Dream Review, 7/30 to 8/6

Pre-cruise: I flew in Friday before we left and met up with my husband and daughter, who drove out to NOLA. I got a great deal through Hotwire for a 2 night stay at the Holiday Inn West Bank Tower. We ate at the restaurant on site that night and the food was delicious. In fact, the entire stay was great. The service was outstanding.

Parking: I had pre-purchased our parking at the Fulton Place Garage. We paid for the rooftop parking, which was $10 a day. I also searched for an online coupon and found one for $5 off, so the parking was $78 for 7 days. If you park on the roof, drop your luggage off on the 8th floor, as the rooftop does not have an elevator going up there. We went down to the shuttle area and got into a shuttle right away, and were at the cruise terminal within minutes. There was someone there to get our luggage and we were directed to the cruise terminal.

Embarkation: We got to the terminal around 11am and it was already full. We were on a premier casino cruise and are platinum, so we were directed to the check in, where there was no wait. We had our Carnival gift cards added to our Sail and Sign at this point and were directed to the Captain's Lounge, which was already full. So we waited outside for about 10 minutes and were then escorted to board the ship. We typically have the embarkation photo taken and it's the only one we buy, but we totally bypassed this area and didn't get it done. They do the photos before you check in, so blink and you will miss it.

First stop after dropping off our bags?

It was Guys' Burgers, of course! Boarding first has its' perks, and no line at Guys' is one of them.

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We wandered around the ship since we had never been on it. The photo below is of the sushi restaurant. It smelled so good walking by and made me wish that I liked sushi!

We sailed away around 5pm, after the muster drill. All muster locations are inside and ours was at the Camp O2 location. It was one of the shorter muster drills I have been to.

We had reservations at the Steakhouse that night.

I had crab cakes for my appetizer, Caesar salad, another appetizer "courtesy of the chef", which was a mini-pork burger, surf and turf and cheesecake for dessert. All was delicious. The first night offered a bottle of house wine for free.

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When we got back to our room, our room steward Tina introduced herself and asked if we wanted service in the morning, night or both. We choose both. She also had left us a cute towel animal.

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Days 2 and 3 were sea days. We spent way too much time in the casino. We also participated in a slot pull with a group from here and another social media location which will not be named but starts with the letter "F". Everyone put in $10 and after we had all done our three pulls, the very last person hit $1,000 on the $1 machine, so we all got $32 for our $10 investment!

Since I don't have a lot of activities to report on these two days, I will mention that our weather was outstanding. There was one night where it sprinkled on us while we were watching the Dive In Movie (La La Land) but other than that, the weather was great. The sea was calm. We were lucky when you consider the weather and problems that Dream is having this week.

We went to the MDR 4 nights out of 7. Our table mates, Mike, Nadine and Lania were nice and we enjoyed getting to know them. I noticed that many tables remained empty during dinner on the nights we were there. Our head waiter was Pat and her assistant was Marlon. They were very attentive to whatever we wanted and we didn't have a bad meal in the MDR.

Enjoying your review, particularly the pictures of your dinner in the steakhouse.

Our first port was Mahogany Bay, Roatan. It was hot and humid and we had not planned an excursion there, so we got off the ship to shop.

Our view from our balcony.

Freedom in port with us. Seeing the two ships together makes you realize just how much bigger Dream is.

Posing with the sign

My daughter and husband with props outside of one of the bars

My husband with one of the security guards

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Our second port was Belize. My husband and daughter did the cave tubing and lunch excursion and I did the Belizian Foodie Tour. We recommend both.

My husband and daughter

A fruit stand we stopped at on the foodie tour. We tried as many fruits as we wanted.

My shrimp ceviche and a watermelon/pineapple salad

We stopped at the Belize sign for a photo

Both tours were booked through Carnival. The foodie tour took us through town and the guide was very informative.

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Enjoying your review. Did you try the chairlift in Mahogany Bay?

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Day 3 was Cozumel. We made no plans as we had been to this port before. We ended up eating at Pancho's Backyard, which has a beach right on the water. I had cold tomato soup and a delicious strawberry daiquiri.

Selfie in front of Three Amigos Bar

Cozumel water

At Pancho's. And my daughter is drinking a smoothie

The Dream

My photo with Chris Pine. Okay, he wasn't really there. This was inside one of the shops.

Cozumel was the only port where the vendors were encouraging us to come to their store. We did not see this in the other ports.

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We did not try the chairlift. It was $14 per person for the day and we didn't think we'd use it enough to justify the price. But here is a photo of my husband with the chairlift behind him.

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Saturday was our last day and a sea day. We had pre-ordered a sandwich tray as we did this on a previous cruise for a group gathering, and decided to do it again.

Sandwiches on the balcony

Our view on the last night

Our final towel animal and a thank you card

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We packed our bags and left them out to be removed from the ship. As I mentioned, we were on a premier casino cruise which gave us free drinks while in the casino. We probably had around 6 or 7 drinks each during the week. Neither of us had any luck in the casino until the last night. I put $10 in one of the penny Buffalo machines and won $125 in a bonus round. I cashed out immediately.

