A Winter Escape: Dream Edition

[tbmrt]

Just booked the Dream for 9/18/16. Haven't cruised Carnival in years....Also, not a big fan of unruly kids. However, we wanted to combine NO with a cruise for DH birthday so decided on the Dream.

 

Can you please tell me if you had any sun in your cove balcony. We booked 2325.

 

Thanks so much for your great review.

[Indytraveler83]

I hope you are feeling better today :) I am bored at work, so looking forward to your next installment!

 

I'm gonna try to put another chapter up tonight. No promises though, still feeling pretty drained, sorry!

[Indytraveler83]

Just booked the Dream for 9/18/16. Haven't cruised Carnival in years....Also, not a big fan of unruly kids. However, we wanted to combine NO with a cruise for DH birthday so decided on the Dream.

 

Can you please tell me if you had any sun in your cove balcony. We booked 2325.

 

Thanks so much for your great review.

 

The Cove balconies get plenty of light, but very little direct sunshine (only right at sunrise or sunset). Jacob is very fair skinned so this was great for him. The views are amazing but you'll never get a tan on the balcony.

[MasonsMom]

We followed your Elation thread last year as we sailed her right after you. (In March 2015). Now we are doing the Dream right after you (in March 2016). Good timing. I'm looking forward to reading the whole thing.

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[tkportersat]

That's ok, get better first!

I'm entertaining myself with the heated "check in" thread :eek:

 

I'm gonna try to put another chapter up tonight. No promises though, still feeling pretty drained, sorry!

[cincicruisers]

Anxiously awaiting your next installment. Great review.

[cursor2012]

Loving the review!

 

My sister, mother and I will be sailing on the Dream in April. We wanted Mom to experience sailing down the Mississippi. I hadn't even thought about passing another cruise ship until I saw your picture. Checked it out and the Triumph will be leaving from NOLA as we are returning. I'm going to have to follow the marine traffic that night to get an idea of the time passing. Thanks for the idea.

[Indytraveler83]

Alright guys, feeling a little better today. Lets see if I can't finish at least our day in Roatan!

[Indytraveler83]

Mahogany Bay Pt 2:

 

We returned to the ship briefly to change (and Jacob showered for a reason I still can't understand), put on real shoes and then headed back out to shore. It was about 2 PM, and debarking the ship again was sort of weird. Staff seemed confused that we wanted back off the ship (doesn't anyone go back for lunch, then get back off?) even though there were still 3 hours left in the port.

 

We finally figured out how to get off the ship, and we made our way to the gangway. Attempting to enter the gangway was a woman on a mobility scooter. She was struggling mightily to get onto the gangway ramps, and a few staff members were trying to assist her. As she hit the railing repeatedly she was shouting at the Carnival employees and just overall very upset at her struggle. I felt sorry for one employee she almost backed up over. After finally getting back on the ship, she unleashed a stream of profanity about how unsafe the who procedure was.

 

I felt bad, as these ramps clearly aren't made for mobility scooters, but wished she would have let the employees help her navigate them safely, rather than running them over. Anyways, we got back off the ship and quickly headed into the little port village to do some shopping! Or... not.

 

The beach here is beautiful, the drinks are good and the nature paths are fantastic. The port village is well developed and pretty. But there just isn't anyone there. Yes, there are the chain diamond stores, the jewelry shops and the Del Sol t shirts you can find at each and every port, but as far as local flair, there is only a small arts building on the edge where local vendors set up little booths.

 

We bought some chocolate from a woman letting us sample some very good (or extremely bitter if you bit into the wrong bar) chocolate. It was a tad expensive but very delicious. I tried to buy some cool metal figures that were made of recovered metal, but when I tried to negotiate the price (he told me his prices were flexible), the vendor first doubled, then tripled the price on the tag. I guess the prices were extremely flexible, just not in my favor!

 

We stepped outside of the port village briefly, to see if there was something more authentically local to visit, but it looked like a long road from the port, and we were under 2 hours from sail away, so we politely turned down the line of taxis and walked back in. After that, we walked along the beach, got some drinks, then I caught a huge shrimp!

Ok, maybe it was just a huge piece of fiberglass. But we had fun messing around with the various picture opportunities laying around the port. Finally the heat got to us, we got a little tired and grumpy, and headed back to the ship.

 

Once on the ship, we ordered room service immediately as we were absolutely starving! This time we each ordered a sandwich, a salad, a piece of cake, a can of ginger ale and then a basket of fries and some cookies to share. We dropped, utterly exhausted on the bed, but within minutes room service had a towering tray of food ready for us. We took it to the balcony to watch sail away, and devoured our food while watching beautiful Roatan fade away.

