Carnival Dream Review

Not a great first cruise...

Review for the Bahamas Cruise on Carnival Dream
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mrcajunjoker
First Time Cruiser • Age 40s

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Sail Date: Jul 2014

My girlfriend and I just took our first cruise (as an anniversary of dating a year) and chose Carnival out of New Orleans, so it was the Dream. We went to Key West and the Bahamas. The cruise was last week, the 20th - 27th of July. We had some issues that I think that Carnival needs to be aware of.

First of all our room was 8472, so it was a balcony room on the back of the boat... and the AC did not produce enough cold air to even cool the room. I could feel the air coming from the vent and it was cold, however there was no volume to actually cool the room. I understand that with a large window for the balcony, that the room could possibly be warmer with sunlight. I called into to maintenance as soon as I walked into to the room for the first time. I was told that they would check it. We left for a couple hours and came back to the same thing. I called a second time and was told that they should have checked it but they would schedule it to be checked again. I have no way of knowing if the room was ever checked or not. I asked the steward about possibly moving to another room and was told that the ship was full and that we couldn't move. We basically tried to sleep on top of the sheets. It makes it rough to sleep which in turn causes you to be tired the next day. I take a workout supplement which has Melantonin in it. I just took enough to knock me out. We even kept the curtains closed and lights off during the day to keep the room as cool as possible. Paying $2800 for a room that is not cooled is not acceptable.

Secondly: this is more of a suggestion… I notice that most every food item on the ship is garnished with cut up raw tomatoes. Here’s the problem, my girlfriend is allergic to raw tomatoes, well the juice actually so the tomatoes cannot be simply removed from a dish because the juice is still on the food. She had trouble actually finding food to eat. The first night onboard, we went to the dining room for dinner. There was only 2 items on the Today menu that did not mention tomatoes. She picked one of those dishes and it had cut up raw tomatoes as a garnish. So rather than taking a chance of the busy kitchen staff just simply removing tomatoes and sending the dish back out, she ordered the other item from the menu without tomatoes. Brisket was the other item… and wouldn’t you believe that the mashed potatoes came out with a cut cherry tomato in them! She insisted that I go ahead and eat instead of waiting on her dish to come out. So I was finished when her meal arrived. She ate a piece of brisket and just left. The service was great however; we liked our waiters a lot actually and spoke to them when we saw them around the boat.

Cabin Review

The room itself wasn't too bad. It has a foldout couch that we didn't use and balcony good for looking out the back of the ship. There was only 2 electrical outlets in the room, kinda. There is one in the main room by the mirror and one in the bathroom. However I believe that you could unplug your TV if you really wanted to plug stuff in; tablets, phones, external batteries... Now the huge problem: the AC did not work properly. The room was hot. I called in twice and was basically told that they would check it but have no idea if they ever actually did. I actually borrowed a fan from a maintenance room to use at night... which is nuts because you wake up sweaty/sticky with a fan blowing on you. The room was uncomfortable during the day with the heat from the sun coming in. We even kept the curtains closed so then you don't get the view that you pay for dearly for...

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