Is Carnival fixing "the smell" problem on the Dream?

I've read many reports of sewage smell on the new Carnival Dream. There seems to be too many people posting about this for it to be only one person's imagination. Does anyway know if and when Carnival plans to fix this problem? I'm sailing on the Dream in one month and I hope to be smelling a fresh ocean breeze......

It has been reported that they are. Don't know when.:confused:

I've read many reports of sewage smell on the new Carnival Dream. There seems to be too many people posting about this for it to be only one person's imagination. Does anyway know if and when Carnival plans to fix this problem? I'm sailing on the Dream in one month and I hope to be smelling a fresh ocean breeze......

If you've read many reports you must have also read many people saying it was a brief, momentary thing and most people saying it wasn't really that big of a deal.

But yes, someone who was recently on the ship was told that it is due to a venting problem with grey water at the front of the ship and occasionally the wind will blow the 'exhaust' back down onto the deck. They are going to be re-routing the venting to the main smokestack but that won't be until some time this summer.

So, yes it should be fixed soon, but maybe not before your trip. In any case it probably isn't anything to be concerned about.

If you've read many reports you must have also read many people saying it was a brief, momentary thing and most people saying it wasn't really that big of a deal.

 

But yes, someone who was recently on the ship was told that it is due to a venting problem with grey water at the front of the ship and occasionally the wind will blow the 'exhaust' back down onto the deck. They are going to be re-routing the venting to the main smokestack but that won't be until some time this summer.

 

So, yes it should be fixed soon, but maybe not before your trip. In any case it probably isn't anything to be concerned about.

In addition to the above, if you've read many reports you must also have read that this transient problem is not isolated to the Dream or even Carnival cruise lines.

I sailed on the Dream in December and never had a problem with smell even during the 2 hours that the entire sanitation system and all bathrooms were unusable.

The worst I ever encountered was on the Ecstacy where the sewer odor on lobby deck 7 was at times so strong I couldn't sit at the lobby bar and at other times was non-existent.

Just back from a 5/29-6/5 sailing on the Dream and while I wouldn't say it is anything that would ruin a vacation, the Lido deck smelled gross EVERY time we were up there. It's a combo sewage, sunscreen, smoke, BO, buffet/food smell that is pretty awful. Also with the time of the year, it was pretty warm and humid out on deck, so very little fresh ocean breeze to be found.

This was our first cruise and while we had a pretty good time, we decided that we are definitely not cruise people after this experience. The Dream is a gorgeous ship tho and I can't imagine not loving her if cruising is your thing.

As of May 29Th sailing it was still there, it was not just a bad smell it was RANK !

My wife wanted to call but I knew it would be a waste of time .

Seemed to be coming from the air ducts.

I did my own checking and found if you open the cabin door and the balcony door it would suck the smell right out of the room.

But we only had the worse smell "RANK" when we were waiting to dock at ISLA ROATAN. Seems the ship was going in circles and that led up to some type of gas build up !

It's the main reason my wife and I will not cruise the Dream again in the future.

I hear they hung a huge air freshener on the rear view mirror.

I hear they hung a huge air freshener on the rear view mirror.

I dont think that would help :D.

I've cruised on every Carnival ship out of the east coast and have never smelled the horrible smell in our cabin that day :eek: !

We sailed on Dream in January and yes we did smell the odor a couple of times. I guess either I am one who doesn't let something that happened a few minutes a few times out of a week bother me.

I have smelled this same smell on other lines, not just on Carnival Dream. I know Carnival is going to try to fix the problem this summer, but even if it isn't fixed, I think I can stand a few minutes of a bad smell. We only noticed it when we used the middle elevators at night. We used the same elevators morning, noon and night as my husband used a scooter on the ship, but only smelled the odor at night a couple of times.

I'm not saying the odor is pleasant, but I do want people to know it's not only on the Dream or only on Carnival.

We sailed on Dream in January and yes we did smell the odor a couple of times. I guess either I am one who doesn't let something that happened a few minutes a few times out of a week bother me.

 

I have smelled this same smell on other lines, not just on Carnival Dream. I know Carnival is going to try to fix the problem this summer, but even if it isn't fixed, I think I can stand a few minutes of a bad smell. We only noticed it when we used the middle elevators at night. We used the same elevators morning, noon and night as my husband used a scooter on the ship, but only smelled the odor at night a couple of times.

