If only Mick Arison had played... (Carnival Dream report)

[Mattsudds]

Carnival Dream launched her year round, 7 night sailings from Port Canaveral on 12th December. I was onboard to see just what this ‘new class’ of Carnival flagship had to offer. At 130,000gt the Dream is Carnival’s largest ship to date, and apart from the QM2, the largest ship in the Carnival Corporation. This was not my first cruise (about 40th I think) nor my first carnival cruise, and I like to sail all the brands and all the ships – I want to try everything before choosing a favourite!

 

Carnival Dream has a stated lower berth capacity of 3,646 and on this cruise she was actually carrying 4,200 with 700 kids onboard, presumably many occupying the upper berths.

 

Carnival describe the Dream as a new class with ‘stunning new features’ including the Lanai (a wraparound promenade deck with 4 whirlpools which overhang the ships side), and some other features too.

 

In reality Dream is based upon the line’s Destiny/ Conquest class but this version has had more changes than previous updates/ new versions. The class has been criticised in the past for passenger flow to the larger, aft dining room and this has been addressed with a new lower arcade running alongside the forward dining room and conference centre.

 

Previously the Destiny/ Conquest class had a promenade deck on level 3 which basically went nowhere – there was a single set of doors from the atrium lobby from which you had to enter or leave this promenade. This has now gone with the installation of the Lanai. Carnival have adopted the outboard hung lifeboats (as on Oasis) which are stowed under the new promenade deck.

 

Forward, the main theatre has grown, mainly with the addition of a lot of ‘bad’ seats along the sides which have only a limited view of the stage. Carnival have also installed some bench seats in the atrium to watch as the performances spill over at the end of the main shows. The atrium upper levels have always been a pinch point for traffic post shows and this is little different on the Dream.

 

The other principle change is up top on the Lido. The ship has a double deck space forward of the funnel with Seaside theatre screen and it is here that the laser shows are scheduled. The Lido is little changed (counters serving certain items have swapped places) from the Freedom, with the exception of the change of the upper aft level into a Pasta Bar. The Carnival website provides plenty of deckplans and pictures so I won’t dwell on that, just tell you about the experience.

 

I had Cabin 1203 on 1 deck, the cheapest category 1A – and it was a very good choice. A spacious cabin which despite being officially inside, was actually with 2 portholes, and a complimentary bow thrusters alarm call at ports.

 

Boarding the Dream was relatively efficient and it was straight upto the Lido for lunch. Although the food was, as always fine, it was obvious here that space was at a huge premium. Where there had been walk through passageways on the Freedom, these were now filled with tables. In the buffet Carnival like to offer a number of ‘made to order’ items, including Deli Sandwiches, Mongolian Wok and Burrito Bars. Truth is though that there simply isn’t the space or the staff to do this properly. The buffet counters had lines for all these items which obstructed access to the other, pre-prepared items. Net result, wherever you went were long, long queues. The one exception was the upper Pasta Bar. I don’t think most people found it and as a consequence, it was possibly the only place where you could find a seat at mealtimes.

 

Breakfast in this area was just as bad, and one could see why it was called ‘The Gathering’. Equally ‘Refugee feeding station’ might have been an appropriate name given the queues of people holding up empty plates and shouting.

 

As a sign of just how bad things have got at lunch times, Carnival are introducing a Lanai Barbecue, in the hope of taking some of the pressure off the Lido. A good idea on an underused space, although watch out if you have a deck 6 cabin, did you book a BBQ smell and view experience?!

 

The main dining room was a much better place at Dinner, but again there were big queues stretching down corridors to get in for breakfast. One morning there was a low-cost airline style approach of telling people nearing the front of the queue that they would not be served breakfast in the dining room as they were too late (despite queueing for 15-20 minutes). After some vigorous protesting staff relented…

 

We were seated in the aft dining room and Farcus had worked his usual here. But gone too far. On the upper level he had designed in high barriers so that it was only possible to see down into the main level through an obscured Perspex view. Worse still the seating and tables were fixed in position in many places. How can I put this delicately – they weren’t fixed with American cruise passenger size in mind and they were a squeeze for some, with the chairs also being too low for the table. The dining room staff let us into a little secret, that they had been forced to change some of this after the ship was delivered, and they noted that more had had to be done to this ship post delivery than previous Carnival vessels. Also the increas in seating makes it a slalom to get to some tables with no longer any through routes to the aft end lower level.

