My review of the Dream, 11-24-12 sailing

[hckyfan68]

Sea day

 

We woke up at 7:30, go ready and headed up to the Gathering for breakfast. There were no real lines, so we got our breakfast quickly. Once we were done eating, DW and I went to find a place to sit and just enjoy the morning.

 

We went up to the Serenity decks and found a couple chairs and just relaxed. We talked and did some people watching for a bit and then decided to see what DB and SIL wanted to do. A quick note, Carnival has signs up in Serenity stating that there is no reserving of chairs, and they do enforce it. We watched a crew member walking around, tagging chairs and later removing items that had been left there. I thought it was great to see them actually enforcing the rules.

 

We met up with them and headed back up to Serenity, and easily found 4 chairs. After a bit, DW wanted a frozen drink, so I set out to find one for her. I ended up at the Blue Iguana. After great deliberation, I selected a guava margarita for her and I chose a green iguana for myself. These were very tasty drinks, and they did not skimp on the alcohol!

 

Once we finished our drinks, we decided to get some lunch. I went to the Tandoor and the rest headed to the burrito bar. The food was very good, and none of us had to deal with long lines.

 

After lunch we met everyone for our cabin crawl and m&g. Everyone had great fun exploring the different kinds of cabins. We had about 50 people for the m&g. Carnival put us in the piano bar for an hour of drinks. Svetlana was an amazing bartender! She made drinks while at the same time making mixers for the drink trays that the waitress was passing out to those not at the bar. It didn't matter how busy she was, she always smiles and said cheers with every drink.

 

Once the m&g was done, we headed back to the cabin for a short nap before dinner. Tonight was the first elegant night, and we figured YTD would be busy, and we were right. We go to the Crimson Dining Room around 6:20 and there was a line to get in. Horror stories I had read about popped into my head, but within 15 minutes, we were being seated.

 

A couple of minutes after were seated, our drink orders were taken. And they arrived in a timely manner. Arris was our head waiter and he did a great job. Our food was very good and served hot. At first he seemed a bit cold, but it didn't take long for him to warm up to us and we knew we would request him for the rest of the cruise.

 

After dinner, we went back to the cabin to change. We wanted to head up to the main pool to watch Sunday Night Football. We found plenty of chairs, and we settled in to watch what we hoped would be a good game between the Packers and the Giants. Unfortunately, we wouldn't be that lucky. By half time we knew the Packers had an uphill battle, so we head back to our cabin to watch the rest of the game.

 

Random pictures from the day..

[Eng23]

Nice review so far. Keep up the good work. :)

[TEK6202]

I am loving your review and pictures of the Dream. We will be sailing on her in 70 days!! I am so glad to hear an honest review that has been positive!! This will be our third cruise on carnival, and our first on a ship of this size. Most others complain about things that I haven't been bothered with on our previous cruises. I am excited to hear about the rest of your trip!!:)

[tomsuelaw]

Great job so far. Thanks for posting!

[bills blasters]

Really loving the review and especially all the pictures you are posting. Waiting for more.

Did you happen to take any pictures of the Pasta place or the Tandori.

Thanks

Claudia

[hckyfan68]

Cozumel

 

I got up early so I could watch the sun rise. We weren't scheduled to dock until 10, so DW could sleep in. Sometime around 8:30 we headed up for breakfast in the Gathering. There was a short line and within a few minutes we getting breakfast. DB and SIL got in line a few minutes after us. We had no problem finding a table for 4. Once we were done we headed back to our cabin to pack for our excursion. We booked the 12 meter yacht race through Carnival. We got down to deck 0 around 10:30 and getting off the ship was easy and took about 10 minutes.

 

Sunrise

[hckyfan68]

Let me say that this was a fun excursion and I highly recommend it to everyone. If you have never heard of it, let me try to describe it to you. The group is divided into two teams and each group is part of the crew of a sail boat that either raced in the America's cup, or was build for it. You are on either the Stars and Stripes (a sail boat that actually raced in the 80's) or the Great North (a Canadian ship that was build for the race but was finished too late). DW was chosen to be captain and chose the teams. I told her to pick one of the two men that have done this excursion before

 

Depending on the amount of people in the excursion, you are either given a job to perform or you can just relax and enjoy the race. DW was given the job of winch wench (lol that is what the guild called it) and I was a primary grinder. Let me tell you, a primary grinder works their asses off! Myself and another gentleman turned the crank used to tighten or loosen the jib (the front sail on the boat). It was real work and several times sweat was beading on my forehead, and I loved every minute of it. There can be up to 4 primary grinders, but we sailed with only two.

