Dream - never again!

[nlktx49]

Returned Sunday, May 1, from an 8 day cruise on the Dream. From waiting over an hour and a half every night for a table at Anytime Dining, to a message at 5 am from the Art Auction to not miss the Lightning Auction at 1 pm - which when I complained to guest services and the person asked to see my phone, said he saw no evidence of this post on it, basically calling me a liar! -  to no bourbon, no Pepsi, no Dr Pepper by day 3, to rudeness from crew to other passengers, to a dirty cabin - the list goes on and on. This was my 25th cruise, supposed to be my milestone, but may be my last. I've never experienced any issues like this on any other Carnival ship and have had four cruises since the restart. My complaints were totally dismissed by the hostess in the dining room, the assistant Maitre de, guest services - I posted my complaints on John Heald's Face Book page and got a kind and concerned response, with a promise to follow up.

 

Is Dream the stepchild ship of Carnival?

 

I have two more cruises this year, booked and paid for, both on the Dream. No way would I ever set foot on this ship again. 

[dallasdan]

Sorry about your experience.  I was on the dream in December and it was great.  No problems with Crew or any time dining.  Granted we were not on a full sailing.  My guess is Carnival has increased guest capacity but still hasn't increased crew levels to pre-pandemic.

[sunkey1]

Just had a similar experience on the Magic in April, after a fantastic cruise on the Mardi Gras last October. I'll give Carnival another chance but I'm going to stick to newer ships.

[ProgRockCruiser]

The overall lack of crew personnel across the fleet is hurting Carnival.  They've not been able to staff up because of delays in the visa from the US Gov't, to the point where the always-open 24 hr Pizza joint had to close for a few hours overnight on a recent sailing (saw that on John Heald's FB page).

 

Now that they have all their ships sailing, and sailing at very high passenger capacity, the lack of personnel is just too thin in some areas, and I would imagine they are ensuring the newer ships get "at least enough crew", which will leave some ships "slightly understaffed".

 

I imagine that is what happened on the Dream.  Hopefully this will be rectified soon, but since it involves US Immigration...I would not bet on it.

 

Edited May 2, 2022 by ProgRockCruiser

[1kaper]

I saw your post on John Heald's page.  

I sailed the Dream the end of March and had none of your issues. 

 

We certainly didn't wait an hour for a table at anytime dining.  Although one night the app wasn't working and after waiting in line for awhile to get signed up we "heard" through other people the wait was over an hour.  So we went to the buffet. 

[firefly333]

I just read another never do carnival again out of NOLA. They claim people were arrested and someone died in a cabin. Idk. They are debarking late due to all the excitement. 

 

Sometimes you do have a bad cruise. I had one when Ike hit Galveston and swore off carnival..I have dream booked for 14 days Jan  2024. Hope it's a one off. 

[Schlinger]

nlktx49 thanks for the heads up! I just got back from a horrible cruise myself (on NCL). Mine was worse, though, because the food was meh and the bars where I could get a drink pretty much always closed except during dinner and an hour or 2 before and after.  In any case, I'll make sure to avoid that ship. Thanks !!

[pc_load_letter]

3 minutes ago, Schlinger said:

nlktx49 thanks for the heads up! I just got back from a horrible cruise myself (on NCL). Mine was worse, though, because the food was meh and the bars where I could get a drink pretty much always closed except during dinner and an hour or 2 before and after.  In any case, I'll make sure to avoid that ship. Thanks !!

 

What NCL ship? Itinerary? 

 

[BlerkOne]

Looking forward to our upcoming cruise on Dream and I doubt we will experience many issues.

[Schlinger]

11 minutes ago, pc_load_letter said:

 

What NCL ship? Itinerary? 

 

Epic from Rome to Barcelona and back.

[BlerkOne]

28 minutes ago, ProgRockCruiser said:

 

Now that they have all their ships sailing, and sailing at very high passenger capacity, the lack of personnel is just too thin in some areas, and I would imagine they are ensuring the newer ships get "at least enough crew", which will leave some ships "slightly understaffed".

 

 

My experience is the oldest ship in the fleet, and being scrapped later this year, Ecstasy, had more than sufficient crew, and many smiling faces. Absolutely no service complaints from me.

[Schlinger]

34 minutes ago, ProgRockCruiser said:

The overall lack of crew personnel across the fleet is hurting Carnival.  They've not been able to staff up because of delays in the visa from the US Gov't, to the point where the always-open 24 hr Pizza joint had to close for a few hours overnight on a recent sailing (saw that on John Heald's FB page).

 

Now that they have all their ships sailing, and sailing at very high passenger capacity, the lack of personnel is just too thin in some areas, and I would imagine they are ensuring the newer ships get "at least enough crew", which will leave some ships "slightly understaffed".

