Carnival launched the ship the Wisconsin EMS Cruise will sail, the brand new Miracle, in late February, and to rave reviews. The ship has already been wowing passengers with sold-out cruises departing from Florida, Maryland and soon from New York.

The Miracle is in the Spirit class of Carnival Fun Ships. She is smaller than the Carnival Victory we sailed on the last Wisconsin EMS Cruise, but with all of the same amenities and even a few more. By smaller, we mean she caries 2,000 passengers instead of 2,700 – which hardly can be considered a small ship!

The Wisconsin EMS Cruise web site has located over 300 pictures of the Miracle including a couple dozen of her being built at the ship yards in Finland. Some say she is the nicest Carnival ship in their entire fleet.

Reviews from other cruise passengers are already starting to come in. Other than what appears to be a somewhat odd method of laying out the buffets, and the usual embarkation complaints, passengers have had nothing but good to say about the Carnival Miracle and her crew.

Topping the list of hits is a brand new reservations only restaurant at the top of the ship. While all of your meals continue to be included in the price of your cruise, this limited seating, special menu restaurant does come with a small additional charge of $25. Nick & Nora’s features a top of the line menu every night and will immerse you in a four star dinning experience. While dinner in the main dinning room with all of your fellow cruise passengers is always a good time, you may want to keep Nick & Nora’s in mind if you want to experience an intimate dinner for two or four on one of your cruise nights.

Carnival is also experimenting with new and improved ways of disembarking passengers on the final day. Past cruise passengers know the drill: leave your luggage out the night before, go to your assigned area or meeting room with hundreds of other people in the morning, wait awhile, wait a little longer, then wait a little longer. Finally you head to a huge warehouse with rows and rows of luggage where the search is on to find which black suitcase is yours.

This may soon be a thing of the past. Carnival is currently testing a program that allows passengers to wait in their cabin with their luggage. When their section is called, they then take their luggage with them off of the ship and directly through the Customs check point and that’s it. We can’t make any guarantees that this system will be in place when we sail, but if the early results are any indication, this new method seems to be a hit. Of course, if you have more luggage than you can or want to carry off of the ship, you can still have it ported for you the night before.

Sailing on a new ship will be a special treat. Perhaps best of all, if there are any bugs to be worked out, you can bet they will have been taken care of by the time we set sail next March. We get the best of both worlds: a new ship, but not so new that there are still new problems to be worked out.

If you have Internet access, you’ll really enjoy finding out more about the new Carnival Miracle. The best place for you to start is with a visit to www.WisconsinEMS.com/cruise. From there, click on the photos page and the links page. You will be able to find nearly 300 photos, passenger reviews on the ship, and even 360 degree virtual tours. Also be sure to check out the side-bar Internet article in this edition of the Cruiser’s Newsletter.

Can you feel the excitement building? If not, you just haven’t seen the first pictures of the Carnival Miracle. Once you do, you won’t be able to wait until you set foot on deck. So, what are you waiting for? Check it out today!

If you’ve ever looked on the Internet for just about anything, you already know that there is often an unlimited amount of information available. However, sometimes the hardest part is finding what you are looking for.

The best place we recommend you start to look for cruise information is at www.WisconsinEMS.com/cruise. While the content on the site itself is useful, the big help will be the page of cruise links to get you to a variety of other Internet sources.

Number one on the list of links has got to be www.cruise-addicts.com. This site has just about everything you may ever want to find about cruising. Did you know that many cruise ships now have web cameras that continually provide pictures from wherever they are? You’ll find them at this site along with cameras mounted at various ports of call, including live video feeds from places like Key West, New Orleans, St. Thomas and Grand Cayman. Watch people walk down the street. View live entertainment at Sloppy Joe’s in Key West or see what’s happening in the French Quarter of New Orleans.

