Aquar02's Photo Review of the Carnival Dream 3/29-4/5... My first review!

Keep it coming! I'm sailing on the Dream in October, and I am very much enjoying your review. :)

Great review so far!!! Thanks for putting the time in for it!!!

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Great review so far!

I will be sailing on the Dream May next year!!

Loving your review! Thank you for taking the time to do it!

Sorry you didn't have a good experience at the port of New Orleans. We cruised out of there in January and it was smooth as silk! We are cruising out of there again next week and hope it is just as smooth. We never purchase Faster to the Fun and have always had easy embarkations in New Orleans and New York, but we do get there fairly early.

Sorry you didn't have a good experience at the port of New Orleans. We cruised out of there in January and it was smooth as silk! We are cruising out of there again next week and hope it is just as smooth. We never purchase Faster to the Fun and have always had easy embarkations in New Orleans and New York, but we do get there fairly early.

It wasn't a terrible experience necessarily. I just thought it could have been organized a lot better. I wouldn't hesitate to cruise out of there again though. I loved the city, and I definitely want to go back! Have fun on your cruise next week!

I cannot wait for more of your review! I cannot get enough info about this ship and living vicariously through reviews. My boyfriend and I will be sailing on the Dream in December. It will be his first cruise and my attempt to see if I can enjoy a cruise while in good company. My first two cruises were meh to me. I'm so excited for this one!

Great review so far. I love it when people give a lot of detail regarding their experiences as they vary so much from cruiser to cruiser. :)

Great photos and interesting comments , thanks for taking the time to post this review.

Keep it coming. You are doing a wonderful job of sharing your cruise with us. Perfect mix of pictures. I loved the Dream and would have to say probably my favorite cruise ship.

When we arrived to the port, everything seemed very unorganized. The first thing that I didn’t like was that the welcome aboard pictures are taken before you even go through security. I didn’t like this placement. We ended up not even going over to take a picture. When we got into the room where you check-in and wait, I was even less impressed. Faster to the fun no longer gets to wait in the VIP lounge like we did in San Juan in 2013. I understand that platinum and above feel like they have earned that privilege, and I get that. They have been very loyal customers, but the port was already packed, and a lot of seats had been roped off for wedding parties. There was nowhere to sit. We had to convince them to open up a couple of spots in the roped off area so that we would have a place for my 80-year-old grandmother. They had way too many seats roped off anyways. The final thing I was disappointed in was that I felt like way too many FTTF spots were sold. There were A LOT of us. Every one in our group that had cruised before agreed that it was the most unorganized port we had ever been to.

We normally sail out of NOLA since it's only a few hours from where we live. When we sailed from there in 2013, they had a roped off section specifically for FTTF and there were PLENTY of seats. I hope that they have this straightened around before we sail again in November.

The drop off/pick up part of NOLA can be really hairy...total chaos, but usually once you get inside, it's smooth sailing. :D And after our experience at FLL last year, I'll take NOLA any day of the week. That port took FOREVER to board and to disembark.

We were on this cruise with you! Excited to read from another's point of view :) we also are at the pasta bar on embarkation day. Love it! Hope you had as great of a cruise as we did!

I was wondering how you booked the Holiday Inn in Metairie Park & Cruise package? Did you just call them directly or go through a travel website such as hotels.com or expedia? Thanks :) Loving your review!!

I was wondering how you booked the Holiday Inn in Metairie Park & Cruise package? Did you just call them directly or go through a travel website such as hotels.com or expedia? Thanks :) Loving your review!!

I went through the hotel's website. There's an option for various packages on there. I looked at travel websites first, but the Holiday Inn website was the only place I found the package.

Sorry for the brief delay; it was a crazy week at work.

Before long, it was time to head down for dinner. Mom and decided to stop by the room first, and thankfully, her luggage had finally arrived. Apparently, when I printed off her luggage tag, the room number didn’t print on either side. It was really weird, because I printed off all four luggage tags at the same time. The same thing happened to one of my grandmother’s luggage tags, and they were printed off separately. Lesson learned: always carefully check your luggage tags. We were just grateful that they still made it to the room. We slid the suitcase in the room and headed to dinner.

We had a big table at dinner that sat all 12 of us. It was a treat getting to all have dinner together each night. I ordered the vegetable spring rolls for my appetizer.

I really love those things! After this night, the whole table was hooked on them, and I think at least one person ordered them every night. I had the Indian vegetarian for my entrée.

Look at all of that food! It is always so good. My mom, C1, C2, and I shared a bottle of wine. For desert, I had warm chocolate melting cake with butter pecan ice cream. I asked for it instead of the vanilla, but they brought out both. It was a really good combination!

After dinner, everyone wanted to go back to their rooms, but we decided to meet up at the burgundy lounge for karaoke. Mom and I decided to hit up the casino.

