Tropical Treasures 23rd - 30th March part 1

[barnowl1950]

Hi everyone, here's our experience of our Tropical Treasures cruise on Dream last week.

JOURNEY: We flew out on time on a FC 767 from Birmingham, had window seats on left side just behind the wings. In-flight meal was Chicken a la King. The views of the Barbados beaches from the air were stunning.

On arrival at Bridgetown cruise passengers were first off the plane and we boarded the mini buses to the terminal (about 20mins) and joined the queue for the checking in process (nearly one hour as the Glasgow flight had just arrived too) But all very straight forward then onto the ship.

 

CABIN: We had 6050, a standard o/s on deck 6 towards the front and is a very good size for 2 people, very quiet even though only a few feet from the lifts/stairs and destination services. Used the stairs a lot as the lifts were a bit slow. Had a wide comfortable bed and powerful shower. Cabin steward was Budi. Only grumble was the safe which sometimes needed several attempts to open/close it which I hear is a common complaint on Dream. The ship was spotless throughout, the staff work very hard yet are so friendly and cheerful.

 

FOOD+ENTERTAINMENT: We like buffet meals so we had breakfast and lunch in Sirens and evening meals in Lido. It was assisted service for the first 2 days then serve yourself after that. Of the two we preferred Sirens but there were lots of choices in both restaurants and the main courses were always hot enough, and plenty of salad/cold meats/bread/fruit/cheese etc, my favourite meat is pork and the cold pork slices with apple/herbs were lovely. We did have one evening in Orion restaurant, and thought the portions were lovely and beautifully presented but a bit on the small side. Didn't buy the steak under the stars so can't comment on that. Hubby bought a wine package for £64.95 (I think it was) he likes only red so we had 5 bottles although I don't drink very much myself.

 

Went to the Broadway show lounge only once to see music from some west end shows, they call it A Feast of Webber with a Helping of Rice or something like that, it's a fantastic show the team are excellent and I would say go along to see it if you are due to sail on Dream. Following that is a crew show (very good) and I was completely blown away by one crew member in particular who is a young lady called Hazel who has an unbelievably amazing voice, I have seen her mentioned here on CC sometimes. I bought the crew show CD for just under £5, we will watch it one of the days this week...the money goes towards the crew welfare fund. Other nights were mostly in Medusa lounge.

 

Will leave this for now and follow up with some Port excursions later :)

Edited April 1, 2014 by barnowl1950

[kruzseeka]

Thanks for your review barnowl - pleased to hear you enjoyed your trip and looking forward to reading about your ports of call. :)

[Jim The Scot]

Hi everyone, here's our experience of our Tropical Treasures cruise on Dream last week.

JOURNEY: We flew out on time on a FC 767 from Birmingham, had window seats on left side just behind the wings. In-flight meal was Chicken a la King. The views of the Barbados beaches from the air were stunning.

On arrival at Bridgetown cruise passengers were first off the plane and we boarded the mini buses to the terminal (about 20mins) and joined the queue for the checking in process (nearly one hour as the Glasgow flight had just arrived too) But all very straight forward then onto the ship.

 

CABIN: We had 6050, a standard o/s on deck 6 towards the front and is a very good size for 2 people, very quiet even though only a few feet from the lifts/stairs and destination services. Used the stairs a lot as the lifts were a bit slow. Had a wide comfortable bed and powerful shower. Cabin steward was Budi. Only grumble was the safe which sometimes needed several attempts to open/close it which I hear is a common complaint on Dream. The ship was spotless throughout, the staff work very hard yet are so friendly and cheerful.

 

FOOD+ENTERTAINMENT: We like buffet meals so we had breakfast and lunch in Sirens and evening meals in Lido. It was assisted service for the first 2 days then serve yourself after that. Of the two we preferred Sirens but there were lots of choices in both restaurants and the main courses were always hot enough, and plenty of salad/cold meats/bread/fruit/cheese etc, my favourite meat is pork and the cold pork slices with apple/herbs were lovely. We did have one evening in Orion restaurant, and thought the portions were lovely and beautifully presented but a bit on the small side. Didn't buy the steak under the stars so can't comment on that. Hubby bought a wine package for £64.95 (I think it was) he likes only red so we had 5 bottles although I don't drink very much myself.

 

Went to the Broadway show lounge only once to see music from some west end shows, they call it A Feast of Webber with a Helping of Rice or something like that, it's a fantastic show the team are excellent and I would say go along to see it if you are due to sail on Dream. Following that is a crew show (very good) and I was completely blown away by one crew member in particular who is a young lady called Hazel who has an unbelievably amazing voice, I have seen her mentioned here on CC sometimes. I bought the crew show CD for just under £5, we will watch it one of the days this week...the money goes towards the crew welfare fund. Other nights were mostly in Medusa lounge.

 

Will leave this for now and follow up with some Port excursions later :)

 

We have seen Hazel three times on the Dream and believe she is a trained singer and a good one at that.

 

Look forward to the rest of your review

[kruzseeka]

We have seen Hazel three times on the Dream and believe she is a trained singer and a good one at that.

 

Look forward to the rest of your review

 

 

She also comes to sing when you go to the Grill for a meal- just one song but in that intimate atmosphere over a delicious meal it's spine tingling!!! she has a beautiful voice - and a personality to match.

[Little Nell]

Sounds fab, Barnowl. Makes me wish I was back on board :)

[joeholiday2]

Thanks for the review Barnowl.

 

We prefer Sirens too.

 

Hazel is a lovely person and a fantastic singer, here's a reminder:

 

I love watching peoples faces when she starts singing, it's like a subo moment.

 

Joe.

[barnowl1950]

Thank you joeholiday...makes my eyes water :o...it's the same song she sang in the crew show last week and now everyone can enjoy it.

[barnowl1950]

This was our third cruise I haven't done a review before just a brief description of our IE cruise last year... think I've written what most people already know and I'm afraid I didn't notice a lot of things which matter so much to most people, things like tea/coffee (don't like tea the last one I had was over 40 years ago) the tea/coffee facilities in the cabins are lovely if you want them but they could have removed ours and I would not have minded.....we use the sun loungers for a couple of hours on holiday sometimes but no longer.... it seems they are doing something about the sunbed situation as we left ours for about 50 minutes on the sea day to go to the port showcase, and returned to find a little message to remind us how long to leave them, well we decided to do something else anyway so let someone else take them, but it's good they are taking some notice of the problem so people due to sail will be pleased to hear this :)

[pressy]

Thanks Barnowl, cant wait for part 2.......

Hazel is amazing.

We like seeing peoples reaction when she sings, especially if they have not heard her before.

When she sang in the Grill one woman was visibly crying.

One of the best performances we saw was when Hazel sang with Carl. It was Carls last night on the ship before we went home and to a new challenge. Carl and Hazel had grown up together and attended music school together Brill

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vnhDpAi4APg

[barnowl1950]

Just finished part 2 and posted it...only thing is I forgot to add part 2 in the title :o