A Winter Escape: Dream Edition

[Yankeegirl]

Enjoying your review...we will be on the Dream March 20th. :)

[SmittyCo]

Mahogany Bay Pt 1:

 

 

 

I sound starstruck, because we really were. For some of you reading this you probably think "Oh, I've been there, I'm sure its better in blah blah island, or on this reef we were on." And you are probably right. But for two guys who can barely afford a vacation, and can rarely even make it to the ocean, we were in a whole different world. It was nothing we've ever experienced before and nothing we'd ever seen. As far from everyday life as it gets. For a little while, it was just us and this magnificent reef. Of the five hours we were on that island, we spent well over 3 of it in the water. We just couldn't get enough.

 

 

THIS!!!! You really need to try scuba diving ... this is how I feel each and every time we go! It's fabulous!!!!

 

P.S. I LOVED the steakhouse. The service, ambiance, and food were excellent.

 

Cove balconies are the best. Next time, set your phone outside overnight, and record the ocean. We listen to it everynight!

 

Hawaii is beautiful. If you are on Oahu, go to Hanauma Bay to snorkel. It is a wildlife reserve ... and absolutely stunning. It's only $7 to go in. We went our last day there, and wish we had gone first - we would've gone EVERYDAY!

[Indytraveler83]

THIS!!!! You really need to try scuba diving ... this is how I feel each and every time we go! It's fabulous!!!!

 

P.S. I LOVED the steakhouse. The service, ambiance, and food were excellent.

 

Cove balconies are the best. Next time, set your phone outside overnight, and record the ocean. We listen to it everynight!

 

Hawaii is beautiful. If you are on Oahu, go to Hanauma Bay to snorkel. It is a wildlife reserve ... and absolutely stunning. It's only $7 to go in. We went our last day there, and wish we had gone first - we would've gone EVERYDAY!

 

I wanna scuba so bad!

 

I think we are snorkeling somewhere in Hawaii, but Mr. Big Shot hasn't given us many details! The control freak in me has issues with this!

[SmittyCo]

Enjoying your review...we will be on the Dream March 20th. :)

 

Us too! :) Are you on the CC roll call? Or our social media page?

 

We do room service for coffee and lox and bagels ... we will have to check it out for other meals.

 

Progreso is horrible .... we don't get off the boat there anymore.

 

We love to sit on the lanai deck .... so many less people.

 

I hope you went to a sea day brunch!

[SmittyCo]

I wanna scuba so bad!

 

I think we are snorkeling somewhere in Hawaii, but Mr. Big Shot hasn't given us many details! The control freak in me has issues with this!

 

OMG ... I am SUCH a planner/control freak/OCD'er on trips. It's bad .... lol.

[cschwall]

This is a great review!!! I can't wait for more!

[movingimages]

Just today he sat down on the couch with a bottle of pancake syrup and was sipping it. No idea how I outweigh him!

 

That's hilarious! Is he related to Elf?

 

Continuing to enjoy your review.

[Indytraveler83]

Cozumel: Pt 1

 

We wake up this morning to a gloomy view out the window. It is raining hard and we can feel the ship rocking a little. The beautiful island of Cozumel is just in front of us, but it feels a little weird. The waves are crashing hard against the breakers on shore and spraying as high as the buildings. The port traffic is heavy today and we are accompanied by a large RCI ship, as well as a smaller cruise ship that I couldn't make out (older NCL or maybe an AIDA ship?).

 

We have our usual room service breakfast and get ready to head out. This is one place the cove balcony was awesome for sure. The lifeboats prevented the rain from hitting our balcony, so we got to watch it rain and rain without getting touched by the water. We have an ATV excursion today and we are plenty excited about it, especially now that we know it'll be muddy! As we head to the gangway, there is a huge line forming on the staircase, and we are told that there is a delay due to the wind, and that the Captain is trying to dock the ship. After a few minutes, Jase comes on to the speaker and says they are doing all they can to dock, but the ship has to move a little on the pier to dock safely.

 

We decide its not worth standing in line, so we head up to the coffee shop and order some coffee. We then headed out to the lanai and watch what is going on. The RCI ship pulled onto the pier next to us without too much trouble and passengers were already getting off. After straining for a view, we saw why the Dream was struggling. The aft of the ship appeared to be tight against the pier, but the front of the ship was pulling away from the dock and then banging against the pier. After a while and quite a few ropes thrown down to the pier, they announced we could now debark.

