We were really excited for this cruise. I usually go with Carnival, because the food is great, service is impeccable, and good bang for the buck. Good points first: Embarkation was wonderful! Quick, no long lines, and on the ship in a jiffy. Some of the staff were very friendly. A couple of the salads at the salad bar were really good. A trio of violinists called the Sunny Trio were the high point for us. Very talented and unexpected! Now for the bad: Food quality: Many of the desserts had a gelatinous texture. Chicken served to me at Guy's Pig and Anchor (I think that's the name) was 1/2 skin and fat, and I had to throw most of it away. Pulled pork had some dried out bites that no amount of the delicious bbq sauce would cover up. Dinners were hit and miss. Some were pretty good while others I would rather forget. Service: The worst! I'm a gold member so I've taken my share of Carnival cruises. Never have I had poor service until now. Some of the waiters were downright grumpy! Night 2: Elegant night - Late dining. Our table was given 1 small roll each and the basket was taken away. We waited 1 hour before receiving appetizers, and my son didn't get his! He waited another 15 minutes before bringing it to server's attention. That and the fact that he ordered 2 bottles of wine which had not been served. By this time, we were VERY HUNGRY! My son finally got his appetizer after we were completely finished with ours - sauce dried on the plate presumably from sitting somewhere for a very long time. Bottles of wine came after waiting 90 minutes or more from the time we ordered! This was NOT an isolated incident. We breakfasted with another couple the we just met in the dining room. The wife never received her omelet. When the husband brought it to the waiter's attention (after we were completely finished with our food) I could see the waiter around the corner picking up entree lids until he found the errant omelet and served it to her. It probably had been sitting there 30 minutes. Our last dinner aboard ship, we experienced the same thing. Sitting, sitting, waiting for food...any food. We were just getting our desserts after most of the dining room had left. There were several tables that had this incredible poor service. I had to step aside for wait staff several times a day. Normally they let you pass. The pools: Standing room only! It was ridiculous. I heard several people complaining that the spas were cold to lukewarm. I have to wonder if Carnival has severely cut staff to cut costs. Grumpy waiters, low quality food, & poor service = save $ for Carnival? Carnival, you just lost a long time customer. Read Less

We sailed on the Carnival Dream out of New Orleans on June 3, 2018. In our group of 10 were brand new travellers together with seasoned cruising veterans. Half of us had sailed on Carnival in the past. Food servers were slow, forgetful, and inattentive in the main dining room. We were never asked on a single occasion if we wanted something to drink besides water. Not even coffee with dessert. Servers forgot main courses, appetizers, and other items. On one occasion, I waited for an entire hour before we were served our first course. This is simply outrageous. Food servers in other areas of the ship were downright rude at times. Food options were the worst thing I’ve ever seen on a cruise. With so many options available on paper, it sounded like a veritable culinary delight. But the reality is that the majority of the dining options were only open during lunch. This includes the barbecue place, the Mongolian wok, which is really part of the buffet, and the Indian place. The burger joint (which is awesome and should be open longer hours) is open between noon and 6 PM, so if you were dining even slightly late, that is also not an option. Carnival now also charges for room service after 10 PM. With three days on shore, that meant that we only had four real opportunities to dine somewhere besides the Lido deck and the main dining room. Even the buffet was only HALF open at dinner and the selection was sad at best. There was a single counter at the back of the ship open during dinner time. And the two halves of the counter were mirror images of each other. Basically, there were about 20 feet of choices, not counting the dessert bar. And the dessert bar was similarly limited in selection. It felt like a poor man’s Golden Corral. Food quality was also the worst I’ve ever experienced. This obvious ploy to force people to choose either the main dining room or one of the additional purchase option restaurants was infuriating and completely at odds with our last cruise with Carnival. Eating times were silly. Lunch started exactly at noon. If you were hungry for lunch before noon, for example at 11 or 11:30, the only option was to eat at the pizza place. Which of course was jammed because there were no other options. And pizza quality was only fair (except the quattroformagio, which was great!). On the other hand, they had 1/4 of the buffet open until noon, but it only served breakfast options. Again, this is something we have never seen a Carnival cruise. The entirety of the cruise also consisted of a constant barrage of attempts to sell you things. That is pretty consistent with other cruising experiences, so perhaps I was just more annoyed by this time as a result of the dining options being so limited. Overall, the ship is not aging well. There were dents in various items and walls, the carpeting in our room was coming up, there are places were pieces of trim had obviously gone missing, and generally there was a neglected feel in most of the main living areas of the ship. Room cleaning has been reduced from twice a day to once a day, which was of great annoyance to my mother and aunt. However, our room steward, Ary, was simply fantastic and one of the highlights of the cruise. Cruise director Lee was an excellent cruise director. Also, the entertainment quality has improved. The main shows are still not quite up to Norwegian standards, but definitely better than they used to be. Nonetheless, this is insufficient to overcome the worst dining experience I have ever had on a cruise. We won’t be back. Read Less

