Detailed Photo Review of Carnival Dream 7 Night Western Caribbean Cruise 3/10/19

[deladane]

22 minutes ago, JaniceB said:

Looking forward to the rest of your review and I was hoping your FTTF would be refunded.  Didn't make sense to charge your for something you didn't receive.

 

We were very pleased with how they handled the situation.  I do hope Jennifer wasn't in trouble for her mistake, but hopefully she can learn from the experience and not make that mistake again 🙂

[Charm2018]

23 hours ago, deladane said:

When I got back to the cabin, DH was already awake and ready to go, so we went back upstairs to the Blue Iguana Cantina to try some breakfast burritos.  I ate these nearly every day for breakfast when I cruised on the Carnival Sunshine in 2013, but they didn’t have a Blue Iguana when we were on the Valor in 2015 so DH has never tried it.  Spoiler alert:  all it took was one bite and DH was hooked!  He ate here at least once a day for the rest of the cruise! Haha 

 

The menu has not changed since I last ate here 5.5 years ago…

 

 

I ordered a burrito with a wheat tortilla, regular scrambled eggs, ham, hash browns, Monterey jack cheese, and grilled onions.

 

 

Back in 2013, I did not know about the arepas, so I have been looking forward to trying one for a very long time!  I’m actually not surprised that I missed it on the Sunshine because I never saw anyone else eating arepas on the Dream this week.  They do list it on one of the menu boards (I think with the taco options?), but it’s not obvious and I have a feeling new cruisers just don’t know about them.  Unfortunately, that means there is not much turnover and the arepas were sitting out under the heat lamps for quite a while before we got them.  I ordered one for each of us and the server had to kind of man-handle them to get them to un-stick from the pan.

 

 

They were a little greasy, but I enjoyed the slightly sweet corn and gooey cheese, and I ordered one each day to supplement my breakfast burrito.  As for the burrito itself, it was just as delicious as I remembered from the Sunshine, with the crunchy hash browns and grilled onions being the true highlight!

 

I liked how they wrapped the burritos up like this.  If we had a balcony, I could definitely see getting it to-go and eating it on the balcony as we pulled into port each morning.

 

 

 

DH also tried one of the tacos and he loved it so much that he got two of them as part of his breakfast every day, and he tried to get them as a snack in the afternoons too.

 

 

The timing for our meals was totally thrown off today because we docked at noon and that is when all of the lunch venues opened, so if we wanted lunch before getting off the ship, our only options were the deli or pizza.  Not that we couldn’t find a good option at those two places, but everyone else on the ship would need to eat there too and I didn’t want to deal with the huge line that was likely to form.  Instead, we ate a big breakfast and planned to skip lunch.  If we got hungry on the tour, we always pack Clif Bars in our bags so we could snack on that.  Gary made some announcements about not being allowed to bring food off the ship in Mexico, but I have always found pre-packaged food to be the exception to the rule as there is no risk of bringing in bugs or contaminants to their country. 

 

 

My favourite place to eat!  Ate there several times a day when we were on the Glory in January.  I'm craving one now.  LOL

[pghsteelerfan]

16 hours ago, deladane said:

 

haha I also learned about the arepas from Nicole's reviews!!  The port area in Costa Maya looked brand new, so I guess it makes sense as to why!  I'll post a bunch of photos from the port as soon as I can, but I'm having a busy week this week.  I had some family visiting the Bay Area from out of town so I went to dinner with them tonight, and tomorrow night, we have tickets to the traveling Broadway show Aladdin, so I won't get to work on my review.  More coming soon though, I promise! 🙂

You will never have pressure from me, I know the time that goes into these and I'll still be here when you get a chance to work on it more.  Enjoy the time seeing your family and Aladdin.  🙂

[2Long2NxtCrz]

Thank you, Dana, for such a great, detailed review!  I've not yet sailed on Carnival and you're giving me a wonderful taste of the experience.

 

I love sailing out of New Orleans since we can drive there in a very long day and it's NOLO!  Plus, I really do like the long journey down the Mississippi to get out to sea.

 

I'll have to check out itineraries from there for next year since we only have a big family cruise booked for 2020.

[deladane]

On 4/10/2019 at 7:12 AM, Charm2018 said:

 

My favourite place to eat!  Ate there several times a day when we were on the Glory in January.  I'm craving one now.  LOL

 

The funniest part is that I don't usually like Mexican food, but Blue Iguana has so many great options that I can create a burrito with all non-spicy ingredients and you'd never know it was made at a Mexican themed station 🙂  Those crunchy hash browns and grilled onions are life changing!

