Cruising Christine's Dream Review 10/25/15

[Jamman54]

GREAT start to your review!! Thanks for taking the time to post it!!

[mabones]

Really enjoying your Review. We will be in NOLA in 19 days!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Leave on the Dream on December 5th.

 

Anxiously waiting for your next installment!!!

[FrankandLolas2ndhoneymoon]

OMG! you have me so excited. Glad to know the FTTF went smoothly since we'll be using it on Sunday! Did you have trouble getting where you needed to or is it pretty clearly marked? (I'm a worrier, so the more prepared I am the better!) I'm also curious about the temperature on the ship. I have read complaints about it being too hot in the cabins. What was your take (and your husband's? forgive my odd statement but he (like my husband) looks like the kind of dude that likes frost on the windows when he's sleeping.) Thanks a bunch in advance and I'm glad you had a great trip!!!

[trishnmike]

We leave Jan 31 so keeping up with your great review

 

 

We are leaving on Jan 24. So we will be getting off the boat on the day you are getting on it. There is an older New Orleans singer sailing on our cruise. The guy with the spiked up hair. He will be celebrating with his crew.

[slybear]

We are leaving on Jan 24. So we will be getting off the boat on the day you are getting on it. There is an older New Orleans singer sailing on our cruise. The guy with the spiked up hair. He will be celebrating with his crew.

 

The singer is Vince Vance & he is wonderful, not to be missed!

[TrqoisWtrs]

A great review and enjoying the pics. Another one who didn't know you can get a parrot cup. Fun - I'll have to look for it in February. :)

[2manyanimals]

Didn't know about the coin. Where is it?

[Raxter54]

Didn't know about the coin. Where is it?

 

I've heard it is near the water slides....

[bakersdozen12]

Did you have trouble getting where you needed to or is it pretty clearly marked? (I'm a worrier, so the more prepared I am the better!)

 

It was actually pretty clearly marked. There was a huge sign for FTTF check-in. I was expecting to have to ask where to go, but I didn't have to. And then after we checked in, there were people directing us to the FTTF seating area.

 

I'm also curious about the temperature on the ship. I have read complaints about it being too hot in the cabins. What was your take (and your husband's? forgive my odd statement but he (like my husband) looks like the kind of dude that likes frost on the windows when he's sleeping.)

 

I'm someone that is always cold, and my husband is always hot, lol. Opposites attract, right? Anyway, we turned the AC to the coldest setting on the first day and it got really cold, in my opinion. My husband thought it was comfortable. A couple things that may have helped: we never left the balcony door to let the hot air in, and we kept the curtains closed while we were in port.

[bakersdozen12]

Port #1: Montego Bay, Jamaica

 

Time for me to finish up with this review! When I started it, I actually thought that I could finish it in one day. Silly me!

 

Our first port for this cruise, and my first one ever, was Montego Bay, and we were scheduled to be there from 9 am to 6 pm. After two days at sea, it was nice finally see that first glimpse of land.

 

 

I was extremely excited as this was officially the furthest I had even been from home. My first time really seeing a foreign land. Unfortunately it had to be Jamaica, something that I wouldn't realize until later on, but still, it made this deprived girl finally feel worldly.

 

 

On the port side, which is the side that our cove balcony was on, it seemed a tad bit industrial. And Jamaica is definitely hilly, something that would prove, unfortunately, to be an annoyance for me on our excursion.

 

 

At some point the ship began to turn around, I think to back into port, if I remember correctly. It gave me a chance to see what was on the other side, which appeared to be either condos or a resort of some kind, not sure which.

 

 

[bakersdozen12]

Montego Bay, Jamaica cont'd

Since we were going on an excursion that morning, we had decided that, rather than getting up before dawn to get breakfast on the lido, we would try ordering breakfast to be delivered to our room. For those that have not cruised before, they leave menu cards that you fill out and leave on your doorknob the night before. I didn't take a picture of the menu, but it's your typical continental breakfast items, just nothing hot like eggs. You also have to leave a range of time that you would like it delivered in-between. I wasn't sure what was a customary time window to give, so I gave a half hour. The food ended up being delivered 15 mins late, so I made a mental note that, in the future, I should request to have it delivered at least 15 mins before the latest time I wanted it.

 

 

For those that have never been to Montego Bay, there isn't a really dock like there is in other ports, not one that stretches out into the sea. The ship pulls right up to the land, if that makes any sense. Sorry, I'm not familiar with the correct terminology, but this picture explains it better than I can.

