Carnival Miracle Review
Rating by category
Additional details
This was our second sailing with Carnival, the prior was a ten-day Mexican coast cruise on the Spirit two years ago. My wife and I have sailed five times with Princess, five with Holland American and once with RCL.
In my opinion Carnival is a "good value for your money" cruise line for the most part. For some aspects of the cruises I've done with them I would rate them equal with other lines, but there are areas of the cruise experience where I'd rank them lower. That shouldn't be taken as a dismissal however, because a direct comparison would be unfair when the cruise rates are in different price categories.
Based on my experiece with the lines mentioned I place Carnival on the bottom of the scale for food interest and appeal, but again, you're not paying the higher rates the other lines typically charge for similar cruises. That said, I've always been able to find something I was willing to eat for every meal, and in all cases I've always been able to find something that was at least as good if not better than what I might eat if I were dining at home. For many meals on Carnival I've been able to find some very good food items that I was quite pleased with, though that's not something that occured every meal.
Cabin Review
The extended balcony was nice for the extra space, though you should be aware that you have some visibility of your balcony area from the bridge. The room was nice overall, but as other have reported, the room is directly over the theatre and you can hear some aspects of both the performances and any practice sessions they may do in mid-afternoon. I wasn't able to make out the details of the music, but had a definite sense of the "beat" of the tunes, as a sort of mild "thump, thump, thump" could be discerned. I didn't consider it loud enough to be a problem.