1st time Carnival cruiser (DREAM) complete review & pictorial (from a NCL cruiser)

[mitsugirly]

awww man, busted. :o

 

anyhow, there are not many reviews i read from start to finish... but yours is one of them, so kudos! :)

 

i've got a few hours left in me. bring it on ;)

 

LOL, you crack me up and thanks for the compliment. At least I'm doing something right in my "not so spare time". :D

 

I'm bringing it...

[falkcor]

I hope she grows up to be a doctor because she is so loving and caring and she actually does all of my "homework" with my lab performance test with me (she listens to your heartbeat, takes your pulse, wraps your boo-boo's and tells you to go to bed and rest for 2 days LOL) She even has her own medical cart with supplies (it's a kids real medical cart I bought, I mean Santa bought her for Christmas this year), but honestly I think she's going to be a marine biologist or something. Or the next "Jack Hanna". Do you all know who that is? The famous zoo keeper that is always on tv and shows. Well, his zoo is here where I live.

 

i know jack hanna well, and man he's got a sweet gig. i could see sakari being his replacement, easy.

 

since sakari is so keen on the crabs she has found, here's an experiment for you, one that i did in my marine biology class in college...

 

collect an adequate sample of crabs... i had about 30 (you dont need that many)... ensure you have shells which would be habitable to them (size, fit, etc.)... paint half of them neon pink, and half of them neon blue... then get similarly colored aquarium rocks (neon blue / neon pink), and place crabs in dishes with those colored rocks, and 6 shells (3 each blue and pink) - 3 each to ensure it's not a question of fit, etc. the point of the experiment is to see if they will chose a shell which helps them better blend with their environment.

 

i found that 86% of the time, they would indeed chose the one that better fit with the environment they were in

 

LOL, you crack me up and thanks for the compliment. At least I'm doing something right in my "not so spare time". :D

 

I'm bringing it...

 

i'm glad i can crack you up. great reviews like this are kinda a give and take. i've been happily taking and glad i can give something to make you smile lol.

 

i see that, keep bringing it lol. ;)

[mitsugirly]

After awhile, just plain swimming was getting old. We decided to head back to the water park and slides where we would literally close the park down!! LOL

 

Along the way, we grabbed a sandwich to tie us over for awhile.

 

Sakari doing the beauty queen wave while elegantly holding her grilled cheese sandwich:

 

 

Then a mad dash to the slides again where we would continue to beat ourselves up some more before we ended this cruise. This time I video taped of course. It's hard to pull anything off going down the water slides...it's pretty much the big blue and yellow hole of water up the nose events.

 

 

Now on the last time that I taped it, I fell going in to the hole. I told you guys, if somethings going to happen, it's usually going to happen to me. (Broken hand on our Epic cruise, slammed into a tree while ziplining on our Spirit cruise and the list goes on). (But Sakari has a pretty good track record so far with being bitten by a monkey on our Spirit cruise and being bitten by a parrot on this cruise, so she's catching up). I was trying to get my camera situated in my hand right to video as I went down the twister and when he said "go" I did...fell right on my tush and slid into the slide and kept going. Yes, I got this on video and when I slow it down, it's kinda hilarious to see the looks on the peoples face who were standing behind me when I did it. See this was the trial run of me turning the camera around, toward me, to watch me as I went down the slide...so I manage to catch a picture of the people still waiting in line behind me when I fell. Remind me never to turn the camera around again on myself...once again, the most unflattering picture ever. You know how some camera phones have those weird settings that you can warp your face? Well I have a new way to warp mine without needing any "special" settings! Just turn camera around, hold it at a low level below your chin, then look down on it and create a double chin, or maybe even triple chin, and an elongated face. That'll do the trick. See? No fancy schmancy picture settings needed. You can do it all on your own.

 

Well we told Sakari that it was about time to head back to the room and get ready for the evening. She begged for "one last time" and held up that 1 pointer finger signifying that she meant business and we caved in and let her go. She got up the first flight of stairs and bam, her dreams were shattered. The gate was now closed. The last set of twister sliders had already went up and she had missed out. They were now closing it down. She frantically came down the steps and headed to the mini-racer slides, oops, they now had the gates closed. Oh no, what would she do. The only thing she could at this point...go to the kiddie area where there was still water running...but it didn't last long before they turned it off too. I guess our decision to leave was backed up by the Carnival staff...thanks Carnival, how did you know? So you can add Carnival as being mind readers as well and they are there to help you with getting your water child pulled away from the water when they know it's such a task every time. A+

Edited June 3, 2013 by mitsugirly

[ferfoodle]

Dang it Kim! Between you and Gambee, I got diddly squat done this weekend. ;) :D

 

Wonderful review! Thanks for taking the time to share all your experiences and photos with us.

[mitsugirly]

i know jack hanna well, and man he's got a sweet gig. i could see sakari being his replacement, easy.

 

since sakari is so keen on the crabs she has found, here's an experiment for you, one that i did in my marine biology class in college...

 

collect an adequate sample of crabs... i had about 30 (you dont need that many)... ensure you have shells which would be habitable to them (size, fit, etc.)... paint half of them neon pink, and half of them neon blue... then get similarly colored aquarium rocks (neon blue / neon pink), and place crabs in dishes with those colored rocks, and 6 shells (3 each blue and pink) - 3 each to ensure it's not a question of fit, etc. the point of the experiment is to see if they will chose a shell which helps them better blend with their environment.

