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

[deladane]

10 hours ago, deedle7544 said:

Loving your review!  Thank you for taking the time to write such a  detailed review. 

 

Thanks for reading!

[deladane]

10 hours ago, Walt fan said:

I am still here and following along and enjoying!  Just really busy at work and other stuff.  I have to say I love to snorkel but I could never ever scuba dive.  Too claustrophobic!  But I know I am missing out on so much stuff way down below.  So glad you got to do it.  

 

Love your reviews!  Will follow this to the bittersweet end!

 

Thanks Walt!  I was really nervous about my first scuba experience, but it wasn't as scary as I anticipated.  By focusing on my breathing, I stayed calm and was able to relax and enjoy the experience.  It's not for everyone though, so at least you know your limitations and can enjoy snorkeling instead 🙂

[lab_love123]

I’m still reading too! Your review has been so informative and enjoyable. 

[deladane]

10 hours ago, BigEasyCC said:

 

 

Yes, I do know how it feels not to get your request played. Last cruise on another line I was determined to hear that very Billy Joel song. I finally gave in and for $5 I heard "We Didn't Start The Fire" and he knew every word. My son said I was being cruel. No, just getting my money's worth.

 

How funny that he knew all the lyrics and was just holding out for a tip to play your song request!  We actually know all the lyrics by heart and have attracted a lot of attention singing along at other piano bars, karaoke, and even when we saw Billy Joel in concert a few years ago!  Everyone always looks at us like we're crazy to know all the words haha  Maybe it's just a cruise ship thing to make people pay for every song, but I think it's kind of ridiculous.

[deladane]

6 hours ago, Charm2018 said:

I'm still here and enjoying your review!  The time really does fly by on a cruise.  I wish the time waiting for my next one would go that fast.  🙂 

 

I hear ya!  That's partly why I spend so much time and energy planning my vacations... it gives me something productive to do to pass the time leading up to the trip.  

[deladane]

6 hours ago, dancingfish said:

Such a great review!!! I learned so many great little tips! 

 

Thanks for reading!

[deladane]

4 hours ago, pghsteelerfan said:

I'm still following along and enjoying.  I just haven't commented since I didn't have any specific questions.  I do know the feeling when you're putting a lot of time and effort into a review and the only comments are your own updates.  It was like that with the last review I did from our Carnival Liberty cruise out of San Juan.  I actually almost gave up on it but I did know that a few others who had commented earlier were following along.  Some of those were CC members we really got to "know" when we branched off on a social network site roll call, so I decided to proceed to the end.  I'm glad I did since it is nice to go back and "relive" that cruise (and the 2 others) occasionally.  But I'm definitely still following around and enjoying it. 

 

I feel really bad for you guys regarding the letdown in Belize with "mother nature" (she's a charmer, isn't she?) and the family who brought that child that needed all of the attention.  Not much you can do about wind/choppy seas, but the situation with that child?  Certain tours had age limits and this sounds like a tour that really should.  Nice that they accommodate the family/that child, but it shouldn't be at the expense of others who paid for the tour who might also want a nice experience.  I LOVED the pictures you got scuba diving, it's just a shame the guide held onto you the whole time.  I would not be a fan of that.  Lol!!!

 

Hi Holly,

Thanks for your reply 🙂  I just wanted to make sure people were still reading and I wasn't doing all of this just for my own enjoyment (although even if that were the case, I would probably keep writing anyway haha)

 

And yea, it was a bit weird that the scuba instructor held onto us the whole time.  I know that's not a requirement of discover scuba courses because I've ready plenty of reviews of other people who took the course and were allowed to swim on their own.  If/when I do another discover scuba excursion, I will definitely ask about that when I email the vendors to make sure we are free to swim on our own.  It wasn't such a bad thing for my first time scuba diving, but I don't think I'll require that level of supervision next time.

[deladane]

15 minutes ago, lab_love123 said:

I’m still reading too! Your review has been so informative and enjoyable. 

 

Thanks for reading!

[Border Granny]

Still reading and have a question.  Did you find any of the indoor areas particularly cool, especially at night?  I plan on bringing a pashmina to throw around my shoulders if I need it, just wanted to make sure I didn’t need a sweater, lol.

[deladane]

1 hour ago, Border Granny said:

Still reading and have a question.  Did you find any of the indoor areas particularly cool, especially at night?  I plan on bringing a pashmina to throw around my shoulders if I need it, just wanted to make sure I didn’t need a sweater, lol.