The web sites have the latest cruising information, reviews on specific ships, information about the various ports of call, flight information and even the latest sailing information, we suggest you try:

• www.cruise-addicts.com

• www.expedia.com

• www.travelocity.com

• www.CarnivalCruise.com

• www.cruiseinc.com

You’ll be amazed at what you can find spending a little bit of time on-line. If you are not yet hooked up to the Internet, ask a friend who is, try a public library, or perhaps joined the on-line revolution and get connected yourself.

One last tip: Don’t forget to check the official Wisconsin EMS Cruise web site periodically for the latest EMS cruise information and updates.

225 Cabins Sold - Prices Increase

Popularity in the Wisconsin EMS Cruise continues to grow. As this edition of the Cruiser’s Newsletter goes to press, we now have over 225 cabins and more than 450 passengers booked for the third EMS Cruise.

The price locked in by the Wisconsin EMS Association for the first 200 cabins ended up being nearly $200 less than any of the popular travel web sites, or even Carnival Cruise Lines are selling the cruise for. That means that Wisconsin EMS Cruisers saved on average $400 per couple. That doesn’t even take into account all of the extras including two complimentary cocktail parties.

Unfortunately, when the first 200 cabins ran out, the price of the cruise went up by $50 per person, but so has the cost of general cruise tickets. We now have a total block of 250 cabins. We anticipate that when the remaining 25 cabins sell out, the price will again increase by $50.

That means that if you have family or friends who are waiting to book their cruise, they may not want to wait any longer. Bargain hunters may be waiting until the last minute to see if cruise prices drop. While this did happen for about 18 months after the September 11 terrorist attacks, we have been seeing that trend come to an end. In fact, the three and four day cruises that the Carnival Miracle has been sailing out of Florida have been selling for almost as much as the Wisconsin EMS seven day cruise. The economy and the travel industry are clearly rebounding, which means prices are likely to hold or to increase.

Of course, everyone who placed their $25 deposit is locked in at the original rate. Even at the new rate, the Wisconsin EMS Cruise is a super deal.

Will cruise number three sail with the most EMS Cruisers yet? It’s a good bet that will be the case, and just think, you are going to be a part of it all next March!

Ports of Call: Grand Cayman

After a day and a half at sea, the Wisconsin EMS Cruise will pull into its first port of call: Grand Cayman. Many of the passengers on the first EMS Cruise found this port to be one of the very best.

Grand Cayman, part of the Cayman Islands, was originally settled by shipwrecked sailors, marooned mariners and buccaneers. The Cayman Islands are now a peaceful British Crown Colony, offering elegance, warmth and the charm of tradition. Impeccably safe and sparkling clean, the Cayman Islands offer the highest standard of living in the Caribbean.

You’ll find miles of glistening white sand beaches that are typically uncrowded. The crystal-clear waters are both a diver’s dream and a fisherman’s fantasy. You can view relics of an exciting pirate history, golden sunrises and colorful Caribbean sunsets. The average temperature will likely range between 75 and 80 degrees making for a perfect day.

There will be many options available for your day in Grand Cayman. First of all, the Caymans are said to have the best beaches in the Caribbean which is saying something. Swimming, parasailing, windsurfing, sailing, scuba diving and sportfishing are offered and Georgetown is a leading duty-free market making it a great place to shop for those souvenirs on your list.

Grand Cayman may provide your best opportunity for snorkeling and if you are a certified diver, you may not find a better port during the cruise for a dive. Cayman Islands’ dive sites are too numerous and varied to mention in detail. But, if you aren’t a diver, don’t worry! There is also no better place to plunge into snorkeling than the Cayman Islands, with their breathtaking blue waters and colorful, close-to-shore reefs packed to the gills with orange and purple fish. You will be wiggling into a pair of fins in no time. One of the most popular water experiences can be found at Stingray City, located inside the barrier reef where the waters are calm. Here you will feel an incredible surge of excitement as you safely mingle with the friendly stingrays who call these waters home.

