The World’s Longest Miracle Review, Part 4featured
This is low on pics until half-way through…sorry!
After 2.5 long days in New York City, we were more than ready to make the move to our home for the next eight days: the Carnival Miracle. We were definitely ready for some R&R (though, being home now, I need another vacation to recover from my vacation).
We planned to be out of the hotel by 9am, but then I thought that was a little early considering we were less than 20 minutes from the pier, so we woke up around 8:30, had a leisurely breakfast of the muffins and croissants we brought back from Juniors yesterday, and got ready. Mom and Stephanie don’t understand why I take so long to get ready to get on the boat, but grandma does: I always want to look my best when there’s a possibility of professional pictures being taken, and even though we almost never buy the embarkation photo, there’s always a chance Mom will want it and I want to look nice in it.
We checked out of the hotel around 10am (running late because of me) and got grandma situated in the car and she and Stephanie pulled the car up so we didn’t have to make 10 trips to the garage. I really should comment on the staff at the Westin Jersey City. They were absolutely fantastic. Always had a smile. Always had a suggestion. Nothing (except for, apparently, pizza delivery places) was above or below them. A lovely woman helped us with the luggage from the room, and then one of the porters loaded up the car for us (and Mom made sure they were generously taken care of for their help).
It was a pretty easy ride to the pier. The worst part was the traffic getting in because of Fleet Week. The Miracle and a Norwegian ship were docked with a naval museum (I think!) between them. With two ships alone, I’m sure there’s a ton of traffic, but add in everyone participating in the Fleet Week activities, and it’s a zoo. We sat in traffic longer than it took us to get there from Jersey City (which was admittedly very quick).
It was hard to figure out where to go and what to do because the ship was still debarking. We pulled up and dropped the luggage off (which wasn’t necessary…more on that later) and Mom found a really nice porter to take all of our luggage at the passenger drop-off before heading to the parking area. She tipped him VERY well (more on that later, too) and we went off to find parking. But to get back to the parking area, we had to exit and sit in traffic AGAIN. It was a whole ordeal that wouldn’t have been a big deal if it weren’t Fleet Week.
We finally entered the top deck (parking area) and were advised that we weren’t allowed to take any pictures there. We paid for our parking ($240 for the eight days) and a bomb sniffing dog came into the trunk to make sure we weren’t smuggling explosives. The security in New York is tighter than any other pier we’ve ever traveled out of (Miami, Tampa, Fort Lauderdale, Port Canaveral, Long Beach). It was almost noon when we parked the car and there were porters on the parking deck to help with luggage, so us dropping it off wasn’t necessary.
We got everything ready, secured the car, and made our way into the terminal. People were STILL debarking, and telling us how much we’d love the ship and the cruise. I always love hearing that!
Since grandma is in a wheelchair, we made our way over to special assistance. If you are traveling with someone who is elderly (grandma is a youthful 88), please go to special assistance. They will wheel you on (even if you aren’t in a wheelchair, please get wheeled on. It’s a long walk, a long time to stand, and an uphill walk into the boat and you don’t want to hurt yourself or wear yourself out before your vacation even begins) and assist you through security. At certain ports, they’ll even check you in and get your cards for you while you sit with your party (as long as it’s small…no parties of 8, 10, more, etc. It’s different at every port. They did this in Port Canaveral).
Anyways.
There was a bit of a wait for special assistance (we were #8), but if we’d wheel grandma on ourselves, we could go right through the special assistance line and go right on through. So that’s what we did. It’s pretty hard to wheel her uphill on ramps, but we decided it was better than waiting.
The NYC terminal is the nicest terminal I’ve ever been in. It’s large, airy, lots of chairs and didn’t seem as “rushed” as all the other terminals we’ve been in. We went through the special assistance line and were quickly through security and were checking in.
At check in, we had to fill out a health questionnaire, swearing we didn’t have flu-like symptoms or coughing, etc in the past week. If we did, they said we’d be allowed to embark and would be seen by the medical staff free of charge. We had no problems (I had a sinus infection over a week earlier, but I was cleared by my doctor and long cleared of symptoms), but people obviously lied since people were coughing and hocking all over the boat (including the classless young woman who coughed up her lungs and then hocked her phlegm over the back of the boat later in the week). Not cool. If you’re sick, please don’t travel. You will infect the entire boat (read: Stephanie getting sick at the end of our January trip).