 

i found that 86% of the time, they would indeed chose the one that better fit with the environment they were in

 

 

 

i'm glad i can crack you up. great reviews like this are kinda a give and take. i've been happily taking and glad i can give something to make you smile lol.

 

i see that, keep bringing it lol. ;)

 

So did you become a marine biologist? How neat if so. I use to be in Real Estate and purchased quite a bit of large salt water aquariums loaded with fish from a guy that was studying marine biology and he was moving to Texas I think it was. He was so interesting to listen to. He had a fish there and she was HUGE...he had performed surgery on her. She had a brain tumor that he removed and she lived. I aquired her. However, she was a little psychotic after that. She was constantly rearranging her tank and these rocks were HUGE. I don't know how she did it. She had to be by herself in the tank. Then I also got 2 other tanks from him and one had an arowana...man that thing was mean. I have only seen arowanas in Asian restaurants before and they seemed so docile. Not this one. I guess I learned my lesson...don't buy fish from a marine biologist...they have the "problem" fish. LOL

 

The experiment sounds neat. She would love something like that. Although I don't know what I would do with the crabs after the experiment. :p

[mitsugirly]

Dang it Kim! Between you and Gambee, I got diddly squat done this weekend. ;) :D

 

Wonderful review! Thanks for taking the time to share all your experiences and photos with us.

 

Wait, does Gambee have another cruise review going? Did I miss something? I know he's going on the Breakaway soon (I think August). What did I miss? Or are you reading the Allure one? Fill me in! :eek:

[Cupcrazy]

Fantastic review! I just spent the better part of an hour catching up on it. Thanks for taking the time to share your thoughts along with the great pictures

[herdingdogmom]

What a fun review. The pictures are wonderful. We were on the same itinerary on the Star in late January. We aren't snorkelers so spent our time seeing inland Mayan ruins.

 

I will add that the port shopping area at Costa Maya is ok, but it is not inexpensive to eat there. We had a quesadilla and 2 small margaritas and it was $76 USD. My mistake for not questioning the prices on the menu, but what a rip off.

 

Here is the link to Gambee's Breakaway to Bermuda review. Over 105,000 views already. http://boards.cruisecritic.com/showthread.php?t=1851007

Edited June 3, 2013 by herdingdogmom

[mitsugirly]

So at some point tonight, we (Kendra and I) decided to head down to the place they had all of the pictures they took of us all week on and off the ship. I feel this needs some discussion here!!!! :rolleyes:

 

No, this was not the first time we went, but it would be the last. Carnival needs a different system...my goodness gracious heavenly pete. What a cluster flark. I mean for real. They need a different system because this is by far the worse ever. The photo place almost covers the entire deck by the atrium on deck 4. Man the place is massive. Bigger and more spread out than I have ever seen on any other ship.

 

The first few days, we easily found our pictures. By the third and fourth day, not so easy. When we would find a picture, we would gather it, as we always have on the NCL ships, and put them all together for quick find later on and easier to make our "final selection" in the end. Well after a few days, we would go back and they would be gone. Um...ok. So here we go again, looking for pictures, this would go on for about an hour before we would get frustrated and give up.

 

Once we ask one of the employees what could have happened to them. We were informed that they had to move the pictures around to make room for the new pictures. Um ok again. So where are the old pictures? Oh...they were moved to over here and points down and around the corner a few isles. Now what significance is this to move all of the pictures to another location? Why not just add the new pictures to the location that was empty and keep going? Seriously? Who thought this out? Obviously not a person who ever spent hours trying to find all of their pictures.

 

We ask the guy to help us relocate ours and he helped. We found that some were still together and others were missing. "So what would have happened to the others that were with these then?" He said some times they would put them in boxes, which were located around the railing. So you just pick and choose which you'd like to put in the multiple boxes? Especially when they were all together and you could see they were the same family? Shame on you. You just wasted several hours of my life I can never get back. :(

 

We would continue to locate what pictures we could and at that point I purchased the pictures I was interested in so far. I believe the prices were $9.99 for the regular pictures, $11.99 for the candid shots...which I never actually could figure out what the difference was and some ungodly amount for the bigger pictures (which my daughter would later by after having them do their family portraits). You see, I was the "smart" one, mom always knows best I tell ya. Kiddies listen up...MOM ALWAYS KNOWS BEST! Ok? Got that?

 

As each day passed and pictures were taken as we got off the ship, we would look for them later that night, again wasting precious hours of our lives. Some times we found them, some times we didn't. But when we did, we once again put them together. Ok, so we were idiots and figured they just screwed up the last time when they moved them by not keeping them all together. We were proven wrong once again. They were indeed idiots and separated them again causing more chaos the next day. :mad:

 

Now as for the pictures...Carnival you completely lost a good 80% of my hard earned dollars because 80% of those photos had Sakari's EYES CLOSED!!! Really? Do your photographers practice snapping pictures at that perfect moment when you have your eyes closed? I would think that most photographers would usually take a few shots of each family to ensure that you got at least 1 good photo in hopes that your consumer would purchase them. We had an awesome shot taken of us at the MDR one night. We were all dressed up, perfect hair, perfect make-up and man did I manage to come out looking young in that picture. I LOVED it and so did my husband...but, once again Sakari's eyes were closed. Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrr

 

So it's now the last night of the cruise and Kendra is in a mad dash to try to relocate all of her pictures. We spent so much time in there that the hubby decided to have a seat and watch people dancing as the music played in the Atrium. He had given up on finding our pictures and Kendras. We looked in every location along the walls. We looked in every box along the railing...and there were thousands...I'm not exaggerating either. Think of over 3600 passenger with several photos being taken each day and then take your palm and bash your forehead with it. Seriously. This SUCKED!

