Cool Breeze Cruiser

We oohed & aahed over the North Glacier too & kept hearing the ‘white thunder’ & we would all get our cameras ready. It is hard to describe what that 'rumbling' sounds like. Mother nature at her best!

We were all watching this spot.

Our time was running out there when we heard a really loud rumbling & we got to experience a HUGE calving! It was breathtaking. I meant to be quiet but I think I actually screamed! Poor Robin was beside me trying to videotape! Sorry Robin!

Here she goes (& J.R. definitely wins the photo competition for capturing this...

It made some really big waves!

Then we made our way to the North Glacier. It seemed funny to be able to look back & see the Miracle ‘following’ us in the distance. I was happy for our shipmates because the Miracle was able get pretty close to the second glacier since it was such an incredibly clear day.

To show that you do not have to have a fancy camera to photograph a glacier this first pic was taken with an IPhone.

There were sea lions lying all over the ice by the glacier.

This last photo of us leaving the glacier :( was taken with J.R.'s IPhone

We went to the South Glacier first. The ship is not able to get to it. I cannot even describe how beautiful & majestic it is. Pictures do not do it justice! The glacier is made up of various shades of the most vibrant blues imaginable! I am definitely running out of adjectives to describe everything.

No words needed!

We were all so excited to hear the rumbling that sounds like thunder & then witness a few small calvings where ice breaks from the glacier and crashes into the sea.

Look who was trailing us!

What is the name of the excursion? We are considering this cruise for next year. Thanks for your review! We are going on the Miracle in December to Hawaii.

It was the Tracy Arm Fjord & Glacier Explorer excursion through Carnival. I called Carnival to make sure it was available before I even booked the cruise! :D We booked the first time slot at 11 AM.

You are welcome. I am looking forward to seeing some Hawaiian cruise reviews! I have not even started researching for Hawaii! :eek:

I really love your pictures!

Thank you. The scenery made picture taking very easy.

I took three cameras & my favorite point & shoot bit the dust (would not hold a charge) the first day of the trip :( so I used my Olympus Tough TG-820 Waterproof Camera (the pics with the dates) & J.R. used our 'big kid' camera, a Nikon D3000. I actually liked a lot of the pics I took with my water camera best! :D

I like the purple grapes in the dining room on the Miracle much much better than the gold peaches with red and black snake skin wall paper in the dining room on the Carnival Freedom.

I really miss those purple grapes! :D And I am really looking forward to seeing the snake skin wall paper on the Freedom in February! :p Put me on a ship & I am HAPPY!

Beautiful pictures! They bring back memories of my Alaskan cruise it was a trip of a lifetime!

Thank you. Alaska definitely provides for a memory making trip!

Just a couple more! :D

I love waterfalls! If you do too DEFINITELY book the Tracy Arm Fjord excursion! We saw so many beautiful waterfalls along the way.

And then we pulled beside this beautiful waterfall & could almost reach out & touch it. Breathtaking!

This was our boat in the photo so you can see how craziness close we were!

Love your review.

Thank you. I am enjoying reliving our cruise! It went by so fast!

OMG, I am DROOLING! Don't decide which photos to post, put them ALL in! ;):p

lol! I love your upbeat, positive attitude Karen!

We took about a thousand pics on our 18 day trip. A lot of them are probably worthless to anybody but us! :D And some of them with J.R. being J.R. there is no way I would post them! :o We always have fun though!

Trying to decide which ones to include in this review is proving harder than usual! Alaska was STUNNING!

Juli

Gorgeous scenery along the way!

DISCLAIMER...I am in no way an accomplished writer or even a very good photographer so there is no way I can do justice to the majestic beauty of Alaska so bear with me :D ...

August 29th, we woke up to an absolutely beautiful, sunny day!

We booked the small boat excursion in to Tracy Arm Fjord the day we booked the cruise so we made sure we could get it. OMG I am so glad we did! It was $183.99 pp but was worth every penny!

A catamaran pulled alongside the Miracle & we boarded it for an up close & personal look at the Sawyer Glaciers, waterfalls & mountains.

Pulling away from the Miracle.

There was a naturalist on-board, Sherry, & she was informative & funny. It was amazing to see the incredible blues in the icebergs as we cruised along.