 

If I remember right, there are a total of 10 positions on the ship and there were only 6 people per boat (the minimum needed) plus 3 true crew members. Please ask questions if you have any, and I will be happy to try and give you more details. In the end my boat won and the Great North took the race.

We had a little trouble getting back to Carnival's dock, but after taking the long way around we made it back to the ship.

 

Our guide that explained the history of the race and the yachts

The Stars and Stripe (Team USA)

True North IV (Team Canada)

Team Canada

The Captain of True North is holding the walkie talkie

The crew that help us and instructed us what to do and when

 

We got some lunch and went out to Cozumel to get a few souvenirs for the twins and our son. We bought shirts for the kids and explored the rest of the port. Around 4:30 we went back to the Dream. They had 3 ramps to get back on board and it didn't take long to get back aboard. DW and both got quite a bit of sun, so she wanted to lie down for a while before we went for dinner. At 5:45 I went up to deck 11 to see if there were any dock runners and to watch the sun set.

[hckyfan68]

Everyone was on board with plenty of time to spare and I enjoyed watching the sun set on Cozumel. With the sun almost completely down, I headed back to get ready for dinner.

 

We got to the MDR around 7:15 and we walked right up to the hostess stand and we seated right away. This is the second day and so far I have not experienced any of the problems that other people have had. The food was served promptly, and was always hot. The service was excellent and we all enjoyed our meal. With dinner done and our hunger sated, we went and looked for pictures that were taken of us.

 

More food porn!!

 

A study in Sushi

Chicken Quesadilla

I don't remember what this was but it had a variety of seafood in it

This is the daily fish main course (Damn, my memory is bad and I didn't take notes)

Jerk pork loin with fried rice

Strawberry Cheese Cake (Nicole had WCMC)

[hckyfan68]

Unfortunately, the system the Dream has was not working that is supposed to help you find the pictures. When I asked about it, I was told that they had taken 8000 pictures the night before and they were still updating the system. Take it with a grain of salt, but I try to give people the benefit of the doubt.

 

We dropped off the pictures in our cabin and headed to the main pool to chit chat with DB and SIL. After a bit, we started discussing our excursion for tomorrow. We were going to see the Xunantunich Mayan ruins which is an all day excursion. We booked this through Carnival because of the length and none of us wanted to take any chances. Because we had to get up early and get on the first set of tenders, we all decided to make it an early night.

 

Random pictures from the day...

 

[hckyfan68]

I had this same froom, on a back to back a few years ago, and have it again for another back to back in 70 days, I loved it, your right it is small but the balcony was awesome, a nice wrap without the wrap price tag. thanks for the review, also who is the CD.

 

Our CD was Jamie and ACD was Britney..

 

I'll be honest, we didn't have much interaction with either of them, but the few times we did see them, they were always happy to talk to the passengers.

 

I watched them lead a line dance during the Mexican Fiesta and both of they were having a blast along with everyone dancing.

 

Loving the review -

 

We sail in just over a month and have late seating, do you know what dining room was used for the late seating?

 

looking forward to seeing the pictures and the rest of your review.......

 

I'm pretty sure the Scarlet Dining room is for traditional seating.

[hckyfan68]

Really loving the review and especially all the pictures you are posting. Waiting for more.

Did you happen to take any pictures of the Pasta place or the Tandori.

Thanks

Claudia

 

We ate in the Pasta bar on embarkation day. I know I took pictures of the food, if not I know DB did. I will work on finding them. I ate lunch at the Tandoor, but I didn't take any pictures. But I will say that the food was fantastic.

[cruisegal58]

Thank you for taking the time to review your cruise, loving it so far! Sailing the Dream in 28 days.:D

Cindy

[dst]

Thanks Again for taking the time to write a great review.......we are getting excited for our trip!

