Carnival Miracle to Alaska - (photo) review 5/27/14-6/3/14 with kids

In my preparation for this cruise I read lots of reviews. I think I read every Alaska cruise review from 2013. I wanted to repay the favor and write one for this year.

On this cruise adventure with me was my DH, DD (9) and DD (turned 6 on cruise), and my parents.

DH and I had been on one cruise together before. For our ten year wedding anniversary a couple years ago, DH agreed to go on a three day Carnival cruise to Ensenada. I had a great time! DH, not so much. Oddly he kept saying he thought he would have more fun if the kids were along. Okay - so fast forward two years, to this past February, and in the mail comes one of those coveted "free inside stateroom" offers from Carnival. (I know sore subject for some - but for us, it was probably the only way DH would have gone on this vacation). So after coming to Cruise Critic and reading the fine print, we decided to go for it. I found that this cruise itinerary was an option and set off to plan our Miracle vacation. Alaska had always been a bucket list item for my mother so I knew that I could not fully plan this vacation without asking them to come along. It did not take much persuasion and within 3 days of receiving the offer we had each booked staterooms and were making plans.

DH, myself and DDs, decided to drive to Seattle from our home in Northern California. We left on Monday, May 26 (Memorial Day) very early in the morning. DH was insistent on spending Memorial Day at a baseball game. So early we left and arrived at Safeco field in time for first pitch between the Mariners v. Angels. (No we are not fans of either team - but we are baseball fans). It was a good game, but not why you're reading my review. We spent the night at the La Quinta Inn near SeaTac. We chose this hotel for a few reasons. First, it was priced well at around $100/night for two queen beds. Second, it had free parking - key in Seattle. And third, the original plan was to pick my parents up at the airport the following morning and drive to the cruise terminal together. The hotel was clean and nice. The staff very helpful (more on that to come). If you don't care about being close to downtown, I highly recommend this hotel.

Okay, off to a meeting and dinner. More to come in a couple hours...

Morning of the cruise we grab some continental breakfast, do some final re-packing and get ready to head over to the cruise terminal. My parent flight is arriving around 11:30a.m. and they have now made arrangements through Carnival for transportation to/from the airport. As we load the minivan to head to the terminal, discover the passenger door is stuck OPEN!! Ahh!! I run into the hotel - scream for DH to come help me and pray the damn door will shut so we can drive away. The desk clerk sees what is happening and kindly calls the hotel maintenance person to come out and help us. He was a life saver. Between his tools and brute force, the door gets shut (still have to see if we can ever re-open it). And finally we're off to the cruise terminal, about 12:00 noon. The drive from hotel to Pier 91 was relatively quick and painless. We did not hit any traffic. The drive took about 20 minutes. We parked at Seattle Cruise Park. It is an offsite parking lot not far from the terminal. We were able to park there for $140 for the week. The lot was a little difficult to find but once we did it was easy. We had pre-paid for the parking, they gave us a paper to put on our dash and told us to unload and wait by our vehicle and shuttle would be back soon. Less than five minutes later the shuttle arrived. Ten minutes later we were in line for check-in. We happen to see my parents walking into the building as we were unloading the shuttle, so it turns out to be good timing. Check-in was very easy. First we dropped off our checked luggage, then proceeded through security to a short line where our picture was taken, we were given our sail & sign cards and sent to board the ship. Our passports were checked twice. First, after dropping off our luggage (mainly to make sure that passports or appropriate ID had not been left in checked luggage) and a second time at the check-in counter before our picture was taken. We were on the ship and headed to our stateroom by 1:00p.m. The room was ready for us so we dropped off our carry-ons and set off to the Lido deck for some lunch (and to meet the parents).

View from our balcony.

More pictures to come tomorrow as I begin to explore the ship and sail into Alaskan waters.

Looking forward to your review we will be on the miracle in august. Thanks for sharing your experiences.

Looking forward to your pictures. I'm curious to see if your experience is similar to another poster who recently gave a review.

We had stateroom 4179. It is mid-ship on the port side (I think, I was confused about this the whole trip). It was a balcony cabin with sleeping for four. The stateroom fit us well. Our bed was put together as a king bed and the girls slept on bunk beds. The couch was converted to a bed and the upper bunk was pulled down from the ceiling. When we first entered the room the upper bunk was stored away and the lower bed was still a couch. (unfortunately the pictures did not turn out), after turn down service that evening the couch became a bed and the upper bunk was pulled down. They remained this way the remainder of the cruise.

(this depicts how the beds remained during the day before turn down service)

The rest of the day we wandered the ship and explored different areas. Since we had kids with us, we made a stop at Camp Carnival to register the kids. We allowed our 9 year old to have sign in/out privileges. We did this to mainly allow her to participate in the Camp scavenger hunts around the ship (which they are not allowed to attend if they cannot sign out). Other than signing out for the scavenger hunt, she remained in camp until we picked her up. Our youngest had her birthday during the cruise and the camp staff suggested she be placed in the 6-8 year old group. We agreed and I am very glad we did. The 6-8 group and 9-11 group did a lot of activities together and were in the same room. I understand this is how it works every week. The kids really enjoyed Camp and kept asking to go back.

