1st time on Dream Spring Break review March 13

I was traveling with my husband, daughter (19) and 2 of her friends, son (9) and mom and Dad. This was my 8th Carnival cruise and the 1st time on the Dream. We went to Montego Bay, Grand Cayman and Cozumel. We live in MS and it's a 3 hour drive so we left at 8:30 am Sunday morning and arrived at the cruise port at 11:30. We parked in the carnival parking garage for a price of $126 and there was about 10 cars in front of us when we arrived. Got into the garage quick and the porters took our luggage. We were faster to the fun and bypassed the line and was in our room before noon. Bags had already arrived and room was decorated for my sons birthday which was the day we left. Changed clothes and headed to pasta Bella at the back of this ship for lunch. The hamburger and pizza lines were long but no lines at pasta Bella. Food was good, you pick out what you want and the cook it to order. After lunch we went and played putt putt then headed to the water slide. Not many kids yet so he got to slide and play without lines. After the water slide we headed to the aft pool for him to swim and for sail away. My parents did not get FTTF and their check in was 2:30. She called me at 3 and they were in a line all the way down the street. Guess they have not worked the bugs out of the staggered check in yet. She was regretting not getting FTTF! It took them an hour and a half to get on the ship. We got deck chairs facing the back of the boat and stayed there while we were sailing down the river. We had ATD so we were not in any hurry to get ready for dinner, we were enjoying the pool bar and sailing down the river.

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We decided it was time to go get ready for dinner and we got to the dining room around 8:00 We had a party of 8 and we had to wait about 15 minutes. Well that ended up being the shortest wait of the trip except for one other night. Most nights we waited about 30 minutes and formal night we waited for an hour. I had done ATD on other smaller ships and never had to wait. If we ever go on a bigger ship again we will get set dining. I will never do ATD on a large ship again. On formal night we arrived at 7:30, was seated at 8:30 and did not finish until 10:30. The service was so slow. I was not impressed with the food. It was OK but nothing great. I think the food was better on the smaller ships we have sailed. Maybe because they are cooking for a lot more people, not really sure. We did enjoy some of the meals but some were just OK. One night we decided not to eat in the dining room and just ate pizza because we did not want to wait. We ate in the dining room 6 nights. I wanted to try the steakhouse but since we had 8 we really did not want to pay that much for dinner. Had it just been me and husband we would have went to the steakhouse.

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When I booked this cruise I knew it was going to be crowded and alot of people with it being spring break. I had read other reviews about lines so I was prepared for the crowds. There was always a line for food or drinks. They were not too bad maybe 5-10 minutes. The one thing I noticed that I was not prepared for and that is the lack of bar waiters. All other cruises there was always someone coming around by the pool taking drink orders. This was not the case on the dream. There were a few but not enough for the amount of people around the pool. I mostly went to the bar and got my own beverages and it was not a big deal but if you like being waited on that will not happen on this ship if it is full. I don't know if they have cut back on the number of servers or if it was just so many people but they definitely did not come around like they have on all my past cruises.

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Enjoying your review.

Keith

Looking forward to hearing more about your cruise. Sorry you had a long wait for dinner. I guess if you cruise at spring break with a large crowd set seating might be best.

Thanks for the review, following.

We are thinking of taking cruise next spring break. We have a 9 year old girl. Did you observe too much inappropriate behaviors, music, activities, etc around the Lido deck that a 9 year old does not need to see? We are a little worried out the spring break atmosphere.

Appreciate your honest review so far.

We took the Dream once years ago. It was and probably still is the most

crowded-feeling ship in the fleet. With long waits as well.

Hey, a cruise is still great. But we prefer smaller Carnival ships.

Looking forward to hearing more about your cruise. Sorry you had a long wait for dinner. I guess if you cruise at spring break with a large crowd set seating might be best.

Yes I think with a large party set seating is best especially during peak times. Lesson learned. It was not too bad since they had live music in the waiting area. The really only bad night was formal night.

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We are thinking of taking cruise next spring break. We have a 9 year old girl. Did you observe too much inappropriate behaviors, music, activities, etc around the Lido deck that a 9 year old does not need to see? We are a little worried out the spring break atmosphere.

