Carnival Dream Thanksgiving Cruise 2014

[Sherryleea]

Before the Cruise

 

I’m going to start my “review” before the cruise actually starts because so much of a vacation is in the planning, research and anticipation, at least for me. I know there are people who don’t spend a lot of time thinking about a vacation before they take it and they just sort of wing it and everything works out fine for them. I’m not like that. I love the planning part, making lists, reading EVERYTHING I can about the ship, activities, ports and excursions. I figure the seat-of-their pants people don’t really read reviews anyway, so those of you who do are probably more like me. This will be very long and detailed, so if you’re not into that kind of thing, bail out now! I thoroughly enjoyed reading other detailed reviews and I sure couldn’t get enough of them, so I thought I’d do my part to contribute.

 

My adventure began in January when I decided to take my 17 year old son on one last vacation before he goes off to college and is too busy with school, internships, jobs, girls, etc. We went on a cruise together five years ago and had a really good time so I’m hoping this one will be just as great. Of course, a 12 year old cruising with his mother is a lot different than a 17 year old. I’m really hoping he will want to actually hang out with me some of the time. He’s already told me in no uncertain terms that he will not be going to line dancing classes with me this time.

 

I love Carnival so choosing the cruise line was easy. My primary concern when choosing the cruise was the itinerary. This will be my sixth cruise, fourth in the Caribbean, fifth on Carnival, and I wanted to go to new destinations. The best choice of dates and ports ended up being the Dream, leaving from New Orleans. We will go to Belize, Roatan and Cozumel. I have been to Cozumel several times but the boy hasn’t. It’s also my favorite Mexican destination so I’m okay with going back.

 

Next step was to look at excursions. I am a “worst case scenario” type of person so booking through Carnival appeals to me a lot. I also like to keep things simple on vacation, which is another reason to book through the cruise line. In Cozumel I found the Amazing Cozumel Race, which sounds like a lot of fun. We used to watch the Amazing Race (it’s been a few years since we’ve watched it) and liked to talk about what we would do if we were racing. The boy agreed that it sounded like fun so I think it will be a good “teambuilding” activity for us. Okay, one down, two to go!

Next I looked at Roatan. We both love snorkeling and this looked like the ideal place for it. However, I didn’t like Carnival’s snorkeling trips. I really want to have at least an hour to ride the magic flying chairs (or whatever they are called) to the private beach area, if nothing else for the photo opportunities. None of the Carnival snorkeling trips allowed for enough time. They also really didn’t get very good reviews and I wasn’t crazy about the snorkeling locations, so I decided to look elsewhere. I finally found one that looks perfect for us. It’s with Roatan Eco Tours. They leave earlier and go to the Blue Channel, which sounds amazing, then to a second stop (not sure where) then to a beach and lunch on the West End for little while. We are supposed to get back to the ship early enough to allow extra time. They didn’t require any kind of a deposit; we just pay them when we get there. They got really good reviews so I think it will be perfect.

In Belize I wanted to do the cave tubing. Again, I didn’t get a warm and squishy feeling about Carnival’s tours. The reviews were not great, so I went looking for other operators. I decided to book with cavetubing.biz. I know there are other operators that people rave about, but I like the sound of this one. Again, we don’t have to pay until we are there. The prices were cheaper than Carnival’s but not that much. I’m more looking for a better excursion than a better price. We are also going to be doing some zip lining, which I am terrified about. I have height issues, but I want to do it so I’m going to suck it up!

 

Okay, so that’s all done. Now what? I still had 10 months to wait! By now my son and fiancé are a little tired of hearing about it. I found a roll call, and eventually a Facebook group of others on this cruise. They sound like a great bunch of people and I’m looking forward to meeting them. I think it’s over 100 people now, of all ages. I’m also hoping my son will meet some kids his age that he can have some fun with. Many of us are planning to meet in New Orleans the night before the cruise for a pre-bon voyage party. We also have some meet and greets planned on the ship. Should be fun! At least I have other people to talk to who aren’t tired of hearing/saying, “75 days!” “70 days!” “60 days!” I guess obsessive people like company!

As I mentioned, we are leaving from New Orleans. We’ve never been there so we will get there a little early to at least see a bit of it. We leave Friday afternoon and get to New Orleans at around midnight. I don’t think I will plan anything for Saturday as far as tours. Instead we will walk around, find some great food and music and see what shakes out. I am thinking about maybe a ghost tour, but I’m on the fence about that. See? I’m not completely rigid in my planning. I don’t schedule out every minute of every day but allow for some “wait and see” stuff. However, I have done some research and have a list of options for food and things to do depending on how we feel at the time. I’d hate to get there and waste our short time trying to figure out what to do.

 

I’ve seen people ask about how much cash to take. My method was to make a list of everything I have to pay for: tips, food while traveling, excursions, souvenirs, taxis etc. Then I calculated how much each thing will cost and made up an envelope for money for each thing: Tips between home and the ship, tips on the trip back home, room service, a separate envelope for each port that includes money for the excursion, tips, lunch, souvenirs. This also helps me budget, although I do plan to take some extra cash and credit cards for emergencies because as I mentioned before, I am a worst case scenario person! Once I get to my room I can put all my envelopes in the safe and then pull out the exact amount I need each day without having to recalculate. Plus, I have plenty of small bills for tips and to make sure I don’t try to buy something in Belize for $2.00 with a $20 bill and end up with $18.00 in Belizean currency.

