Carnival Dream (9/14/14)- With Pictures

[2-laner]

Tell your boyfriend he should 'smile' more often. It's a lovely one. We were at Playa Palancar a couple years ago and enjoyed it as well. Very peaceful and no crowd in sight. We had to make ourselves leave for the ship. Loving your review! Keep it coming.

[shawne71]

We didn't go to the piano bar because I didn't care for the sound of the guy that was singing in it. His voice was alright, but there was something weird about it to me. I did take a picture of the awesome counter because that to me was a must see! Sorry I can't share much else.

 

 

 

 

We were on the 9/7/14 sailing and loved the piano bar! The pianist/singer's name in Jeremy Ray and he is awesome! You should give him a chance next time. He might surprise you! ;)

[Crusin Karen]

Oh, I am LOVING this! The "smiley picture" with Dream in the background almost looks like Grand Turk pier. And I think it's the most adorable thing that you call the Dream "the boat." :D:p;) Be calm and review on! :cool:

[malmo288]

Tell your boyfriend he should 'smile' more often. It's a lovely one. We were at Playa Palancar a couple years ago and enjoyed it as well. Very peaceful and no crowd in sight. We had to make ourselves leave for the ship. Loving your review! Keep it coming.

 

I think the reason we were drawn to Palancar was people kept saying it wouldn't have that many people and that fact did prove true for my cruise too. I loved this place. I'm glad you did too! And I always tell him that he looks good when he smiles but after almost 5 years together, I still can't get but maybe one or 2 smiles a trip.

 

Oh, I am LOVING this! The "smiley picture" with Dream in the background almost looks like Grand Turk pier. And I think it's the most adorable thing that you call the Dream "the boat." :D:p;) Be calm and review on! :cool:

 

I never even noticed I called it a boat! that made me laugh! Thanks for pointing that out! ;) :D

[malmo288]

I just realized looking back over the funtimes with my review that Cozumel night wasn't the highly recommended Dancing in the Streets show. This night was Magic Bob. And My BF's brother really wanted to see magic so we were rushing to get ready for this. Here are the fun times, hopefully you can see them.

 

 

 

 

My BF's brother also just sent this picture of us in the water and I wanted to post the picture we took when we got to Playa Palancar(costed me $10, but it was a nice momento of the 4 of us) so you can see who all I have been talking about when I say brother wife and bf. The water shot goes in this order from closest to the camera to the furthest-My BF's Brother, My BF, My BF's Brother's Wife, and me.

 

 

[sassykitten74]

Loving the review, thank you! I have to tell you that your hair is so pretty!

[malmo288]

After we got back from Cozumel we got ready.

 

 

And then we headed out to the Magic show. It definitely wasn't your tradtional magic with smoke and mirrors kind of show it was more of a comedy magic but magic none the less. We enjoyed Magic Bob. He did a few card tricks, got the audience involved and kept us laughing the whole time. All of my group really enjoyed him The show wasn't very long, maybe 30-40 minutes so we went to the casino a bit before dinner.

 

The one menu I wanted to point out if your looking at the menu's on the website I recommended is the everyday menu because they aren't the same. The everyday menu now has where you can buy things from the steakhouse for dinner if you wanted. We never did opt for any of those options.

 

 

This night my BF ordered the french onion soup, sushi, and braised style short ribs. I ordered the black bean soup first and I sent it back for a chicken quesadilla. The soup was lacking in the rice department in my opinion. It was mostly broth with a few beans and veggies in it. And I got the jerked pork loin for dinner. I really enjoyed the pork loin.

 

 

And the sushi was the dish that kept getting re-ordered from the people at my table.

 

 

This dinner I tried the strawberry cheesecake and it didn't quite do the trick like my favorite chocolate melting cake does.

 

After dinner we split up for what entertainment we wanted. I can't honestly tell you what the family did, but my BF and I ventured to the shops where I bought Michael Kors sunglasses at pretty much 50% off. and Then we made our way to a comedy show. This comedy night was special in the fact that a lady from the audience wouldn't shut up in interrupting the comedian. So much so, that several people walked out and he even called her up to the stage to tell her to shut the heck up. I captured the moment when he was talking directly to her annoying the rest of us in the audience. At first she was funny, and they were able to make jokes around her but it was never ending. She took up almost half of the time he had to do his show.

