RCI Cruisers go on the Carnival Dream - Our Review

I wasn't going to do a review thread but after seeing the thread "Carnival cruisers go on RCI - our Pros & Cons", I figured I'd share our experience from the reverse POV. (P.S. if the OP of that thread sees this, nice review!)

Let me start this off by stating the obvious, we are lifelong cruisers with Royal Caribbean, though we have also cruised on Disney and once before, Carnival. Our one and only Carnival cruise, prior to this, was on the Carnival Destiny, which wasn’t a fun trip.

We were part of a large group of almost 40, celebrating the 50th wedding anniversary of some very good friends of ours on the July 30th sailing of the Carnival Dream. As a group, we booked up all of the grand suites on one side of deck 7, so we could keep everyone together.

Check In / Getting On Board / The Suite

We arrived at the port around 10a and were quickly ushered into the check in area. There was some confusion with the check in staff as to where we should go and who had our cards since we had both suites and faster to the fun (FTTF). That was settled quickly and we were told to head to the Captain’s lounge. The lounge was packed though we were able to secure some space for our group. There were announcements being made but it was tough to hear any of them due to the amount of people in the lounge. Overall, this process was simple and easy.

I can’t recall the exact time we were cleared to get on the ship but I want to say it was somewhere around 11:30 or 11:45. Getting on was easy, we made our way to the elevators to get to our room so we could drop off our luggage. We were the only ones with FTTF in the group, so we told everyone to leave their luggage in our room. Once we arrived at our rooms, we were told by the supervisor that all of the grand suites were ready and they could go ahead and occupy them.

The “suite” was disappointing, like something out of a cheap hotel. Given that this was their top of the line suite, I was expecting more. The carpet was worn and frayed and the faux wood floor in the entryway was peeling up. The room was a bit on the warm side (then again, so was everything in New Orleans!), the TV was ridiculously small (Seriously, a 19” Vizio computer monitor??!!) and the balcony was way smaller/narrower than we thought it would be. The layout of the bathroom was great, though I’m not sure I understand the need for a bidet, my 3-year-old son loved it and made frequent use of it. The shower/tub setup was also very good. The beds were very uncomfortable (we know, this is a very personal thing and some people love them) and while setup as a queen/king, they kept splitting in the middle of the night. Our attendant kept telling us he was going to fix this but never did. Also, whoever thought to put the light controls where they are near the bed, should be publically flogged. We turned on the cabin lights at least 3x per night, in the dead middle of the night, every night. AAARRRGGGGHHHH!! The lack of power outlets in the room was surprising as well. We had a CPAP machine with us and had to request an extension cord to be delivered which we had to run from the TV area to the bed. At best, the “Grand Suite” is a bottom of the line suite on RCI.

We met the room steward and he gave a bit of a sigh when we asked for both morning and evening service, though he did a decent job throughout the week.

Food

We had read the stories on here about poor service in the main dining room and cut backs to food services in general. We were prepared for mediocre, at best. On RCI, we always do the My Time Dining but on this trip, due to the group, we had the early dining already setup. Our wait staff was great, very attentive. We had an assistant waiter on one evening that couldn’t get a single order right to save his life, but we all survived. The food was actually very good. I don’t think anyone in the party had a bad meal the entire week. While I read lots of complaints about slow service, we didn’t have any issues. Traveling with a large group of folks tends to take your mind off things, so maybe that’s why it wasn’t an issue for us. Kudo's to the dining room crew and the chefs!

The buffet was awful. No real way to sugar coat it. The food selection was lacking and tasted like crap. No real flavors, needed to salt and pepper everything. Hot foods were lukewarm, cold foods not cold… ugh. Breakfast was decent, my son always had more than his fair share of things he’d eat for breakfast. The bacon police has to be one of the stupidest and stingiest things I’ve ever seen. Just plain silly. The “deli” was a good option and had some pretty decent sandwiches, but the wait to get them sometimes exceeded 20 minutes, which is nuts.

