Carnival Miracle Review
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This was our forth Carnival cruise. The cruise was from Ft. Lauderdale to St. Maarten, St. Lucia, and St. Kitts. We drove from Biloxi MS to Ft. Lauderdale and parked at Park and Go. The parking experience on other trips had been very disappointing. This lot was new and the staff was timely and professional. They were waiting on my family as soon as we parked to take us to the ship. We arrived early just after 12 noon. This was the perfect time for embarkation. We never put our bags down until we were being processed, not the usual stop and wait fifty times before checking in. We were having lunch less than twenty minutes after being dropped off at the terminal.
We booked an inside cabin and it was the normal Carnival inside cabin, small but functional. There were signs stating that the cabins would not be ready until 2:30 but I went to the cabin around 1:00 and it was ready. The first two days there were thirty to forty mph winds so the upper decks were closed off most of the way to St. Maarten. The ship has a strange decor of hero pictures and the ceiling of the Bacchus dining room looks like it has hundreds of large purple raisins hanging. The dinning staff and the food were pleasant. The menu does not change much year to year. Lobster one night, Fillet Mignon one night, they did offer a flat iron steak every night that was new and a nice alternative. The Shrimp dishes and the Ceasar salads were noticeably smaller than on previous trips. (We then just ordered additional items those nights) The breakfast and lunch buffets were OK, nothing outstanding. We did go to the dinning room for breakfast two mornings and the food was significantly better.
Entertainment in the lounges was very good. Scott in the Gotham lounge, plays acoustic guitar and takes requests, mellow stuff at the dinner hours and then rocks a bit more on the latter sets. He covers an amazing number of songs and cuts up with the audience. We caught at least two sets each night. Music Unlimited was also very good and their part in the Beatles Ticket to Ride show was excellent. The theatre shows other than the Beatles show and the Generations show were weak.