We ate dinner in the MDR. We had YTD and easily obtained a table for 6 without waiting. The table was toward the rear of the MDR and had a great window view. The head waiter was great and service was phenomenal. The kids received kid menus - which kept them occupied coloring and doing word searches, but they never ordered off the kids menu. (I unfortunately do not have any food pictures). I liked the food, it was not five star quality dining, but it was better than your typical chain restaurant. Pretty impressive considering how many people they are cooking for in a short period of time. My main food note - Creme Brulee is served for dessert this first night only. I really like Creme Brulee and am glad I got it for dessert that night since I never saw it again.

After dinner we went to John Heald's Welcome Aboard Show - it was funny and really entertaining. Yes, we took the kids with us and while they did not get all the jokes, they enjoyed themselves and the content of the show was mostly kid appropriate (PG 13) but we're pretty lax.

Tomorrow: Sea Day

First full day: Sea Day

There is really not much to say about Sea Day. We had clear skies but it was crazy windy. Deck 10 (sun deck) and Deck 11 (sport deck) were closed due to high winds. The entire Lido deck remained accessible. The seas were a little rocky. Some people said they experienced feeling sea sick, but none of my group did. The kids spent a lot of time at Camp. This would be my only complaint... we brought the kids to Camp Carnival at 10:00am. There were a lot of people dropping kids off (understandable) but if someone went to drop a kid off and had not preregistered the camp staff took the time to register the kid on the spot, which halted the entire line of other kids already registered trying to get in. That first day, we arrive at Camp at 10:00 and the kids were not in the room until 10:45.

DH and I spent some time getting a couples massage, while my parents took the kids to the pool.

This is a picture of the outdoor pool on Lido deck. There is an identical looking pool also on the Lido deck that is covered by a retractable roof. The roof was never retracted during the cruise and that area was clearly one of the most popular places to relax on the cruise ship.

Dinner tonight was elegant night, so we cleaned up and got dressed for dinner in the MDR. We requested the hostess sit us in the same section as the previous night. Gembong (aka James Bond - as he said it) was our head waiter. Because we requested to be placed in his section, we had to wait about 15 minutes for a table to open up. Had we been ok with any section, there there would not have been a wait. I'm glad we requested to be in his section. I feel like we got the personal service benefit of assigned seating/dining, with the benefit of eating when we want. Again dinner was wonderful, and the kids ordered from the adult menu.

After dinner we went to the show "Generations". It was the last performance for the dancers. Their contract was over and they were going on vacation. The show was a lot of fun and again we took the kids to the show with us. They really enjoyed watching the dancers. You could tell the dancers had a bitter/sweet feeling about it being there final performance, and I was very happy to be a part of it.

My youngest is a chatty girl and quickly makes friends with everyone she meets. Sitting next to us was Dee, the personal assistant to John Heald. Within minutes Dee knew that we were there on "birthday cruise" (DH, DD and myself were all celebrating birthdays during the cruise), she also knew where we were from, and pretty much our entire life stories.

FYI - I will scan and post the Fun Times and Camp Carnival schedules tomorrow when I get to work to scan them into my computer.

Tomorrow: Tracy Arm Fjord

Thanks so much for the review! Can't wait to read the rest.

Looking forward to this. Thinking of taking my (will be) 6 and 9 yr olds on the Legend to AK next year. Interested to see how you kids enjoyed/handled it. :)

Cruising Tracy Arm Fjord

This day was probably my favorite of the whole trip. We took the small boat excursion (I don't remember the name). In my opinion, if you are cruising Alaska for the scenery and wildlife this is an absolute must do excursion. You can purchase it direct through Carnival. We chose the morning departure. We met in the Mad Hatter's Lounge, then a small boat (fit about 100 people) pulled along side the cruise ship and we boarded the smaller boat. We then pulled away from the cruise ship and headed off toward the glacier. Because we were on a smaller boat we were able to get much closer to the shore to see wildlife, like this bear

also the cruise ship was not able to get as far into the Fjord as the small ship was able to do. The cruise ship is limited by the ice field. Below is a picture from as far as the cruise ship was able to go.

This small boat was able to get much closer the the glacier and spent about 1/2 hour just hanging out watching the glacier. You could hear the ice cracking. It was so amazing and then It happened! The ice calving

The naturalist on board the small boat said that this was the third trip she'd been on this season and this was the closest the boat has gotten to the glacier and the first calving she's seen.

On our way back to the ship.

We got back to the ship around 2:00p.m. Another small boat trip went out at this time while the cruise ship made its way outside the fjord and back into the inside passage. We immediately headed to the Lido deck for lunch. This was an area I felt could have been better. The lunch buffets all closed at 2:30. On port days, the buffets are open til 3:30 and I think given the timing of this excursion that would have been nice as well. Instead our lunch options were limited. I would have liked a 24 hour salad bar.

