My wife and I took the Carnival Dream Eastern Caribbean Cruise from 7-14 September. Overall we had a good time but there were ups and down during the week.

Embarkation went very smoothly. It only took about 20-30 minutes from check-in to on-board. During lunch on the first day at the buffet, we ran into the theme of the cruise, many many people and lines. We had a hard time finding a place to sit for lunch and had to wait and battle people in the entire area. The ship is very big but also has lots of people on it so it seemed like everything was crowded most of the time. It wasn't as bad as on the Breeze during last Spring Break time but it was still very crowded.

As far as the food goes, very mixed reviews. First, the Dream could definitely use an upgrade to include Guys Burger Joint and the Burrito place. I think the buffet was pretty bad overall. Sometimes the food was cold and the quality was not very good (especially at breakfast). There were a few good things at the buffet (Indian, Pizza and Desserts) but not impressed overall. The dinner in the dining room was better and most of our meals were good. Some things were excellent but others were not good. We didn't have a meal start to finish was that was all good. We often ate in the dining room for breakfast and lunch or the Comedy Brunch. Overall the food was good for these meals. However, the service was pretty bad. It felt like since you weren't their permanent dinner table, the servers didn't care about doing a good job. They often forgot items and didn't seem friendly or happy to be there. The service at dinner was excellent! We had a really fun table that Carnival put us with (3 other couples our age) and dinner was always a good experience with the great service. Read more