 

 

The ship pulls up directly across from a long "Welcome Center" type building, with shops inside. Although I read recently that they have closed these shops to remodel. This happened a couple days after we were there, if I remember correctly. There are other little vendors that sell stuff outside, which are the little white tents in the following picture. Beware, though, that the vendors are VERY pushy in Jamaica. It was actually extremely annoying. They will not just let you look around. They jump on you the second you even think about looking at what they are selling. This was my first negative experience about Jamaica. Also, make sure you haggle with them for a price, because they will try to rip you off. If you can't haggle (I cannot), have someone else do it for you (for me, that's my husband).

 

 

At this port, we were not on a Carnival sponsored excursion. We were actually traveling as part of the Parrot Lovers Cruise, a group that likes to do parrot-themed excursions, holds parrot seminars on board, and uses the cruise as a way to raise money for The World Parrot Trust (a parrot conservation charity) through silent auctions held on board and also from the seminar fees. The lady that had organized the cruise decide that we would visit someplace called Animal Farm Jamaica. We walked through the Welcome Center building and met on the other side, where all the buses for excursions were lined up.

 

 

We actually were on two buses, because they weren't that big. The bus itself wasn't uncomfortable (it was air conditioned), but remember my comment about Jamaica being hilly and how it would prove to be an annoyance to me? Let's just say that our trip to Animal Farm Jamaica was deep into the countryside, and the roads are NOT well paved, or paved at all. It was so unbelievably bumpy that I got a really bad headache. And, the roads are very narrow, which doesn't play out well when they are literally right on the edge of cliffs. Let's just say that at some points I would look out the window and all I would see was a drop-off and think, "One wrong turn and we will be dead at the bottom of this cliff." It wasn't at all pleasant. And, Jamaica is very, very dirty. It's unbelievable how much trash is strewn everywhere. Needless to say, my first impression of this country wasn't all that great.

 

We finally arrived at the farm, and it was nice to finally be off the bus.

 

 

The farm is located in Copse, Hanover, Jamaica. It is six acres, and the farm is "primarily dedicated to aviculture- the breeding and rearing of birds and we have over seventy different varieties...". This is taken off of their website. My opinion about this place is mixed. On one hand, I do respect that they are working very hard to be an environmentally friendly farm. They even have this really neat set-up where they use the waste from the pigs that they raise to produce bio-gas which they use for cooking and refrigeration.

 

[bakersdozen12]

Montego Bay, Jamaica cont'd

 

But, I think that the woman who choose this excursion really thought that they were more of bird-conservationists than they really were. They didn't really have that many birds, and the other animals that they had (an alligator, a donkey, pigs, etc) are animals that you can see at any small zoo. Really, this isn't someplace that I would go to on a Caribbean island like Jamaica unless you have small children and really don't like the beach. In hindsight, my husband and I should have chosen to go off and do our own excursion, but oh well. It was what it was. At least we got a chance to see the Jamaican countryside.

 

 

And they did had an aviary that you could walk into and feed the birds (that were pretty tame and used to people). But while that was fun, again, I can imagine that there are many more exotic, fun places to visit in Jamaica. If I ever go back, I would probably pick someplace like Dunn's Falls, since I heard that place is amazing.

 

 

 

I wish I remembered what kind of amazon parrot this was, but apparently it is a pretty rare kind, and I know some of my fellow parrot lovers were excited to see it up-close.

 

 

We ended up leaving the farm fairly early, so we asked the bus driver to stop someplace where we could shop. He ended up stopping at a little strip mall, where the store owners were just as pushy as the vendors at the port. You couldn't even walk by their stores on the outside without them practically chasing after you, trying to get you to come inside. Honestly, this type of tactic does just the opposite for me: it makes me NOT want to buy anything from you.

 

Unfortunately there really wasn't any place to get lunch at this shopping center, except for this one tiny gift shop that sold fried meat pies (not sure of the correct name) out of their backroom. It was a little sketchy, but we were starving. My husband had a beef one and I had a chicken one. The filling of mine was this flouresnt yellow color that wasn't all that appetizing. I couldn't eat the whole thing.

 

On the way back to port, there was a thunderstorm (the only rain that occurred during our cruise), but the rain had pretty much stopped by the time we got back and were waiting in line to board the ship. We were back early and had time to kill before dinner, so we found some dry spots on the Serenity deck to sit out, relax and take in our last views of Jamaica as the sun went down.

 

 

[bakersdozen12]

Montego Bay, Jamaica cont'd

 

And now for my favorite part of any review, food porn time! I hate to admit that this is the part of people's reviews that I focus on the most, but hey, the fatty in me likes what it likes, what can I say?!

