Carnival Dream Review

Dream Wedding Cruise 6-5-10

Review for the Eastern Caribbean Cruise on Carnival Dream
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PCalabrese
First Time Cruiser • Age 40s

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Sail Date: Jun 2010
Traveled with children

We booked our cruise in July 2009 long before the Dream was a reality. We followed very closely the Dreams inaugaral cruise, Atlantic crossing, arrival in NYC and eventual home Port Canaveral. We have to say that our enthusiasm was dampered by the seemingly endless streams of negatives. In the end, we are glad we chose the Dream and have no other choice than to believe that most folks who had bad experiences either A. Have no idea how to have a good time or B. simply do not know what to expect from cruise line to cruise line. We are experienced cruisers and we believe we know what to expect from Carnival. First and foremost we expect a reasonable price on a balcony, we feel we received that. We also know that Carnival food is always above average, we got that as well. We are aware that the Carnival ships are built to pack people in, we know that going in so we are not put off when we see lines, sure we don't like lines, but we expect that going in.

We planned this cruise as our destination wedding. We got married on St. Thomas 6-8-10 and we cannot say enough good things about Carnival and the worry-free wedding program they put together for us. It went without a single hitch and there was not one stressful moment involved. We brought with us our 3 children ages 16, 13 and 9, our parents, sisters and several close friends. Our entire group was 20. We all booked separately but under the same booking # as to be seated together at dinner. We booked a Lido Deck Balcony cabin # 10240 and loved it. It's your standard balcony cabin and we are always very happy with that. We enjoyed being on the Lido Deck for easy access to the restaurant, bars, pools, spa and waterslides. There was never any noise above and below and that was by design. We studied the deck plans and knew beforehand that the cabin we chose would be quiet by virtue of cabins below and above us. Our close friends chose a Cove Balcony and I will state immediately that we thought the Cove Balcony was amazingly neat. Shaded by lifeboats all day, spacious and about 35 feet above the water, it was a great place to hang out! We highly recommend those balconies and would easily choose one if we do cruise on the Dream again. The rest of our group had balconies and inside staterooms. They were all very pleased. Embarkation; We enjoy embarking from Port Canaveral. We also cruised from here in October 2008 on the Mariner and liked the Port a lot. It is new, clean and has a great vacation feel to it! We also enjoy the ride from Orlando and the views of Kennedy Space Center and Cape Canaveral. We flew into Orlando 3 days prior to our cruise in order to have a 2 day adventure at Disney World. The kids and family loved it and we had a great time! We covered all 4 parks in 2 days, no stress, got on every ride and there were hardly any major lines! Can't ask for more than that. We opted for shuttle bus to port which picked us up at 8am. We stopped along the way for some wine and last minute items and were dockside by 10am. The porters quickly took our bags, we went through security and got checked in and at about 11:00 they announced boarding. We were Zone 3. My sister and 4 year old niece actually received the honor of being the 1st on board! They let passengers with children/disabilities on first and she just happened to be the only one at the time! We boarded shortly thereafter and were onboard by 11:15am. Can't ask for more than that! Once onboard I immediately went to the shore excursion desk to book our Kennedy Space Center Tour and transportation back to Orlando Airport for the following Saturday. Normally DW and I head right to the Lido deck for a drink but seeing how we were traveling with so much family and the kids and all, I wanted to get all the housekeeping out of the way up front as to not be concerned with it later. Once that was complete we headed to the Lido for lunch. We arrived at the buffet, secured some tables aft and we got in line for the Mongolian Grill. The line was not long however it took about 25 minutes as everything is made to order, we thought it was very tasty. Unfortunately due to the long wait that was the only time we had all week. Aside from the wait, we would have certainly had it again. Highly recommended. After some time we found everyone in our party and headed out for sailaway and drinks! Always a good time, beautiful weather was enjoyed by all. Oh, almost forgot about the muster drill. It was very simple, had to gather in the Encore Theatre for our group, about a 15 minute talk and we were on our way. No lifejackets required!

Main Dining Room; Aside from a small hitch at the beginning of dinner where we found our 2 large tables separated by the entire dining room (which was remedied by the Maitre'd very quickly) dinner in the MDR was always great. Every entree we ordered appeared to be cooked to request, very flavorful and the service staff was nothing short of amazing.

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