Picture review of the Dream, June 12-19 sailing

[bluejay555]

Loving the review! Can't wait to read the rest. Brings back fond memories of my Dream cruise last year.

 

 

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Thanks! The Dream is a great ship :)

 

 

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[bluejay555]

Dinner is not over yet.....I have more food pics!!! (see a theme here?)

 

We ordered calamari because every cruise, we try to find unusual stuff on the menu for the kids to try. I think they've had calamari before but it's been so long they had forgotton. "deep fried rubber bands" lol but they liked them!

 

Beef Brisket was the best meat all cruise. Flat iron steak was consistently good, but everyone agreed the brisket was the best. And once again, I forgot to take a pic until I had started cutting it up!

 

 

This was the low-sugar offering. Strawberry parfait, I think it was called. I was expecting more of an actual parfait, but it was excellent. Very light. I would have ordered this again if it was repeated on the menu!

 

After dinner each night, the girls would try and guess what kind of towel animal would be waiting for us in the room. Tonight no one guessed "towel vagina" which is what we had....:eek: (and excuse the poor quality waterproof camera picture!)

 

And we also had our free water, pins, and free drink tickets (to be used after 5pm on the last day of the cruise, anywhere on the ship). They reeeeaaally want you to forget to use them, or be sick of drinking by then. Seriously, Carnival, we're on to you. Oh, and about a week before the cruise, I had ordered a 12 pk of water to be delivered to our room ($3.99), and it was there waiting for us too. We put it in our EMPTY fridge! I was so glad to see the mini bar offerings had been removed! The only thing in the room for purchase were two large waters with a menu of drink items to order.

[bluejay555]

1st sea day! Let's get this party started!!! We ate at the Sea Day Brunch, located in the Scarlet dining room, and we swam, went down the water slides, and visited Cherry on Top! Lots of pictures to come.....

 

but first I have to sneak a few more food pics in :D

 

Eggs Benedict was hands down the best I've ever had. EVER! I can't believe I've never ordered them on a cruise before.

 

blueberry pancakes!

 

OK, OK, I'm done with food for now. Time for some fun!

That's my 69 yr old mom going down the racing slides. She loved it! We all loved the slides!!

 

 

[bluejay555]

Waiting in line to ride the drain pipe :eek: No, last year, I rode it and the twister (the two BIG ones) over and over, but for some reason this year, as we were waiting in line, I got really nervous about being up so high and I couldn't shake it. It was not a pleasant wait. The slide itself was fun though!

 

 

The view from up there was amazing!

Edited June 23, 2016 by bluejay555

[pink roses]

Following. Thanks so much for your reviews. I really enjoyed the one from last summer, it helped me so much on my Dream cruises. Esp. The Info. about the Dr. Suess activities. My sister and I are both retired teachers and we had a ball during the activites, we acted like a kid again.

[bluejay555]

Following. Thanks so much for your reviews. I really enjoyed the one from last summer, it helped me so much on my Dream cruises. Esp. The Info. about the Dr. Suess activities. My sister and I are both retired teachers and we had a ball during the activites, we acted like a kid again.

 

Yes, I remember you! I'm so glad you had a great time!! Thanks for following my reviews :)

[dane225]

Great review so far!! We loved the Dream!!

[riclop]

Thanks for the review.

[bluejay555]

Great review so far!! We loved the Dream!!

 

Thanks!!! Yes, the Dream is my favorite ship at the moment :) Second fave would have to be the Triumph.

[bluejay555]

Thanks for the review.

 

Thanks

 

 

OK, I need to step it up. I have a lot more to post! I haven't found a fast way to resize my pictures, so I'm doing them one at a time.

[bluejay555]

We checked out the mini golf, thought it looked like fun, but then never made it back up here. I regret that....I can't believe we've been on the Dream 3 times and never played mini golf!!! Oh well, just another excuse to go again next year!

