Janet Foster

What I am saying is I took the pictures in 13 and this is how the chairs looked three weeks ago when I sailed. I got the pictures in 15 off of Cruise Deck Plans website. I don't know how old they are. However when I was on the cruise we never saw the coverings at all. They were never there, supplied, or used.

during our cruise they were not attached to the chairs at all. Not sure how old the cruise deck plan photos are, or if they even use the covers at all anymore.

I agree with Katiel53

I was on that same cruise. We left our hotel at 10:30 and the traffic was thick getting to the port. Plus we caught train traffic which made it worse... We were only 1 mile away and it took about 20 minutes drive time. The traffic leaving the port and arriving at the port was bad. Hectic. Once we go in the terminal we checked in and were on the ship in about 20 mins. For me, next time I would go earlier. I know some people like to avoid all that and go late but I don't mind getting there early .. I am always anxious to start my vacation.

By the way as we were leaving the ship on our sad way out... it was 8:30 in the morning and people had already arrived at the port for the next cruise. I would say that is wayyyyyyyyyyyy too early.. but, you can't hold off excitement!!

Janet, Deck 14 looks perfect but, tell me, does it also have the regular loungers like the pic you showed of Deck 15? We will be on the Dream in February so I'm not anticipating it being overrun with kids since, in checking, looks like there are no spring breaks that week (the reason we go then, lol), but still it looks like a great place to just chill. Are the hammocks on 14 or 15?

Deck 14 starboard side does not have the loungers that you see on Deck 15. They just have those round cabana style lounger. There is also a shaded area behind the cabana loungers. I did go over to the port side and I think they had regular loungers on 14

As for deck 15, I could see how it could get hot up there as the rails were glass enclosed.. so you would really need some squirt bottles to be able to cool yourself down.

Hammocks were on 15

Deck 14 Starboard

Deck 14 Starboard

Deck 15

personally if it were me. I would still come in on the 1st and then perhaps tack on a day or two after the cruise is over.. Wouldn't be such a madhouse. However you would def not feel out of place.. That city caters to all!

This area is up on deck 15. I didn't like this deck so much because there wasn't a bar up here. LOL

ENJOY!!

We loved Serenity. We sat here all day on the last sea day. There was a bar right behind us . Deck 14 Starboard side. Just bring a small squirt bottle and you will be in heaven all day. No complaints. The noise from the kids going up the stairs to the side wasn't bad at all. I even had my little portable jambox for tunes. Even with overcast weather you can expect a nice burn.. so be sure to apply and reapply!! Happiness is all a matter of planning..

Bar area

Towel Cabana

We got up there about 8am.. plenty of seats on this day

We just did the Cheers Program a few weeks ago.

Awesome! Thank you! I just ordered it! :)

YAY AMBER!!

I am so excited for all of you who are in the pre planning cruise stages.. this is the only way I can relive it... and give myself from relief from my after cruise depression... that part SUCKS...

Had another quick question concerning FTTF. I read the FAQ for FTTF and it states that FTTF people are processed thru the Priority check-in, but are not allowed to use the lounge that Platinum/Diamond go to. Looks like you were ushered into the Platinum/Diamond lounge. Is the FAQ wrong, or are they not so stringent on enforcing this?

I suppose they were not stringent on enforcing as I don't or didn't see how they could have plucked the FTTF people out of the lounge as the lounge room and the priority check in room (the room with the leather seats) just flowed from one room to the next.

First you entered the lounge area where the refreshments were. Then the room flowed into the next room which was the check in area. Then you left through another door back into the main flow of people but you were led into a roped off area for priority seating till the ship was ready to board. So it was like one way traffic.

Hope that helps.

NYDNEY1 -

We had a Cloud Nine Spa Suite. Up on deck 11. Cabin #11206

I posted pictures of the suite on cruise deck dot com

Love this! We are sailing out of NOLA in 92 days and this report gives very detailed information I haven't see anywhere else! Thank you!

 

I do have one question, you're over the door hanger. How long is it? I'm looking at one on Amazon and it's 64" long and I'm wondering if that is to long for the door. I can't find the height of the door anywhere. This is the one i'm looking at...it looks similar to yours....

