New2cruisen

Are you sure you can have that many people? We got married on the Magic last year and we could only have 50! Also bring your own photographer. Mine was awful and quit half way through the cruise. Like he got off at one of the ports and never came back. Our pictures were terrible. Another photographer took over and gave them to me a deep discount

She can have more than 50 if they are sailing guests but she will have to pay additional reception fees. The limit for non-sailing guests is 50. So sorry about your photographer, how awful for you. Glad to hear the new one gave you discounts. We had a good one, but the prices were crazy!

I haven't been on here in quite some time but so happy to see my wedding review has nearly 21,000 views! Hope it's helped many of you! :)

Oh thank goodness for this thread, I thought it was just me!! I started looking for a Ft Lauderdale hotel this week and the prices were thru the roof. We also have to budget for the exchange rate CDN to USD :eek: so we are being a bit pickier this time around. I had started a thread on this but I'll ask here anyway...I read on CC about a hotel in Hollywood Fla that was a great price, great value and had a shuttle from the airport and to the cruise port. Can anyone come up with a name??

I also started searching this week for hotels in the area for April 30 2016...the prices are very high (doubled) compared to when I stayed there last year in June. We are also starting to look further out for a decent priced hotel. What the heck?? I am interested in knowing what hotel in Hollywood your asking about as well. I'm familiar with Hollywood beach having spent a lot of time growing up in the area and would love a room near my old stomping ground.

The guy is not a scammer, he is a beggar with a good story. He makes it work for him. No one would give him anything if he said he was hungry, so he makes up a story that works for him. We see these people on the street corners in every US city. They all have a story, but at home it is easier to ignore them.

Of course he is a scammer! He is the very definition of a scammer, which is a person with a dishonest scheme, committing a fraud. Beggar would mean he is just asking for food, money or something else. Can't change the definition to make others feel sorry for him. I have no sympathy for liars. What he is, is a clever con artist, nothing more.

I am glad I read this thread because, I, along with my family and friends, will be spending time in San Juan soon. We are a very helpful bunch and would have likely given him money.

My family will be visiting San Juan in a few months and we plan to do this self guided walking tour. It seems very informative, easy to follow and has good reviews. Someone posted in the comments after the guide article that they were able to do all 3 parts of the tour in about 3 1/2 hours. Here is the link: http://www.puertoricodaytrips.com/old-san-juan-walking-tour-1/

I was wanting to get some ideas and see if anyone has done a horseback riding excursion? What company does anyone recommended?

 

Thanks,

I did the horseback riding there four years ago. I booked it through Carnival. I recommend you check with your cruise line to see if they offer it. It's safer to book it that way and space for that excursion is usually limited. At the time I went, there was a lot of construction going on in the area and therefore the scenery wasn't great. I'm sure its finished now so the experience would likely be better now. The ocean view was beautiful and walking through the water was cool, but a bit scarey as the horse I rode was a bit smaller than the rest, so I was close to getting my bottom wet. LOL Overall, if you have never ridden horses on the beach its nice to do one time but i wouldn't spend money doing it a second time.

I will be getting married on the Dream 6/29/2013. Did they give you hard time about bringing on flowers, party favors, or anything else you used for your wedding.

I was wondering how my fiance' and I were going to be able to board with out seeing each other. Thank you for sharing all the helpful information.

Can you please add me so I can see your pictures? jenger25@yahoo.com

Is the girl that did your make up and hair in the Cocoa Beach area and how can I get in touch with her. Last question, did you obtain your license in Florida before you cruised or did you go through Carnival? I know they are wanting about 218.50 for one. I checked with the state of Florida and their license is 93.00.

Thank you,

Jen

Hi Jen,

No, they didn't give me a hard time about bringing anything aboard. However, I did a lot of research before bringing the items I brought making sure I followed all their rules. For instance, no real flowers allowed..etc.

