Carnival Dream (9/14/14)- With Pictures

[malmo288]

Like I've said, this is my second cruise. The first cruise was on the Carnival Magic, which I believe is the Dream's sister ship. So when we walked into the ship, I could already see all of the similarities between the two ships. There are a few differences but they are overall pretty much the same. I loved the Magic so much, so I already knew I would be head over heels for the dream. We got on the ship at about 12:30 and they told us our rooms weren't going to be ready til 1:30. On our first cruise some people said the might be ready early so we hauled all of our carry ons to our room,only to find it wasn't ready yet. This time we didn't want to go through all that, so we figured we could go eat and by the time we were done, the room should be ready.

 

We made our way to Pasta Bella (and for some odd reason, we ate there twice and I took NO pictures). Pasta Bella is only open for lunch but its so great because you can basically make your own pasta. You pick your noodles, sauce and whatever else you want in it from meats to veggies. I am weirdly obsessed with Alfredo and will almost never try anything new at an italian spot so of course I just made myself a chicken alfredo. My BF ordered the lasagna, because that came highly recommended. He liked it, and even said he'd eat it again (although he didn't get it the second time we went, so take that how you want to). My advice if you are an alfredo head like I am is to ask for extra sauce and then pile on the parmesan that they keep at the table and add some salt also. The sauce is a little bit bland on its own, but I enjoyed it once I added the extra ingredients. Best to do while its hot also, so that it all blends together. The bread is good to dip in it too, although the bread was weirdly cold. This made my BF not a big fan of it.

 

After lunch we ventured off to our rooms to see if they were ready and lucky for us they were! We were getting tired of lugging our bags around so it was perfect timing. It was probably about 1 o clock when we checked. Our family (who had the room right next door) didn't have the same luck because their room wasn't ready yet. They did have a different room steward then us, altough I'm not sure that had anything to do with it because we met their room steward later and he was amazing. We stayed in room 7201, which was at the very front of the ship known as an obstructed picture window room. The "obstructed" view didn't bother us at all especially since we had our own private deck. Well, of course anyone else could access it but it was just really neat that you could only access it from a door that was a the end of the hallway and was limited to our floor. The majority of the time we had it all to ourselves. We definitely enjoyed the room and would stay it in it again. Here are a couple pictures of the room before I continue.

 

 

 

 

 

[malmo288]

There was a safe in the room and a small fridge that was filled with all of the goodies that Carnival hopes that you'd by for a steep price, but we just moved some stuff out of the fridge to make room for our treats and it worked out just fine. I don't have the dimensions for the safe, but I can tell you it was just big enough to fit a tablet but not quite big enough to fit a laptop.

 

 

These are prices from the mini fridge.

 

Here are a couple of the bathroom

 

 

 

In this shot of the bathroom you can kind of see the "secret" outlet that is in the top right corner of this picture just over the mirror by the light. When you look at it closely it almost looks like a temperature thing, but you can lift it open to find an outlet. Only thing with this outlet is that it only charges when the lights are on. If the lights time off or someone turns them off, whatever you are charging will stop charging. Another thing I found neat but forgot to take a picture of was that there was a clothes line in the shower. It is on the backside of the shower and almost looks like an alarm or something but if you pull on the black tip, it will pull out a clothes line that you can use to hang your bathing suits and such to dry. The shower does have a shampoo dispenser and body wash dispenser. They only one I tried was body wash and it just smelt and felt like normal soap to me. So I continued with my personal things that I brought.

 

Back in the room at the vanity, there was a blow dryer that was attached in the top drawer that I did use. I didn't bring my blow dryer because I wanted to save space in my suitcase. This blow dryer worked but didn't have as much power as my own personal blow dryer so it did take me a little longer to dry my hair. Definitely use it on the highest setting otherwise its pretty much pointless.

 

[malmo288]

The view from our deck was kind of neat because it felt so private. Sure there were some things in the way so it wasn't a completely clean view but I loved it. I loved the privacy and how we got to be one of the first to see where we were pulling into.

 

 

This was the door you had to climb out of to get to the deck. And that is my BF creeping through the window :)

 

A cute little bench on our deck. I'm pretty sure there were a couple of them.

