Our thoughts / advice to other first time cruisers - Dream, March 12-19

[Teamv]

We are just back from our first cruise on the beautiful Dream, March 12 – 19, eastern itinerary. There are lots of great reviews of the Dream on this site and there are some current reviews that are really informative and fun to read. So rather than a review I thought that I would share some of our family’s thoughts about this cruise. This was our first cruise ever, so we may offer a different perspective than others on this site. I do believe that our Dream experience was greatly enhanced by the fabulous information I got from all the seasoned cruisers that so generously share their knowledge. So thank you to everyone.

 

So here we go… We are a family of 4 from Ontario and we have had many wonderful warm (and cold) vacations in the past. But this was, hands down, the best vacation we have ever had. We loved the Dream. It is a beautiful ship, full of friendly, efficient staff. We loved cruising and we wish we had discovered it years ago. We are planning to make up for lost time and are researching our next cruise for 2012.

 

As first time cruisers we were all excited to finally be on the Dream. We found the embarkation process to be very smooth and were on the ship by 11:30. Once on the ship, though, we felt somewhat overwhelmed and felt that the ship seemed to be kind of frantic. There was lots of angling for seats by the pool, saving of seats in the Gathering, people were rushing around, etc. We were happy to get to our rooms and settle in. By the time we unpacked and ventured out to wander around, things seemed to have settled down. We were really enjoying ourselves, but by the time we got to dinner that evening we were all feeling the motion of the ship. No one was nauseous, but as one of the boys said, we felt “irritated” by the motion. Regardless, we carried on and had a great first evening and by morning we all felt great and we felt like we had found our “sea legs”. So for first-timers, if you are feeling any of these things on your first day, just relax and take it easy. Remember that things do settle down, you will feel more comfortable, and hopefully you too will find your sea legs.

 

We thought that the food was terrific with lots of choices. The appetizers were for the most part small, so feel free to order two (or even three, as my husband did one night). We found much of the meat to be more fatty than we are used to (ribs, chateau briand, prime rib). Very tasty, just fattier – maybe that is why it tasted so good! Speaking of prime rib, the “au jus” they offer is more like gravy – if this doesn’t appeal to you, ask for it on the side.

 

We had Any Time dining and would do that again, as it is a good fit for us. If we showed up between 6 and 7 we did not have to wait for a table for 4. If we were there after 7 we had to wait 15 or so minutes, so we just spent the time looking at pictures. No problem.

 

We enjoyed the dining room “Show time” very much. I have read a lot of negative comments here about this but we really liked it. Some of the second floor waiters joined in but not all.

 

We found the dining room service to be very efficient and thought that the pace of dinner was perfect, except that there seemed to be a lag before dessert and coffee. One evening we were tight on time to catch a comedian and our waiter heard us discussing this. We were told that he would make sure we got to the show and immediately brought us menus. Dessert and coffee arrived within 2 minutes of ordering and we made the show.

 

I was anxious to try warm chocolate melting cake but thought it was just OK. One of our boys loved it and had it every night. The big dessert winner in our family was cappuccino pie. Yum!

 

As far as food goes, some of our favourites were the lanai ribs and steak quesadillas, the potato soup, southern fried chicken and chocolate cake from the coffee bar. We loved everything we ate at the deli. All in all, we felt that the food was excellent.

 

We don't get the unsweetened iced tea. We were trying to sweeten it up with sugar, until a nice gentleman from Indiana suggested we use sweetener as it dissolves better. Still couldn’t drink the stuff. We finally ended up mixing it with lemonade, a la Arnold Palmer, but the kids were glad we bought them pop (sorry, soda) cards . I stuck with the drink of the day!

 

The coffee in the buffet is not great, although the coffee in the dining room was good. I don’t believe those who say that it comes from the same place. I recommend spending the $1.50 and great a great cup of coffee at the coffee bar.

 

We had a lot of fun playing trivia.

 

We loved Dancin’ in the Streets. Don’t miss it. The Fun Force guys were great. We also loved the Magic guy Bob and comics Tony Esposito and Phat Kat. Just June was just really bad.

