My 1/21 Dream review...

[redhotpepper]

The cruisers were myself, my husband and my best friend. My best friend and I just turned 40 and my hubby is 39. I've been on one other cruise but the other two were newbies to cruising. My friend is kidless and I have 2 small children (who stayed home with grandma).

 

We flew into Houston on the 20th and rented a car from Enterprise. Through my research, that seemed to be the way to go. Our hotel was in uptown? near the Galleria. We stayed at the Hotel Derek, which was really cool. It's very modern and sleek. We did a little shopping at the Galleria and hit the CVS for a few last minute items.

 

Headed out for the port on Saturday morning around 10 and made it to the port about 11. Just about the time we got our luggage dropped off, the Enterprise bus pulled up to drop people off. I asked the driver what to do with my car and he told me to back it in along the fence and leave the keys under the mat.

 

We had made labels for our luggage but didn't need them. The porter had labels slapped on and the room number on before I could even get the labels out of my carry on!

 

We proceeded into the terminal and only waited about 2 minutes in line to get our cards and get registered. From here we got a little confused because it wasn't obvious where we were supposed to go. Finally ended up in the right spot and waited in line for about 10 minutes to go through security.

 

We had originally started out with an E oceanview cabin. I had upsold to a CC superior oceanview but the weekend before we left an owners suite became available and I called to let my TA know that we'd be interested in moving up to that. The Tuesday before, Patricia called the TA to offer the suite for an additional $300/pp so we took it.

 

Got on the ship and went to our suite which was 1108. We were enamored! Dh and I slept in the bedroom and my friend chose to sleep in the walkin closet pull down berth. That way she had her "own room" and didn't have to pull the couch out. You walk into the room and on one side is the walkin in closet and the other side is the bathroom. The bathroom had a vanity, bathtub, toilet, medicine cabinet and had another door that lead to the bedroom. If you walked straight forward, you went into the living area that had a big window and a sliding glass door out to the balcony. The balcony had 3 chairs and a little table. It was a great spot when the wind wasn't blowing too hard.

 

There was a pullout couch and 2 chairs. There was also a chair at the desk. It had a tv, dvd and cd player. There were lots of cubbies in the living area as well as the closet to put stuff. By the end of the week, we were wishing the 2 chairs were recliners and it was a race to see who could get to the couch first! The bedroom was pretty small but had 2 nightstands, a vanity with another chair and a small closet. The beds were all hard as a rock and my dh was in heaven!

 

We ended up spending a lot more time in our room than we probably would have if it wasn't a suite. We watched 3 or 4 movies that we checked out from Julie, the concierge.

 

Gede stopped by to introduce himself and told us what he and Andrew would do for us. He also took our order for alcohol. We ended up with a bottle of whiskey, vodka and rum. I'm not a hard alcohol drinker so the whiskey was the only one that we drank all of. We brought the other 2 home. We also met Gica, the housekeeper, who was sooo good.

 

Julie, the concierge, stopped by later to introduce herself. My friend had signed up for a diving excursion in Belize that was full so we put Julie to work right away! She was just so darned nice and lots of fun. We also had her make us reservations at Le Bistro for the last night. We were going to celebrate our birthdays that night. She gave us a card, a bottle of champagne and each a cake at dinner!

 

The rest of that day, we just kind of wandered around and got aquainted with the ship. As we were pulling out of Houston, we noticed that all the rest of the rental cars were gone except ours. Enterprise was closed so we tried to get ahold of someone to make sure they knew our car was still there. We finally left a message at the Seabrook office but were a little worried that we'd be charged for the whole week or something!

 

Sunday was a sea day and we just hit a few of the activities like the cooking demonstration and trivia. They were fun. We did the barbeque on the deck for lunch and they had some really good meats. That's where we mostly ate for lunch the whole week. Most of our breakfasts, we had delivered to our room in the mornings. We did eat at the Four Seasons 2 of the mornings. I found the breakfast food there to be just ok.

 

Monday was raining pretty hard as we pulled into Cozumel. We did get a bit wet but it cleared up not too long after we left the boat. My friend and I didn't do an excursion that day. She had already dived there and I just wanted to do some shopping so that's what we did. Hubby did the discover scuba and really enjoyed it. We did have a bit of a hard time finding his tour guide though. I'm pretty sure dh is going to get certified to dive now!