I also kept in mind I was going to have to carry everything I bring or find someone within my wedding party to do if for me. Therefore, I kept the items I brought to a minimum in quantity and size.

I am a Florida resident, therefore I was required by the Cruise line to purchase my own license which was $93.50. It is my understanding that residents from other states must go through Carnival for the license. This could have changed since I married (3/26/11) therefore I suggest double checking with your wedding coordinator.

I believe I added you to my photo site a while ago. Please let me know if you don't have access.

Thanks and Congratulations!

This was a GREAT Review... ALOT of info, and VERY Detailed!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Thank you soooo much...

 

LADIES if u havent read this yet its a MUST read..... Keep this new :D

Thanks Shatima and your so welcome! So glad you found my review useful and as always, I am happy to be able to help all of you wonderful cruise brides!

This review is wonderful! I was so excited to read about your wedding on the Dream as I will be getting married on the same ship January 2013.

Oops, i already responded to this one. Sorry. It won't let me delete post.

I'm getting married on the dream Feb 2013. I just booked Tiffany for my hair and makeup too yours looked amazing! :) Thanks for your wonderful review.

Thanks Albean! Your gonna love Tiffany! She is awesome....so sweet and personable too. I haven't had much time to come on the boards and read lately so I am still catching up on requests to see my photos.

Kmarie99,

Your getting married on the same cruise/same week I did! We were actually thinking of taking the cruise again for our 1 year anniversary. But, we want to visit other ports this time. If the Dream was sailing their other route that week we probably would have booked it. Congrats and have a great time!

This review is wonderful! I was so excited to read about your wedding on the Dream as I will be getting married on the same ship January 2013.

I'm glad you liked my review. :) And Congrats on your upcoming wedding! The time goes by fast and before you know it your big day will be here!

These are the things I would have done different:

1) Booked my wedding package sooner so we could have had the 2hr reception. Another bridal party beat us to the punch even though we booked our wedding package 10 months in advance.

2) Ask TWE coordinator how many servers were expected to be used during the reception. I feel like I under tipped the bartenders and servers since there were more than 4 and I was only prepared for two bartenders.

3) Budgeted a higher amount for photos. $600 was not enough.

4) Create a list of all photos I wanted taken to give to the photographer.

Thanks! Your review was great! So were your pictures! I'm scouting the net trying to find any and all information I can about carnival Dream brides and their experiences. Sadly, I'm not finding too many, only about 3 or 4 tops. Any other suggestions or tips on anything??? My e-mail is brittany.d.baker@gmail.com

Thank you so much for your reply! Any help is GREATLY appreciated!!!!

You've Got Mail! :D

Thanks for your review! I've been searching all over trying to find wedding reviews from brides on the Dream! I am getting married on the dream on October 22, 2011. It seems so far away! I can't wait! I am a bit nervous because I'm such a planner and I feel like I'm not in control with a lot of the planning with the cruise ship wedding. We had started planning a traditional wedding and then decided to scrap the whole thing and do the Delux Romance package on the ship instead and then take back to back 7 night cruises since we both love cruising so much! At first I was worried that I would regret making that decision and that I'd feel cheated out of a real wedding, but now I'm feeling a little more hopeful and excited about it! Besides, 14 nights on a cruise ship sounds GREAT to me!!! :D

I do have a few questions though, I am thinking about using Tiffany for my hair and make-up, I'm just undecided on if I should do both or just have her do my hair and do my own make-up to try and save money. I do wear make-up everyday and would like to think I'm halfway decent at applying it, I just don't want to look like I do every other day on my wedding day so I was thinking maybe I'd bite the bullet and have her do it. Do you think it's worth it? How good was she? I tried to look at your pictures, but I couldn't get the link to work. Did you tip her as well, if so, do you mind if I ask how much?

I was also wondering what kind of great lengths I'd have to go to in order to avoid having my hubby to be & my guests see me before the wedding? Ideally, that's how I'd like it to be, but I don't know if it would be more trouble than it's worth. We'll all be staying at the Raddison the night prior to sailing.