We’re not big gamblers, but we have fun playing the slots. We left the casino with my mom up $45 and me up $18; not bad for the first night. We headed to the back of the boat to the Burgundy Lounge. We didn’t see any of group, so we went to the bathroom. We sill couldn’t find them after that, so we decided to try out the spa. We found out later that we had just gotten to the lounge a little early.

Thank you for taking the time to write a review! Looking forward to reading more. It sure helps pass the time till our cruise.:)

Thanks for the review. We've done 3 Disney cruises which we loved and are trying Carnival next June on the Vista. I'm reading a lot about CCL and am getting really excited. I can hardly wait to try the pasta bar, Guy's Burgers and the breakfast burritos at Blue Iguana. Definitely excited to read and see more from you, thx again.

Thanks for putting in the time

We started out the night in the Thalassotherapy pool. This pool is basically a huge hot tub. This night it felt only slightly warmer than bath water, but every other night it felt like a hot tub. There was a long grate looking thing to use as a seat, but you have to hold on to use it or the jets will blow you away. I didn’t get a picture of the pool, because there was always at least one other person there, and I didn’t want to look like a creeper, but there’s a great video tour of the whole Cloud 9 Spa out there if you look for it.

We tried out the aromatherapy steam room next. It was really nice in there, but very hot! Whenever little water droplets would fall on me, it really hurt. We always sprayed the benches and ourselves with cold water when we first got in the room so that it was bearable.

There are two rooms in the spa with heated loungers. The bigger of the two rooms has several loungers, arranged in a circle. The smaller room only has two loungers, but several upright seats. We tried the bigger of the two rooms first. It was so relaxing that I noticed my mom starting to fall asleep. I knew we needed to move on. We went to the smaller room and grabbed the two loungers. This immediately became my favorite room. The loungers are significantly hotter in this room, which I really liked. The view was also amazing in this room.

Obviously these pictures were taken on a different day, since it was dark on this visit, but you can see why I loved this room. We both fell asleep in the loungers this time.

We got up and decided we should probably head to our beds. First, we stopped by the relaxation room to grab some fruit infused water. You can choose between orange and lemon. I’m not a big fan of lemon, so I always went with the orange. It was so refreshing, especially after being in some of those hot rooms. We headed to bed looking forward to our first sea day.

The Thalassotherapy pool and the heated loungers look great. Do you have any idea what a day pass or a week pass costs? Can't seem to find that information on the Carnival website.

Really appreciate you doing this review. We are learning alot about the Dream. Thanks!

The Thalassotherapy pool and the heated loungers look great. Do you have any idea what a day pass or a week pass costs? Can't seem to find that information on the Carnival website.

 

Really appreciate you doing this review. We are learning alot about the Dream. Thanks!

I'm not 100% sure on the cost. We had a spa room, so it would included for us. I want to say a day pass is $40 per person, but I might be wrong.

We are doing the Dream in October. Please keep posting ...:) enjoying.

We ended up waking up really early again; around 5:30 AM. I decided that since I was up, I might as well make the most of it, so we went up to the jogging track for me to run and mom to walk. I’m so glad that we did this, because we ended up seeing the most beautiful sunrise!

After my run we still had a little while before 7 AM, which was the time we were all meeting for breakfast. I went back up to the room to change into my swimsuit and get towel. I got us a couple of lounge chairs on lido near the pool since this was the sea day that had the most activities I wanted to see. I relaxed on the chair with my first cup of coffee while I waited for some of the others. I’m not a fan of carnival’s coffee at all, but I need my morning fix. I tried mixing it with hot chocolate this time, a tip I read on these boards, and that seemed to help some.

I didn’t really discover how much I enjoyed the omelet bar until towards the end of my last cruise. This cruise I started early on them. I had an omelet with spinach, tomatoes, mushrooms, peppers, and cheese and a side of cantaloupe. It was really good, as expected. After breakfast, C2, my mom, and I laid out by the pool.

Unfortunately, the sun hadn’t quite made it to our loungers yet. While we waited for our loungers, I decided that mimosas would make the waiting better. We had brought a bottle of champagne as one of our allotted bottles of wine, plus I had ordered us a bottle through the fun shops. I convinced my mom to go to the room and fill up three glasses with champagne (I’m a little scared of opening those bottles) while I went and got a glass of OJ. We mixed the drinks poolside and enjoyed our morning. The next trip, I decided to poor a bottle into the Tervis cup that I brought. This made for an easier experience. After lying out for a little while, C2 decided to buy us a round of drinks from Red Frog.

She brought back a mojito for my mom and Blue Long Islands for us. This drink was really good, and it had a pretty good kick to it.

I decided to get some pizza around 11. I hate that they only ever have the pepperoni and the margherita made. They have so many better pizzas, but if you want to try one, you have to wait for them to make it after you’ve already waited in a long line. I decided to wait on the Quattro Formaggi. I love this pizza! It’s basically just cheese without the sauce, but it’s really good.

