Future_Mrs_Wetzel

So excited to see your review. We will be on the Dream for the first time September 11th!

Thanks for the heads-up! I just submitted mine.

Subscribing!

Loving your review!

I don't really eat many sweets or chocolate, but I love warm chocolate melting cake. I just can't eat the whole thing.

I am an old lady (61) and I did not drink at all until I was about 50. I have been on cruises where I have consumed 15 drinks in one day and I was no where near drunk. I'm always awake for at least 18 hours and that is less than one drink an hour.

 

I'm not a professional drinker in fact except when I am on vacation I rarely drink at all and I don't take a lot of vacations. I think sometimes people get judgemental based on their own experience.

Well said! I am right with you on this. People are WAY too judgmental.

You have a Extra saving account and nick name account.."Cruise"

Guilty!

Leaving San Diego On the Elation a Few years ago at the Sail A Way Party I looked over the Rail and saw this coming our way! Everyone of us were Wowed!:D

 

 

Now that is really cool!

Subscribing! We will be on the Elation November 2nd, so I am super excited to read all of your review.

DAY 1!!!!!!!!!!

 

Finally, it has arrived. I was up by 6:30 and wandered down to the free breakfast. They had eggs, sausage, make-your-own waffles, cereal, etc. Not bad, not great, but free!

 

It was finally time to leave to board the shuttle! Now, Carnival had sent this email saying not to arrive at the port until 1:30. Yea, right! We booked the 10:30 shuttle. Because our room was not close to the shuttle pick up point, we loaded all 98 bags back into the car and I drove to the pick up point and unloaded all 142 bags there and drove the car back to the parking area.

 

We are excited!

 

 

The hotel had booked us on Road Runner Shuttle. 10:30 came and went, 10:45 came and went, 11:00 came and went. Finally they got there, loaded us up and we were on our way.

 

We had a contest to see who would see the whale tail first. DS won. He's younger and has better eyes!

 

The Dream in port.

 

 

We loaded our 218 bags and watched as the porters loaded them on the wagons. We got to security around 11:25 and were on the ship at 11:45. It would have been sooner if we didn't have to stop to get our picture made so many times.

 

Lines were non-existant. I guess everyone paid attention to the "don't arrive before 1:30" email. Our friends from NC had faster to the fun but we actually got on the ship 2 people ahead of them.

 

After we got on we all took our carry ons to the room with FTTF. We went to the bar to pay for the unlimited soft drinks for DS. After that we headed up to the Lido deck for lunch. It was not too crowded but, of course, all the window tables were taken. No big deal. We ate lunch and then started exploring the ship.

 

The decor is typical Carnival glitzy. We've been on Carnival before and knew it was not going to look like the Waldorf-Astoria. We found where all the necessary things were -- casino, bars, restaurants, coffee bar, Club O2, etc.

 

At 1:30 we went to our friend's room to collect our carryons. We went to our room, 9401 (balcony), and all 638 bags were there waiting for us. We went in and unpacked everything. Fortunately, there is room under the bed for empty luggage.

 

3:30 was muster time. Our meeting place was in Club O2. There was lots of room there with chairs. They explained the process and did the typical "this is how you put on a life vest" thing and explained what to do in case of hitting an iceberg.

 

After this we hit the deck to enjoy our sail away!

One thing I always notice about cruise pictures......the HUGE smiles! Love your pictures. Can't wait till November to get more smiling pictures of my hubby and myself. :)

His "pair">>> wow, bet they are happy to be conditioned! Yeah, I know you meant hair.:D

Hee hee....can't stop smiling. Y'all are cracking me up! :rolleyes:

Hello readers! Day 3 of our itinerary puts us in Cozumel, Mexico. A couple of cruises ago, we visited Cozumel and something rather traumatic happened to me within the first 30 minutes of getting off of the ship. So, we went back to the ship and didn't experience Cozumel at all. I won't go into details but I'll say that going back to Cozumel was one part of this itinerary that I wasn't looking forward to. So, I booked a Carnival excursion to go to Dolphinaris and swim with the dolphins. I'll get into this more soon.

 

The night before, we chose room service items to be delivered to us for breakfast since we knew we'd have to get up early to be ready and off of the ship for our excursion. I've never looked at the room service menu for breakfast on previous cruises but was annoyed that there weren't any protein options on the menu. They basically had cereal, bagels, yogurt, milk, etc.

 

Our breakfast arrived about 20 minutes late which had me in panic mode but no biggie - we wolfed it down. Then we headed off of the ship. Getting off of the ship was really easy on this day as it wasn't a tender port and we probably only had about 10 people in front of us to get off.

 

We're running a little late because of the breakfast but I want to take a few photos. Latanya is yelling at me.. okay not yelling.. just insisting we need to go. I can see how short the walk is so I am insisting I need to take a few photos real quick. :-) I won so here they are:

 

 

Another view showing the Dream all tied up very well. (mad at myself for being in a rush and not noticing I cut off the "M". )

 

 

The Voyager of the Seas and the Jewel of the Seas were also in port:

 

 

Tried to crop out as many people as I could:

 

 

We had to walk inside this short shopping plaza in order to get back outside to the hub of where all the tours met up. There was this man wearing a gold pirate suit. There are people in every port that dress up like something and want tips for you to take photos of them or with them. But they're all normally very nice about it and will pose for you first and then hint at their tip jar. This man, however was grouchy and wouldn't pose for anyone. In fact, when someone pointed their camera at him, he'd point at his tip bucket and block his face or turn around really fast to make sure they missed the shot. He might have better luck if he was nice to people. I had a fast enough camera that I got one anyway and while I would have tipped him like I later on tipped several others, I chose not to because of how grumpy he was.

 

 

As we walked out of the shopping hallway, there was one of those cut out things that you put your head in. I had Latanya pose in it for me so I could get the lighting and settings right on the camera and then asked someone else to just press the button once I hopped into the photo.

 

 

Don't we look... happy? Haha!

We were in Cozumel last September and saw the gold guy posing. He was grouchy and rude then too! I thought maybe he didn't want me taking a picture of him because of his two different colored eyes.

Thanks so much for such a thorough review and all of the pictures. I and my soon-to-be husband will be on the Triumph on September 24, 2012 for our honeymoon. It will also be the first time either of us has cruised.

Your review made me all the more excited!