Miracle 9/11/11 Review -- Cruising with a 10 month old!

[golfadj]

We had planned to go to sea glass beach on the third day with horseshoe beach the second but the tropical storm rearranged our plan.

 

We braved the wind and rain and took a bus to Hamilton. We should have gone to the aquarium but skipped it and went back to the dockyard early afternoon. Gives us another reason to go back.

 

The last day we went to Horseshoe and it was great. Than went to the other Swizzler Inn with Steve and Traci.

[Cruzin 1025]

You know...we brought a bottle of those Swizzles home with us. You're making me want to open it up and have some! :D

[SoundDawg]

You know...we brought a bottle of those Swizzles home with us. You're making me want to open it up and have some! :D

 

WHAT???? You have been able to NOT open it for this long?? :confused: That sucker wouldn't have lasted a month here! :D

[SoundDawg]

Great to relive this wonderful cruise with you Chris! In fact, we are just off the Miracle yesterday, and the plaque and coin were in fact still there in the cabinet for the first day and we were soooo pleased to see it there! However, on day 3 of our cruise, they were "re-arranging" and it was removed. We stopped to ask the crew member about that, and he said they rotate the plaques and other things on a regular basis!

 

The Miracle, by the way, is still in great shape, new Serentiy deck is awesome, and alot of the same crew, including Malcolm "Woo Hoo" Burns....I look forward to reliving this thru to the end! Thanks for taking the time Chris!

 

Welcome Home! Did you guys take any pictures? ;)

[SoundDawg]

awesome review.....

 

Thank you and thanks for reading!

[golfadj]

You know...we brought a bottle of those Swizzles home with us. You're making me want to open it up and have some! :D

 

All mixed and ready to go? Still amazed the two of you were upright after the second pitcher.

[jmwg49]

Welcome Home! Did you guys take any pictures? ;)

 

You know it.....I think the photo count was about 2500...give or take a few hundred! The ship looks great! The Serenity area is nice, but only the 'early bird' gets a chair...on Sea Days, there was not a chair to be found back there after about 630 am....but they sure were comfy!!!

[Cruzin 1025]

WHAT???? You have been able to NOT open it for this long?? :confused: That sucker wouldn't have lasted a month here! :D

 

I was trying to be nice and save it for sharing with others. Will probably serve at a summer party! :D

 

All mixed and ready to go? Still amazed the two of you were upright after the second pitcher.

 

Yep...all mixed. We saw it in a liquor store in and had to get it. Even if we got the Gosling's rum we'd never be able to make it right here.

 

And those pitchers were small! Nothing at all for a professional alcoholic like myself. :D

[golfadj]

And those pitchers were small! Nothing at all for a professional alcoholic like myself. :D

 

Oh to be young again.

[golfadj]

You know it.....I think the photo count was about 2500...give or take a few hundred! The ship looks great! The Serenity area is nice, but only the 'early bird' gets a chair...on Sea Days, there was not a chair to be found back there after about 630 am....but they sure were comfy!!!

 

Only 2500? What was Jon doing all day?

[SoundDawg]

DW has always wanted to swim with dolphins so she decided this was a good place to do it. Dolphin Quest is located in the Dockyard and an easy walk from the ship. It is actually in the National Museum of Bermuda which in itself is a beautiful place. Unfortunately we had to take the express tour of it in order to get to her swim time and we couldn't explore after because sail away was at 5:00. After checking in we wandered the grounds of the museum which is the original fort to the island.

 

 

 

 

 

The pools are a lot smaller then I imagined but the animals seemed very well cared for.

 

 

One of the nice things about this particular Dolphin place was that DS and I were able to watch the whole thing without having to pay anything!

 

 

[SoundDawg]

DW went over and met her group and trainer. They were all given life vests and goggles and basic instructions on how to interact with the dolphins.

 

 

They were then led over to one of the tanks that had an underwater bench. While they sat there the trainer had one of the dolphins come over for an introduction.

 

 

After the instructor had the dolphins do some above water aerobatics the group floated face down to watch them underwater.

 

 

Then each person got a little one on one time with a dolphin. DW opted for a good luck kiss!!

 

 

A very happy wife!

 

 

Afterwards we waited to see how the pictures from the professional photographer came out. The pricing was outrageous! Because I was able to get some good shots we only bought a couple of prints.

 

With that we headed back to the ship to watch sail away. The ship was docked so our balcony was facing the pier. I decided to sit out on the balcony to watch for any pier runners. I was not disappointed. Two different couples had to make the run. One couple was lucky enough to get a ride from the local police.

 

We had just enough time to shower and then off to dinner we went.

 

DW and DS went to sleep early this night after all the days activities and I headed to Casino!!

[tvgirl2323]

I am the DW and am commenting on DH review! First - I love it! Its fun to re-live our last vacation, especially since DS has grown so much since!

