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Live from Carnival Dream


PaulMedik

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dobiemom,

 

Yes they're using them and they work well. Multiple touch screen displays are set up in and near the photo display areas on Deck four atrium. You swipe your S&S card and all pictures with either your photo, or pictures taken after your card was scanned at the photography scenes are then displayed. The technology uses both the scanning of your S&S when the pictures are taken, and face recognition that is taken when you board the ship and have your S&S picture taken. They have the lecturn looking S&S booths set up when you are in the boarding area instead of on the ship, and instead of a web cam picture, the photogs are using hand held Cannon cameras to take your picture. The first evening I used mine and it displayed our boarding photo (not the S&S) and a casual picture of another passenger who also had a goatee similar to mine. The next evening the mismatched goateer was gone and only our pics were displayed.

 

I have pics of the displays where you swipe your card and pics of it showing our pics that are available. You can select the pics you want and they will deliver them to your stateroom. We looked ours up, but reverted to the paper version for purchasing, comparing, and choosing which ones we liked the best.

 

That is amazing! Its about time :D

 

I understood they were going to utilize such a system a couple of years ago. Perhaps they now think they have the bugs worked out. Sounds like a very good idea!

 

Does this mean that they don't have 10,000 photos printed and waiting (and mostly wasted)? That should help with the crowds in that area, and greatly shorten the time spent hunting for your photos amongst hundreds of others!!

 

Tom

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Hey Paul,

 

I don't know if you remember me, but I'm the guy from your B2B Liberty cruise a few years ago that you gave the deck of Carnival playing cards to when waiting to disembark. My wife and I still talk frequently about how nice you and your family were. BTW, I still have the cards.

 

I am anxiously awaiting your review. I am about to pull the trigger on the Magic in Europe next year, and a lot of these Dream reviews are making me a little nervous. I am definitely interested in your thoughts.

 

Hope you had a great time!:)

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We really enjoyed our cruise but there were way too many kids for us. Don't know what I was thinking of when I booked this cruise. :eek:The chair hogs were terrible so we spent more time sitting on the balcony than we normally would.

There must have been a lot of spring breakers on our floor & they would stand at one end of the hall & yell to their friends at the other end. This happened most mornings @ 4:30AM. :eek:

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Paul - can't wait to see your pictures. Glad you found a hotel. I am so glad to see that CCL has tried the "Disney" method of retrieving pictures. This has been one of my suggestions since Disney started this process. Woo hooo!!

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Welcome back on land Paul and family. Glad you are getting to spend a day here in Central Florida and enjoy this fabulous weather we are experiencing before heading back to reality.:mad:

 

Looking forward to your review with pictures. We set sail on Dream in Sept.

Susan

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Paul,

 

Thanks for all the updates! Looking forward to the review and photos. Your Glory review a couple of years ago convinced DH and I to upgrade to a balcony before we sailed. Thanks!! We are staying at the Courtyard in June before we sail on the Dream. DH had a gift card from work. Free room, woohoo!!

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I understood they were going to utilize such a system a couple of years ago. Perhaps they now think they have the bugs worked out. Sounds like a very good idea!

 

Does this mean that they don't have 10,000 photos printed and waiting (and mostly wasted)? That should help with the crowds in that area, and greatly shorten the time spent hunting for your photos amongst hundreds of others!!

 

Tom

 

 

Tom,

 

No; they still have thousands of photos printed and waiting. They're really tightly grouped compared to previous ships and 10k would be a very low estimate for how many they have. :D One of the photogs went into details about the system; he said it would pick up an average of 65% at current settings, but they were working toward tweaking it to near 100% facial recognition. He said that once it was fully functional in recognition that they were planning to eliminate the printed photos.

 

Hey Paul,

 

I don't know if you remember me, but I'm the guy from your B2B Liberty cruise a few years ago that you gave the deck of Carnival playing cards to when waiting to disembark. My wife and I still talk frequently about how nice you and your family were. BTW, I still have the cards.

 

I am anxiously awaiting your review. I am about to pull the trigger on the Magic in Europe next year, and a lot of these Dream reviews are making me a little nervous. I am definitely interested in your thoughts.

 

Hope you had a great time!:)

 

Aardvark,

 

Yes I remember. :)

 

If I were loaded for Europe, I would pull the trigger on Magic without hesitation. Europe is port intensive and IMO Dream Class is ideally suited for port days as opposed to days at sea. If Dream had been built without the Vista deck, she'd have had the right number of passengers and there'd be no issues on sea days. Issues on sea days could be mostly eliminated by enforcement of the no chair hog rule; but I only witnessed my fellow passengers enforcing that rule.

 

I asked our boys last night what they thought of her and they all said there were too many people and they didn't like the long lines. Obviously they went to Lido food areas without us because I didn't see nor experience those long lines. I did see a long line for the burger grill and Bryson and Britt both mentioned that it was frequently long. Bryson said one evening he was in line for a burger on the port side past the pizza station when listening to some passengers talk about how they always had to line up for pizza to get in the grill line.

 

We really enjoyed our cruise but there were way too many kids for us. Don't know what I was thinking of when I booked this cruise. :eek:The chair hogs were terrible so we spent more time sitting on the balcony than we normally would.

There must have been a lot of spring breakers on our floor & they would stand at one end of the hall & yell to their friends at the other end. This happened most mornings @ 4:30AM. :eek:

 

snookymom,

 

I got lots of pics of the chair hogs! It would have been hard to take pics on deck on days at sea without images of those hogs!

