Miracle Review 10/16

[bostonchelle]

All, this was our first cruise and first trip to the carribean and a long well deserved belated honeymoon (1.5 years) as hubby is Air Force and has been overseas mainly since our wedding last June. This being said, I have a very different review of another poster on the same sailing. I have several observations, none of which are meant to offend or make a political/social statement, they are just observations. and i apologize ahead of time for my numerous spelling errors, etc. i am typing as fast as i can to get this out.

 

we left out of tampa, and stayed overnight at the clarion hotel on kennedy the night before. free shuttle from airport to hotel, $20 can ride to ship the next day. was clean and fine, nothing fancy, bookd on hotels.com for $59.99. we walked to maggianos for dinner which was fun.

 

we had a cat. 11 suite on the 6th floor so we went through the skippers club for embarktion, which was a breeze. 20 minutes from dock to horitatios. we watched the sailing from the orpheous deck which was nice. we were told when we got there that there was a possible change in sailing. but we didn't know until we got until our room that we were missing grand cayman and costa maya and were going to belieze first. not CC's fault, but it was very disappointing.. thus there was a scramble to change excursions and we were unable to get the tour we had wanted so we decided to deal with it when we got to belieze.

 

our suite was AMAZING, tons of room (closets, bathroom and drawers) and had a great balconey. benet was our steward and took care of us all week.

 

our waiter was ricardo and was also amazing, the service was fantastic. the food in the dining room was fair. nothing special but fair. 2 nights is was pretty cold, but we dealt with it. we had dinner at nick and noras where the food was much much better and the service was amazing. the room was lovely and the singer was great too. the food at the buffets was again fair. i didn;t think it was very good, but i had plently of options so i wasn't hungry. deli, pizza, room service and the sushi were all very good.

 

belieze, we couldn't find anything else we wanted to do that wasn't booked, so we had a drink at the wet lizard on the pier and took the tender back in.

 

we had booked a water excursion in cozamel, but didn't know until we got off the ship that they were all cancelled (no one had told us), again there was a big scramble to rebook. we ended up booking the playa maya beach break, which was $78pp and included transportation to the beach, buffet, open bar and entrance to the beach. in my opinion it wasn;t worth it, we would have been better off takign a cab to the beach and paying the enterance fee. the buffet was terrible and the drinks not worth it. we were only in cozamel from 0830 to 1330, so not a lot of time to do anything.

 

progresso ... we got off the ship, waited in line for the bus to take you to the city (5.5 mile pier that you cannot walk). the line wasn't even moving and then it started to DOWNPOUR. we heard from several people the city wasn't worth it, people selling trinkets and that was pretty much it (not much in the way of excursions). so we headed back to the ship. people all around us were very annoyed and angry.

 

hubby and i have never been motion sick in our lives but were both very ill wednesday night (as was 1/2 of the dining room as servers were handing out motion sickness pills like candy). it was extremely rocky and many many people were complaining about this.

 

some random thoughts:

 

we smuggled in jack daniels and champagne in our luggage onto the ship with no problems.

 

the miracle book in the cabin is no longer free.

 

the pursor will punch a hole in your sale and sign cards but you either need to purchase a laynard from the gift shop (it says camp carnival) or get one from the casino, so if thats important to you, then bring your own. also, the pursor no longer has free post cards.

 

the smoking: this is nothing against smokers ... smoking is allowed anywhere but the dining rooms. hubby and i live in the south where you can still smoke anywhere so im very used to it and not sensative. people were smoking everywhere on the ship ... and smoking a lot. it was making both hubby and i queasy often so just something you might want to keep in mind if it bothers you.

 

the shows were ok. we saw ticket to ride and the vegas show. the hypnotist and the comidenne was so so. the mohito party was fun, and the margarita/bathroom party on deck was an absolute BLAST.

 

mark hawkins was the cruise director. he seemed fine, im not really sure what they are supposed to do, so i can't really speak either way.

 

the captain did a really good jon letting us know what was going on weather wise but the change in itenary was disappointing, but not his fault. the entire cruise staff seemed extremely gracious and accomadating, we were treated very well.

 

i'm trying to think of what else ... people can ask me questions if they have specific ones. all in all, it was ok. im not sure i would cruise again to be honest with you, but i guess you take the good with the bad.

[bostonchelle]

a few more things. the games/activities on board were eh. no one seemed into them too much. hubby and i did sports trivia and won a "ship on a stick".

 

the photographers on board were very good and had great backgrounds, etc. and really took the time to take nice photographs.

 

dress in the dining room seemed pretty casual even on formal nights. hubby was going to wear his mess dress military uniform but then felt he's be overdressed. i did see some gowns/tuxes but the majority seemed cocktail/polo dressed.

 

more later if i think of it ...

[Kelynj]

we sail on the miracle in a weeks time so loved hearing what you had to say.

I'm not brilliant with motion sickness and our first cruise we hit a gale force 8 storm. We were sailing around the canary islands and morroco in a ship about a third of the size of the miracle. On my day at sea I was glad to pay £80 for an injection and slept most of the day. I said 'never again'. DH loved it so much i agreed to another cruise as long as it was the carribean, a much larger, newer ship and a balcony - the cruise was great with no motion sickness at all. It's a shame that you had Wilma to contend with - try again and hopefully the weather will be good for you. I can't wait for the next cruise - we have an inside as we didn't seem to use the balcony much at all.

If you can think of any more about the Miracle we'd love to hear it.:)

[emmysmommy]

We were on the Miracle in August and Binet was our room steward as well - he was AWESOME! It was his birthday during our cruise and we gave him a "little something" to go and party and have a good time with!!

 

Oh, maybe I should clarify, the "little something" we gave him, someone might think we provided some illicit substances - it was cash and a hug. Never mind, I probably didn't need to clarify :)