 

Carnival have these touch screens that you insert your S&S card and it will bring up all of your pictures from the cruise...or at least it suppose to, making things easier on you so they claim. We tried it several times during the cruise and got nothing. It would give us this message that we had not signed up for the program. We were at our wits end and ask the employee how to "sign up" to save some time. He said when you board the ship, you are signed up automatically and our information is already in there. He had us show him what it was doing. When it didn't work for him either, he said "Well it must be because you had to have your picture retaken during your check in then" Um what? We had our picture taken once (other than the family picture prior to boarding) but he was talking about the GREEN screen photo, you know, the one I got mad about because I couldn't have my family in there with me? He told me this is the only time that it will not pull up you information and if you had your picture taken for their records with the green screen and for checking in and out and then it was messed up and we were required to retake the picture, that's when this system doesn't work. I reassured him that this was not the case and we only had our picture taken once. So he was stumped, but he did help us locate "some" of the pictures. Grrr

 

I guess it could be a good system if it worked. But I didn't get the chance to see how it worked. I'm not sure what it does. Does it show you every picture that you have taken with them? Do you pick from there and they print it off? Or does it give you a location on where to find them? I'm not sure. I just know it was the worse experience ever.

 

So that's that. I just had to discuss this. It really ticked me off. LOL I have never had this problem on any NCL ship and I have never come across employees that move the pictures around on a nightly basis. The only ship that I have ever been on that had the face recognition was the Epic and they had a system. They not only recognized your face, but the gave you the location to find all of the pictures together in. It was like a lock box with just your stuff. It was pretty bad-arse if you ask me.

[mitsugirly]

 

I will add that the port shopping area at Costa Maya is ok, but it is not inexpensive to eat there. We had a quesadilla and 2 small margaritas and it was $76 USD. My mistake for not questioning the prices on the menu, but what a rip off.

 

Here is the link to Gambee's Breakaway to Bermuda review. Over 105,000 views already. http://boards.cruisecritic.com/showthread.php?t=1851007

 

I have heard that the food is expensive at Costa Maya, I just hadn't heard how much expensive. Wow, that is crazy.

 

Thanks for the link to Gambee's review. I have promised myself not to start reading it until I finish mine. Otherwise, I will never get it done! :p

 

Ok, now that I'm thinking about it, I remember, Gambee said he was going to try Carnival in August I think it is. I got my dates mixed up. Sheesh...see what happens when you over use your brain for too many things at once. Yikes. :eek:

[mitsugirly]

So obviously it's after 7pm and once again, I ask Sakari if she wanted to go to the Camp and she replied "yes". So we took her and dropped her off...phone in hand to flash it to them as proof before they could ask. They made it a point to let me know I was to bring back the cell phone when I dropped her off, with the charger and in the box, otherwise I would be charged $200 for it. :rolleyes: Do you really think I want your Cisco 1980's huge cell phone with the 3" plether protector around it to make it by far the bulkiest phone I have ever carried since having to lug around my very first car phone in the bag cell? Really?

 

 

On the way out, we noticed a box sitting on the counter where you first come in. Hmm, what might this be? It was filled with tons of "activities and projects" that the children had done during the week. This is another area that you are lacking in Carnival. Really? You just take everyone's pictures and projects from during the week and throw it in one huge box and have the parents dig in it trying to desperately locate some type of project done by their child to keep as a memory? This really shocked me. Think of it this way. The kids in Sakari's camp are ages 2-5. TWO - FIVE. How many of those kids know how to write their name? Seriously, how many do you think? Well I can tell you by looking at all of the work that was in there, not many. Not many at all. Why would you take everyone's things they worked on during the week and just put it in a box for the parents to never be able to figure out which artwork belonged to their child? Sigh. F- Carnival.

 

Now Sakari knows how to write her name. Remember, she is the one with the pencil, pen, crayon or whatever in her hand all the time. Brayden however refuses to learn to write his name. So Kendra was one of those parents that will never know what projects he really did and came home with nothing. I was able to tell what she did because she had her name on everything. Yes, I said "everything", as in she HAD stuff in there...as in she actually DID projects. Wait, wasn't I told that she didn't participate in the activities? If she didn't participate why does she have so much in this box?

 

Now looking at these projects, I see all kinds of things that would indicate that she took a lot of "time" on these projects. There was a VERY long snake that had all kinds of shapes all over its body. It started out as a piece of paper. You color it, then you cut it out and it makes it curly when you hang it. She took the time to color the entire snake and it wasn't just a scribble. The colored each individual area and used different colors, then cut it out. Most of the "snakes" I seen in the box were all one color, I didn't see one that colored each area different, most were not even cut out and they even put pages in there that were blank. Really? Blank? Why?

