Miracle Review: July 4 2015 sailing

[krufrank]

Hello fellow Cruisers!! For those interested (I always am), I will be posting a day by day review of our Carnival Miracle Cruise out of Long Beach from July 4, 2015 - stops in Cabo, Mazatlán and PV. I hope you will enjoy what I offer. Don't expect many pictures - I am a wordsmith not a photographer :)

[krufrank]

My wife and I (both mid 40's) decided at the very last moment to book a cruise to start our summer holidays. We have done 7 cruises in the past but not since 2008. Coincidently that is the exact year our two kids started University. We had to make a choice - help out kids through their higher education or go on cruises. After much hand-wringing we decided to help out kids. But no more! They have graduated. So it's back to cruising for us again!! Yeah us. :p

 

My wife came home from her last day of work, she is a school-teacher, and said "Let's book a cruise." This was on June 30 around 6:00pm Central Time. After much searching and one false start (we almost got a booking on the Carnival Breeze for a Southern Caribbean Cruise but it was sold out by the time we swung back to it) we purchased a mid-balcony cabin #8199. We finished all the cruise details by midnight on June 30.

 

Next up, the flights. We were very fortunate to find direct flights from our nearest airport city - Calgary, AB Canada - to LAX; leaving on July 3rd and coming home on July 11.

 

We then quickly booked a transfer from LAX to Long Beach, booked a hotel for the 3rd in Long Beach and began to write our packing list.

[krufrank]

My wife and I departed from Calgary, AB CANADA for Long Beach on July 3 - at 2:01pm. I have to confess, we were a little nervous about the flight with WestJet. Every day, for the 5 days preceding our trip, some one was phoning in bomb threats to a WestJet flight - and all 5 had to be diverted but all 5 turned out to be hoaxes. I am sure you can understand our apprehension. While the flight down was a smooth flight (with no bomb threats) we both were a tad nervous - and you could even see it on the faces of a number of fellow passengers.

 

When we landed in LAX it wasn't super warm - in fact it was hotter in Calgary when we left than it was in Los Angeles. But still nice weather. Off to collect our luggage and find our shuttle.

 

We did not book our airport transfers through Carnival - we found them way over priced. Instead we went through Super Shuttle. They were much, much, much cheaper and their communication and service was superior. They texted us to let us know where our shuttle would be (on both ends) and the approximate wait time we would have - which never exceeded 15 minutes at either end. I highly recommend them. Great value.

 

Probably because of the time of the year, (July 4th weekend) we found it difficult to find a hotel in Long Beach (where the Miracle departs from) that was not over priced. We settled in on Marriott Courtyard Long Beach Downtown - that is a mouthful to say. It cost us $250 CND and while it was a nice, clean, safe hotel it was NOT worth $250 CND - sorry. The rooms were basic, they had one veggie restaurant in the hotel and being downtown did not have a lot of restaurant choices. When booking online it is tough to really find a good hotel to stay in and actually picked this one because a few other CruiseCritic members suggested it. Maybe during off-season times it would be worth staying here - but not around July 4th weekend. LOL.

 

Once we checked in we both needed some dinner. The front desk told us about the inner harbor and all the restaurants to be found down there. So we hailed a taxi and headed out. Note: you can walk from this hotel to inner harbor - its about a 20 minute walk - which we did on the way back to try and work off our dinner that we just consumed!!

 

Of all the great choices we had to eat at - and many of you will laugh at us - we chose to eat at the Outback Steakhouse. Heh, we are Canadian and we don't have many of those (if any) up where we live. When we have traveled through US with the kids we always enjoyed eating at the Outback so why not now?? My wife had steak and lobster (she enjoyed it) and I had a cheese, bacon, + mushroom covered chicken breast with BBQ sauce. MMMMM! Two beers but no dessert.

 

After dinner, the weather was so nice we took a stroll around the inner harbor, took some pics and then began to walk back to hotel for an early nights rest. Right? Nope. When we got back to our room - around 8:00pm - we realized that our "window" in our room actually overlooked their swimming pool...and it was packed with families...who were very loud...and the pool didn't close until 10:00. Doh!! We tried to sleep but couldn't until the families finally all dispersed at closing time. If you decide to book this hotel make sure you ask for a room that is NOT overlooking the pool. LOL. Plus we were pretty excited about the morning - embarkation day!!

[rnoli32]

Looking forward to your review! We sail on Feb 20th on the Miracle :)

[HawksFan74]

Of all the great choices we had to eat at - and many of you will laugh at us - we chose to eat at the Outback Steakhouse.

Haha, I'm only laughing because we went to the same restaurant for dinner the night before our cruise last November!

 

I had a cheese, bacon, + mushroom covered chicken breast with BBQ sauce.

That would be the Alice Springs Chicken. One of my favorites!

[TamaLee]

Thanks for sharing.

[eponym]

We were on that sailing too. Look forward to reading your trip/experiences.

[boaterette]

I am enjoying your review so far.