[deladane]

20 hours ago, pghsteelerfan said:

You will never have pressure from me, I know the time that goes into these and I'll still be here when you get a chance to work on it more.  Enjoy the time seeing your family and Aladdin.  🙂

 

Aladdin was FANTASTIC!  We have season tickets to see all the traveling Broadway shows that come to San Jose, so we don't really get an option as to what shows we see... if it comes here, we see it!  I do miss the days of living in NYC and being able to see any show I wanted at any time, but oh well, it's a trade off haha  We both loved Aladdin last night.  Disney shows tend to be fun and well-made productions, so I wasn't really that surprised, but it's still fun to walk away from a show smiling 🙂

[deladane]

18 hours ago, 2Long2NxtCrz said:

Thank you, Dana, for such a great, detailed review!  I've not yet sailed on Carnival and you're giving me a wonderful taste of the experience.

 

I love sailing out of New Orleans since we can drive there in a very long day and it's NOLO!  Plus, I really do like the long journey down the Mississippi to get out to sea.

 

I'll have to check out itineraries from there for next year since we only have a big family cruise booked for 2020.

 

Thanks for reading!  I think most of the itineraries from New Orleans go to Western Caribbean ports, if that helps your decision 🙂  Sailing down the Mississippi River was so fun, especially when we looked out the window of the steakhouse during dinner that first night and could see all the houses and factories and everything along the way!  So different than sailing out of Florida where you are far from land and out in the ocean within minutes of sailing away.  

[deladane]

Right at 12 noon, Gary came on the intercom to announce that we were docking!  We ran upstairs to the outside decks to see it for ourselves, and sure enough, they found space for all 4 ships to tie up to the dock!  This photo really shows how crowded it was as I was able to get parts of all 4 ships into one shot, with the Celebrity Equinox on the left, the Oceania Riviera in the middle, RCCL’s behemoth ship Symphony of the Seas on the right, and part of the Carnival Dream’s railing and deck long the front.

 

 

Another funny photo showing all 4 ships…

 

 

It looked like lots of people from the other cruises were coming back for lunch on their respective ships…

 

The water was so many beautiful shades of blue!

 

 

 

[deladane]

As I mentioned earlier, we got a letter yesterday explaining that people with FTTF could meet in the MDR on deck 3 to have priority exiting the ship.  We were thankful for this as we anticipated a big rush of people trying to get ashore ASAP due to the late docking time.  It was a little confusing figuring out where they wanted us to meet because the letter said to go to the forward side of the MDR but it turned out that they were using the mid-ship elevators and really needed us to meet back there.  Once we figured it out, there was a crew member in the mid-ship elevator bank to operate one of the elevators and bring us directly down to deck 0.  While we were waiting for the elevator to arrive, we noticed a long line of people walking down the stairs in that elevator bank, so it was nice to see that FTTF did actually get to ‘cut the line’, although there was no way to know how much time we saved.

 

We were off the ship by 12:15pm.  It was really windy as we walked down the long pier towards the cruise ship village.

 

 

Looking back towards the Dream…

 

 

Hi from Costa Maya!

 

 

We saw this tall pole thing when we were in Puerto Vallarta on the Pacific coast for New Years, so it was funny to see it again 3 months later on the Caribbean side of Mexico.  We didn’t wait around for the men to perform their ritual of climbing up to the top of the pole, spinning around in circles, then falling straight down hanging from the ropes, but I assume they did perform at some point as they were standing around in the background when we walked passed them.

 

 

[deladane]

There were lots of shops in the port area selling clothing, jewelry, and souvenirs.

 

 

 

 

Lots of lounge chairs near the swimming pool

 

 

Not surprising that it was very crowded at the pool at this time, with 3 other cruise ships who have been docked here for a few hours already.

 

 

[deladane]

It was very confusing to find our way out of the cruise port village because, of course, there were no signs that said “exit.”  It was like being in a department store at the mall… they never tell you how to get back to the mall and do everything they can to keep you trapped inside the store!  So frustrating!  I just kept asked the vendors where to go for a taxi in hopes that it would also lead me to the exit, and eventually we made it to the parking lot.  Our directions from Island Marketing said to exit the port gates, continue past the shopping centers, and their office would then be half a block away on the left side.  Ok, sounds simple enough.  We walked through the parking lot for the taxis and spotted the port gate.  When we walked through the gate, we could see a second set of gates up ahead, so we walked through that, and then saw a T intersection further up the road.  I had yet to see any shopping centers so I figured we needed to go up to that intersection and their office would be on the left.  By now, it was 12:30pm and we needed to meet at their office by 12:45pm.  It was extremely hot and humid, and there was no shade during this whole walk.  We finally got to the end of the road but we still didn’t see any stores so I asked a lady where the Mayan Trips office was located (that’s the name of the office per our instructions).  She said it was back the way we came from and we already passed it on the other side of the gate.  What?!  Our instructions said we had to leave the port through the gate!  As it turns out, the office was between the two sets of gates.  Wouldn’t that have been helpful information to share with us?!  The two gates are about 200 feet apart so it would be a very obvious landmark to tell us to look for their office between the two gates.  Anyway, we doubled back and sure enough, there was the office, tucked away on the side.