 

And the other neat thing was we were right below the captains control room, or whatever you call it. We got a kick out of the windshield wipers.

 

This was the view actually looking out our window. You can kind of see me and my camera in the reflection, but its still a pretty perfect view to me.

[Crusin Karen]

And the other neat thing was we were right below the captains control room, or whatever you call it. We got a kick out of the windshield wipers.

Oh, this made me laugh....that is the BRIDGE, but I guess you are right, it IS the control room! :p I thought that was just so darn cute! :);)

[malmo288]

We hung in our room for a minute so my BF can watch some football and because our luggage wasn't there yet. The first time we sailed on the Magic, our luggage was outside of our room as soon as our room was ready. That wasn't the case this time. Because we were still in our room, we had the pleasure of meeting our room steward, Camelia. She asked our names and if there was any special requests we had from her, which we did request ice. We also asked about our luggage because it was now about 2ish and they still hadn't arrived and she told us that sometimes it can take all the way until 6pm for luggage to arrive and that sometimes both pieces don't come together. She reassured us that if we left the room and she saw our luggage come that she would put it in our room for us. We took her word and went off to roam the ship before our safety briefing.

 

Inside the atrium.

 

 

 

[malmo288]

I am not sure how to scan things, but hopefully you can see what was going on in the schedules for the day. In all of my extensive research before this cruise I had printed out 3 different funtimes that people posted but I can't speak of much similarities except for the big shows and of course little games here and there but this should at least help with an idea for what will be going on.

 

 

 

 

 

And then my absolute favorite.....

:D

[Bookbug53]

 

 

 

And the other neat thing was we were right below the captains control room, or whatever you call it. We got a kick out of the windshield wipers.

 

 

Love those windshield wipers! Something so mundane and yet so darn cute for some reason. Just never considered it.

 

Loving the review and the unusual pictures.

[malmo288]

We headed down to our muster station for our safety briefing. This whole process took about 30 minutes, although the majority of the time was spent waiting for people to show up. They kept announcing that they can see the people trying to hide on their balconies and that they would wait for them so we can get started. No, you don't have to bring life jackets or walk outside to the life boats, they just pretty much tell you what to expect and where things are located should something happen. Our muster station was in the Encore showroom. My suggestion, although no one in my cruise followed the instructions, is to sit towards the back because on the dream they let people out from the briefing from the very back row all the way to the front row. Like I said, my people didn't listen so it was definitely a cluster. But I could tell that if they did enforce the order it would be quicker to sit in the back rows of the room. I promise you wont miss anything important to see. They spread out all kinds of crew members in the room so that everyone can see what to do. We did some more roaming and had some snacks. I had just a ham and cheese sandwich from the deli in the back of the ship.

 

It pretty much just tasted like a grilled cheese with a some ham in the middle. Kind of tasty.

 

At this point we could kind of tell the boat was moving so we made our way back to our deck, where we found our luggage right outside of our room and it was about 4:30-5ish. We put it in our room really quick and discover Camelia had already filled out ice for us. And then we made our way outside. It was really neat because the boat had to completely turn around to head down the Mississippi River. You can see the bridge that was once right out infront of our deck now off to the side in this picture.

 

And down we went through the Mississippi River.

 

 

 

And in case you forgot, this building down the river had a message for you-

[2-laner]

Can't wait to read more of your review. And thank you so much for taking the time to send pictures as well. Did you guys have early or late dining? Early dining was full so we have late dining of which we have never done before. Will we be missing a lot of the shows?

Edited September 22, 2014 by 2-laner

[malmo288]

And the other neat thing was we were right below the captains control room, or whatever you call it. We got a kick out of the windshield wipers.

Oh, this made me laugh....that is the BRIDGE, but I guess you are right, it IS the control room! :p I thought that was just so darn cute! :);)

 

Thanks for finding the word!! I got stuck writing my review because I couldn't think of what it was called!! I'm glad I made you laugh! :)

[malmo288]

Can't wait to read more of your review. And thank you so much for taking the time to send pictures as well. Did you guys have early or late dining? Early dining was full so we have late dining of which we have never done before. Will we be missing a lot of the shows?

