Carnival Dream Review
Rating by category
Additional details
First let me say we are very seasoned RCL and X cruisers and wanted to try CCL again after a 15 year hiatus, plus our "cruise virgin" friends asked us to "escort them". We are mid-sixties and pretty tolerant of mistakes. We had a group of 100 from The Villages go Feb. 6-13, 2010.
EMBARKATION: Surprisingly smooth. We've seen long lines for Carnival in Ft. Lauderdale but the Port Canaveral facility seems to work better than the others. We arrived by bus at 12 noon and it took 8 minutes to get through security on the first floor with only two lanes. Seems a little tight here and we don't know why they don't do this upstairs where there's lots more room. Check-in was fast and no wait at the moment we walked to the head of the line. The desk agent was pleasant and before long we were on the ship at 12:20. No complimentary champagne or rum runners here.
DISEMBARKATION: By special arrangement we got Number 1 tags and were off by 7:30 AM. The only hassle were the annoying porters. The luggage claim is airport style with zig-zag conveyors. One in our group never got one of their bags and had to fill out forms. I suspect someone else may have grabbed that bag by mistake.
Cabin Review
Balcony
#6440. Comfortable and pretty well laid out. Our cabin had a pretty small balcony that overlooked the Promenade (not objectionable if you like to people watch). The balcony door is hinged, not sliding, and slams easy when there's wind. Closets were roomy. Nice bathroom with functional shower. Plenty of new towels. The couch gave us room to lay out clothes and the desk was large. Unfortunately or cabin was almost right above the Dance Club and the loud beat was hard to ignore. So was the slamming of cabin and balcony doors that went on into the night. It's not the fault of the passengers but the ship designers not having door checks on the mechanism. TV shows and free movies in the room was welcome. So were two fluffy bathrobes to use.
CABINS TO AVOID: Cat. 8B (Balcony) and 4D (Inside) on Deck 6 between midship elevators and aft elevators (roughly #6382-6452 port side and #6365-6439 starboard side). These are right over the Ocean Plaza and Caliente Dance Clubs where the music is loud until 3 AM.