 

We LOVED hanging at the pool. It's where we spent most of our time. It was usually wall to wall people, but hey. We're easy going! I'm hoping I got some better pics of it later in the week. We'll see!

 

Cherry on Top! The girls love this place, but it's an orthodontist's nightmare. Both girls have braces and couldn't get quite the same candies as they did last year. What's funny is I made such an effort to actually remember the price per pound so I could report back in this review (I forget every year), but damn if I already forgot again!! I want to say $12 per pound?? The kids got these fireballs and super-sour drops and had contests on the balcony at night on who could keep the candy in their mouth the longest without spitting it out lol

 

Next we hit the 3pm teatime in the Crimson dining room. I'm kind of perplexed that I don't have one single picture from it??? But anyway, we were VERY disappointed in teatime this cruise. Very. I am a roll-with-the-flow type of gal, but it really ruffled my feathers that they tried to charge us $3 per TEA BAG if we wanted flavored tea. Whaat??? We were offered lipton or lipton decaf for free. My kids (and my mom and I) have always loved selecting a "fancy" flavored tea from the wooden box. But seriously I'm now expected to pay $12 for the 4 of us? Disappointing. And the desserts don't come out on a rolling cart any more. The waiters all carry around various treats and shovel them out so fast that we got skipped several times and had to basically shout at them to come back to our table. And instead of an intimate setting of tables for 2 or 4, they had the tables set up cafeteria-style and sat like 12+ per table.

 

I hate to be negative, but we are slowly and steadily losing little things. They are nickel and diming us to where individually it doesn't amount to much, but add it all up and it's becoming an issue. Some of us care, some of us don't. And that's OK. But we all need to be aware, and just realize. No, a $3 teabag, the loss of chocolates on my pillow, Gold-level no longer being invited to the past guest party, not having table cloths at dinner....they aren't deal breakers by any means, and I still love Carnival, but I'm taking note. I'm taking note.

[NWACruiser]

Loving the review so far! We've got our first B2B on the Dream coming up in April. So, I'm soaking in all the info I can on the Dream!

 

We did a back to back in April. It was a blast. I have a review on this board.

http://boards.cruisecritic.com/showthread.php?t=2361696&highlight=dream

[NWACruiser]

We went to Little French Key in Roatan, stayed on the ship in Belize, and visited Nachi Cocom in Cozumel.

 

We went to Nachi Cocum also. Interested in your viewpoint.

[jimbri]

Enjoying your review.

[bluejay555]

We did a back to back in April. It was a blast. I have a review on this board.

http://boards.cruisecritic.com/showthread.php?t=2361696&highlight=dream

 

Great! I will be checking out your review!

[bluejay555]

We went to Nachi Cocum also. Interested in your viewpoint.

 

Well, it was our 4th time there, but I think it will be our last. The pool, service, and food were amazing, the drinks were ridiculously strong, BUT the beach has completely eroded. I couldn't get over how downhill the beach has gone since last year.

[bluejay555]

Enjoying your review.

 

Thanks!

[bluejay555]

Elegant night in the dining room! Very nice table setting.

 

This was by far our favorite appetizer on the cruise. And for the life of me I can't remember the name!! It's some kind of tenderloin on a little pastry with carmelized onions and cheese maybe? I don't know, but we all 4 agreed it was perfect!

 

bacon carbonara. very good

 

For whatever reason I didn't take pics of the other stuff. Obviously it was lobster tail night! The lobster was very good but the grilled shrimp that came with it were even better!

 

my mom and Sara

 

towel animal!!

 

OK, so I have a few pics from our 2nd sea day and then it's time for ROATAN!!!!!!!

[bluejay555]

We went to karaoke after dinner. It started at 8:30 and it was all kids who had signed up to sing (at least while we were there). My kids had a blast! There was karaoke again at 10pm for the legends auditions.

 

Now, normally on cruises, we watch at least one movie at the seaside theater. It didn't work out for us this time. We were all set to see Jurassic World but the kids were so wiped out from Roatan that they decided they just wanted to sit on our balcony instead. My mom went up and got them some popcorn anyway. They were in bed by 9pm that night!