 

Your welcome! I'm glad your enjoying. I will discuss shows in more detail later, but to answer your question, we did late seating this cruise too. It worked so much better for our family and the best part about the shows is they purposely do two shows. The first show is for people with late dining, so you see the show first then you go to dinner. And the second show is for early dining so you eat first then see the show. Early dining did always seem to be more packed compared to our late seating. But also because of that the first show was never that busy because most people were eating. On our previous cruise we did anytime dining and it seemed that even if we were early to shows like 10 or 15 minutes early we almost could never find seats. This time going to the early shows, even walking in with 5 minutes til showtime we could find good seats. Also if your interested in comedy shows, they have those at all hours of the evening. We never had a problem making anything we wanted to see. I hope this helps. :)

[2-laner]

It helped a bunch!! Thanks! I won't worry about missing out and just enjoy the cruise that much more.

[happy40]

Thanks for sharing...the pictures are great!!

[happy40]

 

 

 

After lunch we ventured off to our rooms to see if they were ready and lucky for us they were! We were getting tired of lugging our bags around so it was perfect timing. It was probably about 1 o clock when we checked. Our family (who had the room right next door) didn't have the same luck because their room wasn't ready yet. They did have a different room steward then us, altough I'm not sure that had anything to do with it because we met their room steward later and he was amazing. We stayed in room 7201, which was at the very front of the ship known as an obstructed picture window room. The "obstructed" view didn't bother us at all especially since we had our own private deck. Well, of course anyone else could access it but it was just really neat that you could only access it from a door that was a the end of the hallway and was limited to our floor. The majority of the time we had it all to ourselves. We definitely enjoyed the room and would stay it in it again. Here are a couple pictures of the room before I continue.

 

 

Since this is the Dream, I gotta ask...how was the air conditioning?

[malmo288]

Since this is the Dream, I gotta ask...how was the air conditioning?

 

We didn't have any problems with ac. Sometimes it was even too chilly in the room. We did see a lot of people bringing those small fans because of the reviews of it being hot but in our room and our family's room we had no complaints. I'm someone who normally has to sleep in cold because I get real hot easily when I sleep and I had no issues with being hot in the room even when I was asleep. Throughout the ship temperatures were all perfect. Sometimes too chilly in the dining rooms.

[092306]

Great review so far, looking forward to the rest!

[happy40]

That was quick..Thanks...we are trying to decide between Magic and Dream...only the ac has us leaning toward the Magic.

[bigman01]

Since this is the Dream, I gotta ask...how was the air conditioning?

 

I don't wanna hijack malmo28's great review, but wanted to respond to this. I was also on this sailing, and I was (un)lucky enough to get one of the infamous warm cabins on the Dream. I was on the Lido deck (#10276), and the room was just never cool enough. I wouldn't say it was hot, but it definitely was warm. Luckily, I had brought a fan, so that made it tolerable. Friends that also went were in the cabin next door, and they also complained all week about their room being hot.

 

So, the rumors we've heard about some cabins being warm/hot are, sadly, true.

 

malmo288, sorry for the brief interuption. Enjoying your review so far!!

[malmo288]

I don't wanna hijack malmo28's great review, but wanted to respond to this. I was also on this sailing, and I was (un)lucky enough to get one of the infamous warm cabins on the Dream. I was on the Lido deck (#10276), and the room was just never cool enough. I wouldn't say it was hot, but it definitely was warm. Luckily, I had brought a fan, so that made it tolerable. Friends that also went were in the cabin next door, and they also complained all week about their room being hot.

 

So, the rumors we've heard about some cabins being warm/hot are, sadly, true.

 

malmo288, sorry for the brief interuption. Enjoying your review so far!!

 

Interruption is welcome! Thank you for sharing! My review is to help people know what to expect and I didn't experience the hot room at all. I'm glad you could share some insight on this as well! I would say it doesn't hurt to bring a fan if you do decide to travel on the Dream. The hot room review didn't come from just one or two people complaining. We were lucky, I guess. :)

[malmo288]

So there is something I'd like to include in this review because I learned about it from here but I don't want to offend anyone and I also don't want to have any negative comments about it either. If it doesn't help you, then I'm sorry to waste your time but if it does then I'm glad I included it. I want to leave as detailed of a review that I can and with that said... that brings me to the topic of Rum Runners or bringing alcohol on board separate from the allowed amounts of wine.

