Review of Dream April 19-26

Well, here goes some of my thoughts of our recent 7-day cruise on the Dream.

Day one-

Boarding was easy. We arrived about 10:40 and parked in the cruise terminal on the third floor near the elevator. If you use the cruise terminal, the porter meet you at you car and unload it for you. They take you checked luggage and the passengers wait by the elevator while the driver parks the car. Of course they work for tips.

We were directed up the escalator to the Priority Lounge area. We were sitting in the Diamond, Platinum seating by 11:10. They had water, coffee, juice, and cookies in the Priority lounge. They started the boarding about 11:40 and we were onboard by 11:45. They had the rooms ready for the Platinum, FTF, and Diamond cruisers. The hall doors were closed but they had a sign for Platinum, FTF, and Diamond cruisers to enter.

The safety drill was very enjoyable. The Dream does not make you stand outside for the drill. You get to go to the theatre, or one of the dining areas and sit for the safety talk. We finished the drill about 4:00 and started the sail away down the Mississippi River.

It takes about 6 to 7 hours to get to the mouth of the Gulf. They do not open the shops or Casino on the first night. We ate dinner in the Crimson Dining Room (Aft). We had early seating at 6:00 PM. Any time dining was in the Scarlet (Mid-ship) and started at 5:30 PM. They had a welcome aboard show that night.

One of the negatives was the piano bar. We always like going to this place on cruises. In Jan. 2015, on the Dream, there was a great piano bar guy. IMO this guy sucked. He had a good rapport with the crowd but could not sing. He was horrible. I hope he will be gone in Jan. 2016.

We had a regular balcony on the 9th deck. The room steward was ok but nothing special. We unloaded all of the alcohol and soda in the fridge to make room for our stuff. We had to ask for an Ice Bucket but he filled it everyday. If you do not ask you will not get one. There is only one electrical outlet in the room, so bring a couple of power strips and a long cord if you have a CPAP machine like me.

I will talk about more tomorrow. Time for bed now. If you have question about the Dream, fire away and I will try to answer in the next few days.

By for now.

Looking forward to more of your review! DH and I will be on the Dream on Aug 30 to celebrate our 25th wedding anniversary. We'll be on deck 7 in our first balcony. What was your itinerary?

__________________________

Carnival Fantasy 2006

Carnival Destiny 2011

Following

The casino is open on embarkation day after sailing. The shops are closed on the first day when sailing from New Orleans.

The casino is open on embarkation day after sailing. The shops are closed on the first day when sailing from New Orleans.

We walked through the casino after early and it was not opened. It might have opened after that.

Can't wait to read you review? Going in December.

Thanks for your review! I'm leaving on May 24th and counting down the days... these make the time pass and make me more excited!

I hate to hear that about the piano bar. Somehow, I've never made it to the piano bar on any cruise I've done. I was going to make a point to spend some time there this cruise. I'll cross my fingers they have someone better when I sail on her!

Leaving on the Dream in 5 weeks. Can't wait to read more !

Subscribed

We leave on the 31st ... enjoying ur review

Thanks for the review. Looking forward to the rest :)

Was the air conditioning cool enough in your cabin?

Waiting for more.......doing a back to back in 3 weeks :)

More about the Dream-

On sea days they have a grill on the Lanai Promenade (Outside deck 5). They cook sliders and hot dogs. Our first sea day it rained so they moved it inside.

The Lanai Promenade goes all the way around the ship. I used it to walk instead of the jogging track because it is twice as long and not crowded at 6:30 AM when I walked. There is a smoking area with tables and chairs on one side of the Lanai and a non-smoking area on the other side. There are two large outside hot tubs on each side of the ship on the Lanai. The inside area of deck 5 in the main traffic area on the ship the casino, shops, and areas for music are there.

You cannot walk from the front of the ship on decks 3 and 4 because of the Scarlet dining area and kitchen. Since we had a room in the front and our dining room was in the aft, we would wall along the hallway on deck nine to the rear elevators and go down the Crimson Dining room for dinner.

The Lido deck (deck 10) is where the Red Frog and Blue Iguana bars are located. The main pool and big screen are there also. On deck 11, over looking the pool, they have tables and chairs on both sides. The starboard (left) side tables are smoking areas. The port (left) side is non-smoking. There was a hot tub on the non-smoking side. Deck 12 is full of chairs for sun bathing or just relaxing.