[johnstoc13]

Great review and pictures! Did you get any of the new dry dock updates? Looking forward to hearing more as we sail in 2 months.

[hckyfan68]

Belize

 

We had to get up bright and early for our trip to the ruins. I woke DW up around 6:30, which was slightly dangerous. Breakfast was in the Gathering. We then headed to the Encore to wait for the tender to take us to the island. I heard it was a long tender, but it doesn't really hit you until you are on the boat headed for the main land. We got off the tender and walked to our tour bus. They aren't kidding when they say there isn't anything to do in port. You really have only two choices, book an excursion or stay on the ship.

 

 

We boarded the bus, which was fairly comfortable. We found out that this bus was actually driven from the states down to Belize. The ride was uneventful and Belize is quite a sight. I was truly surprised to see how many houses had fences with either barb wire or razor wire around the top. Along the way, our two tour guides gave us information about Belize and would gladly answer any questions we had.

 

There are only 7 stops lights in the entire country. They use either speed bumps (sleeping police men our guide called them) or round abouts. We knew we were actually out of the city when we passed the last check point. It had 3 guards armed with M-16's... It was a long ride, about two hours.

 

We got off the bus and had to take a ferry across a river. The ferry was big enough that 2 entire bus loads of people easily fit on it. Once we were aboard, the operator used a hand crank to move the ferry. Once across, there were vans to take us the rest of the way to the ruins. There was a mad dash to the bathrooms; thankfully they are in the process of building more. We had a short walk to the ruins proper, there they were.

 

DB at his finest

Nicole and me

 

We had a local guide they explained about the ruins. He wasn't part of the tour company, but he was affiliated with the department that ran the ruins. He explain what the purpose of each ruin, the history if the Mayan people. Unfortunately, I didn't hear everything that was said. We had a very large group and DW's knee was bothering her, so I lagged behind.

[hckyfan68]

He led us to the main pyramid. It is 135 feet high and the stairs to climb it wind around three sides. DW said she would try to make it to the top. And I was surprised and very impresses that she made it. Not only was her knee bothering her, but she is deathly afraid of heights. Once at the top, she had a death grip on the temple. I got her to pose for one picture, just to prove that she made it.

 

The view from up top is amazing!! You can see for miles and miles. Our tour guide said that there is still tension between Guatemala and Belize. There is no love lost between these two countries. I could have stayed up there for an hour, but there was another tour behind us, so we had to head down.

 

Nicole really did make it to the top!

Looking out over the ruins from the top of the temple

[hckyfan68]

Once we were back on the ground, it was time to head back. We got back to the tour bus and headed back to port. This excursion included lunch. About 15 after we left the ruins, we stopped at a local restaurant. Lunch was chicken, red beans and rice, and pasta salad. It was very good. Ann (our tour guild) suggested that we try some of the local hot sauces, but she said that they don't use jalapenos. "We give jalapenos to our children. The adults eat habaneras". All of the hot sauces were made with habaneras, but if you choose the right one, it was very tasty. So long as you used it in moderation.

 

After lunch, we finished the trip back to port. All told we had about 3-4 hours of travel time and about 1 1/2 hours at the ruins. We definitely recommend this tour to anyone that wants to see the ruins. Because it was a long day, DW and I laid down for a bit before heading to dinner. After our nap, we went out on the balcony to see what we could see. We were quite surprised that we hadn't left Belize yet. We got ready and went down to DB/SIL's cabin, and went out on their deck (they had an extended aft, 7462).

 

I struck up a conversation with their neighbor; there is no privacy on the 8M cabins. They heard that the Dream was stuck and they were trying to get us loose. I was being summoned, so we all headed for dinner.

 

Here is where we made a mistake. The MDR was quite busy, and our waiter from the previous night was very busy, I suggested we wait, but no one listened and we took the first table for 4 that was available. Bad choice.

 

We were seated in the back and we felt like the wait staff forgot about us. Service was slow, and our waiters didn't really try to get to know us at all. They did their job, but that was about it. Now, I understand this was the first night they served us, but our waiters the night before were much more personable. We decided that no matter what, we would go back to Arris from the night before for the rest of the cruise.