 

 

We checked in at the desk and our guide, Brian, told us to wait out front for everyone else to arrive.  There was a slight breeze outside, so it was definitely more comfortable to wait out there than inside the office with no air conditioning.  This next photo was taken with me sitting on the bench outside of their office.  That is the second gate… it would have been wonderful for the instructions to say their office was located a few steps before the second gate, don’t ya think??

 

 

Once everyone checked in a few minutes after 1pm, a 15-person van pulled up and we all got in.  Rocky was our van driver for the tour so that Brian could turn around and talk to us during the ride.  He explained some of the history of the Mayan Ruins and of Chacchoben, specifically.  One thing that I found interesting was the way they originally discovered these ruins.  Brian explained that the Mayans wanted to hide their temples to protect them from invaders so they covered them with dirt and leaves, basically creating what looked like a mountain.  The problem was that there are no mountains in this part of Mexico!  In fact, the land is extremely flat (as shown in the photos I posted from the ship when we first docked), so a random mountain in the middle of all that flat terrain really stood out, and it wasn’t hard to realize there was something hiding under there!  Oops!! 

 

We drove for about 30 minutes, nearly all on one or two roads, with very mundane scenery…

 

 

 

[deladane]

At 1:50pm, we pulled up to the Butterfly Farm.  Brian explained that we only had 20 minutes to spend here, so we could either go to the lab where they house the caterpillars or to the tent where they keep the butterflies.  Of course, we all agreed that we would prefer to see the butterflies.  After all, isn’t that why we were here?!

 

 

A lady came out to greet us and said she would give us a tour of the facility.  She led us inside the lab with the caterpillars.  Ummm, didn’t Brian just say we wouldn’t have time to see the caterpillars AND the butterflies?  Why are we in here?  I figured I’d give it a few minutes and see what happened.  I knew there was no way I was getting back in the van without seeing the butterflies! Haha  The room was very small, so with our whole group squeezed inside and trying to see the plants and caterpillars, it was hard to follow what the lady was saying.  I think she tried to explain how they grow caterpillars or something like that, but I honestly did not hear her at all.  I just looked around and made note that there were many different species of caterpillars hiding on the leaves of the plants.

 

 

 

 

 

 

[deladane]

At one point, the lady asked if we had any questions.  It was now 14 minutes after we first arrived, so I spoke up and asked if we could go see the butterflies now.  Luckily, Brian didn’t object and the lady led us over to the tent.

 

 

 

The lady did not really provide any information about the butterflies besides warning us not to let them fly out of the tent.  She just told us to walk around and keep our eyes open, and we were sure to see some butterflies.  Brian said we needed to leave soon so we could spend no more than 10 minutes in here.  There were trees and plants everywhere so it took some effort to find the butterflies at first, but soon enough we got the hang of it.  There were hundreds of butterflies in there!  It was really challenging to take a good photo because they kept flying around, but I think I took a few good photos.

 

 

 

This is the Giant Owl Butterfly that was mentioned in the description of the tour

 

 

 

[deladane]

I caught one of them mid-flight!  This was a Malachite Butterfly

 

 

One last Giant Owl Butterfly before we had to leave…

 

 

Brian rounded us all up and said it was time to go back to the van.  In the end, we spent 24 minutes here, so we pretty much stayed on schedule.  Sure, it would have been nice to spend more time searching for butterflies (especially because I only got to see 2 varieties and I think there were probably other kinds flying around in there if I had more time to look), but we had places to go, and Mayan ruins to see!

 

This was our van for the day, parked at the butterfly farm.  I think they had deer inside the fences behind the van but I never had a chance to look…

 

 

[Bimmer09]

7 hours ago, deladane said:

Right at 12 noon, Gary came on the intercom to announce that we were docking!  We ran upstairs to the outside decks to see it for ourselves, and sure enough, they found space for all 4 ships to tie up to the dock!  This photo really shows how crowded it was as I was able to get parts of all 4 ships into one shot, with the Celebrity Equinox on the left, the Oceania Riviera in the middle, RCCL’s behemoth ship Symphony of the Seas on the right, and part of the Carnival Dream’s railing and deck long the front.

 

 

Another funny photo showing all 4 ships…

 

 

It looked like lots of people from the other cruises were coming back for lunch on their respective ships…

 

 

Nice pics Dana of all that nautical hardware! Must be over 13,000 pax in a tiny port but what a long pier to walk in the sun! 

Norris

 

 

[pd7277]

1 hour ago, Bimmer09 said:

 

Norris - Time to try that link I sent you.  Dana is rocking hers!  First line in her signature.  Check it out!