My daughter enjoyed the Tandoor Grill and my wife liked the deli. Both were on the lido near the aft pool and bar. There was another hot tub by the pool. The Gathering was the name of the buffet area. The food was your typical carnival stuff.

They had a different theme for the food each day. (Italian, Caribbean, etc)

I like the salad bar. Also the pizza and hamburger places were out near the pool in the middle of the ship. For a ship as big as the Dream is, it only had two pools that we always crowded. There was another hot tub by the front pool.

Tell you more later. Got to go now.

Was the air conditioning cool enough in your cabin?

It was ok not great. If you have a balcony and the sun is on your side, keep the curtains closed because it gets hot. I took a small fan and it really helped. I am very hot natured and like the fan at night.

Here’s the third and final installment of my Dream Review-

One of the more positive aspects of the Dream is the Black Jack Band. They play, on most nights, on the deck five Ocean Plaza Lounge. They are great. They are a multipurpose band that plays country, rock, oldies, and disco. Plus, the rapport with the crowd is great. Also, they are very comical. We loved them.

The shows we saw were good. The female singer was really good but the male was average. It depended on the song with him. The dancers were ok, but we have seen better dancers on other ships. They were a new group, because they were not the same bunch we saw when we sailed in Jan.

The comedians were funny. The comedy shows were always very crowded. If you didn’t show up 20 minutes early, you couldn’t get a seat. The family shows were not as crowded as the adult only shows.

We spend a lot of time on the Adult only Serenity decks. It is on decks 12 and 14. There is no deck 13. The Serenity Deck bar was on the Starboard side of deck 12. When we were on the Dream in Jan., we had servers coming around and bringing drinks. We rarely saw a server on the Serenity on the whole cruise. As I said earlier, my main criticism of the Dream is the fact it seemed very under staffed.

It took forever to get a drink at a bar. The staff seems to try hard but it appears they have more to handle than they can take care of in all areas. Our main dining staff was great, but you could tell how stressed they were because the number of tables and diners they had to serve was all most overwhelming. It was not like this on the Carnival Pride, a much smaller ship, in March.

One surprise was the Pasta Bar. In all my cruises, I had never seen this before. It is located in the upper part (deck 11) of the Gathering Buffet in the last room before heading out to the aft pool. You go to a desk and place your pasta order on a piece of paper. When you turn in the paper, you get a number to place on your table. When your order is ready, they bring your food to your table. My wife wanted to go to the Mongolian BBQ several times, but the lines were always too long. Same thing with the hamburger grill, a very long line at all times.

To sum all this up, we had a good time, but long food lines, lack of appropriate staffing, and lousy piano bar singer left me hoping things improve before next Jan. 2016. After 15 cruises, we have never had a bad cruise and this was not a bad one either. I would not rank the Dream as one of my favorite ships. I am going to give it one more chance to win me over next Jan. on our 21 day B2B.

Feel free to ask questions.

Rick

Thank you, Pisgah, for your review.

May we ask you about something? Did you take home your copies of the seven daily "Fun Times" newsletters? If so, could you please look at the hourly schedules in them and let us know which one of the following was true:

(1) As in late 2013 (or early 2014), Karaoke was available on ALL seven days on this 2015 Dream cruise -- sometimes in one venue (bar/lounge/theater), sometimes in another -- and usually for three or more hours at night, but twice for two hours in the afternoon or early evening ...

......... OR ...

(2) Karaoke has been scaled back "big time" on the Dream in 2015, so that it is now available only on about three nights (and no afternoons/evenings) -- always in the same venue ...

......... OR ...

(3) Neither of the above describes the situation on the Dream in 2015, but instead [etc., etc., etc.].

If anyone else has recently been on the Dream, please feel free to answer us, in case Pisgah is unable to do so.

Thank you all very much.

.

Thank you for your review. DH and I along with 24 other friends and relatives were also on this cruise. This was our third cruise on the Dream and our 13th on Carnival and for some reason this was one of my favorite cruises. This goes to show how each cruise can be different for the individual cruiser.

