Review of Carnival Miracle: 9/3/06-9/10/06

[HAPPYCRUISINGIRL]

Wow what a great review....!

[kellyfish]

I'm REALLY appreciating your review of the Miracle - I (& a bunch of girlfriends) set sail on 10/01! Our intinerary is the same as your describing. I hope you don't mind a few questions...

First of all, how do you get cash - ATM onboard or somewhere in port?

The tubing, is it one person per tube or several to a raft-kind-of-thing?

Was if fast & scary or pretty mellow & relaxing?

Do you carry your stuff with you on the tube, or did you leave it on the bus with the big guy guarding it?

Exactly how HIGH UP are you when zipping?

How far are the zips? Did anyone chicken out?

Did you hear any reviews on the canopy walks or horseback riding?

Sorry to be pelting you with all the questions:confused: , I'm starting to get excited about my upcoming voyage!!!

Thanks!

kellyfish

[stephanie76]

I'm REALLY appreciating your review of the Miracle - I (& a bunch of girlfriends) set sail on 10/01! Our intinerary is the same as your describing. I hope you don't mind a few questions...

First of all, how do you get cash - ATM onboard or somewhere in port?

The tubing, is it one person per tube or several to a raft-kind-of-thing?

Was if fast & scary or pretty mellow & relaxing?

Do you carry your stuff with you on the tube, or did you leave it on the bus with the big guy guarding it?

Exactly how HIGH UP are you when zipping?

How far are the zips? Did anyone chicken out?

Did you hear any reviews on the canopy walks or horseback riding?

Sorry to be pelting you with all the questions:confused: , I'm starting to get excited about my upcoming voyage!!!

Thanks!

kellyfish

 

Hi Kelly have you been to our roll call??? You are joining quite a group. Look for us on the roll call board. Who are you sailing with in your group?? I am going with a group. A wide variety of people on this sail date I think it will be a blast.

[lhall85917]

Thanks for the great review! We just found out our CC group was switched to the Miracle so we are trying to find all we can about her!!!

[aclight]

Hello everyone.

 

I'm glad you're enjoying the review. I'm sorry it's taking so long, but after a week of vacation I'm really busy at work.

 

Here are answers to your questions:

 

crusinpsychRN: as the others have said, lunch was not included with the tour. We spent $40 on lunch for two entres, two beers, an enormous margarita, and tip. Given the quality of the food I thought it was well worth the price. We paid Ivan in cash AFTER the tour. He actually forgot to ask us to pay--one of the other people on the tour reminded him that we hadn't paid yet.

 

kellyfish:

 

1. We took cash on board with us. The day before the cruise we withdrew $400 from the ATM at the Publix that I mentioned in one of the earlier posts in this thread. That covered our excursions (both of them wanted cash). With the money that we had brought with us to Tampa we had plenty of cash. We just kept all the cash in the safe until the day we needed it. I'm used to charging everything, so carrying large amounts of cash didn't initially sit that well with me, but surprisingly I never felt like it was that big of a deal when we were in the ports. Of course, I only brought as much cash as I thought I would need for that day, but for example in Cozumel we just left our backpack with wallet inside on the beach while we went swimming. We kept an eye on it, but nothing happened.

2. Tubing is 1 person per tube. You can link legs to arms to travel in a chain, if you wish. The guides started one chain of people that didn't want to paddle, and they guided the chain themselves for the most part.

3. Tubing was never scary. The worst that would happen is that maybe you would fall out of your tube near the rapids or maybe scrape your hand a little on the rock trying to push off or on plants with thorns that were on the side of the river. Most of the time it was pretty slow and relaxing. The people who formed the chain had even less to do than I did (I floated by myself), so for them it was probably even more relaxing.

4. We carried nothing but the camera and sunglasses with us on the tube. I felt that our stuff was plenty safe in the bus. We paid for this tour before it started, so we didn't have all that much to steal anyway. Who really wants a bunch of carnival towels and bug spray soaked shirts!

5. The height of the platforms varies. I think the tallest is about 85 feet. Because this really is in the jungle, though, it often seems that you're not all that high because there are plants and trees everywhere (they clear out the path under the zipline so you don't plow into any trees when you're traveling along the line).

6. The zips are also variable. The longest is around 200 feet, the shortest probably 80. Once you start zip lining, you can't chicken out, because there isn't any other way to get off the platforms and through the jungle. Nobody chickened out. Honestly, this is not scary at all, unless perhaps you are really scared of heights. At all times you are either attached to the zip line or clipped to a safety rope that is attached to the tree so you can't fall off the platform. The cables themselves are way over-engineered and there is a large amount of redundancy built into the system.

7. We didn't hear any reviews of anything else, sorry.

 

Pelt away with questions! I hope you have a great time.

[crusinpsychRN]

Thanks everone for all your answers! I posted on a Belize site in Ports of Call on 9/15 and no one has replied since then. This really helps.

 

It looks like we just have do go ziplining...I did that once in one of those management training courses---7 months pregnant!!

