Dream-y Review - July 8-15

Hello there! We were on the Carnival Dream from July 8-15, and I thought I'd get online and give a little review for y'all. I would have done it live, but the husband said something about "needing to unplug" and wouldn't let me get WiFi. But, I digress.

A little about our family - I am a 39 year old teacher, the Cabana Boy (my husband) is 41, and we have two kiddos who are 10 and 8. Our 10 year old son has high-functioning autism, and my 8 year old thinks she is 26. We're looking into getting her some help for that, so if you know anyone specializing in this field, hook me up.

We drove over on the 8th from the Florida panhandle; it was an easy drive despite the perpetual Sisyphean disaster that is I-10 and the 8 year old who refused to try to go to the bathroom when the rest of us did and then cried out for facilities a mere 10 miles down the road. We stopped at Heaven - oh, I mean Target - before getting to the cruise terminal parking. We were met with the combined traffic of the Essence Festival, and thus began two hours that shall be known as The Time that Hope Died.

Seriously.

We went UP the parking terminal with zero communication and back DOWN because there was no parking. We didn't drop off our bags because, again, no communication. We sat nearly parked trying to get into overflow parking down the road, and when we finally did, we were an hour and 45 minutes past our check-in time. We opted to pull our bags the distance instead of waiting for the shuttle with the rest of Those Who Had Lost Hope, which resulted in both a decent workout (I had a TON of food to eat on that ship, people, a responsibility that I don't take lightly) and burning off the parking frustration. Missed appointments be cursed, we breezed through check in (though my 8 year old couldn't remember the year she was born and said the 90s...it was a little tenuous there, but she made it through) and onto the ship, where there was much high-fiving and YASSSSSSing between the four of us.

We went to our cabin, 8450 (a balcony room), and noticed that across from us was a room of teenage boys (more on this later). Our room was spit-spot, despite that little funk that cruise ship cabins sometimes have (I plugged in my oil diffuser and solved that problem). Off we went to the Lido deck, where Guy's Burgers were had by all. My son eats gluten-free, and the GF buns were interesting at Guy's, so he opted to eat (many, many) burgers bunless. It was all good!

We mustered through muster drill and a little rain, and we were off! More to come later!

Off to a great start, can't wait to read more. We also had issues at the New Orleans parking deck. There are not many spaces and the ones available were tight and on the open, top deck. We finally found a weird sideways spot by the elevator!

Looking forward to the rest of your trip report! Thanks for taking the time to post.

That's really odd. In several cruises out of New Orleans, I've never had a problem parking in the main parking garage. There's always seemed to be a ton of empty spots every time I've parked there.

Great start and can't wait to keep reading as we board the Dream in August!

Do you happen to know if the steakhouse has the old or new menu?

Thanks for sharing! Looking forward to hearing more!

Great start!! We are going on the Dream out of Nola in January.

Great start to the review. My wife likes to hit Target the morning of a cruise too, it's become a tradition!

Love the writing style! Have to clarify for me please... Are you referring to the Port Of New Orleans parking garage or some other parking garage. I didnt realize other people, besides cruisers could park there.

Hello there! We were on the Carnival Dream from July 8-15, and I thought I'd get online and give a little review for y'all. I would have done it live, but the husband said something about "needing to unplug" and wouldn't let me get WiFi. But, I digress.

 

A little about our family - I am a 39 year old teacher, the Cabana Boy (my husband) is 41, and we have two kiddos who are 10 and 8. Our 10 year old son has high-functioning autism, and my 8 year old thinks she is 26. We're looking into getting her some help for that, so if you know anyone specializing in this field, hook me up.

 

We drove over on the 8th from the Florida panhandle; it was an easy drive despite the perpetual Sisyphean disaster that is I-10 and the 8 year old who refused to try to go to the bathroom when the rest of us did and then cried out for facilities a mere 10 miles down the road. We stopped at Heaven - oh, I mean Target - before getting to the cruise terminal parking. We were met with the combined traffic of the Essence Festival, and thus began two hours that shall be known as The Time that Hope Died.

 

Between the cabana boy and the Sisyphean reference I am looking forward to your review. As for the 8 year old think she's 26...that's why they make wine.

That's really odd. In several cruises out of New Orleans, I've never had a problem parking in the main parking garage. There's always seemed to be a ton of empty spots every time I've parked there.

It was our first time cruising out of NOLA, but we had read the same things. It was pretty much the Upside Down.

Love the writing style! Have to clarify for me please... Are you referring to the Port Of New Orleans parking garage or some other parking garage. I didnt realize other people, besides cruisers could park there.

It was the Erato Street Terminal; we were then directed to overflow. You can rest assured there was much weeping/ wailing/ gnashing of teeth. :o

Love your writing style. Happily reading along. We cruise this Sunday out of Baltimore and can't wait!

After setting sail, we checked out the water slides (just looking, mind you, much to the chagrin of our kids), and went to check out Camp Ocean. If you don't have kids, the TL;DR is that Camp Ocean is amazing and accommodating. If you have kids and are wondering about specifics, read on.

As I mentioned earlier, our eldest child has high-functioning autism. He's 10, and super smart and hilarious (and not in that way most parents think of their kids as "super smart and hilarious" - more on that later). However, the kid is about 8, maturity-wise, and he and his sister are like some weird Mafia duo without the violence and mayhem. They stick together. Also, he doesn't really pick up on things like sarcasm, so we were worried about him being alone in the 10-12 group.