 

Have you figured out that I am an over the top planner? I’d love to hear from other crazy planners! How do you plan for your cruise? Or are you exhausted already? For me it’s a way of enjoying the cruise for months.

[Sherryleea]

Okay, that’s enough of the pre-cruise talk. Let’s get on with the good stuff!

 

Day 1: New Orleans

 

Technically day 1 was Friday when we flew to New Orleans from Sacramento, but since we spent the day traveling and got to NOLA at nearly midnight, it doesn’t count.

 

We stayed at the Hotel New Orleans, which used to be the W Hotel, on Poydras Street. I got a really good deal on Hotwire. The location was great, the room was clean and the beds were super comfortable. That’s about all I can say about it, and really for the length of time we were there, it was fine. The room was tiny. I would recommend it, but I wouldn’t recommend you spend very much. They are in the process of remodeling the lobby. We ate breakfast at the hotel, which I wouldn’t recommend just because it was very expensive. $30 for breakfast for two – and I just had yogurt and granola – is pretty steep. But it was convenient and we were in a hurry, so it was okay. I’m sure there were much better places for breakfast nearby – in fact Mother’s is across the street – but like I said, we didn’t want to deal with it.

Since we only had one day in New Orleans, we could just get the highlights. First we hopped on a streetcar and rode it a ways just for the experience. After a while we hopped off and caught one going the other direction and ended up at the end of Bourbon Street. We walked down Burbon Street and stopped to see some really talented street performers here and there. Definitely an experience! Be sure to take a lot of $1 bills to tip them! Eventually we made it to the French Quarter. The line for Café du Monde was crazy long so we went to the opposite end of Jackson Square to a place called New Orleans Famous Beignets (I think), where we had our first beignets. People called them fried doughnuts, but that is not what they are. They put doughnuts to shame, they are so delicious! I don’t know if Café du Monde would have been any better, but I can’t imagine anything in the world tasting better than what we had!

 

After our beignet break, we wandered through the Quarter a bit then stopped into Johnny’s Po Boys for lunch. We split a shrimp po boy because they are huge. It was delicious and just right for the two of us. After lunch we stopped into the House of Blues for souvenirs then we caught a shuttle to Mardi Gras World.

 

I hadn’t read much about Mardi Gras World so I was afraid it would be tacky or lame, but we really enjoyed it. We got to see how the big floats are made. The artists are right there actually making them as we walked through. I definitely recommend it. We were probably there an hour and a half so it’s not a huge time commitment and it is not expensive. Plus you can find coupons online for a couple bucks off.

 

The shuttle took us back to our hotel. By this time it was around 4:00 so we relaxed a bit, then I headed out to meet our Facebook group at the Riverwalk. The boy didn’t want to go with me so I walked down there by myself. Here’s a good point to mention the area I was in. It felt very safe to me. There were a lot of people around all the time so I was not worried about walking alone. When I went back to the hotel it was dark, but still not scary at all. I enjoyed meeting some of the people I had been talking to on Facebook in person, then walked back to the hotel to get the boy for dinner.

We walked to Mulate’s (about a 5 minute walk from the hotel) and had some delicious jambalaya and gumbo. I had to try a Hurricane (the drink). I had heard that Mulate’s was overpriced, but I paid around $25 for both of us including my drink, which I thought was extremely reasonable. They had a band playing by the time we left which was also fun. I think it was Zydeco music (?).

 

Later that night we were watching TV and all of a sudden we heard what sounded like a marching band coming down the street. So I went to the window, and sure enough, it was a marching band being led by a bride and groom. They danced their way down the street and into the Lowe’s Hotel across the street. Only in New Orleans!

[Sherryleea]

I tried to upload some pictures, but it is not working. I think my files are too big?

 

Feel free to ask any questions as I go along and I'll try to answer them.

[lstrong]

Wonderful start! Cruising the dream in February. First time in no and first time on dream, so I'm soaking up all your great info. Thanks!

[PathfinderEss]

Enjoying the beginning, looking forward to your cruise review.

[labsnabys]

Looking forward to reading more as we are hitting those same ports on our upcoming Magic cruise!

[parrothe8d]

I was on the same cruise and it was the worst cruise my family has experienced. The ship was musty smelling, food awful, service in the dining room surly, there are many other issues as well...

 

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[Sherryleea]

I was on the same cruise and it was the worst cruise my family has experienced. The ship was musty smelling, food awful, service in the dining room surly, there are many other issues as well...

 

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-G900A using Forums mobile app

 

That is very interesting. I had a completely different experience. It always fascinates me how this can happen, but it often does. I found the food to be amazing and our dining staff was wonderful. I didn't notice any musty smells at all. But I'm sorry your cruise wasn't so great.

