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Coming to you Live from the Dream

KLLund

By KLLund,
in Carnival Cruise Lines

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KLLund

KLLund

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And we are sailing!

 

We have read that Port Canaveral is a very organized port and that embarcation from there is like clockwork. In this case, you can believe everything you have read. The Cocoa Beach Shuttle picked us up from the Days Inn at about 10:15 and we were on the Lido deck by 11:30. Most of the delay was caused by the fact that the buses carrying disembarking passengers were not all out of the area where the shuttle needed to drop us. Very smooth embarkation.

The Dream is pretty impressive. We are not experienced Carnival cruisers since this is only our second trip on Carnival, but the décor is not at all as gaudy as I had been led to expect. It isn’t conservative or demure, but it is really pretty interesting. The first thing that you see, as usual on cruise ships, is the atrium and it is actually lovely. There will be MUCH more exploration later but when we arrived, the first thing we wanted was food and something cold to drink (well Bill, of course, wanted coffee) so off to The Gathering we went.

Bill will have to tell you about the buffet because I opted for a hot dog and fries. My meal was o.k. not the best hot dog I ever had but the fries were hot and fresh. I really like the fact that iced tea and lemonade are available all the time since I have come to really appreciate a good “Arnold Palmer” (for the uninitiated that is ½ iced tea and ½ lemonade).

We wandered out to the aft pool and discovered that there are some smoking tables on the port side of the aft and if you sit in just the right place you get a nice breeze when someone goes into the Gathering. So we sat and talked and enjoyed the breeze until the rooms were ready at 1:30 promptly. We are in 7454 which is an aft wrap cabin so we went down three decks and around the corner and checked it out. This is a small stateroom with a great balcony and good use of windows. There is no couch, ok there is no chair either but hey .. there are two chairs and table and a lounger on the balcony and who wants to be inside anyway?? We dropped off the carry-ons and checked out the room and decided to go explore the ship. We got sidetracked when we almost fell over our luggage outside the door by about 1:45, now that is impressive to me. So we unpacked and then went exploring.

The main indoor activities all seem to be centered on deck 5 so we wandered around there for a bit and found the coffee place to get espresso and cappuccino, or in my case and Iced Americano and some truly wicked looking desserts. You do pay for these, but the iced Americano was truly excellent so I will be back there frequently this week.

Then it was time for the Muster Drill, or as it is officially called, the Safety Briefing. We went to the Scarlet dining room without the life jackets and listened to the instruction which took about 20 minutes and it was over. We were back at the aft bar to meet our friends in plenty of time for sail-a-wau. There was a sail-a-way party in the mid-ship lido area but we had arranged the meet & greet for the aft which worked out just fine.

A little relaxation on the balcony with our kindle and net-books to read and then it was time for dinner.

Dinner was a mixed bag tonite. Some of us loved out dinners (my ribs were wonderful and Bill’s enjoyed his linguine) and some sent dinners back (the tilapia was way overcooked) and some said just OK. I particularly enjoyed the gazpacho for a starter. Our servers seem like they will be good but rushed tonight, but I never judge the dining room on the first night so I will have more on that when I know more.

After dinner a few of us took the opportunity to enjoy the outside deck of the Lanai and get better acquainted. Most of us took a short spin in the casino and paid our dues and now I am ready to do a bit more of that relaxing with my Kindle.

One more quick note, there a many packages for the internet usage and since we know that we will be trying to upload not only this review, but the same review as our blog and some pages with pictures to our website while we are cruising, we opted for the most minutes with the least per minute cost which was 480 minutes for $159 which works out to 33 cents per minute and they threw in 20 minutes for signing up on embarkation day. The speed is the best we have ever seen at sea.

More tomorrow J

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kcslim

kcslim

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I will be following this avidly, and cruising vicariously through you! Gosh, I keep thinking of that aft cabin and cocktail party... :-) Am definitely missing cruising with you. Post photos please, and a link to see them! :-) Miss you.

 

Karen

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*Mach*

*Mach*

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Great beginning!! Keep it up!

As an aside, the reason the internet connect speed is so good is because the Dream enjoys 2.4 mb of bandwidth compared to 750 k for all other ships in the fleet. Your blog readers might be interested in that fact...

:)

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LHP

LHP

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Calvyn just signed on as a Entertainment Staff....

 

be sure to give him a hug from his Cruise Mom....

 

This should be Rozwin's last week of his contract as karaoke host....

so tell him HI as well !!!

 

Have a WONDERFUL cruise!!