OK. I know that was a lot of iceberg photos but it is like pulling teeth trying to decide which pics to use!

cool breeze cruiser,

love the review1 can't wait till the pictures of ports come. I was wondering what activities were the best or what to avoid? i'm trying to go in july 2014 by myself. did you see any wildlife? I have so many questions. can I friend you on here for future questions when my time gets closer?

thanks Brian

Thank you. I will try to add our excursions & pics when I get home from this conference. I would definitely book the small boat excursion in to Tracy Arm Fjord early as it fills up.

We saw whales, dolphins, Dalls porpoises, mountain goats, porcupines in a tree & salmon swimming upstream. We did not see any bears.

I will subscribe to this thread so I can get notified if you have any more questions.

I am loving your review. Dh and I want to do an Alaskan cruise in the next 5 years. I can't wait to read the rest of your review. Thanks for sharing!!

Thanks. I hope to get it finished in the next few days. I have a TON of pics to choose from though! :D

Cool Breeze Cruiser, we were on the Miracle a couple of weeks after you and we will be back for the Hawaii Sept 2014 cruise also. We loved the ship and I am enjoying your review, aaahh, the memories. Missing her too!:)

I am so excited about our Hawaiian cruise. Glad you will be joining us! :)

Check your rates. We just got a price drop this morning for that cruise under the March through December 2014 Preview sale.

Awwwww Julie and JR!! Loved all the pics!! too bad we didn't get to share the Miracle once again in the future. xo

Wish you & Larry had joined us. What memories we made on our Miracle 2012 cruise! :D There was no Quest game on our Alaskan cruise though! :( Definitely consider joining us for Hawaii September 2014!

Loving your review and the wonderful pictures! Thank you for taking the time to write and post. Kim

Thank you. Writing a review is always a great way to relive our cruise!

Oh, I sure do miss that ship! Your "portrait" photos are very very nice. Love the formal shot! Every time I see your picture I think I recognize you and I am remembering a review by a mom who went on a cruise with her daughter. Is that you?? Thanks again for sharing this cruise with us!

I already miss the Miracle too! :D But we will be back on her September 2014! :)

Thank you. We only bought two pics this time, one formal & one getting on the ship. I think I set a record for us! We usually buy a LOT! :eek: We swapped out taking tons of photos with Robin & John in some of our favorite spots & a lot of them turned out pretty good.

I did a 'girls only' cruise with my 26 year old daughter & my best friend last fall but did not do a review from that cruise. We definitely made a lot of great memories though!

Juli

I don't think most people dressed up quite as much as usual for dinner but some did. A couple of nights I even saw men with shorts & ball caps on in the dining room.

I loved this backdrop!

One of my other favorite photo ops are these stairs.

Robin & John looking all spiffy!

The sunsets were beautiful in Alaska.

A word of warning ladies if you are wearing a short dress these stairs are GLASS! I never thought about it before! :eek:

Always one of my favorite pictures from a cruise. It is so relaxing!

An empty pool on a Carnival ship? :p

They closed the dome over the pool & hot tub & it stayed pretty busy. It made it loud in there though.

The 'towel desk' had blankets for the Serenity deck.

Gatsby's Garden

A great place for photo ops!

J.R. being J.R.!

Maguire's Sports Bar

Speaking of the dining room these photos do not do the grapes justice! :p

The Casino

Our next cruise for sure..............Thanks so much for the pics and details of your wonderful trip.

I am sure you will love it. We REALLY lucked up with great weather but we went prepared for anything!

I LOVE the 1/2 price fleece coat I bought in the onboard shops with the bears on it. I really think its so cute. I was talking to someone and she loves the bears too, more than the wolves so I rushed down to make sure they didnt sell out of my size and got one right then.

Glad you were able to get one in your size. I bought a bunch of t-shirts in the Miracle gift shop when they had them three for $20! :) They had a lot of good deals. Other than t-shirts & Ulu knifes we bought in Juneau we did not buy a lot of souvenirs. There were not enough hours in the day! :(

Hello Julie & JR, I enjoyed meeting you both at Ivar's and the M&G. Great review and can't wait to see more photos of your excursions.:)PINK

It was great meeting y'all too. Our cruise just went by WAY to fast! I have a couple of pics of you from the M&G. J.R. was really in picture taking mode this trip!

I hope Robin downloads her pics from our excursions soon (hint hint Robin :D) so I can 'borrow' from hers too since we did all the same excursions.

Thank you for all the wonderful memories - just got back from this cruise we did Sept 3 to 10th. Alaska was wonderful.

