The Carnival Dream was a beautiful ship!
Embarkation: I don't remember every detail (saying it was a long time ago) but we live in New Jersey and took the hour/ hour and a half drive to New York instead of flying to Florida. It was smooth, and then we got in line, and then parked our car. Next, we took a big elevator down, and then it was perfect through security and onto the ship we went!!
We went to our cabin first although you are not technically supposed to but we went to the cabin and dropped off our bags. The line at the Lido Buffet was long... but what do you expect? We had to get a table upstairs at the Steakhouse but we didn't care.
Nice cabin, too small for five people, quiet location besides noisy people running up and down the halls, beautiful oceanview, two bathrooms came in handy, set up was weird with the bunk beds and the queen bed.