Free wi-fi and photos from the ship.

 We are on the train home from Seattle, and business class gives you free wi-fi and electrical outlets, so at last I can do a post that doesn't cost 16 cents a minute and drops the connection three times out of five.  On our last night on the ship, the cabin stewards left us a towel ram.  Baabette was smitten!  So we left her in the cabin to canoodle while we walked around and got a few photos of life on the ship.

 One of the quiet places to sit and spend time is clear up in the bow of the ship.  As you can see, those who are young and limber can enjoy the light and views from the portholes.  The ship had arts and crafts classes every day, and ended with handing out counted cross-stitch kits which mom and her two girls are diligently working on here.  Is this a memory or what?

I, meanwhile, occupied myself with knitting.  I finished four scarves and am most of the way through a fifth.  The blue scarves are bamboo and silk.  The pink scarf is sugarcane.  I do love these miters.  No thought necessary so I can chat nicely and keep my fingers off the throats of fools.

 I had to share a photo of a small part of the chocolate buffet.  It was difficult getting a clear shot of any part of the buffet, because the crowd had descended like ants on watermelon.

As you can see, here, it was cheek by jowl and devil take the hindmost.  This was the only time I saw such fierce determination and greedy speed.   Usually, we little piggies were content to wait politely in line.

 Once on board the ship, some people decorated their doors.  Perhaps to make it easier to find the room for the children and inebriated in the party.  Perhaps because they just like to express themselves and make things pretty.

An anniversary cruise.  So sweet.

There was more formal displays of art all over the ship as well.  The stairwells were decorated with blown glass vessels.  I suppose you could have put flowers in this.

 You certainly couldn't drink from this one.  The artist exigently had a lot of fun making those blue slugs, because they were applied liberally and at all possible angles to many of the sculptures.

This kind of looks like a cookie jar with  - uh - buds?  Wolf-eel jaws? lips?

This was my favorite because the colors were pretty, but near as I can tell, it's just a big youdust'em.  And you know, people paid a  lot of money for these.  There is no accounting for tastes.















And then there are a series of acrylic mock-Monets and faux-Chagals.  I know people (Tim) who can paint way better than this.

The ship's name was Miracle.  I'm sure it was difficult to follow a theme that was not specifically religious.  The corridors were decorated with illustrations of fictional characters. The public areas were rife with Rennaissance-ish depictions of gods and damsels.



And this lady was duplicated on every set of doors on every elevator on the ship.  It took me three days before I realized she was leafing through books, rather than hoisting her skirts for reasons of her own.

And the theatre - The Phantom theatre had large bas-relief sculptures on every wall of a half-mask hearkening to the Phantom of the Opera.  The proscenium was flanked by two quasi-Jovian figures with speakers inserted between nipples and loin cloth.  The ceiling was supported by ranks of hermaphroditic figures, and the chandeliers on the ceiling were huge and vastly twinkly.  Oh, and the ceiling was painted with a repeating motif of zodiacal creatures, but not all of them.

I nearly forgot - One of the bars had huge representations of Greek athletes in the nude, but they had all been, ahem, altered so as not to offend.

OK, so this is why they make chocolate and vanilla.  One man's Mede is another man's Persian.  Just because the decor was not to my taste, it doesn't mean I didn't have fun.  I had a grand time and will be posting photos for weeks.  The staff couldn't have been kinder or more helpful. The trip was safe, comfortable and purely luxurious.  I give Carnival two thumbs up for the Hawaii cruise!