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

[deladane]

Even though we purchased FTTF and could board the ship really early, we still had one more tour we wanted to cramp into our brief 48 hour stay in NOLA… a tour of the St. Louis #1 Cemetery!  This is the oldest cemetery in New Orleans, and I have always been fascinated by the mausoleum style of graves used here, so I was really excited to squeeze this tour into our schedule.  This was another tour offered by the company we used yesterday afternoon, Free Tours by Foot, but it was not technically free.  The city of New Orleans started charging $2 per person to enter the cemetery because they were having such a high volume of traffic that it was causing damage to the graves and they needed to raise money for maintenance and repairs.  Free Tours by Foot charges $2 per person for this tour to cover the cost of entering the cemetery, but I was fine with that considering it is directly benefiting the cemetery itself.  Of course, they still appreciate us tipping our tour guides as well.  They offer this tour two or three times a day, including some tours at night with a ghost story theme.  It worked out perfectly for us to do this tour early on Sunday morning before boarding the ship for our cruise.

 

We got ready for the day and finished packing up our luggage so we could just quickly grab our bags when we got back after the tour and didn’t need to delay boarding the ship any more than necessary.  It didn’t take much thought for us to decide to return to District Donuts for breakfast.  That was so good yesterday that we wanted another chance to try it today.  In case you were curious, I did check to see if any place near our AirBNB sold beignets, but I didn’t find anything and just planned for us to visit the Riverwalk location of Café Du Monde the day we returned from the cruise.  I loved the Samoa donut that I had yesterday, but I also wanted to try something different, so DH and I decided to get one Samoa and one brownie batter donut (brownie batter glaze, brownie, and chocolate chips), and we shared both.  The brownie one was good, but I still liked the samoa better.

 

 

After breakfast, we hopped on the #11 bus to get down to the French Quarter.  The bus only runs every 30 minutes this early on a Sunday morning but we were awake so early that we caught an earlier bus than I had planned, which gave us some time to wonder the streets of the French Quarter before meeting the guide for our tour.  It was so beautiful to walk along the quiet streets in the morning fog with nearly no one else around.

 

 

 

 

 

I loved how eerie the gates to Jackson Square looked in the morning light.

 

 

 

 

 

A little Mardi Gras humor

 

Funky light fixtures at the entrance to one of the hotels:

 

[hockeyguru32]

On 3/27/2019 at 11:12 AM, deladane said:

 

 

 

Interesting sign "Stay seated while boat is moving"

[pghsteelerfan]

1 hour ago, deladane said:

I loved how eerie the gates to Jackson Square looked in the morning light.

 

 

 

A little Mardi Gras humor

 

 

 

These first two pictures are just spectacular!!!  These would look so nice framed and displayed together.  We never got there early enough in the morning, so most of my pics have people in them.  One of my favorites from that trip is one I got of St. Louis Cathedral in Jackson Square shortly before sunset.  I'd love to get a canvas print of that one, just waiting till Photobucket has a sale.  🙂 

The last picture...Lol!!!  We saw those skeletons and I have a couple of pictures of them too!  So glad you got to Pat O'Brien's and enjoyed Hurricanes (love 'em) and the Piano Bar.  We were all back in the corner to the side of the stage.  Did you get to see the changing color fountains in the outside patio area?  We were out there one of the evenings too and I really loved those.  I am really enjoying this and now looking forward to your actual cruise.  🙂

Edited March 29, 2019 by pghsteelerfan

[JaniceB]

Love the dualing pianos at Pat O's but I found a better place for hurricanes on Bourbon St. but it is all the way at the end.  It is Lafittes Blacksmith Shop bar.  The hurricanes are not as sweet but pack a punch, LOL.  Great pictures.

[Dvelocity]

I am loving this - Sail the glory in 2020 out of NOLA

[deladane]

8 hours ago, hockeyguru32 said:

Interesting sign "Stay seated while boat is moving"

 

So it's a good thing the boat wasn't moving when we took this photo 😉 Danny actually told me to come up and stand next to him, so no worries, we were safe!

