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

[deladane]

7 hours ago, MJSailors said:

I am enjoying your review and photos.

I have read a number of reviews where people write about their  experience with holding monkeys and sloths in Roatan.

A quick question.... after you have handled the animals, are there hand washing facilities offered to you? I may be a bit of a germaphobe, but I know I would appreciate cleaning up after the animal encounter.

Looking forward to reading more of your review !

 

haha nothing to worry about... they had a sink where we could wash our hands, as well as a container of purell 😉

[deladane]

6 hours ago, JaniceB said:

Wow loving all your shore excursion photos.  I still haven't been to a Mayan ruin so that was really interesting to me.

 

Thank you!  It was our first time at Mayan ruins too, but probably won't be our last!

[deladane]

Once we got back to Bananarama, DH decided he wanted a beer before snorkeling.  We had asked Windell earlier this morning what the beach bars charged for a bottle of beer and he said $2.  We thought that was fair and opted not to stop at a market to pick up beers prior to arriving at the beach.  DH went up to the bar and was surprised that they charged $3.50 per bottle, nearly double what Windell told us.  We found Windell and told him about it, and he was really surprised but said he knew where we could find cheaper beer.  He led us out towards the parking lot for the beach where there were a few stores and restaurants.  One of the stores sold us a 6 pack of local beer for $9, so $1.50 per bottle.  Now that’s more like it! 

 

While DH enjoyed his first bottle, I rented a locker so we could store our valuables when we were snorkeling, and since the lockers were in the shade, we stashed our beer in there too haha

 

 

 

Finally, it was time to go snorkeling!  We walked back down to the end of the beach and started to see coral just a few feet from the shore. 

 

 

 

Brain Coral

 

[deladane]

There were lots of Parrot Fish

 

 

 

 

All of a sudden, this huge school of Blue Tangs surrounded us.  It was one of the coolest things I’ve ever experienced when snorkeling.  There were hundreds of them!

 

 

[deladane]

Sharptail Eel

 

 

 

The reef here lived up to all the hype and it was definitely some of the best snorkeling we’ve done in the Caribbean, but I’m honestly not sure that we entered the reef at the right spot.  There were a lot of places where the coral was very close to the surface and it was hard to swim without touching it.  I am actually shocked that neither of got scraped up from the coral!  Now that I’m at home and have a better understanding of the beach, I just pulled up West Bay on Google Maps.  Looking at the satellite view, I can see a channel in front of the Infinity Bay Resort which may have been a better place to enter the water.  I just assumed Windell knew where to send us, but now I’m not so sure that was the best place.  The snorkeling was great, but I know we didn’t make it out as far as I wanted to (where the boat tours were anchored) because we just couldn’t find a safe path to get there with all the coral.  We both started panicking out there and didn’t want to get injured, so we stopped after 30 minutes.  I wish I had asked around while I was at the beach and found another recommendation of a good safe place to swim, but oh well, you live, you learn!

 

After we walked back along the beach to Bananarama, I put the fisheye attachment lens onto my camera and got back in the water to try to get some cool over/under water shots.  The conditions need to be perfect for these shots to come out, with very calm clear water, and ideally, lots of fish too.  The area of beach in front of Bananarama has fine, soft, white sand, which makes for a beautiful beach but usually there’s nothing exciting to see under the water in those conditions.  At least there was a small boat anchored near the shore so I could try to use that as my focus point.

 

 

This was the best one with the boat… too bad there’s no fish or coral or anything worth seeing under the water!

 

Looking back towards the beach

[deladane]

I took a lot of photos, aiming the lens in different angles, but those were the best of the bunch for today!  By the time I got back to our chairs, DH had retrieved the beers from our locker.

 

Salva Vida is the local beer in Honduras

 

Looking straight up from my chair, I saw that the sun was creeping beyond where the palm trees could provide shade.  The beach faces west, so I knew that as the day went on, we would gradually lose our shade, but I was hoping that picking chairs in the back row, up against the wall of the restaurant, that we would keep our shade as long as possible.

 

 

Notice how the front row of chairs is partially in the sun?  They were completely in the shade when we first arrived 2 hours ago!

 

We spent the next hour and a half relaxing on our chairs, enjoying some cold beer, and doing lots of people-watching.  We had originally asked Windell and Darson to pick us up at 3:30pm to have plenty of time to drive back to the port, but by 2:30, we had lost all of our shade and finished all of our beers, so we decided to pack it up an hour early.  Bananarama has a seating area off to the side which is designated for tour guides to have a place to wait while their guests are enjoying the beach, so we knew exactly where to find Windell.  We needed a few minutes to dry off and put all of our stuff away, so he went to find Darson and told us to meet him out in the parking lot when we were ready.  We left the beach around 2:40pm.  This proved to be another advantage of taking a private tour in that we could adjust the schedule however we wanted and we didn’t need to coordinate with anyone else.