What is the decor like at the reception? Do they decorate at all or just white table cloths and such? Am I allowed to bring decor of my own and set it up? I'm also wondering what the cake looks like as well as the boquet (sp?), I think they put greenery in it and I hate greenery! I don't want to pay their crazy flower upgrade fees so I'm wondering if I could request it with out the greenery and have the stems wraped? I've also started checking around to see about just getting a silk arrangement and bringing it with me, but I REALLY hate silk flowers, sigh, not much choice though I guess. Can I ask for any extra designs on the cake?

Sorry, I have a million questions :D

Hi Mrs.B to Be,

Back to Back cruises! So exciting!

I was married on the Dream too in March 2011. We had a wonderful time and our wedding was just as I dreamed. I did a review that may answer a lot of your questions. There are other posts on that thread that will answer your questions as well. Here is the link to that review thread. http://boards.cruisecritic.com/showthread.php?t=1397495

If you would like you can email me (post your email) and I will be glad to share what I know. I have lots of pictures on my website too. The link is in my review.

New2Cruisen...my experience with the photographer was very similar to yours...sorting all the pictures into piles in order to whittle down to what we could afford to buy, me tearing up because we couldnt't afford to spend as much on photos as I would have liked, etc. I must say...I am jealous that yours gave you a "wedding gift" of 10 8x10s!!! Ours wasn't budging or swinging us any sort of deal. Even after I was in tears, my husband even laid out the whole scenario of the mishaps we had in hopes of getting some sort of deal...but he wouldn't move on the price or packages. We also scheduled a second meeting on our last sea day (after we had time to talk over our photo purchasing strategy) All we got was a lousy photo album thrown in into our bag!

 

Oh well...onto planning our next cruise!

Yeah, shocked me that he gave us a "wedding gift". At least you got the photo album thrown in free. I guess it all depends on which photographer your assigned and what they are willing to do for you. I did notice that some are more friendlier than others on board and from reading other brides experiences. We had to wait for our canvas to dry overnight and had to pick it up the morning we disembarked. We did give him a $20 tip after we picked up all our final photos. We felt it was the least we could do since he gave us a gift.

I can't wait to book our next cruise!

Being a photographer myself, the photos have me scared to death! I have my camera, but NOBODY who isn't going to be in the wedding knows how to use it! I have already told everyone to bring their cameras and take a million pictures, but I am so darn picky about pictures! I am literally scared to death, because we don't have a lot of money to spend on the pictures. Ugggh... I hope I'm not too devestated!

I would suggest budgeting at least $750 for your Carnival Wedding photos. And definitely have a written list of must have photo's to give to the photographer beforehand. Your coordinator will make sure the photographer does it if you give her the list. The photo's taken with natural lighting on board came out the best for us. It seemed that the photographer had issues with the right lighting inside. A lot of our photo's were taken near a window.

Hi Heather!

So glad your wedding turned out nice in spite of few mishaps. You two looked great! And I don't think the flip flops looked all that bad either. :)

I know what you mean about the photo prices. I was disappointed in how they were presented too. We were shocked when we took our first look at our photos. We were expecting to see thumbprints and choose which photos we wanted. And thought the packages would have been a bit more affordable like the flyer we were shown when we first booked our wedding. Instead, they were already preprinted in 8x 10's and 5 x7's. We were handed a package price sheet with the lowest package being $349, which gave you next to nothing. We had to go through them (over 150 prints) one by one which took us about 45 minutes just to place them in piles of "like or don't like". There were some taken that we didn't even see in the prints. I don't have a formal of me with my mother or my MOH. And my husband didn't have any with just him and the best man. Then later in the week (last day), after we had time to think about blowing our picture budget, we went down and purchased the $749 package. The table book was beautiful and had photos in it that he didn't print for us but he wanted $1200 for it! No way we could afford that. I started tearing up having to give up so many photos because we couldn't afford them. When the photographer saw this, he threw in an extra 10 8x10's as a "wedding gift". So they have room to work with the numbers, but it may take some heavy haggling to get them to budge.

