Carnival Dream Review – July 7-14

[Tasha4199]

Carnival Dream Review – July 7-14

Just got off the Dream from our wedding cruise! My family all sailed with us, ranging in age from 70s to 14, and most of us have cruised Carnival and Royal Caribbean previously, except for DH (!!:D), who had only cruised once before, on RC. We live only 30 min from Port Canaveral, so no hotel stays for us. Quick recap for those who aren’t fans of long reviews- Room 12219 was fantastic, but the balcony wasn’t super private. The service was great throughout, and the ship was incredible!

 

Day 1 – Saturday, aka WEDDING DAY!!!

 

Started getting hair and makeup done around 7 am. Ouch that was early for me! We were all gathered at my aunt’s house when the limo arrived 15 minutes early, at 8:30 am, and the driver kept nagging to try and rush us. We were supposed to have him a total of four hours as it was, but he was in a hurry to go to his next pick up, I guess. He made the morning very stressful, as he kept mentioning he might have to charge extra if we kept him waiting. I would not ever recommend Hot Rayz Limos, based out of Melbourne. More on why at the end! But, we ended up leaving at around 9 am, on the way to PC!

 

 

We arrived at PC around 9:40ish. After handing the luggage to the porters, we made our way to the front entrance and waited for our non-sailing guests to arrive. Planned for 32, only 24 showed, but one had forgotten her driver license and couldn’t get into the terminal, so we were down 2 more. I felt so bad! We made our way through security and went to the wedding counter upstairs. Got everyone checked in by 10:30 or so, then we met with the wedding coordinator (WC) to go over the ceremony details. Everything was going smooth, and at ~11 we went to a second level with 2 other wedding parties. The A/C wasn’t on up here, or had just kicked in, and people were starting to swelter. Luckily, they opened up the ship 15 min later and we were onboard!

 

 

At this point, I separated from my guests and headed up to my room to get ready. We stayed in 12219 on the Spa Deck. It was perfect! Got dressed, and realized despite the steaming and care with my wedding dress, it was terribly wrinkled. Luckily, I had some pretty incredible bridesmaids, who went over every crease with water and a blow dryer. Hey, it worked! ;)

 

Around that point, the wedding coordinator comes to the room and told us there was a problem with the CDs I brought, and they wouldn’t play for the ceremony, and most likely for the reception either. I stayed calm (barely!) and my BFF/Maid of Honor went to deal with it.

 

While she was gone, some music came blaring through the room. Not just any music, though. It was called F*** It, by Eamon. It was ridiculously loud, and it took me a minute to figure out the lyrics. Here they are, for your viewing pleasure:

 

F*** what I said it don't mean s*** now

F*** the presents might as well throw 'em out

F*** all those kisses, they didn't mean jack

F*** you, you hoe, I don't want you back

 

We thought someone had hacked the system or something; it was so inappropriate. I was laughing, though. It wasn’t as loud in the public areas, so none of our guests realized it. Phew!

 

 

My MOH came back just as the WC came to get us for the ceremony, and had her boyfriend working on the reception music with the social host, Jeff the Fun Dude. We head down to Chambers II on Deck 4, and after a wonderful 15 min ceremony, my honey and I were married! <3

 

We took quite a bit of photos, and then headed to the reception, held in the Song Lounge. It was beautiful! My BFF’s boyfriend had managed to save most of the music, as it only had to be opened on a laptop, and the social host didn’t know how to do that. We were able to have our first dance, some of the other fun Spanish music I picked out, so I was happy. At one point, after we played the Cupid Shuffle and Cha Cha Slide, I guess he thought we were in a dancing mood, so he played YMCA. I’ve never seen a dance floor clear out so quickly! He shut it off after about a minute. The reception food was fantastic, the open bar was great and the waiters made sure everyone who wanted always had a drink in hand. Funny thing is they served my 26 year old BM a virgin drink since they thought she was underage, and offered my 14-going-on-30 BM an alcoholic drink! Haha she turned it down. :)

 

The ceremony was an hour and a half, so we had plenty of time to mingle, take photos, eat, and DANCE! The cake was pretty delicious as well. At 3 pm, we had to say goodbye to our non-sailing guests. But not to worry, we still have a weeklong reception coming up! We left to go to muster drill, and then met back up with Mihai, our photographer. He took amazing pictures! More to come tomorrow…

[WhiteLilyCruiser]

Congratulations!! I'm looking forward to your review. I'm sailing on the Dream August 18, 2012!

