Carnival Dream Review
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Overall we had an excellent vacation!! Of course there were a few things that were aggravating, but not enough to ruin our fun or enjoyment of cruising. We found our room to be small, however the amazing wrap balcony more than made up for the small inside space. We felt that the entertainment was really good. There was 1 show that we had seen on a previous cruise and 2 that were new to us...the 2 new ones were both great, the old one, not so good. We also enjoyed the Punchliner Comedy Club. This is one of the best things that Carnival has going for entertainment! We had lunch at the Pasta Bar once, it was good, however most days we didn't feel like eating pasta at lunch as it is a heavy dish....wish that they would offer this at night as an option for dinner. We also tried the burrito bar for lunch and ended up eating that 4 days in a row...it was delicious. The burritos were the best thing I had to eat on the whole cruise. (Except for the soft serve ice cream!!) We took advantage of the free photography on the ship and purchased several pictures as we were celebrating our 10th anniversary and wanted some nice photos. The photo staff was all really nice and we ended up with some amazing pictures. The only thing is beware of not being able to decide on just a few photos as almost all of them turn out great. Had an issue on the last day with the internet while trying to check in for our return home flight and ended up having to stand in line at guest services for 45 minutes to get a refund. This was our first time sailing out of New Orleans; it was really different and interesting to cruise down the Mississippi River. This would probably have to be our favorite port to depart from. The service was good overall...we did notice that most of the staff seemed to be friendlier and smiling more the second half of the cruise, although we aren't sure why! The only aggravations for us were the long lines in the lido buffet at lunch and crowds in general and kids being obnoxious in the pools. (We already know when we choose to cruise that these are all normal parts of being on a ship with that many other people.)
It had been 3 years since our previous cruise, we were a little burnt out on cruising so we spent some time doing land based vacations, after this trip I can say I have been officially bitten by the cruise bug again and hope to be back on another ship soon!!
Cabin Review
Negatives: Underneath lido deck which can be noisy at times...we found that during the afternoon was the noisiest and early in the morning when they are moving deck chairs around. Also there was one day around 4am that they pressure washed the lido deck, which kept us up for about an hour. Didn't really like the layout of the room and that it was smaller than a normal balcony room.
Positives: We loved that the room was located at the end of the hall and only had 1 neighbor, which made for virtually no noise coming from the hallway. Loved the large, wrap balcony...it was really great to be able to have such a wide view. Also liked the overhang from the lido deck as this provided shade on our balcony and no one from above could look down onto our balcony like we could look down on the balconies below us. We also liked that it was easy access to get to the aft pool and the buffet restaurant, just up one floor.Overall, for us the amazing balcony is worth sacrificing some space inside the room. We will definitely book this type of room again in a heartbeat.