 

We read lots of advice that said to be at the shows early, be on deck early to get chairs, etc, but we didn’t really know what that actually meant in terms of time. We found that it meant being in the Encore theatre 45 minutes before the show, to get a seat on the floor near the front or for the best seats in the balcony (to the right and left of the sound guy, first few rows) for the early shows, (for anything other than the Legends show). For the late family comedians that meant being at the lounge 20 to 30 minutes before the show started. But there were seats available at the back or off to the sides, up until the start of the shows.

 

The first sea day I was able to snag 2 deck chairs on deck 10 at 7:45, but I don’t recommend taking chairs in the back row, in front of the desk to sign out games equipment. We were bumped and banged all day long. On the second sea day it was busier and we got 2 great chairs on deck 12 overlooking the pool at 7:30 and on the third sea day I was there by 7:00 to get the same chairs. 2 chairs was enough to share by the 4 of us, as the kids were busy and back and forth most of the day.

 

We didn’t realize that photographers took so many pictures at so many different times. Here is our tip about pictures when disembarking at ports: There were usually 2 lines beside each other to get off the ship and at first the 4 of us would just split up between the lines. Then we realized that if we stayed together we would have our disembarkation pictures together as a group. We thought that this was much nicer and we saved on pictures as we only had to buy one to include everyone. Same advice at dinner. Rather than the photographer taking a picture of each side of the table separately the photographers did not mind if we moved around and got all 4 of us in a picture together.

 

One of my biggest worries was about luggage and taking the right clothing. There is so much advice on these boards about clothing, but here is mine as a first-timer: We took way too much clothing and I knew this at the time. BUT I would recommend that you go ahead and take what you think you will reasonably need. (Within the limits of what you can manage and with flight restrictions, etc). Despite all that I read (some posts including detailed packing lists, sometimes with pictures), it is only now, after cruising once, that I feel confident knowing what I want to wear. I know next time we will go with way less luggage, but it is only because of our own experience, rather than the advice I read and heard. In a nutshell, don’t sweat it and go ahead and pack some things “just in case”. Take that extra pair of shoes, etc. Hope that makes sense.

 

We did bring dressy clothes for elegant night and we were glad that we did. It was lots of fun to dress up. We wore “middle of the pack clothing” for casual nights in the dining room and fit in just fine with the guys wearing cotton pants and golf shirts (runners for the kids) and dressy capris, pants and even long shorts and casual but pretty tops for me. In general on casual nights, women were dressed in simple, comfortable summer outfits, but clothes were pretty or with a bit of bling.

 

Quick aside. How do women wear flip flops all day in port? I just don’t get it. My feet would be broken down by lunch. And if you want to fit in with your pedi, choose the French manicure style – they were everywhere.

 

Beware bingo!! We are not bingo players but we decided to play on the last day before the Legends concert (only the guy singing the Garth Brooks song was worth seeing). We bought 3 triple cards for $20.00 each. We did not win (no surprise) but we were glad we waited until the last day because it was so much fun! I fear we would have spent a whole lot of money on bingo if we had discovered it earlier.

 

I hope that something in here will be useful to someone. Thanks again to everyone who helped us along the way to finding our new love – cruising!

[Whatsup Matt]

very informative! Thanks!

 

We are just back from our first cruise on the beautiful Dream, March 12 – 19, eastern itinerary. There are lots of great reviews of the Dream on this site and there are some current reviews that are really informative and fun to read. So rather than a review I thought that I would share some of our family’s thoughts about this cruise. This was our first cruise ever, so we may offer a different perspective than others on this site. I do believe that our Dream experience was greatly enhanced by the fabulous information I got from all the seasoned cruisers that so generously share their knowledge. So thank you to everyone.

 

So here we go… We are a family of 4 from Ontario and we have had many wonderful warm (and cold) vacations in the past. But this was, hands down, the best vacation we have ever had. We loved the Dream. It is a beautiful ship, full of friendly, efficient staff. We loved cruising and we wish we had discovered it years ago. We are planning to make up for lost time and are researching our next cruise for 2012.