 

I always travel with a very thin light weight cardigan to wear over my sundresses at night.  The ship is air conditioned, but it's not very cold and I probably would have been fine without the cardigan most of the time.  You should be fine with just the pashmina 🙂

[Amadawn1]

Hi deladane!  Just wanted to let you know I've been following your review and really appreciate you sharing all of your adventures, photos and insight.  Thank you so much for sharing.  We'll be on the same itinerary in December of this year on the Vista out of Galveston.  Thanks so much again, and please keep sharing!  It is very much appreciated.

 

[sweetp12]

Hiya, I too am lurking and subscribed so every night when I get home I get to read the next little bit of your trip.  With no cruises booked I am suffering serious withdrawal so reviews are helping me get through.

 

I have loved the details you give and really enjoy your writing style.   

 

Many thanks!

[christyran1228]

We're not on the Dream until November, but I'm still excited to live vicariously through your review!  Thank you for taking the time to post one.  😁

[deladane]

10 hours ago, Amadawn1 said:

Hi deladane!  Just wanted to let you know I've been following your review and really appreciate you sharing all of your adventures, photos and insight.  Thank you so much for sharing.  We'll be on the same itinerary in December of this year on the Vista out of Galveston.  Thanks so much again, and please keep sharing!  It is very much appreciated.

 

 

Oh wow, you will have a great cruise between the Vista being such a new ship and all the great ports from my itinerary!  Hope you come back to write a review too 🙂

[deladane]

6 hours ago, sweetp12 said:

Hiya, I too am lurking and subscribed so every night when I get home I get to read the next little bit of your trip.  With no cruises booked I am suffering serious withdrawal so reviews are helping me get through.

 

I have loved the details you give and really enjoy your writing style.   

 

Many thanks!

 

Thanks for reading (and for letting me know you have been lurking all along! hehe)

[deladane]

1 hour ago, christyran1228 said:

We're not on the Dream until November, but I'm still excited to live vicariously through your review!  Thank you for taking the time to post one.  😁

 

Your cruise will be here before you know it!  Thanks for reading 🙂

[deladane]

I spent about an hour putting a big dent in the packing process, then decided to take a break and find something to eat.  I had been craving another lunch at Pasta Bella, so I went up there at around 12:15pm and OMG!  It was crazy crowded!  The hostess said it would take about 40 minutes to get my dish, and I immediately wished that I had this idea 30 minutes ago so I could have been there right when they opened at noon, and not now at the tail end of the initial rush.  Oh well, I had my trip journal with me so I found a table, filled out my request paper, and passed the time by writing in my journal.  Exactly 40 minutes later, a waiter came over with my pasta bowl, and it was totally worth the wait!

 

 

By the time I finished, it was a few minutes after 1pm, so I took a little walk around the ship to see what else was happening.  It looked like the Hairy Chest Contest was in full swing at the Lido pool.  I also didn’t see any vacant lounge chairs, so I guess you need to claim your spot before lunch if you want to spend time out here.

 

 

 

I went back upstairs to Serenity to find DH, and we went back downstairs to the cabin so he could pack up some of his stuff.  At around 2pm, I remembered that I wanted to try the Mongolian Wok one last time since I only had it once on embarkation day.  Yes, I fully acknowledge that I ate something every hour or two throughout the day, but I tried to keep the portions small to maximize how many venues I got to experience around the ship.  It would be a shame to miss out on anything! Haha

 

I got to the line at Mongolian Wok at 2:10pm, knowing that there would be a line, but wanting to make sure I was served prior to their 2:30pm closing time.  The line reached back to the doors from the elevator bank.  While I waited on line, DH went around to the other line and came back to say that it was equally long.  I wish they had a better system for the Mongolian Wok because this line moved incredibly slowly.  Part of the problem was that nearly everyone on line ahead of me was making two bowls (one for the person in line, and one for someone else who was not physically standing there).  This meant the line was twice as long as it seemed, and it took 45 minutes from when I got on line to when my food was ready.  There is only one guy cooking on each side, and he cooks 3 woks at a time, so it is just a very slow process.  At 2:30pm, one of the crew members stood at the end of the line with a sign saying “buffet closed”, so as long as you are in the line by 2:30pm, you will be served, even if you don’t get your food until long after the printed closing time. 

 

It was fun that they had calamari as the seafood option today instead of shrimp, so I asked for that and the guy was extremely generous when he scooped it out of the bowl.  I have a feeling not many people ordered it and since I was one of the last bowls he was cooking, he probably wanted to use it up.  I also ordered my dish to be cooked with soy sauce instead of one of the 3 sauces on the menu, and that was no problem at all for him.

 

Although I didn’t love waiting in line this long, I must admit the food is always really yummy!

