Cabin Review

Being physically disabled and traveling with a manual wheelchair, we stayed in an inside modified stateroom on Deck 8. The room was small, but that was to be expected. Regardless, it suited our needs. The cabin had two closets, one with 4 drawers and our lifejackets, and the other with a shelf and a bar to hang clothes and a full length mirror. There was also a small storage area in each of our night stands. We read on other Dream reviews that the cabins had more storage than her predecessors, but compared to other cabins we have had, this was not the case. Obviously we understand that space is limited, but another drawer or two would have been appreciated. There was also a desk area with a built in hairdryer, mini fridge and safe. The small flat screen was an upgrade from other cabin TVs in the past. We had the regular non-cable channels, and a few cable channels, but my boyfriend was disappointed that there was no ESPN. There was also a mirror next to the closet with a decorative light attached to it, but we never figured out how to turn it on.

The bathroom was the best modified accessible bathroom that we have seen. Older accessible cabin bathrooms have had the horrible problem of flooding the entire bathroom during a shower due to the roll in shower and poor drainage. That was particularly treacherous for me not to slip on all the water, and also the bathrooms smelled horribly, probably from mold. However, the Dream bathroom was excellent, and one of the biggest that we have had. It had a roll in shower with a fold-down large plastic shower seat and grab bars on every side (and along the wall behind the toilet). There were also drains running the length of the shower and the length of the doorway completely eliminating the annoying flooding problem. The sink vanity area was large with a few built in shelves for toiletries which was a nice bonus and a makeup mirror with a magnified side. There were only two downsides to the bathroom: one was the bolted down garbage can that was bolted way under the sink. It doesn't sound major but I think I missed the can more times than not, and couldn't get under the vanity to pick anything up. The other downside (although arguably necessary) was the red emergency cord that was hanging down next to the showerhead. I felt like I was more likely to fall out of the shower trying to avoid mistakenly touching the cord than I would had it not been there. But still, I could see where one might need it...

The bed was excellent and extremely comfortable. We both slept great every night. However, our cabin was outside of an elevator bank so it was often quite loud as people would talk loudly waiting for the elevator. Because of that we were often awoken much earlier than we would have liked, but with 4,500 guests, it is expected that the hallways won't be all that quiet. The night stands had built in lamps in the middle of the night stand which took up a significant amount of space on the night stand. We have seen another Carnival ship with built in lamps to the wall above the bed which saved a lot more space, and I think they were a better design. The bed was also equipped with built in emergency cords and buttons above the headboard on both sides of the bed. Although we admit they might be necessary, the one on the left was directly above my boyfriend's pillows. While propping up pillows to watch TV from bed, he inadvertently hit the button two times in a row. Someone called our cabin to assure that we were ok, but the first time it happened we had no idea that it was even pushed. The placement of the buttons were awkward and should have been moved slightly.

Our steward was one of the best we've had and a refreshing change from a less than exemplary steward we had on a Royal Caribbean cruise. Our steward, Rodney, was friendly and laid back, and told us that he was "easy like Sunday morning." Indeed he was, and we were singing that song the whole cruise. He did a great job and we definitely appreciated it.