 

I had the mozzarella and tomato appetizer. I didn't really care for it for two reasons. For one thing, the tomatoes were overripe. And also, I think that I am too used to having the same sort of appetizer at Italian restaurants, but with a balsamic drizzle on top. Really, it needed the balsamic drizzle instead of whatever that green stuff was that they circled the plate with.

 

 

My entree that night was the lasagna bolognese, and omg, it was so good! Seriously, it was something that I will look for again in the future, and I sure hope they still have on the American menu, although I suspect I will be disappointed. I forget the exact description, but essentially it was a beef lasagna with spinach and a cheese sauce on top. I highly recommend it. The portion size is huge too. For some reason, every other meal seems like they purposely give you small portions, which I like, but this was more like your typical US restaurant sized portion. As hungry as I was, I could only eat half if I was to save room for dessert.

 

 

For desert I had some sort of chocolate raspberry cake that came with raspberry sherbet on the side. It was good, but nothing really that special.

 

 

After dinner that night, we went to the 8:45 late showing of Dancing in the Streets. For any future Dream cruisers, if you only go to one show on board, I highly recommend this one. It was really, really good. The performers were really talented, and the selections of songs were varied but well chosen, in my opinion. We may not be talking about a Broadway-worthy production, but honestly, it's a cruise ship and what more can you ask for than to just have fun? And it was definitely that.

 

The towel animal that night was a cute elephant. As I look back to the cruise now, I have really come to miss these. And the turn-down service. They really do take good care of you on Carnival ships!

 

 

To be continued, most likely tomorrow (or maybe late tonight if I get ambitious). Still to come: botanical gardens, 7 mile beach, Mayan ruins, invasion of the pool-deck towel animals, and my favorite part, Halloween on the Dream! And even some post-cruise New Orleans activities for those that might be thinking about spending extra time in the city (which I highly recommend).

[bakersdozen12]

I've heard it is near the water slides....

 

Yes, the coin is near the stairs to one of the waters slides, in case anyone wants to know.

[KiwiFunCruiser]

Exciting review, look forward to more!!!. Thanks

[Catiegirl]

Reading your review is getting me so excited for our Christmas cruise on the Dream! Love the Bon Voyage shirt-where did you find it?

[cruisinsly]

Great review so far. Thanks for sharing. Cant wait for the rest!!

[panamatiger]

We were on the back to back for 21 days just before you. Also from New Hampshire. As writing this the sun is going down. Would rather be at Sea Looking forward to more of your review

[cincicruisers]

Looking forward to the rest of your review.

[NolaTiem]

Your lucky you weren't at the parade when they throw cabbages. LOL

 

Cabbages, potatoes and carrots.

While I was pregnant with my now two year old, I went to this particular parade but was sitting VERY far back. That didn't stop an attack from a rogue carrot which popped me right in my mouth and split and fattened my lip. Lol whoever said veggies are good for your health was so wrong.

[bakersdozen12]

Reading your review is getting me so excited for our Christmas cruise on the Dream! Love the Bon Voyage shirt-where did you find it?

 

I found it at an outlet store near where I live. Unfortunately, I can't recall the name of the store. It was just one of those things that when I saw it, I just had to get it for sail away!

[bakersdozen12]

Sorry for being so MIA lately. I actually got quite sick over the Thanksgiving break. Started out with a sore throat and then turned into what I thought was just a sinus infection until my nose was so swollen and painful that I could have sworn I had gotten socked in the nose by Jessica Jones! Actually, the doctors think it was a cellulitis infection in the cartilage of my nose, but have no idea what would have caused it. Oh well, luckily it didn't spread to my brain so I'm able to continue on with this review! :D

 

Port Day #2: Georgetown, Grand Cayman

 

Well, if I didn't like Jamaica, my opinions about Grand Cayman would turn out to be the exact opposite: I love this country! If I ever win the lottery, I will be relocating here. And I'll need to win the lottery because yikes, it's quite expensive to live there! (I concluded this after doing some dream house shopping post-cruise, hehe.)

 

Anyway, this day was to be an early day as we were in port from 7 am to 4 pm. I set my alarm early, and it was still dark out when I woke up. I stepped on the balcony to be pleasantly surprised that we had a neighbor at this port stop.

 

 

When it got light out I was able to see that it was the Royal Caribbean Freedom of the Seas. Quite a large ship indeed!

 

That morning I had breakfast delivered to the room. I won't bore you with pics because we pretty much ordered the same as the day before. After eating breakfast and getting dressed, we waiting on our balcony and eventually we started seeing the tenders start to pull up!