Guy’s burger joint was excellent. We had quite a few lunches from there and were never disappointed. They seemed to do a pretty decent job of getting people through the lines quickly.

Guy’s BBQ was also good. The location of this venue on the Dream really stinks and leaves people standing out in the sun for north of 30 minutes waiting for their food. Good BBQ at sea is unheard of, they did a good job but not sure it was worth the wait in the sun.

I don’t recall the name of the Burrito place, but a few folks grabbed things from there and all liked it.

Some in our party tried out the Mongolian Wok in the buffet. All complained about waiting upwards of 20 minutes but said the food was very good and overall, worth the wait.

The ice cream machines were excellent and very well maintained. My son would have eaten all 3 meals via those machines if we allowed him.

Entertainment

We hit up some of the kids shows and they were pretty good. No complaints. Some in our party went to the comedy shows and said they were really good. We also did the dive in movie one night and had a good time.

Pools

Two very small pools for a lot of people. They turned in to giant bathtubs of salt water. Kids in diapers openly swimming and staff in the area did literally nothing to stop it, even when I pointed it out to one of them. I’m surprised they didn’t have any fresh water pools or at least, more pools in general. They were a sloppy mess and when my 3-year-old doesn’t want to go swimming, something’s not right.

Slides / Kids Area

The kid's play area on this ship is lacking and my guess is, that’s why some folks end up putting them in the “larger” pool two decks down. The kiddie slides are very small, very cramped and the deck around them is verrrrry hot. Our son had a good time playing and we were happy that the attendants let him go up on the big slide and use it, as he loved doing that. Over and over and over and over and over. All the kids playing in this area seemed to have a good time, though a lot of the younger kids kept getting knocked over by the bigger kids because the play area was too small.

The staff working in the kids club area were nice, though our son had no interest in attending. We tried to get him interested one night but when we were met by a bunch of 4 years old screaming and pounding on the plexiglass, wanting to go back to their parents, he was having none of it and decided he was going to hang with us. That’s fine, we go on vacation to spend some dedicated time with our kid.

Casino

Didn’t get to spend much time here as we were traveling with our son but what time I did spend, I made Carnival pay for their crappy suite and buffet. LOL. Played some slots and some blackjack and left up over $700. Not too bad!

Internet

Awful. You charge as much as RCI but it’s slow as molasses. On RCI, we were able to stream two different TV’s with Amazon FireTV sticks. The internet on Carnival is a joke and there’s no reason for it to be as slow as it is. Awful.

Overall

The ship is in good shape, though we were surprised to see some of the wear and tear on a ship that just came out of drydock a few months earlier. I guess that’s the life of living in the ocean.

The crew were all pleasant and friendly. We had read some prior reviews complaining about that but I have to say, I think everyone we talked to was in good spirits and friendly.

We were very surprised and extremely disappointed at the public restrooms. Trying to find a handicap accessible restroom on this ship is a real chore. The normal public restrooms were very small and were very difficult to use for some of the folks in our group.

The elevators really stunk. Again, another surprise… how many elevators were out of service and being used for crew purposes. On boarding day, over half of the elevators on our side of the ship were “X” out and not available. We’ve been on RCI’s Allure and Oasis and never ran into elevator issues like we did on the Dream.

Overall, we were happier with the Dream than we were with the Desinty but still find that Carnival caters to a much different traveler than we are. We had vowed to not return to Carnival since our previous trip on the Destiny but did so with the Dream since we were going with an awesome group of folks and we knew we’d have a good time. While I know Carnival has its very dedicated fan base, we are not in those demographics.

Thanks for posting your review.

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I don't think the internet is Carnival's fault. Almost all other cruise lines besides Royal have slow internet.. Royal just happens to use the greatest and latest technology VOOM, and it also depends on which ship you're on. We used it on the Empress of the Seas which just got the new technology installed when it came back from Pullmantur and it was super fast. On the Independence two months later, super slow.

We like both lines equally and just sail with one if the price/date is right.

Thanks for the review though.