 

Soon after I decided it was my turn for a shower, and got in. The drain was acting up badly, and I was trying to turn the water on and off, but it simply wasn't going down. I guess guest services hadn't made this a priority. I thought I'd won this little game of "Don't spill the shower water" but then the ship turned sharply, tilted, and the whole contents of the shower pan came rushing out of the shower, onto the bathroom floor and careened toward the stateroom carpet. I lunged out of the shower and threw down the white towels, but this didn't help much. I ran out of the bathroom and grabbed the big beach towels and made a barrier out of them on the bathroom floor. It was only later that I wondered if anyone on land had seen my fully naked sprint through the cabin!

 

I got dressed and was prepared to head back up to guest services when I encountered Jimmy in the hallway. He asked how my day was, and I told him it was fantastic, except that my stateroom was now a swimming pool. He immediately pulled a phone out of his pocket, and within minutes someone was heading into our room. Jacob and I vacated the soggy mess and headed up to the casino to make some more donations to the one armed bandits.

 

Our energy wore out very quickly, so we made our way back to our room. It had only been about 30 minutes, but the bathroom was clean, the towels had all been replaced and everything was dry. We would not encounter another issue with the shower drain for the rest of the cruise. Score another point for Jimmy!

 

We laid down on the bed and watched a movie for a little while, then headed up to the Encore Lounge to see the gameshow hosted by Jase. Jase selected some audience members and started out with tons of energy and some good jokes. But as the show wore on, his energy faded, his jokes died away and he started to seem like he was in a hurry. He picked one teenager to be a trivia contestant, and the kid clearly had no clue what he was doing, but also was having the time of his life. It was funny, but Jase grew impatient, and the whole show ended quite awkwardly.

 

From there we headed to dinner... but not the MDR. The steak was the only attractive looking menu item, but we didn't trust the MDR to get it to us anything less than well done. We also couldn't stomach the idea of hearing "On the Conquest..." again tonight. We were both sunburned, growing tired and grouchy, and simply not in the mood. Its not that we were having a bad day, far from it actually. But with sunburns setting in and our long day of snorkeling draining our energy, we didn't feel like dealing with people.

 

So we didn't. We went to Lido, and to our absolute delight, it was almost completely empty. Late dinner was in full swing in the dining room, and the buffet was lined with food, but no one there to eat it! Jacob went to get a plate full of pizza, and I decided to try the steak on the buffet, since they had separate sections for well done and medium rare. I grabbed some salad and a few nibbles of some other things, and we sat down.

 

The steak was actually quite good! Yes it was from a buffet line, but I couldn't believe how much better it was than what had been served in the MDR a few day prior. The salad was fresh, crisp and chilled, and the few other things I sampled were quite fantastic. We relaxed in the almost empty seating, enjoying some meal time quiet (in the Lido buffet of all places!!!) before the next show started. The dessert was good too. Even the cake:

Ok, so maybe the buffet cake was a bit smaller than that. But you get the drift right? :-)

 

We headed forward to see the Love and Marriage show. Jase seemed to be re-energized and selected a young couple on their honeymoon, a couple in their middle years, and a very very very old couple who had been married 69 years.

 

The dynamic on stage was utterly hilarious. We weren't sure why the young couple wanted to be selected, as they were a bit guarded and not very eager to divulge any personal details. Jase, as well as the middle aged couple took a lot of shots at them during the show. The middle aged woman suffered from fits of giggling, and probably didn't stop the entire show. Just when she would start to quiet down, Jase would ask her a question, and the whole fit of teary eyed laughter would erupt from her again. She intently scribbled down what seemed like paragraphs to every answer while in near hysterics. The laughter was infectious and the whole audience became subject to waves of uncontrollable giggles and fits.

 

Now the elderly couple were absolutely adorable. The gentleman was a WW2 veteran and they both struggled to hear Jase when he asked questions. Jase would then go right up to them and speak into their ears. The results were hilarious. The woman's face when she heard the questions was priceless. Her eyes would get wide, her lips would perk up into a smirk, then a smile, then a laugh. She wrote down answers I wasn't sure even my own grandmother would say! The moment of the night though, was when Jase asked "What is something you want to be smaller, and something bigger on your wife?" to the elderly man. The man spoke into Jase's ear, and a confused look came across his face.

 

"Does anyone know what Hang Me Downs are?" Jase asked. The middle aged woman on stage almost fell to the floor in a fit of tears and laughter, and the whole audience erupted.

 

After the show, we decided to head up to the RedFrog Beach Party on Lido. There weren't anymore shows, any comedy or even anything going on in the piano bar or clubs that night. Rather odd. We arrived to Lido and expected to find a packed deck. There were 4 people. Literally. One couple danced on the Lido deck like a party raged around them. Two others stood with drinks in hand. Staff was there and ready for a party, but no one came. We decided it must have been the heat and sun that day. The whole ship seemed asleep already. We decided to take the hint, went back to our stateroom, packed a bag, and drifted off to sleep, with thoughts of Belize.

