BigB0882

YES! lol

I went on my first cruise in December and had no idea what to expect, to be honest I wasn't even very excited about it. I did not research going in and ended up having a good time. Now I can not wait to go on another so we are trying to book one in April. I have been doing non stop research the last couple of weeks and I find myself having dreams about cruises at night, haha. I see how people get so into this, it really is a great vacation. It is probably the ONLY vacation where I don't feel like I have to take a break when I get home. I came home completely relaxed.

Well I don't know why so many people worry about how others enjoy their vacations. Just because you can't enjoy a vacation with a 6 month old doesn't mean others can't. Not everyone has a lot of say on when they can take vacations or not. Sometimes you have to do what you have to do.

 

 

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I am not worried about how anyone else enjoys their vacation. This person asked for advice.

As for having say on when you take vacations, true enough. Many people don't have a lot of say but that has nothing to do with going on a cruise. When you take a vacation and WHERE you go are not the same. This family does have a choice on where to go and I just shared my advice that I don't think a cruise is the best option at this point.

Thanks for the replies. I plan on going on the Dream in April and it goes to Key West, Free Port and Nassau. One thing I want to do is find a beautiful beach to go to. It doesn't have to be an excursion, if it is close enough and easy enough to get to on our own. This gives me a start. Anyone have any beach recommendations at any of those ports?

Apologies for using this thread to post a question but the board is not currently allowing me to start new threads, I can't even find the button. Must be having a glitch.

I have a question about Open Dining on the Dream. Two of us are going. Will we have the option of sitting at our own table or will we have to sit with others? I am really introverted so sitting with total strangers is awkward for me. If they have tables for two, it would be nice to know we can get one of those, even if there is a little wait.

Please do not take offense but why would you even want to bring a 6 month old on a cruise? The baby certainly won't remember a thing about it and you will hardly be able to enjoy the cruise the way it is meant to be enjoyed. If you aren't comfortable, or don't have the option, of leaving the baby with someone for the duration of the cruise then simply don't go. Take some other kind of vacation that is more suitable to bringing along a baby. People go on cruises to relax while at the same time having fun 24/7 I don't see how you could do either of those on a cruise with a baby. Total waste of money. :(

So glad you get to go! What ship are you sailing?

Interesting. We booked with a TA for our cruise in December and there were no perks. Now, it was a very cheap cruise so even if I had known about this I don't think I would have even brought it up. We are booking again for one in April. We are going back and forth with Carnival directly and the TA. Maybe the TA will make us some better offers since A) we are going on two cruises within 4 months of each other B) this cruise is much more expensive and C) we are forcing the TA and Carnival to compete for who gets to book us. Would be nice for even a little OBC since we don't spend much on the ship.

Question, can OBC be used in the casino or only to purchase thing such as drinks, steakhouse dinners, stuff from shops, etc? Or can it be used for any and everything?

I went on my first cruise about a month ago and am planning our 2nd now.

Some things I noticed, would change for the next cruise, etc:

1. The food is not as amazing as I imagined. I had this extreme fantasy of it being a huge buffet open all hours of the day and night with everything you could possibly want. Much like the casino buffets you find at the nice casinos. They do have food all the time but it isn't this amazing buffet and even the sit down restaurant is just OK. There is nothing WRONG with any of it, just make sure your expectations are not out of line like mine were.

2. If you enjoy gambling, be prepared. The machines on Elation paid out much less than most machines I have played (I live in a city with 3 casinos, so I think I am a pretty good judge) but were still fun. The problem is how convenient it is to just pop on in to the casino. You may walk through it 10 times a day! You can really blow your budget quickly and feel stressed the rest of your cruise.

3. You don't have to get off the boat. I got off at our one stop in Cozumel because I have never been out of the country and didn't want to miss the chance. However, I wouldn't get off there again. You can stay on the boat and enjoy all the areas that aren't crowded while everyone is away.

4. Don't try to bring a steamer. We brought one for our clothes for formal night and they kept it and gave it back to us when we got back to New Orleans. It is apparently a safety hazard. They do let you bring certain other electronics though, so check with them before it you want to bring something and you aren't sure if they allow it.

5. No need to get super dressed up on formal night. We just wore jeans and a polo. As long as you aren't in shorts, they were fine with it. Some people went all out but you don't need to. So bring one pair of jeans for that night if you don't like to dress up.

6. Bring soft drinks! You are allowed one 12 pack per person, I think. We bought a bubble pass so we could get all the diet coke we wanted but when we were in our room for the night or for a nap/break, it was nice not to have to run out and go to the nearest bar for a diet coke. Our steward was amazing and we ALWAYS had ice in our room.