Camp Ocean's age groups were going to split them up, and their preferred solution was to move the 8 y.o. up to the 10-12 group. That wasn't going to work with the Cabana Boy and myself; she's precocious as heck, and we feared her coming back with a man-harem, a new vocabulary, and crying out for a Fortnite account and a Snapchat. So, after a talk, they agreed to try him in the younger set for a day and see how things went. We were really grateful to the staff, who continued to be amazing to our kids the whole trip. So we went back to the cabin for a spell.

Did I mention that sailing down the Mississippi River is a unique event? It is. I grew up in northern Louisiana (read: I might as well have grown up in Boston to people from Lafayette and south of there), and crossed the Mississippi plenty headed to my dad's hunting club in Vicksburg, but I'd never had the opportunity to see the southern coasts of the Mississippi. As we sailed on, we saw lots of different vessels and the beautiful landscape around us.

We got dressed for dinner and headed to the Scarlet dining room (we had the early seating). Our wait team was so kind and was working super hard the whole trip, but we couldn't figure out if they had too many tables or just weren't always communicating, because a few small things were left "undone" at dinner each night - orders were incorrect, etc. But we're pretty easygoing folks, and aside from trying to get a kid who is gluten-free to try new GF foods, we enjoyed most everything.

After dinner, I took the kids swimming and let the Cabana Boy rest for a bit in the cabin. I got to sit with my little riffraff and watch the sunset, which was pretty awesome. We talked about what we saw on the banks and in the sky, and went back to our cabin to find bunk beds made and towel animal in place. The kids watched Cartoon Network (no complaints from us on the TV selections) and we all passed out. That was the end of Day One!

Great start following

Did I mention that sailing down the Mississippi River is a unique event? It is. I grew up in northern Louisiana (read: I might as well have grown up in Boston to people from Lafayette and south of there) . . .

You made me a fan just by recognizing this truism!

Thanks for the review.

Following; enjoy your writing style!

Waiting for more. We will be on the Dream Dec 16th.

This great. Will be on the Dream in 3 1/2 weeks

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Thanks for the review. We will be on the Dream in November. Our 17 year old daughter also has Autism so I'm looking forward to hearing about more of your adventures.

Is muster on the Dream inside or outside?

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Is muster on the Dream inside or outside?

 

 

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Inside

Sorry for the delay; I think I'm still recovering sleep from the teenagers across the hall. :O

I teach 8th grade, so love tweens and teens. But the ones across the hall from us? Not so much. Their parents were across the ship, and you'd better believe they partied. It. UP. We had to have a few discussions at 3 AM, when I'm pretty sure that I looked like an evil crone capable of great violence, but they usually quieted down. They were super fond of profanity and some racist terms, and that's when they got "the talk." I combined amazing bed head with teacher stare, and all was well.

The two sea days went swimmingly - literally.

I started at the gym, which was shockingly PACKED. But everyone was polite, and a gruntingly good workout was had by all. Don't be afraid to take the stairs everywhere, or run from Deck 1 up to the spa deck before your workout. It helps justify all the eating.

Speaking of eating, then it was onto breakfast; we ate "Fahn-cee Breakfast" in the dining room both mornings. Our son had GF pancakes, which seemed downright glue-tastic in their texture, but he never complained! My husband had french toast (minus all the cereal crust - what a weirdo!), my daughter had a bagel with butter and a bowl of cereal one day and pancakes the next, and I had steak and eggs both days. This is because 1) as a classy middle-aged broad, I'm worth filet mignon at 9 AM and 2) I try to eat low carb, which went south the evening of the second sea day.

It's fine. I'm fine. I've made peace with it.

The kids went to Camp Ocean the morning of one sea day and the afternoon of the other. Camp Ocean doesn't do lunch, so when they wanted to go, we simply cleaned them up and fed them and delivered them to their keepers, where they happily did arts and crafts, played games, or even had some computer time. Or, we picked them up at lunch, fed them, and then went to the waterslides.

The Cabana Boy and I tried Guy's Pig and Anchor - the pulled pork is legit, and the coleslaw was very good. The brisket made us tsk-et. It's only open on sea days, so plan accordingly.

SUPER SECRET CRUISE TIP (most of you probably know it, but play along, okay??) - there is a semi-secret deck behind the entrance to the racer slides with CHAIRS IN THE SHADE. The chair hogs never made it up here, and it was a lovely place to enjoy the breeze without crisping up like bacon (I come in two shades: albino and "someone call a plastic surgeon," so shade is important to me).

In the evenings, we had dinner in the MDR and then did Dive In Movies. I have to say, the 8 year old full-on belting "The Greatest Showman" from the pool was a highlight of the trip. The Cabana Boy even took the 10 year old to see some of the later movies, which was impressive, given that my little earlybirds are usually asleep by 7:30 at home. There was always a seat. The popcorn was unsalted and unbuttered, but hey - they had salt to add if you wanted, and you're by the bar/ the Lido buffet/ the ice cream machine, so make the best of it.

We were all snug in our cabins by midnight at the latest, and usually only woke up a few times due to our young friends.

Next stop: Jamaica!!!

Enjoying your review and looking forward to the rest! We will be on the Dream next month. Did you happen to save any of the kids club activity schedules? It will the first time in Camp Ocean for my kids. Any special activities they really loved?