 

The late start had thrown a small wrench in our plans. The ATV excursion wasn't scheduled until 11:30, but it went until 4, with back on board being at 4:30. We thought we'd have 2 hours to wonder the port and do some shopping, but the delay left us with about an hour to shop. We rushed off the ship and headed down the dock, eager to do some shopping. Cozumel is one of our favorite shopping stops, and we were let down with the shopping in the prior ports.

 

As I made my way down the pier, a poor woman's shoe slipped on a metal part of the pier, the wind caught her as she fell and she dropped flat onto her back against the metal and cement dock. I stopped to see if she was ok, but it appeared her pride was the only thing that was injured. After helping her up, I caught back up to Jacob and we headed on, making a mental note not to step on the metal joints on the pier.

 

In Cozumel they were serious about no food or produce in port, and they were searching bags and stopping people to be sure. Jase had made an announcement about it and extra signs were posted as well. But we still saw surprised individuals removing bananas and apples from their backpacks, acting like they'd never heard or seen any of the warnings.

 

Moving into the shopping we walked up and down the pier shopping very briskly until we found the artist we'd purchased from last time. This booth features a couple of men painting either tiles or ceramic figures with their fingers, using a brush only for fine detail work. We'd purchased from them last year at a good price, but when we inquired about prices, we got sticker shock. They wanted about 40% more than we had been charged last year. We started walking away and he offered a lower price, but it was still extremely high to us. We kept walking and had a little fun taking pictures at the port:

 

Eventually Jacob found a woman selling dreamcatchers and I found a store that sells bracelets for a decent price. One thing to note, is if you purchase things that are widely available, check a few prices before buying. I wear bracelets often, and usually like what's available there. I usually pay between $1 and $3 for the ones I like. Yet the exact same items are available for $10 $15 and even more, depending on who you shop with.

 

Right before our shopping time was over, I found another couple of artists that did only spray paint work. I fell in love with a few items, and they were priced much more reasonably than the first artist I spoke with.

This first one I just couldn't pass up. We use a lot of greyscale in our home, and the colored Carnival ship on the greyscale background was too cool to ignore. It reminded me a lot of the Elation, which of course was my first ever cruise.

 

This one is a little crazy, but I just still can't believe it was done with only spray paint! As is standard practice in Cozumel, they asked if I wanted a name or date or anything added onto the picture. I said no thanks, but I did want the artist to sign his work. They seemed a little surprised, and excited. So each man signed his piece of art and shook my hand. I feel like after having a day of making Nebraska Cornhusker surfboard paintings and "Happy Birthday" on a piece of wood, they must have felt a little bit of pride that I'd selected their art and wanted them to sign it. I left rather happy with my purchases and happy with the shopping overall. Except... now we had to get our paintings back on the ship before we went to ride ATV's.

 

We rushed back onto the dock and it was everything I could do to keep the paintings from flying off in the wind. Jacob had time to snap a picture of the Dream as she fought to stay alongside the dock.

 

As we boarded, we got weird looks from staff and even asked if we were done in port already. Does no one else ever get back on the ship to put stuff away or eat or anything? We dropped stuff off and then quickly headed back to the dock to report to our excursion. Even with our shopping and unplanned trip back on ship, we'd arrived rather early. We were asked to fill out a waiver and then told the excursion would depart in a half hour.

 

Up to this point, we had been a little skeptical about the Dream's docking difficulties. It had missed Mahogany Bay a few weeks before, and gotten a lot of flack for actually missing a docked port. We were thinking "Wow, this ship really does struggle to make it's ports." Then we overheard our tour guide talking to someone from Carnival, saying that sense the other ships hadn't made it, he had more room. Turns out, we were the last ship to make it on dock, and any that came after ended up turning away. We also learned that almost all of the water excursions had been cancelled, and that Carnival was actively trying to help people find other activities. I think about 1/3 of our group ended up being people who signed up last minute.

 

We were eventually led to a bus and driven about 15 minutes to the place that we would ride ATV's. Our guides "warned" us that the trails were very muddy and had standing water in some places. Awesome. We sat down to a hilariously terrible safety video that did little to answer any of our questions. Thankfully our guides were much more helpful and essentially repeated what the video had failed to tell us. We put on helmets and prepared to ride!

 

Up next: A muddy ride, Jacob gets very close to a statue and a rocky evening.

