B2B Carnival Dream March 12-26 Review

[maryann2]

 

And, once you hit 1500 points, are your drinks free for the remainder of the cruise only when gambling in the casino or everywhere on the ship ("everywhere" is probably unrealistic, but I had to ask:D)?

 

I want to know this too.

 

Loving your review and I feel your pain with the sunburn. I have very fair skin too. To think that you got propositioned too:D

[meatloafsfan]

Loving your review. Thanks!:)

 

Just curious...I play the slots a bit, but usually don't spend a whole lot. Do you have any idea how much money you spent to get to 1500 points?

 

And, were you playing $1 slots, $.25, $.05, pennies?

 

And, once you hit 1500 points, are your drinks free for the remainder of the cruise only when gambling in the casino or everywhere on the ship ("everywhere" is probably unrealistic, but I had to ask:D)?

 

By the time I had gotten my drink card I had spent maybe $300 of my own money. I gambled just about everything - they have penny machines, 2 cent machines, nickel machines, quarters and dollars - and I played them all. I usually gambled around $1.50 to $3 a spin ( even on pennies). Throughout the two weeks I was up, I was down, came back even, up again, down again. Overall I lost my money but I played for a week on the ship what I would normally wager over a 3 day week-end at the Seneca Niagara Casino ($800 the first week and a $1000 the next week).

 

Drinks are free only when you're in the casino though it is very easy on the Dream to stop there, put a couple of bucks into a machine, order your drink and then take it to go.

[meatloafsfan]

Dinner time or Can't I just go to sleep?

 

After the tour today and knowing we had another tour tomorrow, I just wanted to go to sleep.

 

I felt an obligation to go to the dining room though because I didn't want another sandwich for dinner. We could have gone to the buffet but I figured it would be just as much effort as the dining room (having to get dressed and put on shoes is having to get dressed and put on shoes).

 

Dinner tonight I tried the Creamy Potato soup. It was okay and did the trick to warm me up. You'd think with the sunburn I'd have been hot enough but I had gotten to that point with the burn where I had the chills. I prefer my potato soup to have chunks of potato but this was more like "creamed potato" not "creamy potato".

 

Jenna didn't bother with an appetizer.

 

For entrees I ordered both the Seafood Newburg style and the Black Bean and Vegetable Enchiladas. I had heard mixed things about the seafood and thought the enchiladas would make a nice back up.

 

The seafood newburg was okay. I picked out and ate the shrimp and scallops but didn't eat much of the rice.

 

The black bean enchiladas were outstanding! They were very freshly made and the ingredients blended so well together. There was a ton of veggies on top and they were so fresh tasting. Sometimes enchiladas get mushy but the tortillas on these were not - there is no way these were sitting waiting in the kitchen.

 

Jenna ordered the beef stroganoff. She pushed the beets and "junk" off to the side but ate the rest of it - even the spaetzle - though she gave it a bit of funny look at first.

 

Jenna stayed around for dessert tonight once she saw there was Tirimisu on the dessert menu. So that's what she ordered and I ordered the Bitter and Blanc. Both desserts were solid performers but I think suffered because we were both tired. And for me, instead of giving me the vanilla sauce, our server stood behind me and put his hand on my shoulder and poured the sauce on for me.

 

Let me just put it out there - I don't like strangers touching me - and when I have a sunburn, it's just drives me insane!

 

After two drops of sauce and two seconds of contact that was it for me and I told him that was enough.

 

I do like bread pudding and this was a very good example of it. If you like bread pudding, I recommend trying it. The bits of chocolate were nice but not overwhelming. The top was nice and crispy but the inside was soft and mushy.

 

Tonight was the Conga line in the dining room; neither Jenna nor I got up.

 

Funny, before we left I always heard that you didn't get to see much of the shows in anytime dining but that was not our experience. When we ate late (after 8pm) we always got to see the show and the servers almost all seemed to participate and tried (in vain) to get us to participate. You could see that some were just going through the motions but some servers really got into it and put on quite a show.

 

After dinner I went back to the cabin. I had intended to go to the late show but when I got to the theatre I could already tell that it would be too loud and boistrious for me.

