Just off Dream, Nov-3-10 Eastern Itinerary review

Hi everyone:

Just got off the Dream, had an awesome time, except for one consistent thing, YTD (Your time Dining) was slow and disorganized, more on that shortly. Otherwise, everything great.

Stayed at Country Inn and Suites, park and cruise package, can't say enough about their hospitality, organization and ease of parking and shuttle service, hotel clean, great breakfast. It's on Astronaut Blvd. Crystal, the shuttle driver, funny and helpful.

Embarkation very easy, was on pretty quickly and getting our Tandoori food on aft grill by 1110 am. Cabins were not ready until 130 as promised. Cabin was our first cove balcony and we thoroughly enjoyed it, much better than other balconies I've had and I stayed out there much more due to the shade (Im fair skinned and don't lay out or tan) and much closer for wave action and looking for dolphins (didn't see any). Cabin steward ok, nothing extra but did his job well. Steakhouse amazing as usual, I had butterflied fillet mignon and hubby had surf and turf. That was our best meal the whole cruise. Casino slots tight for me, I was on ocean players premier cruise, but got free drinks all cruise long while playing, lots of gifts, beautiful towels, sparkling wine, water bottles, choc. strawberries, etc. Exceeded our expectations. Won a Chef's Table for two in a casino raffle. Hubby enjoyed the unusual foods, but me, not so much, cause Im a meat and potatoes kind of girl. The service was top notch though, served right in the galley on a table for 12. One waiter per person, showed us how to make melting cake and gave recipe for 4 ppl, which I will post if anyone interested.

Food good as usual, loved loved loved the slider burgers at Lanai Buffet on Deck 5, delicious, made from scratch, well seasoned.

Weather very rough on Monday November 5, rained literally all day from 8am till night, -6 foot seas and rocky. As a result, casinos and shops packed. Lots of raffles in shops for different jewelery. More on the ports on another post. Yesterday also rocky all day, captain said 7 foot seas all day.

Ship appeared very clean, not much wear and tear. Enjoyed Serenity several times in hot tubs late at night and hammocks for lounging, never too crowded.

Staff amazing, from waiters to officers, all polite, all say good morning.

Casino manager very nice, Christopher.

More in another post. By the way, I did bring off all my "fun times", also room service menu which is just a piece of paper which I lost till yesterday, and map of Dream. If any one wants them for Eastern, I will be glad to mail them off when I am off work late next week. First person to email me their address will get them to welovetocruise@bellsouth.net

Back to Your Time Dining YTD: This is my 26th Carnival cruise and several cruises using YTD which we love for the flexibility of times. This ship, however, does not have it down for some reason. Lines were horrendous to get a seat on Elegant night, wrapped around atrium. Other nights, depending on what time you went, you never got seated right away, but were given pager to wait on table, and took anywhere from 15 minutes to one hour to get a table. A lot of ppl were complaining about this, even the pursers office staff said they don't know how they can do it better. Last night, got a pastry snack delivered from Hostess in Dining Room (Crimson) saying sorry for wait for table, hope you enjoy the snack and I didnt' even complain once. Seems to us that there are too many ppl on board and not enough large tables to accomodate guests, like the other ships have long tables by windows and large round tables and there are none on the Dream. Waiters seemed very stressed, but always polite and helpful, but took a long time to get our food also.

Nassau: Had been here many times before so just went to the Pharmacy and a few other stores and then took horse and carriage ride, just to support local economy more than anything else.

St. Thomas: Did an awesome and fun excursion called Mini Boat Adventure, highly recommend this one. Megan and Josh our tour guides were fun. We each had our own boat (a zodiac type dinghy with two seats and went very fast. Hopping over the waves and jumping out of the water, my hubby had a blast driving this and was like a teenager......

St. Maarten: Just shopped around the front street and then had a nice waterside lunch at a cafe called Chez Delphine and listened to a street musician. Very nice day. We had also been here several times before. Way too hot that day too, had to keep stopping for rest and water breaks.