[Indytraveler83]

Cozumel Part 2:

 

After lining up in groups, we were off on the ATV's. Yes, we did have to stay in a line with a group of about 7 other people. But Jacob and I were at the back of our group, so we would lag behind a little, get some space between us and the people in front of us, then speed through puddles and power slide through corners. About every 20 minutes we would stop and they would provide us with water and some stories about the Mayan and Mexican history of the island.

 

After each stop the terrain got muddier and steeper. At one point the trail was more rock than gravel and we had to carefully push the ATV's along the jagged surface. I don't think the poor guy in front of me really wanted to be here, and he slowed through puddles and tried to stay as clean as he could. Every now and then he looked back and gave us wild eyes when he saw us covered in mud and steering toward puddles. We were having an absolute blast carving through the jungle on these small machines!

At the end of the ride they gave us an authentic herbal tea and then chips with some salsa and optional hot sauce. This was a pleasant surprise as the excursion description said we'd get 1 bottle of water. Instead we received several bottles and a snack. Quite satisfied we were taken back onto the bus and lead to part 2 of our excursion, a beach club.

 

Now we'd read the reviews of this trip and didn't walk into the beach club expecting much. In this case, setting our expectations were a very good thing. We walked in and were quickly greeted by waitstaff at the restaurant eager to seat us if we were hungry. They didn't give us much choice, and the people who didn't want to pay for a meal struggled to get past them. Thankfully we were absolutely starving, having spent the bus ride here wondering what food we would order, and more than happy to let the extremely eager waiter seat us and take our order. The restaurant part of the club was rather nice. It was covered outdoor seating in a nice bamboo structure, with beach sand as the floor. I took off my shoes and wiggled my toes in the sand as I ordered a drink.

 

we ordered a plate of nachos and a quesadilla to share. The food was pretty good, but a little bland and the drink was weak. But the prices were on par with an Applebee's so we weren't too worried about it. While we ate a few men walked around with large Macaws and had them perch on our hands and take pictures. Later they would try to get us to buy the pictures, but mine was so ridiculous looking that I laughed when I saw it and he knew he wouldn't have a sale. It was still nice to hold the beautiful bird for a minute though!

 

A few vendors were allowed on the premises and we were offered cigars, trinkets and other things. Thankfully they weren't too pushy and retreated quickly if you said no. There was a small store selling trinkets and another selling medicines "Male Enhancement! Cheap!" There was also one of those little places that has fish that will eat the dead skin off your feet. We avoided them and went down to the beachfront. Lots of broken coral and shells were washing up today, and you had to watch your step. It was not a day to get in the water at all, but it was fun to sit at the edge of the surf as the water would rush over your feet, then retract back into the ocean.

We got about an hour at the beach club before it was time to head back onto the bus. I would have been terribly upset had I paid to go to this club, as it was a little run down and likely seen its best days long before the Carnival Dream was even a twinkle in John Heald's eye. But I saw the beach club as just a small bonus to the ATV adventure I'd paid for, and a last chance to dig my toes in the sand before heading home was nice.

 

After we rode the bus back to the port we shopped around a little bit more, but didn't buy anything. Jacob took an opportunity to get a little friendly with one of the photo op statues:

Once we got back on the ship we headed outside to watch for pier runners. We only saw a few people running, and they looked more like shoppers that had lost track of time rather than drunks. But we did get one (hopefully) intoxicated woman that refused to run, giving everyone on the ship a friendly 1 finger salute as she walked down the pier toward the ship. A dock worker approached her to tell her to hurry, but she shoved him away and continued her slow, saluting march down the pier. We hoped the ship would pull away, just to see her expression. Instead she walked down the pier to jeers and eventually boarded.

 

We had just gotten off the dock when Jase came on the loudspeakers to announce that we were going to have a rough night of high wind, but the Captain was going to try and hurry to push through the storm so that we'd have a nice final sea day. He wasn't joking, as the Dream picked up a full head of steam as soon as we got away from Cozumel. The wind was bad enough that they'd closed off most of the upper decks and the ship cut through an angry ocean with such violence that our cove balcony was covered with sea spray most of the night.

 

Now we'd planned to have another big night out. We skipped room service and waited until Lido opened to go get dinner. It was formal night, and we certainly didn't dare the MDR after our recent experiences. We ate some mostly good food, then headed to the forward lounge for the game show night. Jase was his normal self, fantastic at first, then hurried and impatient at the end of the show. Jacob fell asleep about five minutes into the show, and then afterwards barely had the energy to get out of his seat.