[erewhon]

Congratulations on your marriage.

 

Thank you for taking time to write your review.

[vivavegas]

Congratulations on your wedding! Looking forward to reading more of your review!:)

[bobsfamily]

More, MORE! But I bet you are busy being a new bride!

[Cruisegirl6]

Congradulations married couple!!

 

I am looking forward to your reveiw because we mainly are RCI people only because we find the food and service to blow Carnival up, but after taking the FOS 4 times in the past 4 years we want to also take Pt. Canaveral as its closes port to us and it only leaves us with the Dream so we back on Carnival for a change of scenery lets say.

 

When I cruise the most important things to me first is the ship, then food then bedding and entertainment. Price is somewhat an issue but we rather pay $500 more if we can get "better".

 

We do have some questions some people have already seen me asking but I like to ask everybody as people see and experience things different and have different opinions on issues.

 

1- We stay up later besides pizza (I can't have gluten) did they offere chicken and ceasar salad and besides that limited room service menu which I not want to sit and wait in my room are there any other things to eat after 10:30pm? Did the Lido have anything more to eat past this time?

 

2- Did you ever have dinner in the buffet we never did (been on 47 cruises) but we really not like the first nights menu and thinking of going to the buffet wonder what the buffet has the first evening?

 

3- Did you try the Steakhouse if so any recommendations or anything we should avoid, we have two nights attentive reservations won't know if we are accepted or not still waiting for that email confirmation.

 

4- Being that it was your honeymoon you wouldn't happen to have copies of menus or the fun times would you?

 

5- What time did you disembard did you do early and what time did you get off ship?

 

Looking forward to hearing more, did you do eastern or western, we doing western never been to Roatan so if you did like to hear about it too and thank you so much Mrs. Married Lady :)

[Tasha4199]

Thanks, everyone! I’m a little foggy on which activities we did each day, but I’ll do my best to get it right!

 

@ lyndamr – Here ya go!

 

We stay up later besides pizza (I can't have gluten) did they offere chicken and ceasar salad and besides that limited room service menu which I not want to sit and wait in my room are there any other things to eat after 10:30pm? Did the Lido have anything more to eat past this time? I actually did not even touch the pizza bar or late night food as we had late seating and I’m not much of a late food eater. My brother is though, and he found lots of options through the night. No idea if any of it was gluten free.

 

2- Did you ever have dinner in the buffet we never did (been on 47 cruises) but we really not like the first nights menu and thinking of going to the buffet wonder what the buffet has the first evening? We were quite pleased with the MDR offerings, so we didn’t do either the buffet or the Steakhouse. Sorry!

 

3- Did you try the Steakhouse if so any recommendations or anything we should avoid, we have two nights attentive reservations won't know if we are accepted or not still waiting for that email confirmation.

 

4- Being that it was your honeymoon you wouldn't happen to have copies of menus or the fun times would you? Nope on the menus, but I’ll see if anyone in my family kept the Fun Times.

 

5- What time did you disembard did you do early and what time did you get off ship? We weren’t in much of a hurry, so we went to breakfast in the MDR at around 8ish, and took our time there. We got off the ship, found our luggage, and were outside by 9:30am.

 

Saturday – Continued! :D

 

We met with the photog, and took photos for about 2 hours. We were exhausted at that point! We wandered around a bit exploring and met up with my family. Dinner was late seating in Scarlet Dining Room, so we headed off still all dressed up. Hey, I get one day to wear the dress, LOL! We met our server, Jongdee. She was amazingly sweet and great! There was a bit of a problem with the timing of the food, and we had to wait about 30 min between appetizers and main course. She apologized, and we were all just talking away anyway, so it wasn’t a big deal.

