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Finally my DREAM Review w/photos!! Feb 12-19th


Joaljoe

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Hi Everyone, this review is long over due! I'm finally getting the chance to sit down and write it. I came back from the cruise sick with a cold, the cough held me until just last week and I had two kids bdays to plan. Wooo....what a month! Why did I ever have them 2 weeks apart?? LOL Anyway, we sailed this time with our two wonderful kids, ages 7 & 9. (Now they're both 8 & 10, and VERY happy to be another year older!) This was our first time vacationing with our kids and it was a great time. We can't wait to do it again.

 

As my subject stated, we sailed the Dream from Feb 12 - Feb 19th. Visiting Nassau, St. Thomas and St. Maarten. We flew down a couple of days early and stayed at Pop Century in Disney. We were going to do a day at Magic Kingdom but it didn't work out due to a stomach virus. We drove from Toronto to Buffalo on the Wednesday night but that day when we picked up our son from school he wasn't feeling well. Within 2 hours of our drive he started having diarrhea and vomiting all over the car. Yikes!!

 

What a start! LOL It took us forever to get to Buffalo, I felt so bad for him and for us! Trust me - the car did not smell pretty!! We finally arrived at our hotel, The Millenium right beside Walden Galleria. Not the best hotel, but not the most horrible either. For the few hours we were there, it was perfect. We just left our car there the whole week. We only paid an extra $30 more than we would've at the airport.

 

Thursday morning, my son felt better but still couldn't eat much due to the diarrhea. Sorry! :P Before leaving for the airport we went to Target and bought some dry cereal with a box of crackers. I wasn't sure if they'd let us on the plane with this but thought we'd try anyway. Had no problems, and my son made it through the flight with no problems. By the time we got on our flight he was feeling much better. We were also delayed 1 1/2 hr due to a mask compartment that wouldn't close. They were waiting for maintenance, but eventually just taped it up by themselves. We didn't even make it to Pop Century until 11:30pm, by this time we were all pretty tired. But very excited that my sons 24 hr bug was gone and couldn't wait to visit Magic Kingdom the next morning!

 

Well... it's about 5am and my hubby wakes up running to the washroom. That's right, you guessed it... that little bug jumped into him now! He got it bad, and was in bed until 1pm on the Friday. Thank goodness we never bought the tickets, we never wait till last minute but this time we did and it worked out for the best. The kids understood why we couldn't go and enjoyed the resort instead. Even though it was a cold day and we had to wear our jackets. lol Later than evening we also took them to Downtown Disney. I don't know how DH made it through the night, he was quite the trooper I tell ya!

 

Here's just a few pics before I get onto the cruise. =)

 

The wonderful masks that delayed us...

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Checking out the Pop Century Resort

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Their favourite!!

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LOVED THESE TREES!! So glad to be away from the snow!

 

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This was the best...

 

Kids: What is that?

Us: A walkman

Kids: What's a walkman?

Us: That's what we used to listen to music. You put a cassette inside.

Kids: What's a cassette??

 

LOL... it was quite a funny conversation....

 

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Will be back with more goodies shortly. :)

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Saturday morning, we all wake up and everyone is feeling fine. YAY! We had a limo come pick us up at the resort and take us to the port. We booked with Orlando Executive Limousine. They were about 30 mins late but that wasn't going to ruin anything for us. The driver that was suppose to pick us up got rear ended so they sent out a new (bigger) limo for us. I was happy with that! They had water on ice waiting for us and some party blow sound thingies. The kids loved them! The driver was nice, although rushed us a bit. We now felt like we were just being squeezed into their schedule but we still enjoyed the drive to the port. The owner Michael is really nice and great to deal with.

 

We finally see her.... the Dream was everything we expected and more. I have no pics though, he was driving too fast to take any. LOL But I'm sure by now you all know what she looks like. :)

 

Getting ready for our first limo ride as a family.

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Okay, I must say...after a little bit those sound things were too much. lol

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Embarkation: Easy, easy, easy!!

 

When we arrived, the line was huge. We thought....., this will take forever. It was still a bit chilly too so we weren't looking forward to standing in this big line outside. But there was this lady walking around picking out the people with kids and let us all go through the VIP line. I felt so bad walking by everyone but it was nice that they did that. There was also an older couple behind us in line that we were talking to, so when the lady came up to us she pointed at them and said "Mom and Dad, you go too". heehee We chuckled and just told them to play along, they were quite pleased. :) The lines inside weren't too bad, we got called up pretty fast. Hubby took care of everything at the counter and off we were... I can't believe I have no pics of us entering the ship. Especially the kids, this is their first vacation!! Ah well, too much was going on for me. haha

 

We're in!!! Oh wait, picture time.... they were grabbing us from each side. We only said yes to one of the gentlemen though. Usually hubby and Iget on the ship pretty early, so we have a lot of time to check out the ship. But not this time! It was around 1:30pm, so we quickly headed to our room and dropped off our stuff. To the kids surprise, there were a couple of packages waiting for them on the bed. According to the note, it was from the captain. Wink, Wink! How nice of the captain to give out Bon Voyage gifts. lol We then headed straight for that Pasta Bar we heard so much about. We get up to the top of the stairs, they handed us 4 order sheets and a table #. We filled out our orders, handed them in and found a table...which wasn't hard since we were literally the only ones in there. Our pasta dishes came pretty fast and were all deelish! I only got a photo of mine though.

 

After we ate, we walked around the ship a little bit and went back into our room before we left for the muster drill. Our room Stewart knocked on our door to introduce himself. He was very nice and told us if we need anything at all to give him a shout. I already knew this was going to be a great week. On our last cruise, I only saw our Stewart maybe 2x. Muster drill was great, we made our way over to our station with no life jackets!!! This was a bonus!!