 

 

This guy was funny though once he got to get going with his show. I was bummed that it was interrupted, but I guess it allows for a story for me to tell. This show was the 11 o'clock show and was not full at all. I think people were either tired from Cozumel or going to bed early to wake up early for our tendered port in Belize tomorrow. After the show, we too headed to bed. And found this guy waiting for us.

 

 

In Belize we are Cave tubing and Zip lining.... I was getting excited. But I still slept like a baby.

[erewhon]

Enjoying your great review, thanks for sharing your photos.

[malmo288]

Loving the review, thank you! I have to tell you that your hair is so pretty!

 

Thank you! :)

[sungifts]

Loving your review! We will be on the Dream in October!!

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Forums

[momof6crazykids]

Can't wait to hear more! We are also going cave tubing in belize :)

 

What company did you use?

[malmo288]

Can't wait to hear more! We are also going cave tubing in belize :)

 

What company did you use?

 

I was really hesitant to book independent because Belize was a tendered port and I wasn't sure how that would work and always get paranoid about missing the boat but thanks to Cruise Critic I decided to book with Cavetubing . com. I will hopefully post the thorough review with pictures here soon, if not at least before the end of tonight. :) (just depends how slow the rest of my work day is ;) )

[Rockypoint]

Great review! We were on the Magic this same week, I keep thinking to myself, "this same time last week I was on a cruise loving it!" Now, back to work and planning our next cruise which will be on the Dream next year. :)

[malmo288]

Great review! We were on the Magic this same week, I keep thinking to myself, "this same time last week I was on a cruise loving it!" Now, back to work and planning our next cruise which will be on the Dream next year. :)

 

Haha i'm in the same mind set as you! We are planning another cruise already just not sure when but next year for sure. The Magic was the first ship we went on and the dream was our second. I loved them both. Some things I liked better on the Magic and some things I liked better on the Dream. But both are excellent ships! I was walking around work earlier and I swore I smelled a pina colada, except I work at a bank so that wasn't true... It was my mind telling me we should be back on the boat! Haha

[gbphatcat]

We were on the 9/7/14 sailing and loved the piano bar! The pianist/singer's name in Jeremy Ray and he is awesome! You should give him a chance next time. He might surprise you! ;)

 

i was on this same cruise 9/14/14 and the piano bar entertainer was Barry Meijer he had just started on the dream that week is from a european country cant remember which but his accent was what made the songs sound a little off :)

Edited September 25, 2014 by gbphatcat

[malmo288]

i was on this same cruise 9/14/14 and the piano bar entertainer was Barry Meijer he had just started on the dream that week is from a european country cant remember which but his accent was what made the songs sound a little off :)

 

Well, I guess I would have known that if I stayed long enough to hear him talk. It makes sense though cause it wasn't a bad voice, just interesting. Thanks for sharing! I kept getting drawn to the two guys and girl that were singing in the casino though, I think that's another reason I didn't want to listen to anyone else.

[Jenny in TX]

Enjoying your review....thanks for sharing!

[MINILvr]

I am loving your review. In February, we will be on Deck 6, same category cabin (4J). Sorry if you said this already, but did you feel much movement all the way forward?

[malmo288]

I am loving your review. In February, we will be on Deck 6, same category cabin (4J). Sorry if you said this already, but did you feel much movement all the way forward?

 

I'm think I mentioned movement, but not specifically in the rooms. On this cruise there was A LOT more swaying then I remember from my first cruise but it wasn't just in my room. It was all over the ship. I felt like I was being rocked like a baby to sleep on the first night we slept on the boat and the first full day at sea had a lot of movement too. But once we got to Mexico and all the other ports you didn't feel movement as much til you were coming home. But like I said, I felt that same movement everywhere, not just in the room. It wasn't enough to make me not want that room again. We would definitely book the same room and location in a heartbeat.

[malmo288]

Before I forget, here are the funtimes for today.