We had breakfast on Sunday in the MDR. Experience has shown us that the service in the MDR on the last morning is not good, but we had excellent service.

My Eggs Benedict and hash browns

My daughter with her smoothie and pancakes.

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These are random thoughts -

Pasta option - The pasta restaurant is open from Noon to 3:30pm (2pm some days) and it is free. You fill out a form with your order, drop it in a box and the food is made for you. The pasta was good and I wish it was open more often. I understand they charge at night for the pasta.

Guys' Pig and Anchor - OMG!!! This food was so delicious! It is located outside on deck 5 and there were lines every time I would go by. We had each of the meats (the pork was the best in my opinion) and each side to try. I can see why the lines are so long.

Guys' Burgers - Our daughter ate most every dinner here. She loves the burgers and fries.

Mongolian - We did not try this.

Blue Iguana - One of our favorites and it did not disappoint.

Lido food - I did not find any food that I disliked. It was very crowded the first few days and then it seemed that people were finding other places to eat.

Pizza - Was very good.

On the last sea day, they had a chocolate buffet and it was pretty popular.

We did not try room service, other than having the sandwich tray delivered. We also ordered 1 twelve pack of water to be delivered to the room on the first day, and if I had it to do over, I would have ordered 2 of them. Our daughter drank most of the water.

I did bring my own tea bags since they only offer Lipton for free and also brought some liquid creamer packets.

Shows - We did not make any of them. We typically go to at least one, but we went to the Dive In Movies most nights. They had popcorn every night and the movies were well attended.

Arcade - We had a $5 card for my daughter since that's a platinum gift. This arcade is bigger than any other arcade we've seen on a ship. Lots of games and lots of "claw" games.

Our cruise director was Mat Seguin. I watched the morning show and saw him on the television doing the Marriage show. We did meet him at the diamond/platinum party. He was out and about a lot but we didn't really talk to him that much.

Diamond/platinum party - It was on the last sea day and I wish they would schedule these a little earlier! It was right before dinner and with all the appetizers and drinks they give you, how can you possibly be hungry afterwards? Also, the video they show when you are supposed to "woo hoo" when there is a ship shown that you have been on? The slide shows 4 ships at a time and Mat had a hard time keeping up with all the names. This is also the first time we've seen them give out prizes for the "most seasoned/old cruiser", youngest platinum cruiser (she was 6 YEARS OLD), most spontaneous cruiser (booked 4 days prior to sailing).

Debarkation: After breakfast in the MDR, we went back to our room to get our luggage. We went to the designated place for platinum cruisers and were escorted off the ship almost immediately. The customs agent just asked us how we enjoyed our cruise, looked at our passports and waved us through. We did get our luggage before going to customs, which is opposite of what we have done anywhere else. It was raining on the Sunday we returned and the Fulton shuttle was waiting for us. We were dropped off on the opposite side of where we had gotten the shuttle to go to the terminal and my husband went to get the car. We loaded up the car once he arrived and took off for a day in New Orleans.

We stayed for 2 additional days at a private home I found through Airbnb. I will post some photos that we took of Dream leaving that day for this weeks' cruise, as our Airbnb was right near the Mississippi River.

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Thanks for the review.

One of the best reviews I have read!

Thank you, this was a helpful review and I learned a few things that I'll use when I sail the Dream in January 2019.

We were looking at booking the foodie tour in Belize for our trip in November. Would you recommend it? Did you feel like it was a nice relaxed excursion? Thanks for the awesome review!

The foodie tour was outstanding. You should not eat before the tour as you get plenty of food while on the tour. The last stop was a restaurant where we made shrimp ceviche and you could buy food there if you wanted. They only accept cash, so if you decide to do the tour, take some cash for drinks and food over and above the ceviche. But at every stop, there was something to eat. Our tour guide also told us about the local sites while we were driving around the city and it was really a two in one tour - foodie and city tour. We even got to stop at the Belize sign and he took photos of us at the sign.

The tour took about 5 hours and I thought it was a good pace.

The foodie tour was outstanding. You should not eat before the tour as you get plenty of food while on the tour. The last stop was a restaurant where we made shrimp ceviche and you could buy food there if you wanted. They only accept cash, so if you decide to do the tour, take some cash for drinks and food over and above the ceviche. But at every stop, there was something to eat. Our tour guide also told us about the local sites while we were driving around the city and it was really a two in one tour - foodie and city tour. We even got to stop at the Belize sign and he took photos of us at the sign.

The tour took about 5 hours and I thought it was a good pace.

Thanks! That pretty much just sold me! And a double thank you for the heads up about taking cash. Super helpful.

enjoyed the review and photo's.thanks.

great review! I am going on my first cruise next month with this same itinerary and i can't wait!

great job..

Enjoyable review with fun photos, thanks!