 

Traveling with a 10 month old (at the time) did have its challenges beginning with how to keep him occupied. As you saw in the beginning of this review we brought DS to Gatsby's Gardens. I spent A LOT of time there. Plus, I brought DS to the theater when there was something going on so he could explore the seats and aisles. If you are reading this to get ideas those places are toddler friendly. However, the casino is not. I had DS in the stroller while DH was playing a machine and we had to leave.

 

One thing about dining, we did the main dining almost every night because we wanted to. However, one night when DH was taking a turn watching DS while I got some dessert late, I ran into someone who recognized me from the dining room. He mentioned he was glad I took DS out of the dining room when he started fussing because the boy's noise was getting too loud. Most of the cruisers we encountered were very nice to us and DS was a big hit, but not everyone is a baby person.

 

DH has commented on how great the staff was, and they were. Our steward wanted to make sure DS was ok every time we saw him in the hallway and so many of the waitstaff wanted to just say hi.

 

I am looking forward to our next cruise in September! DS won't be ready for any excursions but I know he will have a blast running around the ship (now that he can really run)!

[SoundDawg]

After 3 days in port, it was nice to be at sea again. We absolutely no plans for the day except for the CC Slot Pull that we had scheduled for 2:00pm. We had 51 people signed up for this! We decided to we would all put $15 in to one machine. The machine max bet was $3.00 so we each got five pulls! Unfortunately I don't have any pictures of us all crowded around the one machine but it was a really good time. As DW mentioned in the above post, the casino is not baby friendly so we took turns watching DS while each of us did our pulls. After everyone had there turns we were down quite a bit. We decided to go through everyone again and it worked out that we all got two pulls (I think). It wasn't looking to good until someone got a good hit and when we cashed out we all got our money back plus a couple of dollars! It was a great time!

 

When PorkChop gets back from his cruise maybe he'll throw a couple pictures up of this!

[golfadj]

I am the DW and am commenting on DH review! First - I love it! Its fun to re-live our last vacation, especially since DS has grown so much since!

 

Traveling with a 10 month old (at the time) did have its challenges beginning with how to keep him occupied. As you saw in the beginning of this review we brought DS to Gatsby's Gardens. I spent A LOT of time there. Plus, I brought DS to the theater when there was something going on so he could explore the seats and aisles. If you are reading this to get ideas those places are toddler friendly. However, the casino is not. I had DS in the stroller while DH was playing a machine and we had to leave.

 

One thing about dining, we did the main dining almost every night because we wanted to. However, one night when DH was taking a turn watching DS while I got some dessert late, I ran into someone who recognized me from the dining room. He mentioned he was glad I took DS out of the dining room when he started fussing because the boy's noise was getting too loud. Most of the cruisers we encountered were very nice to us and DS was a big hit, but not everyone is a baby person.

 

DH has commented on how great the staff was, and they were. Our steward wanted to make sure DS was ok every time we saw him in the hallway and so many of the waitstaff wanted to just say hi.

 

I am looking forward to our next cruise in September! DS won't be ready for any excursions but I know he will have a blast running around the ship (now that he can really run)!

 

We are sailing with our 1 year old grandson in April and now that he is mobile (crawling now and perhaps walking in two months) will be interesting to watch us all chase him around. Was great you were able to do so much with your son.

 

Did send my daughter this link so she can gain from your experience especially the bathing part.

[golfadj]

DW has always wanted to swim with dolphins so she decided this was a good place to do it. Dolphin Quest is located in the Dockyard and an easy walk from the ship. It is actually in the National Museum of Bermuda which in itself is a beautiful place. Unfortunately we had to take the express tour of it in order to get to her swim time and we couldn't explore after because sail away was at 5:00. After checking in we wandered the grounds of the museum which is the original fort to the island.

 

 

 

 

 

The pools are a lot smaller then I imagined but the animals seemed very well cared for.

 

 

One of the nice things about this particular Dolphin place was that DS and I were able to watch the whole thing without having to pay anything!

 

 

 

DW not a water person so this was not for us. Will want to do the Acquarium excursion in the near future.

[SoundDawg]

After the slot pull we decided to go up to the kiddie pool with another roll call friend to let the kids splash a bit. The ship was rocking quite a bit up on deck 11 but it made for lots of fun! I did find it odd that the elevator did not go to this deck so we had to carry the strollers and kidos up the stairs. Seems like on odd place for this pool.

 

 

 

The rest of a day was just a relaxing day at sea. I don't remember what else we did but I can tell you that the days just went by soooo fast. I was a bit nervous when I first booked this cruise because of the number of sea days. It turned out great! I was never bored and in fact found that there were just not enough hours in the day. I never even made it to a hot tub or pool once! It was also nice to be part of such a large roll call. We found our selves constantly bumping into people from the group and would end up talking. One of my fondness memories was having a bite to eat with Stu (GolfAdj) when he presented DS with the ship on a stick he just won at trivia. The ship is proudly displayed on a shelf in his room.

