We recently took our very first cruise on the Carnival Miracle. It was sort of an impulse decision to take a cruise. We booked it six weeks prior to our Feb 26th embarkation.
Thanks to www.cruisecritic.com for guiding me through the cruise process w/relative ease. I was able to research cruise lines and particular ships within each cruise line to determine who we wanted to sail w/ and where we wanted to go. After reading many reviews, one of the ships I had narrowed it down to was the Carnival Miracle. Seeing as we were heading to Tampa at the end of February anyway, the Miracle became the obvious choice.
In the weeks leading up to the cruise, I would check travel websites every day to see how full the ship was and if the price had changed. By doing this, I was able to get an upgrade in our cabin (we had originally booked an interior room and were upgraded to an obstructed view w/ French doors - room 4193) and also received a $300 onboard credit. So before we even boarded the ship, we were pleased.