The World’s Longest Miracle Review, Part 12featured

When we last left off, Stephanie and I were finally heading off to bed really late. Like, really really late. Mom promised me she wouldn’t wake us up until 8:30ish, so I thought I’d have SOME sleep, but Stephanie had other ideas when she woke me up at 5:30 am because we were starting to pull back into NYC.

Yes. 5:30 am. When we went to bed less than three hours earlier. When we had a 13-hour drive ahead of us. So I could see the Statue of Liberty with her- AGAIN. I wasn’t happy, but I also couldn’t get back to sleep, so I joined her on the balcony for one last hurrah. I swear, New York is the only port that she could get away with waking me up at this ungodly hour (I don’t even go to bed until 4:00 am when we’re at home). But then I realized that we were back in US waters and I had CELL PHONE SERVICE!!!! So me and my iPhone headed out onto the balcony. I had been disconnected from the internet for over a week. The respite was nice, but I was ready to tune back in and check in with my friends.

It was FRIGID outside. Absolutely chilling. We headed back inside for a bit to lounge in our beds and watch TV. After a bit, Stephanie was asking me when I thought we’d pass the Statue of Liberty, and right as she asked me, I saw Lady Liberty peering through our window. Stephanie thought I was kidding her. The timing was kind of funny.

Many people who sail out of NYC in a balcony room ask which side to stay on for a view of the Statue of Liberty, and the answer is that it really doesn’t matter because if it doesn’t pass on your side on the way there, it passes on it on the way back if you’re up early enough to see it (we passed it around 6:30 am). If you want to see it out of NYC, you’ll want an odd-numbered room, where you’ll have a view of Jersey City, Ellis Island and the Statue of Liberty after sailaway and a view of Manhattan on the way back in. If you have an even-numbered room like we did, you’ll have a view of the Manhattan skyline on the way out and a view of everything else on the way back in.

We relaxed in bed for a bit before deciding to get dressed and get breakfast. Mom was really happy to see she wouldn’t have to fight with us to get us out of bed early and we all headed up to breakfast. When we got there, the Lido deck wasn’t really that crowded, but it quickly filled up. Many people had to take breakfast back to their rooms because there weren’t enough tables because some people just took their bags up there to wait to be debarked.

We all had a pretty big breakfast because with the long drive ahead of us, we didn’t know when we’d be able to stop because we really just wanted to get home with the least amount of stops possible. I don’t think I mentioned it before, but all week (with the exception of this morning), there was someone stationed at the breakfast lines to serve just the ham and bacon. Nothing else, just ham and bacon. I had no idea why. We called them the bacon police. While I wish that we could have had breakfast in the MDR once during the week, the food up on Lido was very, very good. I had few complaints. The bacon was crispy (a rarity on cruise lines), the options were changed every other day, and Stephanie had nothing but good things to say about the create-your-own omelette station. My main complaint is with the powdered eggs, which just never tasted good and never quite had real egg texture. Oh, and one more thing: the pizza station was closed this morning. I had never seen it closed before! Many people were disappointed that they couldn’t have pizza for breakfast.

We still had quite a bit of time before we’d be called for debark, so we headed back to our rooms. I wanted to tidy up a bit because even though the steward would be cleaning the room, I wanted to make it as easy as possible for him. They have a big job to do on turnaround day. So I threw out everything we were leaving behind and tried to make sure nothing was dirty or out of place. I made a comment to Stephanie that on the CC RCCL boards, some people were upset that they stopped putting mints on their pillows, but even though Carnival still has them, they just end up in a pile on the dresser at the end of the week. I might have taken them home if I didn’t think I’d forget about them and they’d melt in my purse at some point.

We headed out to our balcony for a few last moments. We docked kind of late (around 8:30 or so). It doesn’t seem that late, but when we sail out of Florida, we usually dock way before we wake up. When we pulled in and saw the terminal and the rest of Manhattan, it felt like we never left. I hate that feeling! Anyways, we spent some time on the balcony before Mom came to get us to tell us debark was starting and we had to head down to the Jeeve’s Lounge.

The reason we had to head to the Jeeves is because that’s where the special assistance area was. If you have someone who is either in a wheelchair/ECV or someone who needs help getting off the boat (they have wheelchairs available), someone will push your family member off or provide you with a wheelchair and push them off the boat (that sounds SO wrong LOL). They will stay with you through customs and until you get to the luggage area. You do not get to leave early, or late, and you have to wait for your color/number to be called.

Our number was called moments after we got down to the VERY crowded Jeeve’s Lounge, and a nice dining room server pushed grandma’s wheelchair. Here’s where the problem with the debark setup happened: people flocked to the atrium to wait for their numbers/colors to be called, making it nearly impossible for people in wheelchairs to get through. And then the man pushing grandma decided this was the wheelchair Olympics and went way faster than we, with all of our carry-ons, could keep up with.

It was frustrating getting off the boat, but from there on, it was the smoothest process I’ve ever been in. We went through customs in a matter of minutes, got our luggage and were in our car maybe 15 minutes after we got off the boat. Mom tipped the man who helped grandma get off the boat (perhaps the reason they move so fast is so they can move more people and get more tips) and we went off to find our luggage. Let me say this: we’ve sailed out of MANY ports. I’ve never had such an easy time or encountered such friendly and helpful people than I did at the Port of Manhattan. There were many porters, all very friendly, offering to help us. Mom already grabbed one and he was just SO nice. We have very distinctive luggage so we had no problem finding our luggage quickly and heading up to the parking deck. Most porters would just leave your luggage on the ground by the car. This one wanted to load up our car for us AND help us get grandma situated because he said we were still on vacation. Oh, and remember what I said about wishing I could pack light? I’m not the only one in my family who needs to master this: we filled up his entire luggage cart. And that didn’t count any of our carry-ons, which we were rolling and carrying. Yikes. We really do need to learn to pack less.

