We sailed on the Miracle August 13, 2006.
A little background - this was our first cruise ever. We had heard that it was tons of fun and so figured we would give it a try. Both my wife and I come from a very small town, and there is very little to do from an entertainment perspective.
Embarkation - We decided to travel to the port on the day of embarkation. This meant waking at 3:00am and traveling through the airports to the Tampa (from Michigan). We thought that we could get to bed early the prior night and that would make this easier (big mistake - we were so excited we hardly slept). The flights went off without a hitch - lucky for us!. Once we arrived in Tampa, about 9:00am we figured the shuttle to the pier would not be running (we had informed Carnival that we would be arriving then, however) and decided to eat in the airport. After breakfast we went down to the meeting area and there was Carnival waiting for us - they asked if we were on the 9:00 flight and stated they had been looking for us.