My mom and I did the Carnival Dream cruise out of Port Canaveral mid-March. Now this was not too long after the Triumph disaster with Carnival. Our ports were Nassau, St. Thomas, and St. Maartin. Nassau and St. Thomas were dirty and boring. Maybe if we had done an excersion it would have been better. St. Maartin was wonderful. Beautiful beaches and great shopping (tho' hawking from the numerous jewelry stores got old fast). When we returned after the day at St. Maartin we were informed that they were having trouble with the auxillary generator and that they would be working on it during the evening. They did let us know that in "15 minutes" they would have to shut the loilets, elevators, and some of the air conditioning off to test equipment. But we were on our way to dinner so we didn't experience any inconvience at all. About 1/2 hour after dinner everything was back up and running tho' they were still having issues with generator. The next morning when we awoke we were still in St. Maartin port (we were suppose to leave during the night) They informed us we could go back on the island all day if we wanted to...which we did. Later that evening we were told they could not fix the generator and that they were going to fly us out the next day (Friday) and Saturday (4600 passengers) back to Orlando and for those of us who parked at Port Canaveral they would bus us over th port. We were hoping we'd fly out on Sat to enjoy the pool more but we were the first off the ship. Carnival went out of their way to do everything for us in this unpleasant situation. They gave us back 3 days of our cruise money plus gave us 50% off our next cruise with them.

They chartered Delta Airlines and they were top notch getting us back. They paid part of the parking fees back also. This was something that just happened....could they have gotten us back ok to Port Canaveral without a backup generator??? probably....but after the Triumph they didn't want to take that chance. A+++ to Carnival and their employees who went above and beyond customer service for so many people. Then listening to news channels people were complaining about how inconvienced they were and how put out they were when power was shut down (it was only 1 1/2 hours people) they were just looking for attention and their 15 minutes of fame for the cameras. Total nonsense.

As for the trip itself. Getting on the ship at the port was fast. I wanted to get the Faster to the Fun pass but they were already sold out...but we had no waiting whatsoever. We arrived at the port about 11:00 am and went and ate and was in our room about 12:20pm. Read more