Dream 10-14 to 10-21 Review

[kmacht]

After reading all the recent comments about the Dream 10/14 cruise I thought I would throw my 2 cents in and write a quick review of our experience. First a little background. My wife and I are in our late 20's and this is our 2nd cruise both with NCL. Our first one was on the Dawn last September. We chose this cruise mostly because of the itinerary and the price. It also helped that we had relatives in Housten to stay with before and after the cruise.

 

Embarkation:

Getting on the ship was about as easy as it could get. The Dream is the only ship that goes out of the Houston port. Getting to the terminal was fairly straight foreward and there weren't the huge crowds of people to contend with like there is when going out of NY. We showed up at the pier around 1:30. We had to wait in line for about 5 minutes before an agent was available to check us in. Everything went smoothly with the check in with the one exception of finding out at our first port that the agent had actually taken pictures of our hands instead of our faces. Every time our card was swiped for entering or leaving the ship a picture of our knuckles showed up. Not a big deal to us but it usually caused a chuckle out of the person working the machine at the gang plank.

 

The ship:

Our room was ready by the time we boarded. We had an inside stateroom on deck 6. Overall the room was nice. The room seemed bigger than the Dawn but the bathroom was definatly smaller. There was plenty of room for the two of us and all our luggage. It was nice having the small couch in the room to use for getting dressed in the morning. The only downside to the room was the size of the shower. It was about 1/2 the size of the Dawn's. I am not a large person by any means but I still felt cramped in the shower. I am not sure how an overly heavy person would even be able to fit in there.

 

The room stewards were great. I am bad with names so I can't remember to tell you who we had. The room was always made up and kept clean. There were always fresh towels and they even seemed to straighten up some of our stuff that we left on the counters everyday. We had towel animals made just about every night. The only time they weren't made was when we had showered and the towels were still wet.

 

The shows every night were always good. We really enjoyed the commedian and the singer / commedian. The magician was only so-so. His main trick one night was the interlocking ring trick. He did it well but it is a very old trick that I am sure just about everyone has seen.

 

I was not very impressed with the theater space. The stardust theater seating did not have very good sightlines. If you sat on the couches and somebody sat in a chair in the row in front of you, you could not see the stage. Either the chairs need to be shorter or the couches need to be taller.

 

We did not spend much time in the luonges / bars. They all looked fairly appealing and always had some form of entertainment at night. The only lady singer that we saw had an awesome voice.

 

We also did not spend much time out at the pool. I did notice that there was not much shade to be found by the pool though. There were a few tables with umbrellas but not much else. There always seemed to be enough deck chairs available if sitting in the sun and getting a tan is what you like to do.

 

The Food:

Ok. I realize that food is very subjective so don't base your decision on this ship solely on what I or anybody else thought about the food. With that said, in my opinion the food was mediocre. If you like seafood you will have no trouble finding something to eat. If you don't like it then you will have a limited choice. We tried to dine in Le-Bistro on Monday night. We had a 5:30 reservation and right before we were ready to be seated they changed the menu. Fillet Mignon is no longer offered. That was our main reason for wanting to dine there. Everyting and I mean everything has some sort of seafood in it now. Even the chicken was covered in an oyster sauce. The main dining room food was decent. We were usually able to find something to eat for the main course in there that we liked. There were a few nights when they diddn't have much for appetizers that sounded appealing. We usually just asked for some cut up fruit and they had no problem accomodating the request. I highly reccomend Trattoria resteraunt although for some reason it is called sun terraces on the ship maps. The food is Itallian in there every night except for the captains night when they serve the same food as the main dining room. I had a baked lasangia that was very good. One word of caution though. For some reason up to Wednesday they did not require a reservation to eat there. We tried to eat thursday and were informed that reservations were now required. You have to show up at the resteraunt at 5:30 when they open and make your reservation if you don't want to eat at 9:30 (during the 2nd show). They do not do reservations over the phone for this resteraunt like Le-Bistro.