 

As first time cruisers we were all excited to finally be on the Dream. We found the embarkation process to be very smooth and were on the ship by 11:30. Once on the ship, though, we felt somewhat overwhelmed and felt that the ship seemed to be kind of frantic. There was lots of angling for seats by the pool, saving of seats in the Gathering, people were rushing around, etc. We were happy to get to our rooms and settle in. By the time we unpacked and ventured out to wander around, things seemed to have settled down. We were really enjoying ourselves, but by the time we got to dinner that evening we were all feeling the motion of the ship. No one was nauseous, but as one of the boys said, we felt “irritated” by the motion. Regardless, we carried on and had a great first evening and by morning we all felt great and we felt like we had found our “sea legs”. So for first-timers, if you are feeling any of these things on your first day, just relax and take it easy. Remember that things do settle down, you will feel more comfortable, and hopefully you too will find your sea legs.

 

We thought that the food was terrific with lots of choices. The appetizers were for the most part small, so feel free to order two (or even three, as my husband did one night). We found much of the meat to be more fatty than we are used to (ribs, chateau briand, prime rib). Very tasty, just fattier – maybe that is why it tasted so good! Speaking of prime rib, the “au jus” they offer is more like gravy – if this doesn’t appeal to you, ask for it on the side.

 

We had Any Time dining and would do that again, as it is a good fit for us. If we showed up between 6 and 7 we did not have to wait for a table for 4. If we were there after 7 we had to wait 15 or so minutes, so we just spent the time looking at pictures. No problem.

 

We enjoyed the dining room “Show time” very much. I have read a lot of negative comments here about this but we really liked it. Some of the second floor waiters joined in but not all.

 

We found the dining room service to be very efficient and thought that the pace of dinner was perfect, except that there seemed to be a lag before dessert and coffee. One evening we were tight on time to catch a comedian and our waiter heard us discussing this. We were told that he would make sure we got to the show and immediately brought us menus. Dessert and coffee arrived within 2 minutes of ordering and we made the show.

 

I was anxious to try warm chocolate melting cake but thought it was just OK. One of our boys loved it and had it every night. The big dessert winner in our family was cappuccino pie. Yum!

 

As far as food goes, some of our favourites were the lanai ribs and steak quesadillas, the potato soup, southern fried chicken and chocolate cake from the coffee bar. We loved everything we ate at the deli. All in all, we felt that the food was excellent.

 

We don't get the unsweetened iced tea. We were trying to sweeten it up with sugar, until a nice gentleman from Indiana suggested we use sweetener as it dissolves better. Still couldn’t drink the stuff. We finally ended up mixing it with lemonade, a la Arnold Palmer, but the kids were glad we bought them pop (sorry, soda) cards . I stuck with the drink of the day!

 

The coffee in the buffet is not great, although the coffee in the dining room was good. I don’t believe those who say that it comes from the same place. I recommend spending the $1.50 and great a great cup of coffee at the coffee bar.

 

We had a lot of fun playing trivia.

 

We loved Dancin’ in the Streets. Don’t miss it. The Fun Force guys were great. We also loved the Magic guy Bob and comics Tony Esposito and Phat Kat. Just June was just really bad.

 

We read lots of advice that said to be at the shows early, be on deck early to get chairs, etc, but we didn’t really know what that actually meant in terms of time. We found that it meant being in the Encore theatre 45 minutes before the show, to get a seat on the floor near the front or for the best seats in the balcony (to the right and left of the sound guy, first few rows) for the early shows, (for anything other than the Legends show). For the late family comedians that meant being at the lounge 20 to 30 minutes before the show started. But there were seats available at the back or off to the sides, up until the start of the shows.

 

The first sea day I was able to snag 2 deck chairs on deck 10 at 7:45, but I don’t recommend taking chairs in the back row, in front of the desk to sign out games equipment. We were bumped and banged all day long. On the second sea day it was busier and we got 2 great chairs on deck 12 overlooking the pool at 7:30 and on the third sea day I was there by 7:00 to get the same chairs. 2 chairs was enough to share by the 4 of us, as the kids were busy and back and forth most of the day.

 

We didn’t realize that photographers took so many pictures at so many different times. Here is our tip about pictures when disembarking at ports: There were usually 2 lines beside each other to get off the ship and at first the 4 of us would just split up between the lines. Then we realized that if we stayed together we would have our disembarkation pictures together as a group. We thought that this was much nicer and we saved on pictures as we only had to buy one to include everyone. Same advice at dinner. Rather than the photographer taking a picture of each side of the table separately the photographers did not mind if we moved around and got all 4 of us in a picture together.

