One of our biggest fears about cruising on a mega-ship, namely long lines and long waits, was dispelled right away at Port Canaveral. While there were long lines, they moved quickly and efficiently, and the boarding operation was very smooth. Kudos to Carnival for something done right!

Overall, we enjoyed our cruise, but we learned something important, which is that we will never choose to cruise with Carnival again.

The Carnival Dream is one of their largest ships, and she carried over 4500 souls on this cruise. Carnival advertises its "Fun Ships," and we learned that their idea of "fun" is LOUD. The Dream is loud both visually and aurally. She was decorated with all hard, reflective surfaces: steel, glass, mirrors, tiles, shiny plastics, gleaming metals and polished stone, with plenty of neon lights. All PA announcements were too loud. All the dance music was too loud. The stage shows were so loud that, even if we wore our ear plugs, it was still uncomfortably noisy. Nobody cared about requests to back off a little on the volume. Apparently "fun" equals "loud," and if we didn't like it, we could go to our stateroom (which we often did). All the hard surfaces reflected sound as well as light. The assault on the senses was exacerbated by the numbers of people, including many children who were often not under any sort of parental control. We really found ourselves wishing for the relative quiet of the Holland-America ships. (In fairness, I must mention the "Serenity Deck," high in the Dream's superstructure near the HVAC units. This area is for adults only, and it features some comfortable lounge furniture as well as an absence of loud music. Unfortunately, it is also quite windy, and the noisy fans and HVAC equipment detracted somewhat from the serenity.) Read more