 

 

 

 

This day we woke up early because we wanted to get the first tender off the ship. We were awake and headed to breakfast by 7:15am. By now, I was starting to fall for the fake eggs, bacon and half a bagel with cream cheese breakfast. My BF was a fan of the omlets. It took us about the same amount of time to get through the lines even though his was made fresh and mine wasn't. I would have to say though, if you opt for the fake eggs that I fell for-don't eat them by themselves. Cause then they taste like a gooey tasteless egg. I always would scoop some up in my bacon and then YUM! My BF would get the omlet and you can pretty much put whatever you wanted in it. Another thing that he noticed standing in line was that at the omlet station, they wouldn't just make omlets, you could also order sunny side up, over easy, etc. eggs. It was cute when he found this out he told me to put it in my review, when he mostly thought I was crazy for all the pictures I was taking because I said someone would ask for it. So when he told me about the eggs he told me to include it because someone would ask for it. I did notice later in the week that the breakfast lines were shorter towards the back of the ship. I think most people just stop when the see the food as soon as they walk into the buffet.

 

After breakfast we headed over to the burgundy lounge, which was where they were handing out tender tickets. We got there probably around 7:45, and there was already a small line forming. When they starting assigning us tender numbers we got tender #2.

 

 

The tender was ready around 8:10am and when they went to call people down, we didn't think we would get the first boat out because we were number 2. But They called 1,2&3 at least, because the tender boats were a pretty good size. The filed us down the stairs from deck 5 to deck 0 but they did have an elevator available just for us, in case someone was unable to make it down stairs. Once on the boat, it was almost exactly a 20 minute ride to Belize. You can see the Dream's whale tale from inside the tender boat as we pulled away.

 

 

 

Hello Belize!! Zip-Line & Cave Tubing... here we come!!!!

[malmo288]

I was really nervous to book outside of Carnival because this was a tendered port but after reading review after review and knowing that it would be more expensive for less booking through the ship, I decided to book Cave tubing and Zip lining for my group with cavetubing . com. I also read really good reviews about .bz but we wanted to eat the tamale that .com gave you so we booked with them. They charged us $55 per person for both the cave tubing and the zip lining and lunch was included. The tender dropped us off in Terminal 2, but our excursion group was waiting for us outside of Terminal 1, which was really easy to find. By the time we got off the tender and the family used the restroom it was almost 9 when found Yony, the guy in charge of the Butts up cave tubing group. He was really nice and pointed us to a large bus, like a tour bus size, and told us to go on in and we would be leaving shortly.

 

 

All of the guides were friendly and funny and gave us a lot of interesting information about Belize as we made our way to the cave tubing site. They even provided us a shot of their local Cashew wine. The wine had an interesting flavor. Almost like a juice, but the aftertaste was nutty. They gave my BF another shot so he could take it with me since he drank his while I was trying to take a picture of the bottle.

 

 

 

The bus ride to the caves was pretty close to an hour.

 

 

When we got there, the zip lining people went their separate ways from the people who were just cave tubing. So from what I gathered, people just cave tubing got to see another cave that we didn't get to see and float a little longer. But I for sure wouldn't trade the zip lining through the rainforest for anything. It was simply beautiful and such a rush.

 

[malmo288]

After we left the big group, we were taken to the ziplining base to get suited up. What I thought was neat when we were getting ready was that the guide noticed that my BF had his go pro chest strap on so that he could record the whole thing, and he brought over a helmet that had the connector the go pro would fit into and told him that he might like the helmet better. (I don't have any of these shots yet, because he has yet to upload them. When he does, I'll post my favorites) So we got suited up and were on our way!

 

 

 

My BF and I had already been zip lining before in the Dominican Republic, but I think if I had to choose, I like zip lining in Belize better. There was something about zipping through the rainforest with all of the beautiful greenery surrounding you. At one point we saw some weird little animal and its babies as we were hiking to one of the platforms. With that said, yes. There was a lot of hiking on this excursion. But it is all worth it when your flying through the air.

