After taking care of cruise due diligence, surfing the internet, and reading all the cruise critic reviews, I decided to book a cruise aboard the Carnival Miracle. I selected it because of it is a new ship and the rates were a bargain. I took advantage of my Mom being a senior to get a good discount, then selected a guaranteed balcony stateroom with obstructed view and hoped for an upgrade, which we received. I had only sailed on the Disney ships prior, so my cruise standards were high, and my cruise expectations (especially with regard to the ship) would be critical.

We drove from Orlando the morning of the cruise, and even though though all the Carnival literature said not to arrive prior to 1 p.m., I found it hard to believe that we couldn't get on the ship earlier. The cruise terminal is at the dead end of a long street, and even though the signage is plentiful, the arrival experience is pretty intimidating. You certainly need to pay close attention to all the security personnel as they try to direct you through the arrival pandemonium. The porter's are quick to arrive and take your luggage. If you weren't assigned a stateroom number, like us, you should try real hard to find out your stateroom number before you arrive and put it on your luggage tags. The grey TBA tags did no good and the porter made us feel stupid for not having our stateroom numbers already on our tags. Luckily, I had managed to find out the stateroom we had been assigned by going to Carnival's web site and selecting "Modify Your Reservation" the night before sailing. You get an error message but if you look carefully, you will see your stateroom number on the reservation message.

The valet was rude and when I said I was self parking, told me "well don't you want to listen to what I have to say first?". He told me if I didn't valet, I'd have to park on the top floor of the garage. Not even close to the truth. I was guided to the ground floor and got a prime space. The line inside the terminal was long but moved quickly. I was not impressed with the terminal itself, but the area outside includes an aquarium, theatre, and restaurants which was nice. The terminal was cramped and I felt like a sardine but the line seemed to move quickly. The agents were friendly and efficient. I had filled out all my information on-line, so all I had to do was sign a credit card voucher, get our stateroom key, and we were done. We waited another 10 minutes before we were called to board. Read more