 

As expected, there was a bit of traffic on the drive back, but the time passed quickly as we chatted with Windell, learning more about his life on the island.  We actually got to talk with him about some topics that tour guides usually stay away from (politics and sexual orientation), and he was very open and honest with us.  Windell was a great tour guide and we really enjoyed our day with him.  The drive back to Mahogany Bay took around 45 minutes, and Darson was able to drive into the port area to drop us off a little closer than where we had to meet him this morning.  We thanked them both for a wonderful day in Roatan, and then made our way passed the shops and back towards the ship.

 

Of course, we needed to stop for a quick photo on the way, now that the sun was at a better angle!

 

We boarded this ship and went up one quick flight of stairs to our cabin to drop off our bags.  This little guy was waiting to greet us…

 

We also had a letter in our mailbox with instructions for priority tendering tomorrow in Belize.

[watermelonqueen99]

Awesome review! We sailed with Zack Daniels last October and he is AMAZING! By far our favorite PBE to date. Looking forward to more!

[MJSailors]

2 hours ago, deladane said:

 

haha nothing to worry about... they had a sink where we could wash our hands, as well as a container of purell 😉

Good to know !

Thanks for the info !

Sending good wishes to you and DH from Long Island ( the East End).

[deladane]

2 hours ago, watermelonqueen99 said:

Awesome review! We sailed with Zack Daniels last October and he is AMAZING! By far our favorite PBE to date. Looking forward to more!

 

Thanks for reading!

[deladane]

2 hours ago, MJSailors said:

Good to know !

Thanks for the info !

Sending good wishes to you and DH from Long Island ( the East End).

 

I'm originally from south west Nassau County, and DH is from Westchester 😄  No matter where I live, I'll always be a New Yorker!

[Purdey16]

On 4/8/2019 at 12:20 AM, deladane said:

opened

Love your pictures and such beautiful colours of the beach and sea , what under water camera did you use please they were really good and clear and your trip to the sloths look great fun and they do look cute your your review is fantastic and due to different time zone it's my bed time read 

Thank you 

[lab_love123]

Your snorkeling pictures are so great! The information you've provided about your excursions is really helpful - if I ever get to these ports, I'll be able to look back at this review to help my decisions!

[MJSailors]

7 hours ago, deladane said:

 

I'm originally from south west Nassau County, and DH is from Westchester 😄  No matter where I live, I'll always be a New Yorker!

👍 😉

[JaniceB]

I was wondering how deep it was when I saw your photo of the coral from the shore, that was kind of scary but all the fish made up for it I am sure.

[deladane]

8 hours ago, Purdey16 said:

Love your pictures and such beautiful colours of the beach and sea , what under water camera did you use please they were really good and clear and your trip to the sloths look great fun and they do look cute your your review is fantastic and due to different time zone it's my bed time read 

Thank you 

 

Thank you!  All of the photos from this review were taken with an Olympus Tough TG-5 camera, and the ones with the above/below water also used the fisheye attachment lens that you can purchase separately for the camera.  I bought this camera when it was first released in the summer of 2017 and have used it on my last 3 cruises and have gotten great results!

[deladane]

3 hours ago, lab_love123 said:

Your snorkeling pictures are so great! The information you've provided about your excursions is really helpful - if I ever get to these ports, I'll be able to look back at this review to help my decisions!

 

That's why I take the time to write up my reviews... to pay it forward and hopefully help others plan their cruises. Pretty much everything I do on my cruises is based on reviews from Cruise Critic!  Thanks for reading 🙂

[deladane]

53 minutes ago, JaniceB said:

I was wondering how deep it was when I saw your photo of the coral from the shore, that was kind of scary but all the fish made up for it I am sure.

