Live from Carnival Dream with small kids - Oct 23-31st

cjsegninir · November 1, 2021

2 hours ago, LatinaInTexas said:

The waitress that sings is Johnamay. She was our server twice and provided the best service and entertainment. She had us laughing non stop, she's so engaging and sweet. Did you by chance get to see her dance, she's very talented all around!

Yes, we looked for her on the last day to thank her for her singing. Unfortunately she was never our server, but I could see that she is really good.

10 hours ago, mapgirl34 said:

I'm stunned when you say crowded. I really thought ships would be a half capacity!

Just checking back in to see how the billing went as far as charging for Covid testing onboard.

Thanks for sharing so much detail.

Embarkation was indeed much crowded that I had expected. It may be a lack of better organization with the times assignment or that they were taking longer than planned to review the paperwork. But I didn't feel comfortable with the amount of people at the same time at embarkation. Especially there was no separation between vaccinated or unvaccinated, etc. I know that inside the ship we would be all together, but what if someone was there with a positive Covid? There could definitely be more organization at embarkation.

Inside the ship it was less crowded than usual, judging from previous experiences. But it was by no means half-capacity. Maybe more like 80%.

Regarding covid testing, I was surprised that we were not charged. It never appeared in our sign and sail and I was expecting it to appear directly in our credit card, but it has not so far. I just checked my bank app and all Carnival charges are still pending, and they don't amount to the total I received in the bill on the morning of debarkation, so more charges may come later.

The protocol is that they apply the rapid test and, in case it is positive, they run a full PCR. Maybe because our kids were always negative on the rapid and there was no need for the PCR, then there was no charge. But this is only speculation. I don't know if it was a mistake, if it is because of our kids ages, or if it is the rule.

When doing the test previous to debarkation (More about this later), the group behind us told us how they cruised with their grandchildren in August and they were charged the 150$ per kid. But I don't have any details about them.

If I get any charges later, I will let you know for sure

mapgirl34 · November 1, 2021

Thank you! We take our tests tomorrow (Tuesday) and our ship sails Thursday.

Amazing how we have to be locked in to bubble tours or can't leave the ship, but embarkation is crowded and disorganized. I agree with you. If someone showed up positive, it negates all the pre-cruise testing. Seems a bit silly to me. But I imagine they're still working out the kinks.

cjsegninir · November 1, 2021

Day 8: Last sea day

So it is time to close this review. I know was less live than I first wanted, but, I was on vacation! haha.

Well, I'll try my best to remember this last day, but by now it is already a bit blurry. I will focus on what I consider the most important things, regarding debarkation preparations.

Being the last sea day we know it was going to be busy, so we planned a relatively earlier start. I woke early as usual and went to the gym, then back to the room and ready to go out before 9am. We took the kids to the Arts and Craft activity with Michael which mostly catered for adults, it was coloring in tiny canvases, but our kids enjoyed it. I went to get breakfast for them and brought it to the tables while they colored.

The evening before we received a paper slip indicating that we had an appointment at 10am at the Burgundy lounge (5th aft, where the comedy and other smaller "shows" are held) in order for the kids to have the mandatory Covid test before debarkation. We knew this was necessary and were expecting to know how it would work. So after the coloring we moved to the room and arrived maybe at 10:10am. There was a line outside, they were checking cabin numbers and we were seated inside according to capacity.

They kept the room to about 50% capacity, but I am sure they can do a better job in organizing it, maybe giving a more accurate appointment timing or even using different venues for the testing. I mean, having all unvaccinated guests attending the same room in the same window of time doesnt sound like a good idea. I mentioned it to the person handling the activity, and although she was not as friendly and accepting as I would have expected, I could see that she was very busy and stressed and might not have shown her best face. Her response was basically that it is not their fault that people doesnt respect the appointment timings. I agree, but still I am pretty sure that there are better ways to handle this.

One thing to note is that not only kids and unvaccinated were having the test, also all the passengers on back-to-back cruises. That increased the amount of passengers taking the tests considerably.

The whole process took about an hour, from the time we lined out outside, to the time we waiting sitting inside and the actual testing (Normal nose swab for a rapid test). The people conducting the tests wer in full scrubs and protection and there was a lot of personnel wiping all surfaces continuously. After the test they ask you to go to your stateroom and wait there for 15 mins. If you don't get a call, you are free to resume your cruising activities. In case of a positive result, they would call to arrange for a full PCR test and you would have to quarantine in the meantime. We went to the room and waited for about 30-45mins, when there was no call, we went out again for lunch at lido.

As accustomed lunch time had the chocolate buffet at lido. There were a lot of chocolate cakes, the chocolate fountain, etc. Although I did miss some of the decorations and chocolate figurines of the old days, and I sort of preferred the Dinner time chocolate buffet, instead of lunch time, but still we ate enough chocolate for a month 😛. Some of the cakes were absolutely delicious!

One more thing that we needed to do for debarkation preparations was to get the luggage tags. They no longer send them to your room, instead we got a letter saying that we should go to certain location from 12 noon and collect them. We arrived around 2pm and there was none. We went to guest services and they told us that all were taken already! That people was taking more than they needed, etc etc etc. Not sure if that is the case, or if it is that Carnival has reduced the amount of tags that they have available (Less tags, less luggage to handle, less personnel, maybe?). In any case, I explain that I have kids and it would be impossible to handle luggage by ourselves so he went inside and sourced some tags for us. I noticed at least three more people in the same circumstances and they all got tags after asking, but not sure about people that came later than us. So my recommendation, get there early to get your tags!

Another big activity we had for the day was collecting the photos. On our past two cruises since we had kids (One with Princess and one with HAL) we purchased the all-inclusive pictures package. But Carnival doesn't offer this option, so we pre-purchased the largest package they offered (15 photos, one canvas and the digital copies for 300$). I know it is expensive, and I know we can almost cruise again for that money, but what can I say, we love the pictures. During the week we would collect all the photos and give to team who would store them in an envelope for us. Then on the last cruise day we had to come and choose the 15 we would keep. We had hundreds of photos to sort and select from, long and tedious task. After more than 1 hour we had 25 photos shortlisted, so I ended up paying another 200$ in photos. Don't kill me, it would have been harder if I said no to DW and DD haha.

Once we give them the selected photos, they keep them in an envelope to make sure the lab copies the correct digital ones in the flash drive, and then we were told to come back at 8pm to collect them.

After crying a little (Both for the photos we didnt buy and the horrible amount of money I paid for the ones we took) we had planned to take the kids to the pool. But weather was not helping much, so we ended up roaming around the ship for a bit and then came to prepare luggage. We did all fairly quickly and were ready to go for dinner and show. We decided for early show, tonight was the America Rocks and we really enjoyed, despite my wife not being a big fan of rock music. I was surprised to see a live band playing! It was only a keyboard, a drum set, a guitar and a bass, but it really makes the difference! Plus there were two new singers (One man and one woman), which we believe might be from the band, because you could hear in their voices they are real rockers. The show was very good, although some of the songs were butchered by the ship's singers (specially one of the male cast).

After the show we went for dinner at the MDR, whcih was mostly empty. For showtime we had the same waitress singer with the Carnival goodbye song. Again she didn't dissapoint, she is really good. I can't remember what we had for dinner, but I do remember that we cried a little again because we would have to cook the next day haha. Dinner was good as usual, we said farewell to the servers and staff. Most of them were great, especially with our kids. They brought napkin animals, talked to them, brought them special meals they wanted and more. The best one we had was Indra (Say hi to him if you meet him when you cruise), we saw him several times not only in the MDR but also in Lido and he always came to greet us and talk to the kids. Also the ladies at the reception of 3rd floor MDR were very accomodating and always smiling. Certainly the staff is what makes cruising the best vacation ever!

We went back to the stateroom past 9pm and were surprised that there were no luggage outside the doors! After seeing all the tags gone so quick I was expecting the halls being full of bags, but ther was none. Again, I don't want to assume it is Carnival cutting the number of tags, it may be that the staff was very good in collecting the luggage as soon as they were put out (They did it for ours, it didn't stay at the door more than 5 mins). We put ours around 10:30pm, as the call was to bring them out from 8-11pm.

Changed the kids to their PJs and went to sleep on the shio for the last time this trip 😞

Day 9: Debarkation

You know how debarkation works. Nothing has changed and it is as sad as always. I woke up around 6:30am and the bill was already below the door. By 7am we were on port and the first announcements came outside the room calling for the early debarkation. They called by muster station instead of floor numbers, which I think is a good idea. Close to 8am (The time we need to vacate the staterooms) the announcement came through the room speakers. At 8 o'clock there was a knock on the door. It was Abdul, our steward. He was as good as expected. He was always around, always smiling, maintained the room very clean and tidy, despite doing only one service per day instead of two (We chose evenings).

5 mins later we were in Lido having breakfast. Lido was not as crowded as I remember in previous cruises. I guess it helps that occupancy was not 100%, but also that debarkation was going very fast. On one hand, many would have been "forced" to leave the ship early carrying their own bags. On the other they were calling the bag tags 10 at a time. We had 28, which was one of the last (I think they called down to 32), but by the time we came to Lido they had already called until 10.

We finished our breakfast with no rush and maybe around 9am they called our group (21-30). We waited for most of the people to leave and moved almost last so we avoided the crowd and stress. Walked out of the ship and into the terminal, where the bags were waiting for us. There was a relatively long line for porters, but we carried our own luggage, so we came our really fast.

One thing I noticed differently was that immigration was basically inexistent. I might have a bad recollection of my last cruise in 2015 and the previous ones, but I always remember having to hand the passport to an immigration officer and receiving a stamp (I always visited under tourist visas, this is our first time as residents). This time we only smiled at Carnival's Smile-and-go cameras until it flashed green and that was all. No line, no wait, no anything. Really convenient and fast!

Walked outside and the shuttle for the parking was waiting for us, loaded the luggage and drove us to the car. Took maybe 5-10mins with no traffic. Being in the covered parking, they dropped us first.

We loaded the bags and drove for 4 hours to get home under 2pm.

Vacation is over and I now sit on my desk working today 😞

cjsegninir · November 2, 2021

39 minutes ago, mapgirl34 said:

Thank you! We take our tests tomorrow (Tuesday) and our ship sails Thursday.

Amazing how we have to be locked in to bubble tours or can't leave the ship, but embarkation is crowded and disorganized. I agree with you. If someone showed up positive, it negates all the pre-cruise testing. Seems a bit silly to me. But I imagine they're still working out the kinks.

I know. I mean, I never felt really "scared" of getting Covid. Most of the people was wearing masks all the time. And knowing that >90% of everyone you encounter is vaccinated is very reassuring. But it is true, you cannot go out of the ship but you are still with the same people inside. Or for the testing you have chairs separated apart but there is a long line outside to enter the room.

Many times you feel some of these restrictions are just for a "show". To make sure you get approvals from CDC and the ports' authorities. But at the same time you can understand Carnival (and all the cruise lines), they are a business and they need to do their best to avoid contagions, or at least show that they did (Or tried to do) all they could.

But even of all the seemingly complains I may have, we had a wonderful cruise and a wonderful vacation. And I always felt safer there than going to the supermarket or a restaurant or anywhere else. And surely safer than taking a plane and staying in a random hotel

Enjoy your trip! Thanks for reading

cjsegninir · November 2, 2021

Summary for parents

In short words, cruising is still a very good option for a family vacation these days. It is still a lot of fun and the covid restrictions are manageable. You feel safe most of the time, safer than you would feel going on a plane or a random hotel room in a vacation destination and eating out in random restaurants.

But there are a few things you really need to consider:

1) You must budget for the bubble tours, which is additional cost

2) There are limited cruise-organized activities for kids, so you will be basically left on your own on this regard.

3) There is always the uncertainty in the planning. Having to get the covid test pre-embarkation, and waiting for the cruise line to grant you the exemption for your kids.

Carnival, what did you do?

In my honest opinion, cruising is still the best vacation. I know it is not for everyone, but it is hard to beat the price-quality relationship. And Carnival is usually hardest to beat in pricing and shiny new ships and activities. But it comes at a cost.

I remember my first few cruises, all with Carnival, how much we loved the experience. Everything was new for us and we fell in love with it. But with every sailing we noticed things changing. Those small little things that won't make your vacation worse per-se, but once they are removed, you really miss them and you start feeling cheated. I'm talking of "silly" things like no toiletries, no chocolate mint in your bed, room service charges (Hated not to be able to have a decent breakfast in the room without paying for it!), very bad quality toilet paper, and I could go on and on.

Now that I have also experiences with other cruise lines (HAL and Princess most recently) I can see the difference, and I might be getting old, but I am starting to prefer those than Carnival.

Not saying I won't go back to Carnival, but it breaks my heart a little to know that I don't love them as much as I did and that they won't be my automatic first option as they were in the past.

Still, what makes the cruising most enjoyable is the service you receive, and the staff was great as usual. They really try their best to make your vacation enjoyable.

Now with this I conclude my humble review. I hope it is of help to parents especially, but for anyone deciding if cruising soon.

Keep safe and hope to meet you on-board some day.