We took our 3 children and our son in law on this cruise as what would probably be our last family vacation together. All four of them are older than 21 so even though they're are children, they aren't really kids. We chose this cruise because my wife and I took the exact same cruise in September, 2016 and really enjoyed it. The ship and the crew are fantastic. Our cabin steward, Joel, was terrific in taking care of us and making sure that we had everything we needed. The venues were very nice and the Alchemy Bar was a very nice surprise with the different types of drinks that they made. The live shows were pretty good-a few clunkers here and there but for the most part very entertaining. Dining was terrific as always. The main dining room has wonderful food and the staff there (we had several different ones) were all on top of their game. It's nice when you get friendly and good service from multiple individuals and not just one person. The only real drawback to the cruise were the number of younger (18 or less) on the ship. We chose the Memorial Day holiday week thinking that most kids would still be in school but we totally missed that one! Lots of kids on senior trips and taking vacations with their parents. It made it very hard to get a place at the pool or find seating in the Lido buffet. I think the next cruise we take, we'll probably do a little more research and find one more appropriate for our age. Other than that, the cruise was very good and the ship's crew was once again outstanding. Read Less

This was my first cruise and it will definitely not be my last. Great experience. I was impressed with Embarkation, it was incredibly smooth and easy. Lee was the best Cruise Director - energetic and positive. We had 3 good excursions - to a Basic School in Jamaica. We met some wonderful children. We saw Turtles, Hell and Stingrays in Grand Cayman - wonderful experience. We had lunch and did some snorkeling in Cozumel - not the best snorkeling but still had a great time. All the on-board and tour staff were incredible. The food was wonderful and fun - they had interesting items that you could try - like escargot, Ox Tongue, rabbit and alligator. My favorite part was the comedy club and the singing/dancing nightly shows. I would recommend nocruiseshipparking.com for parking in New Orleans. It was cheaper and much easier than parking at the terminal. We parked easily and were shuttled to the terminal, so bypassed all the traffic and lines. Read Less

This was my first, and maybe last, cruise. I don't feel there were enough activities on board so sometimes we wandered the ship aimlessly. The ship felt dated. It sill uses fluorescent bulbs when suitable LED replacements exist. They often disabled one or two elevators in the bank so it could get very slow as the remaining picked up the load. The shore excursions were pretty fun but it wasn't uncommon to be on a bus/van on horrible roads for an hour each way. I feel like I would want more time to actually explore a bit but the window is generally only eight hours for arrival to departure. Dining for the family was difficult as a majority of the lunch spots close at the same time creating long lines at the Pizza stand, Deli and Burger stand. I personally would have staggered the lunch end times. It was even worse for me having celiac. Nothing is labeled so it's a gamble with a majority of the foods. There is no 24 hour offering as only the pizza stand stays open all night, During the lunch shutdown I can't eat the pizza, I really can't do the deli, the gluten free bread was terrible tasting, so I was left with the burger stand with no bun. Even with that something triggered a response. I got glutened three times in a week and it made the trip pretty awful for me. On the bright side our waiter for dinner service was very good about getting me safe food and I had no issues. The staff was generally friendly and some were pretty awesome. I didn't have a great experience. Sadly mostly due to celiac. I'd like to see considerations taken for the ever growing population with gluten issues. I may cruise again when that happens. Read Less

my sister-in-law choose this cruise for us it was her 13th cruise and my first. she advised me of all the activities on the ship and the different islands we would be going to and she thought this would be the best first time cruise experience for me. I agree it was a fantastic experience. and plan to do again. on the ship i really enjoy all the shows in the encore room. i love the fantastic food on board. i even enjoyed the casino at times and the off ship excursions to the beach was really great i got to meet a different culture of people i had never met before and shop for things i have never seen before and really got some great bargains. in Honduras we enjoyed a beautiful pool by the beach and really great food and some island music that i really liked . I enjoyed the whole experience of the cruise from boarding the ship till the day we left the ship It was a fantastic experience Read Less

