I was very apprehensive on booking this carnival miracle cruise because of the bad reviews I had read and also I had only cruised with NCL in the past. I had previously been on 2 cruises both on the big ships (breakaway & Epic). I found that I like the smaller ships much better. The miracle was less crowded. It has 3 pools so there was never a problem with chairs. The first morning I got up early to go find my spot thinking it would already be crowded around pool area and there were a ton of open seating. We departed from Tampa cruiseport and that experience was top notch. We got there almost 2 hrs before our scheduled time of 12:30. This port was so organized and the small line moved quickly. We did have to sit in terminal about an hour, but we got to board an hour earlier than scheduled. Win win! This ship does not have a lot of areas geared toward children. There is only one water slide and no child pool or splash pad area. We chose the anytime dining which worked out wonderful. We had the option to sit by ourselves or join a larger table to meet other guest. The waitstaff was awesome. I am amazed that by the 2nd night they remembered our names. I also loved that in the middle of dinner they would stop serving and perform a song/ dance for us! Very entertaining. I was apprehensive about the food because I had heard that NCL has much better food than Carnival, but the food was excellent. We even had prime rib and lobster included in the main dining room. I loved that they had different rare find appetizer each day. It is a great way to try foods you normally would not order out in a restaurant. I tried escargot, rabbit, frog legs and ox tongue. We loved the comedy shows and open karaoke nights. The 88 keys show was very good also. Our excursions were swim with stingrays which was awesome. I held and kissed a stingray. We also went to channabak national park in Cozumel and did snorkeling...absolutely beautiful, quiet and plenty of shaded chairs. We recieved massages on the beach. I would highly recommend this excursion. Service from our cabin person Geda was excellent, from the ice he brought daily to the cleaning of our room and the cute animal towels! Disembarkment was just as quick as embarkment. We put our suitcase out the night before. The ship started carryoff luggage disembarkment at 8 am. We were called by 9 am and through customs and ubered to Tampa airport by 10:30 am.