 

Now I know this is not her best work, but it did show me that she took some time and thought about coloring it by doing each section and using different colors. This proves to ME, as her mother, that she didn't sit around and not participate.

 

 

There were other things in there like this penguin. It was on black construction paper and she colored some white, it also had eyes glued on it. She made a set of bunny ears. She colored them and they were attached to a strip that fit her head. I mean come on...tell me that my child did not participate again? I have a bag full of stuff. :mad:

 

So I convinced myself this was the last night that I would ever have to deal with these people that had no business watching children in the first place and went on my way.

 

We went on our way to do the above photo searching scavenger hunt and then to the casino, we settled up our bill, I raced back to the room at some point to pack because my daughter informed me that she had their bags already packed and the papers said they needed to be out by 11pm for pick up. GASP. I was in full panic mode and I hadn't even started packing yet. NCL has a late pick up and we usually put our bags out before we head to bed and they magically disappear in the middle of the night (hopefully by someone that is a staff member)<--just kidding, we have never had a problem yet.

 

We have always done the leisure-get the heck off the ship whenever you want package with NCL. I mean it's the last day on the beautiful ship and we want to savor it to the end or until we are drug by our big toes off. Plus we are normally flying out and we take a late flight and honestly, we're in no hurry to get off the ship so that you can get on that day and start your vacation. :p

 

But, Carnival assigned us a certain "time" for our departure and it was 10:15am. Hmm, not bad Carnival. How did you know I didn't want to get up early or leave? I don't know what I would have done if it was one of those early morning times. I guess I would have still showed up late and maybe they would sick the Camp staff after me for being a late arrival. Who knows. Maybe you can pick your own time if you want? I'm a newbie, so I'm unsure.

[mitsugirly]

So wait, I'm getting a little ahead of myself. We did a quick S&S check of our accounts...this is where Kendra showed me what the Kiosk did and how she had been using it the entire week to print her statements and add money to her account. I seen that I still had about $68 to spend. So off to the stores I went.

 

I did get me a "Got Cruise?" Carnival shirt. It was the only shirt that I could find that had the Carnival symbol really small on it. I'm not sure I'm ready to announce to the world that I have went over to the dark side. Can you imagine how long it would take to explain that it's not so dark? I'm just kidding, that's just the way the shirt came and I liked the saying and wanted it.

 

 

Kendra had went shopping prior to hooking up with us that night and told me they were having this big "sale" at the shops and she had purchased these picture frames 2 for $6, which is nice, and not something that I wanted, but it did remind me that I needed to go get my "Carnival scrapbook" stuff before it was too late and so I did.

 

 

She had also purchased a "Freddy" for Brayden. For those of you that don't know, this is a stuffed Freddy the Funship doll that I had heard Sakari say those famous words earlier in the cruise "I like this Freddy. I wish I had a Freddy." I didn't even know what his name was so obviously they had taught her that at the Camp. I had wanted to buy her one, but there wasn't any price tags on them and they were all in a barrel, which also didn't have a price card on it, so I figured they were pretty expensive being Carnival merchandise and all. She informed me they were only $9.99. Hmm, I had to get one and surprise Sakari with it...and she was. She introduced him to her new Pink Whale and they lived happily ever after. Now I can not locate Funship Freddy at the moment, so I found a picture of him online to show you who he is:

 

 

Now I also have to inform you that when ever I'm left alone on a cruise, I have a tendency to spend money. This happens every time since I have been cruising since the 80's. As you all know, I was left alone the night before and I headed to the casino. (It was a good outcome that time around). But after the casino I also went shopping and purchased myself something that I normally wouldn't do. I'm not really a jewelry person other than my wedding ring. But my eye caught one of their charm bracelets and it reminded me of the Pandora bracelets you see everyone wearing these days. I kinda like them. Well, these weren't Pandora bracelets, but they were pretty. They had all different prices on them from $24.99 and up. Honestly I didn't see the difference between the $29.99 and the $39.99 one. So I splurged and got the..........$29.99 one. HA, gotcha. You guys thought I went out of my mind and made a big purchase didn't you?

 

So check out the price tag on this baby, and to think I only paid $29.99, tax free, out the door, and on my wrist. Yea baby. That's what I call a deal. LOL I had to have this one, just because it was the only one with a cruise ship charm on it. hehe

 

 

I believe I had done all of the shopping I could. Really, there wasn't anything else I wanted. So I believe I had a small $20 and some change left on my account and I went and settled it with the front desk. I told them "I tried to spend it all" and flashed them all of my bags and said "Really I did, but I just can't find anymore." Their reply was "I'll help you, you can buy all of us back here drinks." My reply "I don't have THAT much money left over. I might be able to buy 2 or 3 with it unless you want to give me some 2 for 1 deals." Well that ended that conversation abruptly. LOL

 

So the frantic packing began as I just shoved everything I could in to the bags. (We stopped at a little til 10pm so that we could pick up Sakari from the Camp but I'll finish that later). Once I was done packing, it was about 11:15pm. I looked outside the door and there were still luggage in the hallways. Whew, I was safe! I pulled them out the door and lined them up in the hallway. I headed down to Kendras room to give her our left over luggage tags, because she was 8 rooms down from us, but for some reason she had tags for an entirely different time (early in the morning). I'm not sure why?