 

We headed back down to the room where he insisted he only needed a nap. We turned on a movie and the day was over for him. He was sound asleep in minutes and getting him back up was utterly hopeless.

 

At 10 PM I decided to head to check out the Carnival Legends show. It was truly awful. I don't know what I was expecting, but maybe a talent show of sorts. Instead we got fellow passengers singing and dancing in pre-made costumes to pre-made routines. A few of them could carry a tune, but many couldn't. I walked out about 15 minutes into the show.

 

I wandered back to the piano bar and sat for a few songs before my eyelids also started getting really heavy. I'd truly wanted to stay out late and have another crazy night, but the weight of 3 port stops in a row were on my shoulders, and sleep called.

 

I might have detoured to get an ice cream on the way back. But if Jacob asks, there was no ice cream. No ice cream at all...

 

Up next: Final sea day, brunch, dolphins and another steakhouse visit!

[SmittyCo]

:) I need to get a Husker's surfboard! I have bought one with other teams (LSU, Saints) for my kids ... I need one for my office!

[Yankeegirl]

Us too! :) Are you on the CC roll call? Or our social media page?

 

We do room service for coffee and lox and bagels ... we will have to check it out for other meals.

 

Progreso is horrible .... we don't get off the boat there anymore.

 

We love to sit on the lanai deck .... so many less people.

 

I hope you went to a sea day brunch!

 

Yes, I am on both. :)

[Zeelix]

We are you? We need to read more on you cruise. By the way, love this review

[gatorinark]

Enjoyed your Elation review. We just got off the Elation Feb. 29th. Had a great time. Had previously done the C******T twice and the Magic once. The Elation was smaller, older and had less bling but we loved it. Looking at going on Dream Thanksgiving week. Enjoying your review. Very well written.

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Forums mobile app

[Indytraveler83]

Sorry about the delay, work has gotten a little crazy lately. Work hard, play hard I guess. Anyways...

 

Last Sea Day:

 

We woke up this morning a bit later than usual with two things in mind. 1) Enjoy this sea day in ways we hadn't earlier on the cruise. 2) Do some things we had wanted to do and not get the last day blues!

 

Instead of the normal breakfast on the balcony, we decided to head to the dining room for seaday brunch (breakfast). We got dressed and headed to the aft dining room to try it out. When we arrived, around 9:30, the dining room was in full swing. When we arrived we had a very short wait, then were told we could either be seated right now at a group table, or wait quite a while for a private table. We had no intention of waiting, so we opted for the group table.

 

When we sat down we began by making introductions and the table quickly filled up with pairs, mostly husband and wife, but also one father and daughter (adult). Our servers came around and offered menus, coffee and juice. Despite the small coffee cups in the dining room, they did a great job of keeping the coffee flowing all morning. Our seat was very near a window, and we watched another Carnival ship in the distance as it appeared to first follow us, then drift off (maybe the Freedom heading to Galveston?)

 

I ordered the plain french toast, but Jacob opted for the fruit loops coated version:

Now overall the breakfast was good. We both had very good eggs, coffee, juice, bacon and some delicious breakfast bread. The french toast was a little dry and needed a lot of syrup to eat it though. I will try something else the next time.

 

Our favorite part of breakfast though was the environment. The servers were friendly and as fast as could be expected, given the packed dining room. Our table mates were all friendly and made good conversation, which helped redeem the dining room experience for us a little bit. After relaxing for a while, we finally excused ourselves from the table and took a walk around the ship.

 

The Dream seemed to be heading north at a pretty high rate of speed, and this caused a lot of high wind though the ship. Because of the high wind the waterslides, Serenity deck and forward outdoor decks were all closed off. I can't help but wonder if again someone didn't think everything all the way through here. It sort of sucks that some of the premium parts of the ship have to be closed when the ship is moving quickly.

 

We also noticed that many of the doors on the Lanai are downright dangerous to open with these winds. They were almost impossible to pull open, and if let go, they would slam shut with tremendous force. A few times we saw some ship's officers using all of their might trying to hold the door for frightened looking elderly passengers.

 

Lido was the usual packed sardine can, made even worse by the closed Serenity deck and windy Lanai. Instead of fighting it, this time we decided we would use the balcony that we'd paid for, and headed back to our room.