 

I imagine that is what happened on the Dream.  Hopefully this will be rectified soon, but since it involves US Immigration...I would not bet on it.

 

Assuming you're right about CCL not being able to import cheap labor fast enough for restart, I don't think that should serve as an excuse. After all, there are plenty of people available to work on their ships who don't need a visa for the US or who already have one.  The real issue here is probably that they won't want to work for the kind of money CCL offers. That said, if they want to go sailing, they'll have to put in the effort to make that happen in a way that pleases the customers, right? I won't cut them any slack for cheapening my cruise experience just because they're greedy

[Dadofsix]

25 minutes ago, BlerkOne said:

My experience is the oldest ship in the fleet, and being scrapped later this year, Ecstasy, had more than sufficient crew, and many smiling faces. Absolutely no service complaints from me.

I saw your posts about your trip and looks like they worked the kinks out. We were on the second sailing of the Ecstasy when they reopened Mobile and while the crew appeared short staffed we didn't have near the troubles the O.P. is reporting on the Dream. No bourbon of any brand? or Pepsi to be had? I just can't see that being 100% accurate.

[1kaper]

1 minute ago, Dadofsix said:

I saw your posts about your trip and looks like they worked the kinks out. We were on the second sailing of the Ecstasy when they reopened Mobile and while the crew appeared short staffed we didn't have near the troubles the O.P. is reporting on the Dream. No bourbon of any brand? or Pepsi to be had? I just can't see that being 100% accurate.

the bourbon may have been our fault. 
We did have a few on our trip. 
 

They didn’t have mountain dew in the dining room after the first few days but my kid could get it other places. 

[MistyRo76]

Unfortunately supply chain issues and staffing shortages are going to be around for the short term, I'm afraid. I had a friend on the Freedom last week and said it was very noticeable that there were not enough staff to take care of the now full-ships sailing. And they also had issues with running out of certain supplies after a couple days (she didn't elaborate on what items they ran out of on her sailing). I have not yet sailed post-Covid (though I wish I could have gotten away for a sailing while ships were sailing at reduced capacity). My next sailing isn't until October, unless I book a pre-school year cruise for me and the kiddo in August. So hoping these issues are resolved by then. Until that happens, I hope everyone can give the hard working staff some extra patience and grace and still enjoy your vacation! 

[starstruck05]

I was on the same cruise and yes we did experience the long wait for Seaday Brunch once. We canelled the table because it was over an hour. We had a long wait for YTD dinner one night as well but the other nights we did eat Brunch or Dining Room was less than 30 minutes. However, while yes we had an entirely full ship, and they were short staffed for what was ideal for the amount of people, it was actually the PASSENGERS faults. Tons of people were treating the Dining rooms like land based restaurants, so holding up tables and turning brunch and dinner that would be maybe and hour or less into 2 or 3 hours.

I say this from seeing it several times so do not flame me. There were people who would sit at the table, around the same time as us, order a round of drinks from the server. Sit and talk, tell the staff they aren't ready to order and as we are leaving the Dining room for our dinner are FINALLY actually placing an order for food. 

I wouldn't have thought much about it but I happened more than once and both and dinner and brunch and very different groups of people. This cruise also had a good bit of first timers as well or people who hadn't cruise in years (pre-pandemic).

 

I didn't encounter any rude staff that I can remember. We actually made friends with several staff members and talked about their life on board. Some aren't even allowed of the ship at all, at any port of call due to their nationally.

 

I bought my own drinks on so I did not experience the bar issue but I can concur the HUB app issue. I do not buy the internet package. My phone stays on airplane mode and free ship wifi always. My phone kept sending me alerts from Facebook, my ring app at home, my school emails, etc.i couldn't open any of them but it was annoying and we couldn't figure out why. Additionally if we were not looking at the app, it would not send the alert that a table was ready until well after we were already at the same. One time we had finished dinner and my mom got an alert on her phone the table was ready, so the app definitely was malfunctioning.

 

I enjoyed my cruise and I would go again but it would have to be a HUGE issue to get me to not take a cruise. 🤣 Plus I'm 9 days from Platinum with a 4 day out of Moblie booked for August so I can be Platinum come my 7 day in August '23 out of NOLA.

[jrtmouse]

3 hours ago, sunkey1 said:

Just had a similar experience on the Magic in April, after a fantastic cruise on the Mardi Gras last October. I'll give Carnival another chance but I'm going to stick to newer ships.

We just got off Panorama, a new ship for all intents an purposes, and there were definite issues.  I try to stick with relatively new ships for this reason and was somewhat disappointed in a variety of things.  While I enjoyed the physical aspects of the ship, other areas came up lacking.  It seems they could be having issues across the fleet.

