In St. Maarten we attempted to take a taxi to Le Galion (French side) because we had heard that this was an excellent place for kids with low waves.  We got in the cab with another couple and told them where we wanted to go.  After about 20-25 minutes of driving we were nearly there and we asked the driver where we could get cabs to get back to port.  The driver was very unfriendly and she told us that we would likely not be able to get a cab there because cabs don't generally go there. We asked if she could come back and pick us up at a specified time and she said that she might have other fares and could not commit.  Obviously not wanting to be stranded there we quickly change plans and got dropped of at the (fortunately) nearby Orient Beach.  We paid our annoyed cab driver a bit extra for the drop off at Orient. Not a good cab experience, but Orient Beach was quite nice, although very crowded.  There were several large ships in port that day including Oasis OTS, Navigator OTS and the Dream, so crowds were to be expected and we were far from early.  But a very friendly attendant took care of us and for $10 (total) we got two nice beach chairs in front and bathroom passes.  We had some delicious shrimp from a beachfront place - amazing.  There were tons of cabs waiting there to take people back to port so getting back was no problem.  I had some time to shop around the area adjacent to the port before getting back on board.  We did notice the enormous line to reboard Oasis of the Seas.  Not sure if there had been a problem, but it was just a huge line.  We never waited to reboard the Dream.  The Dream ended up leaving more than 30 minutes late because of some late passengers. I can only assume that they were on Carnival excursions and something had gone very wrong. There were 5-6 of them and they golf-carted them to gangplank from the security area.  Good view of this from my Cove Balcony!

St. Maarten

In St. Thomas we had booked a sailing excursion with Morningstar Charters to take us over to St. John and go snorkeling.  This has come highly recommended on the St. Thomas message boards and it did not disappoint.  We had purchased this directly from Morningstar for $135 per adult as a holiday gift to each other and had been planning on leaving the kids in Camp Carnival while we went.  Obviously that did not end up being an option.   Not knowing whether we could take the kids on the sailboat (either due to age or whether there was room), we decided to just take the taxi that they had pre-arranged for us and go to the place and see what they could do.  The backup plan was for my husband to take our toddler, and both kids if necessary, to a local beach.  It turned out that we were the only ones who had booked the sailboat that day (the capacity is only 6 plus 2 crew) so they gladly took the whole family, assuring us that they had young children on board before and it was fine.  Sure enough the waves lulled my toddler to sleep on the way over and back from St. John.  We had a really cute and friendly captain, Mike, and his girlfriend, Bridget, as our private crew.  Bridget is a bartender on St. John so she made some great drinks and while we were anchored for snorkeling they cooked up a delicious grilled lunch. It was amazing what they were able to book on that little boat.  It was one of the best meals of the trip.  A really relaxing beautiful day.  The taxi ride over from the port was about 20-25 minutes with some good views of the island.  Then we walked down some steep stairs to the water edge and met Mike who took us in a dinghy out to the boat.  After a safety briefing (kids have to wear life jackets) the ride over to St. John was about 60-75 minutes.  We anchored in a great spot and had plenty of time to swim and snorkel, with all equipment provided.  Mike taught Adrian to snorkel and let him "drive" the boat for a bit.  He even took video underwater and emailed it to us.  It was a really nice day and I would recommend Morningstar to anyone including people with young kids.  The excursion was about 5 hours.  The Dream is in port until 8 p.m. in St. Thomas so you have plenty of time to get back.  Taxi going back was arranged.  Taxi was $10 pp each way, so plan on bringing enough cash for that.

I really liked our cabin (2357, Main Deck, Cove Balcony)  I was impressed with the amount of closet space, although I wish there had been a few more drawers.  The layout seemed great, even in a quad room.  We had enough space.  The only challenge was our toddler constantly grabbing everything down off of the shelf (toddlers.. what can you do??).  Our older son LOVED the upper berth, he could not wait to sleep in it every night.  Our toddler did well in the single sofa bed, which was pretty roomy.  

Our King bed was extremely comfortable.  I loved it and slept really well.  So well that I am considering ordering the Carnival bedding that is available online.  The bathroom had a lot of storage and the shower and water pressure exceeded my expectations.

We were really looking forward to the Chef's Table on Night 3 but we had to cancel it (24 hours in advance to avoid a $25 pp charge) because our youngest son was generally refusing to spend more than 15 minutes in Camp Carnival without one of us being there (more on that below).In one of my (very few) moments of adult time during the cruise I had seen a few of the auditions for the show so it was fun to see how those people did when the actually performed.

Carnival Dream Review

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