 

Monday night: NBA finals were shown instead of a movie

Tues: Spectre at 7pm

Wed: Jurassic World 7:30

Star Wars: the force awakens 10pm

Thurs: NBA finals instead of a movie

Fri: Creed 7pm

The Martian 9:30pm

Deadpool 12am

Saturday: Kung Fu Panda 3 7:30pm

Zootopia 9:30pm

[nickens4]

The only way to cruise is unplugged:

No computer, phone, or watch.

If its light out...its daytime.

If its dark out... its nighttime.

If you are in port and the ship is gone... YOU'RE LATE!

 

I love it!!!!

[nickens4]

Next we hit the 3pm teatime in the Crimson dining room. I'm kind of perplexed that I don't have one single picture from it??? But anyway, we were VERY disappointed in teatime this cruise. Very. I am a roll-with-the-flow type of gal, but it really ruffled my feathers that they tried to charge us $3 per TEA BAG if we wanted flavored tea. Whaat??? We were offered lipton or lipton decaf for free. My kids (and my mom and I) have always loved selecting a "fancy" flavored tea from the wooden box. But seriously I'm now expected to pay $12 for the 4 of us? Disappointing. And the desserts don't come out on a rolling cart any more. The waiters all carry around various treats and shovel them out so fast that we got skipped several times and had to basically shout at them to come back to our table. And instead of an intimate setting of tables for 2 or 4, they had the tables set up cafeteria-style and sat like 12+ per table.

 

I hate to be negative, but we are slowly and steadily losing little things. They are nickel and diming us to where individually it doesn't amount to much, but add it all up and it's becoming an issue. Some of us care, some of us don't. And that's OK. But we all need to be aware, and just realize. No, a $3 teabag, the loss of chocolates on my pillow, Gold-level no longer being invited to the past guest party, not having table cloths at dinner....they aren't deal breakers by any means, and I still love Carnival, but I'm taking note. I'm taking note.

 

NO, say it isn't so!!!! I love tea time with the flavored teas and macaroons. I have never done the dream but Elation's teatime was the best. I will be disappointed for sure.

 

Thank you so much for your review, this one is the best so far that I have seen.

[bluejay555]

Sea Day #2! More swimming and slides, so I won't post too much. We got tired of the main pool and tried the aft pool for a change. Everywhere we went was wall to wall people! And then a kid (probably age 2) puked in the pool and we all fled lol. Actually the dad was holding him and they were sitting on the side of the pool and I've never seen a guy move like he did. Bless his heart, he did everything he could to keep the puke from going into the water, but it did. There were some Carnival employees nearby that saw people scrambling out of the pool, but no one came to check why. I'm hoping the family reported it and the pool was properly evacuated and cleaned.

 

 

*Sorry for this grossness but.....Speaking of puking in the pool, a couple days later, a kid at the other pool got out, went over to his chair and puked his guts up into a towel, then tried to get back in the pool! Luckily his dad grabbed him and the took him away but the dad announced that he probably just swallowed some salt water. Ugh. Then our last seaday, after dinner, there was a poor soul having to clean up puke right outside the Crimson Restaurant. I wouldn't want that job on a cruise ship! So we wondered if there was a stomach bug going around, or if it was just a fluke.

[bluejay555]

Hot tub time!

 

[bluejay555]

NO, say it isn't so!!!! I love tea time with the flavored teas and macaroons. I have never done the dream but Elation's teatime was the best. I will be disappointed for sure.

 

Thank you so much for your review, this one is the best so far that I have seen.

 

Thanks so much!! Yeah, teatime on the elation was the best :) The piano bar is a much nicer setting than the huge restaurant.

[bluejay555]

Dinner! More food pics!!

 

cream of broccoli. Not very good

 

 

 

The American Table menu has sides you can order, such as the bacon mac-n-cheese!

 

 

fried chicken was pretty good