I checked us in and set up the onboard account online, so we quickly had our keys in hand and were led over to the special assistance area to wait for embarkation. A wedding party boarded first (to much applause) and then we were let on.
I kid you not, it took us longer to enter the terminal, drop off the luggage and park the car than it did from the time we parked until the time we were on the boat. Literally a half-hour after we parked the car, we were on the Lido deck grabbing lunch.
We were onboard around noon and the second we stepped foot into the Metropolis Atrium, I felt like I was back at home, and like we had never left four months earlier.
After a few minutes in the atrium, we decided to beat the rush and get a table up on the Lido deck for lunch. They tell you not to enter your rooms until 1:30, but given the fiasco with the condition of mine and Stephanie’s cabin on the last trip, we wanted to wait a little longer. Mom and grandma went straight for the pizza, but Stephanie and I headed for the Rotisserie and Chinese. Oh my gosh…the chinese was perhaps the best food onboard all week (save for Nick and Nora’s, of course). A few years ago, they had buffalo wings at the grill and they ran out every few people because people were grabbing plates of them because they were so good. Such was the case with the filled wontons and various spring rolls throughout the week. Long lines for them, but they were worth it (make sure to grab some garlic soy and sweet and sour dipping sauces!).
Since we couldn’t get into the cabin, I grabbed a Caper at the espresso stand next to the pizzeria to start planning our day. The day was crammed with ship tours, sail away parties, trivia challenges and shows…certainly more than we could ever accomplish in a day!
The Lido deck was overfilled with people who had trays full of food, but nowhere to sit (hint: get a table and take turns getting food or else you will eat standing up), so around 2:00, I took a quick run down to our room (right down the stairs from the Horatio’s) and saw the doors were closed, so they were done. I had the unfortunate task of telling Mom our rooms were NOT next to each other, but in separate hallways separated by the elevator banks. She was not happy because she thought they were, but it was our fault for not looking at the deck plans more meticulously. We were hoping we could still connect our balconies because they extended behind the elevators and use that to connect our rooms.
Assured that the rooms were ready, I grabbed the rest of the family and we headed down to our rooms. We had two balcony rooms on the Verandah deck: 8282 for Stephanie and I and 8234 (handicap accessible) for Mom and grandma.
If you read my last review, you’ll remember that the condition of our last room was deplorable when we first entered. Sticky counters, hairs on Stephanie’s pillows, a generally unkempt look. We were very upset. The first thing I did when entering our room was swipe my finger along the counter and it more than passed the Nicole Seal of Cleanliness. My faith in Carnival and their room stewards had been restored (and we really had a fantastic room steward).
Now, we had a normal balcony room that looked like any other balcony room…
…until you stepped foot on our balcony. Keep in mind that you need to add another foot or so of space to make up for the room I was taking up standing to take the picture.
We counted between 19 and 22 paces across from one side to the other. Two full-sized lounge chairs, two chairs and a table. Enough room to comfortably entertain maybe 15 people, likely more. Balcony snob heaven. The only downside was that on all of our cruises, we really feel Carnival doesn’t pay much attention to cleaning the balconies. There was all kinds of crap accumulating in the gutters that was kind of gross to look at.
I wanted to take a few pictures of Mom and grandma’s HC accessible room and it was just a bit bigger than the oceanview room they had on the last cruise and the interior rooms they usually have (for whatever reason, Mom prefers interior rooms to balconies and even the suites we sailed in for our first four cruises). Keep in mind, if you try to book 8234 for the balcony and you do not have a special needs form indicating use of a wheelchair on file, you will be bumped from the room if someone in a wheelchair necessitates it.
We encountered a big problem with this room, and we’re still weighing whether or not we’ll write to Carnival about it. We selected this room with the knowledge that it was HC accessible and that it was a fully-accessible HC BALCONY cabin. I saw pictures of the same room on the Pride, and there was a ramp leading from the room onto the balcony (because we clearly can’t get grandma’s wheelchair over the hump without one). This room had no ramp and no way to get grandma onto the balcony. We called the purser and were told no ramp was ever in this room and there was no way to get one in there. I won’t give the dollar amounts, but Mom paid quite a bit more than she would have for a HC interior or oceanview room so grandma could go on the balcony (which she hasn’t been on in a few years since she became immobilized). We were all very bummed about this. Grandma took it in stride, but I could tell she was upset, too.