 

I know that there has been alot of talk about the wait times. For us it wasn't really an issue. We were a couple of 2 that did not want to share a table. When we tried to eat at peak hours we were usually told that there was a 20-30 minute wait. It usually ended up being more like 15-20 minutes. They take your name and when they are ready they come find you in the lounge. I did notice that the main dining room the 4 seasons usually had a longer wait. I believe that this was because there was a large group of "cruise lady's" on board with dinner reservations for this resteraunt. If the lines are too long you can always go to the back of the ship and eat at the terraces resteraunt. It is the same menu and usually a shorter wait.

 

Excursions:

Progresso - We did the Chichen Itza tour out of Progresso. It was a 2 hour bus ride each way but the guide we had was very entertaining and made the time fly by. He gave us all sorts of facts about the ruins and mexico. He seemed to really know his stuff. Once we got to the ruins we were given about a 1 hour tour and then given about an hour and a half to explore on our own. The only thing I diddn't care for about the place was all the people trying to sell you stuff. The pathways were lined with merchants and there were people coming up to you even when you are just walking around taking pictures. Most people were very polite and when you said no thankyou they diddn't push any further but a few just diddn't give up. We did end up buying a few small things but it would have been nice if we weren't hassled as much. You can only say no thankyou so many times.

 

Cozumel / Playa del Carmen - Here we decided to get off in Playa and di Xcarret for the day. The tender picked us up at 8am just off the shore of Playa and brought us to a small pier. There we met our tour guide and got on a bus for a short ride to the park. The park was pretty interesting and we loved the float through the underground river. The water was only 62 degrees but after about 30 seconds of being cold you got used to it and diddn't even notice. It was very refreshing with the heat. The only advice I have is to bring lunch with you. There isn't much to eat in the park unless you want to pay $25 per person for a buffet. We met back up with our guide around 3:30 and drove back to the pier. From there we were put on a ferry that dropped us off at the same pier that the Dream was not docked in Cozumel. You had about and hour and a half to do some shopping in Cozumel if you wanted to but we decided we had enough for the day and headed back to the ship.

 

Belize - This was our favorite stop. We did the Lamani and New River excursion. Our guide was awesome for this trip. The bus ride to the river was about an hour and the river ride was about 1.5 hours there and 1 hour back. On the way up the river we kept stopping along the banks and the guide (captain Chino) would point out various wildlife or plants. Once at the ruins we were given a nice lunch that consisted of chicken, rice, soda, and a cocunut desert. We then walked with the guide to each of the ruin sites. Along the way he was able to find a terranchula and a baby boa constrictor which he picked up and showed to the group. You were also able to climb the main ruin temple unlike Chichen-Itza. The river ride back was enjoyable since there was a good breeze coming from the boat the cooled you off.

 

Sea Days:

I don't have too much to say about the days at sea. They were very relaxing. If you don't mind just lounging around they will be perfect for you. If you are looking for alot of onboard activities then you will be disappointed. The few that they had were either extra cost (i.e. Bingo) or were just promotions for different spa services. The few that weren't in these categories tended to be geared towards an older audience (paper flower making and arthritis talks for example).

 

Disembarkation:

This is really the only real trouble spot that we ran into that could have been easily avoided. It turns out that the ship gives out both lavender and purple luggage tags. They are extremely close in color. It seems that even the crew that sorts the luggage can't always tell the difference. When they called our color only one piece of our luggage was at the pier waiting for us. It turns out that our other pieces were mixed in with the other purpleish looking color. There was a large group (about 50 people) that also had this same problem. Once we realized what was going on we had to wait around for about 45 minutes until the other color was offloaded.

 

Conclusion:

Overall the trip wasn't a bad deal for the money. Would I do the Dream again? No. Would I do NCL again? Absolutly. I would just book a newer ship next time and pay the slight premium for a better experience.