We have your time dining on our upcoming cruise on Dream : ( Did you notice lines were at peak times? Or were there lines even for the people who showed up at 6? Worried about dining and thinking about switching to late dining but don't want to worry about missing adult comedy shows!

The excursion in St Thomas sounds like it was a lot of fun! Glad you had a good time and thanks for the review!!

We have your time dining on our upcoming cruise on Dream : ( Did you notice lines were at peak times? Or were there lines even for the people who showed up at 6? Worried about dining and thinking about switching to late dining but don't want to worry about missing adult comedy shows!

 

The excursion in St Thomas sounds like it was a lot of fun! Glad you had a good time and thanks for the review!!

It was better after 8 pm which we didnt like because we don't like to eat that late and plus missing shows. During peak times at 630-730, it was bad, esp. on elegant nights where ppl wanted to go for the lobster. :) We heard that ppl who had a set dining time had a better experience. On elegant night, the line wrapped around the elevators around to the glass elevators, it was insane and then when you finally reached the end of the line, you were given a beeper. We waited about 70 minutes to be seated.

Was going to post another thread with a similar info but saw this.

The cruise was great, was on with the same premier casino package, free drinks were good and the best part - FREE. Slots/tables not so much.

Saw islandgirl win the Chef's table (congrats!), got all the same great gifts... weather was nice except for same comments.

ATD was a true BUST. We went to the Steakhouse the first night (free wine) and got dressed up for elegant night (I even had on the monkey suit), went down to eat and saw the wrap-around line... stood in it a few minutes and thought we would come back... wandered around and came back at 7pm, line was shorter but not by much so we just got in line. After over 30 minutes in line we were close enough to see other people walking in, not using the line. Was a bit miffed til we realized we were in line for a beeper! Finally got it, waited another 20 minutes and got fed up as I had now been in the monkey suit since 6ish. Went up and requested to speak to the head guy (OK I was fuming). Told him this was ridiculous and would prefer to do the late seating NOW. So the Maitre d' takes us upstairs and seats us with the best group of servers in a long time.

Carlos headed it up with Mario and Elvis (yeah that's his name) as his helpers. What a great bunch, can't say enough about how wonderful they were. We got in right at 8:15 and were eating dessert before 9pm. If something was not right before you could mention it Carlos had already whisked it away and had another before you knew it. Not sure how or why the other teams could not do this but they need to take lessons from Carlos. We went to brunch and had another team, left after about 40 minutes... what a joke.

Hope you did not mind me adding to your review islandgirl,

Bob

Not at all Bob glad to have you add on your thoughts, sorry I didn't make it to the Meet n Greet like I had planned, so didn't get to see everyone. Im sure I did see you in the casino though and at the Steakhouse that first night. I wished now that we had just switched to a regular dining time and changed from YTD. I'm sure that you agree though, the Casino hosts were great. I didn't play that much though as I found the slots were just taking my $$$ with little payback. I thought they might have loosened them up just for us :) I did see someone finally break the casino vault around 1130 last night and win the $1,000 and another guy won the ipad on Tower of Cash.

Also should mention that the show called "Dancing in the Street" was excellent, not to be missed. There was also a great magician who was at the Chef's Table and was round and about the ship doing awesome card and rope tricks.

Islandgirl and bobsfamily, DW and I plan to book the next casino premier cruise we receive, as we already had a cruise booked when we got the same offer you got. Hard to turn down the gifts and $500 casino cash.

I noticed there was also a cocktail party for those booked under the promotion. Was it held in the casino and what day? Does the invitation include the spouse, or just the person booking the room?

Thanks for your help in advance.

Was going to post another thread with a similar info but saw this.

 

The cruise was great, was on with the same premier casino package, free drinks were good and the best part - FREE. Slots/tables not so much.