 

I should probably point out that I do tend towards being a Pollyanna. Once I spend thousands of dollars on a vacation it's going to take nothing short of a natural disaster to ruin it for me, and even then I'll probably find a silver lining. So I admit my review is not going to be "balanced" because I naturally ignore anything I don't like and focus on the positives. Sure, there were bad things on the cruise, and some of my meals may not have been as hot as I'd like, but for me if someone else is doing the cooking and cleaning, I consider it perfect! I'm very easy to please.

[parrothe8d]

I am glad your vacation was great; ours was awful. On one occassion the waiter took glasses off our table, filled them amd gave them to someone else. True we didnt drink out of them but the kids played with them. Another time food I sent back came right back to the table with new garnish. I know because of how I cut the steak. Thats just two examples....never mind the rancid pastry cream waffles...

 

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[lstrong]

Sherryleea, I am in total agreement with your cruising outlook! Please tell us more of New Orleans and the dream! Thanks, Laurie

[Sherryleea]

I am glad your vacation was great; ours was awful. On one occassion the waiter took glasses off our table, filled them amd gave them to someone else. True we didnt drink out of them but the kids played with them. Another time food I sent back came right back to the table with new garnish. I know because of how I cut the steak. Thats just two examples....never mind the rancid pastry cream waffles...

 

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-G900A using Forums mobile app

 

Okay, that probably would have bugged me as well! I did talk to some other people who had terrible service in the dining room. I guess we got lucky.

[Sherryleea]

Day 2: Embarkation

 

We woke up Sunday to rain. Technically we were walking distance from the port, but I had no intention of lugging our 5 ton suitcases anywhere farther than the front door anyway. We got in the cab at 9:45 and it took us about an hour to get to the port. Traffic was crazy! There were two ships in port that day and the traffic to get to the port was terrible. There were people trying to get off the ships and people trying to get on all at once. We finally got dropped off in the middle of a mob scene, found a porter to take our luggage and were directed to where to go. It wasn’t confusing or difficult. It was just too many people in one place. Once we got inside it was smooth. We breezed through security. They saw my bottle of wine in my carry on so I was directed to go to another table to have it checked. No one watched as I walked away and I could have easily just gone in, but I went to the table like a good girl. I took out the bottle of wine and the man inspected the top to ensure it wasn’t tampered with. Then he asked if I had any other beverages. I told him I had a bottle of water and I fished that out. He shook it to see the bubbles and that was it. He never looked in my bag himself and he didn’t look in the boy’s backpack at all. It was all on the honor system, which surprised me.

 

Anyway, in we went, through the short lines because we had Faster to the Fun (although the long lines were not that much longer at this point), and sat down to wait. By now it was almost 11:00 and at around 11:15 they started boarding. We got on right after the weddings and Diamond and Platinum people and went straight to our cabin, which was ready, dropped off our things, took pictures before we got it all messed up, and went to lunch.

I was anxious to try Pasta Bella so we bypassed the buffet. It was very good and it was nice to sit and be waited on. At this point I remembered that I wanted to sign up for the Behind the Fun tour. I heard it sells out quick so I was stressed out that I forgot to do it first thing. After lunch we went down to the Shore Excursions desk and we were only the third ones on the list, so I didn’t need to worry so much.

 

We wandered around the ship for awhile taking pictures, then our luggage arrived so we got unpacked and settled until the muster drill.

It had been a lot of years since my last cruise, so this was the first one where we didn’t have put on our life jackets and squeeze onto the deck. Our muster station was in the dining room, so we all sat comfortably and listened to the spiel. It’s a little frustrating to sit and listen to the repeated announcements while they try to get everyone there. You’re not going to get out of it, so just hurry up so we can all be done already! But it didn’t take too long and soon it was time to go.

 

Our Facebook group had an informal meet and greet at the aft pool so we hung out there for sail-away. Or rather, I did. The boy soon met two girls and I didn’t see him again for a couple hours (which was to be the story of my life on this cruise!).

 

We had early seating for dinner. I prefer the assigned time because we’d normally eat at that time anyway, and I like sitting with the same people every night to avoid having to go through the same “where are you from” small talk every night. And I wouldn’t want a table for just the two of us because sometimes trying to get more than 5 words out of a teenager is impossible! Our table mates the first night was a family of three with a boy around 12. The rest of the table was empty. They were nice enough but very difficult to talk to, answering with one word answers (kind of like talking to a teenager!). They didn’t even talk amongst themselves. It was a little uncomfortable, but not the end of the world.

 

I wanted to try the steakhouse food, but didn’t really want to go to the steakhouse so I had planned to pay the $20 to try their special items. The menu for the first night wasn’t too exciting for me, so I decided to try the steakhouse steak and lobster that night. I have to say it was good, but not outrageously good. I understand that a lot of the appeal of the steakhouse is the atmosphere and the service and all, so it’s not the same in the dining room. Plus maybe their steak is really better than what I got. I mean, it was good, but my idea of a REALLY good steak is Ruth’s Chris where you can cut the meat with a butter knife it’s so tender. This steak was not like that. And the lobster was good, but it was no better than the lobster we had the following night for free. I’m glad I tried it, but I wouldn’t order it again.