 

The first jump was a baby one. I think it was short and didn't go very fast. This was perfect to test it out and see if you liked it, because if you didn't it was just a short walk back. Out of my group of 4, the wife was the one who was scared to do the zip lining. She didn't want to go too fast and she was afraid that it would break, or fall. So this first run was perfect for her to test the waters. We even had a little girl in our group who was something like 6-8years old, but she wasn't so nervous about the first one. She even went by herself. Wife got a good feeling about the zip lining from this jump but was still a little nervous, so after we hiked to the second jump we were told it was the fastest one. So ready or not... One of the guides rode tandum with the little girl on this one and a lot of the other fast ones. They were very conscious about our group and making sure everyone was having fun and was comfortable. Wife was terrified for this second one but it was kind of like pushing a bird out of the nest to see if it could fly. She loved it after that one and started to relax and have fun. The view was beautiful, feeling the wind on your face after some sweaty hikes was heavenly and feeling free as you were flying was priceless. At one point, we even got to zip line over a river that was similar to what we would be cave tubing through. That was probably my favorite part. I do have to say though when I'm talking about hiking, it wasn't that bad in my opinion. Some hikes were rougher than others, but I think we were all sweating because of the humidity more then the hike, unless thats just what I told myself. I can't remember exactly how many runs there were but it was something like 7 or 8. The good thing was sometimes you would hike to one and then when you'd zip across, you'd already be on the next platform that you'd be zipping on so you wouldn't have to hike some more.

 

 

 

 

[cruising_diva]

 

This water was so pretty, we even saw a school of fish swim around us for a good little while. They were a pretty good size fish too, probably about the size of my hand(not that you have any idea the size of my hands and they are kind of small now that I think about it). My Bf caught them on his go pro camera, but he isn't uploading pictures/videos fast enough for my review but I can add them later. They were cute. But besides the beautiful water there is also a famous reef you could snorkel at, you would just have to pay $15 and a boat would take you out there. My group opted out of the snorkel but we did enjoy some drinks. Before our trip I couldn't find Playa Palancar's menu anywhere! So I took pictures for you.

 

 

 

I ordered a Miami Vice which was different from any other Miami Vice I had ever had because it tasted like they used real fruit to make it. Miami Vice is strawberry daiquiri and pina colada together. It was still pretty tasty though, I have to admit.

 

 

If you do go here, be on the look out for the peacocks that roam around too. They were so beautiful and were a nice random surprise when walking to the bathrooms.

 

 

OMG. Playa Palancar is on my wish list for Cozumel. I have NOT seen the Playa Palancar menu with the prices in DOLLARS!!! Thank you SO MUCH for posting that. It's getting printed and added to my cruise binder. Very helpful! Thanks again!

[malmo288]

After we finished zip lining the took us back to the bus where our stuff was locked up to get into our swim gear. Here was when you could tell how conscious of time they were because they were trying to make sure we didn't feel rushed but also didn't just take our time, because we were just wasting the time we needed so that we could get back to port on time to catch the last tender. One thing I didn't realize with .com was that you had to carry your own inner tube, when I had read from several people that if you book with .bz you wouldn't have to carry your own raft. I feel like that within itself might be a reason to book with .bz next time, because focusing on carrying that raft on a hike for about 15-20 minutes in the miserable humidity was awful. There were times when I was walking and I was so focused on what I was doing that I realized I had forgotten to look around as we were hiking because it was a beautiful rainforest that we were hiking through.

 

 

 

When we finally got to the river we got to test out how cold the water was. Our guides told us it would be a REEE-Freshing temperature of about 70-75degrees in temperature and they weren't lying. It was almost a bitter bite when you got into the water, but after a couple seconds it felt amazing. The tubes were all strapped together so that we didnt have to hold onto each other while we were guided into the caves. Only, the strap holding my float to the person in front of me broke or something so my bf held onto my handle so that me and the row of people behind me wouldn't get separated. We saw some beautiful views in here too. Only my camera(since I was using my phone) didn't photograph in the caves very well.

 

 

 

 

As we were coming to the end of our cave tubing adventure it started to rain. So we were soaking wet by the time we got back to the bus. The rain actually made it so chilly, I got goosebumps! but the rain also made it impossible for me to get good shots out of the cave because droplets kept covering my lens and I had nothing to dry it yet. This was my favorite wet picture.

 

[malmo288]

OMG. Playa Palancar is on my wish list for Cozumel. I have NOT seen the Playa Palancar menu with the prices in DOLLARS!!! Thank you SO MUCH for posting that. It's getting printed and added to my cruise binder. Very helpful! Thanks again!

 

Your welcome! I couldn't find it anywhere either so I knew it had to get posted! You will love it there when you go. :)