Carnival Dream - April 16 - Hgihs (many) and lows (a few)

[JPH814]

I am not going to do a full fledged review - day by day, meal by meal. You read enough of them and they all sound alike anyway. But instead, I just want to mention a few notable happenings and memories from our cruise to the Western Caribean last week.

 

Top three memories:

The Mayan ruins of Tulum: This seven hour tour was well worth the time and effort. The guide was excellent. It was a 30 minute ferry ride over to the mainland, followed by an hour trip to the site - with a bathroom/ souvinier (sp?) break on the way. The guide made the trip - he was extremely knowledgeable. The ruins were fascinating. Carnival did not bill this as an opportunity to swim, but if you wanted to, you could have hit the beach for a quick dip. It is a lot of walking - we were at the site about 2 hours or more. Hot. Really really enjoyed the margherittas at the cantina by the parking lot.

 

Cabana in Isla Rotoan: Well worth the $200. The beach itself is crowded, until you get to the sign that says "only cabana guests past this point." Instead of wall to wall people, there was a stretch of beachfront maybe 50 yards with no more than 40 people or so. The cabana was a small hut set about 50 feet back from the water's edge with an enclosed AIR-CONDITIONED room that had a sofa, chair and coffee table inside. On the porch there were two padded lounge chairs. About 20 feet infront of our cabana was our private hammock slung under a pergola. Then at waters edge were two more padded loungers. They also gave us water floats. And - best - a private cabana boy serving the eight cabanas, making trips back to Fat Tuesday's for drinks and food. That is all, only 8 cabanas for our entire stretch of beach. Security guards did a good job keeping squatters away from our chairs. The $200 included all of the stuff plus tickets for the chair lifts. It could accommodate 4 people for the same $200, but we only had two. If you separately buy the chair tickets and a couple of lounge chairs and an umbrella and some floats, you are over $50 per person anyway and you are stuck on the crowded part of the beach.

 

Chef's Table: As an admitted foodie, I loved, loved, loved the chef's table. Eleven people (ten just happened to be from our roll call!) met in a private lounge at 6:30 on the third night of the cruise. The head chef of the ship introduced himself and they started serving champange. ALong withthis came 4 different appetizers - duck dumplings, ceviche, were the ones I remembered. The chef described each one. Each was tasty. They kept refilling the champagne - I easily had four glasses. Then we proceeded up into the galley where a long table was laid out - linen, china, silver, crystal. We sat down and were given a seven course dinner. The first four were served with a white wine - again, constantly refilled. The chef was with us the whole time explaining the courses and also answering any questions we had about food service on board. After those four, we took a break and the chef took us on a tour of the kitchen, including meeting the head pastry chef who showed us how to make the lava cake. We then returned to our table that had been completely reset for the last three courses. Sea Bass, Filet Mignon and a dessert sampler with - of course - lava cake. These came with red wine. Again, constantly refilled. We rolled out of the galley about 10 PM. Before we left, we were given photos of our table as well as a copy of the menu and a cookbook filled with recipes. The food was excellent and the service from the chef and a team of at least 10 staff was perfect. If you are any kind of food and wine lover, it is well worth the $70 per person. I easily had $70 worth of wine myself.

 

Some other positive comments:

The food was routinely very good - and I consider myself as having pretty high standards. The short ribs served with ginger fried rice was excellent. The buffet was typical buffet. We did breakfast in the dining room most days.

 

The wine package - we got the mid-level one that was $149 - was well worth it. We go through at least a bottle a night and five bottles at $30 was well worth it. The bordeaux and the Merlot offered as part of the package were easily worth the price.

 

We arranged a meet and greet for 70 people on our roll call. For $11 per person it was well worth it. They had trays of margherittas, daquiris, wine beer, etc ready when we walked in the room and would make anything from the bar as well. (Someone ordered me a "milky nipple". how could I resist !) They kept coming for the full hour. Definately worth it.

 

They hasd a guy pushing a cart around the lido deck and the scarlet dinning room at breakfast so you could get bloody mary's. nice!

