Carnival Dream Review
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Sailed Dream 9/4 - 9/11 West Carib Sailed with seven family members ages: 10, 21, 21, 32, 37, 50, 54
I'm the 54-year-old of the group and this was my 8th Carnival cruise, and (I think) my 22nd total cruise. This was the first cruise for the two 21-year-olds; the fourth cruise for my 10-year-old grandson, and the others had at least two cruises or more. For this cruise, we had three cabins: balcony cabin (8347), inside (8355), and oceanview (2222).
The Dream is gorgeous, and as you already know, huge. Even with all of the passengers, I found lines no longer than I have on any other ship. We're local, and therefore more disorganized (I find this happens on every cruise for my family), so our plans to get to the terminal were delayed by three hours and we arrived at 1:30 PM. Even that late, we were on the ship within 30 minutes of arriving. Some of us went to our cabins and others went to search for food, but we agreed to meet back on my balcony for sail-away after the muster drill.
Cabin Review
Balcony
Cabin coverage:
Balcony 8347: the worst cabin stewards that I've had on any cruise ever! Yeah, they filled the ice bucket and replaced towels, but I (pretentiously) approached them on Day 3 of the cruise in the hallway to introduce myself. Until then, they had turned their heads/eyes away every time I left the room. I can't even tell you their names because, even after we introduced ourselves by name, they simply said "Hi, nice to meet you." I thought my gesture would improve things, but they never even acknowledged me or my sister any time we left or came back in the cabin even though they were right in the hallway. OK, I don't totally fault them because I know they are making so few $$$ - but a nice "good morning" or "have a good evening" does seem to add to the cruise when you know these people are in your room while you are out of it. It's not like our room was a mess; hell, we are two middle-aged ladies that never left a thing out of place when we left the room, and compared to some of the cabin disasters I saw when the doors were open, we were one of their easiest rooms to clean. Needless to say, I did not tip them extra like I do the rest of the crew.
Here's something else about 8347: This is a HOT cabin and I mean temperature-wise. We thought a midship, high deck cabin would be more convenient on this big ship, and it was, but the A/C cannot keep up with the hot air coming from the bank of elevators that are right off the hall. I usually keep my home A/C at 75 in Florida, but this room only cooled down to that level in the middle of the night.
One more thing about Starboard Side 8347 - I'm not sure if it was only our West Carib cruise, or just the luck of the docking draw, but (except for embarkation out of Port Canaveral) we were very disappointed by not seeing any of the ports when we docked. Our balcony views from all four of our port dockings were only views of the ocean. (Note to myself for the future: you have finally realized that PORT side did not just mean LEFT!)
Inside 8355: My three "kids" stayed there, almost directly across from our balcony cabin, and LOVED their cabin steward staff. They also had to turn their A/C down ten degrees from the max because they were freezing.
Outside 2222: The 21-year-olds stayed here and were both first time cruisers. They thought the entire cruise was a fairy-tale so no complaints and knew their cabin stewards on a first name basis. I only visited this cabin twice, and it was Port side so had a great view in ports, but it was so far forward that I probably would not have liked it much (only because of the size of Dream).