We made quick trips to the dining room to check our table assignment (table for four, as we like it) and to the Purser for extra room keys and to request to get the balcony divider removed (even though our rooms were in separate hallways, the balconies extended behind the separation and we could connect through there). When we got back to the rooms, we noticed our luggage was already there! Remember, Mom tipped a porter more than generously at the passenger drop-off to take our luggage and we got our luggage around 3:00pm, hours before we saw luggage being put out at anyone else’s door in our hallways. We unpacked a bit before it was time for muster drill.
Because grandma requires special assistance, we were to go to the Jeeves Lounge instead of Muster Station D. They’ll usually let families do this together UNLESS you are a large party, in which case you will be forced to split up because it’s a limited amount of space. I was put off by a man who decided to put his feet up on a table in the lounge. He was a middle aged man and it’s in such poor taste to put your feet up on a table. I’d think manners grow with age, but seemingly not. We actually saw many people with feet up on tables at various places around the boat. I don’t care what your spouse/parents/whatever let you get away with at home, it’s poor manners to do it at home or anywhere else. Leave your feet off the tables, please. Muster was an otherwise painless process and was over pretty quickly.
They let special assistance leave a few minutes early so they can catch elevators back to their rooms. I took the stairs because, well, I needed to start burning any extra calories I could and I didn’t want to take up room other people needed. I ran and put Stephanie’s and my lifejackets back in the room and went up to the aft-lido deck to grab chairs and a space for sailaway because they seem to crowd quickly.
Mom, grandma and Stephanie quickly joined me after stopping off at the cabins and we enjoyed our prime spot at the back of the boat. Here’s where perhaps the best part of the cruise began: the aft-pool on the boat is ADULT’S ONLY. There’s TWO signs on the pool stating it, and it’s stated in the Capers. Lots of people like to swim during sailaway (even though it was starting to get overcast and I was sure the rain we were forecasted for was coming) and kids started filling the aft-pool. Get this: there was POOL SECURITY! And throughout the week, they systematically removed every.single.person under 18 from the pool or whirlpool. Yes, even teenagers. If you weren’t 18, they didn’t let you in that pool. And they were GOOD! I don’t think any kid lasted more than a minute or two. Stephanie and I referred to it as “the show.” I jokingly told Stephanie that if this happened all week, I’d get their names and write a letter to the President of Carnival commending them. Well, I have to go buy stamps today and keep my word because that’s exactly what they did. They were all over it. Please, Carnival, keep this up on all of your ships. I don’t know if they patrolled the main pools for diapered babies, but I hope they did. If not, and you’re on the Carnival Miracle and see an un-potty trained child in any pool, grab a security guard from the aft-pool and they are seriously more than happy to do their job and toss them out of the pool. Sorry, I have no patience for people who egregiously break the rules regarding babies in the pool. There are plenty of signs stating the rules, it’s in the Capers, it’s in the cruise documents. There’s a small splash pool up on deck 10 (I have pictures of it somewhere), but I’m unsure if they allowed diapered babies in there.
Back to sailaway, though.
We were quickly sailing away. It’s the most picturesque sailaway we’ve ever had. The Manhattan skyline is just breathtaking from sailaway. We passed a Princess ship sailing out of Brooklyn, the Brooklyn bridge, the Statue of Liberty, Ellis Island…it was like a water tour of NYC!
We were starting to head under a bridge with very little clearance, and I thought that would be super cool, but it started to drizzle and then rain so we headed back to the rooms. It was getting late, anyways, and we had early seating dinner. So we unpacked a little more, changed and I did my last internet surfing before unplugging myself from the Web for the next eight days before we headed to dinner.