 

Ok, back to picking up Sakari. Honestly, it was not eventful. We stood in line as people picked up their little ones and others dropped off their munchkins for the late night sitting. We turned in our dinosaur phone, whew good thing because I had already cleared out my account and there wasn't $200 on there for you to charge me Svetlana. HA! They gave Sakari a "goodbye thanks for joining us" gift. How amusing...you gave her a drawing/project/activities set. That's ironic. What do you think my daughter who doesn't like to do things like this will do with it? I however am joking, you all know that the minute she got home and I unpacked her luggage, it was the first thing she went for and put it to good use.

 

 

 

When I returned to the room, we sat back and watched a little bit of tv. I took my shower and started to get ready to call it a night. For some odd reason I opened up the closet (as I was use to doing to get clothes out) and ALL OF MY CLOTHES WERE STILL IN THERE! Are you serious? I packed everything in the room and all the luggage were full and put out in the hallway and all of my clothes were still sitting on the shelves? Have I lost my mind on this cruise? I think I was still pondering over the entire kids club thing. That has to be it.

 

So I threw open the door, not caring who might be in the hallway to view me in my jammies. I didn't care at this point. It was life or death. Well, not really, it would just save my shoulder from having to shove everything in the 2 carry on bags that I still had with me. Whew, the luggage was still there. Or is it whew, I didn't have to scare anyone in the hallway? Either way, I was good. I quickly drug in a bag, loaded it up and out it went again. Thank you Carnival luggage picker uppers for not doing your job on time. I appreciate it.

[mitsugirly]

Sakari got a turtle for a towel animal and Mr Monkey had disappeared. We managed to get a towel animal every night other than the night we took a nap. What had really woke me up that night (otherwise I probably would have slept through the night like the hubby and Sakari) is that the maid kept coming in the room to clean and turn down the bed. We got 1 knock and while she was knocking she had the key card in the door and opening the door. No chance for a response. It happened about 3 times that night and I finally got up. Make a note to yourself, if you don't want them coming in the room, keep door locked. They don't give you a chance to answer or run for cover if you're in your birthday suit.

 

 

 

Kendra informed me that they only got, I think it was, 3 towel animals during the entire cruise. I'm not sure why.

 

 

 

We watched ourselves on the Carnival video on the tv one last time (and I taped it shhh) and off to bed we went, dreading the day to come.

[mitsugirly]

Just a few extra pictures that I meant to throw in to the review during our last day at the water park.

 

I found a few different settings on my camera that I hadn't tried out. I told you, I took a LOT of pictures that day. Some were using the weird settings on the camera.

 

This is the watercolor drawing setting. I don't know, but I kinda liked the way this one turned out for some reason.

 

 

Does this one blow your mind or what? LOL it's a mirror image setting:

 

 

I took one of the hubbys face on the mirror setting...oops. We won't share that right now.

 

The Twister right before I fell going in to it.

 

 

One of the view of the ship from up at the Twister

 

 

Ok, I made it to 1:45am. It's time to head to bed. Hopefully everyone has enjoyed todays postings. :)

 

I will do my review of our last and final day on the ship and how things went getting off of the ship. Then a short summary of the ride home and what we encountered, and then a summary of my thoughts about Carnival and even a comparison of Carnival and NCL.

 

Stay tuned....

[rdevine10]

Still loving your review! Just one question. How crowded did you feel the pools were? My kids love to swim (which we will do on excursions), but also love the ship pools (and are not huge kids club fans).

 

We have been on 2 other cruises- Disney Dream (which is similar in size to the Carnival Dream, but has tiny pools- a huge disappointment) and the Carnival Legend, which had 3 pools, and my kids got a lot of swim time in.

 

Any info would be helpful! Debating between the Carnival Dream and another Carnival ship right now. Your review makes me think the Dream is a good fit, and I love the Western Caribbean, but I was hoping for eastern next time (which of course not happening with our dates!).

[skittl1321]

Wait, does Gambee have another cruise review going? Did I miss something? I know he's going on the Breakaway soon (I think August). What did I miss? Or are you reading the Allure one? Fill me in! :eek:

 

He's off the breakaway already!!!

 

Who knows. Maybe you can pick your own time if you want? I'm a newbie, so I'm unsure.

 

Carnival doesn't let you pick your own time to get off the ship, but I guess they can't really tell if you've left later, so I supposed you could hang out and not leave for a bit... They do a self-disembarkation where you carry off your own bags so you don't have to pack at all the night before, but those people get off the ship first. You can't stay late if you carry your own bags.

 

There isn't much point to staying late though- you are kicked out of your rooms, and have to wait in public areas, but services are generally shut down. You can get breakfast on the Lido, but that is about it.

Edited June 3, 2013 by skittl1321

[crewsweeper]

mitsugirly,

 

Thanks for sharing your cruise. Seems overal a good cruise, although somethings didn't meet your expecations (both family, ship, and port wise). I really have no opinion on the kid camp stuff as I don't cruise with youngsters. That seemed to be the biggest bug-a-boo about the ship. But I have heard good and bad on Camp C and the O2, varying ship to ship crusie to cruise though.

