Carnival Miracle Review
Beautiful ship, disappointing staff/food/entertainment
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This was my 5th cruise, second on Carnival. It's been 9 years since we last cruised. While the Miracle was in lovely shape and we enjoyed several things about our trip, we were pretty disappointed in several things as well.
The staff was not as accommodating as we have experienced on previous cruises. The bar tenders were too busy, it took a long time to get a drink and most of them were pretty weak. There was no time for fun conversations. The dining room staff and room steward were friendly but didn't go out of their way to make things feel extra special. The last sea day, we went for brunch and the service was RIDICULOUSLY bad. Wrong orders, cold food, long wait times...it was almost comical but we were hungry and in a hurry. The quality of the food was 85% awful. We are pretty picky but it was cafeteria food for the most part. The flat irons steak tasted really awful, how I would imagine canned dog food tastes. The shrimp cocktail was inedible-slimy and tiny shrimp. Ew. We even ate at the steak house, Nic and Nora's. We were not impressed although the food was a little better, the meat was touted to us by the waitress as corn fed. Ha! We are grass fed, pasture raised meat eaters......that was actually a deterrent although unavoidable on a cruise ship. The entertainment was 50/50. The Alterr band was great, the piano bar singers were excellent but the stage shows were 2nd rate for sure. One of the comedians was funny but the second night he repeated a ton of bits we saw ahead of time on youtube.
The weather was disappointing although there was nothing we or Carnival could do about that. We had fun in the ports but were really surprised by Belize City. You really have to go at least 45 min out of the city to do anything. Our cave tubing excursion was cancelled due to flooding. The city itself is not safe. We had rainy cloudy weather in Roatan, but made the best of it with a private taxi booked through Rony's Tours. Our driver was Hector and I highly recommend! It was a great day despite the weather. Cozumel was lovely, we did the excursion-La Casa en la Playa. Highly recommend. Grand Cayman was nice but we arrived late and had to depart by 3pm, definitely not enough time.