Review: Carnival Cruise Lines - Miracle - [October 09, 2005]

[Net Reviews]

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Reviewer Comments:

My critique of the Carnival Miracle Cruise that left on October 9, 2005.
Susan Ferriola

You may be asking why I want to give my own critique when Clay is giving
one. Well it’s because I don’t mind being down right mean, and Clay is
ever so kind and polite.

Embarkation. Oh. My. God. We had a fun pass, which should have meant
that we merely show our fun pass and waltz right by those poor slobs
that didn’t have one. Did it happen that way? Nooooo. Apparently .. A
tanker was in port and therefore we could not board the ship from the
dock. We had to be bussed to the pier where the ship was docked.

So you’re probably thinking, small inconvenience not so bad. But No!
Because the ship was at a different pier, they could not do a computer
hook up, there for all the fun pass people had to wait in line like the
rest of the slobs. Now expecting to use the fun pass, I had carried way
too much stuff, which I would not have carried had I known I had to wait
in that hellaciously long line.

After arriving at the port, an hour and a half early, it still took us
two hours, to inch along to the desk, where we would be allowed to then
board a bus for yet another wait. Don’t even get me started on the 2
year old that I wanted to throttle and stuff in a duffel bag, that was
just ahead of us.

The Cabin. It was right next to the elevators. Yes! The day is looking
up! The room was ready! Woohoo! Clay plugged the GPS into the wall
socket and blew the circuit. Grrrrr. No worries.. I’m armed for bear. I
know how to use the phone. I called Maintenance. “I’m sorry the option
you have chosen has not been programmed.” Hey.. I’ll call the Purser’s
desk. I get forwarded to Room Service. “We’re Sorry, Room service will
not be available until after 4pm”. Still undeterred, I dial the
operator. “I’m sorry the option you have chosen has not been programmed.”

Ok. Now I am annoyed. I trudge down to the purser’s desk. ANOTHER line.
I wait and wait and wait. And when finally it is my turn.. I start
telling the Purser that I am having issues with… STOP; up goes her hand,
as she answers the phone in the middle of my sentence, effectively
cutting me off. (I wanted to cause a scene.. but had visions of being
tossed off the ship, since we were still at port). Apparently someone on
the phone was more important that the person that just waited for 37
minutes in line. So I fumed… openly.. for 5 minutes until she finally
got off the phone and I told her the problem. She was dismissive. I was
not impressed.

By the time I had gotten back to the cabin, Michael our cabin steward
had taken it upon himself to find an electrician, when Clay told him of
the problem. So it was fixed in a timely fashion – due to Michael – not
the Purser. Cabin steward earned points from me.

Dining Experience. Oh Dear god. It took most of the cruise to finally
figure out what that décor reminded me of, but it finally came to me. It
was some sick person’s artistic rendering of medieval France during the
plague, complete with enormously huge fuzzy (out of focus) cherubs
surrounded by lit pink puss pustules.

Now the food itself was very good. Not as good as the food on the Disney
Magic in my opinion. But it was good.

The wait staff, well our two wait staff, very hard working, very
attentive – it would have been nice had the wine steward been 10% as
attentive as our staff. Even our wait staff could not get our wine
steward to see to our needs.

Back to the dining room, it was very cramped. A lot of booths and tables
jammed in such a manner that the wait staff had to lean across the table
and therefore plates, to refill drinks, offer bread and such. On the
Disney Magic, the wait staff could move completely around the table with
no problem serving everyone with out leaning over someone else.

The Ports of Call:
Grand Cayman was my favorite – I will go again and again. We snorkeled
and swam with the stingrays, with Capt Marvin (It started with an M..
Clay will know if I am incorrect). I used sunblock 50, got fried to a
crisp.. and I would have gone again the next day given the chance.

Costa Maya was very pretty, we mostly shopped because we had spent the
previous day in Grand Cayman and I was fried.

Belize was a bit off putting. It didn’t help that there were armed
security guards at all the port exits, and the port area was fenced in
and all the taxi drivers outside the fence reminded me of vampires that
were just waiting for a juicy human to fall in their grasp. We shopped
and drank. Ok more drinking than shopping. The Belizian beer was very good!

Cozumel was gorgeous! The water was so clear and beautiful! The
people/shop owners not near as pushy as Belize. They took no for an
answer. That made me realize that Belize had been very pushy in that
aspect. I did all the ‘free gift’ stops there. Clay and Tony were very
tolerant. And then I spent 45 minutes looking at stones.. and they were
still very tolerant! Cozumel was Great!

Cabin Steward: The first night, I had waited in line for most of the
day, and left dinner early due to a headache. Michael the cabin steward
came by to turn down the bed, told him I was well, he asked if I needed
anything – once he knew it was just a headache he left and didn’t try to
bother us anymore that night.

The next day, first thing he asked – how was I feeling? He earned more
points. Then we requested more pillows. (I love pillows.. you can never
have too many pillows *nod*) and we got them immediately! Michael is
earning big time points.

For the rest of the cruise we never really saw him that much, because we
would leave ‘please service room’ on the door knob and the room was
always made up when we got back. Second to last day, he did come by to
make sure all was well. He was very personable, he talked about his
family and his son.

Room Service: We left the room service menu on the door hanger at night
for delivery in the morning and it was always there within the time
frame we requested, except the last day – which they were 20 minutes
late, but it was also disembarkation day – so I figure that is
understandable.

Disembarkation: Another Line. That barely moved. It was a free for all.
Once they announced “general all clear’ – it was a mad dash of everyone
trying to get off the ship all at the same time. Preciously there had
been a system, but they decided to chuck it for our cruise. We got in
line at 9:30, it took until 10:15 to get off the boat. Now that doesn’t
sound that bad, except that again I was carrying stuff, like breakable
things that I didn’t want broken.