Cruising Our Way - Dream Review July 22-29

As a rookie Cruiser, reading about everyone else's trips really helped enhance the fun of our vacation. So let me start by saying Thank You! Keep sharing your stories. One of the lessons learned is cruising is the ultimate "do it your way" vacation. This is how we went cruising ...

We are a family of 4 from north Texas: Me, DW, DD1 (16) , DD2 (13). We chose the Dream out of New Orleans so we could drive to New Orleans on Saturday to board the ship on Sunday. We picked the Jamaica\Grand Cayman\Cozumel itinerary because this week fit our schedule better and my parents visited these ports on the Mardi Gras on their first cruise 35+ years ago.

We left our house at 7 AM, stopped off at Buc-ee's and headed to New Orleans. We arrived at the city about 4 PM and stayed at the Le Richelieu in the French Quarter. We checked off two New Orleans highlights after we arrived. We strolled down Bourbon Street and ate Beignets at Cafe Du Monde. We circled back to the hotel for a good night sleep before the real fun starts.

Can't wait to hear more. We sail her in 2 weeks!

Thanks for sharing your experience.

Following along on your journey .

Embarkation Day

We did not sign up for FTTF and ended up with a Noon embarkation time. This gave us plenty of time to get on board without waiting too long to get to our rooms.

Since we had our Beignets the night before, we went to District: Donuts, Sliders, Brew for breakfast. It is hard to beat a large cream filled donut. We shared the Cookies and Cream, some kind of Margarita Lime and an Coffee cream donut.

We chose to park at the Fulton Place Parking garage. Wanting to go see the ship, we decided to go to the port and drop off our luggage first. This was easy. I pulled up to where I was directed, grabbed a porter and loaded him up. We got a quick look at our home for the next 7 days then drove to the garage. Our longest wait of the day occurred here. We arrived at the garage about 11 AM and had to wait about 30 minutes for the shuttle to fill up. Back at the port, we pretty much walked straight through the whole process. We sat down and waited about 10 minutes until our group was called to go aboard.

Once aboard, we wandered around the Atrium Lobby for a little while before heading to the Lido for lunch. Following the advice of others, we headed to the Sunset deck to avoid the crowds. DD1 and I checked out Tandoor while the DW and DD2 grabbed some pizza. Tandoor is not for everyone, but you are supposed to eat different foods. I enjoyed the Fish Tikka.

After lunch it was time to head down to our cabins. Yes, cabins: 1246 and 1250. We decided to get two interior rooms, adjacent but not connecting. This allowed our DDs a little more autonomy with their own room. We also did not have to worry about getting four people through the shower every day. We met our Stateroom Steward, Nengah, who was wonderful. We opted for both morning and evening service and so our room was always clean. In addition to keeping our room clean, he greeted us by name every time we saw him. The only thing missing was our luggage. Without the FTTF, it was nearly 5 PM before we saw our luggage. We did not need anything but it would be nice to have them in hand sooner.

After checking out our cabins, it was time for the Mandatory Safety Drill. Our muster station was the Crimson Forward Dining Room on the Atlantic (4th) deck. We got there at 3 so we were not 'those people' holding everyone up. Unfortunately, we were still there nearly an hour. Next time, showing up closer to 3:30 would be better. All we did was sit for those 30 minutes waiting for people to arrive.

We went back to our cabins for our luggage (not there yet), then headed up to the Lido for the Sail Away Party. DW and I shared a FunShip Special and watched some of the party activities. We soon realized the crowd and crazy is not our way to cruise, so we headed back to the Sunset deck to wait on the ship pulling away from the peer. We found some deck chairs on the Panorama deck (11) above the Pizza place to sit with our first of many Bottomless Bubble drinks. The DDs went exploring on their own until dinner.

We pulled away from the peer about 4:45. I had printed out two different "what to see while sailing down the Mississippi" posts found in the forums. DW went down to start getting ready for dinner while I looked for the landmarks until we reached Chalmette.

We usually eat dinner at 6 while at home, so we went with the early dining. We were assigned a booth in the Lower Scarlet Aft Dinning Room. The lower level dining room has two levels. We were at the back of the main floor, next to the stairs down to the window tables. We had a clear view out of the windows about 30 feet away from us over the heads of those sitting down below. Not only did we have one of the best views at dinner, we had the best wait team of Amin, Idewa and Lucky. Even though they had about 30 people to serve, they made us feel like we were the only people in the dining room. They truly added to our cruise experience.

After dinner, we stopped by the O2 and Circle C clubs to register our kids and get their activity schedules. DW and I sat in on the "60 Seconds or Less" show while the DDs got ready for their club welcome parties. After the show, we headed back to our spot on the Panorama deck to watch the ship sail down the river. DW headed back to the cabin about 10, and I headed to the bow on the Promenade deck to see us enter the gulf.

Up next...Life At Sea

Thanks for the review.

Thanks for sharing your review!

I have this one booked next year. Can't wait!

Enjoying your review! We will be on the Dream next week. 😀

Following along since I will be on the Dream in less than 2 months from now! I was wondering about your embarkation timing. I have an 11:30 to 12 arrival window and will also be parking at the Fulton Garage. It seemed like you arrived before your window and didn't have too much of a wait but I could be reading that wrong. Any advice you could give with timing that would be great since I know waiting for the shuttle from the garage will make timing that arrival window a bit more difficult to hit. Thanks and I look forward to the rest of your review!

Thank you so much for this! We are also rookie cruisers from North Texas with 2 teenage girls. We sail on the Dream in May from Galveston and can. not. wait. Any chance you will be uploading Fun Times?