 

One of my biggest worries was about luggage and taking the right clothing. There is so much advice on these boards about clothing, but here is mine as a first-timer: We took way too much clothing and I knew this at the time. BUT I would recommend that you go ahead and take what you think you will reasonably need. (Within the limits of what you can manage and with flight restrictions, etc). Despite all that I read (some posts including detailed packing lists, sometimes with pictures), it is only now, after cruising once, that I feel confident knowing what I want to wear. I know next time we will go with way less luggage, but it is only because of our own experience, rather than the advice I read and heard. In a nutshell, don’t sweat it and go ahead and pack some things “just in case”. Take that extra pair of shoes, etc. Hope that makes sense.

 

We did bring dressy clothes for elegant night and we were glad that we did. It was lots of fun to dress up. We wore “middle of the pack clothing” for casual nights in the dining room and fit in just fine with the guys wearing cotton pants and golf shirts (runners for the kids) and dressy capris, pants and even long shorts and casual but pretty tops for me. In general on casual nights, women were dressed in simple, comfortable summer outfits, but clothes were pretty or with a bit of bling.

 

Quick aside. How do women wear flip flops all day in port? I just don’t get it. My feet would be broken down by lunch. And if you want to fit in with your pedi, choose the French manicure style – they were everywhere.

 

Beware bingo!! We are not bingo players but we decided to play on the last day before the Legends concert (only the guy singing the Garth Brooks song was worth seeing). We bought 3 triple cards for $20.00 each. We did not win (no surprise) but we were glad we waited until the last day because it was so much fun! I fear we would have spent a whole lot of money on bingo if we had discovered it earlier.

 

I hope that something in here will be useful to someone. Thanks again to everyone who helped us along the way to finding our new love – cruising!

[mebecindi]

Wasnt able to read it.....the font is tiny.... I may try to copy and paste it and make the font bigger so i can see it good.

[mississauga]

A good summary of your cruise. I enlarged the font so it is easier to read

 

 

We are just back from our first cruise on the beautiful Dream, March 12 – 19, eastern itinerary. There are lots of great reviews of the Dream on this site and there are some current reviews that are really informative and fun to read. So rather than a review I thought that I would share some of our family’s thoughts about this cruise. This was our first cruise ever, so we may offer a different perspective than others on this site. I do believe that our Dream experience was greatly enhanced by the fabulous information I got from all the seasoned cruisers that so generously share their knowledge. So thank you to everyone.

 

So here we go… We are a family of 4 from Ontario and we have had many wonderful warm (and cold) vacations in the past. But this was, hands down, the best vacation we have ever had. We loved the Dream. It is a beautiful ship, full of friendly, efficient staff. We loved cruising and we wish we had discovered it years ago. We are planning to make up for lost time and are researching our next cruise for 2012.

 

As first time cruisers we were all excited to finally be on the Dream. We found the embarkation process to be very smooth and were on the ship by 11:30. Once on the ship, though, we felt somewhat overwhelmed and felt that the ship seemed to be kind of frantic. There was lots of angling for seats by the pool, saving of seats in the Gathering, people were rushing around, etc. We were happy to get to our rooms and settle in. By the time we unpacked and ventured out to wander around, things seemed to have settled down. We were really enjoying ourselves, but by the time we got to dinner that evening we were all feeling the motion of the ship. No one was nauseous, but as one of the boys said, we felt “irritated” by the motion. Regardless, we carried on and had a great first evening and by morning we all felt great and we felt like we had found our “sea legs”. So for first-timers, if you are feeling any of these things on your first day, just relax and take it easy. Remember that things do settle down, you will feel more comfortable, and hopefully you too will find your sea legs.

 

We thought that the food was terrific with lots of choices. The appetizers were for the most part small, so feel free to order two (or even three, as my husband did one night). We found much of the meat to be more fatty than we are used to (ribs, chateau briand, prime rib). Very tasty, just fattier – maybe that is why it tasted so good! Speaking of prime rib, the “au jus” they offer is more like gravy – if this doesn’t appeal to you, ask for it on the side.

