Our entire family ( 23 of us-age 1-78) had been looking forward to what would be our last trip together what with health issues, babies and college in all of our futures. My parents gave all of their children and grandchildren an all expense paid trip on the Carnival Dream. We had all had positive experiences on previous cruises including the Carnival Dream and my mom was about to embark on her 38th cruise. We were especially excited as it would be during the Christmas Holiday ( Dec 28-Jan 4)and we were assured that this would be everything we had hoped for and more. High expectations-maybe- but we had the past experience to build off of- nothing prepared us for the ultimate family disaster.
We find out right away, that even though we had booked the cruise 11 months in advance, they were unable to seat us together. With some persuasion and work, we were placed in the general vicinity -across the hall from each other at 3 tables- but not in any position to talk or visit. While service was fine the first night we were informed that one of the waiters was no longer available and this would impact service- which it most certainly did. Our family was seated for early service in the Scarlet Room and waited about 90 minutes each night to be served. We were still trying to finish eating when the next group was waiting to be seated. Often we left without finishing or having dessert. On numerous occasions the food that was served was undercooked( both chicken and beef) and cold and we ended up going elsewhere to eat since time at our seating had run out. The waiters were always pleasant but were unable to service so many people at the same time while short staffed..
Interesting note, the babies age 1 and 2 paid full price for the cruise but the parents had to supply the food for the infant as Carnival does not provide any special meals for the little ones. That meant packing as much as they could and sending someone off of the ship later to purchase more baby food.