[deladane]

7 hours ago, pghsteelerfan said:

These first two pictures are just spectacular!!!  These would look so nice framed and displayed together.  We never got there early enough in the morning, so most of my pics have people in them.  One of my favorites from that trip is one I got of St. Louis Cathedral in Jackson Square shortly before sunset.  I'd love to get a canvas print of that one, just waiting till Photobucket has a sale.  🙂 

The last picture...Lol!!!  We saw those skeletons and I have a couple of pictures of them too!  So glad you got to Pat O'Brien's and enjoyed Hurricanes (love 'em) and the Piano Bar.  We were all back in the corner to the side of the stage.  Did you get to see the changing color fountains in the outside patio area?  We were out there one of the evenings too and I really loved those.  I am really enjoying this and now looking forward to your actual cruise.  🙂

 

Thank you Holly!  I really love how those two black and white photos turned out and I couldn't decide which one to post in the review... so I posted both! hehe  We were standing in Jackson Square for a good 20 minutes for the start of our French Quarter walking tour and I really wanted to sneak away to take photos of that entrance gate.  When we ended up with a few minutes to spare on Sunday morning, I knew immediately that I wanted to return here to take some photos.  

 

We just took a quick glance at the outside patio so we didn't notice the fountain.  Then again, it was also before sunset so I'm not sure if the fountain changes color during the day or just at night?  It looked like a fun patio and was pretty busy for the late afternoon.  

[deladane]

5 hours ago, JaniceB said:

Love the dualing pianos at Pat O's but I found a better place for hurricanes on Bourbon St. but it is all the way at the end.  It is Lafittes Blacksmith Shop bar.  The hurricanes are not as sweet but pack a punch, LOL.  Great pictures.

 

Oooh, those sound like great hurricanes too!  My tolerance is pretty low, so just one hurricane from Pat O's and I was basically set for the rest of the night.  I only took a few sips of the fish bowl and left DH to handle the rest on his own haha

[deladane]

5 hours ago, Dvelocity said:

I am loving this - Sail the glory in 2020 out of NOLA

 

Thanks for reading!

[mrsv41605]

Great review!  We are doing a plantation/swamp tour Saturday morning before cruise day as well.  I am curious as to the timing of your cemetery tour--I have one booked at 9:30 am on embark day, and my DH is flipping out about getting to the ship.  Is it truly an hour tour, or does it go over?  What time did you get to the ship?  

[mojavetex]

Love the detail in your review!  We are booked on the Vista, Dream and Freedom.  The Magic and Breeze have been our favorite ships so excited to be on the Dream for the first time.

[deladane]

When we reached Bourbon Street, OMG!  It was such a mess!!  There are no words to describe the odor that filled the air (so I’ll just let you use your imagination about that), and I couldn’t believe how much trash was all over the street.  Notice all of the bright green cups from the Hand Grenades??

 

 

We needed to meet up for our tour at 9:15am, and when we arrived, we were greeted by 2 tour guides.  Over 40 people signed up for this tour, so they planned to split us into 2 smaller groups.  I asked one of the guides around what time the tour was scheduled to end (as even though I wanted to enjoy this tour and learn about the cemeteries, I was also anxious to get down to the cruise port!).  He said that his tour is usually a little shorter than an hour and 15 minutes, and the other guide talks a bit more so she tends to run a little longer.  Luckily, it worked out that when they divided the group, we were in Kyle’s group for the slightly shorter tour length.  He led us all around the cemetery, and pointed out famous graves and interesting tombs.  Although it was obviously morbid, I found it all to be so fascinating to learn about.

 

 

 

 

 

[deladane]

In the photo below, you can see that the doors on the front of the tombs are divided in half.  I always thought this was so they could bury two people, one on top of the other.  I also always thought that they use this above-ground style of grave in New Orleans to prevent bodies from rising up from underground and floating away.  Kyle explained the true history behind these graves, and it has nothing to do with possible flooding washing away the graves.  The entire city of New Orleans used to be within the few blocks of the French Quarter, and they feared that they would run out of space using traditional cemeteries.  They dug up all of the old graves and started using mausoleums instead.  They put the bodies in thin wood boxes inside the clay tomb in the top of the 2 levels, and leave it there for a year and a day.  In that time, the tomb acts like an oven and the body is naturally incinerated.  Waiting a year and a day means the body will be there over the summer when it gets very hot in Louisiana, and it also allows families a chance to visit their loved ones on the one year anniversary of their burial.  When they open the tomb back up, they sweep the remains into a bag which is labeled and stored in the bottom compartment.  They originally just brushed the remains to the back of the top shelf where there is an opening for the remains to fall to the bottom section, but then multiple family members’ remains got mixed together.  Today, they bag each person separately and label the bags in case the remains are ever needed for DNA testing.  The family can keep reusing the tomb over and over again, which is why you will see many names listed on the face plate of each tomb.

 

 

 

So what happens when more than one person from a family dies in the same year?  The cemetery has these tombs available to rent as needed, and then the bagged remains are placed inside the family tomb when they are ready.