[deladane]

Unfortunately, this whole process took way longer than I was anticipating and I had to miss the Q and A session with Gary.  I usually like going to those sessions because I like hearing about what it’s like to work on a cruise ship, and the cruise directors are usually entertaining and funny, but it just wasn’t meant to be today.  The next event I wanted to attend was trivia about the TV show Friends in the Ocean Plaza at 3:15pm.  DH isn’t a big fan of Friends, but I have seen every episode multiple times and wanted to put my knowledge to the test.  The questions were very fair, and definitely the kinds of things you’d only know if you watch the show, so that meant I was completely on my own as DH had no clue about any of the questions haha  In the end, I got 16 out of 20 correct, and I was kicking myself over the ones I missed because I knew them immediately when they announced the answers.  There ended up being a tie with 2 people both getting all 20 questions correct, so they brought both those people up to the front of the room for a tie breaker.  They had to take turns saying the name of a TV show (past or current were both okay), and the first person to not think of a reply or to repeat something already said lost.  I think one of them was nervous standing up there because he only answered 2 TV show names and the other woman was announced the winner.  DH and I could go back and forth for an hour listing TV shows, so I have a feeling that guy probably just got nervous in the moment.

 

Trivia ended at 3:45pm, just in time for us to walk down the hall to the Caliente Night Club for karaoke at 4pm.  It seemed a little weird that they had karaoke in the middle of the afternoon, but there were no other activities that interested us at this time, and DH had yet to sing for karaoke, so this was our chance.  It was already pretty crowded by the time we arrived (not sure if all these people were camped out here all afternoon in anticipation of karaoke, or if they were just ahead of us in the crowd leaving Ocean Plaza after trivia?), but we managed to find 2 seats together towards the back of the room. 

 

 

When we first arrived, it was 3:50pm and DH approached the host to make his song request.  The host said he wasn’t ready yet and he would make an announcement when it was time to come back up.  DH was sitting at the edge of his seat, ready to go as soon as that announcement was made, so he ended up being the third person in line.  That was a really good thing because there were about 50 people who ran up to request songs, and the host had to cut off any requests after that because we’d be here all night at that rate! 

 

DH rocked out on air guitar while singing Sweet Child o’ Mine by Guns N’ Roses

 

Three or four songs later, they had a technical malfunction and the host had to call in help from a technician.  It took them about 20 minutes to get things up and running again, and lots of people gave up and left at that time, so DH was really happy he got to sing before the machine broke.  They did eventually fix it and we stuck around to listen to a few more people perform.  Karaoke is always a fun time, and even if the person singing doesn’t necessarily have the greatest voice, it’s still fun to cheer them on.

 

While we were watching karaoke, I needed to check in for our flight home tomorrow.  Luckily, the signal in the Caliente Nightclub was really good, so I was able to type in my information into the Southwest app, and DH’s information into the Southwest website, and I was ready to go the second it hit 24 hours prior to our flight.  I ended up getting B-17 for me and B-30 for DH, so that was impressive considering those are the kinds of boarding numbers we get when we check in right on time at home too.

 

We stayed at karaoke until 5:30pm, but then we knew it was time to go because we wanted to get changed before dinner and we still had to finish packing.  The debarkation flyer said our luggage had to be placed outside of our cabin before 11pm, so we wanted to do it before dinner.  Otherwise we would need to interrupt our evening activities to return to the cabin and finish packing, and that’s not how we wanted to spend our last night on the ship!  It wasn’t too hard to finish packing our big bag because we maxed out our weight limit before the bag was full haha  That meant that everything else had to fit into our rolling carry on bags or backpacks, and if not, we could always rearrange as needed when we got to the airport tomorrow.  It’s always a sad moment when you put your suitcase in the hallway…

[deladane]

At 6pm, we headed upstairs for our last dinner in the MDR.  All week, I had been searching the menus for escargot but it had yet to make an appearance.  I hoped it would show up tonight on the last night of the cruise, but it did not.  That was a bit disappointing to me because I love ordering escargots on cruises and I know it is offered on other Carnival cruises, but for some reason, it was not offered on our cruise.  Maybe it has something to do with New Orleans??

 

 

 

 

DH and I both ordered the baked onion soup appetizer.  It was almost comical to compare this to the one DH had in the steakhouse on Sunday!  You know the piece of bread/crouton they put in the bowl?  It was literally a slice of sandwich bread, with the crust still on it!  They folded the bread in half, then in half again, and crammed it into the little bowl before adding broth and cheese.  Neither of us had any onions at all!  We just had to laugh…

 

 

We ordered the BBQ Chicken flat bread to share, but we both loved it so much that we probably should have gotten our own!