It wasn’t too long before C1 joined us at the pool. She has spent a lot of the morning in the casino with her dad. It was around this time that the activities really started. The first one we really watched was some contest where guests went up with something they thought they could do better than the hosts. They were basically declaring everyone that went up there a winner, so C2 decided to go up there and roll her belly, which none of the hosts could do. It was pretty fun watching the hosts attempt to do things.

Next up was the Red Frog v. Blue Iguana, which is what used to be the mixology contest. I think this contest is always a lot of fun. I normally try the winning drink, but none of them this year sounded too great. It was around this time that I decided to go to the Blue Iguana bar. They’re drink of the day was the Bite of the Iguana. It was a $1 off, so I decided to try it. It was good, but also really strong. The hairy chest contest was next. This has always been a favorite of mine, and this year was no exception.

After the contests, we decided we had had enough sun for our first day. I was hungry again, so I went to the burrito bar and got a shrimp burrito. It was so good! I can’t believe I never got a chance to get another one the whole cruise. Next, my mom and I went up to the spa for a little while, and then ended our time there in the nice showers. The use of these showers was another great perk of the spa room. They are so much more spacious than the showers in the rooms, and they have extra jets that come out of the side of the walls. There are two showers: one handicap accessible and one not. Even though the handicap shower is bigger, we preferred the smaller one because it is set up better. The handicap one doesn’t have a good place to put your stuff and keep it from getting wet.

After our showers, we went down to get ready for formal night. Our group had decided to meet at 5 in the lobby for pictures.

I guess this was a great time to start, because there was basically no line. Longer lines started forming around 5:45, so I’m glad we got there so early.

After we were finished taking pictures, I waited at the bar and ordered a Tiramisu martini. Doesn’t it look delicious?

It was pretty good, but I thought it tasted pretty strong.

At dinner, mom ordered another bottle of wine for her, C1, C2, and me to split. I had the stuffed mushrooms and strawberry bisque for appetizers. This is always the night that I can’t help but order two appetizers. I just love both of those so much. I used to feel like a pig for doing this, but now I say whatever, I’m on a cruise! I had chile relleno for my main course.

It was delicious as always. I was stuffed after that, so I only had coffee for dessert.

We all decided to go back to our rooms to change and then meet back up. A lot of the people in our group wanted to go see the comedy shows, but C1, C2, and I only wanted to go to the adult shows, so we decided to check out Adult Pub Trivia in the piano bar. It was pretty fun, even though none of us are good at trivia. We ended up getting 8 questions right, and the winning team only got 10, so not terrible. There was a big group of middle-aged guys in there playing too, and they were going back and forth about college football. The guys were Alabama fans and the host was a fan of Ole Miss. Now we’re from the south, so college football is a really big deal to us. As all of this was going on, the piano bar singer was setting up his stuff. We got to talking to him and found out he was from Tennessee too. He asked us what song he should sing first. You know we had to say Rocky Top! He played it for us, and we got a bunch of people to sing along while the Alabama boys booed on the other side. Unfortunately, they were able to retaliate and get him to play Sweet Home Alabama next.

Now it’s time to talk about a fairly controversial subject: sneaking alcohol. I never have, and possibly never will, attempted to sneak alcohol on board. However, my aunt and uncle did, so if you are against this practice, just skip ahead to the next paragraph. For those curious, they basically just filled up bladder bags and wrapped clothes around them. My aunt, uncle, C1, and C2 all snuck stuff on. My aunt had one of her bags confiscated, but they left her other bag. I believe everybody else made it on with everything. C1, C2, and I ran down to their room to get some drinks. We dumped out water bottles and filled them up with our drinks. I had vodka and sprite, so mine somewhat blended, but C2 had whiskey and sprite, so hers stuck out a little more. Nobody said anything though.

Anyways, back to the legal stuff. We met up with my mom to see the 9:45 adult comedy show with Russ Nagle. She was sitting towards the back, but C2 saw a line of seats right up front. Mom sat off to the side, because she didn’t want to be front row. The show was really funny, and we didn’t get picked on at all.

After the show, my mom decided to head to bed, and C1, C2, and I decided to check out the karaoke lounge. It was standing room only and didn’t seem very entertaining, so we decided to go to the 1100 comedy show with Manny Oliveira. We got our front row seats back (nobody wants to sit up there). This time we got pulled into the show a lot more. Manny spent a good percentage of show trying to set up C2 with somebody. He was hilarious though for sure. If you have the chance to catch his show, do it!

We decided to hit up the dance club next. There was a good crowd this night. We had a lot of fun dancing for a little bit. Around midnight, we decided to head up to lido for pizza. They just happened to take a Quattro Formaggi out right when I got up there. Score! After we ate, we decided to go back to our respective rooms for bed. C1 and C2 were talking about ordering room service, which sounded amazing to me. I ordered a grilled cheese when I got back to my room, and then I crashed.