I think we have narrowed down our choice to a cove balcony which are the rooms in the 2000s. Hopefully none of those are rooms with problems with the AC.

It is best to book a cove cabin in the front half of the the ship as the galley is right over the cove balcony rooms in the back half of the the ship- it can be noisy during the night and early morning when they are working and cleaning in the kitchen- some friends had great difficulty with this noise at night. The price is great for the cove balcony and we highly rec.

We are thinking of booking a cove balcony on Dream. I read some complaints on other threads about certain rooms (2441, 2400, 2414, 2375) because of noise, like you mentioned. Are those numbers towards the back? What numbers are closer to the front?

Our cruise docked at a place that was quite a walk away from all the good shopping and places to eat. We ended up having to take a cab ride, it was $16 for all 6 of us. It is walkable but on that day it was threatening to rain so we didn't want to risk it but it still would have been a long walk. Apparently some cruises dock right by where we ended up shopping and eating, so you may get lucky and not need to take any transportation or even hardly walk.

I wouldn't even bother getting off the ship at Cozumel if we ever go back, it was not a very pretty place. I think the other side is nice where people stay and vacation, though. We picked our next cruise and made sure it didn't go to Cozumel so that we could see something new and hopefully nice. No offense to Cozumel. lol

we just got off the Dream sunday and we had room 10263 balcony and our AC was working great had to turn it down because it got COLD.

Great news. I don't know if any of these rooms will be available when we book but if a room is nearby then I can probably assume it also gets good AC. I really appreciate people sharing their cabin numbers and how the AC worked. Thanks for taking the time.

My husband and I are seriously considering a last minute cruise on Dream in April. That isn't very far off and it will be during Spring Break for many around here. We are both in education so this time works well for us, even though we know it may be a rowdier crowd (which we don't mind). A friend told us to wait and the prices may go down a little. I am afraid to wait, thinking the ship may sell out because of Spring Break. Should we go ahead and book or wait? Will prices fall as we get closer to the date? I also don't want to get stuck in an interior room. This will only be my 2nd cruise so I don't know how pricing works relative to the departure dates.

We spent about $1000 on our cruise (Elation) in the casino and before we left we had an offer under our door for a free cruise. However, it had to be booked immediately and the available sail date was for 1 week from that day. It is almost impossible for most people to take another 5 days off of work only 1 week after getting back from vacation. They make that offer because so few people actually can take advantage of it. We are thinking of booking on Dream for April and are going to call and mention our gambling to see if they may have some kind of perk for us, I doubt we get much of an offer since it will be Spring Break and they will probably be at full capacity whether or not we sail. It is worth a shot, though. We didn't spend much else on board, we had the bubbles pass and bought one picture but that was it.

The Dream doesn't always go to only 2 ports. I am planning on a 7 day Cruise in April that will take it to Key West, Freeport and Nassau.

Was that cabin an interior, exterior or balcony? We haven't decided between a balcony and just a room with a window. We know we don't want interior, feels way too cramped. Since our cruise on Dream would be 7 days, we think a balcony may be worth the extra money considering we have much more time on this cruise than the quick trip we had on Elation. Also, we are going on this cruise with just the two of us and no friends so we may have more down time where we would be in the room and have use of the balcony. Last time we had some friends with us and we spent the entire time doing stuff on the ship, only going to the room for a quick nap and at night for bed.

It seems that a lot of the people who had problems had a balcony room. So that kind of worries me.

Thanks for your review. I may be going on Dream in April and have been doing tons of research. I cruised Elation back in December on my first ever cruise. I had a blast but the one thing I could find to "complain" about was the food. It just wasn't what I envisioned when people talked about cruises and all the food you could ever want to eat. The truth was that there wasn't a ton to choose from and out of what was there, not all of it was very good. I still found something to like and I just chalked it up to having too high of expectations. I was hoping Dream would have better food, and maybe it will compared to Elation, but I know not to get my hopes up again. :)

And wouldn't you know, the one thing I really liked was the burgers and I hear Dream doesn't have the same burgers. That would be my luck.

I am glad to hear this ship also has the chocolate melting cake. I had that EVERY night on Elation and would go back on a quick cruise just for that dessert. lol

I am also curious about which area of rooms seemed to be hot. My husband and I am thinking about sailing on Dream in April. I just went on my very first cruise right before Christmas and I really enjoyed it. I suppose you could say I am already addicted since I immediately began looking for an excuse to cruise again. When/If we book, I want to have an idea of which rooms and areas to avoid. We both sleep with the air quite cold at home and I know we would be miserable with it being hot at night. So thanks in advance to anyone who shares what room they had and whether or not it was hot.