 

I can’t quite remember which day I ate each meal, so I’ll do a recap of what we ate at the end. I think I had the guacamole salsa this day, which was pretty tasty, and the linguini with sausage and mushrooms. It was yummy! We had our official “Booze Guy” who convinced us to do the shot of the day by chanting “Shots! Shots! Shots!” It was hilarious, and it worked. I have a dozen shot glasses to prove it! We also met again with our onboard wedding hostess, Jurga. She was fantastic, and made sure we didn’t need anything or have any issues. She checked in with us every day, sometimes more than once if she saw us at breakfast. It was nice having her help, and came in handy when I forgot 2 shot glasses on the table one night. She went to the back and found them. Amazing service throughout! I started the cruise off with my fave, Warm Chocolate Melting Cake. Oh, how I missed it!! The welcome aboard show was tonight, but we were beat and ended up calling it an early night. By early, I mean 11pm haha!

 

Sunday – Day at Sea, aka Recovery Day!

 

Today we pretty much did nothing, and it was wonderful! We put out the card for room service the night before, so we had a nice, cozy breakfast in bed. I had a bagel with smoked salmon, my fave, and DH had yogurt, fruit, and a pastry. We went to the Spa and got the access card for the Thalasso pool. OMG. I think we died and went to heaven. It was amazing! We pretty much lived in there the entire cruise. Seriously, we were there every single day! The heated lounge chairs were incredible too. We went to the Mongolian Grill for lunch, and while we waited about 15 min , it was well worth it! My mom swore she’d eat there every day, and she pretty much did! When we went back to the room, we met our room steward, but for the life of me, I cannot remember her name! She was very nice, and always kept the ice bucket full. The Wedding Experience had sent a bottle of Korbel champagne and chocolate covered strawberries, so that helped keep it chilled.

 

We hit up the casino, and gambled a bit. No luck through the entire cruise, but we only lost about $100 each, so I’m not complaining! We got ready for elegant night dining, and my family totally thought us newlyweds wouldn’t make it. We did though; lobster night is always fun! Service was on target tonight and for the rest of the cruise, and the meal was perfectly paced. We went to the lounge for the show, and while they were okay, it wasn’t anything superb like I had remembered it. Not bad, though.

 

Monday – Cozumel

 

Today we were in Cozumel, but a few of us had already been and we just couldn’t decide what to do. We ended up just going around, doing a bit of shopping (I’m a self-admitted Del Sol addict. I even thought about opening one up in Cocoa Beach a few years back). We got back on early and had the ship to ourselves. My cousin ended up convincing me to go down the water slide, and it was so fun! We went back up to the spa and tried the aromatherapy sauna. I am so NOT a fan of saunas, but DH loved it. I suffered for a few min, then ditched him for the heated lounge chairs when I couldn’t take any more. We got room service for lunch, and I got the shrimp sandwich. Oh it was good! The NY strip steak was okay, and DH really liked it. We got the chocolate cake, and it was amazing.

 

A while later we got ready for the evening and went to see the family friendly comedy show. The comedian was Hank McGauley, and DH and I had already seen him on RC a couple years ago. He was really funny then, but had the same act, so we were bored. My family laughed a lot though, so that was good. Another nice, calm day!

Tuesday – Belize

 

We booked the Altun Ha and Belize City Tour through Carnival, as no one wanted to plan a really long day. It was alright, but I wouldn’t do it again. The city is nothing to write home about, and while Altun Ha was interesting, there wasn’t much there. After the tour, we ended up back onboard and guess where??? That’s right, the SPA!! :D Went to the MDR and dinner was great, as expected!

 

More to come later…

[dallas52]

congrats, glad yall enjoyed your cruise.

[Cruisegirl6]

Thanks Tasha looking forward to more lol