We had early seating (6:oo) dinner at table 388 in the Bacchus dining room. Say want you want about Skittles on crack, but I kind of like it. It’s endeared itself to me over the three cruises I’ve taken on the Miracle. Right as we were seated, Dewey, one of the best hostesses on any of Carnival’s ships, came running over to hug us. She came over to talk with us every night on our last cruise and she’s one of the sweetest people we’ve ever met. We were thrilled to see her and even more thrilled that she remembered us. We got a similar reception from many of the other staff who remembered us from January, from the lady who served us tea on the last cruise and was now a head waitress a section over to Sara, our previous server to some of the bar servers. It was nice to get such a warm reception to welcome us “home.” There was a new hostess on this cruise with Dewey, Karuna from Nepal, and she became like a sister to us this week. She’d come and chat with us every time and every where she saw us and told us she wanted to hide us in her room so we could stay on the boat with her and Dewey. If you see her or Dewey in the dining room, please tell them their friends in Chicago miss them dearly.
Soon after Dewey left, our servers for the week, Jephson from India and Joanalyn from the Philippines came over and introduced themselves. Jephson apologized in advance for any miscues in service for the week. He was at a new station and Joanalyn was new to the dining room. Jephson was nice. He’d give us recommendations every night for dinner (what was good, what would be repeated on the menus, what wasn’t so good). Joanalyn was very quiet, but started to come out of her shell a bit towards the end of the week. The service was erratic. Bread was only offered once and it took awhile to get a refill on drinks. My entree was left downstairs once and they had to run and get it. We’re on vacation so we didn’t mind the lapses in service as much. At least the food was coming out as ordered.
I’ve mentioned before cutbacks on Carnival. Some people will fight over it, saying nothing is being cut back, but that’s naive. We were told point blank by some staff about cutbacks (I’ll talk about them as they happen in the review). Nothing too huge for us. We read a lot on Cruise Critic and while Royal Caribbean seems to be cutting an awful lot while raising prices, Carnival seems to be cutting itty bitty corners while keeping prices relatively low. Tonight’s cutback was the steak. What used to be a New York Strip steak was now a Flat Iron steak…in fact, it was the same one from the Always Available menu served with some Mac and Cheese. The New York Strip steak appeared later in the week in place of what was Roasted Beef Tenderloin. So, they’ve essentially replaced beef tenderloin with flat iron steak, which is a cheaper, fattier cut of meat. Food wise (and I’ll mention it again later) the other glaring cutbacks was the removal of proteins from some salads (no chicken with the Greek Farmer Salad, no shrimp with the Green Bean/Tomato salad, etc) and of course, the pathetic filet mignon they currently serve.In addition, the serving sizes of most of the salads and all of the pasta (appetizer portions) are smaller. But I’ll talk more about those when we get to them.
They’re also starting to change the menus a little bit. I’ve heard more drastic changes are coming. From tonight’s menu, the cream of asparagus soup that I’ve always loved was gone and replaced with the Cream of Tomato soup from another night. That soup was replaced by a Baked Potato soup.
Tonight, Mom started with her usual shrimp cocktail and caesar salad, and she had the baby back ribs, which she thought were very good. She thought the shrimp cocktail had smaller shrimps than before and the caesar salad was definitely smaller. Stephanie had the beef barley soup, a salad with thousand island dressing and she also had the ribs and said they were fall-off-the-bone tender. I had the fried chicken tenders, which were all-white meat (add dark meat poultry to the list of foods I won’t touch with a 10-foot pole) and excellent, the fruit marinated in tequila and the flat iron steak. I remembered what I learned on our previous trips to always order meat a step underdone because it’ll sit and cook internally before it hits your plate and my steak still came out overdone. It was dry, chewy and very fatty. The saving grace of the plate was the macaroni and cheese, which was fantastic. After dinner, Jephson brought out warm towels for Stephanie and Mom to clean their hands on. We all had Creme Brulee for dessert and it was very good. I also had a cheese plate, which was pretty good, also. I had a coffee, Mom had hot tea and Stephanie had a cappuccino with dessert.
