A Miracle Review--my 2 cents worth

Found the reviews interesting although I didn't appreciate the "slobs"
remarks. It only suggested this lady picked the wrong cruise line for
her tastes. Having said that I will now tell you I am looking forward
to our cruise on the Miracle on Dec. 4th. This will be our 7th cruise
on Carnival in addition to 5 on Celebrity. Certainly 2 lines very
different from each other. I can only say we have enjoyed both equally
well but for different reasons. I love reading other people's opinions
of a ship as it sort of prepares me for what I might encounter. I
already knew Carnival meant GLITZ to the max and from what I have read
the Miracle takes it way over the top. So.......it is only a small part
of the total. Rather than bellyache about the decor I think I am
prepared to be amused by it. In our previous Carnival experiences we
found the service to be good, the food very good, the shows good to very
good and the total experience for the buck has been terrific. Our
Celebrity cruises have been very different from Carnival. Better? Well
that depends on what you are comparing. Decor on Celebrity (Zenith &
Horizon) is quite bland whereas the glitz of Carnival seemed to keep up
"pumped up" rather than soothe us. Food.....quality was about the same
but a little better choices on Celebrity. Service......now that is
where Celebrity shines. It was super. But I don't complain about
Carnival.....I don't have anyone at home coming in everyday to pick up
the towels, clean the bathroom and make my bed. On board
fun......enough on both lines to keep you amused just different from
each other. Shows seemed to be the same between both lines......some
were very good some were losers, but ALL were better than sitting at
home in front of the boob tube.
The problem with the oil tankers doesn't happen all the time and it is
unfortunate. But embarking has never been too swift on Carnival. With
Celebrity we were boarding the ship within MINUTES of arriving at the
port. Hard to beat that.

We are taking some friends who are 1st time cruisers. It will interest
us to see their reactions and see if they enjoy the cruise. I will give
my own review when we return. Oh, in case you think I can't give an
unbiased review let me add I found the loud mouthed drunk on the Lido
deck of the Jubilee totally disgusting and annoying. While the old gent
who took his teeth out to eat ice cream on the Zenith was a
shocker.....until later when I laughed my head off thinking about him.
Did either of these things ruin my cruise? No way.

~Dory~

"Dory Samuels" <dorysamuels@> wrote in message
news:3191-435A51A4-684@storefull-3336.bay....
> Found the reviews interesting although I didn't appreciate the "slobs"
> remarks. It only suggested this lady picked the wrong cruise line for
> her tastes. Having said that I will now tell you I am looking forward
> to our cruise on the Miracle on Dec. 4th. This will be our 7th cruise
> on Carnival in addition to 5 on Celebrity. Certainly 2 lines very
> different from each other. I can only say we have enjoyed both equally
> well but for different reasons. I love reading other people's opinions
> of a ship as it sort of prepares me for what I might encounter. I
> already knew Carnival meant GLITZ to the max and from what I have read
> the Miracle takes it way over the top. So.......it is only a small part
> of the total. Rather than bellyache about the decor I think I am
> prepared to be amused by it. In our previous Carnival experiences we
> found the service to be good, the food very good, the shows good to very
> good and the total experience for the buck has been terrific. Our
> Celebrity cruises have been very different from Carnival. Better? Well
> that depends on what you are comparing. Decor on Celebrity (Zenith &
> Horizon) is quite bland whereas the glitz of Carnival seemed to keep up
> "pumped up" rather than soothe us. Food.....quality was about the same
> but a little better choices on Celebrity. Service......now that is
> where Celebrity shines. It was super. But I don't complain about
> Carnival.....I don't have anyone at home coming in everyday to pick up
> the towels, clean the bathroom and make my bed. On board
> fun......enough on both lines to keep you amused just different from
> each other. Shows seemed to be the same between both lines......some
> were very good some were losers, but ALL were better than sitting at
> home in front of the boob tube.
> The problem with the oil tankers doesn't happen all the time and it is
> unfortunate. But embarking has never been too swift on Carnival. With
> Celebrity we were boarding the ship within MINUTES of arriving at the
> port. Hard to beat that.
>
> We are taking some friends who are 1st time cruisers. It will interest
> us to see their reactions and see if they enjoy the cruise. I will give
> my own review when we return. Oh, in case you think I can't give an
> unbiased review let me add I found the loud mouthed drunk on the Lido
> deck of the Jubilee totally disgusting and annoying. While the old gent
> who took his teeth out to eat ice cream on the Zenith was a
> shocker.....until later when I laughed my head off thinking about him.
> Did either of these things ruin my cruise? No way.

Dory, I like your attitude! Because of it and your tolerance for when things
are weird or go wrong, I look for you to have a great time on this cruise!
You apparently enjoy variety and different experiences as I do..I'm really
looking forward to your review on this ship.