We had our first 4j on deck 7. We have been booking balconies or port holes and decided we would try something new. We loved our cabin.

Our service in the dining room was excellent. We had Your Time Dining in the Crimson dining room and had Peter and his team every night. Our food was very good on this cruise. We went to the brunch and to breakfast in the dining most mornings.

I must agree that the piano bar was an interesting experience. The piano player could definitely play piano but wasn't a very good singer. He did get the guests up and singing. I called him an entertainer.

Bar service was excellent by the aft pool. I think an extra tip now and then really helped.

We would cruise on the Dream again in a heart beat.

Thanks for your review. We love the Dream, she's our favorite. Got her booked for the 3rd time next year.

Also as someone else mentioned, the casino does open when the ship sails. Maybe they opened a little later for your cruise.

Thank you, Pisgah Rick, for your review.

May we ask you about something? Did you take home your copies of the seven daily "Fun Times" newsletters? If so, could you please look at the hourly schedules in them and let us know which one of the following was the situation:

(1) As was true in late 2013 (or early 2014), Karaoke was available on ALL seven days on this 2015 Dream cruise -- sometimes in one venue (bar/lounge/theater), sometimes in another, sometimes in a third -- and Karaoke usually ran for three or more hours at night, but it ran twice for two hours in the afternoon or early evening ...

......... OR ...................

(2) Karaoke was scaled back "big time" on the Dream in 2015, so that it is now available only on about three nights (and no afternoons/evenings), for three or four hours each night -- and always in the same venue ...

......... OR ...

(3) Neither of the above describes the situation on the Dream in 2015, but instead [etc., etc., etc.].

If anyone else has recently been on the Dream, please feel free to answer us, in case Pisgah Rick is unable to do so.

Thank you all very much.

Thanks for the insight!

Is there anyone on here that has kept copies of the Fun Times for the itinerary going to Belize and Roatan? It doesn't matter which week you went but need that itinerary. I was able to get a copy of Wed & Thur but looking for the rest of the week. Just need copies of the front with the activities. Please post here or you can scan and send to me in email. melodiematyas@ charter.net. Thanks.

We were are the Dream the week previous to yours. Yes, the piano bar guy was awful. He would be one of the outtake on American Idol...you might think you're good, but your not.

We loved out cruise on the Dream. We didn't have high expectations.

The food service for Your Time Dining was much better than it was on our previous Breeze cruise. The food was delivered in a timely fashion and at the right temperature. Bar service was slow. Leilani and her team took good care of us and we requested them every night.

Thank you, Pisgah Rick, for your review.

 

May we ask you about something? Did you take home your copies of the seven daily "Fun Times" newsletters? If so, could you please look at the hourly schedules in them and let us know which one of the following was the situation:

 

(1) As was true in late 2013 (or early 2014), Karaoke was available on ALL seven days on this 2015 Dream cruise -- sometimes in one venue (bar/lounge/theater), sometimes in another, sometimes in a third -- and Karaoke usually ran for three or more hours at night, but it ran twice for two hours in the afternoon or early evening ...

 

......... OR ...................

 

(2) Karaoke was scaled back "big time" on the Dream in 2015, so that it is now available only on about three nights (and no afternoons/evenings), for three or four hours each night -- and always in the same venue ...

 

......... OR ...

 

(3) Neither of the above describes the situation on the Dream in 2015, but instead [etc., etc., etc.].

 

If anyone else has recently been on the Dream, please feel free to answer us, in case Pisgah Rick is unable to do so.

Thank you all very much.

Number 2 is what I remember. We only went in a couple of times. It was always in ten room where they do the comedy shows. I think it was available 5 out of 7 nights. (Early before the comedy)

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We were are the Dream the week previous to yours. Yes, the piano bar guy was awful. He would be one of the outtake on American Idol...you might think you're good, but your not.

 

We loved out cruise on the Dream. We didn't have high expectations.

The food service for Your Time Dining was much better than it was on our previous Breeze cruise. The food was delivered in a timely fashion and at the right temperature. Bar service was slow. Leilani and her team took good care of us and we requested them every night.

..and I took this same cruise right after the OP. I agree, we loved it. video below...

[YOUTUBE]3PTrHAyYzCQ[/YOUTUBE]