 

Post Dinner I like to go to the shows, and as ever with Carnival they remain high energy and visually spectacular with Carnival being one of those companies that uses the theatre capabilities fully. Unfortunately the previously mentioned seating expansion means that many of the new seats (side benches) have a poor view and for some shows I strongly advise getting there early to sit in the middle if you don’t want to miss things.

 

The Dream has adopted the Carnival Comedy Club in the aft, Burgundy, lounge and this was very popular. Naturally you’ll understand more as an American (quite a lot of the jokes required some US knowledge) but I enjoyed them anyhow. This has given that aft lounge a purpose and vibrancy which seemed lacking on previous Destiny/ Conquest class ships.

 

The Piano Bar was popular too and now spills out into the promenade. I can’t say that I thought too much of the performer, who’s shouty style and constant demanding of tips (the song gets played when the dead Presidents sing…) became irritating.

 

According to Carnival and the programme we were to be treated to Laser shows throughout the cruise. The unfortunate truth is that these afterthoughts simply don’t work. The lasers need something to be projected onto and the 4 temporary smoke machines just have the smoke blow away (who knew that smoke would blow away on a moving ship….). The crew were really embarrassed by these shows and admitted that they weren’t designed into the ship, and had been rushed in 6 weeks from idea to implementation. In the end on our trip they gave up after one memorable attempt where the show (should be no show) ended and people made a point of sitting on their hands and not clapping, and then there was canned applause…. Within the Carnival Corporation, the AIDA ships have this working fine (its designed in and projects onto a flat, white surface) – if only there was adequate cross-brand learning.

 

The cruise director was Todd Whitmer. He ran the usual range of activities - nothing particularly special or unusual. He did however talk and talk and talk. There was a drill on the Costa Maya day and Todd was giving crew instructions. I hope he can learn the art of brevity before any real emergency because otherwise the ship would have sunk before he'd got to the point about getting off...

 

We made a lot of use of the Lanai – which was one of the few uncrowded areas of the ship, especially the whirlpools. The noise from here obviously carries very well and be prepared to be social. It’s a bit like sitting in a whirlpool and watching a ship sail by. We had lots of conversations with people on balconies (is it warm, room for another etc), even upto deck 9.

 

The post of call on this trip were Cozumel, Mahogany Bay (Roatan), Belize and Costa Maya. Walking indelendently around Cozumel was my favourite. Mahogany Bay is a picturesque ‘disneyfied’ Caribbean artificial area. There is a much vaunted chair ride, although I couldn’t see the value in being lifted about the length of the ship on a park bench dangling from a phone wire – at $5, but that’s just me. Even the beach is artificial here too, and the whole area is fenced off from the locals.

 

Costa Maya is not somewhere I ever want to stop again. A 3 ship pier with a shopping market and poky beach, all miles from anywhere and created just for ship calls, this is one extra sea day I would prefer…

 

On the final sea day we enjoyed the behind the fun tour, which was interesting. We did note that as a result of the Lanai is it now impossible for the ships’ officers to see the sides of the ship when docking, a somewhat suboptimal solution I think.

 

Overall this cruise was good value, but frankly not something I would hurry to do again. The Dream is simply too crowded a ship, one which has outgrown its basic infrastructure and skeleton. Whether its lines for food, poor theatre seats, waiting for elevators etc, this is simply a tweaked Destiny with far far too many people vying for its facilities. It was really noticeable how in the final days the crew were pleading with passengers to rate them individually and not the ship. The cruise director asked us to note that the staff worked hard but 'send our message to Carnival HQ' via the handwritten comments. They all know this is a ship with problems. Todd W kept saying that the Dream had 800 more passengers than the Freedom but the same number of crew - I can't verify those figures though.