Beef and Barley Soup with Diced Root Vegetables
“Carnival Classics” Shrimp Cocktail
Fried Chicken Tenders, Marinated Cucumber and Lettuce
Heart of Iceberg Lettuce
Tropical Fruits
Baby Back Ribs
Grilled American Flat Iron Steak of American Choice Beef
Finger Towel
Cappuccino and Regular Coffee
Creme Brulee
Cheese Plate
After dinner, we headed upstairs to see if grandma was up (if you missed my last review, on the past two cruises grandma has been too tired to go to dinner and get all dressed up so she naps during dinner and eats dinner up on the lido deck where it’s more informal and she can go at her own pace). The motion of the boat was making her sleepy (like me…Stephanie and Mom get sea sick if they don’t wear the patches, but grandma and I get sleepy from the motion), but she was hungry so we all headed upstairs to Horatios. She had a Ruben sandwich and some strip loin and soup from the rotisserie, and we all had a warm chocolate melting cake (they have all of the MDR desserts, including WCMC, up on the lido deck during dinner hours).
Grilled Ruben from the Deli
Warm Chocolate Melting Cake x3
We were all going to go hang out in the atrium and then go to the Welcome Aboard show, but Mom was still getting her sea legs and grandma was still sleepy, so they went to bed. We went back to the room to get the Caper for tomorrow to see what was happening and we found a cute little towel animal. I never get tired of seeing them! Our room steward this week (Jose) made the best ones…he made towel animals I’d never seen before! His work got better and better as the week went on.
Stephanie and I went to the patisserie downstairs by the Phantom Lounge to order Mom’s birthday cake. If you order it in person as opposed to online, they’ll do a personalized cake.
Stephanie and I went to get seats and I remembered I left something in the room, so I ran back. I was in the room maybe five minutes and when I left, I saw what I thought was two piled of spilled food on the floor by the elevators. When the elevator came, it opened up to a big pile of vomit. Needless to say, I took the stairs. I went over to the Purser to tell them that there was vomit all over an aft-elevator and all over deck 8 aft near the elevators and went off to the show. After the show, nearly two hours later when we made it back to the room, it was still there. We called the Purser again and it was gone within the hour. But seriously, it should not have taken that long. It’s disgusting enough as is without leaving it there to fester.
I got ahead of myself. Back to the “Welcome Aboard” show. Anyone who has been on a cruise before will know that you can’t show up 10 minutes before the show and find seats in the first 15 rows in the center section. It even warns in the Capers to arrive early. Throughout the week, people would bitch other people out for not making room for three people where there’s only space for one, not giving up their seats, not being able to find seats, whatever. Love thy fellow cruiser, y’all. If you want to see a show in a prime seat, go early.
We got our first umbrella drinks of the cruise- a Miami Vice for me and a Kiss on the Lips for Stephanie. The show was very good, as usual. The Miracle had two new singers, Sheri Hayden (who I’m sure we’ve seen somewhere before) and Matthew Cross (who is MIGHTY good looking), and they were both fantastic. I thought they were two of the best we’ve seen. Brent Mitchell was still the cruise director (I guess he just got back since Malcolm is still ill and Big Sexy wasn’t anywhere on the Miracle), and Justin was the lone holdover from our last cruise. The rest of the staff (Leonnie, Simon and Sam from England and Kyle from the US, I think) were excellent, as well. Sam was our favorite. He’s got an adorable baby face…he can’t be older than 18 or 19 and he does the lion’s share of the work of the cruise staff. We saw him EVERYWHERE and we felt he worked a zillion times harder than the other staff. He’ll make a fantastic CD one day.
Crowd Cam
Miami Vice and Kiss on the Lips
After the show, and seeing that there was still puke near the elevators that was steps from our room, Stephanie made a quick call to the Purser and then we went up to the late night grill for some hot dogs and fries. We had plans to hit the casino, the piano bar, karaoke…everything…but we were too tired so we went back to the room to watch a movie. They seriously had the BEST movies playing this week (amongst them were Bride Wars, Baby Mama, Bonneville, Twilight, Slumdog Millionaire, and a bunch of others I can’t recall off the top of my head…I wish they’d still print them in the Capers, but they stopped doing that a few years ago) and we’d usually settle with a movie every night instead of our usual of Nancy Grace and Showbiz Tonight.
We went to bed a bit earlier than usual because we’d have to be up early (by our standards, anyways) for our first day at sea!
Up next: A Relaxing Day at Sea and an Elegant Evening!
Today’s Lido Lunch Menus
Tonight’s MDR Menu (I only have this one because it’s different than usual night 1 menus)
Tonight’s Lido Dinner Menu
