Welcome to Your Favorites, where you have the opportunity to share your travel experiences with fellow Internet Travelers around the world.

Carnival Cruise Line

MS Carnival Miracle

Your Rating:
Reviewed by:Kathy Rutter
# previous cruises: 8
Date of Trip: March 29, 2009
Itinerary: Caribbean - Eastern

We went on this cruise with my brother and his wife and stayed at the Embassy Suites in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida, the day before the cruise.

The hotel provided transportation to the pier. This was our first cruise on Carnival and my brother's third. The embarkation process was crowded with people. It was not the worst, but could have been better. The Carnival Miracle is a mid-size ship that is easy to get around on. Most of the public rooms are on two decks and the dining room and theater are accessible from these decks, as well. We found comfortable areas to sit by the windows on these decks to take a break on sea days. There are endless bars and something is always going on somewhere on the ship on sea days. Ice cream and pizza are available 24 hours a day on deck 9 if you have a sudden longing for either. The pool deck has three pools and three hot tubs, and a tube slide for the young and young at heart. People of all ages seemed to be enjoying this ship.

The public areas are mostly on decks two and three. The dining room is at the stern of the ship and theatre is at the bow end, both are on both decks. Between them are numerous bars, the casino and the shopping area. The Metropolis Bar on deck 2 starts the Atrium and the purser's desk and excursion desk are located on this level, too. The Sports Bar by the casino was popular. The casino was large and often full of gamblers. The library on deck 3 has computer access. On this deck is the photo studio, shops, and lounges. As I mentioned, along the port side on both decks is a long area with comfortable chairs, tables and couches by the windows, which was a great area to kick back and see the ocean. These areas are part of bar areas, so drinks are easy to come by. The Mad Hatter's Ball is on deck one under the theater. This is large lounge and we were there one evening when they had karaoke. Kay, the hostess, was fun.

The pool area has three pools and hot tubs with lots of deck chairs. My brother and his wife did not feel the pool area was as crowded as many have been. The pool area was popular on sea days. The promenade is on deck 3 and is a U shaped promenade, starting at the forward lobby on both sides of the ship and around the stern of the ship. It was not a complete walk-around, because large silver doors outside stop you at the forward lobby, but was still a good walking area. It would benefit from some deck chairs on the widest areas for people to sit outside and see the ocean.

Carnival sponsored a one mile walk to benefit the Susan G. Koman for the Cure Foundation. We were asked to donate $10.00 and were given a t-shirt and wrist band. The t-shirt had the pink ribbon for breast cancer on the front and .On deck for the Cure, Carnival Cruise Lines. on the back. There were about 150 of us and the walk was on the promenade deck. They opened the silver locked doors at the forward lobbies and we walked a complete loop by going across the ship through the Great Gatsby area, which I had not found on the ship before then. They had lemonade and water for us where we started on deck 3 after the race. My brother says Carnival does this on all their ships.

The buffet on deck 9 was Horatio's and it has a wide variety of food. I liked the grilled sandwich line where they prepared hot or cold sandwiches to order. The pizza line was popular and they would insist of making you another pizza if the pizza sat there too long during a slow time, since it is open 24 hours. The Asian food line was interesting with food from a different country each day. There was a hamburger bar with chicken fingers and fries, also. The salad bar was kept stocked and there were other salads next to the salad bar each day as well. There were other lines for more traditional foods, as well. There was endless food - you had to just look for what you wanted and you would find it. The layout of Horatio's has some built in bottlenecks which are a problem at busy times. There are several beverage stations and you serve yourself ice tea, lemonade and water. Carnival uses colorful plastic cups at this area, a happy touch. Silverware is wrapped in a cloth napkin and placed on tables and the staff replaces them on empty tables. The wait staff wheels around carts to refill your drink, as well. On sea days, Horatio's could be crowded. There is soft ice cream available 24 hours from two dispensers and a there is a good dessert line with cakes, cookies, etc. On the last day, there was a swan station and they made ice cream swans to order. This was fun.

There was one dining room - Bacchus. There was also Nick and Nora's Supper Club, for a $30.00 fee. We were on the second level of the main dining room in one of the booths for four along the walkway next to the large open area to the dining room below. There was an aisle and then tables for two along the railing. The booths ran along a low wall on the inside. On the other side of the wall was the staging area and this could be noisy at times with clanking dishes and silverware, but we tuned it out and it was not noisy all the time. This was not the best table to have, though. The wall should go to the ceiling to soundproof the area more, but a wall would hide the pillars with the purple neon lights around the top and the grape garland lights across the wall. The dining room is completely decorated in purple grape lights and there are two large clusters of grape lights that form the two chandeliers. This was a little over the top for me, and we had fun with it at dinner. We liked our waiter, Arnel, and he and the second waiter did a good job. The four of us were pleased with the food in the dining room and the service was excellent. The desserts were varied and the warm chocolate melting cake is to die for. It was offered every day in the section below that day's offerings on the dessert menu. I admit to having it only twice. The waiters sing and dance every night except the first one. They don't assemble together to perform as a group, but stay in their areas and perform. Some people just love this and I agree that it is fun and all, but three times in a week would be enough for me.

Our cabin 6150 was a balcony cabin on deck 6. We were close to the elevator lobby and stairs, which was convenient. Our cabin was decorated with an orange/rust carpet, peach colored vinyl sofa and the bed had white on white coverings. There was an orange/peach decorative section across the foot of the bed. The balcony had a door you opened with a handle and the door swung into the room, rather than a sliding glass door. We had three closets across from the bathroom. One had three shelves for storage, one had one clothes rod for longer clothes and one had two clothes rods spaced for two levels. We had room for our shoes and clothes. There were four average size drawers at the desk and the two night stands had a door that opened to a small storage area. A narrow shelf ran along under the second mirror and there was a small wooden ledge that I put my ship's card on when in the cabin. At the desk area, there was a mirror with soft lights along it and a stool to sit on before the mirror. The second mirror next to the TV had a large square light fixture placed in the center and in the way of using the mirror. I don't know why the light fixture was on the center of the mirror.

