To the folks just back from the Miracle Panama Canal Cruise

[Nevada Jen]

Dish! We are on this cruise in September and I am dying to hear everything about it. Specifically, were there any kids? Average age of the passengers? what do you do with all those sea days? Do they have movies somewhere on the ship even though there are no dive in movies? Anyone have the fun times? How did they handle the canal? Like was there a lecturer or did they say something over the loud speakers or did you just float through and watch. Any great excursions for the short time in the two ports? Most importantly, how was the wifi? I am considering booking a B2B but I NEED the internet to work if I am going to do that. Last cruise on Liberty it was so slow that I was basically only able to read the first line of emails and then I had to come back a few hours later and re-open the email and the whole thing would be there. I can't do that for B2B. Plus, I am worried I will get tired of the ship after 15 days.

[TomAceEsq]

We went on the two week repo through the Canal in January and the average age on board was announced as 67. There were exactly four kids under the age of 18 on board. There were 400 diamonds and 700 platinums. We had one lecturer who did five or six topics. During the transit of the Canal itself there was an announcer for the first couple locks then the commentary died down. They showed movies in the lounge on sea day afternoons. The WiFi was surprisingly decent. As far as sea day activities, the crew does a great job of keeping people busy if they so choose to be. Just like any other cruise in that aspect.

 

It’s a great trip but two weeks is a long time to be away from our dogs and home. That said, we look forward to our next long trip in 2019. The last couple days we get anxious to get home, but it’s so worth it.

[bobandsherry]

Just back from cruise a couple weeks ago, partial transit. Stats I heard...

 

Avg age was 72+

 

# passengers under 55 was less than 30

 

22 kids on board, and of course the one lone cryer, yeller, screamer sat in our dining room

 

52% were Diamond, Platinum, Suites or FTTF guests

 

Larger than usual # of early diners, so much they extended dining room into adjacent room.

 

More than half a million scooters, walkers and canes combined (or just seemed like it)

 

Have fun

 

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[Nevada Jen]

Uh oh. I am a bit worried that my 12 year old and I may be the youngest on board! Any more comments on the Miracle wifi? That was the one nugget of happiness that I grabbed onto in all those comments!

[TomAceEsq]

Yeah, my wife and I are 34, and it was extremely difficult to even brush into people our age on board. Out of the 14 days we maybe saw about 50 other people between 25-50. A lot of younger people just can’t swing either the days off or the cost or both. We consider ourselves lucky to have flexibility in our vacation days.

[Canada_Cruiser2012]

I was on the April 14th Cruise and I totally agree with Bob and Sherry above. I’m 53 and I felt like one of the youngest people on the ship, so I asked Adam the CD and he said “You are one of the youngest on the ship!”

 

This was not a “Fun Ship” and I wouldn’t recommend this Cruise for kids. Having said that, it was great to see the Panama Canal.

 

 

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[Canada_Cruiser2012]

Oh I forgot to mention they could only get two men to volunteer for the hairy chest contest so they cancelled it! This was representative of this Cruise - Not a fun ship!

 

 

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[TomAceEsq]

In the Miracle’s defense, it’s an amazing ship. I think the PC itineraries are more of a mature crowd and prefers a different kind of fun over a hairy chest contest.

[bobandsherry]

This was not a “Fun Ship” and I wouldn’t recommend this Cruise for kids. Having said that, it was great to see the Panama Canal.

Sorry to hear that you didn't have fun. However we found that despite the older crowd, we still had a lot of fund. We found the band (Alterr) in Red Frog Pub to really be great and met some new friends (now fellow groupies of the band with us) :) Met some really nice people in the casino and on the excursions as well. We also found the staff to be some of the best and most pleasant we've encountered in our 20 cruises.

 

It was interesting to see an older group, those who remind people that they group up when please and thank you were used, rarely uttered those words. I saw a lady on scooter go through the buffet and just yell out to the server behind the counter "give me a piece of toast", in a demanding tone. I thought how rude, how about asking nicely "hi sweety, can you please give me a piece of toast" or something similar.

[TomAceEsq]

The entitlement was VERY high on our sailing as well. We aren’t ones to judge because nobody knows what anyone is going through any given day, but we had the conversation a couple times that no wonder people think us younger generations are rude; we we raised by all the people on this ship. Lol

 

In all seriousness, pack an extra dose of patience on these longer Journeys sailings. If you go to bed after 9pm, prepare to have the ship pretty much to yourself. The upside to this is my wife and I often took out Bluetooth speaker to the hot tub to jam out and relax.

[bobandsherry]

Oh I forgot to mention they could only get two men to volunteer for the hairy chest contest so they cancelled it! This was representative of this Cruise - Not a fun ship!

 

 

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But Lip Sync Battle was fun to see an 80 year old out there shaking his assets, and he won over the 40 something.

 

Honestly I think the hairy chest contest may have run it's course as millennials are into a cleaner look.

 

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[Nevada Jen]

My 12 year old is different anyway. I don't know that he will mind the lack of kids. Last cruise his favorite part was the main dining room and adult karoke. Was the pool empty on sea days? Like possible to get a chair because of the age of the crowd? That would be pretty cool!

[originalgeek]

But Lip Sync Battle was fun to see an 80 year old out there shaking his assets, and he won over the 40 something.

 

Honestly I think the hairy chest contest may have run it's course as millennials are into a cleaner look.

 

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Ha! yeah that guy was awesome lol.