 

Saw islandgirl win the Chef's table (congrats!), got all the same great gifts... weather was nice except for same comments.

 

 

Hope you did not mind me adding to your review islandgirl,

Bob

Not at all Bob glad to have you add on your thoughts, sorry I didn't make it to the Meet n Greet like I had planned, so didn't get to see everyone. Im sure I did see you in the casino though and at the Steakhouse that first night. I wished now that we had just switched to a regular dining time and changed from YTD. I'm sure that you agree though, the Casino hosts were great. I didn't play that much though as I found the slots were just taking my $$$ with little payback. I thought they might have loosened them up just for us :) I did see someone finally break the casino vault around 1130 last night and win the $1,000 and another guy won the ipad on Tower of Cash.

Also should mention that the show called "Dancing in the Street" was excellent, not to be missed. There was also a great magician who was at the Chef's Table and was round and about the ship doing awesome card and rope tricks.

Noticed both of you commented about the slots being tight. I have also noticed this on our last 2 CCL cruises, even on same ships. Wonder if they may be needing to tighten to compensate for keeping the basic cruise fares low?

Thanks for the review. We leave on the Dream next Sat. and are currently wait listed for YTD. Would you recommend taking the late dining? Did you miss any of the shows because of it?

We had YTD on the dream 10/13 and the only night with a wait was fancy pants night. We solved that by marching up to the steak house again. Otherwise we usually went about 7 and had no issues. Quick and great service.

I have a question for you. Is the Premier Casino package a special cruise deal for you? We got told that we qualify for the Premium package but I thought it was just a gift basket? I didn't know if it was a special deal for a specific cruise. Can't wait for the rest of the review.

Karen

Thanks for the review!

I noticed there was also a cocktail party for those booked under the promotion. Was it held in the casino and what day? Does the invitation include the spouse, or just the person booking the room?

I have a question for you. Is the Premier Casino package a special cruise deal for you? We got told that we qualify for the Premium package but I thought it was just a gift basket? I didn't know if it was a special deal for a specific cruise. Can't wait for the rest of the review.

Karen

The cocktail party was nice and yes it includes your "companion". There were several giveaways that you had to reach a certain level of "points" either from slot play or table play and those did not include the companion unless that companion had enogh points themselves.

The "premier Casino cruise" is different from a gift basket that you might receive. This is a group cruise in which the casino gives you a card for free drinks right away, a welcome aboard party, several tournaments, gifts in room including some wonderful towels, champagne, strawberries, etc. Obviously they want you to play and they also offer cash... but as several have stated the slots were mostly cold and tables were lukewarm. Others may have had better luck but that's why they call it gambling!

On another note about the ATD... I've seen/done this on other cruises, never had a problem. With the amount of passengers they either need to open the Crimson up to ATD only or limit the amount that can do it to a reasonable number. Other ships have one MDR for regular and one for ATD. I would never do ATD on a Dream class ship again.... on the other hand our late seating was one of the best we have ever had and the food was so good I canceled our 2nd steakhouse ressies. The steakhouse was awesome but between the team we had (again kodos to Carlos, upper level Crimson) and food being hot, on time, and great tasting we had the best of both worlds.

A couple of other notes:

Embarkation was a breeze - we dropped off luggage at 10:20, parked at 10:25, got cards at 10:35, never sat down and was on back deck of Lido eating a sandwich before 11am.

Disembarkation - did VIP (Platinum) with luggage outside room. We met at 7:15 and were off by 7:25, with porter had luggage and driving out of parking garage at 7:40. Was on 95 before 8am. GREAT!

Never really saw more than a 2-3 minute wait on Lido except at Pasta bar upstairs. Someone must have tipped off the passengers as everyone knew where it was. At least the wait was seated at a table.

Thanks again islandgirl for starting the thread... and I never made it to the M&G either, we went to the welcome onboard party that the casino had.