 

Ultimately this won't however stop me from sailing with Carnival again for a value vacation. I'll just keep to my order ot preference

1) Spirit Class

2) Destiny/ Conquest - if essential for price/ itinerary

3) Never again - Dream class

 

And so I get back to the title. If only Micky Arison had played Sim Tower – a computer game a bit like Sim City where you build and run a tower block at a profit. It shows you that you can only grow your tower a certain amount before a new building is needed because you won’t have enough elevators, parking spaces, food serverys etc and your tenants eventually desert because there are better buildings elsewhere. Perhaps if Arison and Carnival naval architects had taken that game for a spin we wouldn’t have ended up with the Carnival Dream… And how disapponting that there is the Magic and even the 3rd one (Wonder or Passion were both suggested).

[Traveler353]

Very well balanced and objective review. Dream has a lot of well documented problems to get worked out before I will cruise on her. Thank you,

[FireIce0010]

And Carnival announced that they are building a third of this class.:rolleyes: Be ready for the cheerleaders to tell you how wrong you are with this review.

[Sargent_Schultz]

And Carnival announced that they are building a third of this class.:rolleyes: Be ready for the cheerleaders to tell you how wrong you are with this review.

 

The OP mentioned the third ship. Find something else to try to stir the pot.

 

I didn't notice any objectionable odors (spelled correctly) mentioned.

 

It certainly seems like Carnival is actively trying to address issues and has resolved some. I wouldn't expect an anti-Carnival crusader to acknowledge that, however.

 

Some of the objections are positives to me. It's all relative.

[cruiseqe2]

I too happened to be on this sailing.

 

This was my first Carnival cruise, having come from a mainly Cunard background. I don't know about the OP, but after realising that this wasn't Cunard, I did have fun.

 

I also did the Behind the Fun tour, and found it fascinating. You do get the meet wierd people though. One person on our tour asked the Captain whether it was possible for this ship (the Carnival Dream) to talk to other ships (i.e. Royal Caribbean ships) over the radio. The Captain injected some humour into his answer by replying "Royal Caribbean - what is this???" in an Italian accent!

 

I also found it difficult to squeeze my body round all the tables in the aft restaurant to get to my assigned table. I had been forewarned about singing waiters and the like but never expected what I did see. A singing Maitre'D and singing and dancing waiting staff.

 

Being a Cunard Diamond member, I did expect some recognition of this fact on a Carnival Ship - being part of the same family! The purser (oops sorry, Guest Services person) hadn't even heard of Cunard. I asked her if she had heard of the QE2, QM2 etc. and she said that she had. I then informed her that these belonged to Cunard. She then informed me that there was no such thing as exchanging of priviledges!

 

Mark in a cold London looking forward to the NCL Epic next July.

[yogi2929]

.....Being a Cunard Diamond member, I did expect some recognition of this fact on a Carnival Ship - being part of the same family! ..........................She then informed me that there was no such thing as exchanging of priviledges!..............

 

The only exchange of priviledges is past guest discounts. The same is across all the lines that Carnival owns.

[Mattsudds]

I didn't notice any objectionable odors (spelled correctly) mentioned. Some of the objections are positives to me. It's all relative.

I didn't mention odours (spelt the English way!) in my original post but there were some. I didn't spend anytime in the areas where others have mentioned them, but there were odours starboard near the forward staircase on Deck 1. However I believe that these were not caused by the ship.

[Snorkel2Much]

I didn't mention odours (spelt the English way!) in my original post but there were some. I didn't spend anytime in the areas where others have mentioned them, but there were odours starboard near the forward staircase on Deck 1. However I believe that these were not caused by the ship.

Excellent review, thank you for posting it.

[jonbgd]

I wonder why they would build a ship that has the same isues of a past design

The flow problems they have on the Conquest class ships they dont have on the Spirit class

Im wondering why they didnt do a larger version of the Spirit class Which IMHO is their nicest ships(Except the disco)

[Schplinky]

I didn't mention odours (spelt the English way!) in my original post but there were some. I didn't spend anytime in the areas where others have mentioned them, but there were odours starboard near the forward staircase on Deck 1. However I believe that these were not caused by the ship.

 

 

Thanks for your review. We sail on Saturday and I have appreciated all of the balanced reviews I've read. Anyone who claimed any ship was perfect or that there were no issues would have no credence with me. The benefit of balanced reviews, like yours, is that a person can re-think how they'll spend their time aboard in order to maximize the positive and minimize their exposure to the negative.