[kellyfish]

aclight:

Wow! Thanks! You explain things so well!!! Ever think of becoming a technical writer??? I wish I had more questions for you...but I'm currently spazing about packing & prepping the husband for me being gone! 85 feet on those zip lines, huh? Yikes...maybe on the next trip... Tubing sounds like fun though! I'm also fantasizing about the food! Lobster, escargot & filet mignon have all made star appearances... My DH wants me to go fishing (I want to go fishing), but I haven't seen anyone talking about it. I need to be on-line more to check, but like you, am busy at work preparing FOR vacation!!! When I calm down a little, I'll pelt you some more. Thanks again!

 

stephanie76:

Hi Shipmate! I did go to roll-call - it looks like everyone aboard has posted!!! I will put something in hopefully tonight! See you soon!

[aclight]

First of all, before I finish up the review, I wanted to post the link to most of the pictures I took during the trip. I have lots of pictures of the Miracle, as well as a few from the ports of call (which were all taken with disposable cameras, and thus are rather poor quality).

 

http://picasaweb.google.com/aclight/CarnivalMiracleCruiseSeptember2006

 

 

Final Day at Sea

I have to admit that we didn't do much at all the last full day of the cruise, other than just relax. We sat by the pool pretty much the whole day and just read. The weather was beautiful, though, and it was quite enjoyable. As I've mentioned before, the ship really didn't feel that crowded. Today, the middle pool was pretty crowded during the social activities (alligator wrestling and the fear factor competition), but outside of those activities there were plenty of empty deck chairs and outdoor tables. Maybe this cruise wasn't fully booked and that's why it seemed like the ship wasn't that crowded, but in any case it was very pleasant.

 

We skipped the show tonight (Carnival Legends) and opted instead to lose some more quarters in the quarter flipping maching in the casino.

 

We planned to do the self assisted debarkation, and so we packed but didn't leave any of our luggage outside in the hall.

 

We went out for a final late-night pizza and ice cream run.

 

Final Day

We got up pretty early today, and because our flight home wasn't until 1:40 pm, we weren't in a hurry. We ate breakfast on the Lido deck, and though it was crowded there were still plenty of seats.

 

Originally we had planned to carry our luggage off the ship ourselves, but not to do that until the regular disembarkation period began, because we didn't want to have to sit in the airport for a long time. It wasn't exactly clear to us if this was allowed, but I think it would have been fine. But, because our ship was a little late in getting cleared, we decided to go ahead and leave after we had breakfast. This was about 30 minutes after the self assist period started. We got to the 2nd floor gangway and were literally the 2nd to last couple off the ship before self-assist ended. So it took us about 3 minutes from the time we left our staterooms for the final time until we had been cleared through customs.

 

The taxi stand was easy to find, and we took a taxi to the airport ($22 fixed price, up to 6 people).

 

We still got to the airport about 4.5 hours before our flight departed, and Southwest wouldn't let us check our bags yet, so we sat near the check in counter for about an hour and read. Then we checked our bags and went upstairs to go through security.

 

I have to say that Tampa (or at least terminal C, where we flew out of) probably has the nuttiest airport security system I have ever seen. They checked my ID and boarding pass at least 5 times, which is a bit excessive in my book, considering that at most airports they only check it once. Furthermore, though the passenger load was extremely light at the security checkpoints, this was probably the longest process I have experienced in years. There were less than 10 people in line in front of me at the security station, and it still took 15 minutes to get through. They were forcing everyone to go through those new machines that puff air on you to detect explosives, and it takes about 45 seconds for a cycle to be completed. Then, they have you walk through the standard metal detector and X-ray your bags.

 

I would guess that they don't go through this same process when things are busy, but still I wouldn't want to cut it very close at the Tampa airport as far as flight times are conserned, since I could see you missing your flight.

 

The nice thing was that they had free wifi internet access. The really bad thing is that there were a total of 2 electrical outlets that I could find in the entire terminal. One was just at the base of a big wall on one side of a walkway, so it wasn't a good place to sit and recharge your laptop. The other one was by the right side (facing it) of the Chilis carryout stand.

 

Reflections after the cruise

The hardest part for me after leaving the cruise was not that I wasn't on vacation anymore (though that was hard). Instead, it was getting used to not being treated well by employees that serve me. It's so nice on the ship because practically everyone that works on the ship is very friendly and seem very happy to be doing their job, and they are always willing and ready to assist you if you need it. Even the staff in the port cities provided a high level of service.

 

Once you go back to the real world, things are a little different. There are some people I encounter who provide service with a smile, so to speak, but that kind of attitude is more rare than when on the cruise.

 

Overall, we had a great time, and we look forward to cruising again. We were happy with the Miracle and with Carnival in general. Almost everything was well run and efficient, and we didn't run into any major problems along the way.

 

For the price of the cruise itself (we paid $399 each for an inside GTY after the OBC for price drops is taken into account) the value is excellent. Even after factoring in airfare, pre-cruise hotel, and excursions, the price was pretty reasonable.

 

I want to thank the people on CruiseCritic.com for their helpful reviews of the ship, ports, excursions, etc. Without the assistance from all of you I'm sure this trip wouldn't have been as good as it was.

 

I hope this review was useful to you. If you have any questions about things, feel free to ask.

[crusinpsychRN]

Your review was very helpful and well written. Glad you had a good time! Now it's time to book another!

[crusinpsychRN]

Great review with lots of good info. Time to book another!

[crusinpsychRN]

I hat it when my computer is going slow and tells me post didn't go through and it really did...sorry for double post.

[SouthernCaribbean]

Great Review thanks for sharing