I'm not saying the odor is pleasant, but I do want people to know it's not only on the Dream or only on Carnival.

Gonna disagree with you here , It's not the standard smell where you may get a whiff of ,as on the other Carnival ships. We're talking skunk odor here . It was not as noticable in the mid elevators . But my spa cabin was rank. cabin 11277 :eek:

Ug so those of us with Lido cabins booked might be stunk out?

The only time I've smelled sewer was on the Riveria deck on the Imagination. I can't remember why we were down there, but I gagged the whole way across the ship. What a miserable experience for those who had to sleep in the vapors.

We sailed May 22 on the Dream (cabin 11-261).

We did notice the odor, mostly on Lido. I never noticed the odor when we were in our cabin and had our balcony door open (but we had the issue with the vomit in the sofa, so maybe that kind of "out-ranked" the sewer odor.)

I wouldn't say that the odor is pervasive, tho---it seemed to be worse around the vents, particularly around the water slides. We usually went to the Lido pool area (the back of the ship) at around 8:30 in the morning, and stayed until about 7:30 at night, so it wasn't anything that kept us from enjoying our days at sea.

I caught a small whiff in January, but didn't smell a thing 2 weeks ago. And I was all over the ship on sea days. Also had spa cabins on both cruises and there was no odor in our cabins. Nor in SIL/BIL's cabins two door s down.

So I guess it depends on how sensitive your nose is and how long you stand in one spot and complain about an odor.:eek:

We were also on the 5/29 sailing, in a Spa Cabin on the Spa Deck (Starboard). It was horrid at times. You could tell the instant the ventilation system sucked the odor in to the cabin. Sometimes it would disappear fast and others it would linger for hours. In Roatan it was at its worst. It seemed worse while in port. We talked to neighbors on the balcony who also had the problem but to others that were down the hall who had no idea what we were talking about. It isn't about how sensitive you are to the smell, it all depends on which way the wind is blowing at any given moment.

Not only were people getting sick from the smell but there were people getting sick while in Costa Maya and on the last sea day as the ship was doing some rocking.

Just back from a 5/29-6/5 sailing on the Dream and while I wouldn't say it is anything that would ruin a vacation, the Lido deck smelled gross EVERY time we were up there. It's a combo sewage, sunscreen, smoke, BO, buffet/food smell that is pretty awful. Also with the time of the year, it was pretty warm and humid out on deck, so very little fresh ocean breeze to be found.

 

We noticed a smell on Lido also, not the rank stench that we had in our room. Just a constant yuck smell. Also watch out for those fake tile floors with hard soled shoes on. Even when not wet, you can really go for a fall if you are not careful. Almost fell several times on the hallway between the pool and buffet area.

Someone who works for Carnival explained to me that the smell comes from their water filtration system, which is quite elaborate. There are two systems, which turn the water into drinking water or shower/toilet water.

So, it's a sulfur smell. We stayed on the Main Deck (level 2), midship. I expected, from reading the reviews, to be knocked down by the smell.

It smells the same as you would smell if you lit a match. It's not a sewage smell, although close.

We just got back from our cruise on the Dream, and here's how I experienced it.

I'm lying by the pool on level 10. I decide to go back to the room to get more sunblock. I get in the elevator, ride down to level 2, get off and head for my room. I'm not even thinking about the smell, and then I get a whiff of the smell once on my way to my room and think, "Oh yeah, that's the smell I read about", and then go get my stuff. And I may or may not smell it again on my way back to level 10.

It was sporadic, never overwhelming, and never revolting. It wasn't even worth thinking about or remembering, until the brief moments when I'd pass through it and get a whiff. It certainly didn't detract from my cruise. In fact, I kept thinking if that was the worst of it, I thought some reviewers really made a big stink about it without considering how much it might scare off future cruisers.

That wouldn't stop me from getting on the Dream again at all. But I still would prefer the Legend again... different story.

We had no smell at all except for a faint hint of one while I was climbing the stairway to the slides. It was faint and I would not have noticed except for all the reviews that mentioned it. We had an aft cabin and never smelled anything. As for skunk??? We live in a rural area with alot of skunks. We routinely hit them with the cars. There is no way that raw sewage smells like skunk. Skunk is a completely unique odor and nothing "smells like skunk", but a skunk.

We have actually smelled worse sewage smells on other ships we were on, including the Victory which we smelled it stronger and more often than on other ships. None really bothered us and certainly would not ruin a cruise.