 

We had Any Time dining and would do that again, as it is a good fit for us. If we showed up between 6 and 7 we did not have to wait for a table for 4. If we were there after 7 we had to wait 15 or so minutes, so we just spent the time looking at pictures. No problem.

 

We enjoyed the dining room “Show time” very much. I have read a lot of negative comments here about this but we really liked it. Some of the second floor waiters joined in but not all.

 

We found the dining room service to be very efficient and thought that the pace of dinner was perfect, except that there seemed to be a lag before dessert and coffee. One evening we were tight on time to catch a comedian and our waiter heard us discussing this. We were told that he would make sure we got to the show and immediately brought us menus. Dessert and coffee arrived within 2 minutes of ordering and we made the show.

 

I was anxious to try warm chocolate melting cake but thought it was just OK. One of our boys loved it and had it every night. The big dessert winner in our family was cappuccino pie. Yum!

 

As far as food goes, some of our favourites were the lanai ribs and steak quesadillas, the potato soup, southern fried chicken and chocolate cake from the coffee bar. We loved everything we ate at the deli. All in all, we felt that the food was excellent.

 

We don't get the unsweetened iced tea. We were trying to sweeten it up with sugar, until a nice gentleman from Indiana suggested we use sweetener as it dissolves better. Still couldn’t drink the stuff. We finally ended up mixing it with lemonade, a la Arnold Palmer, but the kids were glad we bought them pop (sorry, soda) cards . I stuck with the drink of the day!

 

The coffee in the buffet is not great, although the coffee in the dining room was good. I don’t believe those who say that it comes from the same place. I recommend spending the $1.50 and great a great cup of coffee at the coffee bar.

 

We had a lot of fun playing trivia.

 

We loved Dancin’ in the Streets. Don’t miss it. The Fun Force guys were great. We also loved the Magic guy Bob and comics Tony Esposito and Phat Kat. Just June was just really bad.

 

We read lots of advice that said to be at the shows early, be on deck early to get chairs, etc, but we didn’t really know what that actually meant in terms of time. We found that it meant being in the Encore theatre 45 minutes before the show, to get a seat on the floor near the front or for the best seats in the balcony (to the right and left of the sound guy, first few rows) for the early shows, (for anything other than the Legends show). For the late family comedians that meant being at the lounge 20 to 30 minutes before the show started. But there were seats available at the back or off to the sides, up until the start of the shows.

 

The first sea day I was able to snag 2 deck chairs on deck 10 at 7:45, but I don’t recommend taking chairs in the back row, in front of the desk to sign out games equipment. We were bumped and banged all day long. On the second sea day it was busier and we got 2 great chairs on deck 12 overlooking the pool at 7:30 and on the third sea day I was there by 7:00 to get the same chairs. 2 chairs was enough to share by the 4 of us, as the kids were busy and back and forth most of the day.

 

We didn’t realize that photographers took so many pictures at so many different times. Here is our tip about pictures when disembarking at ports: There were usually 2 lines beside each other to get off the ship and at first the 4 of us would just split up between the lines. Then we realized that if we stayed together we would have our disembarkation pictures together as a group. We thought that this was much nicer and we saved on pictures as we only had to buy one to include everyone. Same advice at dinner. Rather than the photographer taking a picture of each side of the table separately the photographers did not mind if we moved around and got all 4 of us in a picture together.

 

One of my biggest worries was about luggage and taking the right clothing. There is so much advice on these boards about clothing, but here is mine as a first-timer: We took way too much clothing and I knew this at the time. BUT I would recommend that you go ahead and take what you think you will reasonably need. (Within the limits of what you can manage and with flight restrictions, etc). Despite all that I read (some posts including detailed packing lists, sometimes with pictures), it is only now, after cruising once, that I feel confident knowing what I want to wear. I know next time we will go with way less luggage, but it is only because of our own experience, rather than the advice I read and heard. In a nutshell, don’t sweat it and go ahead and pack some things “just in case”. Take that extra pair of shoes, etc. Hope that makes sense.