We were in the car and leaving the terminal by 9:30. It was bittersweet leaving the ship. On one hand, I was ready to get home (we’d been gone for almost two weeks), but on the other, I was sad to leave my favorite ship and the wonderful people I had met that week. Even worse- we had no cruise planned after this to look forward to or plan! But I did have a Disney trip to plan and look forward to, but it’s just not the same.

We were out of New York and got through Jersey pretty quickly before we were sucked into the black hole that is Pennsylvania. The drive from NYC to Chicago is pretty easy. I think it’s two major interstates for 98% of the drive. Once I got Mom out of New York (Stephanie usually sits in back and watches movies and I sit in front and help Mom with directions. Sometimes Stephanie will drive and I’ll help her since I’m the one who can stay up the longest without sleep. I only drive when everyone else is asleep since I hate driving long distances…I don’t have the attention span for it), I got back on my iPhone and checked up on my local Chicago news since I had national and world news every night on CNN, and then checked in on my Cubs stuff and all of my celebrity gossip. And then I called my best friend at work (it was a Monday morning) so we could catch up. For me, going any extended time without the internet is kind of astounding since I’m always plugged in. If I’m not near my Macbook, I have my iPhone. I always have the internet accessible to me. Until my January cruise, Mom always got me an internet plan so I could keep up with school/work/home/news, but in January, it just felt like I needed to disconnect and be away from it all and it was SO nice. So I don’t do internet anymore on cruise ships, unless we’re docked in Puerto Rico or St. Thomas and I have cell phone service.

Anyways.

We were in the black hole of Pennsylvania for hours. We stopped in the same area we stopped in on the way there for gas (I think we only stopped for gas three or four times the entire ride home) and to grab some snacks and drinks. After I checked in on everything I missed on my iPhone and chatted with my best friend, there was really nothing left to do. I had almost 2000 pictures to look at. I could look out the window at all of the grassy hills in PA. And our car had this little swing down mirror to spy at everyone in the back seat. That was good for a few seconds of fun.

We finally escaped the monotony of Pennsylvania in the early afternoon and were in Ohio. I like driving through Ohio (we’ve been there before when I was little). It’s pleasant. Not much to look at, but pleasant. And they have the Disney World of rest stops. For real. They have the cleanest, nicest rest stops I’ve ever seen. And they have GOOD food. Not like McDonald’s and Hardee’s rest stop crap. They have Panera, Sbarro, Starbucks and even Einstein Bagel in some of their rest stops (along with normal fare like Carvel, Cinnabon, Burger King, Popeyes, Subway, etc). And some souvenir shops and ice cream stands and stuff.

We grabbed some Panera for a late lunch and ate in the car. It ended up being a bit of a lengthy stop, but we didn’t really lose any time since we were making such good time otherwise. It was the first “real” non-cruise ship food I’d had in over a week and it left me craving cruise ship food! I had a Greek salad and half of a roast beef sandwich (and a chocolate chip cookie…you can’t go to Panera and not have a cookie) and they forgot to leave the onions off both. Yech. I hate raw onions and they stunk up the car. Mom’s favorite food in the world is the cinnamon scones and her mood was perked up with one (she’d been driving all day and she had to go back to work the next day). Grandma had a turkey sandwich and I think Stephanie had chicken salad.

Ohio was a pretty short drive, but it started raining towards the end of it. When I got bored, I’d GPS us and have my iPhone estimate our arrival home. We got through half of Indiana before the sun started setting and I was glad we were cutting across the top of Indiana instead of the diagonal we usually do to get to Florida (we hate driving through Indiana…it’s the original black hole state for us). It took an hour or two to get through Indiana before I had to decide which way to take home (there’s like four ways to get us home from NW Indiana/Chicago). I decided to take my favorite way, through downtown and the Loop (I-90/94).

We hit the southside around 9:30 and fireworks were going off. I thought they were from Navy Pier (they shoot off fireworks every week during the summer), but then I realized we were driving past US Cellular Field and the fireworks were because the White Sox won. Crap. We’d be driving home through post-game traffic.

And construction traffic. That started when we hit the loop and added a good half-hour or so onto our drive. Stephanie loved the fact that we got to see America’s two best skylines in one day again. The second I saw the skyline, I knew I was home. That skyline is home for me.

We finally made it home around 10:30 pm (not bad…around 13 hours. We gained an hour going back to the Central time zone and had a lengthy stop and a few short ones) and got everything unpacked from the car, got grandma situated, cleaned the car out and went to return it. I had it rented an extra day just in case we needed extra time driving back because Alamo used to refund the extra day. Now they don’t and I probably won’t rent the extra day.

We had no food or milk in the house, but we were too exhausted to care. I think we went to Cheesecake Factory (because that’s what we usually do before and after vacations), but that might have been the next day. I honestly don’t remember. I was EXHAUSTED.

So that ends the book on the Carnival Miracle 5/24-6/1 cruise. It was an amazing trip and I’ll remember the experiences I had and the people I met forever.

Up next: Comparisons and Final Thoughts