 

I just didn't really feel like being around people.

 

I went back to the cabin and put a cool, wet towel on my back and watched the news (at home I usually only watch the news in the morning while getting ready for work but on the ship it felt like I couldn't get enough - like there was so much going on in the world and I was missing it all).

 

I again put the breakfast hanger on the door (melon, muffins, danish, coffee, hot chocolate and apple juice), repacked my bag for our day in St. Maarten and then headed to bed.

 

Jenna made it an early night (I think she came in around 3am :D) as well.

[kcbutterfly]

Thank you so much for your review. My mom and I will be sailing on the Liberty this summer, and we booked The Ultimate Island Experience for St. Thomas. It sounds like you enjoyed it. Thanks for your detailed description of the excursion! Any advice other than to make sure you know which van is yours? Also, what food was available at Magen's? Thanks again for all of the information!

[pcrum]

If you're nice to people, people will be nice to you. Words to live by.

 

 

Wow, if only everyone lived by these same words, what a nicer world it would be! I am loving your review. You are a great writer and have a wonderful attitude! Your goddaughter is lucky to have you!!

[pcrum]

I'm glad it's not just me. Everyone thinks I'm crazy because they say it's a ship and where can he possibly go. Ummm, overboard???!!! HELLO????

My son is 16 and 6'2" and looks 18 so I'm not as concerned about him walking back to the cabin by himself as I am about him getting around other guys and rough housing around and somehow ending up overboard. We always give him a 12:30 curfew and I can never rest until he is safely in the cabin. There was once that he was 10 minutes late and I went into a panic and my husband was getting dressed to go look for him when he walked through the door. I think it's just natural being a parent and is not overprotective at all.

 

LOL! I am laughing because that so sounds like me. My panic was on the first night when I went to pick him up at midnight and he wasn't there. I didn't even think about them being able to "sign" themselves out. I was panicking and walking briskly up and down every level. Then I went back to the room to call security and low and behold he was sitting in the room watching TV wondering where I had been the whole time. Needless to say I bought a set of walkie talkies the next day in the gift shop and told him to stay at the club until he saw me outside.

 

Ok, I'm glad it's not just me. Meatloafsfan, I love your review, but there's no way I'm letting my 16 year old daughter read it because she already thought I was way over protective with regard to the teen club thing. :) She kept telling me to go ahead and go to sleep, not to wait up. The mom in me just couldn't do it!!! Regardless, I love reading your review!:D

 

I take it your name is in regard to the singer, Meatloaf, and not the dish, i.e. the reference to "Paradise by the Dashboard Lights" in your St. Thomas review? I love him too...especially the old stuff. I hear he is on Celebrity Apprentice this season, but I have not watched it!:)

[lcgvol]

Meatloafsfan, Just out of curiosity, when did you book this cruise? We booked the 3-19 Dream back in late August of 2010. We had the cove balcony and paid $2245 total for three people. Other family members paid $1710 for two people for the cove balcony. That seems to be much less than what you were quoted when you were booking.

I am curious because we are looking to book the Dream again for the Eastern next year 3-10-2011 and wondering if we should book now or wait a while. Currently it's $2571 for the three of us in another Cove.

BTW we booked early saver for this last one and the price NEVER came down as far as I could tell and I checked every day for over 6 months.

[pcrum]

BTW we booked early saver for this last one and the price NEVER came down as far as I could tell and I checked every day for over 6 months.

 

I wonder if the cove balconies ever come down in price. We booked my husband's parents a cove balcony for Sept., 2011 for their 50th anniversary. We booked this in March of 2010 with the Easy Saver rate and also have not seen a price reduction.

[Crusin Karen]

Thanks for sharing this great cruise with us! I will have to look into the free drink thing....been on a TON of CCL cruises (as you can see in my siggy) and spent every single night in the casino and never heard of this. So it's on my list for our Miracle cruise in 3 weeks! ;)

[LizaMM]

Thanks so much for this wonderful review!