 

 

I ordered the Penne, Shrimp, and Bacon dish for my entrée.  DH had the Prime Rib, and I probably should have gone for that too just because it’s a fancier dish and we rarely eat steak at home, but I wasn’t in the mood for meat.  DH said his Prime Rib was good, as was my pasta dish.

 

Dessert Menu... There were no cake options tonight aside from the Baked Alaska (which is ice cream, not really cake), so I wonder if today is the pastry chef's day off?  

 

I’m not a huge fan of Baked Alaska because I try to avoid ice cream (stupid lactose intolerance!), so I ordered the Carnival Melting Chocolate Cake with no ice cream (as I always order it, much to my waiter’s confusion haha)  When my dessert arrived, it had the ice cream included, which isn’t a big deal because it is self-contained in its own ramekin, and DH doesn’t mind taking one for the team and eating it on his own so we don’t waste the food.

 

 

Just as I was about to start eating, our wait staff came over with a cake and to sing Happy Birthday to me!  My birthday is not until the week after the cruise, but that was nice of them to acknowledge it on the last night.  I just wish I had known because I did not need two heavy chocolate desserts at the same time and I wouldn’t have ordered the WCMC!  The birthday cake was more of a fudgey mouse than a cake, and it was really good, so we ended up taking it back to the cabin to snack on later tonight.  Luckily this plate was small enough to fit in our fridge!

 

 

[Border Granny]

16 hours ago, deladane said:

 

I always travel with a very thin light weight cardigan to wear over my sundresses at night.  The ship is air conditioned, but it's not very cold and I probably would have been fine without the cardigan most of the time.  You should be fine with just the pashmina 🙂

Thanks, I thought so but thought I’d check. I don’t have a thin sweater and the pashmina doesn’t take as much space in the suitcase as the ones I have:)

[Purdey16]

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

 

Deladane I will miss your up dates and sorry to see it come to a end it's always a sad time to see the suitcases out side the doors but on the bright side you got your London trip to start planning for , I'm glad you got to scuba dive a have that experience I wish I could do it but age and being a little nervous in the water I'll just stick to snorkeling , so don't give up do it while you can  your review and photos have been fantastic and you've given me some great ideas to do in new Orleans , have a safe trip home and look forward to your London review if you do one 😊 and hope the weather in England is kind to you 

Sandra

[Rudyard]

On 4/29/2019 at 9:24 AM, deladane said:

This whole week, I had been meaning to try out the meatball sandwich from the deli.  Now was my chance, and OMG it was totally worth the wait!  I’m not sure if it was because I was famished (it was now nearly 3pm) or because I still had salty ocean coating my mouth, but this sandwich was seriously delicious.

 

 

In case you were curious about what’s inside… there were 4 meatballs and a generous amount of provolone and ricotta cheese, with just the right amount of marina sauce to give it flavor but not make it all drippy and messy.

 

 

 

 

 

Loved the meatball sandwich! I had a couple of them on my last cruise.

Edited May 2, 2019 by Rudyard

[Tenamarie123]

Just wanted to tell you that I absolutely loved your review!!  I looked so forward to reading updates each day.  Your attention to detail is amazing and your way of writing is fantastic.  You have actually inspired me to do more traveling in general. All of your detailed moments and the awesome pictures of your excursions and your fun times on the ship have really gotten me super excited for our NYE cruise on the Magic this year.  Thank you so much for all of your time and effort you've put into this review.  I know it's partly the fun of re-living your vacation but it is also a lot of work and effort and it is very much appreciated and definitely not in vain.  I feel like I'm living vicariously through you until our upcoming cruise.  Cheers to you and all of your exciting new adventures to come.  Please bring us along for the ride!

[deladane]

15 hours ago, Purdey16 said:

Deladane I will miss your up dates and sorry to see it come to a end it's always a sad time to see the suitcases out side the doors but on the bright side you got your London trip to start planning for , I'm glad you got to scuba dive a have that experience I wish I could do it but age and being a little nervous in the water I'll just stick to snorkeling , so don't give up do it while you can  your review and photos have been fantastic and you've given me some great ideas to do in new Orleans , have a safe trip home and look forward to your London review if you do one 😊 and hope the weather in England is kind to you 

Sandra

 

Thanks Sandra!  I also hope the weather cooperates while we're in London (and Paris) considering I have signed us up for a ton of walking tours and bought tickets for a bunch of the key sites so we won't have much flexibility if it rains.  I do have a small foldable raincoat and umbrella which I will keep in my purse every day just in case, but it would still be better if we could have sunny skies every day 🙂

[deladane]

13 hours ago, Rudyard said:

 

Loved the meatball sandwich! I had a couple of them on my last cruise.

 

I was so glad I got to try it because it really was very good!