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!