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bolivar5599

bolivar5599

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We loved the ship and you will have a ball. Butch is a great CD and may be the best after Mark Price we have ever had. We would sail a boat JUST to have John Heald but, that is just our opinion.

 

Hope you have a blast and when you go to the comedy club, tell Doug and Al that we liked them both!

 

On the way home by way of the bus from Canaveral, the driver had a local radio station on and when 8:48 am came, they played a montage of clips from the original 9/11 broadcasts. It moved me and many of the people on the bus as well. We all remember those lost and pray for their families.

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SeaBrz

SeaBrz

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On the way home by way of the bus from Canaveral, the driver had a local radio station on and when 8:48 am came, they played a montage of clips from the original 9/11 broadcasts. It moved me and many of the people on the bus as well. We all remember those lost and pray for their families.

 

We were on the cruise with you (working on my review now) and were still on the ship at 9:04 AM yesterday (9/11). I've happily sailed three times with CD Butch, but in my opinion, his finest moment was the way he miraculously called all of us together for a moment of silence to remember those that gave their lives nine years ago. We had settled around a table near the mid-deck pool on Lido with a hundred or so other chatty passengers, but Butch's sincere, heartfelt tribute and request for silence stopped even the energy-filled children in their tracks. I thank Carnival for remembering, but most of all want to praise Butch for his extraordinary talent as a CD - even during tough times.

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camper49

camper49

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We have this cabin in Jan...guess i knew that there was no couch, but thought someone had stated that there was a small table and a couple of chairs....?????

We have been thinking of changing cabins to a regular aft...would you pick this room again???

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Chriz

Chriz

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Hope you have a great trip, we just got off yesterday. Looking forward to reading your posts.

 

BTW, the internet was great, we were able to use MSN messenger and video chat with our daughter every night. The quality was very good.

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KLLund

KLLund

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Great beginning!! Keep it up!

 

As an aside, the reason the internet connect speed is so good is because the Dream enjoys 2.4 mb of bandwidth compared to 750 k for all other ships in the fleet. Your blog readers might be interested in that fact...

 

:)

 

Thanks Mach .. that is great information for us !!

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KLLund

KLLund

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We have this cabin in Jan...guess i knew that there was no couch, but thought someone had stated that there was a small table and a couple of chairs....?????

We have been thinking of changing cabins to a regular aft...would you pick this room again???

 

 

I think this depends on how you use your room .. we don't spend much time in a room and if we are here we are out on the balcony so for us it is just fine. If you spend a lot of time in the room, you really only have the stool that goes under the vanity and the bed to sit on. There is a table. We will be posting pictures tomorrow and there will be pictures of the room.

 

Hope that helps.

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KLLund

KLLund

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Dream of Nassau?

Today we arrived in Nassau at 8:30AM and joined the Majesty of the Seas and the Oasis of the Sea in port. I have had some foot problems related to some surgery so I am not a great walker at the moment and man that is a long pier! We decided just to go to town to “see” so we walked over and walked around for a couple of blocks and returned to the ship. I don’t think that Nassau will make our top ten. When we considered the crowds, the heat, the short time in port and the walk, it seemed to us that the Dream was a much better destination for this port.

Today I tried the Tandoor Grill and I really liked it. The seasonings were not overwhelming and the humus was particularly good. Bill isn’t so enthused with Indian food and had a good sized breakfast so he declined. We didn’t really do much of anything but relax (oh that almost sounds like a vacation doesn’t it ?)

Tonight is Elegant night and I always look forward to that, and Bill of course remembers his saying “Happy Wife Happy Life” and manages to dawn the Tuxedo. Tomorrow is a sea day, so I will be posting a much more extensive review of the ship itself.

I did want to mention something that is “Good to Know” and that is luggage express. I have read and read about this but the specifics have often eluded me so without further ado :

It costs $20.00 per person. The participating airlines are American Airlines, Delta, AirTran, Continental Airlines, US Airways, United, Southwest, NWA, JetBlue, Air Canada and Alaska Airlines. You must be flying out of Orlando on the same day as debarkation in the case of Southwest, by 8PM. If you have a connection, it must have the same Airline and Booking Locator Number and only domestic flights qualify. The $20 includes priority debarkation. They take your luggage Friday night, deliver your boarding passes and valet tags Friday

night and your luggage is sent directly to your final destination airport.

We will absolutely be doing this since we are flying Southwest Air and after we return home I promise to post how it goes. Wonder what boarding number we will get this way ?? Perhaps we should have a lottery on that ;)

More from the Dream tomorrow ….

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