 

What a great captain...

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Cook was very nice. =)

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All the dessert. Yikes! The kids were in HEAVEN! LOL

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I had this dish twice that week. The 2nd time it wasn't done as good, I think they were rushing since it was busier but we still enjoyed it.

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Camp Carnival Photos

 

Kids loved their times at Camp Carnival. We took a little tour when we were exploring the ship.

 

The 2-5 age group area.

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The older age group side...

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DS was in the zone! LOL

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A few more ship photos....

 

People were still entering the ship at this point. That's the background we chose for our family photo, which we didn't end up purchasing. There were way too many to choose from at the end of the week. LOL

 

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Sushi Bar

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A little dark, sorry! This was Club Caliente.

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Club Caliente

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The Piano bar. We spent no time in here though. Everytime walked by here it was very smokey. No biggie, we just sped up. =)

 

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We hyped the kids up for sail away so much but they didn't seem to care as much as we did. They were bored after 2 minutes and were more interested in what was going on down on the Lido Deck. So we made our way over there for them. They ended up joining the limbo. Then some dancing, which was cut short because we had to make our way over to the Camp Carnival orientation. That night CC had a little welcome party for all the kids at Club Caliente. Lots of fun if you like to join things. lol Hubby pretty much did everything with them, I was the photographer. They won a ship on a stick trophy for doing the Twist! That night DH also went up on stage for the Trivia Game Show! That was a blast! He lost but was soooo close!!

 

Dinner was great. We had a little booth upstairs just for the 4 of us. We felt like we had a lot of privacy and had a great view overlooking the downstairs. Our waiter was nice, a little quiet and awkward but still did a great job with us during the week. Although, he kept mixing up our names and wouldn't listen to us when we'd try to correct him. The Welcome Aboard show was full of laughter. We personally enjoyed Butch and his crew. He's a little geeky but that's what we liked about him. lol

 

After that show we made our way over to the Lido deck for the Laser Show. I must say, this laser show looks much better in photos than it does in person. We were a little disappointed with it. I don't even have any good photos to show. But I did get some later on in the week which I will post later on. All in all, it was a great evening!! =)

 

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This lady was amazing!! I don't know how she bent down so low! Great job...

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Everyone enjoying their first night on board. =)

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Day 1 - Nassau

 

We didn't end up getting off the ship this day. We decided to stay on and just take advantage of the empty ship. We left the camera in the room and just had fun. For lunch we had BBQ from the Lanai. The ribs were really good but the sliders (small burgers) weren't the greatest. We found them to be a little dry. We took advantage of the pool, waterslides, mini golf and explored the ship. We signed the kids into CC in the afternoon and just enjoyed some "us" time. The day went by way too quickly and before we knew it, it was time to get dolled up for our first elegant night. DD and DS really enjoyed their lobster on this night. The waiter was surprised that they enjoyed such a variety of foods. He stopped bringing the kids menu after the 2nd night. lol

 

After dinner we went to the "family friendly" comedy show with Percy Crews. We always enjoy him, the kids loved his humour too. Think they wanted to go to the adult version!

Tonight's show in the Encore Lounge must have not been that awesome because for some reason we barely remember it. haha With that said we're very easy to please and enjoyed every show we saw. I guess some just stick out more than others.

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Day 2 - Sea Day

 

Today was a "Let's Relax Day"! So we did just that! Kiddies couldn't wait to go back to CC so early afternoon we signed them in. We went back to our room and wrapped up a small gift for them which we brought back from home. They were so happy when they came back to the room. The littlest things make them happy.

 

Tonight we just decided to eat at The Gathering. I like to do the buffet once or twice per cruise. We always have that off day were we don't feel like dressing up. No pressure on V-Day! LOL

 

Finally caved into Bingo tonight. But before Bingo started they had an Air Guitar competition.... hubby loves loves his air guitar. He wore his Poison shirt hoping to get picked!! Well, he got picked all right but came in 2nd. That's okay though, because then my daughter got picked to help out with Bingo and came down with a Ship on a Stick. Our goal was to try and get one for both kids. Mission accomplished! LOL THEN, we were only 1 number away from winning $600!!! No luck though! What a fun night it was....

 

View from our Cove Balcony

 

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Wish we could be back there right now....

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The ice carving...

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I must say, I loved the sparkly gold all over the ship.

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I just realized that I never mentioned our stateroom. We ended up getting a Cove Balcony after hearing so many good things about it. We absolutely enjoyed it, being so close to that water was amazing! And you can't beat the privacy you get. We would definitely get it again. The highter up balconies just don't have the privacy, I would hate to go out in my PJ's to look up and see strangers starring at me.

 

Anyway, that's all for tonight unfortunately. The morning hours come way too fast. Tomorrow I will start off with one of my favourite stops... St. Thomas! Love that island!

 

Good Night All. :)

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This was the best...

 

Kids: What is that?

Us: A walkman

Kids: What's a walkman?

Us: That's what we used to listen to music. You put a cassette inside.

Kids: What's a cassette??

 

LOL... it was quite a funny conversation....

 

Too funny! I remember my walkman cassette player. Does that mean I'm getting old if kids don't know what one is? :eek: I'm loving your review. I think the picture of your kids with their ships on a stick is too cute. Can't wait to read more!

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LOL... yes, yes...we're all getting old! My kids even forgot they used a VCR when they were toddlers. They found a box of video tapes in the basement and asked me what the heck these were? haha

 

pdcat21 - Enjoy your cruise! We wish we were going back on....you'll be on the red team. Make sure to bring something red to wear for the deck party if you'll be joining in. :)

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