We did not encounter any inappropriate behavior from adults. It was the kids that were running around the ship with no adult supervision. I mean like small kids 7, 8 and 9 years old. One girl bite my son in the hot tub. I spoke to her parents and they really didn't care. Still let her run around unsupervised. I did not let my 9 year old roam free. He was with us or at camp carnival. He loved camp carnival and went every night and did not want to leave. We mostly stayed at the water slide or the back pool. The lido pool was so crowded we never really stayed in that area. But to answer your question, I would not hesitate to go back during spring break. Over all we had a wonderful cruise and my son had a blast!

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Appreciate your honest review so far.

 

 

 

We took the Dream once years ago. It was and probably still is the most

 

crowded-feeling ship in the fleet. With long waits as well.

 

 

 

Hey, a cruise is still great. But we prefer smaller Carnival ships.

We had a great time but it was too crowded for me. We will stick to the smaller ships next time too.

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After dinner the first night my son wanted to go to camp carnival. He really loved going and he went every night. He was with us during the day but at night after dinner he wanted to go to camp. He went to dinner with us the first 3 nights and then said he would rather go to camp carnival and eat instead of the dining room. So that was our routine. Hang out all day and then around 6 he went to camp carnival. He is 9 and they had a lot to do for that age. He never got bored and begged to go every night and stay for the after hours party. I would go at 10 to pick him up and he was never ready to leave. So we let him stay at night owls every night and usually picked him up around midnight. Most nights I was ready to go to bed long before he was. I have to give carnival credit, they really do have a good kids program. So the first night we headed to the piano bar. It was a lot of fun and there were a lot of people in there. We also caught the adult comedy show. The guy was really funny and we went to several during the week. After the show we went to the casino for a little while. No good hands so we pick up our son and went to bed. It had been a long day and we were exhausted.

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We purchased cheers and it was worth it for us. My husband enjoyed the coffee and I was able to order non alcoholic strawberry daiquiris for my son. They were $5.95 for virgin ones and I bet he drank 2 or 3 a day. Ordered him Coke at dinner also. He would go up to the bar with me and tell me what he wanted. I used my card and no one ever said I could not use it for him. He would tell them what he wanted, they would swipe my card then hand the drink to him. No problem. And at dinner he would order Coke and I would give them my card and they brought the Coke to him. I am not sure if that is against the rules or not but if it was the waiters or bar tenders did not seem to mind. I also ordered bottle water and power aid several times and kept to fridge stocked. The prices of the drinks did not seem any higher than on any other cruise. I liked the rum drink at the rum bar and it was 10.95. I also ordered Camus wine by the fm glass for dinner and it was 11.50. Those were probably the 2 most expensive drinks I had. Everything else was around $8-$9 for mixed drinks and $6 for beer. I do have pictures of menus if anyone is interested to see the prices.

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We are thinking of taking cruise next spring break. We have a 9 year old girl. Did you observe too much inappropriate behaviors, music, activities, etc around the Lido deck that a 9 year old does not need to see? We are a little worried out the spring break atmosphere.

We were on same cruise and took our 10 yr old son . I was concerned about the same and it was fine . He mostly was in Camp Ocean .

Our son( 10 almost 11) loved Camp Ocean , we let him have sign in/ out privileges which he handled well . He only ate with us 2 nights and the rest at camp . They did some fun stuff this week , he especially liked the scavenger hunts . I was very impressed with Carnival on this , was concerned he'd be playing video games all the time . They had set activities and only did video games maybe once or twice a,day .

I agree with all the ppl and the large ship . I prefer the smaller ships too. We had ATD, but were there around 6 every night and wait was short.

Our son( 10 almost 11) loved Camp Ocean , we let him have sign in/ out privileges which he handled well . He only ate with us 2 nights and the rest at camp . They did some fun stuff this week , he especially liked the scavenger hunts . I was very impressed with Carnival on this , was concerned he'd be playing video games all the time . They had set activities and only did video games maybe once or twice a,day .

 

 

 

I agree with all the ppl and the large ship . I prefer the smaller ships too. We had ATD, but were there around 6 every night and wait was short.

Yes my son was in the ocean group as well so they probably were there together. He did love it too. We should have went earlier to sinner but it was usually 7 or 8 before we could all get ready.

