Dream detailed trip report w/ Menus, Fun Times

[luckybecky]

We are just off the Dream. I have a detailed trip report with current menus and Fun Times and more.

 

For months, I have been receiving offers from Carnival for a “free” stateroom on select sailings, but every time I would try to book one, I’d get an error message that this room “just” sold out. It was beginning to feel like a bait and switch gimmick.

 

But on Friday evening, May 12, I received an email offer that included the May 14 sailing of the Dream out of Galveston. That’s our home port – we live in San Antonio. I clicked the link, same error message as usual. This time I tried calling, the rep said their computer systems were updating, call back in an hour. Instead, I tried the link online one more time and it finally worked.

 

We were booked into a 1A upper/lower inside cabin, no room number was assigned yet. When I booked, I thought it was a standard inside – didn’t realize I was getting bunk beds until I looked at our confirmation after booking! We are in our early 60s and not really into climbing into an upper bunk. I probably would not have booked it if I had realized this – but glad we did!

 

The next morning, I logged into my cruise planner and happily discovered that our room had been assigned and upgraded to a 4E cabin on deck 7! Yay! I looked at deck plans and was happy with the location. Forward, but not ALL the way forward, not too far from the elevators.

 

So we had about 36 hours to get ready. I reserved parking at the pier, and booked Cheers and a steakhouse reservation for the first night – happy Mother’s Day to me!

 

Found a Belize snorkeling excursion we wanted to do on a popular trip advising website and booked that. Several hours later I received a notice from the tour operator that as of now they don’t have enough people signed up and may have to cancel the tour if they didn’t get more people. We didn’t want to wait until the last minute to find out if the tour was going to go, or not. So I canceled it and booked a Carnival tour instead.

 

Normally, I avoid ship tours. I have found that we can get smaller group tours, at better prices, using outside providers. But I always research those providers pretty carefully to be sure they are reliable. With so little time to plan this trip, we just went with a couple of Carnival tours in Belize and Costa Maya. We have been to Cozumel several times and didn’t plan anything for that port.

[luckybecky]

We have done a few cruises out of Galveston. It is about a 4 to 4.5 hour drive from our home. We have always driven over the night before just in case of any issues (a wreck on I-10 can add hours to the trip) but we didn’t do that this time.

 

We left San Antonio a little before 8am. Arrived at the port just after 12:00. We had parking reserved in the express lot, very near the terminal (no shuttle needed). Had to wait in line for several minutes to drop off our luggage. Arrived at the terminal at 12:15 where we were directed to the very long early/late line (our arrival time was 11:30-12). The on time line was very short. Kinda annoying but whatever. The line went fairly quickly.

 

Security presented a bottleneck, didn’t seem very efficient but we got through. They did not check the two bottles of wine that we had in our backpack.

 

Side note: our last cruise was a 2 week Panama Canal cruise where the average age had to be 60+. Not a party cruise. I will say that before we even got inside the terminal, we noticed, shall we say, a different dress code for this cruise and a substantially lower average age.

 

Our second sign that this cruise might have a different vibe was when the woman in front of us in security was forced to surrender her brass knuckles. Not kidding.

 

We walked on board at 12:42pm, a little more than half an hour after arriving at port. We were *immediately* directed to take a hard right into the theater to complete muster. We waited several minutes for the presentation to begin; then a crew member gave a brief demonstration of how to put on a life jacket. Not exactly how I want to spend my first moments on board, but good to get it over with and really happy we don’t have to do the old style muster drill!

 

Here we are getting on board:

 

 

 

 

Edited May 22, 2023 by luckybecky

[luckybecky]

Went up to the buffet but there was absolutely NO seating available. Everyone was waiting for rooms to open at 1:30. We looked around the ship a bit, then got a little BBQ at Guy’s Pig and Anchor smokehouse. There was almost no line there. Maybe many people don’t know about it yet. First impression of the food: just so-so. The BBQ beef wasn’t bad. The mac and cheese was cold, dry and pretty much inedible.

