Does this world really need another Dream Review, probably
not, but I will do it anyway b/c I’m feeling rebellious.
This is was my second round on the Dream and I was looking
forward to it. I was also taking a friend with me who would be losing her cruising
V card. I’m no epic writer like some of the reviewers here, so I doubt I will
be that entertaining for you, but I will def. give my account.
So, this cruise I took a different approach with
pictures………….it was all about ME! The last time I went with a friend who didn’t
like pictures, so not a lot of them were taken. A lot more “ship” pictures. So,
just so I feel like I’m giving a good review, I will mix in some pictures from
my January cruise on the Dream. Trust me, nothing much has changed.
So the here are the deets: This was my birthday cruise and a
reunion cruise for me and my friend who hadn’t seen each other for 7 years,
since high school. I was turning 28 and she is 27.
We booked room 11245, balcony spa room and I will give more
details on that later.
Dates were: Oct. 22nd-29th
Islands were: Nassau, St. Thomas and St. Maarten.
So, since I cruised on the Dream before there WILL be some
comparisons of my first trip vs. this trip. I can’t help it. I had a different
person with me, a different room, different islands and a different
entertainment staff.
Here is where the story begins…
I got back from my January cruise and obviously was already
jonesing for a new cruise. So what do I do? Head to good old Facebook in search
of a partner in crime. I posted the cruise I wanted to go on and waited for my
first bite. I think it took about 1 min. before I saw my friends reply that she
wanted to go. She had never cruised before and really wanted to go and frankly
was willing to go where ever and whenever I wanted, lol. We were booked by the
end of February. Ironically, it was her choice to do the spa cabin. After I had
described to her the spa pass areas that I had purchased with my friend on the
previous Dream cruise, she had to have the room. Just in case you are wondering
the prices:
$1,050pp (w/ taxes, fees, and tips) and we got a $20pp price
drop about 2 months before we sailed.
So, when I checked flight prices, they were outrageous, $400
flights to Orlando. The discount airline in my area only flew on Thursdays and
Mondays, so the cost in hotel rooms would have made up the difference. We
decided to hoof it down to Orlando by car from good ‘ol VA and share the gas
cost. It was around $130 a piece when we totaled it. Still cheaper than a
flight.
We decided to leave on Thursday night. I would meet up with
her at her brother’s house in Bristol, VA and head down from there. We left her
brothers around 10:30 pm. Of course I couldn’t sleep b/c I was too excited,
even though it would be my turn to drive in just a few hours. Our car ride escapades were fun and will not
be repeated, sorry. I will say that about 4am, when I had been napping and woke
up to all the windows down, Glee blasting on the ipod and spittle from water
being poured on my friends head, we pulled over at the next rest stop and both
took about a 1.5 nap.
After many more escapades we finally made it to our hotel,
Four Points Shearton, in Cocoa Beach. It was really easy to get to and though
the parking garage is a bit confusing (the front desk will clear up where to
park in the garage for you) it was a really nice hotel. We had a bit of problem
with our keys not working at first, but a housekeeper and manager were right
there on the hall and let us in and even offered to go exchange our keys for us.
Our room was nice and well-kept except for a closet door that came out of the
track.
We paid a park n cruise rate which included: $120, plus tax.
Shuttle to the port
Shuttle back to the hotel
Room-free internet, bottled water, had a microwave, coffee
maker, and mini fridge
A place to park your car for the week (though it was on the
top floor with no cover for your car (if you are concerned about this)
The hotel has a restaurant, and huge surf shop, a pool is
attached to the garage and you are like 1200ft from the actual beach. We spent
very little time on the beach……..it is kinda chilly in late October. We did hop
in the pool and hot tube for a bit, and then went back to the room to change
and go down and eat at the restaurant.
The restaurant was never that crowded and we always got a table. We went
there for lunch earlier and then had dinner later. We were a little ways down
from most restaurants and didn’t want to walk, but we didn’t want to really get
in another car for at least another week, lol. It was good food and service.
Although, my friend gave the waitress a $20 for her meal at dinner and she took
off with it, then came back and asked my friend if she had given her a $20. She
was flying back and forth around us and we heard her tell ppl to look out for
the $20. She had misplaced it. No one questioned us about it, but I felt bad
for her if she didn’t find it. I saw my friend give her the $20 and saw her
take it. Nothing we could do. Other than that……..great stay.
Embark Day.
We got up that morning with plenty of time to get dressed
and packed back up (organized). We had an 11:30 shuttle scheduled as part of
our deal with the hotel. BTW, as soon as you book, you can call for a shuttle
time. Had I known that I would have called when I booked and not three months
later. My friend was excited and I had never gotten to port early before, so we
asked the front desk for a taxi service that night. We scheduled a ride that
night for a pick up at 10:30am. It was about $18 + tip for the two of us. The
taxi lady was super nice, but she had a lot of trouble with directions from the
drop off people. They were kind of rude to her when it was there fault for not
being clear about where she needed to pull up.
But all that matter was that we were that much closer to the ship!
The porters were super nice and didn’t bother me for a tip,
though I made sure to tip nicely (I love my clothes too much for them to get a
bath or spend the week on the dock, lol). The line was almost none when we got
there. My friend got wanded by security, don’t know why. She kept beeping in
the metal detector and the only thing we figured was her bathing suit top under
her cover-up had a metal clasp. Only took a few mins.
Btw, our wine was packed in carry ons and no questions were
asked. We also had 12 cans of pepsi loose in our bags, nothing.