The food we felt was not very good. Which was fine with me cause than I did not over eat but could not wait to get off the ship and have something that tasted yummy.

Glad you enjoyed Alaska too.

We really enjoyed almost all the food. John got a burger in the dining room one night that was not very good. The dining room service was a little sub-par this cruise though which surprised me because our last two cruises on the Miracle it was excellent.

It is always good to get home & have 'normal' food. After our 18 day trip I couldn't wait to have chips & dip (my weakness)! :D

Love the review so far, makes me want to go back again! Very nice pics.

Thanks. It was an incredible trip!

We are also enjoying your review! Can't wait to hear more.

Thank you. We are at a convention but I should have some free time tomorrow to add more & get to the 'good part', our AMAZING excursions!

Hey, I was on this cruise too, wasn't it incredible the day we did Tracey Arm and seeing so many whales? Crisp sunshine all day was so great.

I bought one of those bear fleece jackets onboard and had a poncho for the day it rained in the other port. I love the bears.

Probably the best cruise to date Ive taken.

We had hoped to meet you. Wish you had come to the M&G.

The whole trip was incredible! We did the small boat excursion in to Tracy Arm Fjord. It was so majestic. I definitely did not expect short sleeve weather for most of the cruise. It was chilly at the glacier though.

My favorite part of the whole cruise was whale watching in Juneau with Harv & Marv. The whales put on quite a show for us. I will add pics of them soon.

It was crazy how cheap outerwear was everywhere. You would think they would have a big markup for people that didn't bring warm clothing.

With all the cruises you have been on that is something to be the best cruise to date! Glad you enjoyed it!

Juli

We were hoping the Platinum gift was still the Tervis Tumblers but we got the Carnival hats & J.R. loved his. I wore mine too to cover up my bad Alaskan hair days! :eek: They are nice hats. I really like the material they are made of, they are very lightweight.

Can't resist adding a few more towel animals after ARod worked so hard on them!!

J.R. won a ‘14K Gold Ship on a Stick” in the Bean Bag Toss. They played a

different version of the game though. They only used one board. Everyone lined up & you got three bags to try to get a hole in one. Only three people did so they each got two bags & no one got it so they tried again & J.R. was the only one to get it! Yay for him! A lady challenged him to come back & play again & he meant to but forgot to reset his watch when the time changed so we missed it.

J.R. scored brownie points when he attributed his 'win' to his lovely wife for booking the cruise! :rolleyes:

We went in the Piano Bar the 1st night & enjoyed Doug Ross. He seemed to interact with the crowd well but we left to go to the Welcome Aboard Show & never made it back the whole week! :(

We also really enjoyed the band Music Unlimited in Frankie & Johnny’s & spent several nights in there dancing.

The guy playing guitar in the Atrium Lobby was incredibly talented.

We also meant to go but never made it to Frankenstein Nightclub. There were just not enough hours in the day!

The past guest party was held the night we were in Juneau. The party was held in the Phantom Theatre on the lower level. At the doors of the lounge the crew was checking invitations & giving Mardi Gras beads to people as they entered.The drinks they brought around were Rum Swizzles & they were a lot bigger (& stronger) than the drinks they used to have at the past guest parties.

The Groove for St. Jude was held the day we were in Victoria. We gave our $10 donation & received a t-shirt.

The Showcase of Stars was also held that day & we went to watch one of our roll call members sing. Way to go Bernadette! You looked & sounded beautiful!

We had our M&G get together with our roll call group in Sam’s Piano Bar on our sea day too. We enjoyed visiting with everyone we had been chatting with for months. A special thanks to Todd for organizing our roll call group. He & his cabin mates also arranged for a lot of door prizes for our group. I am not posting pics from our M&G because I forgot to ask our roll call group for permission to post them. If any of you from our roll call read this & want pics let me know.

There were too many things to choose from to do every night! We wanted to do them all! We went to most of the Production Shows. I never get tired of them.

The World’s Biggest Show Off featuring Marcus Raymond is not to be missed! He is a very talented performer! We enjoyed the story telling & singing by Steve Hites about Skagway & the Hypnotist show featuring Jac Rene had us rolling! This was our 3rd time to see Ticket to Ride but it only gets better every time!

We attended quite a few of the Comedy Shows. Doug Williams was really funny & put on a good show. The Comedy Shows were held in Madhatter's Ball.

We went in there one day & ran in to Fun Ship Freddie!