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So here is my experience about the much debated once a day vs. twice a day cleaning. We did not see our room steward until the second day. She came in and showed us the card and asked us to pick if we wanted morning or evening cleaning. I had already decided we only needed service once a day and we would do the morning cleaning. But I did ask her if we could have both and she said yes. I then told her we only needed the room cleaned once and the morning was our pick. But I told her we would be sleeping late so late morning would be best. I went ahead and gave her $20 and told her I needed extra towels everyday and asked if she would fill our cooler with ice when she cleaned the room. She said yes no problem. We never saw her again until the last sea day. She always left plenty of towels and the room was cleaned one time each day. But we never got ice for the cooler. The only day we did was the last sea day when I saw her and asked her for ice. We had a towel animal every day and the room was clean so my only complaint is her not filling up our cooler. My sons bed was the couch and we left it made into the bed the entire cruise. We were not in the room a lot so it was not a big deal. We did spring for a balcony this trip. We usually do inside cabins but I decided to spend the extra money for a balcony. We may have went on it twice the whole trip. Not worth the money for us. So in 7 days we saw our room steward twice. But our room was clean and we had plenty of towels so other than the ice I was ok with the once a day service.

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So we get in bed around 1am on the first night and put out our snoozing sign. We never sleep late at home. We go from soccer to basketball to baseball games on Sat mornings so we always have to get up early. The one thing I was looking forward too was sleeping late as much as possible. After a long day and getting in bed late we slept until noon. It was so nice!! So we got up at noon and went to lido for burgers. The burgers and fries were good. My husband and son also loved the pizza and ice cream. I think they each ate a whole pizza and couple of ice cream cones each day. Now we were off to try and find chairs at the water slide. I do not like the layout of the dream and where the water slide was located. There were only a few chairs in that area and they were always full. I much prefer the Fascination where there are 3 or 4 rows of chairs at the waterworks area. Because of the lack of chairs we did not spend a lot of time at the water slide. We spent most of our time at the aft pool. We always seemed to find chairs and it seemed to be the least crowded area on the boat. I would walk with my son and let him do the slide and then we would make our way back to the pool. We spent most of the day at the pool. My daughter and her 2 friends hung with us some but for the most part they did their own thing. They are 19 and I think they liked being on their own. After dinner it was piano bar comedy show and some time in the casino. We are creatures of habit and these were the things we enjoyed the most. The girls enjoyed karaoke and dancing at the night club. There was always something going on and you could always find something to do. So that's how we spent our first 2 seas days. Next up Montego Bay.

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Thanks for the review.

Thanks for your report.

I had done a lot of research about Montego Bay. We have never been to Jamaica and I really wanted to do something fun. We had wanted to go to the blue hole in Ocho Rios but really did not want to drive that far. I decided to hire a private tour guide before we arrived. I searched cruise critic and trip advisor and decided to go with PPP tours. They had excellent reviews and I figured we could decide where to go once we arrived. Donavan picked us up at the cruise terminal and we discussed our options. With 2 ships in MB, 2 in Falmouth and 2 in Ocho Rios we decided the blue hole would be too crowded. Donavan suggested Negril. We figured Dr Caves beach would also be crowded. The drive was an hour but it went down the coast and through a few small towns. We decided this sounded good as we wanted to do some sightseeing and go to the beach. Donavan told us all about living in Jamaica the history and answered all of our questions. We arrived in Negril and Donavan took us to a small beach hotel called The boardwalk. It was next door to Sandals and when we walked out to the beach it was beautiful. We were the first people to arrive and had our choice of beach chairs. There was a restaurant and bar and a water trampoline in the ocean. There was no charge for the trampoline or to use the facilities. We had a waitress that brought our drinks and food and we relaxed on the beach all day. My son made friends with the lifeguard that worked for the resort. They played soccer and he took my son out and snorkeled and jumped on the trampoline with him. They did flips and my son had the best time. The lifeguard was so nice to him and my son did not want to leave. I think the life guard had as much fun as my son. They had a trap with fresh lobster and we picked out lobster and they grilled it for us right on the beach. Everyone was so nice and the facilities were very nice. Donavan stayed at the restaurant all day until we were ready to leave. He drove us back and dropped us off at the port. Donavan was so nice and we really enjoyed visiting and talking to him on the trip to and from Negril. We all had a great day and I will return to the boardwalk if I am ever back in Jamaica. The beaches in Negril are beautiful and I am so glad we went.

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from the ocean looking at the restaurant

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view of the beach

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water trampoline

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