After 50+ years of avoiding cruise ship travel (like the plague), I finally broke down and gave it a shot... sadly, over the 2016 Thanksgiving 7-day cruise aboard the mid-class Carnival Miracle. As a seasoned world traveler with many, many weeks of destination vacationing and adventurng under my belt, I admit to being less than excited from the very beginning. However, as the consumer paying all the bills, I'm the one who needs to be wowed and impressed... not the other way around.

Bottom line, this Carnival vacation was mostly a "bust the blue card cherry" experience for me (more on that later). High points include time spent with the Spirit Dawgs (special thanks to everyone!) and brief shore visits to Cabo and Porto Vallarta. Low points include a horrible embarkation experience and a virtual absence of serenity (including the so called "Serenity Deck") throughout the ship.

The 'Fun Ship Carnival' marketing theme is patently overused and quickly becomes irritating. Specifically, as a special guest of a coveted Platinum Cruise member, I should have receiving some VIP treatment during embarkation. Instead, Mary (a mostly grumpy, unfriendly Carnival check-in agent) began my 'Blue Card' initiation with a shockingly rude directive to "get happy" after asking the simplest of questions. Mary completely obliterated a golden opportunity to make my first 30 minutes of Carnival cruising painless and pleasant. Needless to say, her absolutely unnecessary and extremely poor customer service stained my first impression of Carnival and instilled a lasting, negative bias for my entire cruise. Read more