 

We met dh after his excursion was over and ate at a really good restaraunt my friend had found the last time she was there. We wandered a bit and called home and then went back to the ship. We ended up on a big tender and it took quite awhile for the whole ordeal. We did get the priority tender tickets from Julie so we got on the first non excursion tender in the morning. The dock is still very torn up from the hurricane. It is still pretty obvious in the stores too but they are getting back on their feet.

 

I think that night we ate at what we lovingly called "The Trough", aka Sports Bar. My dh does not do well with buffets so we really tried to stay away. We mostly went there for little dessert treats.

 

The next day we got to Roatan and we did not have to tender there, which was nice. Friend dove there and said it was beautiful. Dh and I did the kayak and snorkeling. We all crowded into a van and went to West Bay. We met up at a cafe called the Cannibal Cafe and it was a really neat little place. We were able to leave our extra stuff there and did the snorkeling first. It was really cool but the water was a bit stirred up from the recent rains they'd had. We went back to the cafe and had lunch then did the kayaking. Kevin, who I think owned the restaraunt, was really great as well as Quentin, who was our lead tour guide. He actually had previously worked on the Dream. He took us up to a banana plantation and showed us the different trees, animals, etc that are native to the island. My husband really enjoyed this as he's a real outdoor person. There were a few bugs but not too bad.

 

By the time we were heading back to the ship it was getting dark. I certainly would not want to be walking through Coxen Hole, where the dock is, after dark. It was a bit seedy.

 

We ate at the Four Seasons that night and the food was good. All the food we had in the sit down restaraunts was good. We never waited for more than 10 minutes for a table.

 

Tuesday was Belize and we all did different excursions. My friend dove again and had her mask a bit tight. She ended up with what is called mask squeeze but basically, it just looked like she had a giant hickey on her face! She called Julie and asked what she should do about it and Julie told her to put some ice on it and stay out of the sun. It took a couple days to go away and we had to tease her mercilessly about it! She said the dive people here were absolutely great. They were very helpful and friendly.

 

I went on the Beer and the City tour and it was great. We had a great tour guide named Randy and the Belikin beer was really good. On the dock there is a fenced in area with quite a few shops so I did a little shopping there and then headed back to the ship. Since I was by myself, I chose not to leave the fenced in area.

 

Dh went reef fishing and was a little disappointed. It was more aimed at the beginner fisherman, which he isn't. He got back to the ship (his excursion was picked up and dropped off at the ship) and then tendered to shore to do some exploring. He did leave the fenced area and had lots of people ask him if he'd like any women or ganja. He just kind of laughed at that.

 

That night we ate at Trattoria and also had very good food. By this time, I'd given up on trying to eat 3 courses and just asked for 2 appetizers and dessert! The mushroom barley soup was wonderful.

 

Thursday we were kind of lazy and tried to lay up on deck but the wind was blowing pretty hard and it was difficult to enjoy. We spent some time watching tv and napping and were pretty boring. We did go to the captains party in his quarters. We really wanted our picture taken with him because he was CUTE but all the old ladies were occupying him! We went to Four Seasons again and I had to get up and go back to the room because I was sure I was going to explode from eating too much.

 

Friday the weather was much better so we caught some rays. We did lots of lounging that day too but at least got out of our room more! We did a little shopping at the Galleria shops and picked up a few gifty items and I bought myself a tanzanite pendant. It's my birthstone.

 

One of the days we did wine tasting but I can't remember which day it was. We won a bottle of champagne so we saved that for Friday evening. We drank it in our room before we went to dinner at Le Bistro and we took the bottle that Julie gave us with to the restaraunt.

 

We had left Julie a note and told her to join us if she got a chance and she did. It was really nice to visit with her. She told us about some of the ships she'd been on and life down below in the crew quarters. We had some fantastic filet mignon and the birthday cake. There was a cute waiter named Dan who was flirting hard with my friend but she didn't even notice! Silly girl.

 

Saturday we were to meet Julie at 8am and we were off the ship and through customs by 8:30. There was a special place for VIP luggage so we didn't have to search too hard for ours. It was the easiest customs I have ever experienced.