After dinner we went looking for some music and found Chad who was playing in The Song, a small bar in the aft near the Burgundy Lounge and Piano Bar. There wasn’t anyone there except the piano bar guy on a break so he was just messing around which was a lot of fun to watch. He was super nice and a really good singer so we enjoyed listening to him. Eventually some more people wandered in. We ended up looking for Chad a couple more times when we were in the mood for music. He played at different places throughout the ship all week.

 

There was a comedy show at 11:00 and my watch said it was 10:45 so we went next door to the Burgundy Lounge to get a good seat. We had to suffer through 15 minutes of really bad karaoke and then the announcer said that the comedy show started in one hour. What??? We thought it started at 11:00! Oh! My clock was off by an hour. Oops. We suffered through the karaoke for nothing. I was surprised that I was so awake for it being so late. After that I went to bed and the boy wandered off to find some fun.

[Sherryleea]

Day 3: At Sea

 

Our first sea day. I started by going to the gym. It was hot and crowded and even though the machines face the windows, the windows are too sloped and low so all you see is water. But the elliptical machines have TVs built in so I could be entertained. Every time I went to the gym, my machine had some sort of problem. Either the touch screen buttons wouldn’t work or the TV wouldn’t work. But I got my workouts in to try to keep from putting back on the weight I worked so hard to lose before the cruise.

 

I had ordered room service the night before and they were right on time with our cereal, bagels, croissants and yogurt and coffee (the most important part!). We got room service breakfast five of the seven days and every time when I gave the guy a couple bucks for a tip he acted as if I gave him a brand new BMW. He was so sweet and polite.

 

Speaking of tips, on the first day I had left our room steward, David, an envelope with $20 with a note asking him to keep my ice chest full of ice. I had pre ordered a Carnival ice chest with 4 beers and 4 cups. The ice chest was bigger than I expected. I didn’t actually meet David until two days later, but he thanked me for the tip and always had the ice chest full. After that whenever we saw him he greeted us by name. By the way, the $20 was in addition to the regular tip that is automatic. I thought since I was asking him for something extra in the way of ice that he should be compensated for it. I’m sure he would have taken good care of us either way.

After breakfast, we relaxed on the balcony a bit then went to play miniature golf. It was crowded, but not terrible and we didn’t have to wait very long at any hole. It was pretty windy and sometimes our golf balls would get blown away.

 

After that we went to the Sea Day Brunch in the dining room. I had the huevos rancheros, which was delicious. They aren’t like authentic huevos rancheros, but they were so good. Service at brunch was really slow. I wouldn’t recommend it if you’re in a hurry, but the food was really good and we were seated by a window, so we didn’t mind.

 

I can’t really remember what we did after lunch. I’m sure I read on the balcony and I think I sat out by the pool for awhile. The sea days all kind of run together. I never really went to many of the activities because I liked just sitting and looking at the ocean and reading my book. There was stuff going on, especially a lot of trivia, and there was always stuff going on the main pool.

 

This day we got a note in our cabin telling us that our dinner table has changed due to a family being split up. I guess they moved the other quiet family to another table also so one big family could have our old table. This was the best thing to happen to us! Our new table was so much fun. We had one family who had been on 30 cruises and one family who was on their first. They were all nice and we really enjoyed eating with them every night. It was a huge improvement! There were three other kids around the same age as my son. That night the boy went off with two of the other boys to the teen club. After that I never saw him after dinner again! He met a lot of kids at the club and had fun every night until 1 a.m. or later. He said later that his only regret was not checking out the teen club the first night.

This was the first formal night with lobster. It was delicious and plentiful. Our wait staff was great. They worked very hard, always remembered our names and what we liked to drink. There was a wide range of attire for formal night. To be honest, I didn’t pay much attention to what people were wearing and couldn’t care less if someone showed up in jeans. What other people wear does not affect me in the least.

 

After dinner I went to the show in the main lounge, which was called Get Ready. I wish the Fun Times gave a better description of what the show is going to be about. I almost didn’t go, but I’m glad it did. The singing and dancing was very good and overall it was very entertaining.

 

After the show I went to the 9:45 comedy show, which was Kyle Grooms. I had heard that you had to line up for the comedy super early so I was surprised that I was able to walk right in only 10 minutes prior to the start. Maybe it’s the 11:00 shows that get so full because I never had any problem at the earlier shows. The comedians were always very funny but the adult shows were definitely for adults and not for the easily offended!

[lizziez00]

That is very interesting. I had a completely different experience. It always fascinates me how this can happen, but it often does. I found the food to be amazing and our dining staff was wonderful.

 

Wondering what type of dining you had? We are on the Dream Jan 4 and have Your Time and are looking for a wait staff that is great with a crazy 4 yr old grandson... :) we have always been very lucky and had a wait staff that we liked the first night and asked for every night after, but it has always been just adults with us.