I don't think the internet is Carnival's fault. Almost all other cruise lines besides Royal have slow internet.. Royal just happens to use the greatest and latest technology VOOM, and it also depends on which ship you're on. We used it on the Empress of the Seas which just got the new technology installed when it came back from Pullmantur and it was super fast. On the Independence two months later, super slow.

Sure it's their fault, they chose not to invest into the fastest available Internet service for their ships. Just like RCI cheaped out on the internet service for Independence, though I thought they had upgraded all of their ships with VOOM now.

I wasn't going to do a review thread but after seeing the thread "Carnival cruisers go on RCI - our Pros & Cons", I figured I'd share our experience from the reverse POV. (P.S. if the OP of that thread sees this, nice review!)

 

 

 

Let me start this off by stating the obvious, we are lifelong cruisers with Royal Caribbean, though we have also cruised on Disney and once before, Carnival. Our one and only Carnival cruise, prior to this, was on the Carnival Destiny, which wasn’t a fun trip.

 

 

 

 

 

We were part of a large group of almost 40, celebrating the 50th wedding anniversary of some very good friends of ours on the July 30th sailing of the Carnival Dream. As a group, we booked up all of the grand suites on one side of deck 7, so we could keep everyone together.

 

 

 

 

 

Check In / Getting On Board / The Suite

 

 

 

 

 

We arrived at the port around 10a and were quickly ushered into the check in area. There was some confusion with the check in staff as to where we should go and who had our cards since we had both suites and faster to the fun (FTTF). That was settled quickly and we were told to head to the Captain’s lounge. The lounge was packed though we were able to secure some space for our group. There were announcements being made but it was tough to hear any of them due to the amount of people in the lounge. Overall, this process was simple and easy.

 

 

 

 

 

I can’t recall the exact time we were cleared to get on the ship but I want to say it was somewhere around 11:30 or 11:45. Getting on was easy, we made our way to the elevators to get to our room so we could drop off our luggage. We were the only ones with FTTF in the group, so we told everyone to leave their luggage in our room. Once we arrived at our rooms, we were told by the supervisor that all of the grand suites were ready and they could go ahead and occupy them.

 

 

 

 

 

The “suite” was disappointing, like something out of a cheap hotel. Given that this was their top of the line suite, I was expecting more. The carpet was worn and frayed and the faux wood floor in the entryway was peeling up. The room was a bit on the warm side (then again, so was everything in New Orleans!), the TV was ridiculously small (Seriously, a 19” Vizio computer monitor??!!) and the balcony was way smaller/narrower than we thought it would be. The layout of the bathroom was great, though I’m not sure I understand the need for a bidet, my 3-year-old son loved it and made frequent use of it. The shower/tub setup was also very good. The beds were very uncomfortable (we know, this is a very personal thing and some people love them) and while setup as a queen/king, they kept splitting in the middle of the night. Our attendant kept telling us he was going to fix this but never did. Also, whoever thought to put the light controls where they are near the bed, should be publically flogged. We turned on the cabin lights at least 3x per night, in the dead middle of the night, every night. AAARRRGGGGHHHH!! The lack of power outlets in the room was surprising as well. We had a CPAP machine with us and had to request an extension cord to be delivered which we had to run from the TV area to the bed. At best, the “Grand Suite” is a bottom of the line suite on RCI.

 

 

 

 

 

We met the room steward and he gave a bit of a sigh when we asked for both morning and evening service, though he did a decent job throughout the week.

 

 

 

 

 

Food

 

 

 

 

 

We had read the stories on here about poor service in the main dining room and cut backs to food services in general. We were prepared for mediocre, at best. On RCI, we always do the My Time Dining but on this trip, due to the group, we had the early dining already setup. Our wait staff was great, very attentive. We had an assistant waiter on one evening that couldn’t get a single order right to save his life, but we all survived. The food was actually very good. I don’t think anyone in the party had a bad meal the entire week. While I read lots of complaints about slow service, we didn’t have any issues. Traveling with a large group of folks tends to take your mind off things, so maybe that’s why it wasn’t an issue for us. Kudo's to the dining room crew and the chefs!