 

This was the tomb of Homer Plessy, as in the famous court case Plessy v. Ferguson which upheld the constitutionality of racial segregation laws for public facilities ("separate but equal").

 

This tomb was featured in the movie Night Rider.  Kyle said that the Church who oversees the cemetery was so upset about how the film disrespected the cemetery that they never let anyone film any kind of movie here again.  When we first started our tour, Kyle said we could take as many still photos as we wanted, but we were not allowed to record a video of any kind.

 

This pyramid-shaped tomb is the future resting place of actor Nicholas Cage

 

 

[deladane]

Perhaps the most famous person buried in this cemetery is Marie Laveau, the originator of Voodoo practice in New Orleans.  Honestly, neither DH or I had ever heard of her before this tour, but Kyle said she is a really big deal in New Orleans.

 

 

The tour ended at 10:45am and we both thought this was time well-spent instead of rushing off to board the ship first thing in the morning.  But now that it was over, it was time to get over to the Dream!  Double checking the port webcam, it looked like the fog on the river had lifted and the ship was waiting for us to get down there!

 

We requested an Uber with 2 stops… first, back to the AirBNB to grab our bags and return the keys, and second, to the cruise port.  I love that Uber has this feature now to go to two stops in the same car because it saved us a lot of time (and probably some money too!) versus using two separate Ubers for those two trips.  The one downside is that they only give you 3 minutes for the car to wait at that first stop because it is meant for dropping someone off or picking someone up enroute to your destination.  This was why we needed to make sure our bags were fully packed, zippered, and ready to go before leaving the house this morning… because we only had 3 minutes to bring all our bags down 2 flights of stairs and get loaded in the trunk before Uber starts charging a fee.  Everything worked out perfectly and we were both sitting back in the car, ready to go, in 2 minutes 40 seconds. 

 

Luck was on our side yet again because our driver had been to the cruise port before and knew exactly where to go and how the process worked.  We have had Uber drivers on prior cruises who had never driven passengers to the cruise port before and it was very confusing for all of us, so this driver was wonderful.  When we drove into the port entrance, there were a ton of cars lined up in one lane, but we just drove passed them and the port workers directed us to a free lane that went straight to the passenger drop off location.  All of the cars we passed were waiting to park their cars in the port parking lot, and we heard complaints from our fellow passengers throughout the cruise about how miserable the traffic was getting to the parking lots and how many hours they were waiting to get in.  It seemed like there was a higher number of people driving to port for this cruise as compared to cruises out of Florida, so it’s not surprising that there were very long lines of cars backed up to access the parking lots.  In addition to all the people going on our cruise, the Norwegian Breakaway was docked right beside the Carnival Dream doing their own turn around day, so more than 7,500 people were all trying to access this one port at the same time.  That’s a lot of people trying to access one small port area!

 

The Uber dropped us off at 11:20am and a porter came over to help me staple my luggage tags to our one big checked bag.  We rolled our smaller carry on bags into the terminal and just kept asking people where to go for FTTF.  The whole process went so quickly that I didn’t have a chance to really look around, but I did not see any signs that specified “FTTF go this way” so I had to keep asking the employees to make sure we were in the right place.  Our first stop was to go through security, where they scanned our bags through an airport style x-ray machine and we walked through a metal detector.  They asked us to remove our bottles of wine from our bag, and told us we had to have them inspected at a separate table.  Maybe they thought we emptied out the wine and replaced it with liquor?  I’m not sure how that was possible, but our 2 bottles of wine were legit so no worries.  Next, we went up the escalator and there was no wait for the check in line.  I am used to seeing a big, long desk with lots of people behind the counter waiting to check you in.  In New Orleans, they have these little portable rolling carts and the guy checking us in used a scanner on a cell phone to scan our passports.  He spent less than 60 seconds helping us, scribbled something on our boarding passes, and told us to walk “that way”.  We filled out the check in information online prior to the cruise, so maybe that’s why the process went so quickly?  We continued walking into a room with a ton of chairs, but since boarding has already started, there wasn’t anyone sitting around waiting in this area.  We were directed to walk straight over to the gangway and we stepped onto the ship at 11:38am.  In total, it took us 18 minutes from when we got out of our Uber car until we were standing in the lobby of the Dream.  I am not sure exactly what time boarding started earlier this morning, but I imagine that there was a big rush of people at that time.  By now, things had calmed down so there were no people backed up from FTTF and we just kept on moving through each step of the process.