 

The food was good. It was hot when it arrived, it just seemed like it took much longer than the night. We finished dinner, and had a few pictures taken. It was a long day, so we just hung out in our cabin on the balcony. We ended up leaving Belize 3 hours late, and I was a little nervous about whether we would make it to Roatan.

 

Chicken Tenders in Thai sauce

Oysters Rockerfeller

Shrimp Cocktail

Fried Shrimp

Crap! I can't remember this one!! ( I gotta take more notes)

[hckyfan68]

Yep! More random pictures from the day...

 

A Costa ship, but we were never close enough to get a name

[hckyfan68]

Roatan

 

I slept for crap. I woke up several times during the night for no good reason. The last time I woke up, it was 5:30 and decided just to get up and get some coffee. I got to deck 10, and all I see is overcast skies, and it is raining. Fantastic! The winds seemed strong, and the weather is crappy, I was sure that we would be skipping this port. I checked the TV and the captain made up the lost time and we were nearing Roatan.

 

As time passed, and we got closer to Roatan, the rain stopped, and the winds died down. DW got up and we stood on the balcony, and watched the pilot board the ship. I think I sighed in relief loud enough for my neighbors to hear. This port was important to me because I had booked a spa excursion for us. This was DW's one year anniversary present from me, even though it was a year late.

 

 

I booked the spa experience through Island Marketing, and I highly recommend both them and the excursion. We walked through the port and down the road. Someone was waiting for us. They were expecting us and the woman had her son walk us down the road to where our transportation would pick us up. He stayed with us until his aunt arrived to take us to the spa. He is a local, and he told us all about his island. It was a great way to pass the time.

 

His aunt (Lita) arrived and took us to the spa. She gave us a great tour on our way to the spa. She was very informative and we really enjoyed the trip. We got to the spa, checked in and we were introduced to the two ladies that would be giving us our treatments. All told the excursion lasted an hour and 45 minutes. It included a sea salt body exfoliation, a body wrap, scalp massage, and an hour long massage.

 

 

If we wanted, we could have stayed at the spa and used the facilities and had lunch, but we decided to go back to port and do some shopping. Lita was there ready to pick us up and take us back to the port.

[hckyfan68]

God I hate the 6 pic max per post limit..

 

 

I never was quite sure what this smoke was, but it was kinda cool..

[hckyfan68]

If we wanted, we could have stayed at the spa and used the facilities and had lunch, but we decided to go back to port and do some shopping. Lita was there ready to pick us up and take us back to the port.

 

Once back on board we cleaned up and relaxed on the balcony until it was time to go to dinner. We all decided that no matter the wait, we would wait to sit in Arris' section. I believe it was around 7 went we got to the MDR, and we waited about 2 minutes before we were seated. Dinner was fantastic and we told Arris about our experience the night before, he laughed and said it was great that we came back. The service was great, and if there was any doubt about having Arris as our waiter, it was completely removed.

 

Right before dessert was served, it was show time. Arris tried to get me to dance with his team, and I tried to resist, but my wife egged me on, so I joined in. It was great fun, and naturally my brother had to video the whole thing.

 

We had an 8:00 excursion the next day, so we all turned in early.

 

I'm not sure what happened this night but I only seem to have pictures of dessert..

 

Bitter N Blanc

 

Tiramisu

 

SHOWTIME!!!

 

More tomorrow!!

[hank in ohio]

God I hate the 6 pic max per post limit..

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I never was quite sure what this smoke was, but it was kinda cool..

In our part of the country that smoke would be "the indians cookin beans" This only happens after a rain and you only see it in the hills. It's just a localized fog bank that hangs in the trees on the hills. GREAT review keep it coming

[wags_in_the_peg]

no more?

[hckyfan68]

no more?

 

Forgive my delay in posting, our son had hockey games most of Saturday and our 17 month old twins didn't want to go to sleep.

 

There is more, I still have 2 days on board to talk about. It was just a busy weekend for us.