--Jean

Dory Samuels wrote:
> Found the reviews interesting although I didn't appreciate the "slobs"
> remarks.

Why? It was what it was. Have you never seen slobs? We saw few of them
on our Disney cruises. There were quite a few on this cruise. This was
our third cruise. What we saw on Carnival was just that, as was Disney.
There were clientele(sp?)on this particular cruise that were as
described, and very different in shear number than the Disney cruises we
took.

It only suggested this lady picked the wrong cruise line for
> her tastes.
This lady didn't know what to expect until she experienced it.

Having said that I will now tell you I am looking forward
> to our cruise on the Miracle on Dec. 4th. This will be our 7th cruise
> on Carnival in addition to 5 on Celebrity. Certainly 2 lines very
> different from each other. I can only say we have enjoyed both equally
> well but for different reasons. I love reading other people's opinions
> of a ship as it sort of prepares me for what I might encounter. I
> already knew Carnival meant GLITZ to the max and from what I have read
> the Miracle takes it way over the top. So.......it is only a small part
> of the total.


Rather than bellyache about the decor I think I am
> prepared to be amused by it.

It was amusing!

In our previous Carnival experiences we
> found the service to be good, the food very good, the shows good to very
> good and the total experience for the buck has been terrific. Our
> Celebrity cruises have been very different from Carnival. Better? Well
> that depends on what you are comparing. Decor on Celebrity (Zenith &
> Horizon) is quite bland whereas the glitz of Carnival seemed to keep up
> "pumped up" rather than soothe us. Food.....quality was about the same
> but a little better choices on Celebrity. Service......now that is
> where Celebrity shines. It was super. But I don't complain about
> Carnival.....I don't have anyone at home coming in everyday to pick up
> the towels, clean the bathroom and make my bed. On board
> fun......enough on both lines to keep you amused just different from
> each other. Shows seemed to be the same between both lines......some
> were very good some were losers, but ALL were better than sitting at
> home in front of the boob tube.
> The problem with the oil tankers doesn't happen all the time and it is
> unfortunate. But embarking has never been too swift on Carnival. With
> Celebrity we were boarding the ship within MINUTES of arriving at the
> port. Hard to beat that.
>
> We are taking some friends who are 1st time cruisers. It will interest
> us to see their reactions and see if they enjoy the cruise. I will give
> my own review when we return. Oh, in case you think I can't give an
> unbiased review let me add I found the loud mouthed drunk on the Lido
> deck of the Jubilee totally disgusting and annoying. While the old gent
> who took his teeth out to eat ice cream on the Zenith was a
> shocker.....until later when I laughed my head off thinking about him.
> Did either of these things ruin my cruise? No way.

I didn't read anywhere about a cruise being ruined.

Badger

George Leppla wrote:

> I find that in many cruise "reviews", I learn much more about the writer
> than about the ship. That can be good or bad. It was very interesting to
> see how husband and wife described the same cruise. Their individual
> personalities really came through in both reviews and they were fun to read.

Yes, you probably saw that I tend to analyze more(engineer you know) my
bride tends to blurt more. ;) We have a great time together.

>

>
> What makes a cruise "fun" or a "good value" is such a subjective thing that
> it is really hard to take most cruise reviews very seriously.... but they
> are a lot of fun to read and when you read enough of them, you can get a
> general sense of what any particular ship is like.
> >
> FWIW - I sailed on the Miracle last May with a group and didn't find much in
> this cruise review that I would vehemently disagree with.
> I don't pay much attention to "decor" unless it is truly distracting.
The dining room on the
> Miracle was distracting... for the first meal.

Just so you understand, it didn't distract us at all. It was fun trying
to describe though.

Then it faded into the
> background. I am good at enjoying things I like and ignoring things I
> don't. Food was very good... Carnival has come a long, long way in the
> past ten years to where their dining room food is probably the best of all
> the mass market lines. Service and entertainment is as good as any of the
> mass markets and better than some.
>
> I think Mr. Badger's final paragraph summed it up very nicely and it
> describes how I feel after most of my cruises:
>
> "Did I enjoy myself? Absolutely. Was it worth the money? Absolutely.
> Would I do it again? Absolutely, but not until I've tried some other
> lines and ships."
>
My wife feels this way as well. Incidentally Mr.Badger is my father. :)

Clay

Jean O'Boyle wrote:

> George, let's just hope this new French chef that is coming to
> Carnival does not mess things up; as the food is great on Carnival as
> it is right now! Why try to fix something that doesn't need fixing?

Jean, I had the same thoughts. The food on Carnival is fine, they
should leave it alone. Adding the adults only swimming pool was a plus.

Becca