[Acadie]

Meatloafsfan, Just out of curiosity, when did you book this cruise? We booked the 3-19 Dream back in late August of 2010. We had the cove balcony and paid $2245 total for three people. Other family members paid $1710 for two people for the cove balcony. That seems to be much less than what you were quoted when you were booking.

I am curious because we are looking to book the Dream again for the Eastern next year 3-10-2011 and wondering if we should book now or wait a while. Currently it's $2571 for the three of us in another Cove.

BTW we booked early saver for this last one and the price NEVER came down as far as I could tell and I checked every day for over 6 months.

 

I booked last December for the March 5 sailing - my parents in a cove balcony for a total of $1680, me and my two kids in an inside, Deck 7 for $1620.

[APDMOM]

Meatloafsfan, Just out of curiosity, when did you book this cruise? We booked the 3-19 Dream back in late August of 2010. We had the cove balcony and paid $2245 total for three people. Other family members paid $1710 for two people for the cove balcony. That seems to be much less than what you were quoted when you were booking.

I am curious because we are looking to book the Dream again for the Eastern next year 3-10-2011 and wondering if we should book now or wait a while. Currently it's $2571 for the three of us in another Cove.

BTW we booked early saver for this last one and the price NEVER came down as far as I could tell and I checked every day for over 6 months.

 

I booked last December for the March 5 sailing - my parents in a cove balcony for a total of $1680, me and my two kids in an inside, Deck 7 for $1620.

 

Are the two of you quoting prices for a back to back cruises? If so, I want you to e-mail me your TA info! For a back to back cruise over spring break I think Meatloafsfan got a great deal! ;)

[Acadie]

Are the two of you quoting prices for a back to back cruises? If so, I want you to e-mail me your TA info! For a back to back cruise over spring break I think Meatloafsfan got a great deal! ;)

 

 

Ha! I wish ... we sailed for just the one week :o

[happylady]

Great review - can't wait to read more.

[lcgvol]

Are the two of you quoting prices for a back to back cruises? If so, I want you to e-mail me your TA info! For a back to back cruise over spring break I think Meatloafsfan got a great deal! ;)

 

Ours was also for one week(Western). Meatloafsfan said she got a quote for one week for $2200 for two people in a Cove. We paid $2245 for 3 in a cove and for two people it was only $1710. This was taxes/fees included.

[meatloafsfan]

Ours was also for one week(Western). Meatloafsfan said she got a quote for one week for $2200 for two people in a Cove. We paid $2245 for 3 in a cove and for two people it was only $1710. This was taxes/fees included.

 

I booked April 2010. I didn't keep checking on the prices of the Cove balconies after I booked though.

 

If we had done only 1 week, it would have been the first week (Eastern Caribbean) because that was Jenna's actual March break. It was the more expensive of the two weeks.

[meatloafsfan]

Thank you so much for your review. My mom and I will be sailing on the Liberty this summer, and we booked The Ultimate Island Experience for St. Thomas. It sounds like you enjoyed it. Thanks for your detailed description of the excursion! Any advice other than to make sure you know which van is yours? Also, what food was available at Magen's? Thanks again for all of the information!

 

Wear comfortable walking shoes (for the last part of the tour) and bring a bottle of water.

 

Sorry but I can't help with the food at Magen's Beach because we didn't even look at it.

[pbmsmile]

Thanks for reading! I'll be writing more very shortly!

I was on the second half of your cruise so im looking forward to seeing what your take was.... nice job so far!

[meatloafsfan]

St. Maarten or Another Day in Paradise

 

We were again awoken by our room service order being delivered. Again it was prompt, the fruit was fresh and the pastries were tasty. The coffee was what it was, it did the trick to get me up and going in the morning.

 

We were meeting Carla and Jessica this morning as we were going to do a taxi tour together.

 

I had gone back and forth about what tour to do on this island. I wanted Jenna to see the different parts of the island and I wanted to go to Maho Beach (where the airplanes fly close over head) because I thought that's something you just won't see anywhere else.

 

We met Carla and Jessica just off the gangway (where we agreed) and headed through the shopping area to the taxi stand. On the way there it seemed to be quite a walk to the taxi stand but the way back didn't seem so far.