The bathroom had three glass shelves on each side of the sink, and this worked out well for storage. The sink was a soft blue/green and the walls were light green. The shower had a new cloth type curtain and the shower opening was curved. A full size person could fit in this shower. I was even able to pick up something in the shower. The floor was bright cobalt blue and was one piece flooring to look like tile. There are shampoo and shower gel dispensers in the shower. Our cabin attendant was Constantine and he did an excellent job for us. We enjoyed the balcony. Carnival puts two terry cloth robes in the closet to use. They also provide beach towels in your room to take to the pool and on excursions. You return them to your room and they are replaced. The beach towels were big and were nice to take to the pool or beach.

We attended all of the shows. There were several shows with the Miracle singers and dancers and the Generations show and the Ticket to Ride show were the best. The singers and dancers are hard working and talented. The video they showed on the Beatles before the Ticket to Ride show was worth seeing. Karen Grainger is a female impressionist and she dons wigs and sings as if she is the singer. She was very entertaining and it was a good show. The Singing with the Big Band show with Christopher Alan Graves was a tribute to Frank Sinatra and Sammy Davis, Jr. He is talented, but sentimental shows are not my favorite. Marcus Monroe was a juggler and comic and he was good - this was worth seeing. Jerry Goodspeed was a ventriloquist and is an excellent one. His humor was old people humor, which is not my favorite. The Carnival Legends show is the show with talented passengers dressed up as famous singers. We heard from James Brown, Aretha Franklin, Elton John, Garth Brooks, Madonna, Britney Spears, Ricky Martin, Gloria Estefan, Elvis Presley and Frank Sinatra. These passengers did a great job! Providing live music for all performers were Max Snyder and the Miracle Orchestra and they were amazing all week.

The Phantom Theater is decorated the most over the top on the ship. Zeus is holding up the stage ceiling on either side and many Zeuses were along the walls holding up a light fixture like the world. Some smaller feminine nymph types were out in numbers to hold up the levels of the theater. Multiple Phantom of the Opera masks with one red eye for the light are by the Zeuses. My brother and I thought this was Cyclops. There was a row of pretty chandeliers, as well, almost out of place. This is certainly a fun room!

My husband used the health club and felt it was a good one. We liked to sit on the pool deck at a table by the windows and enjoy the view of the ocean and the ocean breeze out of the sun. We liked to sit at the chairs and tables on deck 2 and 3 that were part the bars/lounges along this area and be closer to the ocean. I remember the Jeeves Lounge as being non-smoking, which we liked. The Sports Bar was a good place to go, but was often quite smokey. The signed photos are interesting to look at.

The first port was St. Maarten. I went to Phillipsburg to shop with my brother and his wife. My husband had reserved the ship's dive excursion on the web two months before. We got our excursion tickets on the first morning in the mailbox by our cabin door. We found the dive excursion had been canceled. There were no other dive excursions, so he signed up for a snorkel/snuba excursion. We don't know when it was canceled, but he felt they could have e-mailed him when it was canceled, so he could have possibly easily arranged another dive excursion on his own. We live in Kansas and when he is in the Caribbean, he would like to dive. I guess this is a small thing to Carnival, since not too many people dive. The ship was leaving for New York after one more week at Ft. Lauderdale. We wonder if this had something to do with it.

Our next port was St. Lucia. We did the kayak/snorkel to Pigeon Island excursion. We picked this port to do something together. Had we known, my husband would have dived here. The excursion was described as .after a short boat ride to Pigeon Island,. we would kayak along the coast and then snorkel. We started with a long bus ride to the top of the mountain. The guide was good, but I wondered if we were on the wrong excursion. We came down the mountain and were driven to a beach. There was no boat to take us to the island - we kayaked a good distance over open water to Pigeon Island.

This took quite a while since everyone was new at this. When we got to the island, we got our snorkel gear and then had to kayak a distance to snorkel. We did not have much time to snorkel, which was disappointing. We had to get back into the kayak in five feet of water, and this was a challenge to some of us. We paddled back to shore. This excursion was disappointing in that it was not what we signed up for. It was described as having time to snorkel and visit the fort on the island. There was very little time after the long tour and the long kayak trip to the island. We had a short 20 minute ride back to the ship.

St. Kitts was our last port. My husband did dive here. I went with my brother and wife on the St. Kitts Scenic Train Ride excursion. We went by bus for 45 minutes or so to the start of the train line. We drove along the coast and though the road was very narrow, we drove through towns and saw beautiful views of the coastline. We boarded the train and sat downstairs.

The train traveled along the Atlantic coast mostly. We again saw beautiful coastal areas and some towns, and this repeated for most of the trip. They served soft drinks, fruit juice, smoothies and rum punch. The train ride was narrated and from time to time, three local people would go from train car to train car and sing. This was charming and enjoyable. The train ride was about an hour or so long and we ended where we started. We were driven back to town and to a shopping area near the port. The excursion was not exciting, but was a pleasant way to spend the morning.

My brother and his wife have been on Carnival twice, and they both thought because this was an eight day cruise, that there were more middle aged and older people on the cruise. They thought this was one reason the pool deck was not jammed. There were 400 children on the cruise, so there were younger people, of course. I had read that people did not dress up for dinner or for the elegant nights, but they did on this cruise. I did not get to know anyone else on this cruise, but I imagine there were people I would invite to dinner once I returned home. This was our first cruise on Carnival. We enjoyed our cruise and liked the ship.