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000HM5V0A/ref=ox_sc_act_title_1?ie=UTF8&psc=1&smid=ATVPDKIKX0DER

Thanks so much for the review. Looks like our choice to get FTTF will be a good one. Was your luggage actually at your room when you boarded? And how was the crowd in the buffet? We plan on hitting Pasta Bella for our first meal, everyone says the food is good and not everyone knows about it for the first few days...

Amber, yes that shoe holder is the one. It appears long but it's perfect really.

Raxter, our cabin was ready but our luggage was not in there when we boarded. After we went to eat at Pasta Bella we made our way back to the cabin and it arrived soon after. I was all unpacked by 1:30 or so. And Pasta Bella was totally empty. So it is perfect for your first meal. The food was great!!

Hope I answered everyone's questions.

Although the list is very comprehensive and a great way to start thinking about what to pack, do yourselves a favor & pack lighter!! If you pack all of that you will discover you have waaay too much stuff that is not needed on today's cruise ships.... Example:

You can get extra hangers from the steward if you need them

Etc etc - don't pack anything more than you would if you were staying at a hotel in a large city where you could buy anything extra you find you might need..... Packing the kitchen sink isn't really needed..... :)

 

 

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The cruise that I just took two weeks ago, I never saw the room attendant until after 6 PM that first day inspite of phone calls. I was glad I had my own hangers. I was done unpacking by 3pm! While this list was made a few years ago, it is not a must-have for everyone. It is only meant to use as a tool for preparedness.

I took the excursions booklet home with me. Let me check. Back later today.

I agree.. I am thrilled to get as much info as I can pre-cruise so that I can enjoy every moment. I found this great review of NOLA under NORTH AMERICAN HOME PORTS / GULF COAST DEPARTURES / NEW ORLEANS REVIEW which was done by CC poster "Tootall"

The review was written in 2012 but it was really fascinating and thorough. Lots of pictures too. It helped me a lot during my whole year of planning. Tootall was the one who provided the link of the PLAY by PLAY action out of the Mississippi.

As I mentioned earlier, I saw when the pilot boat made it's way to hook up to the DREAM to get the pilot off the ship. It was pretty close to midnight. We had a port side cabin. Was really cool watching that action.

I suggest reading that review too!

http://boards.cruisecritic.com/showthread.php?t=1615754&highlight=play+by+play

My husband hit is 15 limit on a sea day and so the bartender says to me, we'll have to use YOUR card now.... LOL I only had 6 drinks... sooooooooooo I would say it just depends on the ships...

I forgot this important detail. It takes 7-8 hrs to get out of the muddy Mississippi River. Another fellow cruiser on CC - cjalphonso - had typed up this play by play on another board. I printed it out and did some research ahead of time so I could be familiar with the different sights. These are all on the PORT SIDE.. We also happened to see the pilot boat meet up with the ship.. cool to see..

We sat on our balcony sipping champagne and looked at these sights for the first hour.

Quite interesting!!

Backgournd: I was born and raised in New Orleans, La. and lived the first 30 years of my life there. For the past 15 years, we have taken a family reunion cruise every Thanksgiving and always sail out of New Orleans. I love the city and enjoy being able to point out the hidden secrets and historical landmarks, which most people just pass by as they cruise out of New Orleans. The boat moves fairly quickly and everything here will be seen within the first hour of departure, so pay close attention.

I will attempt to create a play by play tour of exactly what you will see as you embark on your journey down the mighty Mississippi, so here goes:

The French Quarter:

1. Ernest N. Morial Convention Center: This is the massive building you will see where the boat is docked. This is actually the original location of the 1984 Worlds Fair. You can still see the decorative waterfall staircase that was just adjacent to the Space Shuttle display during the Fair. The Convention Center is the 6th largest in the country.

2. Riverwalk: This mall was built for the words fair and has remained a great specialty shop and upper end type of mall. This is also the mall where in 1996 the MV Bright Field ship lost power and rammed into while thousands of tourists where still inside.