 

Once on the ship, our first stop was to go down to our cabin to drop off our bags, and DH wanted to take a quick nap because he didn’t sleep well last night.  I’m not much of a napper, but I planned to start unpacking the carry on bags while he slept.  Imagine our surprise when we got to our cabin door and it was propped open with a dirty white tube sock in the middle of the floor!  There was still trash in the trash cans, the bar of soap was used in the soap dish, and the shampoo dispensers in the showers were empty, so we could tell that the stewardess didn’t finish cleaning our cabin yet.  I would have expected that had we boarded right at 10 or 10:30am when FTTF first started boarding, but it was now 11:45am and there was no reason our cabin shouldn’t be ready yet.  We tracked down our stewardess Jennifer (actually, it turned out that she was our assistant stewardess, but we really only interacted with her all week and I’m not sure if we ever met our head stewardess), and she told us she had misread her paper and did not realize we had FTTF.  She said she was almost done and just needed to vacuum our cabin.  Ummm, so you don’t plan to clean our bathrooms??  We pointed out the things in the bathroom that needed attention and she said to leave our bags on the bed and go to lunch, and she would finish up soon.  I didn’t love the idea of leaving our carry on bags (which have all of our electronics and things too valuable to put in a checked bag) in a cabin with the door opened where anyone coming down the hallway can just hop inside and steal the bag, so I asked her to be sure to close the door when she finished cleaning.  Thanks to our great breakfast at District Donuts, we really were not hungry yet for lunch, so we walked around a bit and checked out the ship before it got too crowded.  Before we walked away, I took the envelope from the mailbox outside our cabin.  Our sign and sail cards were sealed inside, and it was clearly printed on the front that we had purchased FTTF.

 

[deladane]

14 hours ago, mrsv41605 said:

Great review!  We are doing a plantation/swamp tour Saturday morning before cruise day as well.  I am curious as to the timing of your cemetery tour--I have one booked at 9:30 am on embark day, and my DH is flipping out about getting to the ship.  Is it truly an hour tour, or does it go over?  What time did you get to the ship?  

 

Did you book the same tour we did, through Free Tours by Foot?  If so, and assuming you get the same guide we did (Kyle), then the tour was about an hour and 15 minutes long.  I know there are other companies who offer similar tours, so I'm not sure about their timing.  And it is also possible that if you did book with FTBF, you may end up with a different guide than we had, so I guess there are a few variables to consider.  That said, the cemetery isn't THAT big, so I can't imagine any tour would be longer than an hour and a half haha

 

Hopefully my previous post answers all of your questions about timing and how/when we got to the ship.  I don't think it would have been possible for us to get there any sooner, considering how amazing everything played out timing-wise.  Where is your hotel?  Are you driving your own car to the port or taking Uber/taxi?  Another factor that significantly sped up our timing was that we stayed on Magazine Street, so we we approached the port from the opposite direction as people coming from the French Quarter or the highway.  We went north along Tchoupitoulas St and there was hardly any traffic, but there was a lot more traffic for cars approaching from the other direction due to construction and a higher volume of vehicles.  

 

I hope that helps!  FWIW, we thought the tour was definitely worth taking, and if you are that concerned about getting to the ship sooner, you could always leave the tour early.

[deladane]

2 hours ago, mojavetex said:

Love the detail in your review!  We are booked on the Vista, Dream and Freedom.  The Magic and Breeze have been our favorite ships so excited to be on the Dream for the first time.

 

Thank you!  Now that I'm done with the pre-cruise posts in NOLA, I'll have lots of photos of the Dream coming up soon!

[mrsv41605]

Thanks so much for the info!  I had my cemetery tour booked with another company, but I just cancelled and rebooked with Free Tours by Foot.  We are staying at the Courtyard/Marriott Iberville so the FTBF meeting location is actually closer to our hotel. My DH likes to be the first one at the port, but I am not going to miss touring this cemetery!  We are platinum, so I think we can pretty much get there anytime, but I did choose 11:30 to 12 for check in appointment, and it looks like that is a good timeframe for doing this tour as well.  The weekend we are there is also French Quarter Fest, but I'm not going to stress over the traffic.  I'll leave that to DH!  Looking forward to your thoughts on the Dream.  We have been on her once before in 2010 with a large group of family.  

[pghsteelerfan]

17 hours ago, deladane said:

 

Thank you Holly!  I really love how those two black and white photos turned out and I couldn't decide which one to post in the review... so I posted both! hehe  We were standing in Jackson Square for a good 20 minutes for the start of our French Quarter walking tour and I really wanted to sneak away to take photos of that entrance gate.  When we ended up with a few minutes to spare on Sunday morning, I knew immediately that I wanted to return here to take some photos.  