The kids went swimming again and I spent some time in the hot tub. DH was at the casino I think. After some swimming, we went to the room to clean up for dinner. I ordered room service for the girls. They loved the sandwiches (BLT and grilled ham n cheese). We then dropped them off at Camp Carnival and met my parents at Nick and Nora's specialty steakhouse for dinner. The food was amazingly good. The restaurant was not very busy. There were a handful of empty tables. It was a four course meal. By the time dessert rolled around I was so full, but had to try the chocolate sampler. Yum!

After dinner, DH went to the casino to play some poker and I picked the girls up from Camp Carnival. I was ready for bed, but they wanted to see what was happening in the main lounge so we headed over to see the show. The "show" that night was magician, juggler, trickster guy. I DID NOT enjoy this at all. He had a real annoying demeanor and tried to be funny with little success. Even the girls got tired of watching and we left about 15 minutes into the show. Fine by me, next day we were pulling into Skagway and had an early port arrival and tour scheduled.

More to come...

Gorgeous pictures! Can't wait to go!

Gorgeous pictures! Can't wait to go!

Thanks. I took over 1000 pictures this trip. It's been hard navigating through them to pick just a few. I brought my Nikon D3100. With me I had I had my 50mm 1:1.8 lense, 18-55mm 1:3.5-5.6 lense, and 55-200mm 1:4-5.6 zoom lense. Most pictures were shot with the zoom lense. I also brought my tripod but never used it.

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Skagway

We arrived in port at 7:00a.m. so this meant an early start to the day. We ordered room service for the morning. Kids had cereal, DH had lox and I had bagel. I'm glad we did this as it was nice to have a cup of coffee while getting ready for the day. The bagel was stale. If you order cereal from room service, make sure you also order milk.

We had arranged for a private tour through Skagway Private Tours. Sherri was prompt and waiting for us as we disembarked. She had a nice clean minivan. She even had a car seat available for use with our 6 year old. Sherri is a born and raised Alaskan, living the past several years in Skagway. She was very knowledgeable about the area and gave lots of insider tips. Sherri took us on a private tour into the Yukon Territory up to Emerald Lake, then dropped us off in Fraser, B.C. to take the train back to Skagway. This was a great way to see the scenery. We took our time on the drive up, stopping whenever we saw something of interest, like this bald eagle.

We needed our passports to cross into Canda. At the border, the agent checked our passports, but did not run them through any system. The whole crossing was very quick. We passed into the Yukon Territory and made a stop at the Carcross Desert

we then stopped in Caribou Crossing for lunch and a little dog sledding. The lunch was barbecue chicken, coleslaw, rolls, potatoes and donuts. Food was ok, nothing special. Our tour guide was great and managed to get us here before the cruise ship tour buses arrived. It allowed us to explore the area at a leisurely pace and without all the crowds.

Once the tour buses arrived, we left and continued on to Emerald Lake. This lake was so beautiful. The picture does not do it justice. There were a few other vans pulled off the road there but no tour bus trips go that far. We then made a stop in Carcross for ice cream and finally dropped off in Fraser, BC for the train ride back to Skagway. The train was a nice relaxing way to travel back and gave a different view and perspective than the drive up. It was hard to take pictures from the train, which is why I am happy we chose to explore Skagway this way.

Tomorrow: Juneau

Love it so far. Thanks for taking your time. We leave in a week. Super excited even more now.

Susan

We are on the July 15 sailing. Your review is making me very excited. Well lets be honest, I've been excited for almost a year! This is making me more excited!!!

Had to cancel a B2B AK cruise a few years ago and I don't think I will ever get there unless I win the lottery, so I live vicariously thru reviews like yours. Thanks for sharing! :)

great photos ! what kind of camera do you use?

Thanks for taking the time to write this report .... there aren't many reports that include children so your report will be very helpful for families.

Love the pics and review. We are doing B-2-B Mexico/Hawaii cruises on Miracle this coming winter and are very excited about sailing on this ship. So glad you liked our great state! We couldn't live anywhere else.

We are on the Miracle 8/5 sailing. Thanks for the reviews so far! I am really getting excited now!

I'm on the sailing 6/10 (3days!). I'm excited all over again!

More please!

great photos ! what kind of camera do you use?

 

Thanks for taking the time to write this report .... there aren't many reports that include children so your report will be very helpful for families.

http://forums.cruisecritic.com/showpost.php?p=43011727&postcount=12

Great review and the pic are awesome.

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I'm enjoying your review. We have been to Alaska twice and plan to go back again. It's one of those amazing places that I don't think we will ever get tired of visiting.

I'm looking forward to reading more about your cruise!

Loving your review and pictures. I am subscribing! Getting me even more excited about trip in two weeks. :cool: