Anyone Back from the Dream?

[beasfriend]

We're leaving next Sunday and are anxiously awaiting reviews/comments about the 5/11 Dream to Bermuda. Please post something as we're starved for information!

[brokenarrowhd]

There's another thread to all the "dreamers' and not a single person has commented on their cruise. What's with that? I think they are going to keep us guessing.

[pumpkin228]

Anyone? Anyone? Bueller?

[beasfriend]

Usually someone has something to say by now - this is very unusual.

[cbr]

Well, honestly this was the worst cruise I have taken (this is my third with NCL). I have hesitated to post because I don't want people to be too discouraged but there really aren't too many positive things to say about our experience. First of all, embarkation took well over an hour even though we were supposed to be in the Latitudes "express line". This might not have been a big deal except that half of the people in the line weren't Latitudes members but nobody bothered to correct them. In addition, we were carrying our sleeping 3-year-old and trying to entertain our excited 7-year-old.

 

Once on board I received a nice carnation since it was Mother's Day and, although the announcements said otherwise, our room was already cleaned so we could place our carry-ons in the room and go explore the ship. Although I know this ship is a bit older I was impressed with the overall cleanliness and upkeep of all of the public spaces but, quite frankly, that is where my accolades of the Dream stop. The top decks are not conducive to bringing along children - that is for sure. The "main" swimming pool is small (deck 10 midship) and there are no lounge chairs there - only tables and sitting chairs. The swim up bar had plenty of places to lay out but wasn't a great place for the kids to hang out (we didn't want to annoy the adults by allowing them to play in the swim up bar). Everything just seemed too separated and detached. The sail away BBQ was in the main pool area, while the entertainment and lounge chairs were near the swimup bar.

 

The food was, in a word, mediocre. In addition, it was spread out across so many venues that it was a hassle to get the right food for everyone. If you wanted a sandwich you had to go to La Trattoria but the rest of the hot food, salad and desserts were in the Sports Pub. If you wanted pizza, hot dogs or hamburgers those were at the Pizzeria......it necesscitated a lot of running around. The one thing I will say about the food is that we never really encountered a line and, although issues have been widely posted on CC, there was ample seating and short lines even in the Sport Pub. We did go to Le Bistro the last night of the cruise, which may have been a mistake (waiting that long). Our appetizers and my husband's steak were fabulous but I had to return two separate seafood entrees because they were "off". The creme brulee was great though. We ate all of the other nights in one of the main dining rooms or La Trattoria and the food was just adequate - not like what I am used to on an NCL ship. No escargot, no fancy Captain's dinner. I actually lost weight on this cruise!!

 

Also, they ran out of a lot of alcohol choices. Apparently the folks on the two-day cruise to nowhere just prior to our cruise had healthy appetites and depleted a lot of their selection and they did not restock prior to us setting sail! Before we even arrived in Bermuda they were running out of several popular types of hard alcohol and many types of beer. Very poor planning and a general bummer since you can't bring your own on board.

 

The weather, which I understand NCL has no control over, didn't help. We had terribly rough seas both coming and going and were resigned to our staterooms with two young sailors who didn't feel so well. I tried for 1 1/2 hours to call for room service but got a busy signal. I finally called the reception desk and they told me that with the rough seas everone was calling for room service and they would see what they could do - I never heard back from them. Because of the bad weather we could not go up on the top decks to use any of the "kid friendly" things, like the basketball court, shuffleboard, etc. Unfortunately, NCL didn't come up with any interesting indoor activities for them to do. In fact, they had an indoor golf putting contest scheduled that they cancelled because they couldn't go up on the upper decks to get the equipment! It would have been nice if they had opened up the Kids Krew a bit more to make up for the lack of things for the kids to do.

 

I will say that the majority of the staff members were very nice and all of them made a big deal about our youngest son, who is 3.

 

In the future I will stick to newer ships with more amenities when traveling with our children. If you aren't traveling with kids then chances are you will enjoy this ship more than we did, however; don't expect fantastic fair.

 

One last note - a LOT of people took part in the express debarkation. Do yourself a favor and don't bother. We knew this from our last cruise on the Dawn and so checked our baggage (plus we just had too much to carry ourselves). The line went on, and on, and on. People were extremely frustrated by this process. We encountered one woman who was sent to wait in our hallway (we were on deck 6 aft) with her walker so that she wouldn't have to wait in line but they sent her husband all the way back to the back of the line!! She ended up having to stand there for at least 45 minutes waiting for him to make it as far as she was while leaning on a walker. I felt terrible for her.

 

Honestly I am generally a glass is half full kinda gal so posting this pains me but I would not recommend this cruise. Hopefully all of you will have calmer seas and better fare. This was their maiden voyage from Boston so hopefully embarkation and debarkation will speed up as they figure things out.

[beasfriend]

Thank you so much for writing this honest review. We're leaving on the Dream this Sunday and I am looking for any piece of information on how the first sailing went. We're not traveling with children, so I can see where it will be easier for us. Now the questions:

 

How was docking in Hamilton - did they move the shore excursion start off points to Hamilton, bus you to St. George, or cancel?

 

How was the entertainment while the ship was in port?

 

What time were you able to get on the ship?

 

Was the ship full - I know the understaffing/wait time was bad on the three day cruise. Since it seems to have improved on your's, I'm wondering if it's a matter of their getting their act together or just a case of less people to have to deal with. The running out of things before the ned of the cruise does not bode well.

 

Thank you again for your report -

[Smellytoes]

Thanks so much for letting us know how it went. It sounds pretty similar to my experiences on the Majesty. The ship is just too small for kids.

 

Now onto my stupid question , were pool towels in your room when you got onboard or did you just grabbed them at the pool??

[Ivey01]

Hi CBR,

 

Thanks for your review - just a note though, on the two day cruise just prior to yours NCL also ran out of several types of beer. So I don't think that it was just the folks on the two day cruise that caused a problem with the lack of certain types of alchohol - more than likely poor planning on the part of NCL.

[brokenarrowhd]

cbr, thanks for your review. Sorry to hear this was your worst cruise. From what you and others have stated the Dream needs to get it's act together. Running out of things two times in a row is very poor management. They won't fill the ship if they keep this up.

[cbr]

Beasfriend - docking in Hamilton was kind of a bummer just because you couldn't easily access a beach but as far as the Harbour Nights celebration it was nice. When we arrived (and man was that a tight fit - there were deck crew scrambling everywhere because the stern was swinging about and we almost hit a small island as we circled around) there were announcements that all of the shore excursions in St. Georges were cancelled. I think this was probably because of the weather - even the ferries weren't running to St. Georges that day.

 

We didn't get an opportunity to check out much of the entertainment because we had the kids with us so I can't speak to that.

 

As far as boarding goes, apparently people could board much earlier than our paperwork said because they were boarding when we dropped off our baggage around 11:00. We got there just as the onslaught ensued so got hung up in line but I think if you were to get there early enough you could board without the hassle we did.

 

The ship was definitely not full, which probably was the reason for no lines and an uncrowded Sports Pub (in addition to the rough seas). I spoke to one waitress and she said the crew was bored because they were used to a capacity ship (and very demanding people while in South America) and on this trip there were only about 1100 people and everyone was so pleasant and undemanding (go New Englanders!).

 

Smellytoes - they pool towels were actually a huge annoyance to me! They were left in our staterooms with a note that if they were not brought back to our staterooms we would be charged $25/each. According to the note you could swap out wet ones for dry ones but they had to be returned to the place that you got the dry ones. I understand that some of them go "missing" and that they have to keep track of them but I think you should be able to swap out a wet towel for a dry one wherever they are available and then be able to leave the wet ones in your stateroom for clean towels.........and, in fact, I never saw dry ones available either up on deck or as you were leaving/returning to the ship.

 

Ivey01 - it probably was a case of NCL being unprepared but the bartender was the one who told me that the two-day cruise patrons drank them out of a lot of beer (and kudos to them!). NCL should have planned on restocking before a 7-day cruise in any event.

[SurftheWave]

all i know is that the June 1st cruise out of boston on the dream, is completely sold out.

[CruisinMaterial]

The May 18, 2008 sailing to Bermuda on the Dream sailed with 1,400 passengers. It wasn't a full ship and there were a lot of cabins on lower decks that were empty. The lower the deck the more cabins there were that were empty. Quite a few cabins had children in them and that made the number seem like a lot but those are not full cabins.

 

This weeks sailing according to our source in the dining room onboard has 1,700 onboard - just shy of sailing full. It should be interesting to see what these folks think as I can't imagine the ship sailing with any more than what we had. It always seemed crowded in public spaces.

[beach2sea]

CBR - Thanks for being a considerate parent and not taking your kids to the swim up bar pool. Not everyone would take other passengers in mind.

 

We're booked for the Dream in July. I hope that bar gets stocked.

[edlou]

Hi, I just submitted our review. It should be posted late tomorrow under " member reviews". We had no children and our thoughts on this cruise were much different than the other cc'ers thoughts. It also contains some helpful hints.[i hope]