[Mattsudds]

Apologies for chiming in again on my own thread but there are a couple of things which one of our group has reminded me about that I forgot to mention.

 

Firstly bar service. It was fine at the bars and seemed fine in the restaurant. Expect to wait 20 mins to get a drink though in the lounges. Ironic that drink service is slow on a ship with a reputation for partying/ drinking!

 

The second was crew in passenger spaces. On some occasions the crew were using passenger lifts to move equipment around (like the deck scrubber machine) - which seemed unusual (surely there are service elevators). However what became irritating was the number of occasions on which crew would push past you into the elevators, push past on deck in the passageways between deck chairs etc. All without any pleasantries of the day. I'm not saying that we spent all day just standing in the way waiting to be pushed aside, or that this happened every hour, but there were several such incidents over the cruise, in elevators post tendering, on sea days and on deck on sea days. It seemed to smack of a crew needing polish, and manners. Those few isolated individuals do leave a poor impression of their colleagues.

 

In the Dining room we were lucky enough to be looked after by Bianca (lower level aft table) - great, funship service.

[Sargent_Schultz]

Even though I am Milestone on Carnival, it really doesn't amount to squat on Princess or Cunard or any other Carnival Corp cruise line - they are separate business units (for the most part). I get better deals and benefits because of my prior cruises on Princess.

[Dave85]

I really enjoyed your review -- thanks for taking the time to post it. I haven't been on the Dream but a lot of the issues you pointed out were issues I feared would exist when I saw the layout of this ship (and the lack of innovation beyond just a bloated version of the Conquest Class with a few new areas).

[CwuzCwazy]

Wow!!! An excellent review of this new ship and exactly the flaws I witnessed on the Inaugural Eastern Caribbean run. You hit everyone of the things I noticed (after 22 cruises on Carnival), and my impressions exactly. Even though she is only a two hour drive away, I doubt I will sail on her again because of her size and these items.

 

Our cruise was great, but a lot of the things you mentioned just don't happen on some of the other classes....with this new design, it seems Carnival has reached the point of diminishing returns (for those of you who know what I mean). There is a thing as too large...RCCL reached it with their Liberty/Freedom Class, now Carnival with their Dream class. If they're going to buy two more of these things, they have some serious design flaws that need to be addressed.

[Sargent_Schultz]

If I lived 2 hours away from Carnival Dream, I wouldn't hesitate to book another cruise on the ship. I think Splendor was a couple of steps back and Dream at least one giant step forward. I don't see Carnival making any more Spirit class ships and a supersized one won't scale any better - there is only one dining room on Spirit class ships.

 

I think Carnival is headed in the right direction at the right time.

 

As with anything, there are growing pains and Carnival has addressed some and is working on others.

[DarthGrady]

I wonder why they would build a ship that has the same isues of a past design

The flow problems they have on the Conquest class ships they dont have on the Spirit class

Im wondering why they didnt do a larger version of the Spirit class Which IMHO is their nicest ships(Except the disco)

 

Excellent point and I think the answer boils down to cold hard profit. The Spirit Class gets such rave reviews for their excellent layout and their better space to passenger ratio. I think the latter is the reason why they were not continued past the initial order. Less people for the allotted space equals less money. I suppose they wanted to see just how many people they could shoehorn into the Destiny's design before it became unbearable, apparently we are at that point with Dream.

To the OP, thank you for an honest objective review. The reports of the Dream's overcrowding and lack of adequately sized facilities are becoming far too numerous. At this point the ship should be getting past the "its ok, she’s brand new" phase. I hope they get her fixed and soon, I have absolutely no problem picking another ship for our September cruise.

[Tangocherie]

I agree with with the op's comments on the crowds aboard the Carnival Dream. Having sailed her out of New York on 11/23, I would add that the problems with the crowd on the Lido deck at mealtime were compounded by the fact the weather did not allow outside seating. It was a real pain to find a table after waiting in line for so long to get your food. With 4300 passengers, 1300 of them kids, thank you very much, but I'll stick to the Fantasy and Spirit class from now on!