 

Online the st maarten taxi association listed a "new" tour that was called the "Island Highlights" tour which is 4.5 hours long and includes a 1.5 hour stop at Maho Beach. We must have been the first people to request this tour because no one knew about this tour. There was a lot of back and forth between some of the taxi dispatchers and eventually they found one who had heard of the tour.

 

They told us to wait over to the side and they'd find us a taxi for that tour.

 

We waited for quite a few minutes so Carla went to talk to one of the dispatchers. After some discussion with the head taxi guy, we were eventually given our taxi and tour guide.

 

On a side note, I could not believe the number of people they crammed into the vans to go to the different beaches or towns. Even when we were asking about a tour, the cruise line visitors were telling us that we should get more people for our tour cause it would be a lot cheaper. Yes I agree it would be cheaper but that doesn't mean it would be better.

 

The tour for 4 was $180 ($90 per two people) and it was well worth it not to be crowded into some big van with 10 other people who all have their own agendas about what they want to see and do.

 

Our taxi driver was Ann and she was wonderful. She had a brand new mini van (and I mean brand spanking new!). We each had our own very comfortable seat and Ann was great about keeping the air conditioning ready for when we returned to the van after a stop. She encouraged us to stop whenever and whereever we wanted and seemed to genuinely enjoy telling us about her island and answering every question we had.

 

The island was very beautiful and we stopped at several different places to be able to see the different landscapes - some of the beaches were sandy, some were rocky, there were giant hills almost totally undeveloped and there were giant complexes of homes or vacation homes; it was truly a multicultural island.

 

some pictures from our first stop:

 

 

 

 

 

[meatloafsfan]

More St. Maarten Pictures:

 

 

 

 

Jenna in St. Maarten:

 

 

Jenna and Ann (our taxi driver):

 

[meatloafsfan]

Our second stop on our way to Marigot was much more "civilized".

 

The pictures don't do it justice but I just couldn't believe how beautiful the water was....

 

 

 

 

 

[meatloafsfan]

We arrived in Marigot (I'm pretty sure) and had half and hour to explore. I'm not certain we took that long because there didn't seem that much to do. There were a number of restaurants located immediately in the area, and an open air market near the beach. We walked through a few stalls (and I bought a purple stone necklace) but that was about it.

 

I took a few pictures and then we all got a cold drink and an ice cream. If you wanted a cold beer there were lots of places to buy them and everyone was asking us to stop and telling us they had the best ----- fill in the blank on the island. It was still fairly early in the day (before 11am) and the mass of tourists had not yet arrived in the town.

 

 

 

 

Eagle Eye Jenna saw the fort up on the hill:

 

 

[APDMOM]

Ours was also for one week(Western). Meatloafsfan said she got a quote for one week for $2200 for two people in a Cove. We paid $2245 for 3 in a cove and for two people it was only $1710. This was taxes/fees included.

 

I see. We noticed that the cove balconies were quite reduced about six weeks before our cruise. I wish I could remember the amount, but it was cheap! Unfortunately, we had the early saver, so we could not upgrade. I know it is a bit risky to wait that long to book, but on 2 cruises we got great upgrades due to price drops about 6 weeks before departure. So, from our experience that seems to be a good time to book if you have flexibility. Enjoy planning! :)

[meatloafsfan]

We continued on our tour of the island and eventually ended up at Maho.

 

We saw a few planes but it's harder to get a good picture of the planes than you'd think!

 

 

They were mostly smaller planes but I think there was at least 1 big plane while we were there.

 

Funny thing - Jenna wanted to parasail (didn't get a chance) and zip line (which she did do) but she really didn't want to be on the beach as the planes went overhead (she was scared). That surprised me. The only way you'd catch me on a zipline is if someone hauled my dead, lifeless body up and chained me to it, but being under the planes wasn't something I considered as "unsafe" or "scary".

 

We ended up sitting in the bar - they actually had some nice comfy seating over by the band (which was pretty cool).

 

Their drink of the day was vanilla vodka and gingerale (which I tried and it wasn't bad, it was different and I wasn't expecting the flavours to blend as nicely as they did). It was certainly a sipping drink, not a chugging drink though.