One more comment, the past guest party was a major bust.... they had almost a 1000 people (which they knew) and not near enough servers... We got there early, got a drink (big drinks) and a snack... never got another one as lots of passengers were basically screaming for their first drink. After about 20 minutes we just left. A real shame but a very small part of the trip.

Nassau: Had been here many times before so just went to the Pharmacy and a few other stores and then took horse and carriage ride, just to support local economy more than anything else.

St. Thomas: Did an awesome and fun excursion called Mini Boat Adventure, highly recommend this one. Megan and Josh our tour guides were fun. We each had our own boat (a zodiac type dinghy with two seats and went very fast. Hopping over the waves and jumping out of the water, my hubby had a blast driving this and was like a teenager......

St. Maarten: Just shopped around the front street and then had a nice waterside lunch at a cafe called Chez Delphine and listened to a street musician. Very nice day. We had also been here several times before. Way too hot that day too, had to keep stopping for rest and water breaks.

Can you tell me a little more about the carriage ride? Price and where did you go, what did you see?

We are booked for the mini boat excursion. So excited, cannot wait!!!

Hi everyone:

Just got off the Dream, had an awesome time, except for one consistent thing, YTD (Your time Dining) was slow and disorganized, more on that shortly. Otherwise, everything great.

Stayed at Country Inn and Suites, park and cruise package, can't say enough about their hospitality, organization and ease of parking and shuttle service, hotel clean, great breakfast. It's on Astronaut Blvd. Crystal, the shuttle driver, funny and helpful.

Embarkation very easy, was on pretty quickly and getting our Tandoori food on aft grill by 1110 am. Cabins were not ready until 130 as promised. Cabin was our first cove balcony and we thoroughly enjoyed it, much better than other balconies I've had and I stayed out there much more due to the shade (Im fair skinned and don't lay out or tan) and much closer for wave action and looking for dolphins (didn't see any). Cabin steward ok, nothing extra but did his job well. Steakhouse amazing as usual, I had butterflied fillet mignon and hubby had surf and turf. That was our best meal the whole cruise. Casino slots tight for me, I was on ocean players premier cruise, but got free drinks all cruise long while playing, lots of gifts, beautiful towels, sparkling wine, water bottles, choc. strawberries, etc. Exceeded our expectations. Won a Chef's Table for two in a casino raffle. Hubby enjoyed the unusual foods, but me, not so much, cause Im a meat and potatoes kind of girl. The service was top notch though, served right in the galley on a table for 12. One waiter per person, showed us how to make melting cake and gave recipe for 4 ppl, which I will post if anyone interested.

Food good as usual, loved loved loved the slider burgers at Lanai Buffet on Deck 5, delicious, made from scratch, well seasoned.

Weather very rough on Monday November 5, rained literally all day from 8am till night, -6 foot seas and rocky. As a result, casinos and shops packed. Lots of raffles in shops for different jewelery. More on the ports on another post. Yesterday also rocky all day, captain said 7 foot seas all day.

Ship appeared very clean, not much wear and tear. Enjoyed Serenity several times in hot tubs late at night and hammocks for lounging, never too crowded.

Staff amazing, from waiters to officers, all polite, all say good morning.

Casino manager very nice, Christopher.

More in another post. By the way, I did bring off all my "fun times", also room service menu which is just a piece of paper which I lost till yesterday, and map of Dream. If any one wants them for Eastern, I will be glad to mail them off when I am off work late next week. First person to email me their address will get them to welovetocruise@bellsouth.net

WE were on the Dream in October. TOTALLY AGREE. DREAM IS AWESOME..EXCEPT FOR DINING. I AM SCREAMING. FIX IT CARNIVAL. FIX IT.

Can you tell me a little more about the carriage ride? Price and where did you go, what did you see?

We are booked for the mini boat excursion. So excited, cannot wait!!!