 

lol* sorry I guess I should have kept reading :)

Edited December 11, 2014 by lizziez00

[Sherryleea]

Day 4: At Sea

 

Let me tell you a little about our room. We were in room 7338 on the Empress Deck. I like the Empress Deck, because it has a lot of suites so in theory, it will have the best room stewards. Also, it has a floor of cabins above and below so it is quiet. We were smack dab in the middle of the ship just outside the midship elevators. This room was very quiet. I never heard any noise from the elevators or stairs. There were the occasional loud kids running in the halls at night, but after the first time I just put in ear plugs to sleep. I could never hear anything from our neighbors, so I was surprised to discover that they had little kids. I’ve read about rooms on the Dream being too hot. This was not our room! I’m always pretty cold so I usually had the temperature set to the warmest setting. Of course, it wasn’t terribly hot outside, but still I think the AC would have been more than adequate on a hot day.

 

I also didn’t smell any of the “sewer” smells people have complained about.

We drank the water from the tap. It tasted a little funny until it was chilled so I kept water bottles filled and in the ice chest all the time and it tasted good.

 

The water pressure in the shower was adequate and the water temperature was good.

 

I love having a balcony room. I’m not a big fan of crowds so I love sitting on the balcony, which is what I did pretty much all day on the second day at sea. We had brunch again in the main dining room and around 2:30 we got a snack from the bbq outside on the Lido Deck. I got a hot dog, which wasn’t anything spectacular. But that was okay because I didn’t want to get too full for dinner.

 

The show this night was also not described at all in the Fun Times. Again it said Motown and More with Marcus Anthony. I thought I’d go since I enjoyed the night before so much. Marcus Anthony turned out to be a singer that they brought on just for this show. He had a beautiful voice, but it was really not my kind of music at all. I made the mistake of sitting the middle of a narrow row so I could not get out without disrupting a lot of people so I was sort of stuck.

 

Afterwards I went to the comedy show again. This was the Cowboy Comedian, who I had heard about. He was very funny. I also saw one of his family friendly shows and it was good too.

[Sherryleea]

Day 5: Roatan, Honduras

 

I don’t think I’ll take another cruise in November. The weather was, well, November weather. On the Roatan day it was very overcast and windy. It wasn’t cold at all, but my favorite part about the Caribbean is the beautiful blues of the water. When the sun isn’t out you really can’t see the colors. For me that was a big deal. I can stare at the Caribbean for hours. And that beautiful water is the reason I don’t take a cruise to Mexico on the Pacific Ocean side, which would be a lot easier for me.

 

Anyway, as I mentioned we booked a snorkeling tour through Roatan Eco Tours. We had to walk out of the Carnival compound, up a hill, down a hill and there were all the non-Carnival tours. It was not a terribly long walk. There were millions of people with signs and it was really hard for us to find ours. They ended up being right at the beginning and we had passed them. I was hesitant to ask for help because I was afraid the other tour operators would try to get us to go with them instead. Finally someone took pity on us looking lost and asked if they could help us. I told them who we were looking for and they knew just where this company was normally stationed with their signs. Whew! What a relief. There were four other people on our bus. They were from a Princess ship that was in port. We drove through Roatan for about 30 – 40 minutes until we got to where the boat was. There were already around 10 other people there from the other cruise pier (I think they were on the Norwegian Jewel). The weather was getting worse and the seas were very rough. Alex (the owner of the company) told us that it was too rough to snorkel at the blue channel as planned, but he could take us around to the other side of the island where it would be calmer. We had the option of taking the busses over and meeting the boat, or riding around. We all opted to stay on the boat. It was an adventure! Luckily no one got sick because it was very rough. But it was fun and we saw a lot of the island from the ocean. We also got rained on quite a bit. We finally got around to the other side of the island and started snorkeling. Even though we were getting rained on, the water was very clear and there was more coral than I’ve ever seen. It was beautiful. There were quite a lot of fish, including a lionfish. There were two guides in the water with us keeping us from straying too far and pointing out interesting fish. They offered to take my camera to dive down to get close-ups of some of the fish.

 

We then went to a second place which had even more coral. The coral was so high it was hard to swim over it without kicking it. It was kind of stressful actually because we really didn’t want to damage it. One of the kids in our group was standing on the coral which horrified me, but one of the guides quickly told him to get off. Hopefully he explained why it was bad to stand on the coral. I seriously have never seen so much pristine coral in my life. At the second stop there was a lot more fish and one giant lobster that lives there. We even saw a group (school?) of squid – a first for me.

The tour was supposed to end with a stop at a beach, but we got the option to go straight back to the ship. Since the beach was on the rough side of the island and we wouldn’t have been able to swim, we decided to go back. I wanted to go to Mahogany Beach anyway. We decided to go back to the ship to change into dry clothes (it was a little cool out with wet clothing on) and eat lunch. For lunch we went to the burrito bar in the buffet, which was really good.