 

We also took the opportunity to order lunch. Jenna ordered chicken fingers and fries and I ordered Conch fritters and fries. The food was okay but if I ever went again, I would either a) plan the tour so we ate somewhere else or b) ordered a lot differently. Judging by the plates of food coming out, there must have been better choices and I'd stay away from their "appetizer" menu and maybe split a larger entree between two people. The chicken fingers were a little odd because they had what I would consider a "fish and chips" kind of batter; the conch fritters were okay but they were over cooked and had a little too much of whatever spice they used.

 

Carla and Jessica ordered a few things too - one I know was chicken fingers and one of the chicken fingers wasn't fully cooked.

 

Service was also very slow. Lunch and drinks took forever - the bar was really hopping but it seemed like every other area was served before us. People came, ate and left before our lunches even arrived.

 

The band was kind of cool; they played a lot of what I consider "Island music". One of the patrons came up and sang "brown eyed girl" with the band when they seemed to be butchering the song.

 

The lead singers daughter (and wife or girlfriend) were over to the side and you could see she was excited to see daddy up on stage.

 

After Maho we headed back to the ship area but not before taking a drive through Maho and the new mall area near by. There is this great big mall being built (it might be done by now) with every store you could think of in it. I wouldn't be surprised if the cruise ships started offering a tour there.

 

A view of the ships on the way back:

 

 

Phillipsburg:

 

 

Ann offered us to either drop us in Phillipsburg for shopping or to take us back to the ship. Jenna, Carla and (eventually) Jessica decided on shopping but I asked to go back to the ship. Ann said it was no problem to do the two stops.

 

It was a great tour and if you're ever in St. Maarten, ask for Ann. She'll give you a wonderful tour of her home island. I don't think my words (or pictures) have adequately conveyed what a wonderful day this was.

 

I wandered through the shopping area near the ships port. I'll admit, I'm not a shopper and I don't think I seriously looked at anything.

 

Carnival Dream docked at St. Maarten:

 

 

We were next to the Oasis. It is a monster ship.

 

One last shot of Phillipsburg before I hit the gangway:

 

 

I went to the cabin and took a nice, long cool shower and once again placed a cool, wet towel over my still sunburned back.

 

Even though I knew Jenna was with Carla and Carla would certainly get her back to the ship on time, I was nervous.

 

I ordered cake and sandwiches from room service for both Jenna and I - and a ceasar salad with grilled salmon and waited for Jenna to return.

 

I shouldn't have worried because they were back in plenty of time. When Jenna came back to the cabin, she saw my cheesecake (I was done my salad and sandwich) and went to order one when I pointed out the other slice of cheesecake waiting for her (and the BLT sandwich).

 

She took a few minutes to show me what she'd bought (boy can that girl shop) and we went over who she still had to buy for. After talking and eating, Jenna decided to lay down.

 

This was the night that I thought I had a reservation for the steakhouse. I had booked online and requested March 19th (the first night of our second cruise, to take advantage of the free bottle of wine) but my confirmation email stated that we had reservations for March 16th (tonight). Jenna had fallen asleep and I was hesitant to wake her but if we had the steakhouse reservations, I figured I'd have to.

 

I called down to the steakhouse to confirm our reservation. As it turns out, our reservation was for the 19th (Yay!) so I let Jenna sleep and I layed down for a nap as well.

 

Tonight we just skipped dinner.

 

Jenna got up around 9pm and got ready and went to Club O2.

 

I was wiped out from the back to back tour days (I am just not used to that much walking and sunshine) so I stayed in the cabin and made it an early night.

 

I'm sure they missed me at the casino........

[Kimmie36]

I have been waiting for your review! Are you Princess Trisha from the Disboards, I sure hope so because you write the best trip reports:D. Hope all is well with you and your family. I can’t wait to start reading your reviews; if you’re not the young lady from the disboards I am still excited about reading your reviews. I really want to find a good honest perspective on Carnival Cruise line. It will be refreshing for those of us that love Disney and Disney Cruise line to know that you can have fun on other cruise lines.