 

We did bring dressy clothes for elegant night and we were glad that we did. It was lots of fun to dress up. We wore “middle of the pack clothing” for casual nights in the dining room and fit in just fine with the guys wearing cotton pants and golf shirts (runners for the kids) and dressy capris, pants and even long shorts and casual but pretty tops for me. In general on casual nights, women were dressed in simple, comfortable summer outfits, but clothes were pretty or with a bit of bling.

 

Quick aside. How do women wear flip flops all day in port? I just don’t get it. My feet would be broken down by lunch. And if you want to fit in with your pedi, choose the French manicure style – they were everywhere.

 

Beware bingo!! We are not bingo players but we decided to play on the last day before the Legends concert (only the guy singing the Garth Brooks song was worth seeing). We bought 3 triple cards for $20.00 each. We did not win (no surprise) but we were glad we waited until the last day because it was so much fun! I fear we would have spent a whole lot of money on bingo if we had discovered it earlier.

 

I hope that something in here will be useful to someone. Thanks again to everyone who helped us along the way to finding our new love – cruising!

[Teamv]

Thanks Mississauga. The font looked OK in the preview but changed to this smaller font when it was saved and I can't seem to edit it now.

[mississauga]

Thanks Mississauga. The font looked OK in the preview but changed to this smaller font when it was saved and I can't seem to edit it now.

 

You only have 15 minutes from posting to do any editing.

[fleckle]

Wasnt able to read it.....the font is tiny.... I may try to copy and paste it and make the font bigger so i can see it good.

Everyone's eyesight is different. It is easy to adjust the font size on your own screen to your own preference.

 

Hold down CTRL key and tap + sign to make font larger, or - sign to make it smaller.

 

If using a mouse with a wheel, you can also change font size by holding down CTRL key and rolling the wheel.

[RWolver672]

Everyone's eyesight is different. It is easy to adjust the font size on your own screen to your own preference.

 

Hold down CTRL key and tap + sign to make font larger, or - sign to make it smaller.

 

If using a mouse with a wheel, you can also change font size by holding down CTRL key and rolling the wheel.

 

Thanks for that tip. It's a neat trick that I never knew existed.

[luv2cruz44]

Everyone's eyesight is different. It is easy to adjust the font size on your own screen to your own preference.

 

Hold down CTRL key and tap + sign to make font larger, or - sign to make it smaller.

 

If using a mouse with a wheel, you can also change font size by holding down CTRL key and rolling the wheel.

 

 

Great review and tips for new cruisers. But the most valuable information for me was this! I had no idea one could do this to enlarge print. This old dog can learn a new trick or two. Thank you.

[Frank12]

I liked your perspective. We cruise on the Dream very soon and cannot wait.

 

I too, wish I would have discovered cruising sooner! I've lived in Florida all my life and did not go on my first cruise until 7 years ago. We have been hooked ever since.

 

I agree with you about the cappuccino pie! :)

[firefly333]

I had the potato soup only once, so Im looking for it again. It must only be served on the 7 day. I really really liked it too ... odd. I agree about warm chocolate melting cake, not my thing, but loved the capachino pie.

[Teamv]

Great review and tips for new cruisers. But the most valuable information for me was this! I had no idea one could do this to enlarge print. This old dog can learn a new trick or two. Thank you.

 

I laughed so hard about this - being extremely NOT computer savvy (considering I changed the font of my post without knowing it!!) I am thrilled to be the reason that people have learned a new computer skill! Thanks to fleckle for helping out.

[wls1113]

This font tip is the coolest thing I learned here!!! lol THANKS SOOO MUCH!! I just want to add my 2 cents because I was also on the Dream 3/12-19 (LOVED IT) and I have to say I absolutely LOVED the warm chocolate melting cake (ate it every night!!) and we also LOVED the bitter and blanc dessert (had that in addition to the melting cake!! HEHE). That bitter & blanc was the best bread pudding I've ever had!!

[mississauga]

I laughed so hard about this - being extremely NOT computer savvy (considering I changed the font of my post without knowing it!!) I am thrilled to be the reason that people have learned a new computer skill! Thanks to fleckle for helping out.

 

You and I both! LOL. Here I thought I was helping by enlarging the font for you. How funny when there was a much easier way.

 

Thanks to you too for posting with the small print so that fleckle could come on and educate us all.

 

Kudos to fleckle!