I Wanted to Love This Cruise (But Didn’t) – Carnival Miracle Review

I’ve just disembarked a week-long Carnival cruise on a ship that has to be seen to be believed.

From a three-hour-long embarkation to my friends being given a full refund because their cabin was so dirty – this trip was full of surprises. 

I’ve cruised with Carnival once before from New York, and I had a great time. When I saw a ship sailing much closer to home, from Portugal to the UK, I thought this would be the perfect chance to give Carnival another go.

This cruise was more than twice the price of my first Carnival cruise, so I was a bit nervous about that, but as I enjoyed the first one I was hoping I would like this trip just as much.

I really just wanted to relax, Carnival do call themselves “The Fun Ships” after all and over 6 million people per year take a Carnival cruise. 

Carnival are often in the news for things like rowdy behaviour, it isn’t uncommon to hear news stories like ‘two dozen people banned from a carnival cruise after a fight broke out’.

My friend Tony puts it nicely when he says, “Carnival seems to have more of these incidents than anyone”.

That said I know so many people who love Carnival cruises and most say that they’ve never seen any bad behaviour.

I wasn’t worried about fights or the ship itself, I knew that it was old by cruise ship standards, but I’ve been on plenty of much older ships in the past, so I was sure it would be fine.

In reality, the issues we had on this ship weren’t ones that I expected and weren’t even ones I’ve ever experienced before, even on much cheaper cruises. 

When we arrived at the cruise terminal, we’d already been travelling for about 9 hours at that point.

It’s safe to say I didn’t enjoy the three-hour embarkation line, but sometimes problems do happen. I was grateful that the sun was shining, and seeing the ship there was so exciting – I couldn’t wait to get onboard. 

It’s much more important to me how a cruise line handles problems rather than whether they happen or not.

Sadly, I don’t think Carnival handled this one well. Usually embarking a cruise takes 15 minutes or so, and in my first Carnival cruise review you can hear me say that “embarkation was easy”.

I heard lots of different rumours from different guests about IT problems and the “ETA” permits that some guests needed to visit the UK – but nothing was confirmed.

We were never told anything and there was never any apology or acknowledgement of the delay at all.

When we did get to the check-in desk, they took and kept our passports and said we’d get those back on the last day of the cruise.

I’m used to that happening occasionally in Asia or on some river cruises where immigration checks need to be carried out, but it’s never happened to me in Europe before. It was weird, but I accepted it. It didn’t feel like there was any other option if I wanted to get on the cruise, which I very much did.

I found out later they didn’t do this for everybody, and my friends were able to keep their passports, which made it stranger. 

Walking into the ship was such a relief and so exciting, I was so happy to be onboard.

The ship I was boarding was the Carnival Miracle, she was built in 2003 – and I don’t have the words to describe the colours or the design of the inside spaces on this ship.

The design is unique, it’s bold, it’s memorable, and I guess confident?

There are so many themes in every venue and subtle is not the word I’d use to describe it. It was like my eyeballs were seeing every colour that they can process at once, and maybe more.

I did see a comment which called the ship the “Carnival Migraine” and that made me laugh. Not all of the Carnival ships look like this. 

I was really looking forward to exploring the rest of the ship. I never knew what would be around the next corner.

In the atrium here, there was live music and I loved that, there are two main decks on the ship where most things are, and both pass through this atrium, meaning that it really is the heart of the ship. We were here a lot.

The atrium goes all the way up to the top and there is decoration in every single corner, there isn’t any part left without a theme.

The lady at the top always looked like she was judging me for something when I walked by. She was one of the rare art pieces that had clothes on, we saw so many bums and boobs on this ship. They were everywhere.

We headed straight to our cabin to drop off our bags and didn’t have far to go because our cabin was on deck 5. I’d booked what is called a guaranteed balcony cabin to save a little bit of money, and was assigned an obstructed view cabin.

I was very happy with the level of obstruction that we were given, and we saw some incredible sights from this balcony.

For me, this is what cruising is all about, and always being able to come back to this space was the best. Have a look at my cabin here:

My stomach was rumbling at this point because I’d not eaten since breakfast.

I remembered that Guys Burgers was one of the most recommended places for me to eat – but looking at the time on the phone and my daily schedule, I realised that it was closing in one minute, so I’d have to try that one again later.

I’m sure I could have run there in under a minute, but I don’t want to be that person ordering as a place is closing. I knew there would be a buffet I could go to.