[jrtmouse]

1 hour ago, MistyRo76 said:

Unfortunately supply chain issues and staffing shortages are going to be around for the short term, I'm afraid. I had a friend on the Freedom last week and said it was very noticeable that there were not enough staff to take care of the now full-ships sailing. And they also had issues with running out of certain supplies after a couple days (she didn't elaborate on what items they ran out of on her sailing). I have not yet sailed post-Covid (though I wish I could have gotten away for a sailing while ships were sailing at reduced capacity). My next sailing isn't until October, unless I book a pre-school year cruise for me and the kiddo in August. So hoping these issues are resolved by then. Until that happens, I hope everyone can give the hard working staff some extra patience and grace and still enjoy your vacation! 

 

I understand the supply chain and staffing issues.  With that said, Carnival probably shouldn't fill their ships to capacity until these issues have been taken care of.  While our MDR and Cabin staff provided excellent service on the Panorama a few weeks back, there were definite shortages elsewhere.  You can't provide mediocre food and service to a ship of 4600 passengers.  I'm willing to give them time to transition back into full service sailing if they'll reasonably consider prices and accommodations.  

[Schlinger]

15 minutes ago, starstruck05 said:

 However, while yes we had an entirely full ship, and they were short staffed for what was ideal for the amount of people, it was actually the PASSENGERS faults. Tons of people were treating the Dining rooms like land based restaurants, so holding up tables and turning brunch and dinner that would be maybe and hour or less into 2 or 3 hours.

I say this from seeing it several times so do not flame me. There were people who would sit at the table, around the same time as us, order a round of drinks from the server. Sit and talk, tell the staff they aren't ready to order and as we are leaving the Dining room for our dinner are FINALLY actually placing an order for food. 

I wouldn't have thought much about it but I happened more than once and both and dinner and brunch and very different groups of people. This cruise also had a good bit of first timers as well or people who hadn't cruise in years (pre-pandemic).

.

Hi, that's interesting, I never knew that, having only cruised 3 times so far. How long do I have to eat and leave? I don't think I have ever seen that mentioned anywhere that there was a time limit on my meals.

[mz-s]

2 minutes ago, Schlinger said:

Hi, that's interesting, I never knew that, having only cruised 3 times so far. How long do I have to eat and leave? I don't think I have ever seen that mentioned anywhere that there was a time limit on my meals.

 

There is no time limit they are just being a curmudgeon. Actually it wasn't that long ago that dinner was the event of the evening and it would last 2 hours on a cruise, especially on formal nights.

[Schlinger]

2 minutes ago, mz-s said:

 

There is no time limit they are just being a curmudgeon. Actually it wasn't that long ago that dinner was the event of the evening and it would last 2 hours on a cruise, especially on formal nights.

That's what I thought, and what I seem to remember from what my grandma said about cruising, the dinners, dancing, ball gowns, tuxedos, champagne... But that's decades ago now. Nowadays everyone is always in a hurry, and what do I know? Things are changing so quickly in so many aspects of life it's hard to keep up.

[starstruck05]

6 minutes ago, mz-s said:

 

There is no time limit they are just being a curmudgeon. Actually it wasn't that long ago that dinner was the event of the evening and it would last 2 hours on a cruise, especially on formal nights.

There is no time limit but a normal dinner service should take you about an hour to an hour and a half. Especially even shorter now because your order everything at once. But if I'm an hour into dinner, about to be finished, and we sat at the same time or you were before me and you are JUST ordering at no fault of the staff, that a problem and YTD wasn't meant for that.

[LatinaInTexas]

37 minutes ago, jrtmouse said:

We just got off Panorama, a new ship for all intents an purposes, and there were definite issues.  I try to stick with relatively new ships for this reason and was somewhat disappointed in a variety of things.  While I enjoyed the physical aspects of the ship, other areas came up lacking.  It seems they could be having issues across the fleet.

I felt the same way about our Panorama cruise. When I got off my first thought was never again on this ship. But I really liked the ship and the ports so I will be open to booking again.

[mz-s]

30 minutes ago, jrtmouse said:

 

I understand the supply chain and staffing issues.  With that said, Carnival probably shouldn't fill their ships to capacity until these issues have been taken care of.  While our MDR and Cabin staff provided excellent service on the Panorama a few weeks back, there were definite shortages elsewhere.  You can't provide mediocre food and service to a ship of 4600 passengers.  I'm willing to give them time to transition back into full service sailing if they'll reasonably consider prices and accommodations.  

 

I don't know about you but I've been paying like half of what I paid before COVID for my cruises since the restart. So I think they are figuring this into account to some extent.

[1kaper]

15 minutes ago, starstruck05 said:

. Especially even shorter now because your order everything at once. 

 

that was something I noticed on this trip and couldn’t remember if it was always like that. 
I really did not like it. Not enough to ruin my cruise or anything but it felt rushed or something.