 

By the time we finished eating, rooms were open so we went to drop off our backpack. As we approached our room, a crew member was knocking on the door. We said here we are; he apologized that only my room key was ready. They were trying to print one for my husband but having trouble for some reason. He said he would return later with a key card for Paul. We never saw him again.

 

Lines at guest services were quite long all day but finally after supper, still with no key card for Paul, we went there to get a card. The line was actually a little shorter than earlier and (only) took half an hour.

 

Here are photos of our room. I always book a balcony but this last minute special was for an inside. The room was fine. But I really miss having some sort of seating in the room. This cabin had only a stool at the desk. I don’t like that at all.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Our room was clean, but not perfectly so. If I’m going to be picky, the drawers needed dusting or vacuuming, and the refrigerator weirdly had glitter in it. There were two very large bundles of extra bedding stuffed into a closet, which prevented the door from closing properly. We moved them to under the bed so we could use that storage space and close the door. Speaking of which, the closet space was great! Plenty of room. There was another smaller bundle of bedding stuffed into a bedside table. Not sure why, since there were no extra beds in this cabin.

 

Also, important to note: the cabin had only one US style electrical outlet. That’s it. And one European outlet. So you will definitely want to take some kind of power strip with you. Be aware that you cannot use anything with a surge protector.

 

Edited May 22, 2023 by luckybecky

[luckybecky]

Paul took a nap in the afternoon while I explored a little. We were having heavy rain off and on so couldn’t check out the outdoor decks quite yet. I usually post lots of ship photos from my first day tour of the ship, but the Dream has been around for awhile and so there are lots of pics available online already. Plus I couldn’t tour or photograph the outside areas anyway. But here are just a couple of photos, the gym and thallasotherapy pool which looks amazing. Someday I'm going to get to try it.

 

 

 

I went to the spa where they were giving mini massages. That was nice! Signed up for the raffle to win free spa services. I returned at 4:30 for the drawing (must be present to win) and sadly was not one of the lucky winners. They had a spa special that was extremely tempting and really did sound like a good value compared to normal pricing, but I resisted the temptation. I’m sorry, I forgot to get a menu of spa services.

 

Our luggage arrived quickly, I think it was outside our door around 2:30 or so.

 

 

[VIFP1987]

Enjoying your review.. looking forward to reading the rest of it! 

[luckybecky]

Sailaway was around 3:30 or 3:45. The sailaway party was moved from the usual Lido deck location to the atrium, due to rain. You'll see that the rain did not deter a couple of intrepid kids who were going to get in the pool, come hell or high water!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[luckybecky]

Around 4:45 or so, while I was at the spa raffle, the captain came on the speaker and said, you may have noticed that we have turned the ship around and are returning to Galveston. We have a guest in need of medical attention and are returning to port to disembark the person.

 

We had Steakhouse reservations at 5:30. We could see from our window seat that we were docked at the Royal Caribbean terminal. We were there for awhile. I think we departed for the second time at around 6pm. The captain said the delay would not impact our ports. We have a sea day tomorrow so plenty of time to make up the delay.

 

Dinner at the steakhouse was great! They still do the free bottle of wine on the first night. Yes, I know. It is cheap wine. If you are a connoisseur you won’t like it. But we are fine with cheap wine. LOL

 

All wine by the bottle is also half off on the first and second nights. Cheers does not kick in until tomorrow, so we enjoyed the cheap wine with our meal and ordered a second bottle to take with us for later in the evening. (They open the wine; you can’t just go order a bottle to go. But whatever you don’t finish, you can take with you.)

 

Here is the menu starting with the current wine list with prices

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited May 22, 2023 by luckybecky

[luckybecky]

Here is the Steakhouse menu

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[luckybecky]

This is the iced and smoked oyster appetizer

 

 

 

 

[luckybecky]

This is an amuse bouche slider 

 

 

The french onion soup was exceptional

 

 

 

Shrimp cocktail

 

 

I had a spinach salad but asked for it without the mushrooms

 

 

Surf and turf

 

 

 

NY Strip

 

 

 

Ice cream for dessert

 

 

 

If you don't try anything else on this cruise, you MUST have this chocolate sphere dessert. It was out of this world.