 

Up Next: Jungles, Ghost Stories, and our discovery of our favorite place on the ship!

[Indytraveler83]

Belize Pt 1:

 

Alright, so let me start a little with expectations here. Last year we had an absolutely awful experience in Progreso. We were harassed to no end by deceptive vendors and frightening beggars. Twice our tour guide seemed to not take count and nearly leave people behind, and even our tour guides spent a long bus ride trying to sell us stuff, then nearly demanding we tip them at the end. We've never been so glad to get back on the ship and plan to never step foot in Progreso again.

 

Fast forward to this year, and lots of research and watching this page as well as others, we got nervous, because lots of people put Belize in the same category. Add on the recent reports about rampant crime and the murder of an American journalist just weeks prior to our visit, and we were very nervous about this port.

 

Why did we even get off the ship? Well, cave tubing sounded awesome. Really once in a lifetime type of awesome. So we hunkered down for a long tender ride, a long bus ride, and kept our cameras and money in the ship safe. So sorry.. not a lot of pictures from Belize. Lets get started!

 

We woke up to see our traveling companion, the NCL Dawn anchored right by us.

Breakfast was again on the balcony, but it arrived a little late today, which caused us to really hurry to the lounge to meet up for our excursion (or so we thought). Once we got to the lounge we were handed a tender ticket and told to sit. They announced excursions would go first, and then started calling them by groups, 2 and 3 excursions at a time. Jase tried to keep the mood light, and Brian (entertainment director) showed his face for the first time in our cruise. Jase and the cruise excursion manager were doing their best to manage tender lines, and eventually ours was called. Heading out of the lounge, things got confusing. Some excursions were getting on certain tenders, while others weren't. We ended up in a wrong line, but they got it straightened out quickly.

 

Our favorite crew member, Charile was helping, and she would crack jokes whenever she saw the frustration level start to rise. My favorite being the rather dark joke of "Don't get separated from your party! You'll never see them again. Ever ever ever ever again!"

 

Thankfully the water was extremely calm today and the tender boat skimmed across the turquoise waters quickly and easily. Whenever we did hit waves, it was funny to watch as half the passengers playfully cheered and acted as if they were on a roller coaster, while the other half groaned and looked sick. We got to the pier quickly, and then were led, rather cattle-like into another large mass of humanity waiting at the edge of the port village for a bus. Here we finally got divided into our groups, and after the fact I realized that as confused and frustrated as I was, I was never in any danger of missing my tour. I simply had no clue what was going on, but they did.

 

We got onto our bus, which looked like an old school bus which was air conditioned, but the air conditioning had been added after the fact, and it was almost a game the whole trip to see how many screws fell off the ductwork. Despite the aging bus, the tour guide was friendly and energetic, welcomed us to Belize and began immediately giving us history, information and plenty of jokes.

 

We had a sort of tense moment as we headed out of the city when we stopped at a checkpoint. The guide asked us all if we had our passports and a few people cringed. The checkpoint guard stepped onto the bus, looked around, then asked for a headcount and stepped off. From there we drove out of the city and into the countryside. Belize is a poor country, and it was interesting and a little sad to see where some people lived. Our tour guide showed us "the best middle school in Belize" and it looked more like a run down motel. But at the same time there was a lot of construction, a lot of activity and a lot of people at work. We saw little evidence of beggars as we drove through various small towns.

 

Now as we go even further into the countryside it got absolutely beautiful. Green mountains rose out of nowhere. Our guide explained that Belize was once at the bottom of a great reef system, and many of these mountains were formed by volcanic activity millions of years ago. The terrain got steep, and eventually we turned off the paved road onto a bright orange gravel road.

 

Monkeys! Suddenly monkeys were everywhere and we wished we had our cameras. They ran across the road, they approached the bus and the driver had to swerve around them to continue down the road. Then suddenly, they were gone. The road got worse, and I was beginning to wonder if I'd start to loose teeth. Eventually we parked in a little station and given the option to rent lockers and change. We then loaded up into a couple of small, old city buses and taken on what appeared to be impassible roads. We were sort of stunned that a bus of all vehicles could navigate these rocky roads. Finally we arrived at a small clearing, got off the bus and were given helmets.

 

We were broken up into groups of 7 or 8 and assigned a tour guide. Ours was an energetic young man who began speaking about the jungle we stood in. And when I say jungle, I don't mean a paved clearing among trees. We were in the jungle, deep in a real, true jungle. We walked on a path that hugged the edge of a mountain pass (but with very safe railing). Sheer cliffs, deep valleys and ancient trees stood all around us. He explained various wild life to us, and at one point coaxed a tarantula the size of my hand out of a hole for photo ops (Why didn't I bring my camera!!!!)