 

Re Nohoch Kay. There's another review from someone else on your cruise who had a large group there and they had a fabulous time and no experiences with vendors and were greeted by Jaime and he took pains to see that they were doing well. Likewise DW and SIL had a great time there two weeks prior. Yes there's sea grass....but you knew this going in. How much varies by season and tide flows. Almapena does get the similar flow as well, but they don't have the reef blocking the outflow as much so maybe they don't experience the same level as the rest of the coast line. And yes there's no "snorkeling" as you have experienced snorkeling in CM/Mahahual malecon. So those asking if Tequilla Beach or Tropicante would be different, the answer is NO, same stretch of beach. As for food, chicken in Mexico isn't the same "beefed up" chicken you get stateside. NK's better claim to food is their seafood dishes. /these are all excellent. I know at one time the Captain and several of his officers (not sure if the current Captain is the same) would always head for NK to lunch on the grilled shrimp and ceviche. At any rate, your candor on the place is welcomed. I suggest you do a mini write up on TA. You might elicit a response. Perhaps next time in CM, you could try Uvero Beach north of the crusie port, but it may take a ship sponsored excursion to go there now.

 

On a positive note, DW was very intrigued by your review of LFK in Roatan. Looks like the perfect spot for her and SIL, who loves animals. That's now on our list of options. Maybe it'll return the "love" for Roatan.

 

Best to you,

 

Crew

[poptart]

I have loved reading your review! I was checking it out off and on all weekend and just got caught up the morning at work SHHHHHH :eek:

 

Congratulations on your son's graduation!

 

Loved Shakira's swimming story.

 

When my granddaughter, Rachel, was 3 she could swim like a fish. My daughter and her family were at a resort in Panama City Beach FL and Rachel went running ahead of them and jumped in the deep end of the pool. A lady who was laying in a lounge chair flew out of her chair and jumped in after her!!! :D:

She thought she was saving her life. It was hilarious.

 

Rachel is now 21 and has been scuba diving with her dad for many years. They have been on many adventures. She is still a total water baby!!

 

They are going on the Legend with us in November and she and her dad are diving in every port. (Cozumel, Belize, Roatan and Grand Cayman)

 

The rest of us will be holding down the beach!

 

Happy sails!!

Edited June 3, 2013 by poptart

[mitsugirly]

Still loving your review! Just one question. How crowded did you feel the pools were? My kids love to swim (which we will do on excursions), but also love the ship pools (and are not huge kids club fans).

 

We have been on 2 other cruises- Disney Dream (which is similar in size to the Carnival Dream, but has tiny pools- a huge disappointment) and the Carnival Legend, which had 3 pools, and my kids got a lot of swim time in.

 

Any info would be helpful! Debating between the Carnival Dream and another Carnival ship right now. Your review makes me think the Dream is a good fit, and I love the Western Caribbean, but I was hoping for eastern next time (which of course not happening with our dates!).

 

Well, as I stated in my review, we only decided to swim on the first sea day and it was VERY crowded (talking about the pool in the middle of the ship). The one in the back didn't seem to bad, but we weren't back there long and didn't go in. The only other time we swam was the last sea day and it wasn't bad at all (either pool). :) I don't know what was up with that first sea day. It looked like standing room only down there (we were up at the water slides instead and had a blast).

 

We really didn't go to the pool on port days because we had already swam all day long to being with during those days.

 

I honestly think every ship I have been on have small pools, especially in relation to the amount of people on the ship. At least the Dream has 2 pools to choose from and the entire upper deck full of the water slides. :D

[mitsugirly]

mitsugirly,

 

Thanks for sharing your cruise. Seems overal a good cruise, although somethings didn't meet your expecations (both family, ship, and port wise). I really have no opinion on the kid camp stuff as I don't cruise with youngsters. That seemed to be the biggest bug-a-boo about the ship. But I have heard good and bad on Camp C and the O2, varying ship to ship crusie to cruise though.

 

Re Nohoch Kay. There's another review from someone else on your cruise who had a large group there and they had a fabulous time and no experiences with vendors and were greeted by Jaime and he took pains to see that they were doing well. Likewise DW and SIL had a great time there two weeks prior. Yes there's sea grass....but you knew this going in. How much varies by season and tide flows. Almapena does get the similar flow as well, but they don't have the reef blocking the outflow as much so maybe they don't experience the same level as the rest of the coast line. And yes there's no "snorkeling" as you have experienced snorkeling in CM/Mahahual malecon. So those asking if Tequilla Beach or Tropicante would be different, the answer is NO, same stretch of beach. As for food, chicken in Mexico isn't the same "beefed up" chicken you get stateside. NK's better claim to food is their seafood dishes. /these are all excellent. I know at one time the Captain and several of his officers (not sure if the current Captain is the same) would always head for NK to lunch on the grilled shrimp and ceviche. At any rate, your candor on the place is welcomed. I suggest you do a mini write up on TA. You might elicit a response. Perhaps next time in CM, you could try Uvero Beach north of the crusie port, but it may take a ship sponsored excursion to go there now.

 

On a positive note, DW was very intrigued by your review of LFK in Roatan. Looks like the perfect spot for her and SIL, who loves animals. That's now on our list of options. Maybe it'll return the "love" for Roatan.