 

Our room had already been cleaned, so we dressed down a little and headed to the balcony. At this point we realized it was already starting to get a bit chilly, so we headed back up, grabbed coffee, changed into sweat clothes, grabbed our spare blanket and headed out for a very relaxing afternoon:

 

We sat out here for hours, just watching the sea go by, sipping coffee and napping. It was a brilliant, quiet day that made us absolutely appreciate our balcony. We picked at the dry sea salt on the balcony, left over from the previous night's ocean spray.

 

Then, just as we started to drift off to sleep, we saw an entire pod of dolphins approach the ship! Surprised, we stood up and took a few sloppy pictures that showed nothing. There must have been 20-25 dolphins jumping out of the water approaching the ship fast. They swam right up to the side of the ship and were visible right alongside the ship, almost under us. They let the ship slowly pass them and we watched as they faded back into the wake of the ship. It only took about 30 seconds, but we spent the next hour having many more phantom dolphin sightings before we got cold and headed into the room.

 

From there we turned on the TV and promptly fell asleep for what has become our traditional last sea day nap. We woke up hungry and ordered our final room service of the cruise. It came quickly and was as amazing as it had been all week. However... it was now close to 4 PM and we had 6:30 dinner reservations at the steakhouse.

 

Coming up: great food, and a rough last night...

[Indytraveler83]

Final Sea Day: Part 2

 

We headed out to the casino and decided to spend our waning afternoon hours donating even more money to the fine folks at Carnival. We had far over estimated how much we'd be drinking (again) and brought a lot of $1's to tip bar staff. Instead they were turned into quarters and then dropped into the machines that look like they will rain quarters if you just feed one more in. Oh, wait, just one more. No, really, just one more quarter... just one more...

 

From there we headed back to the room and started packing. For us, packing is only about a 15 minute ordeal, but we absolutely hated packing everything back up and leaving our luxury home for the week!

 

After that we changed for our last dinner onboard! Every night in the steakhouse we dressed in black khakis and a button up shirt. No tie, no sport coat and just plain black shoes. We fit right in, being neither the most dressed up, nor the worst dressed.

 

The staff was absolutely fantastic, as we'd grown to expect, and Jacob decided to try something new, having the beef carpaccio as an appetizer. He had his filet mignon as before, while I had the surf and turf. For dessert we both had the chocolate sampler, which was also very good.

 

Remember when I said we ate at 4 PM, and now again at 6:30? Between that and the shaking in the dining room (The Dream was starting to make turns as it lined up to get into the river, and the turns seemed to cause vibrations in the aft of the ship.) both of our stomach's went into full revolt.

 

We walked around the ship a little bit, which seemed to help. So we headed back inside to sit at the piano bar and listen to Mat play. Jacob lasted just a few songs before his stomach started acting up again. He insisted I stay and headed back to the room looking as green as green could be. I stayed for another 20-30 minutes before I decided I'd better check on him, and headed back myself.

 

When I got back to the room, he was trying to cleaning up the bathroom from the mess his rude stomach had decided to make. While he repeatedly apologized for his stomach, I took pictures of the towel animal collection:

 

These guys had been our "pets" for the trip, helping ease how much we missed our puppies.

 

We thought the monkey was hilarious, and since it was windy and a little bumpy, he swung around quite a bit on that last sea day.

 

As Jacob tried to get his stomach to recover, I headed out the the balcony to see the river at night. Just as I headed out, I saw the strangest sight, and again wished I had my camera. There was a very specific point where the blue ocean water was being overtaken by the murky brown water of the Mississippi river. It was a clean divide between the two bodies of water, where I thought the water color would just gradually change as we headed up the river.

 

Shortly after, I started to head in, only to see a bright white light coming our way. It was the Elation again! I hadn't expected to see her on our way back in, but there she was, bringing a new set of passengers out to the tropical paradise from which we had just emerged. I watched her slowly creep by in the quiet river.

 

Afterwards I headed in to check on Jacob, who was still very sick. At one point I thought we'd have to head downstairs and visit the ship's doctor, but his poor belly finally calmed down, and he went to sleep as soon as it stopped it's freak out. I watched a movie on TV for another hour or so after, just to make sure he didn't wake up sick again, then finally went to sleep.

 

Up next: Debarkation day, and final thoughts!

[Indytraveler83]

Debarkation Day:

 

Now we have about a 15 hour drive from New Orleans to Northern Indiana, a drive that is only possible in a day if we get a tremendously early start. Coupled with the fact that Mardi Gras would be in full swing, we needed to get out of New Orleans as fast as possible.