 

Serenity area - a nice touch

 

They set up a salad bar at lunch where the sushi bar is on deck 5 the days they have the barbque. Looked nice, but did not find it until too late. Wish they mentioned it.

 

 

A couple of relatively minor annoyances:

The Spa: I love spas and love to spend the better part of a day working out, getting a spa treatment, using the facilities, hanging in the quiet room in a robe listening to some Yanni. But don't expect that on the Dream. I wrote a longer post about my experience, but suffice to say that there was no robe, they were suprised I even wanted to shower before my massage, (told me to get changed in the treatment room) and no quiet lounge to relax.

 

Smoking in the piano bar: OK I get it- some people are addicted and need to smoke. But there is only one piano bar on the ship and I usually spend many of evenings there. But on the Dream it is designated as a smoking bar so it was thick and ugly. I could not stay in there for more than 5 minutes any night.

 

"Barbque" Forget about it. Small, dried out burger balls (sliders), a bunch of mexican fajitas, etc. Only soft drinks or booze for purchase, no ice tea or lemonade. Stick to the burgers on the lido deck. They were much better.

 

I am sure some other things will pop into my head. When they do I will post them as well.

 

Any questions, ask away!

 

[Panelope Barnabus]

Thanks for the info! :) DH and I will be on the Dream in September and we are very excited!! So glad to hear that you had such a great time. :)

[paper1122]

The price you quoted for the mid level wine package seems higher than I am used to. But I don't remember a Bourdeaux being on the menu either, are you sure you didn't get the higher level package?

[JPH814]

The price you quoted for the mid level wine package seems higher than I am used to. But I don't remember a Bourdeaux being on the menu either, are you sure you didn't get the higher level package?

 

It was the mid level. It was $130 plus gratuity.

[SkyMaster]

The lovely Mrs. Jones (Vita) and I were on the "Dream" one cruise prior to yours, and I concur 100% with your observations. GREAT cruise, but I too had to bail out of the piano bar due to smoke. I also had to walk out of the X rated comedy show, as it was just a bit too vulgar for even this old Marine! :eek: Other than that, the entertainment was GREAT. Wonderful cruise, and I've been looking at booking "Dream" again for September.

Thanks for posting!

 

"SKY"

[JPH814]

The lovely Mrs. Jones (Vita) and I were on the "Dream" one cruise prior to yours, and I concur 100% with your observations. GREAT cruise, but I too had to bail out of the piano bar due to smoke. I also had to walk out of the X rated comedy show, as it was just a bit too vulgar for even this old Marine! :eek: Other than that, the entertainment was GREAT. Wonderful cruise, and I've been looking at booking "Dream" again for September.

Thanks for posting!

 

"SKY"

 

I actually was going to mention the comedy shows. I really enjoyed them. I am not a big one for the production shows in the big room, but the two trips to the comedy club- one early and one late - were very good. I am sure the degree of "adult" content will vary based on the comedian, But the guys we saw were good. The late show was about sex and the George Carlin's seven magic words were all there. I am not sure what "too vulgar" would sound like to me, but you have the right to vote with your feet.

[Bo Didly]

OP ,you have it going on with your review. Good points .

Just to add personally ,i felt packed in ,boxed in with people if you will.

 

OH , and please tell me the infamous smell is gone ?

[JPH814]

OP ,you have it going on with your review. Good points .

Just to add personally ,i felt packed in ,boxed in with people if you will.

 

OH , and please tell me the infamous smell is gone ?

 

 

I was "looking" for the smell and never found it. Not on our deck - deck 7, nor on deck 5 or 10. Not sure I spent much time on many other decks.

 

And I did not feeel "packed in" at all, except maybe when I was waiting to get into the dining room before dinner. But I think I had no probelm because we avoided crowds. For example, we sat outside on deck 5 instead of around the pool- the pool was not important to us We got to the dining room at 8:20 and walked right in instead of getting there at 8:10 and waiting out in the hall way for five minutes.