 

 

 

 

 

The buffet was awful. No real way to sugar coat it. The food selection was lacking and tasted like crap. No real flavors, needed to salt and pepper everything. Hot foods were lukewarm, cold foods not cold… ugh. Breakfast was decent, my son always had more than his fair share of things he’d eat for breakfast. The bacon police has to be one of the stupidest and stingiest things I’ve ever seen. Just plain silly. The “deli” was a good option and had some pretty decent sandwiches, but the wait to get them sometimes exceeded 20 minutes, which is nuts.

 

 

 

 

 

Guy’s burger joint was excellent. We had quite a few lunches from there and were never disappointed. They seemed to do a pretty decent job of getting people through the lines quickly.

 

 

 

 

 

Guy’s BBQ was also good. The location of this venue on the Dream really stinks and leaves people standing out in the sun for north of 30 minutes waiting for their food. Good BBQ at sea is unheard of, they did a good job but not sure it was worth the wait in the sun.

 

 

 

 

 

I don’t recall the name of the Burrito place, but a few folks grabbed things from there and all liked it.

 

 

 

 

 

Some in our party tried out the Mongolian Wok in the buffet. All complained about waiting upwards of 20 minutes but said the food was very good and overall, worth the wait.

 

 

 

 

 

The ice cream machines were excellent and very well maintained. My son would have eaten all 3 meals via those machines if we allowed him.

 

 

 

 

 

Entertainment

 

 

 

 

 

We hit up some of the kids shows and they were pretty good. No complaints. Some in our party went to the comedy shows and said they were really good. We also did the dive in movie one night and had a good time.

 

 

 

 

 

Pools

 

 

 

 

 

Two very small pools for a lot of people. They turned in to giant bathtubs of salt water. Kids in diapers openly swimming and staff in the area did literally nothing to stop it, even when I pointed it out to one of them. I’m surprised they didn’t have any fresh water pools or at least, more pools in general. They were a sloppy mess and when my 3-year-old doesn’t want to go swimming, something’s not right.

 

 

 

 

 

Slides / Kids Area

 

 

 

The kid's play area on this ship is lacking and my guess is, that’s why some folks end up putting them in the “larger” pool two decks down. The kiddie slides are very small, very cramped and the deck around them is verrrrry hot. Our son had a good time playing and we were happy that the attendants let him go up on the big slide and use it, as he loved doing that. Over and over and over and over and over. All the kids playing in this area seemed to have a good time, though a lot of the younger kids kept getting knocked over by the bigger kids because the play area was too small.

 

 

 

 

 

The staff working in the kids club area were nice, though our son had no interest in attending. We tried to get him interested one night but when we were met by a bunch of 4 years old screaming and pounding on the plexiglass, wanting to go back to their parents, he was having none of it and decided he was going to hang with us. That’s fine, we go on vacation to spend some dedicated time with our kid.

 

 

 

 

 

Casino

 

 

 

 

 

Didn’t get to spend much time here as we were traveling with our son but what time I did spend, I made Carnival pay for their crappy suite and buffet. LOL. Played some slots and some blackjack and left up over $700. Not too bad!

 

 

 

 

 

Internet

 

 

 

 

 

Awful. You charge as much as RCI but it’s slow as molasses. On RCI, we were able to stream two different TV’s with Amazon FireTV sticks. The internet on Carnival is a joke and there’s no reason for it to be as slow as it is. Awful.

 

 

 

 

 

Overall

 

 

 

The ship is in good shape, though we were surprised to see some of the wear and tear on a ship that just came out of drydock a few months earlier. I guess that’s the life of living in the ocean.

 

 

 

 

 

The crew were all pleasant and friendly. We had read some prior reviews complaining about that but I have to say, I think everyone we talked to was in good spirits and friendly.

 

 

 

 

 

We were very surprised and extremely disappointed at the public restrooms. Trying to find a handicap accessible restroom on this ship is a real chore. The normal public restrooms were very small and were very difficult to use for some of the folks in our group.