 

 

 

[luckybecky]

We went to the welcome aboard show with cruise director Franco. It was fun, and ended with a short set from the Playlist performers. The CD said we have 4057 passengers on board, which surprised me because I thought capacity was less than that. In fact, the Carnival website says the Dream capacity is 3646 so we are considerably above that -- and it showed in the long lines, crowded breakfast and lunch buffet, and packed elevators. The average age was much younger than our last cruise. Lots of young adults, and families – though not a ton of school age kids because school is still in session.

 

 

 

 

[luckybecky]

After the welcome aboard show, I wanted to go to the comedy show but Paul was tired and went back to the room. I know that the comedy club is very popular and you have to arrive early to get a good seat. The Welcome Aboard show didn’t end until just a few minutes before. So I knew I was taking my chances, but I was alone so I thought I might be able to snag a single seat somewhere.

 

Sure enough, I spied a seat with a decent view of the stage. I asked the lady sitting there if the seat was taken and she snobbily assured me that it was. She even had 2 glasses of wine in front of her, like someone else would be joining her.

 

I found another single seat further back and the couple there welcomed me to sit with them. It was a great show with comedian Merl Hobbs. I really love the comedy club. These shows are a highlight of the cruise. We attend them as often as we can.

 

The first seat I tried to take? Empty for the entire show. The woman was apparently saving it for someone who never bothered to show up. DO NOT BE THIS PERSON. There were MANY people at this standing room only show who would love to have a seat. It is beyond selfish to hold a seat empty. The rude lady drank both glasses of wine, by the way. Although the seat was wasted, at least she didn’t let the wine go to waste. I’m sure this same woman will “reserve” a couple of seats by the pool tomorrow and not use them for hours on end.

 

I am a night owl and enjoy a late night snack. Snacks are not available on this ship. They did have popcorn available during the movie on the Lido deck, charging $4 for a small box. As I recall, this used to be free – and wasn’t even that good. On our last cruise with NCL, bar snacks were always available as well as potato and tortilla chips at the lunch buffet. We often would take a bowl of these back to our room for late night munchies. Not happening here. About the only sort of snacky food I found the whole cruise was potato strings at Guy’s Burgers.

[luckybecky]

Monday May 15 – A Sea Day

 

We slept late. The bed was really comfortable!

 

We went to the gym for a run on the treadmill. It was moderately busy but not a problem to get a treadmill. Then went to test out the hot tubs. A big fail in my opinion. The hot tubs are not jacuzzis, ie, they don’t have jets or bubbles. I don’t really understand the point of sitting in a tub of warm water with a bunch of strangers. I love a good jacuzzi with jets, which is relaxing like a massage to me, but the warm bathtub just wasn’t doing it for me.

 

If this is your thing, you have a lot of options. There are plenty of hot tubs in various locations but none of them appeared to have jets, they only slowly circulate with very low power but don’t have vigorous, bubbly jets like a jacuzzi.

 

Afterwards, I went to the ladies’ locker room in the spa to shower while Paul showered in our room. The locker room has two showers, one a huge accessible shower and another that is smaller but still much bigger than the one in your cabin.

 

By the time we finished all this, breakfast was winding down. Still available but we decided to just wait for lunch. I looked at the Carnival Hub app to see if the dining room was available and it did not show up. I looked twice, maybe I missed it.

 

Later in the day I went to Guest Services to get a paper copy of the daily schedule and it showed a Sea Day Brunch from 8:30am to noon. This was not showing up in the app for me so I had assumed the dining room was not open for lunch. Sorry we missed it.

 

I would have liked a Guy’s burger but there were dozens of people in line. The Mongolian Wok, another favorite of mine, also had many people in line. So we hit the buffet. Of course it was crowded but not as bad as yesterday and we found a seat. I had pot roast, mashed potatoes, and roasted veggies. It was good.

