My husband and I planned this cruise 6 months in advance and was looking forward to the new ship. It was snowing in NC prior to our cruise and we were so excited to be going to anywhere warm. We arrived in Florida a day early ( Orlando) and stayed at the Hyatt ( excellent hotel located at the airport). Hotel is expensive but worth every dime! The bedding is awesome, we enjoyed using the gym and all the amenities located at airport are at your disposal. We enjoyed dinner at the Macaroni Grill. Food was really good. We had the house Chianti and it was also good. We had pre arranged shuttle service ( Space Port) . They are reasonably priced and very efficient. We have used them several times and are very satisfied.We arrived at cruise port @ 12 noon and were disappointed that although we are VIPS we did feel like the VIP line was adequate. We were told that Carnival could not enter the security area and that is where the VIP line merges with the regular line and it felt as though we were cutting the line as there was no one to monitor the VIP line. Ok, although a little embarassing we proceeded. Upon entering the VIP lounge we were told to wait outside ( OK, we thought well getting on ship will be a little different due to the size and amount of passengers). We didn't feel like the VIPS. We got on the ship after a considerable wait and were impressed with the size and decor of ship! It is huge and impressive. Our cabin steward was awesome! He couldnt do enough for us the entire week! Our cabin was immaculate each and every day!!!!! Food- The SteakHouse( The Chefs ART) AWESOME....Didnt get the night we wanted but ship was full ( so much for the VIP) Dining room- ok food, typical Carnival menu. We had anytime dining and that was a joke! This was very disorganized! We waited an hour and a half our second night!!!!! Carnival needs to figure something out about the dining situation , people were so mad!!! We were very easy going about it and wanted to enjoy our vacation so we didnt let this bother us. We also werent on the cruise for the food. Now, I do notice that the larger size passengers are the ones most angry about FOOD! My husband and I like to work out and eat healthy so we werent studying the food! There were always lines at the buffets. Casino- Lost some bucks but really enjoyed the almost entire smoke free casino!! As a former smoker I would have been pissed had I booked this cruise and had very few options to smoke. I did find out that the cabins are a place people can smoke!!!! I was shocked! How I found out is that I could smell smoke on our deck and was told people could smoke in cabins! I did not like this cause I felt that the air was being recirculated and could smell it in my cabin. The shows were good. We have been on 13 cruises so we knew what to expect and they were typical but good. The Dream was too big in my opinion....big is not always better...there did not seem to be enough workers for the amount of passengers. Out of my 13 cruises although this was the newest ship it was the least clean. It was clean dont get me wrong, it was just not as clean as any of the others I have been on. I have sailed on the Celebration, Glory, Liberty and Dream. My husband and I enjoyed all the ports and love the Eastern Caribbean just would rather not sail on the Dream again.