 

We found out that the Enterprise people were not to get to the dock until 9 so we stood around and waited and got really worried because our car from the previous Saturday was still sitting there! When the guy got there, he reassured me they got my message and I was not charged for the whole week. On this end, we found we wished we would have just grabbed a taxi back to the airport. It would have cost us less in the long run and we would have gotten there earlier. We could have caught an earlier flight instead of hanging out at the airport for nearly 4 hours. We were pooped and just kind of sat and stared at each other! We ate lunch at the airport and got the slowest service EVER. There were many people who came in after us and ended up just getting up and leaving without getting served.

 

So, all in all, we had an absolutely great time. We did wish we were in port longer in Cozumel and Roatan. There just wasn't time to do the excursions and do much shopping. We would have loved recliners instead of the chairs in our suite, like I mentioned and we would have taken a taxi back to the airport.

 

Julie, Gede, Andrew and Gica really made the trip for us. Their service was superior and now we are spoiled for anything but a suite! It was quite the slap in the face when we actually had to make our own coffee on Sunday morning.

 

I'm sure I missed stuff because, well, we did drink a lot so let me know if you have any questions.

 

Annie

[Don Haynes]

Thanks for your wonderful review. Yes, the Dream isn't newest or largest ship in NCL's fleet, but her crew is a notch above the rest. I think the Dream took a lot of hits last summer and fall when the engine was down, its great to see her back on top of the reviews again, with all of her engines running....

[ukeris00]

Did you have a chance to go there? Was there any "engine trouble"?

To summarize can you tell us which resteraunts were the best?

Thanks again for all your help..we are sailing on 3/4-3/11:)

[kannruss]

Gosh I miss that girl (Dream).

[kannruss]

Did you have a chance to go there? Was there any "engine trouble"?

To summarize can you tell us which resteraunts were the best?

Thanks again for all your help..we are sailing on 3/4-3/11:)

She wrote about Belize in the review. As mentioned numerous times on this board and by Don just about your post - the engine problems were fixed LONG ago.

[redhotpepper]

The engine troubles are fixed.

 

I thought Le Bistro was definitely the best restaraunt. Trattoria and Four Seasons were also good for dinners. Not that impressed with the breakfasts at Four Seasons.

 

Annie

[calmac]

You mentioned the captain - name please? And the name of the Chief Engineer too, if you remember.

 

We were on the Dream in the summer and even although we missed Sitka we had a great time. We're sailing on her again this summer.

[redhotpepper]

The captain's name is Nenad Mogic and he is from Croatia. We did have a nice conversation with the Chief Engineer and his name was Hans and he was from Norway. I can't remember his last name but he was very nice. Both my kids have very Scandanavian names so we talked about that. Although my older daughter's name is unusual for the US, he said it's a very common name in Norway. We also talked about traditional Scandanavian food, which my husband misses now that we don't live in MN anymore!

 

Annie

[calmac]

Captain Mogic was the captain during our cruise to Alaska but the Chief Engineer was another Norwegian (Stig was his first name). they were both very friendly and very visible throughout the ship.

 

Good to know that the captain is getting to experience some hot weather as he had been on the Marco Polo in Antarctica prior to the Dream in Alaska!

[poetic license]

Glad you had a great time, and grateful for a RECENT review. Since we are on DREAM at the end of February, I am relieved to hear that earlier reports on the condition of the ship are out of date.

 

Cheers,

[redhotpepper]

While the Dream is obviously not a brand new ship, it is kept very neat and clean. While one of the butlers was handing us a pop or something, it spilled and (it was my fault, I'm a clutz) the carpet was cleaned before the day was over. I think they had cleaned the carpet in our suite before we got on too because it was a bit damp and looked very clean.

 

I have to admit, I was a bit worried after some of the reviews I read before we went too but my mind was definitely put to ease by the first evening on board.

 

We kind of made it a game to listen for whiners! There are some in every crowd and we only heard a couple people complaining at all. We laughed at them and quietly said to ourselves, just chill out and enjoy people. All 3 of us are very laid back and something has to be really, really wrong before we would be obnoxious about it. You definitely catch more flies with honey than vinager!

 

Annie