This was an April vacation cruise for our 9 year old Grandson to visit the Grand Cayman Sea Turtle Research farm and have some fun in different countries. We booked a cruise on Carnival Miracle out of Tampa Florida.

Being a Mini-suite guest, we had some "perks" which included priority embarkation, debarkation - little things that in theory made things better. The embarkation process was very good - I have to give Carnival credit for making that happen. The rest of the cruise was not to the same level.

It all started with the Muster Drill which is mandatory before the ship leaves port. To say this was a giant circular firing squad would be understatement. The crew didn't seem to have a handle on what to do, the drill was disorganized, the management staff seemed confused directing crew members here and there, a lot of rushing around - it was not the most confidence boosting process to say the least in that if it had been a real emergency, I'm not at all sure the crew would have been able to get guests off the ship in a timely and safe manner. Having mobility issues, myself, wife and Grandson we were directed to be in the "handicapped" area which, as it turned out, was not the proper area to be in - the person who gave us that information (a white hat "supervisor") directed us to the wrong place. This of course meant that we weren't accounted for at the proper location. Eventually, we were "found" and were checked in, but our Grandson needed a wrist band which he was given. We found out a day later that he had been given the wrong wrist band with the wrong location which we corrected at Guest services. Read more