We cruised on the Carnival Miracle from Long Beach, CA on December 7th of this year. This was our 7th cruise with Carnival. Because we drive from Arkansas to California once a year to visit friends, we decided to drive to Long Beach for our cruise. We left home on December 4th just 1 day ahead of an ice storm at home and a snow storm in Albuquerque, NM. We stayed at the Hotel Current in Long Beach the night before the cruise. We got a great deal, $149.00 plus tax for 1 night stay, breakfast (very good), parking for all 15 days of the cruise and transportation to and from the port. The room was very nice and all of the employees were friendly and helpful. Once we got to the port it was a little confusing finding out where we needed to go, but we finally found a carnival employee who pointed us in the right direction. We got there just before they closed the early boarding area on the Queen Mary. After we got checked in they directed us to the dome and there were 2 lines, one for people who had checked in and the other (really long) for those who had not. We went right through after going through security and got on the ship. It was about 1 hour from getting off the shuttle to getting on the ship. We went right to the buffet and had lunch, then went to our stateroom.

I really loved the colors and the “Fiction” theme of the ship. Gatsby’s Garden was very interesting and quiet. It you want to find a place to be alone, there are places to sit there. There were places to sit all over the place on the Miracle and that was different from the other ships we had been on. We were assigned to Early Dining, which we had requested and had been on a waitlist for, and we sat with 2 wonderful couples. Our head waiter was Simona from Romania. She was the first woman we had as a head waiter and she was amazing. Imade and Juliarta (both from Indonesia) were also awesome as her assistants. Simona even hugged us goodbye after our last dinner. Most of the trip was smooth sailing and warm weather with the exception of some rough seas on the first 2 1/2 days and the 2 days before we got to Ensenada. We were in an ocean view room on Deck 1, but we were at mid ship and that made it a bit better in our cabin than in the dining room or the Phantom Lounge, where we watched the shows.

There were 3 shows we really liked: “Generations” on the first full sea day; “Singing with the Big Band” on the 6th sea day (on the return trip); and “Ticket to Ride” on the very last night of the cruise. There were actually 4 shows we liked because there was a variety show that Troy Linton, our wonderful cruise director put together because the sea was too rough for “Ticket to Ride” on the evening of the 8th sea day. They had each of the musicians who had played throughout the trip on the ship perform a song or 2 then they did a finale that was hilarious with several members of the entertainment staff. It was called something like “If I were not upon the sea, this is what I’d be.” Read more