Looking forward to the rest of your review. Thank you for taking your time to post.

Looking forward to the rest of your review, we will be on the Dream in February

@ jasong38501

You are correct in that we did not have a long wait at all. I did not know how long it would take to get from the garage to the port so I planned on getting to the garage an hour prior to our noon boarding time. We happened to arrive at the garage without any other cruisers right behind us so we had to wait for the shuttle to fill up. The ride over takes less than 10 minutes and we entered the building before noon and walked on board before 12:30.

I may be wrong but I think the 'time' is for when you are allowed into the building to start the check-in process. There was no line when we arrived so we were directed to go on in. Be sure and have your boarding passes and Passports\IDs in hand and not in you bags or a folder. I carried on a camera bag, the DW had a tote bag and the DDs had small backpacks. Our light load allowed us to pass by the family with a wagon full of 12 packs and other similarly weighted down groups.

@pamici

I will try to get the Fun Times up loaded eventually and if the DDs have them, copies of the O2 and Circle C schedules as well.

Thanks for the response. I think I'll plan to get to the garage about an hour early too then in case we have a wait too.

Following. Just got off Vista and loved it, possibly looking st Dream for NYE.

Following! I'm so eager to hear your perspective as a new Cruiser. We will be sailing Carnival for the first time in December. Although the ship will be different the itinerary will be the same and I can't wait to see how your trip progressed!

I'm also looking forward to hearing how your kids liked the clubs, since two of mine are about the same age as yours.

Life At Sea

DW, who was in bed earlier the night before, had the idea to go see the sunrise over the water. Only problem was we did not look to see when the sun would rise (it is listed in the Fun Times). DW and I got up at 6, threw on our swimsuits and headed up to the Lido deck. We arrived about 30 minutes after the posted sunrise time for Monday. Not only did we miss the sunrise, it was cloudy with a slight drizzle. We headed back down to our cabin to shower before breakfast.

We headed back to the Lido about an hour later for breakfast burritos at the Blue Iguana Cantina. I though it was OK but the DW loaded hers with the pico de gallo and other vegetables and really enjoyed it. She ended up eating a burrito for breakfast most days. After eating, the sun started to come out so we went back down to get back in our suits and back up to stake our claim to some deck chairs.

If you haven't been keeping count, that is 3 trips up 10 decks and 2 trips down in about two hours. To justify to ourselves how much we think we will eat during the week, we usually took the elevator up and walked the stairs down. And if we were going less than 5 decks, we walked up too.

We started out with a pair of chairs by the main Lido pool until the DDs managed to make their way up. They preferred the Sunset pool so we packed up and moved back there, too. We quickly came to realize we liked the quieter deck and looking out at the water instead of all the people walking by. We also had easy access to the Sunset bar next to the Pizza and one of the 'free' beverage stations by Tandoor. When the occasional rain shower crossed the deck, we could escape to cover without fighting a crowd.

When another light rain started to fall about 12:30 we decided to find lunch and see what we could do indoors. Where do you go to have lunch on Monday if you do not eat there on Sunday? Guy's Burger Joint, of course!!! No need to debate what constitutes the perfect burger. Sometimes you just want a soft bun, juicy patty and cheese that oozes out the sides. My burger all but melted in my mouth. It was so good I had to get a second just to confirm how good it was.

After cleaning up, we wandered around and ended up in the Ocean Plaza for the One Hit Wonder Trivia. I don't think we knew half of the songs. Afterwards we stopped in the Cherry on Top candy store to get treats for our girls. We were going to drop them off in their cabin as a surprise but ran into both of them before we got there. Not only did they spoil the surprise, they had already made a trip in there for some candy.

We changed for Dinner, elegant night, gathered the girls and headed to another good meal. I will share our dinners and menus in a separate post later.

After dinner we changed again before arriving late to the 80's to the Max show. When the show ended, we headed up to the Lido to catch the end of the Dive-In Movie: The Greatest Showman. We ended our day singing with the movie under blankets and the stars.

Day Two was pretty much a repeat of the first day, minus the rain. We got up about 7 and headed up to the Sunset deck to find our home for the next 5-6 hours. DW had her burrito while the DDs and I opted for the Sea Day Brunch. I was not impressed with the Steak and Eggs I ordered. I guess I prefer the way I grill my own steak. The DD's took off on their own agendas while I return the the DW for several hours of doing absolutely nothing.

When lunch time rolled around, we opted for the tacos from the Blue Iguana. I tried them all but liked the fish taco the best. I wend back for a couple more, because I could.

Clue: The Murder Mystery started today so this was our 'indoor' activity. After the story and character introductions ended, we stayed in the Encore Theater for the afternoon Bingo. I would like to say we won enough to cover our on board expenses for the week but we were not so lucky. We did not come close to winning any of the there rounds but we still had fun playing.

Our night consisted of Dinner, the PG comedy routine of Spike Davis and then the Motor City show.

Tomorrow was Jamaica so we decided to skip the night's Lido deck party and turn in at a normal hour.

Up next...Excursions!

@BENHANDEL

I will have the DD's write posts about their experiences with the two clubs so stay tuned.

Enjoying your review. Thank you taking time to do it.

Great review! Thanks.

Enjoying your review!

Enjoying your review, we’ve been on the Dream too. Our second time sailing from New Orleans. The first time sailing from there we stayed 3 nights at the same hotel, La Richileu, as you did. We stayed in the Paul McCartney suite. Loved it! Looking forward to the rest of your review.

I've been on the Dream three times; it's one of my favorites. Following