 

A zipline ran above us as we walked, and while we enjoyed the breathtaking views on our walk, we sort of wished we had paid the extra to do the tour that included the zipline. Eventually we walked into Jaguar Cave, and soon learned the reason it is called that is because jaguars pass through the cave at night to go from one valley to another. Jaguar prints were everywhere in the mud. A few exhibits were set up in the cave showing Mayan pottery ruins that showed the Mayans used this cave too. We exited the cave and were shortly upon the river.

 

It was only once we arrived at the river that we had to grab our tubes. We'd heard of people having to carry them for the whole walk on other excursions. We chose Darknight Cave Tubing from the Carnival website, and I can tell you that they do not make you carry them. This is a good thing too, as the terrain is not easy on the walk to the river. I've hiked some pretty crazy trails, and it was nothing to me, but one middle aged woman in our group needed a lot of assistance from the guide to navigate the trail.

 

We picked our tubes, they were linked up and we plopped down into the cool river. Soon we were off. We went down a few turns in the river before the cave opened up before us. Being the dry season, the river moved slowly and the tubing was a relaxing slow pace. Our guide did almost all of the steering, only asking us to push off of a rock wall here and there.

 

I've never seen a river fed cave before, and seeing it from the river point of view was stunning. Again, I wished so badly I'd brought my camera. We entered the cave, turned on our spotlights and looked around. This was the second time on our trip I felt like I had left planet Earth. I've never been anywhere like this, and was just memorized by the water carved walls and the clear river. Our tour guide grew concerned with our silence and we had to explain to him that we were all just in a bit of shock.

 

Then he asked us to turn out our lights. Blackness surrounded us like never before. It wasn't dark, it wasn't shady, it was pure black. I couldn't tell if I had my eyes open or not, and couldn't see fingers in front of my face. It was now that the tour guide switched tones and went from his informative cheery self, to a bit darker. He explained that when times got tough, the Mayans committed human sacrifice and that these caves were considered the underworld of the Gods. He talked about how sacrifices would be taken deep into these caves, then given to the Gods. These very caves may have been host to dark rituals. It gave us goosebumps, and was truly a cool (if not creepy) thing to realize you were in the underworld of an ancient civilization.

 

Exiting the cave was beautiful too, as it looked like rocks has simply collapsed and given way, opening a sudden window into the jungle. We were then taken back onto a bus and delivered back to our lockers. The bigger bus then took us on a short journey to a small tropical restaurant where we were served food and given some shopping opportunities. I was pleased that this shopping was very low pressure and no one tried hard to get you to buy anything unless you stood right at their table and showed interest. There was a ton of cool handmade stuff, but I'd brought very little money and settled for a bag of banana chips for the bus ride back.

 

The ride back was very uneventful and I'm pretty sure we fell asleep through part of it. They dropped us off right at the port, and it was only in that short space between the bus and the port that we encountered our first beggars. We quickly got into the port and got in line for a tender boat.

 

Now we had a fantastic experience in Belize. It was nothing like Progreso, and we enjoyed the beauty of the jungle, mountains and caves. Our tour guide was fun and energetic, nothing like the high pressure salesman we had from Progreso. But here is one thing I do recommend: Do this excursion through the ship.

 

We were told the last tender left at 4:15, and the ship would sail away at 5. We got into port at 4:25. The tender line was very long, and it was close to 5 PM before we even boarded a tender. There was only 1 tender that sailed back to the ship after us, and it was right behind us. The caves are so far from the ship, I would have been nervous the whole time if I weren't in a Carnival excursion. We were very late, but we were never worried.

 

We got onto the ship, and it was moving not long after we got back to our room. Hungry, we eagerly ordered room service. We were told it would take 20 minutes to get our food, which still seems crazy fast to us. We looked outside and the weather had turned very ominous:

Our food arrived in far less than 20 minutes, and we curled up to eat what we had deemed "second lunch" in bed. Something about having warm sandwiches delivered directly to our room after a long day at port had struck a chord with us, and the timing was perfect the whole cruise. We would take our showers, and the food would arrive either during a shower, or immediately after we were done. We would turn on the TV, relax and eat hot food in bed as we rested.

 

On the Elation, we had only used room service for breakfast. What a mistake! We got to the point that our room service staff knew us better than anyone on the ship. Once we learned how nice it was, we couldn't stop calling! I mean... seriously... hot food on command. For free. Dine in the comfort of your bed or balcony whenever you want. For free. Are you kidding me?

 

Ok, rant over. But seriously... I want a sandwich right now, and I don't want to make it. Why can't I just call someone to send me a free sandwich? Stupid real life.

 

Up next: Belize Day Pt 2, food, drinks and music!!!