We noticed a smell on Lido also, not the rank stench that we had in our room. Just a constant yuck smell. Also watch out for those fake tile floors with hard soled shoes on. Even when not wet, you can really go for a fall if you are not careful. Almost fell several times on the hallway between the pool and buffet area.

I agree with the slick floors, I thought it was me or maybe the shoes I was wearing. They looked nice but they were slippery, like you said, even when they were not wet. I never fell but I did do the "slip and recover" maneuver several times.

I guess that everyone has a different take on this. It will be my 8th Carnival cruise, in additional to one Royal Caribbean in 2006. I like Carnival better for the energy and fun as it seemed that Royal Caribbean was dead, especially after dinner time. I convinced my father-in-law that Carnival was the better choice for our group. I just hope that the Dream doesn't disappoint.

I guess that everyone has a different take on this. It will be my 8th Carnival cruise, in additional to one Royal Caribbean in 2006. I like Carnival better for the energy and fun as it seemed that Royal Caribbean was dead, especially after dinner time. I convinced my father-in-law that Carnival was the better choice for our group. I just hope that the Dream doesn't disappoint.

Smell or no smell, a cruise is what you make of it. Go and have a good time. :)

If you're sailing with the wind, anything vented from any of the stacks will travel right along with you. You can tell because it's not windy out on deck. If you're sailing INTO the wind, it's a different story. That's why you almost get blown over, and so do the smells. This happens on every ship.

Smell or no smell, a cruise is what you make of it. Go and have a good time. :)

I'm sure those same words were told to the survivors of the titantic.I'm sure they were complaining and up popped your quote to them.:confused:

I've read many reports of sewage smell on the new Carnival Dream. There seems to be too many people posting about this for it to be only one person's imagination. Does anyway know if and when Carnival plans to fix this problem? I'm sailing on the Dream in one month and I hope to be smelling a fresh ocean breeze......

Easy to fix. Less food equals less waste.

We were on the Draem for the 4/10 sailing. I have to say, I never encountered any "smell" that was worse than if some passenger nearby (or possibly even me) had had a little too much of the burrito bar....if you get my meaning. :D In any case, I certainly didn't encounter any odors tha seemed to linger in any particular area or were bad enough to be of notice. We had pretty high winds for most of the cruise, perhaps that helped. There was one exception....

Our OS cabin (7355) had a terrible smell on embarcation day. Not a sewage smell, more like burning rubber. It was pretty powerful, almost uncomfortable. We brought it to the atention of our steward. We opened the Balcony and hallway doors, and that seemed to help somewhat. We never found out if corrective action was taken, but by late afternoon, the smell was gone, never to return.

If you've read many reports you must have also read many people saying it was a brief, momentary thing and most people saying it wasn't really that big of a deal.

 

But yes, someone who was recently on the ship was told that it is due to a venting problem with grey water at the front of the ship and occasionally the wind will blow the 'exhaust' back down onto the deck. They are going to be re-routing the venting to the main smokestack but that won't be until some time this summer.

 

So, yes it should be fixed soon, but maybe not before your trip. In any case it probably isn't anything to be concerned about.

That was me.

We got off the Dream on May 22nd. While on board, I had the opportunity to talk with two senior officers at a meet and greet about the smell.

The smell is real, and is not the fleeting odor you often come across on cruise ships. The Dream was designed with grey water holding tanks in the bow of the ship. The tanks vent through the forward mast. In certain wind conditions, the sewage gases being vented tend to flow down across the Serenity deck and Waterworks area. They are also picked up and recirculated by an air conditioning intake in the forward part of the ship, which distributes the odor to certain interior areas of the ship as well.

The engineers have determined that the correct way to solve the problem will be to re-route the vent so that it will exit through the main funnel. Obviously, this requires running new vent pipes for several hundred feet. I was told that they would be beginning the retrofit in the first week of June. Someone reported that they saw long pipes being loaded onto the ship the week after we sailed, so I think that's additional indication that the work is underway.

During my week on board, the smell was strong and present for 5 out of the 7 days, mainly in the area of the water slides and splash zone. It was also very evident in the starboard side spa cabins on deck 12.

Again, this isn't the typical odor you nearly always run into from time to time on cruise ships, and is highly dependent on the wind conditions. The problem should be being fixed as we speak, so odds are very good that it will be corrected shortly.