This was a celebration of our daughter's high school graduation and our second cruise on the Dream. We like to cruise out of NOLA or Galveston as they are both within 10 hours of our home and we can drive to port. We drove in a day early and stayed in a hotel in Harvey. We utilized Uber to eat at Oceana Grill and stroll Bourbon Street the night before our trip. Wonderful food and always some crazy entertainment there. We chose to park at the port even though it's expensive. It's inside and super convenient. Embarkation was easy. We had FTTF and were onboard eating lunch by noon. Our cabin and all but one piece of luggage was there after we finished eating. FTTF proved an asset for tendering and even more important during debarkation. The Dream is a beautiful ship and still our favorite. I love all the hot tubs! The crew was constantly cleaning and taking wonderful care of her. We tried your time dining for the first time and while it is convenient choosing your own time to get ready and go eat, we won't do it again. I felt like the wait staff had too many different things going on to give the service we're accustomed to. Our drinks went empty several times and once they didn't know if we'd just come in and needed bread or if it was time for dessert. We only went to one show in the main theatre because we just weren't that impressed with the cast. We spent our evenings enjoying the other singers and dancing around the ship. We went to three comedy shows...also not that impressed with these comedians. Our cabin steward was wonderful and Vera in the Dream Bar was amazing. The bar by the aft pool is a waste of time. Those bartenders were not happy to be there and you would wait forever for drinks even when it wasn't crowded. In Cozumel, it was a little rainy off and on but we chose to swim with dolphins at Chakanaab and had an amazing experience. The pictures are outrageously overpriced so we left without any which is kind of sad. The beach there is very small but very pretty! The food is ok at best. In Belize, we chose to cave tube and zip line. This was our main reason for choosing this cruise. I'd still choose this excursion because we really wanted to experience the jungle of Belize...however, the transmission went out on our bus and it took TWO HOURS to get to the excursion site. We were really rushed once we got there, The zips are short but there are five of them. The cave tubing is a bust. The water is freezing and crystal clear but there is zero current. The poor guide has to swim his arms off pulling people thru the cave. We had no time to eat and were the last tender back to the ship as our ship was preparing to LEAVE! Book any excursion here thru Carnival. You do not want to get left in Belize. Our last port was Mahogany Bay. We did the beach right by the port and it's beautiful. You can fly down on the magic chairs and they take you right to your clam shell chair. We floated a lot and had the option to snorkel and kayak but chose to just relax. The only negative here was seaweed. They were diligently trying to sweep it away but it was still there. FTTF got us straight off the ship at 7:00 AM. We were in our car headed down the road by 7:10. Fabulous. We all really loved this cruise and can't wait for the next one. Read Less

The ship and the crew and the customer service was remarkable. The food was fantasic and Lee the cruise director was awesome! The steak house restaurant was by far the was soooo good, loved the marinis at the Alchemy bar. The violinists that performed in the Dream bar were amazing. The lady at the guest services counter was super friendly and the 80’s show was so mich fun! I always enjoy the hairy chest contests and the hamburgers are to die for. I cant forget the free ice cream station that is open 24/7. Yummy.. Our steward kept our room so neat and clean and always had a smile on his face. Simply put - this was the best cruise ever. Great job to The Carnival Dream Team! PS. Need the recipe for the carnival melting cake, the creme brulette, the cheese grits and the foccaccia bread! The debarkation process was by far the best! Thank you Lee! Read Less

I absolutely LOVE Carnival. This is my second cruise with Carnival, and was completely satisfied. The Staff is so awesome, the food is great. The entertainment is amazing. You'll never go hungry, and you'll never get bored. I cant wait for my next one. Every single one of the staff that was told my name. Always knew my name each and every time I was in their presence. I was amazed by that. I didn't matter if it was the housekeeper, or the spa staff, or the bar tenders. They always addressed me by my name. I was also very impressed by the Captain. He informed us that there was a disturbance close to the ukitan peninsula that we would be going through. And to expect 10ft. Squalls. But he actually got us through it and past it in such a timely manner that we were barely affected by it. Read Less

We chose this cruise based on the convenience of leaving from New Orleans, as well as the date. Stayed in cabin 9384 and was pleased with location and cleanliness. We never saw our steward (Papas) in our cabin, but it was always clean with fresh towels and ice.The entire ship was kept very clean, the staff was extremely friendly and helpful. We enjoyed most of the food, especially the breakfast buffet, pizza, Guy's burgers and Blue Iguana. The MDR had a few meals that were excellent and a few meals that were disappointing. The MDR soups were our favorite. We enjoyed speaking with Agnes (with the cute dimples) in the Gathering on several occasions. There were several other staff members that we enjoyed speaking with as well...including Alina, Sergi, Arianty, and Marlon in the MDR. Ports were okay. We stayed within the ports when in Costa Maya, Roatan and Cozumel, because my elderly mother's hips were bothering her with too much walking. In Roatan, we took the flying chairs to the nearby free beach (free lounge chairs available). The water was very nice and clean so we enjoyed taking a dip. We enjoyed the Belizian Foodie Excursion which we chose for my mother's sake, as very little walking or sun was involved. We sampled 5 or 6 Belizian dishes that were similar to Mexican food, then took a bus tour through town to a local fruit stand where we sampled 4 or 5 fruits (including a custard apple, which I had never even heard of before). Last, we stopped at an open-air seaside restaurant where we made ceviche. I thought I disliked ceviche, but it was delicious. We also enjoyed a couple of weak rum drinks and an unusual fruit salad that was very good. Read Less