[tkportersat]

Sounds fun, will have to tell my husband about the cave tubing. I think he will go alone and I will stay on the ship and run the slides with my 5 year old :D

[Indytraveler83]

Sounds fun, will have to tell my husband about the cave tubing. I think he will go alone and I will stay on the ship and run the slides with my 5 year old :D

 

Your five year old will love the water slides and the whole waterworks area. I saw a lot of kids having a blast there! They even have smaller slides for kids who are too small or nervous for the big ones!

[tkportersat]

Yeah, he loves them (my husband and I do too :D )..we did the Magic last year and it pretty much has the same slides except it looks like Dream has two racing slides as well. Looking forward to trying those out. I love the addition of waterworks because it uses fresh water...On the older ships that have just the slides they use salt water and that is not pleasant in the eyes :eek: Especially when you aren't expecting it.

 

Your five year old will love the water slides and the whole waterworks area. I saw a lot of kids having a blast there! They even have smaller slides for kids who are too small or nervous for the big ones!

[sheltry]

You're a great story teller! I'm leaving on her in two days!

[angiem0217]

Loving your review! We are on the Dream in 22 days! I am so excited. I am glad to hear the piano bar was good, that's one of our favorite places. We normally don't like the shows but will check out the dancing one you said was good. And I am really looking forward to the comedian. This will be our 7th cruise all on carnival and all out of New Orleans. We live in Mississippi so it's only a 3 hour drive. We have been on Elation twice and loved both of those cruises. We went on Conquest once and I don't remember it being any better than Elation. This is our first cruise on one of the big ships and I hope we like it. My son is 9 and looking forward to the water slides.

[josieallen]

Awesome review

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Forums mobile app

[sunluvertoo]

Thanks for the review Indytraveler83. I will be boarding the Dream on Sunday! I am starting to pack and am wondering if the public spaces on the ship were cold, sometimes I have found them to be like meat lockers on some ships! Trying to take only what I know I will wear.....just so hard for me not to overpack!

[Indytraveler83]

Thanks for the review Indytraveler83. I will be boarding the Dream on Sunday! I am starting to pack and am wondering if the public spaces on the ship were cold, sometimes I have found them to be like meat lockers on some ships! Trying to take only what I know I will wear.....just so hard for me not to overpack!

 

It seems temperatures are very subjective, but we thought it was rather chilly. There was usually a significant difference between the tropical air outside and inside. We wore sweaters about half the time.

 

The ship feels especially cold on embarkation day and the last sea day if New Orleans is cool/cold.

 

On another note, I'll get this review going again soon, I promise. Still sick and been working a lot!

[Indytraveler83]

Belize Pt 2:

 

This evening we decided to make sure we got out on the ship and had some fun. Too often we found ourselves worn out and heading to bed early, and it was time to let loose! Our jungle adventure was fun, but not too tiring, so we had the energy to get out.

 

The wind started to pick up of an evening, and stormclouds were rolling in at sundown:

 

As usual we donated a little more money to the casino and then headed to the "Viva Variety!" show, which featured Dana Tison. He was billed as a comedian and professional juggler. We took our usual seats on the upper deck and settled in for the show. It was decent, a solid B grade. He wasn't as funny as the comedians, and he wasn't as entertaining as the major shows, but he did well at both and the show featured one very big and very mean prank on an audience volunteer. It was funny, but I sorta felt for the poor guy. It was as entertaining as juggling can possibly be I think.

 

From there we headed to Lido for dinner. Again we were surprised by how hot and fresh the selections were, but we did note that they were almost the same as before, with some different soups and a few different side dishes. The steak was good, as was the pizza, salad and dessert, but I can say the potato soup was terrible, and I only took a few spoons of it before I pushed it away. After we had ice cream, we opened up the Fun Times and decided we were going to have a music night. There was a ton of music going on throughout the ship, so we started looking at our options:

 

We started with the Blackjack band, as it is raved about on the boards and everywhere we look. Their show in the ocean plaza was well attended and people were having tons of fun dancing and singing along to the music. I would say they sounded very good. But they had sort of a country flair, as did the dancing, so we decided to keep looking. In the Casino, Lexi was singing her heart out, but she was drowned out badly by the sounds of the machines. What we heard sounded good, but unless you sat right next to her, you barely heard her.

 

On the Elation, the Atrium singer was very good, so we decided to head to the Atrium to see what was going on there. Follow JC was the duo in the Atrium,and well... it sounded like a cat was being slowly tortured. I'm not sure how they got on the ship, but in a place where every musician and entertainer seemed truly talented, this sounded like a booze filled night at a karaoke bar. They were off-key and truly ruined a few songs for us before we headed away.

