trip is just what we needed.

 

We flew into Ft Lauderdale last night. Today we are driving to Key West for 3 days then will drive back for our cruise on Tuesday.

 

This will be my 2nd Carnival cruise and 3rd overall. We'll be in a Cat 11 aft wrap on deck four! Can't wait to check out the balcony! :D And as everyone on my roll call knows, I'm really looking forward to the burgers and fries. YUM! :D:D

 

Last cruise before the Miracle goes to drydock. Our roll call is waiting to see if that has any impact on our service or experience.

 

Now that I'm enjoying this warm Florida weather I have to try and figure out a reason to go back to Minnesota when this trip is done! Have 12 days to come up with SOME reason!! :D

 

Hi Have a great cruise! I am booked on the Miracle for July 2009 and did not know the ship was going into Dry Dock. Can you tell me what they will be doing? Thanks! :)

Link to comment
Share on other sites
popcorngal

popcorngal

Posted
Posted
Hi Have a great cruise! I am booked on the Miracle for July 2009 and did not know the ship was going into Dry Dock. Can you tell me what they will be doing? Thanks! :)

 

The main thing they will be doing is fixing the azipod (propulsion) so that they can resume their normal itineraries. They've only had one that's been working full time at normal capacity for some time now and have had to cut out the southern most ports and replace them with ones much farther north. If you check back to posts on here from around the first of the year, you will find posts from people that got the news with no warning that their ports had been changed. I'm sure they will do other things while in drydock, but I think this is the biggie.

Link to comment
Share on other sites
gargoyle999

gargoyle999

Posted
  • Author
Posted
The main thing they will be doing is fixing the azipod (propulsion) so that they can resume their normal itineraries.

 

This is correct. Originally our cruise was going to Belize, Costa Rica and Panama. Due to the propulsion it was changed to Cozumel, Costa Maya, Belize and Roatan. It could have been worse for us though as the two cruises after we go were canceled in Oct or Nov so pretty late to get notified!

Link to comment
Share on other sites
gargoyle999

gargoyle999

Posted
  • Author
Posted

Had a full day of sightseeing around Key West today. I'll spare you the boring details! :)

 

But we feel like we could go home and have already had a good vacation and we still have one more day in Key West plus our 8 day cruise, which of course is the best part!

 

Tomorrow is a day trip out to Dry Tortugas! Nice sunny and warm day here...when I got up this morning saw the temp back home was 6 degrees. HA HA HA!!! :D:D

Link to comment
Share on other sites
gargoyle999

gargoyle999

Posted
  • Author
Posted
We'll be on the March 13th sailing on the Miracle. It would be great if you could post the menus in the dining room. We're thinking about making reservations to the Supper Club, but don't know which night we'd want to pick yet.

 

Enjoy your cruise!!

 

I'll sure try! My plan is to take pictures of the menu, so I'll try to do that then post what the main entree is each night since I won't post the pics until we get back. :)

Link to comment
Share on other sites
gargoyle999

gargoyle999

Posted
  • Author
Posted

Tomorrow will REALLY be live from the Miracle! Can't wait.

 

Spent our last day in Key West going out to Dry Tortugas. It was a fun time.

 

Have an early start tomorrow in order to get out of Key West on not get stuck on US 1 heading back.

 

I'll let you all know my first impressions of the aft wrap that has my name on it once we are onboard! :D

Link to comment
Share on other sites
gargoyle999

gargoyle999

Posted
  • Author
Posted

We are underway! After driving up from Key West (left at 5am) we arrived at the Ft Lauderdale airport around 10:00 am. Returned our rental car and hoped in a taxi to take us to Port Everglades.

 

No crowd when we arrived at the port around 10:30am. We had VIP with the suite but wouldn’t have really needed it. Was not as nice of a check in as Miami though where you go into an office to get checked in. We were told they would start boarding around 11:30am and to sit in the first row along the glass as that is the row that would board first.

 

We’ll of course when we started boarding around 11:45am they didn’t start with the 1st row, just everyone got up and headed for the door. So that should have been better organized. Not a big deal since I got on the ship about 15 seconds later that I would have, but it’s the principal of it for me. Don’t tell me to sit in row one then just let everyone board from whatever row they are sitting in. Ok…done now.