Carnival have a mix of fixed and flexible dining in the main dining room, and I’d picked early dining. That meant that dinner was at 5:30pm which normally is fantastic for me – but we’d missed it because of the embarkation.

Still we had lots of other days on the cruise to try the main dining room and I knew we’d have to because the waiters quite literally dance on the tables, it’s a big event and something I remember a lot from my first Carnival cruise.

I hoped that I’d been assigned a table for two, but I’d find out about that the next day when we went to dinner. 

The buffet itself is massive, and I liked the layout. There were always lots of places to sit, but I did find that the number of included options open for dinner was less than most other cruise lines. 

That might have been because a couple of the buffet sections are “paid for” at dinner time. What I did love though was there was a section where you could have hot or cold sandwiches made for you. They were served with fries and after that long day of embarkation it was great to be able to get some food so fast. 

The staff here were lovely, as they were all over the ship. 

 As we were already up high and it was getting close to sail away time, we decided to explore the top decks of the ship.

There was a main outside pool in the middle, another adult-only area at the back and a covered inside pool, which I love. We spent a lot of time here during the cruise, and it’s such a great option for a cruise where the weather might not be warm. 

We weren’t expecting warm weather on this cruise really and we were right about that. I needed my raincoat at one point! 

There was plenty of outside space and loads of places to sit, we had a quick look at the waterslides and the kids’ splash areas.

Carnival are very popular with families, but there were only a handful of kids on our cruise, probably because of the strange itinerary and the fact that it was in school term time. 

The sun was shining, I had my Pepsi, and I was so happy to be onboard. We could see the iconic Carnival funnel, and you can actually see down inside this one. Captain Hudson climbed on it at one point, and he was quite rebellious on this cruise. 

Inside the funnel is the steakhouse speciality restaurant and I would get a chance to check this one out later. 

On my first Carnival cruise there was a big sail away party as we left New York but there wasn’t anything like that on this cruise. I didn’t see any sail away parties at all which was odd.

The entertainment definitely felt cut down compared to my American Carnival cruise. I did wonder if maybe it was to do with the weather, but the weather wasn’t great on my New York City cruise, and they often just did things like this in the atrium if it was raining.

We found a mini golf course on the top and a basketball court towards the back. These areas are two that have been updated during the ship’s recent refit.

It was because of the time the ship spent in the dry dock that this itinerary existed at all. My itinerary was basically part of the ship’s journey back from the shipyard to the UK, where the ship will be spending some time. 

Both these areas looked really nice, and we’d usually see some people up here playing a game. I’d pick up on the other changes during the refit as the cruise went on. They weren’t all easy to spot, but I’m glad that most of them were done. 

We decided to get a drink next, and I bought a soda package. It cost $156.94 for the two of us for the week, which really isn’t too bad when you consider that one soda is $3.50 by the time that they’ve added on the gratuity.

That meant I only had to drink three a day to make my money back, and I definitely would do that during the cruise. I normally drink a lot of peppermint tea, but they only had Lipton’s tea in the buffet.

If you are somebody who likes tea, I’d definitely recommend bringing your own tea bags onboard.

We had a mix of Pepsi and Coke products on this cruise, and I’d usually be on the lookout for Pepsi. I loved that we got the full cans most times when we ordered a drink but I didn’t like that we had to sign for every single drink, even though it cost $0.

That seems like a massive waste of paper and time, it doesn’t feel very sanitary either, and I’d usually be heading off to find some hand sanitiser before drinking my drink.

I’d also bring your own hand sanitiser if you come on this cruise, along with your tea bags.

I’ve spent years and years of my life defending the cruise industry when it comes to hygiene and cleanliness standards, but this ship just didn’t live up to what I’m used to.

I’ve been on ships decades older and on cruises that cost 1/3rd of the price, but generally this ship was grubbier. More about that later, though.

It was getting late by this point, and after the long day, we decided to head to bed. I was so glad that I upgraded to the balcony so that I could sit and watch the incredible views.

It’s really calming to be at sea and to just see the ocean stretching off in every direction, it’s very humbling and makes you feel like a tiny little bug.

I was really excited to experience the entertainment over the next few days and to explore even more. Each day we were given a daily schedule in our cabins, and I loved sitting in bed having a look at what would be happening the next day.

I did find the daily schedule lacking in information about where we would be docking or when we’d get our passports back. I found out when I got home that there was a free shuttle in one of the ports that I never knew about.

I did something when I woke up that I never normally do, and that is that I went to brunch in the main dining room.

