Sometimes I think only the people who are dissatisfied, hard to please or have outrageous expectations write reviews. I understand you can't please everyone but sometimes these reviews seem harsh. I'd like to start by saying my boyfriend and I had a cruise of a lifetime and it was mainly due to the staff and crew of the Carnival Miracle who from day 1 invited us into their home and made us feel like we were part of the family. We were on a Christmas cruise and many of the staff, crew and entertainers had family members aboard. This made the cruise even more special.

1. Embarkation : It doesn't matter what cruiseline you take, this is not a fun process. My experience on this cruise was that it was organized and considering we arrived at the peak, we were patient knowing there were fun times ahead.

2. Staterooms : We had a balcony room on deck 8. It was the largest cabin we've ever had on a cruiseship. The room was clean and sparkly. Our room steward, Aang, was very attentive and introduced himself right away. For us, there was plenty of closet space and drawers. We had one negative experience with the room, which the staff attended to immediately. For some reason cigarette smoke and onion/garlic smells seemed to escape into our cabin and linger. We were not angry or hostile, just wanted the ship to understand that there was perhaps a problem with the ventilation. We had no more problems with this for the remainder of the cruise. Also, for those deciding on balcony rooms, many smokers book balcony rooms. We had a smoker next to us, but they smoked infrequently, so it didn't really bother us. Read more