 

The water isn't deep at all... we got pretty far out from the shore and could still stand when we saw a flat sandy bottom to rest on (never stand on the coral!)  It just gets scary when you are swimming along and the current takes you to an area where the coral rises up nearly to the surface of the water so there's no space for you to pass over it without hitting into it!  I know it is possible to swim through a channel with no coral so you can make it out to the edge of the reef, but we were not able to find that spot from standing on the beach.  When in doubt, there are lots of little boats that will take you out a little further to where it is deep enough that you won't hit into the coral... we just didn't want to spend the extra money on that when we could swim from the shore.  Either way, West Bay has some of the best snorkeling from a beach that I've experienced and I wouldn't hesitate to return if I'm lucky enough to visit Roatan on another cruise 🙂

[deladane]

We started to regret our decision not to get some pizza at the beach because it was now 4pm and we were starving!  We had yet to try Guy’s Burger Joint, and even though we knew it was dangerously close to our 6pm dinner time, we knew we couldn’t wait 2 more hours to eat.  Luckily, the line was really short at the grill and at the toppings bar, so we were seated at a table and ready to eat in no time.

 

 

 

I love that you can add your own toppings, with as much or as little of each as you like… let’s face it, the toppings are the best part!  In an effort to not completely ruin my appetite for dinner, I left the bun off and only ate the burger and toppings, and I shared my fries with DH. 

 

After our not-so-light snack, we went back to the cabin to get ready for dinner.  By 5pm, I felt exhausted and needed to lie down for a while to regain some energy.  I guess all that fun in the sun got to me because I was really tired.  We turned on the TV to catch up on the news, and finally gathered up enough energy to go upstairs for dinner right around 6pm.  When we arrived, Prudence’s section was nearly deserted.  All aboard time was at 5:30pm today, so maybe people didn’t have enough time to get ready for the early dining time?  Or maybe they all just wanted to eat at Lido instead?

 

Tonight’s menu

 

 

Roatan Port of Call Menu

 

[deladane]

None of the entrees appealed to me, and as expected, I wasn’t really hungry anyway, so I just ordered 2 appetizers and that was it.

 

Cannelloni (this was really good, and had I been more hungry, I may have ordered another one and considered it an entrée sized portion)

 

Braised Ox Tongue (This was not as good.  I thought I would like it because I love cow’s tongue at the delis back in New York, but this was tough and rubbery and I did not care for the flavor.  For me, this was a rare miss in the Carnival MDR)

 

I don’t remember what DH ordered, but I think he was also full from his burger and didn’t eat much, and I know for sure that neither of us ordered dessert.

 

 

Poor Prudence was very confused as to why we left dinner so early, but we explained that we were exhausted from our day in port and had a very late lunch, so we just weren’t in the mood for a big dinner tonight.  We left the dining room around 6:50pm and realized that it was so early that we could catch the early show for 80’s Pop to the Max in the Encore! Theater.  I was doubtful that I would still be awake for the 9:30pm show, so this worked out really well.  I love 80’s music and I was looking forward to seeing this show, and the thought that I might fall asleep and miss it made me sad, so it’s a good thing that things worked out as they did. 

 

[deladane]

The doors opened at 7pm and we were able to sit in our favorite seats in the front of the balcony, to the left of the control boards. 

 

 

A few minutes before showtime, the dancers came out to warm up the crowd.  Since it is necessary to arrive somewhat early for shows on cruise ships if you want a good seat, I like that Carnival did these pre-shows to give us something to do while we’re waiting.  I mean, I could just scroll through my Thumbs Up feed, but what fun would that be?

 

I know I was a bit harsh when I shared my thoughts about Motor City, but I was really hopeful that tonight’s show would be better.  Like I said, I love 80’s music.  It’s fun and upbeat, and lends itself to great costumes and dance routines.  The song selection for this show was pretty good, including a mash up of a bunch of one hit wonders which I really enjoyed, but unfortunately, the singing was just not good.  The set for this show uses several giant electronic boards as the back drop, which added lots of opportunities for creativity in the show.  My favorite part was that they had 3 or 4 treadmill bases which they kept moving into different configurations and incorporating into lots of the songs.  That was actually really cool and original!  Unfortunately, if you strip that away, the singing was mediocre at best.  The reason I emphasize this so much is that we heard on Thursday that there were technical difficulties in the late show.  They made it through two songs and then the electronic backdrop boards died.  They tried to fix them but couldn’t figure it out, so the cast brought out some stools and sat on the stage to sing through the rest of the show.  I honestly cannot imagine how miserable that would have been, and I heard some pretty bad reviews from people who witnessed it.  We were extremely grateful that we finished dinner early enough to catch the early show because at least we got to see all the dancing and special effects!

 

My apologies for the blurry photos… it was the best I could do sitting that far away and without using a flash.

 

This was for Whitney Houston’s song “I want to dance with somebody”… the dancers were supposed to look like they were dancing with the silhouettes on the screens.  I liked the concept, but not sure that it translated well on such a large scale.