This was open until 11:30 am, and I love that. I’m not a morning person, and on some cruise lines, the breakfast options close much earlier than I’d like. On here, it was pretty much until 10:30 am with a few extra things available after that. 

We checked in using the app on our phones for the brunch, and we enjoyed it, we came back again later in the cruise and I was very brave and I ordered something that wasn’t on the menu anywhere – FRUIT!

I did find that the items on the menus weren’t exactly to my taste, for example I don’t want a burger and fries or chicken and waffles for breakfast but that one is personal preference. The egg on toast was great, though.

There were only 50 people from the UK on this cruise, 200 from Canada and the rest from the USA. 

After brunch, I met with my friends Dan and Jay, who run the Sail Away magazine. They were describing to me their cabin, and when they showed me the photos, it was so much worse than I’d imagined. They had literally poop left on their toilet.

Their cabin was so dirty that they were upgraded and got a full refund for the entire cruise.

Credit where credit is due, Carnival did handle the situation very well, something must have gone very wrong for this to happen, but Dan and Jay were satisfied with the outcome. I’m pleased to say that my cabin was mostly clean.

Our first day was a sea day, so we headed to the pub for Karaoke. The pub is a very popular venue onboard Carnival cruises, and I can see why.

They’d do trivia in here and other things, too. I was amazed by the quality of the singers at Karaoke, and I loved how all of the guests really cheered on and supported each other. The atmosphere was great. 

During the sea day, there was one venue where the majority of guests were – that was the casino.

I’ve never seen anything like it, actually that isn’t quite true, the only time I’ve ever seen anything like it was on my last Carnival cruise. Carnival certainly have the most popular casinos. 

Almost every seat was taken at any time the casino was open, and people would wait there for it to open.

This is a great example of why some cruise lines suit some people and some don’t at all.

One of my favourite cruise lines is the British line Marella, and on my most recent Marella cruise, their casino was just 8 machines and 4 tables. That suited me perfectly, but for a lot of people on this cruise, though, that wouldn’t work at all. 

Find out more about the big changes Marella made to ships that previously sailed with American cruise lines here:

How Marella Cruises Transformed Ex-Celebrity and Royal Caribbean Ships

Guests are allowed to smoke in the casino, and the casino has been extended out into the atrium. This means that the atrium often smelled smoky, and it would go up and out to the other venues.

I don’t normally notice smoke much when I cruise, but because this was right in the middle of the two main decks we were walking through it lots of times a day.

I don’t mind it too much but I know some people are very sensitive to the smell and for them this wouldn’t work at all, some people reported smelling the smoke all the way up in the speciality restaurant at the top of the atrium.

There are other smoking areas around the ship where guests can smoke too, but none are quite like this.

As the cruise went on I learnt that a lot of people onboard had been offered discounted cruises by Carnival because they have gambled a lot on cruises in the past.

It seemed like half the people I met onboard were there for that reason, and I found it really interesting.

Thanks so much to everybody who stopped to talk to me about how it works, it’s a whole new world for me. I gambled $10 on this cruise, so I don’t think I’ll be getting any casino invites anytime soon! Some people do really well out of it, though.

For dinner, we headed to the main dining room and found out we were at a table for 10. There wasn’t any mention of table sharing anywhere, and I usually try to avoid it when I can.

Nobody else showed up on the first night, but a couple of people did later in the cruise.

I’m sure we could have changed the table if we wanted to, but by the time I found out, I felt like it was too late and not worth bothering. Also because embarkation took so long, we missed the time slot where you were meant to go if you wanted to change dining arrangements.

We only went to the main dining room twice during the cruise anyway and mostly so that we could see the waiters dance.

On the first night we did see a dolphin outside the window which was a lovely surprise, I’m glad we were looking out for that! 

The decor in the main dining room certainly is memorable, it is grape themed apparently, although I think those look like fruity Mentos on the ceiling.

This dining room has remained pretty much unchanged since the ship launched, but I honestly don’t mind it at all.

I think the saturation in my eyes just got used to this by the time the week was over. This ship was very much “go hard or go home” and Carnival went all in on the themes.

Our waiters were absolutely fantastic, so friendly and they always made sure we had everything that we needed. The service usually took around one and a half hours, and every night there would either be singing or dancing.

I’m not sure how much the waiters get paid, but whatever it is, they deserve a pay rise.

There were lots of options on the menu in the main dining room and you look at the menus on the app on your phone. They do have physical ones too, if you want to ask for one, but the default is to look on the app.