 

Best to you,

 

Crew

 

Yes, definitely a good cruise over all and I'm really happy that I decided to give it a try. Nothing happened that would discourage me from going on Carnival again. Not even the kids club. I am well aware that each ship is different and we would have a different experience. We have had the good and the not so good on NCL too. Not that any of the counselors on NCL have ever been bad...not at all, but others have been out of this world excellent and went above and beyond.

 

Where is the review by another cruise mate from our Dream cruise? I have tried to find it and can't. I even did a search and it didn't bring up anything from our dates (no I didn't put in the dates on the search). I do know someone on our roll call mentioned they were sitting behind us at Nohoch and are in one of my pictures, but I don't know who it is. I can tell you the vendors seem to go up and down the beach and we were in the front row. Maybe that's why others didn't get bothered. Then again, with us being in the front row, I didn't turn around to look behind me to see if the vendors went back there either.

 

I did see Jaime going around and talking to people, so he seemed like a friendly guy. However, he just never came up to us and said anything...other than the time he scolded me for having the conch out of the water. He did tell me "We have tons of conch that are just the shell that we can give you" and he never did. :(

 

But, the service was excellent and they constantly were asking us if we wanted food and drinks. So the service wasn't bad at all. Like I said, it's a day if you just want to lounge around and drink and eat, this is the place for you. Even if Jaime would have made himself known to us, it wouldn't have changed the fact that this is not our "type" of place. It may be a "pampering" place, it's just not the type of thing I like (not the pampering part just the place itself). I guess that's the only way I can explain it. Too me, it's just a place along a chain of places. I like the seclusion type spaces and the beautiful Caribbean looking places like Almaplena was. There was nothing around.

 

"Almapena does get the similar flow as well, but they don't have the reef blocking the outflow as much so maybe they don't experience the same level as the rest of the coast line."

 

I'm not familiar with the "flows" so I don't really know about this. But I'm a little confused by this above statement. Almaplena does have a reef in front of them. :confused:

[mitsugirly]

I have loved reading your review! I was checking it out off and on all weekend and just got caught up the morning at work SHHHHHH :eek:

 

Congratulations on your son's graduation!

 

Loved Shakira's swimming story.

 

When my granddaughter, Rachel, was 3 she could swim like a fish. My daughter and her family were at a resort in Panama City Beach FL and Rachel went running ahead of them and jumped in the deep end of the pool. A lady who was laying in a lounge chair flew out of her chair and jumped in after her!!! :D:

She thought she was saving her life. It was hilarious.

 

Rachel is now 21 and has been scuba diving with her dad for many years. They have been on many adventures. She is still a total water baby!!

 

They are going on the Legend with us in November and she and her dad are diving in every port. (Cozumel, Belize, Roatan and Grand Cayman)

 

The rest of us will be holding down the beach!

 

Happy sails!!

 

That's awesome. I hope Sakari continues her "water" adventures in life. I think she will. My husband really wants to dive, but for some reason it just freaks me out. I get a little nervous even snorkeling if I get too far off shore. However, for some reason, if I'm on a tour boat and dropping off in to the water I'm ok. Maybe because there are a lot of people around me. I'm not sure. So, I will probably never get a chance to dive. I'll hold down the beach area as well and always pick places I can snorkel close to there if not on a boat. :p

[LVDFW]

Are you kidding me? There's a system to the dinging elevators? Now you tell me. :D Well I'll know that NEXT time. Yes, there WILL be a next time if everyone hasn't figured that out yet. I will watch for this for sure and learn the routine quickly. Yea for Carnival. Another plus (although I didn't know about this). Thanks!

 

Mine was definitely last minute. I had just finished finals that week and things were hectic to say the least. There was no time for packing prior and it was a grab all you can before you leave situation for us. But it worked out in the end as it always does. (Although truth be known, we forgot our cell phone chargers in the van back at Ron Jon, which not like we would use the cell phones, but it could have been an option to keep track of time). One last thing we forgot was the power strip...yea, it was back in the van as well. :rolleyes: But I gaurantee, once you forget something, you never forget it the next time and double and triple check. :D

 

 

1 Ding up, 2 dings down is universal. AFAIK it's an ADA requirement for blind people.

[crewsweeper]

.

 

Where is the review by another cruise mate from our Dream cruise? I have tried to find it and can't.

"Almapena does get the similar flow as well, but they don't have the reef blocking the outflow as much so maybe they don't experience the same level as the rest of the coast line."

 

I'm not familiar with the "flows" so I don't really know about this. But I'm a little confused by this above statement. Almaplena does have a reef in front of them. :confused:

 

Here's Captiva Travlr's review. http://boards.cruisecritic.com/showthread.php?t=1847102

 

I guess "reef" wasn't the best term, although that's what it is. Mahahual's reef acts as a bit of a breakwater, you can see the waves breaking over it, and is much closer to shore, IIRC, than further south. I haven't been to Almapena, as it's relatively new, but in th epast have traveled along the coast road to the Balacar Lagoon. That stretch of coast toward Xcalak in the past has been fairly deserted but has very beautiful beaches, just nothing there.

[dperki1]

Absolutely loved your review so far. Your daughter is adorable.