 

 

 

 

 

The elevators really stunk. Again, another surprise… how many elevators were out of service and being used for crew purposes. On boarding day, over half of the elevators on our side of the ship were “X” out and not available. We’ve been on RCI’s Allure and Oasis and never ran into elevator issues like we did on the Dream.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Overall, we were happier with the Dream than we were with the Desinty but still find that Carnival caters to a much different traveler than we are. We had vowed to not return to Carnival since our previous trip on the Destiny but did so with the Dream since we were going with an awesome group of folks and we knew we’d have a good time. While I know Carnival has its very dedicated fan base, we are not in those demographics.

If you parked did y'all use the port parking thanks trying to decide where to park

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Just curious, you thought the buffet was worse than RCI?

I absolutely loved the Allure but the buffet was absolutely disgusting and I do mean discussing. On my last carnival cruise the buffet wasn't as good as my past carnival cruises so I guess I can expect it being even worse that then on the Glory.....maybe.

Thanks for the review.

Carnival suites are definitely nothing to write home about. Having seen what the suites look like during cabin crawls on RC, NCL, and CCL, I'd never book one with Carnival unless it was too good of a deal to pass up.

As for the bacon police, that's due to the idiots that would take half a pigs worth of bacon, eat a couple of pieces, then leave the rest on their plate to end up in the garbage.

I wasn't going to do a review thread but after seeing the thread "Carnival cruisers go on RCI - our Pros & Cons", I figured I'd share our experience from the reverse POV. (P.S. if the OP of that thread sees this, nice review!)

Hey, that's me!! :D Thanks!

And I can see some of the things you mention in your review. I've said it before, we don't purposely pick a ship/line for that reason alone, we go because it's going someplace we want to go. We never use internet, so I didn't comment on that. But I do feel Carnival buffets were better than the one on our RCI cruise. However, we also did a European cruise, which also brings in different foods to begin with, so I couldn't fully compare them to the actual buffet on Carnival. And we also didn't use the pools much on our cruise, again, because of the cooler, European weather.

The lack of outlets on ALL the ships we've been on is frustrating. Even the RCI one, thought it had 2 at the desk, but that was it. It drives me nuts! LOL!

Sorry, we all have our preferences, I tried Royal 3 times have was not impressed with them. 16 Cruises on Carnival with 3 more booked. I think I will stick to what I like.

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I understand the quality of food is subjective but in all honesty, because I am not cooking it or cleaning up after our meals, they are all superb to me!

Thank you for taking the time to offer your perspective on your sailing.

Thanks for the review.

If you parked did y'all use the port parking thanks trying to decide where to park

 

 

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We always park at Fulton St garage and get shuttled to the port and avoid the long lines of cars trying to get to port garage or to the area to drop off bags and park elsewhere. Rooftop parking at Fulton St is usually $10/day or less with a coupon and inside is about $12/day. The guys there help unload or bags, put them on shuttle and when at pirt, porters come to bus to check and take our bags. Bus us always waiting when we disembark and we really like avoiding the heavy traffic at the port and love how much easier it is to get to the northbound highway to head home. We take our time getting off since we don't have a plane to catch so we're really relaxed when we pickup our car and head home.

Cherie

Thanks for the review, but one cruise on Freedom of the Seas cured me of RCI forever.

First.........staff. Waiters. All were excellent. It was not a people problem outside of activities.

Food was bad. Ship had confusing layout. Beds were not comfortable. Carnival, to me. has the best beds at sea.

Hordes of people. NO place to sit at Trivia. Activities Guy was bored. Asked silly, stupid questions. had to make reservations to see Ice Show and Theater. So we did not. Lines were HUMONGOUS.

We are Platinum on Princess. And Carnival. Sailed a bit on HAL. Once on Celebrity which we liked. 3 times on NCL. only one we really were glad to get off of...............RCI.

Having cruised Both Carnival and Royal I have to agree with 90% of your review. I like the stations on Royal better than Carnival for lunch. I agree the wait times on Carnival are a bit long especially the BBQ.