 

We had sort of a lazy afternoon. Tried our luck in the casino – not hitting yet. Briefly browsed the shops. Took a long nap.

 

Our room wasn’t cleaned until 6:30pm. We had been in and out of our room multiple times – going to the gym, lunch, casino, etc. Paul bumped into our steward in the hall in the afternoon while I was napping; he said he would service our room while we were at supper.

[luckybecky]

We usually go to supper early when cruising, earlier than we might eat at home, because we want to have time to go to the shows in the evening. I used the app to sign us in around 5:30 and received a notice within minutes that our table was ready.

 

Supper went VERY fast!! We had four courses in like 45 minutes! I could have handled it if it were just a bit slower so we could take time to savor the food. But it was fine. I would prefer a fast paced meal to one that takes too long and makes us miss showtime. Our servers were friendly and attentive.

 

The food was good.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[luckybecky]

West Indian pumpkin soup

 

 

 

crab cake

 

 

 

Stuffed mushrooms

 

 

Caesar salad

 

 

 

Teriyaki salmon with noodles

 

 

 

Filet mignon -- it was quite good!

 

 

 

Grand Marnier souffle. Was just OK. Not much grand marnier flavor, was pretty plain vanilla.

 

[luckybecky]

Forgot to post the Fun Times.

 

Here it is for day one. My pics are terrible. I'm going to try to retake them tomorrow to see if I can do better.

 

 

 

Edited May 22, 2023 by luckybecky

[deelightfull]

So, I'm curious, how much did your "free" cruise cost? (I mean, aside from cheers, the steakhouse, the casino, and other on board spending) was it just port fees? How much was that? 

 

Looks like a great time and yummy food!  One of these days we'll be in a position to take advantage of inexpensive cruises with such short notice. 🤞 One of these days! 😜

[luckybecky]

9 hours ago, deelightfull said:

So, I'm curious, how much did your "free" cruise cost? (I mean, aside from cheers, the steakhouse, the casino, and other on board spending) was it just port fees? How much was that? 

 

Looks like a great time and yummy food!  One of these days we'll be in a position to take advantage of inexpensive cruises with such short notice. 🤞 One of these days! 😜

 

The cruise was $100 ($50 per person) and we received a $100 OBC. Taxes and port fees were $209. And prepaid gratuities were $192. So all in it cost $501 at the time we booked.

 

We also used AARP gift cards (Allstate also sells them and possibly other places) which were purchased at a 10% discount. So our bottom line was about $450 to book this cruise, and we got $100 of that back in OBC.

[deelightfull]

Cool, thanks for sharing! 

[luckybecky]

After dinner we went to the theater about 20 minutes or so before showtime and got seats right on the front row. We are pretty sure this is the same show we have seen before on the Breeze, the Motown show. It was a lot of fun, very high energy with great singing and dancing.

 

After the show, we headed to the Punchliner club for the comedian. We arrived early enough to get good seats. This club is much more spacious than I remember on other Carnival ships. It filled up by showtime but I can recall it being much harder to get into on some other cruises.

 

It was the same comedian I saw last night but all new material. He was very funny

 

Here are some shots of the Motown show

 

 

 

 

[luckybecky]

Then we gave the casino another chance. One bartender has already learned our names and drink preferences – like we ordered from him ONE time and he knows us immediately when we approach the bar. I don’t know how they do it.

 

Neither of us was having any luck so we headed back to our cabin around 10:30 or so. But I already told you I am a night owl and like a late night snack. I usually just have a few potato chips or a little Skinny Pop at home, but those kinds of snacks are nonexistent on this ship.

 

I realized there is no room service menu in our room. Nor are there the breakfast order hang tags that have always been available – the ones where you make your choices and put it on your door knob the night before to have room service delivered in the morning. Nothing. There used to be a little book with menus and other info. Not now.

 

So I tried the app. Here’s what I got.

 

 

 

Paul bravely ventured out in search of something to snack on. He came back with sandwiches. The cheesesteak was very good! More than I needed – I just needed some chips or something – but we ate them. No fries or chips – they were out of them when Paul was there and he didn’t want to wait for some.

