We were on the Carnival Dream for the November 23 - December 1, 2009 sailing and we had a great time. I have seen a lot of negatives about the ship, but for us this was our first cruise. We had no other cruises to compare it with and we loved it - it has changed us from "resort" vacationers to cruise vacationers and we can't wait for our next one. My review is mostly positive - a few negatives of course, but nothing is ever perfect. A vacation is what you make it and we made it enjoyable.

A large part of why we picked this cruise was that it sailed out of New York. We're from Toronto, Canada and don't really like to fly. We took a bus in the day before and spent the day and night before the cruise touring New York.

The morning of the cruise we walked around New York City a bit more (who would think places like Times Square would be packed at 9 a.m.?) Then we took a taxi to the port and probably arrived at approximately 11:45 - 12:00. We carried our minimal luggage as far as we could ourselves, dropped it off and went to get in the line to board. There was a line up but it went quickly. Were happy to find we had gotten Your Time Dining that we had been waitlisted for. Read more