[SoundDawg]

It was a bitter sweet day! First I was super excited because I had signed up for the Behind the Fun tour of the ship but also knew that later in the day I would be packing my luggage. :mad:

 

We woke up to some pretty rough seas....about 15-17 foot swells. The ship was moving quite a bit and all outer decks were closed. While I was going on the tour, DW took DS to the Kids Club to play for a bit. We wished we had taken advantage of this earlier on in the cruise. Their were lots of toys available to play with and room for a new crawler to stretch out!

 

 

 

I left them there and headed to meet the tour group. You are not allowed to bring a camera or even cell phone on the tour so I have no pictures. I am not going to give a detailed review of the tour as there are many here on the boards. I will say that the tour was probably one of the best things I did on this cruise. It was just awesome to see the normally unseen parts of the ship. Not to mention the fact that we got to see the bridge! With the seas being as big as they were that day it was just an awesome view from up there. I totally recommend this tour to everyone. It is soooo worth the $95!

 

 

The rest of the day was again a very relaxing day. The ship was moving quite a bit and we noticed water coming in the doors on the promenade but there were Crew all over with towels and fans. Must be a recurring problem when the sea starts drenching the outer decks.

 

We went to the farewell party before dinner and did not have a problem getting a few complimentary cocktails! A second formal night on this cruise because of the length and we were able to get a couple of pictures taken that we actually liked. We said our good byes to our table mates and exchange email addresses.

 

Debark was a breeze the next morning. It was also nice to just grab the luggage and jump on the bus that was waiting for us. Easy three hour ride and we were home!

 

In summary...this was an awesome cruise! A few challenges and a learning curve having a toddler but I wouldn't change a thing. I have NO complaints about Carnival's service, food or overall product. I cannot wait till I sail with them again on 9/3/12!

 

If anyone has any questions, please feel free to ask. And thanks for reading!

 

 

[golfadj]

The rest of a day was just a relaxing day at sea. I don't remember what else we did but I can tell you that the days just went by soooo fast. I was a bit nervous when I first booked this cruise because of the number of sea days. It turned out great! I was never bored and in fact found that there were just not enough hours in the day. I never even made it to a hot tub or pool once! It was also nice to be part of such a large roll call. We found our selves constantly bumping into people from the group and would end up talking. One of my fondness memories was having a bite to eat with Stu (GolfAdj) when he presented DS with the ship on a stick he just won at trivia. The ship is proudly displayed on a shelf in his room.

 

Thank you and my pleasure.

 

Our next cruise is in April with kids and grandson (who will be 1 at the time of the cruise and keep telling my daughter to read this thread for the great advise you keep giving us)

 

Have two Glory SOS's but need to win another for Micah!

 

BTW we have done about 25 cruises and this one was the best. Hope we can do a reunion one next year.

[SoundDawg]

Thank you and my pleasure.

 

Our next cruise is in April with kids and grandson (who will be 1 at the time of the cruise and keep telling my daughter to read this thread for the great advise you keep giving us)

 

If she has any specific questions or concerns tell her to feel free to message me over on facebook.

 

A reunion cruise would be fun. And if we did it next year out of NYC we would could go on the Splendor which I think would be awesome!

[golfadj]

If she has any specific questions or concerns tell her to feel free to message me over on facebook.

 

A reunion cruise would be fun. And if we did it next year out of NYC we would could go on the Splendor which I think would be awesome!

 

Thanks for the offer.

 

Daughter and son in law have travelled quite a bit with Micah in past year and they are doing great.

 

In past year they have taken him to "Mexico, Roanoke, Dallas, Kansas City, and NYC last weekend. He has been quite a well travelled young fellow with his own passport.

 

Have they announced the itineraries on Splendor yet when she comes to EC? Would have loved to have done one of the itineraries as she travels around S America but cannot be away from work so long.

[SoundDawg]

Thanks for the offer.

 

Daughter and son in law have travelled quite a bit with Micah in past year and they are doing great.

 

In past year they have taken him to "Mexico, Roanoke, Dallas, Kansas City, and NYC last weekend. He has been quite a well travelled young fellow with his own passport.

 

Have they announced the itineraries on Splendor yet when she comes to EC? Would have loved to have done one of the itineraries as she travels around S America but cannot be away from work so long.

 

2013 Splendor from NYC is up on Carnival website. Looks like same two routes that Miracle is doing this year.

[SoundDawg]

I forgot to post this great picture someone took of the Miracle parked in front of Ground Zero. I don't know who the photographer was.

 

[cruisenanny]

I forgot to post this great picture someone took of the Miracle parked in front of Ground Zero. I don't know who the photographer was.

 

 

WOW that is an incredible photo, just awesome

[Cruzin 1025]

I forgot to post this great picture someone took of the Miracle parked in front of Ground Zero. I don't know who the photographer was.

 

 

Was someone with the screen name of "ariawoman" who posted them on our roll call thread. She had some WONDERFUL shots!