 

The boy decided he wanted to stay on the ship so I went to Mahogany Beach by myself. I hopped on the magic flying beach chairs and took a bunch of pictures. I have terrible height issues so it was rather terrifying for me. Especially because it was so windy and the chair was swaying. And half way there it started to rain – hard. It was a pretty slow trip, and I swear they kept stopping the chairs just to be mean! Finally I got to the end and dashed into the closest bar. (It may have been the only bar.) Now previously in the day it would rain for 5 minutes then stop for 30. This time is was a downpour for at least a half hour. Maybe longer. I did the only thing I could do: drank a local beer and people-watched. It finally let up enough to venture out. I walked down to the water and was surprised to see so many people swimming. If I had been in my bathing suit, I would have joined them!

 

I had read in a previous review that the nature trail is a shortcut back to the ship. I don’t know if it was any shorter but it was beautiful. I still had time to venture into a couple shops for some souvenirs. There was a place there to get your passport stamped, which I saw on our way out the first time. Of course, when I left the ship the second time I forgot our passports, so I walked back to ship, got both our passports, walked all the way back to the shop, hoping they’d still be open and they were. I was surprised that they would stamp my son’s passport without him being there, but they did.

Despite the weather, I enjoyed Roatan. It is a beautiful island and the people were very friendly.

 

I’m sorry I didn’t keep track of what was for dinner each night. I will say that it was always delicious. There were too many yummy things to try and it was hard to save room for dessert. You could always see the day’s dinner menu on the TV. I liked to see what was in the lineup so I could plan my hunger accordingly. The most important was to know what was going to be for dessert so I’d know whether I should save room. Of course, I never had enough room for all the wonderful things I wanted to try!

 

Wednesday’s show was Dancin’ in the Streets. It was not too different from the first night, but it was very entertaining. I was amazed at how they can have so many different set changes and all the props.

[Sherryleea]

Day 6: Belize

 

Well, day 6 was supposed to be Belize. It also happened to be Thanksgiving Day. I got up early, went to the gym and noticed that we were still moving. It seemed like we should have been dropping anchor by then. (Belize is a tender port). I was in the shower when I heard the announcement that the weather was too bad for the tenders so we wouldn’t be going to Belize after all. I was looking forward to cave tubing and zip lining so it was a disappointment, but what are you going to do? There were a whole lot of people complaining and wanting their money back, but seriously, if this is the worst thing that happens in a person’s life, I’d say you’re doing pretty darn well! I felt bad for the crew because they had to scramble to entertain us and had to work a lot more than they were planning. I also felt bad for the people in Belize who lost a lot of money, including the $120+ I was going to spend there.

 

Once we got the revised Fun Times we decided to see a movie. They were showing Guardians of the Galaxy in the Burgundy Lounge. Now, the lounge is not a good place to watch a movie. The screen was too small and too low so it was hard to get a seat with a good view. We finally settled in to a good enough spot only partially blocked by heads in front of us. But the movie was entertaining.

 

It was actually cold outside on this day. (Okay, it was probably 70 degrees, but it was super windy and felt very cold to me. Of course, anything under 75 is cold to me.) We braved the elements (a little too melodramatic?) to get some burgers at the outside bbq that we took back to our room. It was an okay burger. Nothing I will dream about afterwards. We spent the rest of the day reading, napping, watching another movie on TV (Iron Man 2) and really doing a lot of nothing. It was actually kind of nice. There were activities scheduled so we could have done stuff if we wanted to.

Dinner was really nice. They had a special Thanksgiving menu for us and it was delicious. It didn’t feel like Thanksgiving at all though, but at least they tried to make it special.

 

The show was called the Game of Love. Kind of a newlywed game I think. I didn’t go. I don’t know why I was so tired after doing nothing all day, but I was so I went to bed early. Also there were no comedians that night.

[Sherryleea]

Day 7: Cozumel

 

We woke up on Friday to an absolutely beautiful day in Cozumel. The sun was out, it was nice and warm and the Caribbean was its beautiful turquoise blue color. I was in heaven! Plus, Cozumel is one of my very favorite-ist place in the world. I love the town, the ocean, the people and the food. I would live there if I could.

 

We met up with the group for the Amazing Cozumel Race at the end of the pier, filled out some forms and assessed our competition. I was a little nervous. I was hoping for teams with a lot of old people, but there were some very fit looking families. I revised my goal of winning to not being last! I won’t tell you any details about the race because I don’t want to spoil it, but I will tell you that it was super fun. It was harder than I expected and we covered a lot of ground, mostly running because we always seemed to be behind. We ended up coming in 5th out of 12 teams, which is respectable. I was definitely the one holding us back. We both really enjoyed it and we weren’t crazy competitive about it. The race ended at a restaurant and we got two free drinks each. We ordered some quesadillas, which were very good. There was another team there who didn’t bring any cash and the restaurant didn’t take credit cards so they were very hungry, so be sure to take some cash if you do this activity! Afterwards we had the option of taking their shuttles back to the ship or getting there on our own. We wanted to do some shopping so we walked back to the downtown area. Eventually we caught a cab, which cost only $8 to get back to the pier.