3. Harrah’s Casino: It is what it is…

4. Aquarium Of The Americas: Great place to spend a day.

5. Woldenberg Riverfront Park: Great park to see the river and possibly hear some musicians.

6. Jax Brewery: Formerly where Jax Beer was made, now it’s a shopping mall

.

7. St. Louis Cathedral: One of the oldest cathedrals in the country, original structure was completed in 1793 on the location where the former Catholic Church was destroyed by the Great New Orleans fire in 1788. A Catholic Church has stood on that ground since 1718. It is still a working Cathedral and therefore receives no historic funding.

8. Jackson Square: Park in front of the Cathedral with large statue of Andrew Jackson on his horse. The statue is significant as it was the first statue of a horse and rider standing on its back legs, very difficult balancing problem.

9. The Moon Walk: This is the small riverfront boardwalk area in front of Jackson Square. You will always here a saxophone going in this area 

10. The French Market: Open air market with shops, flee market and produce stands.

11. The New Orleans Mint: In operation from 1838 to 1861 and from 1879 to 1909. It is now part of the Louisiana State Museum.

Leaving French Quarter to Bywater, Upper and Lower 9th Wards:

12. Old docks: Doesn’t seem significant unless you a fan of the group Journey!!! This is the location where they filmed the video for “Separate Ways”.

13. Bywater and Upper 9th ward: The neighborhoods you see in the background.

14. Industrial Canal: man made canal for shipping purposes. This is the canal where one of the major levy breaches took place during Katrina and Rita. You can’t see the location; it’s on the other side of the St. Claude Bridge, which you can see.

15. Lower 9th ward: heavily damaged during Katrina.

16. Holy Cross School for Boys: This is where I went to high school. The school was established in 1849. The original administration building, which is still standing and you should be able to see, was built in 1895. Katrina damaged the campus beyond repair and after over 150 yrs of being on this location, it was moved to a new location on the other side of town.

17. Fats Domino’s house: you can’t see it, but its there.

18. Jackson Barracks: Originally designed by Andrew Jackson and built in 1834-35. It now houses the Louisiana National Guard Headquarters. It also serves as the dividing line between Orleans and St. Bernard Parishes.

Entering St. Bernard Parish and Chalmette: This is where Katrina hit the worst, even more so than the lower 9th ward. Abandoned by its country, the first responders here where Canadian Mounties.

19. The Le Beau Plantation: It’s about 2 blocks in and hard to see so look real hard. It’s in bad shape and has not been restored, would be beautiful if it were restored.

20. Interview with a Vampier fire: This area is the location where they burned a bunch of old warehouses and whatnot for the movie.

21. Domino sugar: One of the oldest sugar refineries in the country dating back to 1909. It produces 6 million pounds of sugar per day and more than 2 billion pounds per year about 19% of the country’s sugar. Now that’s a lot of sugar!!!!!!

22. Cavaroc House: Located at Domino Sugar, looks like a small plantation but dwarfed by the massive Sugar refinery.

23. St. Bernard Port: It was once talked about to build the cruise terminal at this location.

24. Chalmette Battle Field (Jean Lafitte National Historical Park and Preserve): This is where the Battle of New Orleans was fought during the war of 1812 one of the greatest land victories of the war. You should be able to see the “monument”, which looks like a small version of the Washington monument in DC.

25. The Beauregard House: Built on this site in 1832.

26. Chalmette National Cemetery: Veteran cemetery established in 1864.

27. Kaiser Aluminum: This plant pretty much established the town of Chalmette. Its smoke stack has become a local landmark of years past. The plant was the largest Aluminum Smelter in the world until it closed down in 1983.

28. Chalmette Refining LLC: This used to be Mobil which used to be Tennecco etc. It is now a venture of ExxonMobil and the Venezuelan State Oil company. Some of the fuel you and others used to get to N.O. was refined at this very location. If your lucky you may catch them Flaring the Boom. If so you will see a massive fire ball which will light up the entire sky. This is all part of the refining process.

