We sailed with 2 other couples. My husband and I, my cousin and husband, and their son and his wife. Carnival, as always, fulfilled it's promise of a 'fun' time and delivered, as they always have, an exceptional cruising experience. There were some exceptions, as mentioned in my introduction, but none of them were enough to discourage us or anyone else from not sailing on a Carnival ship. They continue to provide incredible quality cruising experience.

We drove up to Port Canaveral from South Florida, about a 3-1/2 hour drive. Embarkation was a breeze, we were checking in at the VIP desk at 11:30am and having lunch on board by noon. Our cabins as promised, were ready by 1:30pm. The ship is beautiful, very well designed, loved the new promenade that opens to deck that goes uninterrupted around the entire ship. The showroom was smaller than others, but was still a good size. We had a Spa Cabin on the 11th deck. It was beautifully designed, very spacious, lots of cabinet and drawer space for our clothes and things. The room has digital combination safe, a refrigerator and a flat screen TV. The beds are very comfortable and the air was always cold and the water was always hot! The ship DID NOT SMELL! Not a sniff of anything but good clean air. I honestly don't know where that came from, but if there ever was a smell, it was nowhere to be "sniffed" on this sailing. Cloud 9 Spa was fantastic and very relaxing. We used it every single day usually after returning from ports, or on sea days mid-to-late afternoon before getting ready for the evenings. My only issue with the spa on the Dream was that unlike on the Splendor where we got rubber bracelets and were free to come and go in and out of the spa as we pleased so long as we were wearing our rubber bracelets, on the Dream (and thanks to those on the Splendor that chose to 'share' their bracelets with non-spa cabin guests) we needed to turn in Sail-and-Sign cards, receive a plastic bracelet and a special access card to go in and out of the Spa....every time we went. The negative to that was the waiting in line if others were there to enjoy the spa. Oh well. Didn't stop us from loving the experience!

The food was outstanding. I don't believe any of the six of us had a meal that was not fabulous. Kudos to Carnival in this area for making the dining experience so incredible. Again, with one exception: the lunch menu at the dining room never changed. It was the exact same menu, offering seven or eight different lunch entrees, same desserts...never changed! I cannot comment on the lido buffet with too much details because other than lunch on embarkation day and breakfast on disembarkation morning, we did not eat at the buffet at The Gathering. My husband and I are not buffet people and much prefer the sit-down-and-be-served dining experience. Read more