 

The photos I took of the dancers using the treadmills did not come out well because there was too much movement and the people looked very blurry, but you can see them on the ground at the back of the stage in the next two photos.

 

 

 

The finale song was Michael Jackson’s “Man in the Mirror”… kind of an odd choice for a finale considering it’s more of a ballad than an upbeat pop song, but I appreciated that they were trying to share the message of change and bettering yourself.

 

 

[deladane]

When the show ended, we grabbed our favorite seats on deck 4 overlooking the lobby to watch Gary host the Decades Music Trivia Party.  This was a lot of fun (perhaps more fun than the show was!).  They played a quick one second clip of a 3 popular songs from each decade (60’s, 70’s, 80’s and 90’s), and we had to yell out if we knew the name of the song.  Then they played a verse or two of each song to see if we were correct.  Several times throughout the game, Gary pulled up people from the audience to do a little something extra like an air guitar contest, or a dance off, or something like that, and he gave out prizes to those winners.  It went on for about 45 minutes and was well attended judging from the people watching from all 3 decks in the atrium.

 

They shot off streamers at one point… and then had to rush to collect them before they got tangled up in the glass elevator pulleys! Haha

 

When they played “I Had the Time of my Life” from Dirty Dancing, Gary and one of the guys from the entertainment team reenacted the famous lift.  That was pretty impressive!

 

After the trivia ended, I realized I was getting hungry.  Of course, that shouldn’t surprise anyone since I barely ate dinner and it was close to 9pm, so 5 hours after our late lunch at Guy’s Burgers.  We went up to the Lido Buffet to see what options were available tonight.  The deli was serving a special grilled cheese sandwich today which sounded really good, with grilled onions, spinach, and muenster and cheddar cheese, so I ordered it.  They did a great job of toasting it this time and I had high hopes… until I took a bite and realized it was covered with mayo!  This really annoyed me because they listed out all of the ingredients on the sign advertising the special sandwich (sorry, I forgot to take a photo) but made no mention of mayo!  Had I known, I would have asked for no mayo since I really dislike mayo.  There was so much of it, and with the gooey cheese, it was impossible to scrape it off.  DH said he would eat some of it, so at least it didn’t totally go to waste.

 

At least I got lucky because there was no one in like at the pizza place and I had no wait at all for a few slices of the Funghi pizza! 

 

That was the perfect snack to fill me up enough that I wasn’t hungry anymore, but not so filling that it prevented me from sleeping well.  And with that, we got ready for bed and fell asleep early to recharge for another exciting day tomorrow in Belize!

 

Step Tracker Daily Total:  8,965 steps; 3.62 miles; 14 flights of stairs 

[mcgore83]

Great review and pictures!  Thank you so much for sharing with us.

[emdia43]

36 minutes ago, deladane said:

We started to regret our decision not to get some pizza at the beach because it was now 4pm and we were starving!  We had yet to try Guy’s Burger Joint, and even though we knew it was dangerously close to our 6pm dinner time, we knew we couldn’t wait 2 more hours to eat.  Luckily, the line was really short at the grill and at the toppings bar, so we were seated at a table and ready to eat in no time.

 

 

 

I love that you can add your own toppings, with as much or as little of each as you like… let’s face it, the toppings are the best part!  In an effort to not completely ruin my appetite for dinner, I left the bun off and only ate the burger and toppings, and I shared my fries with DH. 

 

After our not-so-light snack, we went back to the cabin to get ready for dinner.  By 5pm, I felt exhausted and needed to lie down for a while to regain some energy.  I guess all that fun in the sun got to me because I was really tired.  We turned on the TV to catch up on the news, and finally gathered up enough energy to go upstairs for dinner right around 6pm.  When we arrived, Prudence’s section was nearly deserted.  All aboard time was at 5:30pm today, so maybe people didn’t have enough time to get ready for the early dining time?  Or maybe they all just wanted to eat at Lido instead?

 

Tonight’s menu

 

 

Roatan Port of Call Menu

 

I noticed that the vegetarian option is the same every night!  

[deladane]

12 minutes ago, emdia43 said:

I noticed that the vegetarian option is the same every night!  

 

They actually had 2 vegetarian dishes most (if not all) nights... the "featured vegetarian" dish was always the same Indian dish, but right above that was a second vegetarian option (tonight it was tofu, another night a roasted tomato or spanakopita or something else).

[deladane]

25 minutes ago, mcgore83 said:

Great review and pictures!  Thank you so much for sharing with us.

 

Thanks for reading!