Just curious, you thought the buffet was worse than RCI?

I absolutely loved the Allure but the buffet was absolutely disgusting and I do mean discussing. On my last carnival cruise the buffet wasn't as good as my past carnival cruises so I guess I can expect it being even worse that then on the Glory.....maybe.

Thanks for the review.

Yes.... it felt like there were more selections of hot foods on RCI than on Carnival. The Carnival buffet seemed so limited and temperature challenged.

Similar to my comment about the mattresses, this one is really open for interpretation by the guest. The guy behind me in line may have loved the food and thought of it as the best meal he'd ever had.

Thank you for your review. I've only ever sailed carnival and have been happy with it but always wondered what I was missing.

I enjoyed reading your review, thank you for taking the time to share it with us.

Our last few cruises have been on Carnival, but our next one will be Oasis of the Seas and I am really looking forward to it. So many cut backs on Carnival, and I wasn't happy with a lot of the food (actually lost 4 pounds on the cruise and that NEVER happens!). The Dream was a nice ship and we did enjoy the cruise but just noticed a lot of "little things" that we didn't like. A big part was the "booze cruise group" that was on the ship, they were so obnoxious it was ridiculous and super annoying. Oh, I'm sure there have been cut backs on Royal too, but for me the ship will be the destination and I'm so looking forward to exploring it and enjoying Central Park, the solarium, the aqua theater, etc. and I remember we loved the ice shows and main theater shows on our other Royal cruises so I'm looking forward to those again as well. And some of the different restaurants. Just wish we didn't have such a long wait. :)

We always park at Fulton St garage and get shuttled to the port and avoid the long lines of cars trying to get to port garage or to the area to drop off bags and park elsewhere. Rooftop parking at Fulton St is usually $10/day or less with a coupon and inside is about $12/day. The guys there help unload or bags, put them on shuttle and when at pirt, porters come to bus to check and take our bags. Bus us always waiting when we disembark and we really like avoiding the heavy traffic at the port and love how much easier it is to get to the northbound highway to head home. We take our time getting off since we don't have a plane to catch so we're really relaxed when we pickup our car and head home.

 

Cherie

Thank you for info

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Thanks for the great review! Carnival has a way to go for buffet layout, Royal’s Island concept is by far much easier to navigate. No bacon police. Food on both Carnival & Royal is similar in some respects but Royal is much more organized, has more choices, and its food venues are more spread out on the ship.

You are correct Royal’s internet is far better. I agree with Carnival suites being lacking, they're pretty lame compared to Royals. Royal suites are better designed, nicer décor, better amenities, better service and overall far better than anything Carnival has. Royal is a notch above Carnival and fits my cruise vacations better, glad I tried them a couple years ago.

Carnivals cutbacks and lack of loyalty program make it a no brainer when booking future cruises.

Thank you for your review. I do agree that the public bathrooms on a Carnival ship are not as nice as Royals and I like the way Royal's flush better than Carnival. I did like the shows better on Royal but Carnival has the better comedians. I feel more comfortable on Carnival so I cruise it most of the time but I will say Disney is the best so far.

Just curious, what is the price difference between a suite on carnival verses one on RCI?

PS. Thank you for taking time to do your review.

Just curious, what is the price difference between a suite on carnival verses one on RCI?

PS. Thank you for taking time to do your review.

Great question! I book through Costco, here is what I paid (and what I got back)

Allure of the Seas (7 nights, 3 ports) - $7,571.09 - $900 OBC, $100 dining credit

Carnival Dream (7 nights, 3 ports) - $6,265.41 - $400 costco cash card

...

Sorry, we all have our preferences, I tried Royal 3 times have was not impressed with them. 16 Cruises on Carnival with 3 more booked. I think I will stick to what I like.

That's great... I sure hope you don't think I was trying to talk you out of Carnival. Simply sharing my experiences.

Take care!

I, too, thank you for your review. DW & I have taken about a dozen cruises with RCI and have just booked B2B cruises on Carnival Spirit for October 2017.