I loved being able to see what was for dinner ahead of time, and overall, the app was one of the best I’ve used on a cruise.

We could see how much we’d spent, what was going on around the ship, and we could look at the deck plans. It never lagged or stuck either, and that might have been partly because of the quality of the Wi-Fi.

I paid $196 for the internet on this cruise and was really impressed with it. I was able to do video call meetings without any issue, and I could watch videos with them very rarely buffering. It was quite expensive, but for me it was worth it. 

Next up was one of my favourite things on the ship, the theatre shows! There was a different show every single night, and most of them included smoke machines, laser lights, sparks and fire. 

The dancers and the singers were great, and the theatre itself was really impressive. We usually sat up on the upper level with all the boobs. I’ve never said that before in a cruise review, and probably never will again! There were plenty of sculptures around, and no expense had been spared when it came to decoration. 

Going to the theatre quickly became part of my evening routine, and it was probably my favourite type of entertainment on the ship. 

I was very brave afterwards, and I did give the comedy club a go. It’s Mad Hatter themed, and I liked it. It would have been good if they had used this lounge back in the day, maybe, but it worked well as a comedy venue. It was all the way down on deck 1. 

The comedy definitely wasn’t to my taste, and I always sat at the back so that I could quietly run away. That one definitely is personal preference, though, and plenty of people seemed to love it. 

I’m not sure if this is a normal carnival cruise thing, but I never saw any waiters in this bar. I actually only had my drink order taken by a waiter once during the 7-day cruise, and that was outside at the adults-only pool.

Usually, on a cruise, when you sit down in any bar, the waiters will come over to take your drink order, but that just wasn’t how it worked on here. We always had to go to the bar.

Another thing I found really strange was that I’ve never experienced on my other cruises was that people would tip in cash when ordering a drink. I’m sure this happens on other lines too, but what was strange here was that people would stand at the bar and order with the money. Because they had cash and I didn’t, It felt as though I’d often be served last. 

I don’t blame the staff for that at all, of course, but I hated the culture of people buying their way to faster service. It is not something that I’m used to. 

If that is where Carnival have cut down on staff so that they can be a more budget cruise line, I think that’s fair enough.

What I didn’t like though, was how it generally felt as though the ship had a lot less cleaning staff than on all the other cruises I’ve been on.

I’d see a piece of rubbish on the stairs when I went to breakfast and it’d still be there when I went back later in the day.

Usually, on a cruise, your empty cup barely has to touch the table before it’s whisked away.

If you get up to get dessert in the buffet, your dirty plate will be gone by the time you get back. Here, though, we’d see the plates there even 15 or 20 or so minutes later. I’d usually say hi to my plate again when walking through, “hey plate you’re still there!” 

That said though, there was plenty of seats in the buffet so it never became a problem. Some other cruise lines might be very good at cleaning up the old plates but they don’t have many seats to start with, so it’s all swings and roundabouts. 

The buffet area itself had just had a new carpet installed during the refit. Most of the carpets on the ship were new, but you’d be forgiven for not knowing that when you look at this.

They are new carpets, but in a style that would have been perfectly acceptable in 2003. It doesn’t seem as though Carnival are trying to tone down these ships at all, and in a way I like that, they might as well embrace it. 

The next day, we were in the port of La Coruna. We didn’t get the sunshine we were hoping for, but we still had a lovely walk around.

We did the same in the next port, Bilbao. I stopped off at the buffet for some Frosties for breakfast, which I love.

I really did miss decent bread, but it’s probably good for me to take a bread break.

Quite a few ports on this cruise were far away from the advertised destination, Le Havre, for Paris and Le Vernon for Bordeaux etc.

Have a look at other ports that are far away from the city in the article below:

Don’t Be Fooled: These 16 Cruise Ports Are FAR From The City

As most guests had come all the way from America, they went to Paris on the excursion buses, for me though it’s just as fast to get to Paris from London on the train as it is from Le Havre by coach, so I headed to the beach instead. 

In Le Vernon, we didn’t get off the ship at all because when I researched the port, I saw that you couldn’t walk out by yourself, and there was no public transport at all.

Most ports aren’t like that, I’ve been told, since that Carnival did have a free shuttle bus to a nearby seaside town, but we were never told about that, so we didn’t know. 

We made the most of our time on the ship though, and for lunch we went to the Mexican restaurant on the top deck, La Cantina. This was probably my favourite restaurant onboard.

You could order burritos and tacos, and they’d be made there for you. I liked being able to pick my own toppings and if it was open for dinner I’m sure I would have gone there for dinner too. 