We love the Dream and are going to take another cruise with Carnival next year for our 1yr anniversary. Maybe it will be on the Dream again. Still thinking about which cruise to take. lol

Hi Heather,

First of all your pictures were beautiful. Very photogenic- lucky girl! I love you dress and you all look like you were having so much fun.

 

You have also shown me I need a major attitude adjustment- I was expecting to relax and thinking nothing might go wrong. I was also expecting the photo package prices to be what the sent me. Wow- yours sound like 2 grand more than what they quoted me. It's actually a relief to know- we have some folks in our party with great cameras and photography skills. For over 5 grand for pics they can kiss my behind :-)

 

I think we're going to Rusty's too, but not with a big party. Just our respective parents and us.

 

If you have any other tips I would love to hear them- we're getting married on the Dream in September. Oh- in the Caliente dance club did they offer to use certain color lighting? If I'm not going to be picky about anything else maybe I can there :-)

 

Take care, Stacy

Carnival doesn't "offer" certain color lighting, you have to request it. I requested certain colors in the Caliente Disco and my contact with Carnival wasn't sure until she contacted the DJ who told her yes it was possible. So, you may have to be a bit pushy to get it but it can be done. They displayed the colors I requested.

You guys looked like you were having a ball. There was a TV comedy show with a big guy and good looking gal, you reminded me of them. I bet he's a handful, lol. That picture on the deck is AWESOME!!! Carnival should be hitting you up for advertisement, that depicts cruisin to the "Nines". Great pictures, and good post, made it easy to read. :)

Thanks! Actually, others have told us the same thing about that photo! :)

Congratulations! Your photos look awesome, and I love the idea you had for your dance! I hope my fiancee and I have the guts to do something so fun.

 

I am so happy with your review, I am booked for our wedding on the Carnival Dream next year. I'm having so much fun saying Our Carnival 'Dream Wedding'.

 

I have questions about the muster drill - were you and your wedding party taken to a 'special' muster drill kind of thing, or?? Because I want to wear my dress to dinner, and I don't want to wear it to muster drill.. vest or no vest, lol. Plus I figure there will be a couple of hours between reception and dinner anyway? So I might change out of the dress.. then back into it for dinner?

 

Any thoughts on this?

Hi DramaticCanandian!

We went to the same muster drill as all the other passengers. All your doing at muster drill is watching the staff member demonstrate how to use the vest it's only about 10-15 minutes. Just curious, why wouldn't you want to wear it then?

The photographer will want to take pictures of you after the reception. You will most likely be with him at least an 1hr or more. We were with ours 1 hr 45 min minutes. There was no time to change before muster because we were taking photos before and after.

You won't know when your reception time is until 2-3wks prior to the date. Without knowing what time your dinner is or your reception time, its hard to say if you will have time to change twice before dinner.

I had early dinner (6 pm) and only had 30 minutes to tidy up before having to leave for dinner.

Consider this...If you did change you would be making your photographer wait to take photos later. That will cut into your evening time for sure. Additionally, I would be concerned about my hair and makeup lasting through the clothes changing and extra time between photos and the reception. Also consider the ease of getting in and out of your dress. If it is difficult to take off and put on alone it may be more trouble than its worth.

Sounds great and you guys look so happy in your pictures. I've read a ton of reviews on the Dream and they all mention the smell on the boat. How bad was it? Many talk about how it really ruins there vacation and how embarased they were for the guests that spent money to go with them. We are looking to use that ship as well, but the smell thing is making us worry, last post that had the smell still on the ship was the begining of March.