[deladane]

4 hours ago, Bimmer09 said:

 

Nice pics Dana of all that nautical hardware! Must be over 13,000 pax in a tiny port but what a long pier to walk in the sun! 

Norris

 

 

Thanks Norris!  I think it worked out well for us that we didn't arrive until noon because the two big ships left around 5pm so while we were arriving at the Mayan ruins, they were leaving (or maybe even already left long before we got there).  It would have felt way more crowded if all 4 ships arrived at the same time!

[deladane]

2 hours ago, pd7277 said:

Norris - Time to try that link I sent you.  Dana is rocking hers!  First line in her signature.  Check it out!

 

Thanks again Peggy for that suggestion!  Now that it's set up, it will be easy to update in the future and allows for more flexibility versus the strict limitations that CC has set up for signatures now.  

[deladane]

Once we were all settled back in the van, we drove for about 10 more minutes to the Chacchoben Mayan Ruins.  Brian said the tour would take about an hour, so he gave us a few minutes to use the restrooms, then he gathered us up and we walked along a flat dirt trail towards the ruins.  A few minutes later, we came to an opening and saw this:

 

 

It was so cool!  Just sitting there in the middle of a field of grass, there was a huge Mayan temple!  For perspective, look at the two people walking along the left side of the temple… they are several inches shorter than the first plateau, and then there are 4 or 5 levels above that.  This temple was huge!

 

 

As we were walking along the trail, we passed several larger groups who were gathered around their guide and listening to some information, so I was a little worried that it would feel crowded at the ruins.  To my surprise, it did not feel crowded at all.  Brian walked us past them so we got to the first temple before them, took our photos, then gathered around to listen to him talk as those other groups had their turn to take photos.  Our group had 10 of us, if I remember correctly, and those other groups had closer to 50 people each, so we were in good shape!

 

 

Brian pointed out the different color of stones to see what had been restored and what stones were original.

 

 

 

 

[deladane]

I thought these round palm leaves were neat

 

 

This was the tree of life, which had great significance in Mayan culture.  Notice the large tour group huddled around the tree… glad we had a much smaller group than that!

 

 

This was a hill a few feet away from the first temple.  Brian said there is probably another temple, or structure of some sort, hiding under all that dirt.  This was what the first temple would have looked like when the first people discovered it.

 

 

Walking along the trails between the temples.  The grounds were well maintained and flat, so it was very easy to walk around the property.  The instructions from Island Marketing said we needed to wear closed toed shoes on this tour, and I can understand why.  It was definitely easier to have on sneakers and not flip flops, especially when climbing up on the rocks.

 

 

 

A map of Chacchoben

 

 

Lots of big trees for shade

 

 

[deladane]

When we got to this spot, Brian told us we could climb up these steps the easy way or the hard way.  Of course, DH and I picked the hard way, which meant a steeper section of stairs and nothing to hold on to.  The easier way had shallower steps and was along a wall that you could hold for balance.

 

 

 

It’s hard to see how steep these steps were, but trust me, they were steep!

 

Looking back towards the ground

 

We made it to the top!

 

When we turned around, we saw this:

 

OMG!  This temple was huge!!  There were actually two temples up on this higher level… the one I just showed was the Temple of the Sun, and the one below is the Temple of the Moon.

 

[deladane]

Brian gathered us all in the shade to explain more about the Tree of Life and these two temples.

 

As he was talking, he heard some noise from above… there was a spider monkey climbing up in the trees!  Needless to say, he lost our attention as we were all excited to see the monkey!

 

We went back over to the bigger temple for some more photo ops.  Notice that there was no one else up here besides the people on our tour.  At some point, there was a fork in the path and all of the larger groups went right while Brian led us left so we were the only ones up here at that time.

 

 

 

[Walt fan]

Following along and so enjoying.  I have a lot of memories of Costa Maya.  We went about a year and a half after Hurricane Dean.  The destruction was terrible.  We rented golf carts and drove around and as far out as we could (armed guards were toward the end).  We then drove back to the beach area and ate lunch and bought a few things, just to help the locals out.  Your visit to the ruins looks amazing.

[jakeawhite]

19 minutes ago, deladane said:

 

Were you allowed to go all the way to the top? Did the limit how far you could climb?

[deladane]

9 hours ago, Walt fan said:

Following along and so enjoying.  I have a lot of memories of Costa Maya.  We went about a year and a half after Hurricane Dean.  The destruction was terrible.  We rented golf carts and drove around and as far out as we could (armed guards were toward the end).  We then drove back to the beach area and ate lunch and bought a few things, just to help the locals out.  Your visit to the ruins looks amazing.

Oh wow, that sounds like our visit to St Maarten last year, 6 months after a hurricane demolished the island. So horrible to see that damage but it’s great to be able to spend some American dollars and boost their economy!