 

We just took a quick glance at the outside patio so we didn't notice the fountain.  Then again, it was also before sunset so I'm not sure if the fountain changes color during the day or just at night?  It looked like a fun patio and was pretty busy for the late afternoon.  

Thought you might like to "see" this fountain at Pat O's  This is it, just beautiful.  🙂

[bettyboop16]

On ‎3‎/‎27‎/‎2019 at 8:09 PM, deladane said:

 

Funny you mention that... I've been debating if there was a way I could post a similar style of review for Paris and London on the board for Northern Europe cruises.  Technically, yes, it is a land vacation and we are not taking a cruise on that trip, but lots of people go to Paris and London pre- and post- cruises from Europe, and some itineraries even dock nearby those cities.  I do have a blog (you can find it here:  deladane.home.blog) but it doesn't get nearly as much traffic as my posts on cruise critic.  I'm afraid I won't be as motivated to write a good review if hardly anyone is reading it haha  I was considering posting in the Europe ports of call section to ask if anyone had interest in reading about my time in Paris/London to help plan their pre- and post-cruise stays, and if so, then I will definitely do it.  Just not sure if it's against the rules because we're not going on a cruise and this is a forum about cruising (...does a one hour "cruise" tour along the Thames and Seine River count as a cruise??? haha)

I would enjoy reading about your trip. I haven't been to Europe yet. If all goes well, I will be in Barcelona May 2020 for a cruise on the Carnival Radiance. I think your trip report would benefit travelers that will be in that region. Maybe I can get Paris & London in the future.

[bettyboop16]

On ‎3‎/‎28‎/‎2019 at 8:20 PM, deladane said:

 

haha I know, pizza is kind of embarrassing considering the other options available in NOLA.  Partly, we just wanted something quick and easy so we could spend more time exploring.  Partly, we had some trouble finding restaurants that would work for both of us because I don't like spicy food and DH doesn't like shellfish, so that nixes nearly everything in NOLA lol  At least we did get to try a few NOLA staples with the muffeletta, poboy, and of course, we had beignets on the last day of the trip!

Hope you got your beignets at Café Du Monde.....So Good!

[deladane]

6 hours ago, mrsv41605 said:

Thanks so much for the info!  I had my cemetery tour booked with another company, but I just cancelled and rebooked with Free Tours by Foot.  We are staying at the Courtyard/Marriott Iberville so the FTBF meeting location is actually closer to our hotel. My DH likes to be the first one at the port, but I am not going to miss touring this cemetery!  We are platinum, so I think we can pretty much get there anytime, but I did choose 11:30 to 12 for check in appointment, and it looks like that is a good timeframe for doing this tour as well.  The weekend we are there is also French Quarter Fest, but I'm not going to stress over the traffic.  I'll leave that to DH!  Looking forward to your thoughts on the Dream.  We have been on her once before in 2010 with a large group of family.  

 

That sounds perfect! We had the 12-12:30pm check in slot, not knowing how fast our timing would turn out and that we would arrive at port so early. With FTTF, I knew it didn’t really matter when we arrived since we could board anytime we wanted.

 

The Dream must have beautiful in 2010 when it was so new! It’s still in pretty good shape but it’s def showing some rust and signs of age that you wouldn’t have seen the last time you sailed on her.

[deladane]

4 hours ago, pghsteelerfan said:

Thought you might like to "see" this fountain at Pat O's  This is it, just beautiful.  🙂

 

OMG! That fountain is so cool with the martini glass shape and different colored lighting!  I also love the lit up hurricane glass in the background! So sad I didn’t see that but thanks for sharing 🙂

[deladane]

1 hour ago, bettyboop16 said:

I would enjoy reading about your trip. I haven't been to Europe yet. If all goes well, I will be in Barcelona May 2020 for a cruise on the Carnival Radiance. I think your trip report would benefit travelers that will be in that region. Maybe I can get Paris & London in the future.

 

Thanks for the feedback!  I think I should just go for it. The worst that will happen is no one will read what I write, right? Hehe

[deladane]

1 hour ago, bettyboop16 said:

Hope you got your beignets at Café Du Monde.....So Good!

 

Oops, just noticed you wrote two replies and I could have responded to both at the same time. 

 

Spoiler alert... we did get beignets on disembarkation day and they were amazing! 😋

[deedle7544]

3 hours ago, deladane said:

 

Thanks for the feedback!  I think I should just go for it. The worst that will happen is no one will read what I write, right? Hehe

I'll be reading!!!