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Looking forward to your review. Hopefully you'll get the chance to put it up before we leave on Friday.

 

navybaby1113,

 

I'll do my best to at least get started and well into it prior to then.

 

 

Paul - can't wait to see your pictures. Glad you found a hotel. I am so glad to see that CCL has tried the "Disney" method of retrieving pictures. This has been one of my suggestions since Disney started this process. Woo hooo!!

 

pe4all,

 

I know Disney works out finances before it implements anything and I'm sure it's a proven concept on Disney, but I wonder how much revenue loss there may be when passengers don't have the actual pictures in their hands vs looking at them on a screen? It's hard for many people to put their loved one's pictures back up on the boards without buying them. We always toss the ones we opt not to buy immediately! Still end up buying too many though. :o

 

Welcome back on land Paul and family. Glad you are getting to spend a day here in Central Florida and enjoy this fabulous weather we are experiencing before heading back to reality.:mad:

 

Looking forward to your review with pictures. We set sail on Dream in Sept.

Susan

 

Susan,

 

The weather today was perfect in Cocoa Beach; in fact Karen and I both got quite a bit of sun that we didn't expect just by sitting on the beach chairs for a few hours this afternoon.

 

I checked the weather back home in WV this morning and it was 32....I was glad we weren't flying back in right after the cruise! Bryson has already decided to wear his suit back home. :D (grey dress suit, not swim suit)

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dobiemom,

 

Yes they're using them and they work well. Multiple touch screen displays are set up in and near the photo display areas on Deck four atrium. You swipe your S&S card and all pictures with either your photo, or pictures taken after your card was scanned at the photography scenes are then displayed. The technology uses both the scanning of your S&S when the pictures are taken, and face recognition that is taken when you board the ship and have your S&S picture taken. They have the lecturn looking S&S booths set up when you are in the boarding area instead of on the ship, and instead of a web cam picture, the photogs are using hand held Cannon cameras to take your picture. The first evening I used mine and it displayed our boarding photo (not the S&S) and a casual picture of another passenger who also had a goatee similar to mine. The next evening the mismatched goateer was gone and only our pics were displayed.

 

I have pics of the displays where you swipe your card and pics of it showing our pics that are available. You can select the pics you want and they will deliver them to your stateroom. We looked ours up, but reverted to the paper version for purchasing, comparing, and choosing which ones we liked the best.

Thanks for the info. I hope they have this system on the Carnival Spirit in June. :rolleyes:

 

Looking forward to your review and pics!

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Looking forward to your pictures and review. We are booked in an inside cabin on deck 6...hopefully your review will help us decide if we want to upgrade to a balcony OR do the spa package :D (don't have the funds for both)

 

Here's hoping the ship won't be as crowded in mid October as it was for your spring break cruise.

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Hello all and thank you for keeping me company on our cruise!

 

We're safely back home now.

 

Currently I'm transferring pics from laptop to PC and then I'll get them uploaded to Webshots.com and get our review started.

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Hello all and thank you for keeping me company on our cruise!

 

We're safely back home now.

 

Currently I'm transferring pics from laptop to PC and then I'll get them uploaded to Webshots.com and get our review started.

Glad you're home safe! Looking forward to another one of your great reviews!:)

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Hello all and thank you for keeping me company on our cruise!

 

We're safely back home now.

 

Currently I'm transferring pics from laptop to PC and then I'll get them uploaded to Webshots.com and get our review started.

 

You mean it hasn't started yet?!!! lol - looking forward to more - from what I am hearing, it should be awesome! We are sailing on the Dream in a few weeks - good Lord I am so ready to go! lol

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Nunu,

 

In a heart beat! :)

 

I'm really glad to hear this!

 

Dream has become one of our favorite ships, and I'm surprised at some of the negative comments (especially by those who haven't sailed on her). One of our favorite aspects of this ship is the thermal suite. We're really lucky to have her in our port, and plan to sail her again next year.

 

But hey, negative comments and reviews might just keep cabins open for us at a lower price;)

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Thanks Paul for your review and for organizing the roll call thread. Missed the meet and greet but hope to have our detailed review posted tomorrow. Our experiences were 99% positive with some area for improvement. Food, Service,Spa, Dancing in the Street show, and comics were excellent

Price dropped after final payment but we did not have Early Saver. A treat for us was being upgraded to an inside spa cabin on deck 11 which included the spa privileges Thallostherapy pool, aromotherapy room, etc.without the additional charge of $249 per couple.

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Hey Paul - I really don't mean to rush you :rolleyes: . . . okay, yes I do!!:D

We sail this Saturday and am leaving early Friday morning for FLA. I would love to read at least some of your review before I leave. I have enjoyed all of your reviews in the past - it is fun to cruise vicariously through you but this time I am also cruising myself!:D

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Thanks Paul for your review and for organizing the roll call thread. Missed the meet and greet but hope to have our detailed review posted tomorrow. Our experiences were 99% positive with some area for improvement. Food, Service,Spa, Dancing in the Street show, and comics were excellent

Price dropped after final payment but we did not have Early Saver. A treat for us was being upgraded to an inside spa cabin on deck 11 which included the spa privileges Thallostherapy pool, aromotherapy room, etc.without the additional charge of $249 per couple.

 

That's GREAT to Hear!..I am in the same position..Just got upgraded to a balcony on deck 11 for May 1...The TA checked and said I would get all those amenities...There was a question as to wheter an upgrade would get them....Glad to see you did, and that reconfirms what he said

 

Mr Paranoid!1LOL

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