 

This night was our second formal night. Dinner was again amazing (even though I can’t remember what it was.) The show was called 8 More Seconds. Again, some description in the Fun Times would be helpful. It turned out to be country music. This time I was smarter and sat on an aisle, but it turned out to be entertaining enough to stay through the whole thing. Anyway, there really wasn’t anything I wanted to do otherwise.

 

After the show I went to the comedy show, which was Allyn Ball. He was also really good.

[Sherryleea]

Day 8: At Sea

 

It was finally our last day. The weather was beautiful and the sea was very calm. We had to get up early for the Behind the Fun tour which started at 9:00. We met in one of the bars and they had some pastries and juice for us. They confiscated everyone’s phones and cameras and even lighters. We all got checked by security. The tour lasted three and a half hours. We saw the crew decks including their bar, the laundry, the galley, the steakhouse’s galley, the engine room and the bridge. We got to hear from the head chef, the engineers and other experts. And the captain of course. We got to have our pictures taken with the captain (no extra charge for the prints). They also gave us other little gifts – chocolate covered strawberries in the galley, soap carvings, lanyards, a hat and a little backpack. I felt it was definitely worth the time and money. The boy would have snuck out except they were holding his phone hostage. I don’t think I would repeat the tour on another ship, but it’s good to do once. To be honest, I had $400 of onboard credit, which was nonrefundable and more than we needed, so technically the tour was free for us, so it’s easy for me to say it was worth the money!

After the tour I got a sandwich for lunch at the deli and went to play Harry Potter trivia. After that it was time to relax and watch the ocean until dinner time and think about packing up.

 

I didn’t actually start packing until after dinner and that’s all I did all evening. The show was a passenger talent show and I wasn’t really interested in that. I did catch an early comedy show, which was Allyn Ball again doing a family show. He might have been even funnier in that one than in the first one.

 

Day 9: Debarkation

 

I had booked an 11:25 a.m. flight back home. I knew it was cutting it a little close, but all I had read made me think it would be okay. We had way too much luggage to do self-assist, and we were in zone 2 anyway so I figured it wouldn’t be too long. Well, self- assist took FOREVER. There must have been a lot of people doing it. We didn’t get our zone called until 8:45. And they called zones 1 through 5 all at once. Once we were called, it didn’t take terribly long to get off the ship and find our luggage. There were not many porters so we lugged our own suitcases. I’ve heard that you get through a lot faster with a porter, and it looked like that was true, but even without one, we were outside by 9:15. I had purchased an airport transfer before I knew how early our flight was going to be, but the bus wasn’t leaving until 9:30 and I didn’t want to wait so we just took a cab. We got to the airport at 9:45, in plenty of time for our flight. So the 11:25 flight worked out fine, but it really didn’t allow for too much extra time for things to go wrong. We were not given the option to do express luggage check where you put your bags out the night before and don’t see them until you get off the plane at your final destination.

[Sherryleea]

The Ship

 

I really liked the Dream overall. One thing I did not like was that you had to go through the casino to get between the theater and the comedy shows and other venues. Okay, technically you could go around outside, but the doors are not in good places. For example, you come in right in the middle of a bar in an awkward place. And you can’t really see what is inside the door you are about to enter. The main road right through the middle of the casino, not even down the side of it. Also, the casino was right off the elevators/stairwells and you could smell smoke all up and down the stairways. It was especially bad on embarkation day because they were fueling and no one could smoke outside at all. It was horrible even one flight up from the casino. Luckily it got a lot better once people could smoke outside. The casino was very large and always busy, plus they’d have live music in there so the people who are in there just to smoke have entertainment other than gambling so if you like that kind of thing, this is probably a good ship for it.

 

I afraid we would smell smoke on our balcony because we were above an outside smoking area on the deck that sticks out on the 5th floor. However, it was never a problem. I actually saw people smoking below me, but their smoke never came my way. I also never smelled smoke from people smoking on their balconies.

 

I was also afraid that there would be a lot of noise from the hot tubs below us, but that was never the case. Our room was right in the middle between two hot tubs and they were far enough away to not be a problem. If I was on my balcony I could hear people down on the decks, but never when I was in the room with the door closed.

 

I’m sure there were a lot of kids onboard, being Thanksgiving week and all, but it didn’t seem like more than usual. However, I normally cruise in the summer, so there are always kids. From what other people said I was expecting hordes of running, screaming children dropping ice cream all over the ground. This was not my experience at all.

 

I didn’t eat the buffet very much. We had omelets from the custom omelet station once (they were very good) and I got some other breakfast things from the buffet. It’s silly because there are two lines that meet in the middle. You can help yourself to everything until you get to the lady with the bacon and oatmeal. Only one person was serving both lines so the whole line is held up. Is there a problem with people taking too much oatmeal?? Why can’t we just scoop our own? And I doubt that the bacon lady really keeps waste down. She gave me about twice as much as I would have served myself. And the person ahead of me just kept asking for more until he had what he wanted. It seemed an unnecessary bottle neck to me. A plus though was that the bacon was cooked somewhat crispy and not that limp, soggy stuff, so at least it was worth the wait.

