Follow the Yellow Brooke Road: Dreamin'

Well, It seems every time I get back from a cruise I get more and more lazy and don't want to post a blog. This probably won't be a long post, but I hope it helps in some way.

The stats:

Ship: Carnival Dream
Itiny: Cozumel, Roatan, Belize and Costa Maya
Days: 7 days
Cabin: Floor 6, long balcony, L Shaped
Date: Jan. 22nd-29th
Port: Canaveral, Orlando
People: Me (27), friend that I met on my April 2009 cruise Shatha (37)

Well, my friend was coming MI and I was coming from VA, so needless to say we would meet in Orlando. There was some almost cancels on her part, but she made it and I won't get into that. Being it was January you can't be flying and not have some snow drama. I had my won, but it was taken care of really well. I booked with Jetblue b/c of the $189 price tag and first checked bag free. I had to drive 3 hours to the airport, but I had friends in the area, so with not having to pay for parking and the first bag.....I actually came out cheaper than going with my local airport. I had booked my flight about 5 months before we sailed and it was suppose to be a direct flight, which also made it more appealing. However, somewhere in the middle they changed it and had me layover in Boston. I'm not an avid flier, so I didn't think about it until the week before I left and Boston was calling for 6-12 inches of snow!!!! Again, not flying more than 5 times in my life I had no idea what to do. I called a friend in Boston and asked her thoughts.....she said, "CHANGE YOUR FLIGHT!" So, now I contacted my trip insurance.....but they wouldn't pay unless the flight was canceled. I called my SIL who flies often for business and she said to change my flight. Soooo.....I called Jetblue. I calmly explained that I had booked a straight flight originally and they had switched it to a layover in Boston. Now they were calling for snow and I was not an avid flier and didn't know what to do. The lady was very nice and told me they had another straight flight, but at 5pm that evening. My flight was at 7:20am. Then I had to ask about change fees. She took a moment to talk to her supervisor and then came back to tell me that no fees would be charged, but they could switch me over. I agreed, even though this would put me into Orlando (plus a 45 min. drive to my hotel in Coco Beach) around 8pm. My friend would be there around 12pm.

It was a good choice on my part and the only issue I had was that the shuttle service charged me an extra $35 for late pick up. However, my good friend worked with the hotel (who we booked the service through) to knock off $35 from our room bill to make up the difference. It was an uneventful flight to the airport and a nice ride to the hotel. A little confusion for me though. My friend told me we had an oceanview room at the hotel, so naturally, I thought we would be on the ocean. When the shuttle pulled up I was slightly confused b/c we were inland. It was the address, so I went on in. It seems, the ocean view was more of a tree view and through that was an ocean 'view'. It didn't matter, I was there, it was late and I was going on a cruise!!!! The room was nice and my friend was already in the bed when I got there. So, I grabbed a quick pre-made sandwich from the little shop downstairs and then got into bed myself.

I let my friend sleep a bit b/c she had been having some rough times lately and I got up early to take a shower and start getting ready, so we didn't get in each others way. She woke up and we got mostly dressed and headed down for some breakfast. It was cereal, bagels, donuts, waffles etc. Nothing big, but seeing how we'd be getting on a ship with non-stop food....we were okay with it. We went back up and finished getting ready. By the time we went downstairs, negotiated our price drop and paid up, the shuttle was there to take us to the port. The driver seemed a little frayed and jumpy, but we made it there. The porters were very nice and helped me and my friend get our tags on the bags. I had my printed, but forgot to staple them at the hotel, but they were prepared. They used the tags I printed for our bags.

We got into the security line and went through to upstairs to get to the VIP room since my friend was a platinum member. When we got up to the VIP entrance the lady wouldn't let us through b/c our printed funpass didn't say we were VIP. My friend showed her the platinum cards she had in her purse from the 4 other cruises she had taken in the past year or so. The lady wouldn't let us in, but took us straight to the front desk. When we checked in there they didn't print my friends card as platinum and they put both of us on my credit card. I filled out my funpass online and I restricted my card to just my use and my friend did the same, so I have no idea what happened. We had to fix it on the ship. They sent us straight through the doors at the counter and we had to go straight to the platinum line to get our accounts fixed. We would make more than one trip to this line due to the fact that my friend wasn't getting any of her platinum perks. Needless to say, she told them that she doesn't complain much, but that she had been on at least 24 cruises and she was bringing 12 more people on a cruise in April on the same ship and she didn't want to have to deal with this then. I think it wasn't asking too much, she earned those perks. She was never mean about it though. She is always polite.

However, while we were at the guest services the second time later that day a man with a toddler in his arms was having it out with a manager about a "smell" of raw sewage in their room and was DEMANDING to be moved! I had heard of this on the cruisecritic boards, but hadn't smelled it yet. This guy apparently had. I wondered if he was a cruise critic member.......if he was......I wondered if his complaint and attitude was really needed since we were all warned about the smell on the boards. I guess I will never know. It would be randomly through the cruise that I would smell the "smell", but I can tell you that it wasn't like sticking my nose in the toilet after someone had Mexican food. It was more of a......someone made deviled eggs smell sometimes and more of a mold smell others. It came and went and never bothered me and I'm pretty sensitive to smells.

So after all of that........we headed up to the lido for food. I talked my friend into trying the pasta bar since it was something different from the other ships we had been on. It ended up being a GREAT idea. The pasta bar is at the back of the buffet on the second level. There are stairs, but if you have luggage, go around the corner and the elevators come right up to that level. There is a stand at the top of the stairs where the person will had you a pencil, order form, and number. Find a seat and fill out the order form. It has lots of options of the meat, veggies, pasta type, sauce.....include a salad, roll etc. The waiter will come around and take the order form or you can walk it up to the counter. They will also bring you drinks. The best part of this is.......no dragging your carry ons around the buffet or making your friend/partner/wife/kids watch your stuff and wait to get your food. They deliver the food to your table and it is fresh off the grill. Sit and enjoy. This place isn't busy at the very first and never really gets busy the first day. I can't say about later in the cruise b/c we didn't go back.

Us waiting for our pasta:

The bar:

Our Number:

After lunch we walked around a bit before heading down to the rooms at 1:30pm. The doors were still closed.......but my friend said "I'm platinum." lol. I can't argue with her logic. The room was ready, so no big deal. We put our stuff in and checked the room out.

The room:

The long Balcony:

If you get this room and you aren't pushing the beds together then make sure the lamp tables aren't both in the middle b/c it makes the beds too wide and the bathroom door won't open all the way. If you put the lamp table on the outside of the far bed it will help.

Anyway, we went back out to the ship and looked around. Here are some pictures: (Some of these are from later in the week b/c I didn't get time on the first day.)

Oh, did I mention they were filming the next Alvin and the Chipmunks movie on the ship? Alvin and the Chipmunks: Chipwrecked
(This did cause some photographing issues for me.

See the lady across the way with her hand to her head......yea she came over and told me, nicely, to not take pictures of the set....which happened to be the whole back of the ship.....and this was our last day. They finally wrapped up later that day. But she didn't make me delete the photos.

Forget the name of this long.....songbird......it was for salsa and dancing:

Burgundy Lounge where the comics and karaoke was:

The Lanai BBQ:

Sushi:

Casino:

Atrium:

Ocean Plaza:

Promenade:

Caliente Dance Club:

Cafe Bar Desserts:

Theatre:

Main Pool Deck:

Mini Golf Course:

The Back Pool Deck on the first day of sea.....they didn't tell me I couldn't take pics, but we didn't know they were filming at this point. I didn't notice until I saw them camera men.