My husband Jim 51 and I am 48, and this was our sixth cruise--the fourth with Carnival--but just following two wonderful cruises with Princess. We had thought we wanted to stick with Princess from now on, but I had found a great "early saver" price with Carnival for this 8 day southern Caribbean cruise, and we decided to try the Miracle. We had previously cruised the Pride, which we loved, and it has the same layout. We like this size of ship more than the Glory which we have sailed on as well. Right before sailing, I happened to catch a one day price drop to fill the last extended balconies and had my agent fill out the price match form and remit it to Carnival. Carnival, to my delight, happily gave us more than we requested--$300 onboard credit, as well as the $100 credit from our agency, so we were set for a fun time!

We flew into Fort Lauderdale from Albany, NY the day before the cruise, one day after a bad east coast blizzard, so we just missed the canceled flight snafu mess, thank goodness. We stayed in the Hyatt Summerfield Suites, in a one bedroom king suite. Great price, lovely room, wonderful bedding, a great breakfast buffet and also evening reception with food and beer and wine--highly recommended. It's across a large highway from a plaza where you can walk to or take the shuttle to to eat or buy bottled drinks or wine for the cruise. However, if you are going to buy large quantities of anything, I suggest you take the hotel's shuttle, as the plaza is a fair walk, and the highway is very busy. We bought wine for the cruise at the Sam's club there, at a good price--two bottles allowed for a Carnival cruise for carry on. However, we had one extra bottle and Carnival didn't say anything, so we had it as well as a twenty-four pack of bottled water between the two of us on the cruise. The shuttle to the hotel from the airport was free, and there is an 8 dollar per person bus to the cruise pier on every hour the day of the cruise, which we took, which was cheaper than a cab, we were told.

Embarkation included only a medium-sized line, maybe fifteen minutes, and was relatively easy. We had an extended balcony towards the front of the ship on the fifth floor, which was just fine for us. Our room was kept spotless and our room steward did everything we wanted without ever a need for us to call him. We tipped him $20 the first day of the cruise when he came to meet us, which is always our habit, and perhaps it makes for even better service. We always had ice, including a large bucket for our champagne, whenever we needed it. We had ordered a liter of Beefeater gin from Bon Voyage for $40 before sailing, which I highly recommend doing, but you have to call them on the phone. You can't order liquor through the Carnival Bon Voyage website, only wine. It saves money and you don't have to worry about trying to smuggle it in. We also ordered a six pack of tonic water to go with it, and both were there when we arrived in our stateroom, along with a gift our daughter had sent us. Bon Voyage did a great job, everything was wrapped with a bow! Read more