 

I have to admit, just before we set sail we were getting worried that our luggage hadn't arrive yet. I was fully prepared to receive a naughty letter calling me to the principal's office because of the alcohol that was in my luggage. We brought it in two different ways. We had success on our first cruise bringing alcohol in a white, non see-through, bottle of mouthwash. Since we knew that worked we went ahead and tried to pack it again. That bottle went in my BF's luggage. The rum runner went in mine. We used the half gallon size, filled it with a bottle of rum and it still didn't come close to the 80% capacity that they tell you not to exceed when packing for a cruise. This I packed in between my clothes and the little spout(which looks similar to a tube of toothpaste or something of the sort) I hid under my toiletry bag hoping that it would blend right in as it scanned. My BF's brother and wife packed some in their suitcase as well. I'm not exactly sure how they packed it but all of our luggage came through without a hitch. As I'm sure you all know, alcohol can be a bit expensive on the ship so it was nice to be able to fix a drink out of our stash and save some money. With that said, yes I did still buy alcohol because its almost impossible not to. Bringing your own alcohol on is nice and does save some money but it is also very inconvenient to have to keep going back to your room to get a drink.

 

This is all I will say on this subject because I know it is a touchy subject but I did want to include it for those who will have the same questions I did. Feel free and ask anything else you want to know about this. I just don't want to talk anymore about it without request out of respect for those of you who aren't fond of people bringing on their own alcohol.

 

Another random, but more appropriate thing to talk about is the tv in the room. My BF brought an HDMI cable in hopes that the tv would have a hookup so that we could plug the laptop in and watch movies while we were getting ready or getting in bed. Good news is the tv did have an HDMI port. Bad news is Carnival blocks the tv so that you can't change the output or input or whichever it is so that all you can watch is whatever they have on tv.

 

And something I ended up wishing we brought was a power strip because there simply aren't enough plugs in the room. I read someone recommending to bring it and I remember thinking to myself, "we don't bring that many electronics. the whole point of a cruise is to escape from these electronics that otherwise rule our lives and enjoy the people we see all the time but sometimes take for granted." Thats a nice thought isn't it? Except the electronics I needed to have plugged in were much needed to capture all the beautiful memories or entertain(like a kindle) or do my hair with! We were constantly fighting for outlets when I did my hair the GoPro camera had to be disconnected. Or when my camera had to be charged something else had to be unplugged. My phone got used as the alarm so that needed charging too. It was all just a hot mess trying to figure who would get to plug when and then making sure the bathroom lights stayed on so that whatever was charging in there would charge completely.

 

Also, one of my favorite things in the room that I never thought I'd use is that super thick oversized robe! I loved wrapping myself in it after every shower as I got ready. The sleeves were too long for me so I had to fold them up. But Camelia, our room steward, was so amazing that when I would leave my robe on the floor so she could exchange it she started to role up my sleeves for me. If anyone gets her for their room steward you are in EXCELLENT hands. I will share more about her later she had that big of an impact!

 

Anyway, back to Day 1.

So after the boat left we did a bit more roaming and ventured to the bar on the Promenade Deck(deck 5) just behind the Casino and next to the taste bar to have a drink before we had to get ready for dinner. On our way there, we discovered what would soon become my favorite part of the cruise. The live music. I never did catch their names although I'm sure I could go through my fun times to see them. But their were always these 2 guys that sang together and this one girl who would sing by herself usually and I could just sit and listen to them forever!! They would either play in the atrium or in the casino. Here were the two guys playing before dinner.

 

 

Finally we made it to the bar for our first drink of the cruise! I ordered my signature Pina Colada. I don't feel like vacation without it.

 

 

And I'm not sure what this frozen beauty was, could have been the hurricane wave, but this is what brother ordered.

 

Here was the beautiful, comfortable lounge people would hang out in later in the day while they enjoyed drinks and some other live music that I never really got into.