I wish again that there was some hand sanitiser or something here after using the tongs, but I’d just walk back into the buffet and back to the front door to find some. 

There were hand sanitising machines around the ship, and they were always full, which was good. There were no staff ever asking people to hand sanitise or wash their hands, so it took me until day 3 before I saw somebody else wash their hands. 

For people who have just cruised with Carnival or perhaps haven’t cruised before, I’m sure this is normal. But for me, I’m very accustomed to walking into the buffet on Norwegian, Royal, or even lines like MSC and having a staff member tell us all to wash our hands.

My favourite is the hand-washing machines they have on some Costa ships. Costa is actually owned by Carnival, too. I wish people didn’t need reminding, but they definitely do, and I feel better when the crew are in charge of that. 

My brother got ill on this cruise – and he did want me to tell you that! 

I did like how they had automatic opening doors in the public bathrooms, that was good and the public toilets always seemed clean, I never found any broken either which can be an issue on ships of this age.

Looking at the deck plans in the app, I realised that there were quite a few places on this ship that I hadn’t found yet. One of those was called “Gatsby’s Garden” and this was around the theatre.

It was the strangest area, it felt to me like those creepy places at kids’ party venues, but I’ve been told by quite a few people that this is a popular venue on sea days. I never saw anybody here during my cruise but I do think most people were in the casino on sea days, so maybe this cruise wasn’t typical. 

I also went to have a look at the club venue, I thought it was fairly standard when I had a look, but I was confused why it wasn’t on two levels like on the deck plans.

It wasn’t until I went to look at old videos that I realised that there used to be a massive two-storey Frankenstein in here. I think it says a lot that Carnival chose to make their club venue smaller, I’d have thought that it would be very popular on a Carnival cruise, but apparently on this ship not so much. 

I hadn’t seen any bad behaviour at all on this cruise at this point, and I hoped that I wouldn’t.

The other guests were really friendly and everybody seemed pretty relaxed. It was interesting to see how some people had really made this ship their home, I met lots of people who were staying onboard for back to back to back cruises, with some staying onboard for multiple months at a time. 

For dinner we headed to guys burgers on the other side of the inside pool area. I was glad to have the extra option for dinner and the burger was good. The chips were definitely my favourite part, and I came back for more of these later.

There was no vegetarian burger here at all, which is surprising. They do have a full vegan menu in the main dining room, so it’s a bit strange that it’s catered for in some places and not others.

They do a veggie burger inside at the deli, so most people go to get that and come here to get the fries, but why they couldn’t have a veggie option here too, I don’t know. 

We did come back here a couple of times during the cruise when we didn’t want to table share at dinner. 

The buffet was open for dinner and I did try the pizza but I never just saw slices there ready to take, there was always a line and they would take the order from the first person, make the pizza, dish it out and then move on.

I gave up on one occasion because I had other food, and it would definitely be cold by the time we waited. There wasn’t a menu or any ingredients list or anything either so I didn’t know what to order.

I much prefer the buffets that just have pizza out, like MSC or NCL or Royal. Generally, I prefer the buffets of all the other lines I’ve been on. They did have cookies here though, so that was good, they were best when left out overnight.

My favourite part of the buffet was called “Chopsticks”. There weren’t any allergen markings here, but they do have a section at the front of the buffet where the crew will help you if you have any dietary needs – which I thought was really good.

We did also like the ice cream machines just outside the doors, we never found a time when these weren’t available to use. 

We could get water from the buffet at any time, and they had some juices available for breakfast. They had one type of tea, and I’d try this later at “tea time” on the next sea day. 

There was an 80s show in the theatre up next and a party by the pool. They have a new big screen by the inside pool, which was added during the refit. In here, they would play movies, which was really nice.

It also showed Carnival’s rules, and one of them said “Keep your hands to yourself” – which isn’t something I’ve ever seen on a cruise before!

One of my favourite things to do on the ship was to wander the corridors, that might sound weird but when you see what things I found, I think it’ll make more sense.

Door decorating is a big thing on Carnival cruises, and it was actually really helpful for me to have this kind of landmark cabins. I’d walk past a cabin everyday that said that it was Kerri and Randy’s, I’d always say “hi” to Kerri and Randy’s door even though I have no idea who they are. 

Carnival has recently banned upside-down pineapple door decorations because, on a cruise ship, that is a secret sign for – ermm – adults who like to enjoy the company of other adults, if you know what I mean. 

