Where do I start? Probably the best vacation ever!!! We cruised on the Carnival Dream leaving New Orleans on Sunday, October 9th. It was me, my husband, our daughter and son-in-law, and our three grandkids; ages 14, 10, and 4. We drove to New Orleans on Friday the 7th and stayed at the Prytania Hotel. With a two night stay there they allowed us to leave our cars there during the cruise. This is an old Hotel, but so much fun to stay at. The people at the front desk were very nice and helpful. The rooms were dated, but just added to the character. It was very convenient to restaurants. We could walk to the Blind Pelican and to Tacos & Beer. It was a lot of fun. Since it was the beginning of the baseball playoffs we had to be in a sports bar each evening to watch the Cubs play (my son-in-law's favorite team). GO CUBS!!!! And, yes, they did win the World Series. Talk about celebrating. Easy to find a sports bar with the game on. On Saturday we took the grandkids on the trolley (which the two youngest ones loved - the 14 year old... well he's 14 years old??. We took the two youngest ones to the Aquarium (a must in New Orleans if you have never done it.) And we also took them on the Ferry to Algiers. We ate lunch at the Dry Dock, which in and of itself was a great experience. Food was very good and people watching was very interesting.

Now to the cruise... we took an Uber from the Hotel to the port ($5.00). We were to board between 10:30 and 11:00. We boarded right on time with no hassle. My husband and I are Platinum members so we were first onboard with our oldest grandson (he lucked out since he was booked in our cabin). However, the rest of our family was probably no more than ten minutes behind us. Plenty of places to eat lunch. Try not to hit the buffet; rather go to one of the other venues for lunch since they get very crowded during the week as everyone discovers how great they are. We explored the ship. Our luggage arrived on time and we were able to unpack before we had to do the mandatory muster call. We had two cabins with balconies very close to each other. So we never knew which grandkids we would have sleeping with us each night. In fact, they were in and out all day and night. (Just added to the fun.) We were only able to get the Cubs game one night on the T.V. The other games had to be viewed through WiFi. We only got the score and play by play, but that was still a lot of fun. We did a lot of celebrating on the ship.

On sea days we spent most of our time at the water slides or PuttPutt as the two youngest grandkids loved that area. I can say that our 14 year old did go down the slides with his brother several times and did play PuttPutt with his little sister several times. He is a good big brother. All three of them must have hit the ice cream machines at least five times a day. I have to admit... I did too. Read more