 

Other than that it was very smooth check in. First thing was to check our table assignment in the dining room. Requested a table for two. Very, very happy with our table. Table 404 is upper level right along the railing in the middle of the dining room. Might even cancel our reservation to Nick and Nora’s since I like our table so much. Guess it will depend on our waiter. If we like him/her we’ll just eat there every night. So that made up for the check in issue! :)

 

Spent a little time wandering around. Seems like there is a lot of teenagers on the ship. Or young twenty-somethings. Have run across a couple groups talking about how drunk they are going to be getting tonight! Hope they have fun, but away from my cabin! Since we are all the way aft hopefully we won’t have too many problems with loud drunks running past.

 

Was told we could get into our cabin at 1:30pm. But the firedoors were closed when we showed up. Was told another half hour. Found a place to sit down and waited about 10 minutes. Went back up and went to the cabin, which still wasn’t ready but we asked if we could leave our carry-on’s in the cabin - no problem.

 

Went back out and waited another 10 minutes, still not ready. Asked if we could wait on our balcony - no problem. He just needed to vacuum.

 

Once he was done we enjoyed a few minutes on our balcony and then headed to our meet and greet around 2:40pm.

Link to comment
Share on other sites
gargoyle999

gargoyle999

Posted
  • Author
Posted

Meet and greet was nice. We had an active roll call and it started first week of Jan 2008 so it was around for awhile.

 

After the meet and greet back to the cabin to get ready for the “mustard” drill. Was much better than my 1st Carnival cruise on the Triumph. First, learned to go later and not right when they make the announcement! So we were in front and not crammed in the back. Plus there just seemed to be more space no one was really crammed together anyway. Maybe it’s because the Miracle is a smaller ship.

 

After the drill back to our balcony for sailaway. Was a bit late, supposed to leave around 4:15pm but it was closer to 4:50pm.

 

You can really see the wake is different because of the propulsion problem. Once side clearly not working too much. There is some noticeable vibration and noise in our cabin but it isn’t bothersome, to me anyway. Makes me feel like I’m on a ship and not on land! So I actually enjoy it.

 

DW wants me to remind everyone we did laundry as well! Since we were in Key West first we took care of that today. The laundry is just a couple cabins away but there is only one washer, wish they had two as most people will do a dark and light load.

 

Just got back from dinner. Have 8:15pm. Decided to grab a slice of pizza around 5pm which was a good idea. Our dinner service was somewhat slow. Got seated around 8:25pm and had some bread right away. But the starters did not arrive until shortly after 9pm. Not yet sure if it is our server or we are surrounded by a lot of high maintenance folks. We’ll see what happens tomorrow which is our first “elegant” night.

 

Calling it an early night since I have a bad sunburn from Key West and my face is cracking!

 

Oh..and I tried to get some menu info, but they don’t post them outside the dining room like I expected. I took some pics off the TV as you can view them there. But then that didn’t match exactly with the menu we actually had. I can say I had NY Strip Steak and DW had Tilapia.

 

Tomorrow we will explore the ship after we have breakfast on our balcony! I need to go slather something soothing and lotiony on my face.

Link to comment
Share on other sites
popcorngal

popcorngal

Posted
Posted

Gargoyle, are your servers Olena and Leslie? I believe we were at table 411 which is very close to where you are. I'm sure you probably have the same room steward which for the life of me his name escapes me, but he was very sweet and always had a smile on his face. Have you met the asst. Maitre'd Jogi yet? He's known as the Indian Clark Gable and he really does look like him! You will recognize him the minute you see him...:D This is so fun reliving our cruise through you!

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Archived

This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.

Go to topic listing
  • Forum Jump
    • Categories
      • Welcome to Cruise Critic
      • New Cruisers
      • Cruise Lines “A – O”
      • Cruise Lines “P – Z”
      • River Cruising
      • ROLL CALLS
      • Cruise Critic News & Features
      • Digital Photography & Cruise Technology
      • Special Interest Cruising
      • Cruise Discussion Topics
      • UK Cruising
      • Australia & New Zealand Cruisers
      • Canadian Cruisers
      • North American Homeports
      • Ports of Call
      • Cruise Conversations
×
×
  • Create New...