The carriage ride was just more to support the local business, but it didnt go anywhere much, just pointed out the local government buildings, etc. not even near the Queens staircase or anything. Not really worth the $$ (30 per couple), but it was better than walking though :)

You will absolutely love the mini boat adventure. FYI: the first leg of the trip going out to Christmas Cove, I sat in the back behind my hubby on the seat in the very back (underneath there is a storage cooler for your bags/equipment), it was very bumpy and my lower back got slammed when we hit the waves and wakes from other boats. Coming back I sat right behind him in the drivers seat which is long like a Harley and held onto him, had good back support from a back rest with cushion and that was much better.

The cocktail party was nice and yes it includes your "companion".

 

Hey Bob, I thought the cocktail party (held in the Aft Burgundy Lounge) was excellent, drinks were whiskey sours, rum punch, etc. Very good snacks provided too. I was very impressed that they gave our companions a free drinks card. That was a very nice touch. My husband doesn't even play slots or tables, he just watched football etc on the tvs by the bar, and still got his free drinks. That was a huge savings.

I have a question for you. Is the Premier Casino package a special cruise deal for you? We got told that we qualify for the Premium package but I thought it was just a gift basket? I didn't know if it was a special deal for a specific cruise. Can't wait for the rest of the review.

Karen[/QUO

 

Premier Casino cruise offers start appearing in the mail a couple times a year. I've never been able to go because I have my vacations set at work and the times don't usually match up, but this time, I had already booked my vacation at that time for my birthday, and they offered me a good amount of $$$ to play with, so I couldn't turn it down. Its was well worth it. When you belong to the ocean players club on board, you will get offers in the mail. They ususally deliver choc strawberries and fruit, sometimes wine to your cabin on regular cruises. This one was so much more.

Thanks for the review. We leave on the Dream next Sat. and are currently wait listed for YTD. Would you recommend taking the late dining? Did you miss any of the shows because of it?

I should have done what Bob did, and changed to a set dining time, because yes we did miss shows and other things because of the wait time.

@ Bobsfamily: Wish I had met you and your family. Sorry I missed the M&G. We fell asleep for a late nap and missed the Past Guest party, but I guess we didn't miss much then, so that's good.

What did you think of the shows at night? We went to late night comedy and Roman was pretty fun, as was Tony Esposito....

How was the weather temperature wise and the water temperature?

How was the weather temperature wise and the water temperature?

Not sure if you mean pools or sea. St. Thomas, it was great, probably high 80's on our mini boat/snorkeling adventure. On the ship it was pretty chilly out of the sun on the rainy day and the last sea day, because it was windy and we were getting some of the cooler temps from up north. Otherwise out in the sun it was great. I would definitely pack a light sweater for around the ship and in the lounge for shows as it does get chilly in there. I am a Florida girl though, so maybe the wrong person to ask, lol. Anything below 70 is chilly to me.

@ Bobsfamily: Wish I had met you and your family. Sorry I missed the M&G. We fell asleep for a late nap and missed the Past Guest party, but I guess we didn't miss much then, so that's good.

What did you think of the shows at night? We went to late night comedy and Roman was pretty fun, as was Tony Esposito....

As I said I missed the M&G also, the welcome party was great, plenty of drinks, etc. The SAD past guest party was just that, sad... I would say they were not prepared (so true) BUT obviously they knew how many people were able to come. Such a waste of time and when we were walking out others were also... the general consensus was if this was to get you to come back it sure missed the mark big time.

Bob - PS - it's now just me and the wife (kids are grown) - and what a great time it is!

Thanks for the review. We leave on the Dream next Sat. and are currently wait listed for YTD. Would you recommend taking the late dining? Did you miss any of the shows because of it?

I was on last weeks Dream cruise too. I was waitlisted for early seating and got late seating. I went to the Maitre d when he got to the dining room at 1PM and asked about getting changed. He said there was 4200 people on board and 2800 of them wanted early seating. 700 of them have been waitlisted for early seating. He said he could get me any size table for late seating as nobody really wanted it...so I got a table for two.