Find out about that more here:

Pineapples on Cruise Ships: (I Interviewed a Swinger Who Uses This SECRET Code)

After dinner, we’d usually grab a drink in a bar, and this time, we chose the piano bar.

There definitely wasn’t a shortage of bars on this ship, and we could always get a seat anywhere we wanted. That probably was because most people were in the casino though. Everybody else being there was a benefit for me, honestly.

In the theatre they had the “Deal or No Deal” gameshow. Before the theatre shows, they’d usually have some warm-up entertainment, which I liked, it was good fun, and I was spotted on the camera one night! 

Having said that, there were some very familiar cruise ship things onboard too like the lovely promenade deck, it didn’t quite go all the way around, but still it is more than you’ll find on most modern cruise ships.

A lot of modern cruise ships don’t have pools at the back either, so I really appreciated that area.

There were loads of seats and little egg chairs. When it was cold, we’d sit further under cover, and it was a great place to have a chat with friends. 

The next day, we had three very important things on the schedule. 

The first thing that I really wanted to try was tea time. I’ve been to afternoon tea on lots of cruise lines before, including Cunard, but I wasn’t expecting it to be anything like that. I was surprised when I saw it popped up on the daily schedule. 

There wasn’t any booking we just all lined up outside the restaurant at the time that it opened. We didn’t know where we were going, honestly but as we followed the line, we were fed into the restaurant and seated at the tables, just in order of how the tables filled up. 

I’m not normally a fan of table sharing on a cruise, especially when I don’t know that it’s going to happen but we were very lucky with our table mates. We were seated with two Americans and two Canadians, and we were all as confused as each other. 

We were given pots of hot water and then a tea bag arrived about ten minutes later, we had to ask after that for milk and that probably took another 5 or 10 minutes.

When we asked for milk for the tea, the waiter looked at us like we had asked for maple syrup or vinegar – he looked so confused! Many people have milk in their tea, I think? 

We were offered cucumber or salmon sandwiches and then a few cakes.

I didn’t see any scones or anything and as a group we just kind of guessed when the food stopped coming, we assumed that was it and we left. 

Not exactly the afternoon tea experience you’d get on other lines, it wasn’t relaxing but it was interesting to get to chat to new people and to see what it was all about. 

I didn’t want to eat too much because the second thing on my to do list was a speciality meal in the steakhouse which had been gifted to me by a friend who works for Carnival. 

It’s not something I normally do when I cruise, but I wasn’t about to turn down free food. I am glad that we went.

The food in there was really good and the restaurant is actually inside the funnel which is very impressive. 

The service was friendly, and because of the location, I could sit and watch people doing their laps around the top deck.

I love people watching so that was lovely, definitely the best meal we had on the ship, as you’d expect at $53 per person. 

There is only one other speciality restaurant onboard called “Chef’s Table”. That’s actually a new restaurant and it’s located on the bottom area where the club used to be. 

The third thing that I knew that I’d have to try onboard was the cookies from the coffee shop. These do cost money, but I always like to try all of the cookies when I cruise.

I’d say that the extra charge cookies were about of the same quality as the included cookies on a line like Royal Caribbean. 

That seemed to be my thoughts overall when it came to the food. 

Have a look at my video below to see the amazing interiors of this ship:

In total, this cruise cost me £1124 based on two people sharing an obstructed view balcony cabin.

We both paid that price and that’s around $1500 each. I then paid an extra $78 for my soda package and $196 for the Wifi.

I spent $10 in the casino and $4 on a cookie, and that was it. This brings my total to $1,788, which is £1,300. 

I definitely feel like I paid too much for this cruise, given the experience, but it wasn’t a trip I wanted to miss, and I’m very glad I took it.

For the same price, though, I could have cruised with NCL or Royal, P&O or Marella, or even MSC or Costa, and I would have preferred that, which was a shame because I did enjoy my first Carnival cruise a lot. 

To find out what my first Carnival cruise was like, check out this video next. You’ll see some common themes with the lack of hand washing, but I think this video gives you a better idea of a typical Carnival cruise – or at least I hope so.

Please ignore my funny haircut. I’d just shaved my hair off for charity for the second time:

 

Before You Go

Have a look at the food I ate when i sailed on Carnival Magic out of New York here:

Carnival Food Review – EVERYTHING I Ate During my Cruise: (Photos and Menus)

Only 1% of ships sailing are cruise ships. Find out what the other 99% are here:

1% of Ships are Cruise Ships, Here’s What The Rest Are