 

Other than that and the one time at the burrito bar, I didn’t have any buffet food. It did look good and there was a good variety as far as I could tell. There were just too many other options.

 

The boy had pizza once and he said it was good. The only time I would have had it, the line was pretty long.

 

I found the cruise director, Hennie, to be annoying. I tuned into the morning show one time and he was so annoying that I turned it off after a couple minutes. I’ve heard people say that a bad cruise director ruins their whole cruise and I don’t get that at all. I just didn’t watch his shows and didn’t let it bug me too much. Not a big deal.

 

I really wanted to see a movie under the stars and they had some movies playing that I wanted to see. The problem was that the movie I liked was always right during our dinner time. The one time there was a late movie I wanted to see, it was too cold outside for me. We could have gone to the buffet for dinner one night so we could catch the movie, but honestly, we both really enjoyed the whole dining room experience and the people we ate with so we really didn’t want to miss it. Maybe next time it will work out. I love the idea of it.

 

I’m sorry I can’t report on too many of the activities. One of our dinner mates went to a lot of the deck parties, line dancing, etc. and really enjoyed it. I just wasn’t in a joining mood this time.

[Sherryleea]

 

Wondering what type of dining you had? We are on the Dream Jan 4 and have Your Time and are looking for a wait staff that is great with a crazy 4 yr old grandson... :) we have always been very lucky and had a wait staff that we liked the first night and asked for every night after, but it has always been just adults with us.

 

lol* sorry I guess I should have kept reading :)

 

Lizziez00, we had early seating. I'm hoping that the bad waitstaff was in the minority. At least with YTD you can easily change until you get one you like.

[Sherryleea]

Faster to the Fun

 

Just a quick word about FTTF. I know it’s a bit controversial but it’s a personal choice and here’s my opinion. Even though we got to the port pretty early, there were a bunch of people there – maybe a couple hundred. If we didn’t have FTTF we probably would have only boarded 30 minutes later (just a guess here), so not really a big deal. What was a big deal, and what made it worth it to me, was that our room was ready rigt away. The boy took a guitar because he had a show coming up and didn’t want to go a week without practicing. Hauling around a guitar along with our carry-ons would have been a hassle. We got our luggage very early also, which was nice because I like to get unpacked and settled as soon as possible. Also, we had an early flight home so being in an early debarkation group was also huge since we couldn’t do self-assist. Now, probably I could have gone to guest services and gotten an early number anyway. If we had gone to Belize, having priority on the tenders would have also been huge since we had a long day of excursions planned. For me, the conveniences were worth the $50, but if I didn’t have it, I don’t think it would have been a big deal. I did have to go to Guest Services once and the regular line was HUGE. I got to go to the short line, which was really nice also. I do NOT think FTTF impacts Platinum & Diamond cruisers at all. I guess if I was in line at Guest Services before a Platinum and they had to wait an additional 2 minutes, they would have been impacted, but otherwise, they still get priority. Bottom line is that I will buy FTTF every time I can just for the early access to the room and quick luggage delivery.

 

Wrap-up

 

To sum things up, I would definitely recommend the Dream and this itinerary. Even though there were lines for food, it never really felt crowded. The few times I ventured out to the Lido deck, there were always available lounge chairs. I loved the idea of cruising at Thanksgiving, but I’d rather have hotter weather. I thought the staff was great. They were always cheerful and friendly. The ship was very clean. You would always see someone cleaning something. I thought the food was fantastic. People say Carnival food is not as good as other lines but honestly I can’t imagine it being much better. Great variety and quality.

 

I’m a fan of Carnival because it is really the best value for vacation. You really get a lot for your money and the people on the ships are not snobby. We’re all just a bunch of regular people who work hard for our vacations. I find the people to be generally friendly and I don’t feel uncomfortable to be hanging out by myself. It would be easy enough to find people to talk to if I wanted to.

 

That’s all I got. Feel free to ask me any questions and I’ll try to answer as best I can. Sorry about the lack of pictures. But there are some really good reviewers on here who posted lots of pictures.

 

Thanks for reading and happy cruising!

[labsnabys]

Thanks for the review! We will be doing the same ports in the opposite direction over Christmas. I appreciate hearing about the iffy weather because now I know to pack some warmer clothes in the likely event we have rain or chilly evenings. I am glad you enjoyed your cruise and the Dream! You have a great attitude which is half of what makes a great vacation!

[Sherryleea]

Thanks for the review! We will be doing the same ports in the opposite direction over Christmas. I appreciate hearing about the iffy weather because now I know to pack some warmer clothes in the likely event we have rain or chilly evenings. I am glad you enjoyed your cruise and the Dream! You have a great attitude which is half of what makes a great vacation!

 

Thank you! You might also consider one of those little rain ponchos. I actually had some, but neglected to put them in my bag the day I was caught in the rain! It probably would have been pretty fun to walk on the beach in the rain if I had a poncho or an umbrella (which I also left on the ship!).

[whoisRowdy]

Great review, thanks for the insight.. We are sailing next week and super excited, so I love reading all the details..

 

Thanks!

 

Btw - You have a great attitude.. Refreshing :)