 

Costa Maya

 

DW was not thrilled about having to get up early. If you ask her, she will tell you, she likes her sleep. Not so today, we had to be off the Dream and at the meet point at 8:00am for our power snorkel excursion. The day started as the previous one, I was up well before Nicole, and it was a bit drizzly outside.

 

Not how I was hoping to start the day.

 

I went and got coffee for the two of us, and I was quite surprised when I got back and found Nicole already dressed. I gave her her coffee and we packed our bag for the trip. We headed up to breakfast in the Gathering and we met Brian and Jenny (DB and SIL). After a fairly quick breakfast, we headed to deck 0 to get off the boat. We met our guide and found that only one other couple was going with us. It was nice having such a small group.

 

Very nice guys, but not the first people I was hoping to see ashore

 

We followed our guide to the bus. There were several motor coaches all in line waiting for various excursion groups. My first thought was it seemed like a waste to have a huge motor coach for the 9 of us (there was another excursion that took place on the same beach). Well, we didn’t get on a nice comfy motor coach. Our vehicle was more like a straight truck with no walls or roof. We started our trek to the beach. After about 10 minutes of travel, the drivers stops and picks-up a young lady. I thought it was kinda odd, but I just kinda went with it.

 

Brian and Jenny

 

Can you tell Nicole isn't thrilled atm?

Nicole and I

[hckyfan68]

Let me tell you, the roads in Costa Maya are rough!! Plenty of pot holes and not very exciting or pretty scenery. It seemed to take forever to get to the beach.

 

Brian and Jenny thought these were the funniest road signs

 

Once we got there, we were given instructions on how to use the water scooters. Just as Dennis was finishing the instructions, this lady came up and was introduced as the second guide. It was the same young lady we picked up on the way out. She didn’t speak English very well, but everyone could undstand what she was trying to say.

 

I don’t have any still pictures from the excursion. I used my HD underwater camcorder. It is small enough that I could run the scooter and hold the camera at the same time. I have to go through the video and edit the clips I have and I will post them to YouTube. If anyone is interested, I will be happy to post the links here once I get them done.

 

The lady from the other couple had a problem with having a mask over her face, so she didn’t join the rest of the group. She stayed where she could easily stand and used the scooter in the shallows.

 

Our guides took us out and we followed along. Well, I tried to follow along. I would be right with the group, and then I would see some fish or some interesting coral, so I had to stop and take some video. Several times I thought I was going to get stuck. We were told that if you couldn’t easily float over the coral to go around. We were told not to touch the coral for any reason as we might damage it. Luckily, I always had enough space to float over it.

 

Everyone had a great time, even the lady who stayed near the beach. There was great discussion between Nicole and the other couple about the water scooters. I have a feeling I will be ordering one before our next cruise!

 

The “tour” with the water scooters lasted about 30-45 minute if I remember right. After that we were allowed to hang out on the beach or use the snorkel gear if we wanted. However, we couldn’t use the water scooters.

 

We had about an hour of free time so we just hung out on the beach and chit chatted. Dennis let us know when he had to head back, and we all climbed aboard the “bus” to head back to port.

 

We got back on board the ship and we just relaxed a bit before dinner.

 

I forgot my camera this evening and I wasn't going to run all the way back to our cabin to get it. Brian took pictures for me, but He hasn't gotten me them yet. So unfortunately, no food porn. And without the pictures I can't remember what we all had.

 

Showtime during dinner was another dance, Gangnam Style!! I don't know if you have heard/seen this song, but here is a link if you dare click it (http://youtu.be/mYPvAMrMzwI) Of course Arris got me up to dance and this time Brian joined me. He has video of us dancing, but again the slacker hasn't brought it over.

 

Our wives had a blast watching us, and both Brian and I had fun. Dinner was once again excellent as was the service.

 

Tonight we went to the comedy club. I know many people have said this before, but I will say it again. Get there early! The place fills up quick! The comedian was very funny. We considered going the the second show but Brian and Nicole were getting tired so we decided to turn in for the night.

 

More random pictures..

 

The beach road to the excursion

 

Overview of the excursion beach ( Can't believe it took me this long to figure how how to get the pictures bigger)

Nicole and Jenny