Many areas, including some of the ship’s shore excursion packages, offer snorkel instruction. If you’re never snorkeled, you may want to sign up – it is the easiest way to start. Or, you can take advantage of one of the all inclusive packages which will provide gear, instruction, lunch and a chance to meet other passengers.

Past cruisers know that often they can find the same shore excursions in town for half of the price on the ship. A little bit of scouting around could save you serious cash.

If you have some snorkel experience and choose to go it alone, we suggest you ask for advice on stinging sea creatures and corals, and never walk on fragile reefs. Brush up on your fish facts or get an illustrated guide to tropical fish to identify the regulars, angel fish, banded butterfly fish and Spanish hogfish.

Another fun trip is a visit to the famous Blow Holes. Not interested? Okay, take George Town’s Historic Walking Tour, or visit the fascinating treasure and natural history museums to learn more about the Cayman Islands’ past. Finally, if a few people on your EMS service have told you to go anyway, this hopefully will be your only chance to visit – Hell. Hell is a blackened and jagged rock formation that gives this little district in west bay its unusual name. Send letters and cards to friends with the Hell postmark clearly stamped on it and greetings like: This is a Hell of a place, from the Hell post office. Or, buy souvenirs for the folks back home from the gift shops at Hell.

The day will be gone before you know it but hopefully you’ll return to the ship with wonderful memories from your first or perhaps second visit to Grand Cayman.

Pre-Cruise, Hotel Stay and Park and Fly Packages Being Worked Out

Plans are still on track to announce pre-cruise packages, night-before hotel and parking packages and alternate air packages for the Wisconsin EMS Cruise. Cruisers will be provided with package details this summer.

The airlines release their schedules and allow bookings 11 months in advance. That means that until the end of April, air fare rates and tickets were not yet available. Now that we are inside this booking window, the folks at Magic Carpet Travel have been hard at work putting together packages for one and two night pre-cruise stays and alternate air.

Passengers were asked what pre-cruise packages they were most interested in when they booked on the Wisconsin EMS Cruise. One and two night stays in the Tampa area are the most popular.

A one or two night pre-cruise stay is a great add-on to the Wisconsin EMS Cruise for a variety of reasons. Besides extending an already great vacation by a couple of days, it provides additional security should the weather turn ugly.

The standard cruise package from Carnival Cruise Lines will allow passengers to fly to Tampa the morning of the cruise. Carnival will book the air transportation and will provide the airline and flight time information to passengers a couple of weeks before the cruise. While this is the way many cruise passengers book their vacations, there is a better way.

With a pre-cruise stay, you will fly down to Tampa on Friday or Saturday. You will know what airline you will be on and what time your flight will leave. Your package will include accommodations in Tampa, shuttle service and the services of a travel agent.

While other cruise passengers will have to be to the airport as early as 5 AM the day of the cruise, pre-cruise passengers will already be in Florida. They will take a shuttle to the Port of Tampa and be among the first passengers to board the ship. Perhaps most importantly, if weather grounds the airlines, there is a much better chance of still making the ship when you have a 24 or 48 hour cushion.

With airline schedules now available, passengers who wish to book their own air travel, use frequent flyer miles, or have Magic Carpet or another travel agent book their air can now do so. However, we recommend you wait until the pre-cruise packages are announced. Air prices are unlikely to increase before the pre-cruise information is made available. By waiting, you’ll be able to make the best decision and book the package that best meets your needs.

Like previous EMS Cruises, we also have reserved a block of rooms at the Four Points by Sheraton across from Mitchell International Airport. Rooms are available on Thursday, Friday and Saturday. What makes this especially attractive is the $65 room rate includes free parking for the length of the cruise. That’s cheaper than some parking rates at the airport!

The next edition of the Cruiser’s Newsletter will contain details on the pre-cruise and hotel packages. Even if you initially booked air with your cruise you will be able to cancel that air and re-book.