 

We decided to take full advantage of priority self assist debarkation. The paper left in our room said to meet in the forward dining room by 6:30 and that we would be the first off the ship once it had been cleared, which was estimated to be around 7 AM.

 

Before leaving our room, I snapped an early morning picture of the bridge over the Mississippi:

 

Now when we got to the lounge, there was a passenger induced mess that a few stressed crew members were trying to clean up. Bags had been left clogging the hallway and some poor woman had the terrible job of telling all of the passengers that they couldn't be left there. She took a lot of heat from grumpy early morning passengers, who didn't entirely understand why their bags were a problem.

 

I heard one woman tear into the poor staff member crying that she'd been in the lounge since 6 AM, that we were supposed to be off at 6:30, and the ship was on the dock, so she just didn't understand why she was being kept prisoner on the ship!!! I wanted to smack her. She also started going off about how she couldn't get on the ship when she arrived at port and now they wouldn't let her off. Thankfully a male crew member gently, but firmly took her aside and calmed her down.

 

I'm sorry... but when you spend thousands of dollars and travel internationally, but can't be bothered to read even the most basic paperwork... you've done it wrong. It took everything in me not to stand up and chew her out. But I needed to be off the ship early, and causing a scene wouldn't help. So I sat and kept my big mouth shut.

 

Around 6:45 they cleared the first passengers to debark, and this crazy woman and her family were right in front of us in line. For someone using debarkation, this whole family was in over their head. Each of them was trying to tow 2-3 bags each while carrying several other bags. As soon as we'd gotten onto the ramp leading from the ship, the woman's baggage all fell from her arms and she stood on the ramp in a pathetic pile, trying to figure out what to do. She eventually got it all gathered up, but not before she was behind us. Her family would then stop every 50 feet or so, set everything down and turn around to check on her, holding up the line even further. Ugh...

 

Getting into the terminal was an interesting sight. On our previous trip we walked in with a few border patrol agents scattered around the terminal with smiles on their faces. This time we entered was almost scary. Every 10-20 feet we saw large men with "Homeland Security" printed across bulletproof vests, stern looks on their faces and automatic rifles in their hands. When we got to the security checkpoint they did "face to face" interviews where they would rapid fire ask a few questions and see if we could respond correctly. It was really sort of scary to be honest and made us wonder if it was simply due to the added traffic of the cruise ships and Mardi Gras, or if they were responding to something we'd not been privy to hear about.

 

We walked out of the terminal, then started using our previous knowledge of the port to our advantage. We passed the long line of taxi's, headed to the side of the road and walked past the police checkpoint. We hiked the 3/4 a mile or so to the parking garage and arrived to find that not only were the shuttles not running yet, but it wasn't even staffed yet.

 

We walked to the elevator and took it up, loaded our luggage into the Jeep and headed out. From the garage it is only a short drive to the interstate, and we were driving over the swamps by 7:30. Priority debarkation was a huge plus for us. On our roll call we heard that almost 2/3 of the ship had elected to self debark

 

Our drive back wasn't uneventful, and at one point in Mississippi a woman actually ran us off the interstate while changing lanes on her cell phone. After the shock and panic wore off, we thought it was quite funny that we'd been warned about crime rates in Belize in Mexico, but today we'd seen automatic weapons in abundance in New Orleans and nearly been killed in Mississippi. Odd that the most dangerous situations had likely occurred once we were back home!

 

Up Next: Final Thoughts and future plans!

[Indytraveler83]

Final Thoughts:

 

Overall our trip was awesome. We absolutely loved the cove balcony and our room, we loved the ship and absolutely loved all of our port stops. Cruising is certainly something that's gotten in our blood. However, this trip had an oddly "up and down" feel, where it seemed everything was going right or going wrong. Our dinner experience in the dining room was terrible, and at times other passengers got badly on our nerves. So here's a few things we've learned:

 

1) Carnival is certainly our cruise line. I'll always check other lines, but the fun environment, the crazy looking ships and the features match what we want. I truly appreciate a relaxed cruise line that's willing to have some PG-13 or R rated fun and isn't afraid to tell a joke that might offend. We love the water slides and the room service. We both spend our days dressing the way we are told and acting as "professional" as possible, so while we can afford a more formal cruise line, we certainly don't want to be formal on our vacation.