 

We then headed into the piano bar where Mat was playing songs on request. We quickly regretted not coming here sooner. It looked like the piano bars on most ships, with the bright piano themed counter surrounding the piano itself, and a sort of dark neon lounge feel. But the environment, at least on this sailing is exactly what we'd been searching for.

 

The other patrons had consumed just enough alcohol to be friendly, but were not yet drunk enough to be disruptive. Mat interacted with the guests quite a bit, while one bartender quickly made drinks for the bar while the other took orders and made drinks for the seating areas.

 

After our very first drink, the bartender knew us by name, and for the rest of the cruise would welcome us to the bar or tell us goodbye when we left, always addressing us by name. Both of them would sing and dance along with the music while working, and the whole group of staff felt like they truly enjoyed their time with us.

 

Mat himself was amazing. When he spoke with us, he had a strong Spanish accent, but as soon as he started singing, he was able to sound much like the artist that sang the song, putting on a deep American voice, a higher pitched feminine voice or whatever else the song called for. I saw that he had a tablet sitting on top of the piano and presumed it had sheet music on it. But eventually I realized that it only had lyrics, and even then he didn't always use it.

 

We drank (too much) and sang along (very poorly) made a few friends and even met up with two of the girls from our MDR table. They explained that the situation in the dining room had only gotten worse, and that service was taking longer and longer every day. We were happy to have avoided it.

 

That night we closed down the piano bar, with Mat singing a few farewell songs before the bar closed and we all sadly had to head out. We thought about hitting the dance club, as it was still open, but it was empty. Instead we headed down to Lido for some snacks, and we marveled at how well we negotiated the stairs after drinking so heavily.

 

The pizza station was in full tilt. There wasn't much of a line, but the guys were very busy trying to push pizza out to all of the guests who had just left various lounges and parties. We didn't want to wait for a particular pizza, so were plenty happy when he offered us a pepperoni pizza fresh out of the oven. We sat down, ate it, then had ice cream. And then Jacob had more ice cream. And then more. And then more. Apparently drinking makes him very hungry...

 

We eventually wandered down to our room where I had run completely out of energy. I brushed my teeth really quick, then headed to bed. As I started to fall asleep, I heard Jacob pick up the phone, "Yes, Hello, I'd like a chocolate cake, and cookies, and...."

 

Up next: High winds, lots of mud, and Cozumel!

[KC ChaCha]

Thanks for the great review. Jacob doesn't look like he could eat like that, lol.

[Indytraveler83]

Thanks for the great review. Jacob doesn't look like he could eat like that, lol.

 

He's the first to tell you he's a fat kid at heart. Just today he sat down on the couch with a bottle of pancake syrup and was sipping it. No idea how I outweigh him!

 

Working on a family booking right now for next year, but I will keep going on this review. Still 3 days left to review!

[pirate4me2]

Omg your last two posts cracked me up about Jacob and his eating habits. That's just too funny.

Great review, I am really enjoying following along!

[tkportersat]

That is funny that you say that, my husband tells me I am the thinnest fat girl he has ever met :eek: Trust me, I am not skinny by any means, but he tells me based on the way I eat I should be much bigger than I am.

 

He's the first to tell you he's a fat kid at heart. Just today he sat down on the couch with a bottle of pancake syrup and was sipping it. No idea how I outweigh him!

 

Working on a family booking right now for next year, but I will keep going on this review. Still 3 days left to review!

[sunluvertoo]

It seems temperatures are very subjective, but we thought it was rather chilly. There was usually a significant difference between the tropical air outside and inside. We wore sweaters about half the time.

 

The ship feels especially cold on embarkation day and the last sea day if New Orleans is cool/cold.

 

On another note, I'll get this review going again soon, I promise. Still sick and been working a lot!

 

Thanks I will for sure pack a couple of sweaters now! Really enjoying your review, sure hope you are feeling better.

[cruzin Phillis]

Sea Day 2:

 

Funtimes: http://i307.photobucket.com/albums/nn317/campin1983/Mobile%20Uploads/image_zpswk7htg5f.jpg

 

We woke up and the ship had oddly slowed down considerably. I looked outside and saw the Carnival Freedom trailing directly behind us. Looking out, we saw land coming up fast, with several ships docked. We were heading right for the dock. I was confused and rather alarmed.

 

My first thought was that something had gone wrong on the ship. Seeing another Carnival ship trailing so closely behind us and an unannounced port stop smelled like a problem with the ship. As I walked around the stateroom in a state of confusion, room service knocked on the door. Hot coffee, yogurt and fresh fruit awaited us (we usually eat a very light breakfast). I asked the man delivering the tray if he knew what was going on, and he simply responded with "no problems."

 

So we sat outside on the balcony watching as the ship grew closer to the dock, with the Freedom growing ever closer behind us. As we neared the dock, Jase made an announcement that a medial emergency had occured late in the night, and they had changed course to take someone to the hospital.