 

 

This was very exciting because I had known from my pre-cruise research that Grand Cayman is a port that can be missed due to choppy waters. Since we had sailed right after Hurricane Patricia, and the forecasts for our ports hadn't been great when I last checked before leaving home, I had it in my head to not be disappointed if we missed the port. As I would find out later from our tour bus driver, two Carnival ships missed the port the day before, so clearly we got lucky!

 

Our cove balcony cabin was right near we the tenders pulled up, which was really convenient for getting on and off the ship, also very interesting when it was time to sail away that day. Let's just say there were 6 people being paged over and over again that *just* managed to arrive via tender literally 5 mins before we sailed away. They got VERY lucky.

 

 

Multiple tenders waiting for their turn to pick up people, and you can see the Royal Caribbean ship in the background.

 

 

With this being our first cruise, we weren't really sure what the process was for getting off of the ship, but we had FTTF and were instructed to meet in one of the lounges. We got there a little late, and there was no one there, so I figured we had missed it. I went to seek out a Carnival employee to ask what we were supposed to do. I told him we had FTTF and he led us right to an elevator and told us to go down and someone would let us on a tender. It was actually really convenient, and we got on the first tender, but I have to say, at no time did anyone actually check that we had FTTF. I thought that part was odd. Anyway, we were on the first tender, and heading to Grand Cayman! Here's a shot of the ship as we were pulling away.

 

[bakersdozen12]

Port Day #2: Grand Cayman cont'd

 

We sat on the bottom level of the tender towards the back, so that I could take pictures easily on the short ride over. As soon as we pulled away, there was another tender right there ready to pull up to the ship.

 

 

One of the Carnival excursions that I had read about is the pirate ship excursion. I believe that they serve you lunch on board and put on a show. Seems like a great excursion for kids. The ship definitely draws a lot of attention when people see it.

 

 

The ride was very short, and soon we were at the dock and we could see the Welcome Center.

 

 

I really wish I took more pictures of the Welcome Center when we were there, but for those that have never been, when you walk in it's basically this big open area with lots of stores all around. Unlike in Jamaica, the people working in these stores do NOT pressure you to buy anything. Actually, the only pressure you will feel is from the tour operators trying to get you to purchase a tour from them. But, a polite "no, thanks" or "we have one booked" is enough and then they just leave you alone.

 

 

At this port we would be doing an excursion that was arranged by the group that we were sailing with. We were going to the Queen Elizabeth II Botanic Park and stopping at 7 mile beach on the way back. The beach part was what I was most looking forward to! This sheltered girl from NH had never been swimming in the Caribbean before and I couldn't wait!

 

After meeting up with our group we were loaded onto the tour bus and we were on our way!

 

[bakersdozen12]

Port Day #2: Grand Cayman cont'd

 

We had a little bit of a drive to the park, but it was nice to be able to get a good look at the island (this is when I started falling in love). It really is beautiful, and has a beach resort type of feel to it. It is very flat, and for some reason, there are chickens that just wander free everywhere. All I can really compare it to is it's kind of like here in NH we have squirrels that just run around everywhere. Well, they have chickens. :)

 

They also have iguanas, and we did see some along the road as we traveled to the park. The park itself normally has the blue iguanas roaming around it, but unfortunately they had to round them all up and put them in a sage location because some wild dogs were getting to them. So, this would be the only "iguana" I would get a picture of that day.

 

 

Now, for those of you that are not beach-go'ers, or have done the stingray thing before, and want something else to do, I highly recommend the Queen Elizabeth II Botanic Park. This place was absolutely gorgeous. I have a ton of pictures, but will post some of the best so that you can get an idea of how pretty a place it is. Really, it was like being in paradise. Such a relaxing day.

 

 

 

 

[bakersdozen12]

Port Day #2: Grand Cayman cont'd

 

I could just sit here with a good book for hours. Or better yet, had an easel and some paint. And actually knew how to paint...sigh, maybe someday. :D

 

 

The highlight of the park for me was being able to see the Cuban amazon parrots in the wild. Actually, for birders out there, this place was amazing for bird-watching. So many different species, and our guide was able to name them all.

 

 

Just love these guys...

 

 

This tree was interesting because our guide told us that it had actually fallen down in a hurricane over a decade ago, but kept on growing anyway so now it's shaped like a "L".

 

 

On the way out, we noticed they have a donations box setup. They better watch out, though, because a determined woodpecker was having a great time trying to steal from it. ;-)

 

Edited December 2, 2015 by bakersdozen12