 

I am also a big fan of Roatan and have been to Tabyana all day beach, Maya Key and we did the monkey pirate tour one year too. Now next time about Nov of 2014 I need to go back to Roatan because I obvioulsy need to go to LFK which I had never heard of before:D

 

There are 8 of us booked on the Dream in November 2013 (my third on the dream) and we are doing the Western but are going with Victor Bodden to try him out....But next time for sure LFK.

[mitsugirly]

So continuing with our last and final few hours on or Glitzy Dream. Oh how we have enjoyed you.

 

I had set the alarm to 8am since we didn't need to be off of the ship until around 10:15am. I figured that would give us more than enough time to shower, get dressed, have all of our things put together in our carry off bags, eat breakfast, and just relax before we had a long journey home (driving).

 

I'm not sure why, but I woke up at 7am. So if I'm up, everyone needs to be up. :D It's just a little "extra" time.

 

We went and ate a big breakfast because we knew we had a long drive ahead of us and the less stops the better. We left our bags in the room. I'm not sure if there's a certain time they need them out, but I know that a lot of people must have still been in their rooms because after breakfast when we went to pick ours up and take one last quick glare of items that might be left behind, people were still coming out of their rooms. I called my daughters room phone and actually woke them up. :eek: She said since they didn't have to get off the ship until 10:15, they were sleeping in. I had to inform them that I'm pretty sure they want you out of the room so that they can prepare it for the next set of cruisers.

 

After we ate, we just sat up on the pool deck reflecting the week that had just past...with smiles on our faces. We didn't catch fire, we didn't loose an engine, we were not bombed by the fighter jets. Yes, life was good. I was glad that I didn't let other cruisers influence me into not booking this ship. I laugh at you in my Vincent Price voice AHA HA HA HA!

 

We sat and we waited and waited and then heard Jamie come on and say there was a delay....and then back to moving again. They were only on 7 when we were sitting there. We were number 27 :eek: YIKES. Ok, at this point there was nothing to do and I was now wishing that we had an earlier time to get off the ship and get on the road. :o But it did move along quickly. Our number was called around 9:55am and off we went.

 

Debarkation was pretty smooth, just like getting on...just not as fast. I tell ya, they have this situation under control. This had to be the best experience I have ever had with getting on and off the ship. A+ Carnival.

 

We got in to the area where our luggage was. We easily located them (that's what happens when you have pink & black poka dot luggage and bright purple and pink hearts luggage ;)) however, they had signs up that corresponded with your number and our number was not out yet. Still no problems finding it. Kendra and family had quite a bit of luggage, so they took a little longer to gather their things and get in line. We were way ahead of them and would wave every time our line passed them. hehe

 

When we came up to customs, the person directing us over to the customs guy whispered to us that "this guy is super fast and I like him" lol and that he was a quick look over of our papers, flashed our passports and we were done. Kendra said the guy they got didn't even ask for their b/c and just looked at her paper and waved them on.

 

Coming out of the port terminal, we had no idea where we were suppose to go. There wasn't really anyone out there to tell you. I know that the place the cab pulled up at and dropped us and our luggage off was across the street and under the bridge. We walked to the middle section of the road and finally ask a lady standing there with a walkie talkie in her hand. She said she would call us a cab. Now I really wanted to get the "Pay What You Want" cab because I figured it would be cheaper. We had paid him $15 for the ride there. We waited for a good 20 minutes and it was HOT.

 

So Kendra decided she would walk under the bridge to see if cabs were sitting there and waiting and I decided to call the PWYW guy and they said they would not be able to get there for another 40 minutes. Yikes.

 

Soon after that, the van pulled up that was our driver (always happens when someone disappears right?). It was a mini-van and boy did we have to cram all of the luggage in to it along with luggage sitting in our laps and along the side. The driver picked up my luggage and managed to break the handle on the bottom of my luggage that you use in order to pick the luggage up (like to put up on a bed or INTO A VAN). My luggage I tell ya, it's been around the block and torn up over the last 2 cruises. In December, Kendra was pulling it out to her car to drop us off at the airport and she broke one of my wheels. So, my luggage is the officially piggy-back luggage and it gets strapped to one of the other luggage's. Then some of the stitching ended up coming apart on the last cruise too. (Do I really pack that much?) So now I'm afraid it's going to come undone and I'm going to end up loosing all of my clothes in it. This time the handle on the bottom. Sigh

 

So we made it back over to Ron Jons where we had parked our van. It's kinda funny because the cab ride back over was only $14 in a regular cab.

 

We put everything in the van, filled up the gas and we were on our way. Once again, I vowed to NEVER do this drive again. I said this last March when Kendra insisted on driving to Miami, I say it again this time when Kendra insisted on driving to Port Canaveral. NEVER again!! The only way I will drive again is if it's closer...like Boston going to Bermuda or something. These Florida trips are just too dang long and I hate a 2 day trip. We were determined to do the trip home in 1 day. We had estimated that we would arrive some time around 2am, which was fine with me.

 

Well, things didn't go as planned. It rained, the sun shined, it poured and you could barely see, the sun shined...then it got bad. Rain pouring, could hardly see the road, it started getting dark, fog came in, we were in the mountains and I was freaking out. Ok, I've had enough...TIME TO STOP!! I can't deal with this pressure. We stopped for the night and continued on the next day and made it home by around 2pm. Whew!!

 

Coming up...my gathered thoughts of the Dream in general.