 

So glad everything went perfect,,,,,congrats

We did notice a foul, sewage smell from time to time later in the cruise. It smelt like you were walking by a restroom. We discovered it on the 3rd day. It was only in one area of the ship which was around one of the staircases lower decks (below deck 6). It wasn't something that would ruin my vacation because I only noticed it a couple times going up and down the stairs. No big deal. The dream is a beautiful fun ship and I wouldn't hesitate to cruise on her again.

Great review and very detailed one of the best ones I've read thusfar! I have too many "likes" LOL. Your boys are handsome and great picture! Hair and makeup was flawless and I especially like the pose with you lying down and leg extended in the air(may have to steal this pose). Thank you for sharing your review and pictures with us.

Thanks! So glad you like my review. I was afraid I was getting too long winded so I cut some text out.

Funny about that pose. It was taken in the Disco. They have these big round "couches" up against the wall. When the photographer told me to lay on my back and put my leg on the wall, I said "you want me to do what?" My groom was apprehensive too. He says he looks like he's about to bite my neck...LOL I love the picture too!

Thanks for the review, it's always great hearing from other embarkation day brides and the details really helped me envision everything :D Your cake is awesome btw, I love the butterflies. And what a great MOH! Sounds like she was really helpful.

Thanks! My theme was butterflies. I didn't want to use a traditional cake topper so I contacted a sugar artist off of Etsy and told them what I was looking for. I sent her photos of the butterflies from my invitations and others I found online and they made them and shipped them to me. They are completely edible.

I should mention too that we had lots of left over cake. The second night in the dinning room our head waiter asked us if we would like to have it for desert one day that week. I wanted to have the melting cake that night so we ate it on the third night. We had more than our group could handle so I told the waiter to also share it with anyone else in the dinning who wanted it.

First off CONGRATULATIONS!!!!!!!! I love reading all of your posts because you have the answers to questions I haven't even thought of yet about getting married on the Dream.

 

Your review was excellent and answered even more questions I hadn't thought of. Do you know what would have happened if it was your hair pins setting off the detector? I would have been having a nervous breakdown at that point.

 

It sounds like you had the perfect wedding and I am so happy for you. You pictures are absolutely beautiful and Tiffany did a great job with hair and make up.

 

Congrats again to you and your beautiful family!

Awe, thanks Stacy! I think they would have let me though even if they couldn't figure out what set off the detector. If you have any other questions let me know!

WOW! BEAUTIFUL!!

 

I love your dress! And your flowers are gorgeous too! It looks like you had a wonderful time!

 

You are VERY photogenic, all of the pics of you are really good! I love the pics of you and your groom dancing with the sunglasses!

 

Thanks so much for writing this review! :) Some of us are going CRAZY here waiting for our turn!!

Thank you! Funny story about the dance. My groom and I have a big height difference so dancing has always been a bit awkward for us. And it didn't really suit our joking around happy go lucky personalities. So I thought it would be fun and funny to do a "surprise dance" which included some hip hop moves. Now none of our guests have never seen us dance hip hop before so it was really going to shock people. I created a blended mix of songs we loved and burnt them to a disc.

We started out our first dance with Shania Twains - "From this moment"....after a minute the music switched to a hip hop song "Dynamite" by Taio Cruz "I throw my hands up in the air sometimes..." progressed to some BEP's and ended with "G6 by Far East Movement". It was during the last song we turned around and put on the glasses and spun around to doing the "drive the car" move you see in the photo.

Well, it was a huge success! It totally took everyone by surprise. Everyone was clapping and rolling in laughter which is what we wanted. It was great!

The DJ later told us he got very scared that he did something wrong because the slow song disappeared....lol He actually turned down the volume until he noticed we were still dancing...LOL OH, and later in the cruise I had a conversation with another couple in the Mongolian Wok line and told them I had gotten married on the ship. They said they happened to peek in the disco just at the moment we were doing our dance and thought it was great! The ship is big, but its still a small world. :)

It was a very memorable moment.