 

A mix of relief and sadness hit both of us. On one hand, we were glad that the Dream was ok, and that the issue would not further affect our cruise. On the other, how horrible would it be to look forward to a cruise for months, only to get to enjoy one day of it, then end up in a Mexican hospital?

 

We took our showers, and while I was taking mine, the ship began final maneuvering toward the dock. This combined with a very slow shower drain resulted in a small flood. As the ship listed ever so slightly during a turn, the 2 inches of water in the shower pan flowed over the lip and into the bathroom. That water in turn rushed toward the door to the stateroom, and I flung myself out of the shower and began tossing towels onto the ground.

 

When someone designed a multi million dollar ship with state of the art navigation, a luxury spa and all sorts of other expensive and advanced systems, how did they get away with this bathroom floor design? The shower is THE highest point in the entire stateroom. Once water makes it past the lip, it flows downhill into a bathroom that has no drain, and then onto a carpeted stateroom floor. I spent the rest of the cruise wondering what fools approved that design, and how no one has ever thought changes might be beneficial.

 

Anyways, after soaking ever towel in the stateroom, we both got showered and headed up toward the waterslides (after stopping at guest services to mention the bathroom drain), where we again slid down them like fools until kids greatly outnumbered us. At one point, several very young children pushed past the rest of the line and tried to jump in front of us as we prepared to use the slides. It left us feeling very awkward, as it was our turn, but we were also adults, and these were fun loving little kids. What was the appropriate thing to do? Apparently the slide attendant had already dealt with them, and he grabbed them and lectured them about line jumping. We were thankful he was taking charge, because it otherwise would have been a very weird situation.

 

We then retreated to Serenity like the day before, and I shot a few pictures of the Freedom, since she now was sliding up right next to us. My favorite is this angled shot of the Freedom's funnel against the sun:

 

And then Serenity got awkward. We were laying on loungers, when a couple of women asked us if we would mind trading with us, so they could lay next to their friends. This wasn't a big deal, and we traded. But the group grew and grew, and pretty soon they were re-arraigning the entire Serenity deck, grabbing every empty chair or lounger they could find, creating a weird brick of loungers and circle of chairs and couch pieces. Furniture was lifted over us, and this group grew louder and louder. The staff didn't seem to care, and eventually the sounds of dragging chairs and cackling women ruined the "serenity."

 

We headed out and looked for a good spot on lido. We tried the pools, but kids kept running into us, even kicking us. We got out and tried to find spaces on lido, but it was absolutely packed with bodies. The aft area was much the same. We then tried our hand at mini-golf, which should have been fun, but the group in front of us was letting their kids run amok on the course, and twice nearly hit us with clubs.

 

The Fun Times offered us little help either, as all of the mid day activities were seminars and sales pitches ("but don't forget to purchase fine art for greatly discounted prices" Jase's voice reminded us on announcements). The lone activities we might be interested in were the far too intense triva contests and making donations to the casino. And visiting the casino while already frustrated is a bad plan.

 

We ate on Lido, but Jacob spent an eternity waiting for a cold hot dog, and my Tandoor tasted like it had been made the day before. We ate very little of lunch, and then went to the lido restaurant to get ice cream, only to find most machines with a long line and the other occupied by a large woman filling a salad bowl with ice cream. She didn't just fill the bowl, but filled it way over the top like an ice cream cone. Great use of a SALAD bowl. The machine struggled to even fill it. We left without any ice cream.

 

To be honest, this was the low point of our cruise. There weren't very many kids on board, but this day they were all on the decks, all under little or no supervision, and all running, screaming and running into people without any consequences. We were frustrated, even angry. We didn't pay to get on a ship with other people's unruly children slamming into us at every turn. We were just about at the point of shouting at random parents, and I even outwardly swore on the golf course that if one of the kids actually hit me with a golf club, I'd be returning the favor (terrible idea I never would have actually followed through with, but I was hoping the parents would overhear it and reign in their children).

 

I think this is the point in which some people say "my cruise was ruined!!!" and then let the rest of the trip get destroyed by repeating the same things. We instead went back to our room and decided to make a few rules.

1) Lido and Serenity are off limits from noon till 6.

2) Visit adult only areas of the ship more often

3) Make generous use of the balcony we'd paid extra to enjoy.

 

We then ordered room service, since we'd had very little of our quite awful lunch. Thankfully they showed up in less than 10 minutes, which was probably because everyone was filling salad bowls with ice cream on lido, leaving them with little to do. Jacob ordered a reuben sandwich, which arrived hot and delicious. I ordered a BLT, and received a BBBBLT. Again, the bacon police were nowhere to be found. The chocolate cake was a welcome relief as well. We watched a movie on the TV and ate in bed. When we were done we cracked open a bottle of wine and relaxed on the balcony for a few hours.