 

On the next to last day of the cruise one of the crew members saw me walking by said "Heyyyy! Heavy Metal Shirt Guy!" and we talked for a while about bands we liked. (Except for work and cruise ship dining rooms my main attire both on and off cruises is my band shirts) I think he was glad to find out you could be old and still into metal (I'm only 54 but he was a still a kid to me lol. Younger than my oldest son).

 

I only got run over by a scooter once - in an elevator. I was pressed as far into the wall as I could get be she still got me. Glad for air-filled rubber tires!

 

We made a lot of new friends and some were older than us but some were younger too. The CC Meet and Mingle had about 20 people there and the Entertainment Director came and hung with is for a few minutes. Juice and cookies were nice.

 

I liked all the sea days as I am not generally an early riser so sea day brunch extending to after lunch worked out great for me. I often ate breakfast and lunch there but I liked the off the grill selections (especially the fried flour tortillas for nachos). I didn;t really miss Guys burgers as the grill was suitable (Not as good as, say, 5 Guys or Shake Shack but definitely edible and much better price - only 3000 dollars! but you get a cruise on the side. lol).

 

My wife thought 8 days was a bit too long but I would live on a ship if I could.

 

I accidentally left my dress shirts in the car at port so I had to improvise for elegant night:

The Islander Highlander

I hope none of the old people were disturbed by my lack of a tie.

 

The Panama Canal was really cool. I didn't hear where she was from but they had a lady narrating the whole procedure in and out. She was very interesting but I'm glad I don't have to take test on all the facts because I don't remember most of them.

Here's a few pics of that:

 

 

 

 

They sold video of passage through but I didn't buy it. It's probably been posted online somewhere - I know on at least one of the FB groups for this cruise.

 

Chef's dinner was AMAZING - here's just 1 of the 13 or so courses

 

I saw Chef Singh out and about the ship more than Cruise Director Adam lol. He likes to make sure stuff is going right and was a lot of fun guiding the Chef's dinner tour of the galley and explaining the food. He promises that they are talking to vendors about new coffee making equipment so Lido coffee is as good as MDR coffee. (I hope that means bettering Lido coffee and not worsening MDR coffee)

 

 

I think this post may be getting too big so I'll do some more later. Plus I'm at work and they probably prefer I do that.

[sunonfire]

We sailed in February on the Miracle and the entertainment was geared toward a younger crowd. We had quite a few seniors on our sailing. When I answered my post cruise survey I requested that they take into consideration the age of the cruisers when planning the entertainment. We are sailing again on the Miracle in November and I hoped they listened.

[originalgeek]

Oh and I just remembered, we were looking for the Quest game and saw something in the Fun Times called "Adult Game Night" in the Red Frog pub. We figured that would be it but was just 15 minutes of pg-13 questions. Pretty lame compared to the Quest game. Afterwards we asked the lady who was hosting about Quest and she said they did this instead because they didn't think the crowd on this cruise would like the full-blown Quest show. Harrrumph! I say.

 

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[Ehpride]

I'm going on the Feb. 2019 carnival miracle 8 day partial transit. I'm in my 30s so looks like I'll be one of the youngsters. Good thing I get along with older people!

 

Does anyone happen to have copies of the fun times? I'm curious about the activities on board with all the sea days.

[Nevada Jen]

Thanks for all the info! What excursions did you all do? Anything spectacular?

[Micahs Grandad]

We did a similar cruise a couple of years ago that took us to Panama

 

Mix of ages but was an older crowd.

 

did do the adult version of the Quest and a lot of fun

 

Lots of scooters and by day three one lady on a scooter was well known on the ship as taking scalps by running over people. Wonder if they even bother teaching folks how to use them.

 

Overall had a great time though

[bobandsherry]

Thanks for all the info! What excursions did you all do? Anything spectacular?

The sloth adventure is over rated. You seen one, you seen them all. Great marketing person wrote the detailed excursion description.

 

We also did the kayaks in Grand Caymen. Strong winds made water rough and a bit more effort to get out to the platform to snorkel, but was good time.

 

There was supposed to be excursions for Panama Canal but they were cancelled, no idea why.

[liquorstore]

WiFi pitiful. OK first two days but SUPER slow after that to the point that Facebook was useless

 

 

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[bobandsherry]

WiFi pitiful. OK first two days but SUPER slow after that to the point that Facebook was useless

 

 

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We just waited until we got to the ports, with TMobile we got free roaming there, even got 4g service.

 

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[Bostwick girl]

The sloth adventure is over rated. You seen one, you seen them all. Great marketing person wrote the detailed excursion description.

 

We also did the kayaks in Grand Caymen. Strong winds made water rough and a bit more effort to get out to the platform to snorkel, but was good time.

 

There was supposed to be excursions for Panama Canal but they were cancelled, no idea why.

 

We were told they tried to get some short excursions together, but because of the busy schedule thru the Canal that day, they had to cancel them.

[originalgeek]

We just waited until we got to the ports, with TMobile we got free roaming there, even got 4g service.

 

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Yeah I was amazed by the strong tmobile signal in Limon. Got a lot of my fb pictures uploaded there lol. More in GC.

 

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[originalgeek]

We were told they tried to get some short excursions together, but because of the busy schedule thru the Canal that day, they had to cancel them.

Yes, the entertainment director came to the Cruise Critic meet and mingle and he said there was so much traffic they couldn't guarantee tenders would get back in time.

 

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[Stasiaf]

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