 

Later, I noticed that there is a QR code sticker on the wall with a room service menu. Apparently there is NO complimentary room service available anymore. Everything had a charge. I’m so sorry to see cruising going this way, to everything having a charge.

 

The QR code did not include a breakfast menu so I still don’t know what is available for that.

 

 

 

This guy was waiting for us when we got back to our cabin.

 

Edited May 22, 2023 by luckybecky

[luckybecky]

Here's the Fun Times for today. 

 

[scoobysnacks70]

12 hours ago, luckybecky said:

Monday May 15 – A Sea Day

 

We slept late. The bed was really comfortable!

 

We went to the gym for a run on the treadmill. It was moderately busy but not a problem to get a treadmill. Then went to test out the hot tubs. A big fail in my opinion. The hot tubs are not jacuzzis, ie, they don’t have jets or bubbles. I don’t really understand the point of sitting in a tub of warm water with a bunch of strangers. I love a good jacuzzi with jets, which is relaxing like a massage to me, but the warm bathtub just wasn’t doing it for me.

 

If this is your thing, you have a lot of options. There are plenty of hot tubs in various locations but none of them appeared to have jets, they only slowly circulate with very low power but don’t have vigorous, bubbly jets like a jacuzzi.

 

Afterwards, I went to the ladies’ locker room in the spa to shower while Paul showered in our room. The locker room has two showers, one a huge accessible shower and another that is smaller but still much bigger than the one in your cabin.

 

By the time we finished all this, breakfast was winding down. Still available but we decided to just wait for lunch. I looked at the Carnival Hub app to see if the dining room was available and it did not show up. I looked twice, maybe I missed it.

 

Later in the day I went to Guest Services to get a paper copy of the daily schedule and it showed a Sea Day Brunch from 8:30am to noon. This was not showing up in the app for me so I had assumed the dining room was not open for lunch. Sorry we missed it.

 

I would have liked a Guy’s burger but there were dozens of people in line. The Mongolian Wok, another favorite of mine, also had many people in line. So we hit the buffet. Of course it was crowded but not as bad as yesterday and we found a seat. I had pot roast, mashed potatoes, and roasted veggies. It was good.

 

We had sort of a lazy afternoon. Tried our luck in the casino – not hitting yet. Briefly browsed the shops. Took a long nap.

 

Our room wasn’t cleaned until 6:30pm. We had been in and out of our room multiple times – going to the gym, lunch, casino, etc. Paul bumped into our steward in the hall in the afternoon while I was napping; he said he would service our room while we were at supper.

Maybe you just found one not working?  They were bubbling like crazy last year...

[luckybecky]

Tuesday May 16 Costa Maya

 

We slept late again. Debated going to the gym but… nah. Finally wandered up to the buffet around 11am. There is a Late Risers Buffet from 10:30-11:30am. It was limited to one line on one side of the buffet and there were at least 100 people in line. Not kidding. It was ridiculous. So we went down the casino bar and got a mimosa and bloody mary instead. That counts for breakfast, right?

 

Back to our room to get our beach bag ready and then went back to the lido deck to get a table for lunch. Guys burger bar was open early (11:45) and the line was manageable so we got that. Lines there for the last two days have been ridiculous. Lines in general around the ship have been long. At bars, shops, food venues, guest services. It has always been crowded in the buffet and hard to find a table. The ship just generally seems crowded.

 

 

[luckybecky]

1 minute ago, scoobysnacks70 said:

Maybe you just found one not working?  They were bubbling like crazy last year...

 

That's weird. We checked every single tub on the ship and never saw one bubbling, and couldn't find a way to turn them on, We were on the NCL Bliss a few months ago. Those had a button you had to push and they would only go for about 15 minutes before you'd have to push it again. But none of these had any way to make them go that we could find -- and I guess we weren't the only ones because people were in them all the time but they were always only circulating with a few gentle jets you could feel underwater, but not bubbling.