 

2) Cruise ship passengers sometimes annoy us. Big shock right? If you've read all of my reviews up to this point, I've had far more issues with passengers than crew/staff. On this trip we realized that because of this, we need to build escapes into our cruise experience. We have to make sure we have time on the balcony or somewhere quiet to look forward to, and to not feel pressured to join the crowds on Lido, because in the end that's not really the experience we are looking for anyways.

 

3) Don't let anything ruin your trip. On our previous trip on the Elation we got pretty upset at our trip in Progreso and the anger lasted about a day and a half. Looking back, we ruined a few days of a wonderful trip over a handful of bad hours. This trip we recovered much better. Yes, sometimes the company and the food was awful. But most the time the food was wonderful and the company friendly and fun. So we learned to calm down quickly and get back to the fun. After all, who hasn't had a rough spot on a vacation?

 

And the future:

 

Our next trip will be a land based vacation in Hawaii with Jacob's dad, brother and nephew. But... we've already booked another cruise on the Dream! We decided to have a family trip with his Mom and stepdad as well as my Mom and Dad. We've booked 3 spa balconies (thanks to the rabid advice of one of our enjoyable tablemates). This is going to be an interesting trip as my parents are veteran Princess cruises while his have never stepped onto a cruise ship before.

 

We hope that our familiarity with the Dream and New Orleans will make playing travel agent for the group a little easier. I'm already a little overwhelmed paying attention to 3 bookings at once. Our next trip will go to Ocho Rios, Grand Cayman and Cozumel. We are pretty excited about it and I'm sure we'll have more questions and more annoying thoughts to pass by everyone before we sail again in February!

 

Until then, thanks for reading my review, I hope it helped you understand sailing on the Dream a little better, or maybe revisited some memories you had on it. Any questions or thoughts, just let me know!

[GazW]

👍Fantastic writing style. Fantastic outlook. Fantastic review.

 

You are able to capture, perfectly, the essence of cruising (and why I love it). The highs, the occasional lows and all in all what makes a great holiday.

 

I really enjoyed your review and it bolsters my already heightened excitement for my upcoming first-time-Carnival cruise.

 

Thanks for the 'ride'

 

Gary.

[getta]

Enjoyed your review. Thank you

[SmittyCo]

:D:D

 

Bravo!

[BigB0882]

Thanks for your review. You know it is a good one when I am reading a review of a ship and itinerary I have been on already. lol

[jmaedcruise]

Really enjoyed reading your review! Your description of your dining experience with "Mr. Conquest" had me literally laughing out loud! I probably would not have been as polite as you were and told the guy that I would prefer if he shut up about Conquest so I could try to enjoy my dinner.

I have a question that is probably out of your area but perhaps others reading this review might be able to answer. We are planning a cruise for our HS son's senior year spring break trip in April 2017. I am trying to decide if Dream would be a good fit. Our son has been on one other cruise which was a family Christmas cruise on RCL Oasis December '14. We all had a fantastic time on Oasis and my husband and I have only been on one other cruise which was Carnival for our honeymoon many eons ago so I can't really compare that to what Carnival has to offer now. I am wondering what kind of teen activities are offered on Dream. On the Oasis my son REALLY enjoyed the activities offered including 3v3 basketball tournaments, ping pong tournaments, soccer etc... and met a ton of friends through these activities some of whom he is still in contact with today through social media. Do you know if they offer these activities on Dream?

We are considering Dream but I have also looked into prices on Oasis for the same week and although it is more pricey it is not as much more as I expected given the cost of our Christmas cruise! That one nearly bankrupted us!! haha

We would be able to get better cabins on Dream like the cove balcony which looks awesome but I worry about the crowding on the pool decks as we like to sit around the pool on sea days and we never really felt crowded on Oasis - errant children tend to annoy me too so based on your experience this may be a problem on Dream!

Any advice/help would be appreciated.

Thanks again for your awesome review!

[bakersdozen12]

I hope you guys had at least a decent experience with Jimmy. He was fantastic for us, and really a breath of fresh air after having a flat out rude steward last year.

 

We had Jimmy as our cabin steward last year as well (we were in cove #2256), and he was fantastic. He really took great care of us. So much so, I ended up tipping him twice as much as I had planned to.

[Clarea]

Just got through this review, thanks much, very enjoyable.:)

[jefffrompawpaw]

Following so I can read the rest later.