 

And then off we were to get ready for dinner. There was a welcome aboard show this day that we didn't make it to. I'm not sure it would have fit in with our dinner schedule because I don't know how long the show was. This was the only show I realized that they only had one of. It didn't matter to us that we missed it because the first day there was so many places to go and see. We didn't want to be locked in a show room just yet.

[malmo288]

 

I didn't take a picture of the menu or what we ate every night because I found them to be exactly the same as what you find on www . zydecocruiser . net. Here they have pictures of food and all the menus including drink menus. I did find the menu to be out of order at least on our cruise it was a different order, So I will point out the differences when they come.

 

People would wear almost anything to dinner. Especially on the casual nights. I like to dress up so the "nice" nights were never really that different for me then the casual nights. Here was my first night outfit.

 

me and my babe.

 

 

So for dinner, we got to meet our wait staff. We had table number 354. And we had service from Luis(the main waiter), Agus, and Alejandro. All 3 of these gentlemen were excellent! We looked forward to seeing them for dinner when the time came. We did miss dinner one day and felt bad that we wouldn't get to see them. They were really great at remembering your name, what bread you like out of the basket(and how many), your eating habits(whether you were a plate cleaner or not) and if you are someone who orders seconds and sometimes thirds they got really good at predicting what you would order before you did and already had it ready. If you get these guys for your wait staff, never worry about anything as far as your dinner is concerned and listen to what they recommend to eat too. They were always right.

 

The first night my BF ordered the linguini with italian sausage, bell peppers and mushrooms for his appetizer(I had it for my main dish) We both enjoyed this dish. He had the Sweet & Sour Shrimp for his main course and liked that as well. I had the fried chicken tenders & marinated cucumber lettuce for my appetizer and I actually really enjoyed the dipping sauce with my chicken. But then again, how do you mess up chicken tenders?

 

And then came what I had been itching for since my last Carnival Cruise!!! Dessert. Warm Chocolate Melting Cake!!

 

 

I even found the recipe from someone who had done the Behind the Scenes tour. I haven't made it yet, but I am so excited to try. I tried a couple different desserts and always wished I had gotten my melting cake instead. Nothing compares to this deliciousness!

 

[malmo288]

After dinner we made our way to the comedy club to watch a show. We did stand in line waiting for the other show to get out but the good news is that on the Dream, they clear out the Burgundy Lounge(on deck 5 in the back) after every show. So everyone gets an opportunity to see a show. When I traveled on the Magic a couple years ago, I remember there were shows that we couldn't get seats to because people would just sit and watch every single show. So this "clear house" thing was a good thing in my eyes. I can see how it would be annoying if you wanted to watch the next show too, but the lines always filed into the comedy club and there was still plenty of room left over for those who wanted to come back to watch the next show. Don't wait too long to get to a show though, usually around 5 minutes to show time the place filled up.

 

 

This guy was funny. We really enjoyed him. He was one that would poke fun at the audience to bring him to the next joke. His name was Jeff Jena.

After the show and playing around in the casino and such we got hungry for a midnight snack before bed, so we headed to get pizza.

 

 

 

They didn't have any of the fancy pizza's ready that late at night. Usually pepperoni is the most popular of the pizza, but we ordered the Margherita and the Prosciutto pizza. My BF said both were very tasty although the Proscuitto scared me with all of the greens.

 

We returned to our room to find this little guy and got some rest because tomorrow is another day!

[Fun62]

This is such a fun review! We'll be there in March...you're getting me very excited!!!

[cruzelover65]

You are so gorgeous too! You look like Eva Mendez. It cracks me up how you are so HAPPY in all your pics and I'm sure your boyfriend is too, but you told us he doesn't like to smile...Just makes your review that much more interesting! Lovin it! Keep it up.:)

[malmo288]

You are so gorgeous too! You look like Eva Mendez. It cracks me up how you are so HAPPY in all your pics and I'm sure your boyfriend is too, but you told us he doesn't like to smile...Just makes your review that much more interesting! Lovin it! Keep it up.:)

 

Haha I know! It looks like he's miserable and I'm having a grand old time and while he is bored to tears. But he really was having fun. You will get to see him smile once. And I'll tell the story behind it cause it was actually a live laugh caught on camera. I'm glad your enjoying my review and thanks for the compliments. :D