 

This is the point we realized something about cruising. We love it, we really do. But the packed crowd on lido is not at all for us. We hate the environment, we hate the noise, and we absolutely hate the unruly children. However, we had paid for the balcony, room service is free (plus a small gratuity) and the atrium bar was just one flight of stairs and a very short walk above us. The lanai was still mostly empty, and offered 360 degree views of the ship, including the wonderful view of the wake and the always fun opportunity to stand in the wind at the front of the ship. By the time evening came around, we had shed our funk, and instead were back to having the fun we should have been.

 

The ship seemed to be picking up speed through the day, likely an attempt to make up time from the Cozumel stop. At one point the wind got pretty intense, so we ventured to the front of the ship and Jacob stood stable into the wind at quite the interesting angle:

 

Now on the Elation we so despised the shows that we twice walked out of them. Sorry... but they were truly awful. During morning announcements Jase had said that the "Dancin' in the Streets" show tonight is the best he's ever seen, and repeated that over and over through the day. We decided it was worth a try, and weren't dissapointed.

 

The trampoline act was a little old to us, but the rest of the show was very well done. The acrobatics would be impressive on dry land, but on a moving ship, the displays of balance and precision were awesome. The show was very well thought out, and the singers were great. I don't want to give away the show to those of you who haven't seen it, but I will say this: Jase's advice didn't let us down. It was very good.

 

From here we rushed to dinner, and arrived just in time to get seated. The gentlemen from New Orleans appeared friendlier, and the girls were talking our ears off, asking about the steakhouse. This seemed like a good dinner...

"We'd already have our food on the Conquest," we heard, as the older couple made their way to the seats. GREAT.

 

The dinner service was fair, but at one point we got this great exchange:

Woman at our table: "The french onion soup is great tonight"

Older man: "It was much better on the Conquest."

His wife: "My soup was very good too, I'm not sure what your talking about."

Older man: "Yours had more cheese in it. They wouldn't make them different on the Conquest."

 

I wanted to pour his soup right over his balding head. He proceeded to tell us that the Conquest was almost the exact same size as the Dream, but the Conquest only held 2,000 passengers, while the Dream held 4,500. Um... really? Because the Conquest actually holds just under 3,000 and the Dream holds 3,650. The Dream holds more, but not twice as many.

 

He then went on to make other wild claims about his dear beloved Conquest. We all ordered dessert, and I was getting impatient as Caroline Picard's comedy show was about to start. I wasn't any happier when the dessert arrived. Our New Orleans residents had ordered 6 desserts between them, and the rest of the table had all ordered 1 each. The assistant waiter carried 3 huge trays one at a time from another room. What was our head waiter doing? He was resetting menus for the next day. We were the absolute last table to be served, and he was already getting a jump on tomorrow, instead of making us feel important in any way. AWESOME.

 

Dessert arrived and we began eating it.

"This would be better on the Conquest!"

DONE. ABSOLUTELY DONE. We both stood straight up from the table and walked out mid dessert. Our day hadn't gone well for the most part, and we were sick of both this dining staff and this irritating man. This was our final visit to the MDR for dinner. We had simply had enough.

 

We ran to the comedy club, and got in just in time before they closed the doors. Thankfully the club is huge and we still got seats. Drink service was prompt (we needed it!!). Caroline Picard took the stage and sent us into another bout of laughter that we couldn't control. Alcohol eased our irritated souls and pretty soon we had forgotten our roughest day of cruising yet, and were relaxed in our booth drinking cocktails and laughing. On our way back we patrolled the outside decks, only to find that everyone was gone. Even the dive in movie only had about half the chairs full.

 

 

We packed our bags for Mahogany Bay and went to bed fairly early, in the hopes of resting up for our first port day.

 

Summary: I realize I've complained a lot in this entry. It truly was the worst single day of cruising we've ever had. It was a day that we admitted we understand why some people criticize Carnival so harshly and abandon it for more "formal" lines. The Dream did not show her best side this day, nor did her passengers. But we also realized something else. We love our Funships. The water slides, the inappropriate comedy shows and the general laid back attitude. We don't want to give that up. The simple fact is, that ships like the Dream offer tons of places to go and things to do that are away from the chaos of the main group. Just because you don't enjoy lido or the tiny pools doesn't mean you don't enjoy the ship. In fact, our balcony and room service were a high point of the day. We decided from now on to make cruising our experience, and not the experience everyone else was having.

 

Up Next: Mahogany Bay, goofy pictures and "hang me downs"

Love the review so far. Look there is nothing wrong with wanting to get your money worth. You worked hard and you earned it. I love carnival as well but would love it if they implement something so that parents can do a better job of monitoring their kids.