29. Chalmette Ferry Landing: This ferry landing is still used to get residents from one side of the river to the other. To go around is a twenty mile journey, but the time can be the same if you don’t catch the ferry right 

That pretty much sum’s up the first hour or so of your 7-8 hour cruise down the might Mississippi. The rest of the trip is still very interesting, but not too many landmarks. You will pass multiple oil and gas refineries such as BP and Chevron on your way down to the mouth.

River Pilot: The very last thing of interest is when you get to the mouth of the river. A pilot boat will meet up with the ship, the ship will slow to a crawl and you can watch as the river pilot (who has been navigating the river) will jump from an open bay door on the ship to a small pilot boat. This will happen late at night usually somewhere between 10-12 depending on departure.

Remember this phrase: “White over Red…Pilot Ahead”. The pilot boat will be a small vessel and at the very top of it, you will see 2 lights, a white light that sits above a red light. This is how you can identify the pilot boat ahead of time.

That’s it, you have officially finished you sailing of the river and are entering the Ocean Blue. Oh, don’t forget to watch for the more then 3000 oil rigs along the continental shelf. Have a great trip.

We were in 11206 two weeks ago and never heard any noise from the upstairs gym. The noise I DID hear was from screaming kids playing and running up and down the hallways. I enjoyed yelling at them.. :-)

Mousey

Look on Amazon. Inflatable Pirate Chest cooler. Was about $12 I got it there.

Spa Hours are 8am - 10pm

Hilarious

Yes Murph, that was for a seven day ..If you go out of Galveston you can only get it for six days as there is a law in place.. has to do with the waters... So you can only get access to the Cheers program on the second day if you go out of Galveston.

How fun... it will be a great time!

CLOUD NINE SPA AMENITIES

Thalassotherapy Pool, they were filling it up

Lanconium Spa Suite

Thermal Suite

Gym

Hope this pre-cruise thread has helped somewhat. Packing and planning are so much fun!!

Don't go on your cruise without hearing from the CRUISE DIVA... I find all my best stuff there!!!

On the web you search for "cruisediva dot com".

I have a printable packing list I can email you if you want.

HAPPY SAILING!!

THE END~~~~~~~~~~~

Our counters stayed clutter clear!!

Ø Power Strip – not many outlets in the room. This is a must have

Ø Extension Cords - I will run an extension cord if I need to. We need two because my husband has a CPAP machine and there were no outlets close to the bed. Thankful I brought two.

Bring adapters too!

EXTRAS:

v We bring lots of one dollar bills for tipping.

v We tie bright colored ribbon on our suitcases to help us identify them.

v Bungee Cord - Brought a bungee cord to secure a door that we wanted to keep open from banging. We once had all of our cabins next to each other and had the doors to the balconies opened up all the way. Our door kept banging.. so this helped it to stop.

Also might need:

Folding tote or beach back for going ashore

Hats/ caps

There are laundry rooms and ironing rooms on the ship

Laundry Rooms - Decks 11 & 7

Ironing Rooms - Decks 9, 8 & 6

If you think you might need to do laundry bring a baggie of powdered soap and some dryer sheets. The machines are cashless so you will use your Sail & Sign card. It is like $3.25 a load.

The cabins have hair dryers and robes in (some) them. AND get some water (aqua) shoes for going ashore; you will want them in the water.

If you pack your clothes in dry cleaner bags that they will not wrinkle.

Tips for packing: http://www.fodors.com/news/story_1449.html

I make copies of our passports / credit cards and keep them in our safe in the cabin. I also call our credit card companies and banks and give them the dates we will be traveling so they will not lock down our account thinking the card was stolen. If they tried to call us, we would not be home to answer the phone!! Sooooooo call your credit card companies/banks and let them know.

We had a CLOUD NINE SPA SUITE on this cruise and it was heavenly. We were on deck 11. Cabin number 11206. Having a spa suite gave us access to the spa areas. If you don’t have a spa cabin then you could pay $299 per couple for the length of the cruise, or a per day rate to have this spa access. The showers are huge. My husband would just go up to the men’s locker room in the spa area and take a shower when we were getting ready.