Well, I said that I would post my review of the Carnival Dream, so here it is along with some photos from our cruise vacation!
Let me start off by saying that my DH has been on 12 cruises on several different lines (Carnival, Princess, Royal Caribbean, Celebrity, Holland America) and this was my 3rd. With that being said, we are familiar with cruising and what is out there and although we knew that Carnival was the "budget" cruise line, we were intrigued by the Dream, in that it is a new ship and the largest of the Carnival fleet. We were sure that they would have stepped it up a bit with this new ship, but sadly...we were disappointed. Needless to say, this was our last cruise with Carnival.
Although this ship is larger, all that they did was increase the amount of cabins on board to gain more revenue for more people on board. The common/public areas were the same as they are on several other ships of theirs, and they aren't much bigger in square footage so there is more people packed into smaller areas for shows, comedians, dining and even pools. There was only 2 pools which seems ridiculous when this ship's capacity is roughly 3600 passengers. Which leads to another problem. The cruise director made the mistake of mentioning a few times during the week that there were 4500 passengers on board which made the ship OVER capacity by almost 1,000 passengers. What do you think would happen if we had a problem at sea and couldn't get everyone into lifeboats? Scary thought huh?
Embarkation was one of the smoothest either of us have experienced. My dad who lives near Orlando dropped us off at the port Saturday afternoon so that we wouldn't have to pay over $100 for parking our car for a week. Once we gave our luggage to the porter, we were through security, checked in and on the boat within 15 minutes! All of our luggage was at our room by 2pm and we were unpacked before our life boat drill, which NEVER happens.
The food on the ship was par. It wasn't terrible, but it wasn't all that great either. We tried almost all the options, and there is a lot on board, especially for lunch. There is: lunch room (served food), general buffet, pasta bar (BEST LUNCH), grill (hamburgers, hot dogs and fries), pizza bar, deli, sushi, BBQ (not what you would think of a BBQ), Mongolian (GREAT TOO), Tandoori (Indian style food). As I mentioned, the pasta bar was the best lunch in my opinion. You choose your pasta, your sauce, your toppings and whether you want bread or a salad then it is brought to your table when it is ready. To avoid being boring, I'm not going to elaborate on the food, but I can tell you that I've had better food on other ships.
The shocking part was the entertainment, or lack there of. They kept stating that the production shows were multi-million dollar shows but honestly, I've seen much better at high school production shows. The music(singers) were, well...not so good. The dancers were hardly ever together making the choreography look cheap and choppy, and the direction of the productions was kindergarten rate. The comedians they had on board were the best entertainment for the evening. We made every show for them in the evenings (adult only shows, not the family shows) and always got there early because seats would get full quick! The karaoke on board was a big joke. I think they might have had 100 songs in their list, so if you were a karaoke junkie like us, you would be disappointed. The KJ (Karaoke host) had no personality and didn't involve the crowd at all, just simply called each singer up. There was one good band, called the blackjack band that sang in the Ocean Plaza each night and they were great. They did a lot of 80s cover tunes, a few country tunes and great dance hits too. As for entertainment to keep you busy during the day or events like deck parties and such, there was 1 deck party for a 7 night cruise, and it was a joke as well. We stayed for about 45 minutes and decided we could find something better to do somewhere, which we didn't...so we went to bed early that night (early as in 11:45pm).
I could go on and on, but I will not bore you with that. I will just suggest that if you are looking for a cruise and if you were considering this ship...or even this line, look somewhere else. I know that it is a cheaper line, but like what they say...you get what you pay for, right?
For our next cruise, we are considering the Royal Caribbean Oasis of the Seas. We have seen this ship several times before, but this cruise it was at every port we were at and each time we saw it, we just wanted to hop off our ship and join the gang over on the Oasis.
BUT, know that I am not complaining about being on a cruise. I was happy to be on a cruise and away from the cares of the world for a week. DH and I both needed it very much, and got to spend a week enjoying time together. I wouldn't trade anything for that!
The was the view from our lunch table before we first boarded the ship!
My sweet DH is prepared.
Ahh, time for some relaxation in the Adults area - Serenity!
The water in St. Thomas, USVI
Me and DH riding the boat back to our ship in St. Marteen
The rear view of the Oasis of the Seas (our next cruise)
