Carnival Dream 9/11/2010 - I'm Dreaming of a Big Big Big Cats Cruise! The Sequel

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StudMuffin

2nd Officer
How about this cruise...


8 Night Eastern Caribbean Cruise Carnival Cruise Lines
Carnival Freedom
Departing from Fort Lauderdale, Florida


Ports of Call:
Fort Lauderdale, Florida | San Juan, Puerto Rico | St. Thomas, U.S. Virgin Islands | Antigua, Antigua & Barbuda | Road Town, Tortola, B.V.I. | Nassau, Bahamas

Departure Date Inside Outside Balcony
cruise infoSeptember 10 549 USD 659 USD 879 USD
 
dutyfree4me

dutyfree4me

Chief Security Officer
dutyfree4me said:
I heard from my cousin the other day. She asked about the Dream. Her son went in May. I think that I posted that back then. She said they had so much drama on the cruise. They were not happy and wrote a letter to Carnival and all carnival said was we are sorry. I could not get the whole story except they were very upset. So how did you guys like your cruise? I did post on FB for her to tell me all about the cruise and she never did, I think I now know why.
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I know I was on the cruise with you guys. I just wanted your honest opinion of your take on the ship since my cousins kid had such a horrible experience.

Or room steward was not that great. Except when he gave me a private visit. Dinner waiters not that great, gathering wait staff not that great, Food was very good, company was great (for the most part)!ha ha just kidding that was the best part of the cruise but I am not ready to go back on Dream next year...... We may have to start doing an every other year with you guys cause I like ports and you all like sea days.........
 
S

StudMuffin

2nd Officer
dutyfree4me said:
I know I was on the cruise with you guys. I just wanted your honest opinion of your take on the ship.......
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I thought we had discussed our thoughts on the cruise?

Ship: Lay out was pretty easy to navigate. Decor was subdued and not painful on the eyes. Nice change of pace for Carnival, expecially deck 5. Sports bar area could be bigger (and football game choices more plentiful....right Jim ;D ) Photo ops were really good, many different pose types to choose from. Slide areas were pretty well designed with exception of trek upstairs in bare feet. Windjammer is far better laid out than RCCL, never had problem getting a table. Dining room was nice (no giant pepto bismol tablets on ceiling), center table on 1st floor was a first us...only thing missing was the captain. Adult pool area we never got to use, RCCL has a significant better adult area.

Entertainment: Why I only seen one, everyone seemed to echo the entertainment as quite good in comparisson to other ships.

Cabin: Nice size, plenty of space for storage, plasma TV, plenty of space in bathroom with shower curtain, rather than plastic door enclosure.

Service: Our cabin steward (Henri) was arguably one of the best we have ever had (besides being vertically challenged). Just always present, and not happy unless we were...great service. Dining Team was definitely slow, but seemed to get better by the end of the cruise. Head waiter seemed over-whelmed, but the lack of presence of his assistant certainly had to of put an additional strain on him. Purser's desk was very pleasant to deal with. Had a problem with the OBC and they quickly took care of the problem.

Food: Hands down better than RCCL. From windjammer selections, to just overall quality of food, Carnival easily beats RCCL. Anne still can't get over the cheese cake in the steak house.
 
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oriolesfan22

2nd Officer
StudMuffin said:
I thought we had discussed our thoughts on the cruise?

Ship: Lay out was pretty easy to navigate. Decor was subdued and not painful on the eyes. Nice change of pace for Carnival, expecially deck 5. Sports bar area could be bigger (and football game choices more plentiful....right Jim ;D ) Photo ops were really good, many different pose types to choose from. Slide areas were pretty well designed with exception of trek upstairs in bare feet. Windjammer is far better laid out than RCCL, never had problem getting a table. Dining room was nice (no giant pepto bismol tablets on ceiling), center table on 1st floor was a first us...only thing missing was the captain. Adult pool area we never got to use, RCCL has a significant better adult area.

Entertainment: Why I only seen one, everyone seemed to echo the entertainment as quite good in comparisson to other ships.

Cabin: Nice size, plenty of space for storage, plasma TV, plenty of space in bathroom with shower curtain, rather than plastic door enclosure.

Service: Our cabin steward (Henri) was arguably one of the best we have ever had (besides being vertically challenged). Just always present, and not happy unless we were...great service. Dining Team was definitely slow, but seemed to get better by the end of the cruise. Head waiter seemed over-whelmed, but the lack of presence of his assistant certainly had to of put an additional strain on him. Purser's desk was very pleasant to deal with. Had a problem with the OBC and they quickly took care of the problem.

Food: Hands down better than RCCL. From windjammer selections, to just overall quality of food, Carnival easily beats RCCL. Anne still can't get over the cheese cake in the steak house.
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Wow...now you know I hate agreeing with George...but....

I agree with George on almost every count above, except I disagree about the layout. I didn't love the layout of the ship. I did not like deck 5 - and I did not like how we had to walk around the one dining room to get to our dining room, but that could be because all of us had cabins all over the ship and that was the dining room that we needed to be in to sit together. Now, I still liked the ship....but I thought a few things were funky about the layout.

I loved our spa cabin, and loved the Serenity area on deck 15 where I was getting my sunshine at each day. Also loved that the spa cabins were non-smoking so that our neighbors weren't smoking on the balconies.

I thought the service was just so-so, in general. A few things about our wait staff still make me laugh, like when I asked for a salad with no dressing and received a bowl of romaine, no croutons, no cheese. Also, putting the water in the teeny little wine glasses because we had tea in our water glasses. On a scale of 1-10, I'd give them a 5. Our cabin steward was mediocre as well....though we think we had a team of 4 rather than a single steward. We had some weird things with them. One day our box of tissues was gone, the next day it was back. I had used up a special shower gel that was special for the spa cabins, and the bottle was never replaced/refilled. Also we were afraid that we were going to be charged for the contents of the mini bar because we removed the contents and put everything in the closet, as advised, then 2 days before the end of the cruise the fridge was re-stocked, leaving the other stuff in the closet. Thankfully we weren't charged.

The food was very good - reminded me of the quality when we first started cruising. I loved the many options of the casual area. I didn't like the pizza in the smoking section. Actually, I thought the pizza wasn't as good as previous cruises.

I would do the Dream again....the pluses outweight the minuses. And I think each ship has good/bad stewards/wait staff.

Bottom line - I'd do the Dream going west next year without hesitation, or in future years....but would consider other ships too!
 
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oriolesfan22

2nd Officer
Oh...the VIP status....liked the special attention in the lines to board the ship. If things were more busy it wouldve really made a difference, but it was nice to bypass a bit in the lines. We had personalized stationery in our cabin that was really nice, though I didn't have the need to do any longhand correspondence....we also received a very pretty set of picture frames. We had petit fours and canapes twice, which were delivered to the room just prior to dinner. They were nice. We were supposed to have complimentary laundry service, which was mentioned in a letter when we first got on board, but we never knew how to do that if we would've wanted to. If we were on a longer cruise, that might be very helpful. That was about it - so it was a nice touch, but nothing overwhelmingly good.
 
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oriolesfan22

2nd Officer
I keep on searching for something that meets our needs....why isn't there something that is perfect for us????



It seems like we are looking for the following:
Depart out of Florida
7-10 days
Ports other than Grand Cayman/Ocho Rios/Cozumel or Nassau/St Thomas/St Martin/San Juan
(though a couple of those ports mixed with new ports is totally acceptable)
Some happy medium regarding # of ports
Relatively new ship
No preference on cruiseline
Cost is a factor but is not the sole factor

Is that about right for eveyone?
 


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