Up the escalator we went. I was still under the impression
we had to fill out those health forms, NOPE. I even asked the guy……..no. That
is so much better, but not something I had read on CC recently. So FYI if you
didn’t know. Got in to line easy peezy, stood in the roped area for less than 1
min.
BTW, got there a little before 11am….say about 10:45 (to
drop off luggage, not the line).
We did have a problem at the desk. She was a new girl, but
she was doing great with checking us in, though you could see she was nervous.
I just kept smiling to help her feel more at ease. She got us all checked in
and then went to get our cards………….ooooopppps…………there weren’t there. She got a
supervisor and they were gone for about……..5-7 mins. She came back with our
cards and we were good to go.
Btw, if you have a spa room you have to sign your ticket and
they need that signed part to keep as a contract that you won’t smoke in your
room. Our girl didn’t know that, but I had been listening to the people beside
us who had a spa room too and I made sure I handed ours too her, so she
wouldn’t get in trouble.
We had gotten Zone 8 card and were sitting off to the side.
It was about 11:30 when they called our zone.
Btw, Let me say sorry again to the people in that line. My
friend, though she has never cruised before, somehow kept getting put in front
of me and I was trying to keep up with her to make sure she had what she needed
and didn’t get lost (not that you could). I was coming around the corner of the
roped pole thing to follow her and these kids came running up from the side, so
I just kinda slide in real quick so I could stay with my friend. I realized
that with my rolling suitcase that it might not have been as smooth as I
thought. So, I turned around to the kids and said, “Sorry guys, didn’t mean to
pop in like that, just trying to keep up with my friend.” The kids could have
cared less, but the mom looked at me weird and was like, “Its fine.” But one of
those “Its fine.” That tells you it really isn’t “That fine.” Eh, chalk it up
to “things happen” and move on. I did the polite thing and said sorry.
We got through the photo for your card part, then I needed
to re-adjust my luggage a bit on my shoulder, so I stopped a min. before the
next escalators to re-shift the weight and prepare to take my roll on up and
the dude was like………..Keep Moving………..No Stopping. Trust me dude………I want to
get on that ship, but just in one piece and not tripping over my luggage.
Btw, don’t stop near the escalators, lol. Also, something
about croc shoes aren’t allowed on those things…………I had croc flip flops
on………..I survived.
We then took the facial recognition photo and off we went,
where my friend promptly stopped in front of me and said, “You can go first now,
I don’t know where I’m at.” HA! Now you want to follow……….and she did, the rest
of the cruise.
So, I was super excited about going to the Dining Room for
lunch instead of the Lido. I swear I read it was open on embark day and it was
the one in the atrium. But there was no one there. I think I had it wrong,
probably the aft dining room that was open. No harm, no foul. We needed to do some account stuff anyway. I
had bought a FCC on last cruise and applied it. As you may or may not know, the
OBC will be divided between the two people if you do separate accounts. So, my
friend agreed to give me $50 back and I would just put it on my account.
Btw, The guest services computers apparently don’t work
until noon.
After that it was easy to say, let’s just go eat. My choice
was the pasta bar. As a CC reader and previous Dream cruiser I knew that the
space would not be crowded. I kept
leading my friend. She stopped several times through the buffet thinking we
were there, lol. It’s a bit of a haul back there, but not having to worry about
your carry ons and such is so worth it.
Btw,Remember there are elevators that will go up to that
level instead of that tiny staircase.
It wasn’t busy as usual and the food is fresh too.
Btw, if you haven’t done the pasta bar before. When you
enter there is a little stand there with a person who has table numbers,
pencils and the paper you need to fill out for your pasta. Take all that with
you to a table and make your choices, then take it up to the chef. It took about
10 mins. to get our food.
At some point I didn’t want to worry about going down and
doing the money thing. I figured we’d do it on the port day b/c everyone would
be off the ship and the line wouldn’t be long.
Btw, if you wait until a port day, a little after everyone
can get off the ship, there is a smaller line for guest services, however, it
seems people with the biggest problems are there…………
We decided to just walk around the ship for a few and take
some pictures.
At one point I went and found a Fun Times (the café has
them, if you are wondering) and we noticed the spa tours were going on soon. So
we headed that way. Of course, I’d done this before, but my friend hadn’t, so I
had to do it again (had nothing to do with the raffle or the sample massages
given).
Btw, They give out like a few mins. sample of some of the
massages outside of the spa near the elevators. If you get there right on time,
the lines are short.
We were going to take the tour, but the little spa guy was
concerned b/c there were steps and we had rolling luggage, so we opted to wait
a few mins. for a sample massage and hopefully our rooms would be ready. We were right, by the time we both got our
sample, it was 1:30. The announcement hadn’t been made yet, but I knew from the
past that the CD doesn’t always get around to that right away. So, we went down
to the Spa elevator to go down to our secret spa entrance hallway, lol.
Btw, The spa elevators are slow. I don’t mean like, waiting
for them………I mean like………..they move like molasses coming out of a jar.
Actually, I think molasses could have beat the elevator down.
We found our secret spa entrance door to our hallway and
went through (though at the time we didn’t really know where we were at)
We found ourseleves on our hallway and only a few feet from
our room. Our door was open and it looked ready. However, the steward in the hallway
was still vacuuming a few rooms and we didn’t know if he had finished ours or
not. He came out and politely told us he was still finished vacuuming. We said
that was fine. Apparently, he didn’t realize that we were waiting for that
particular room and when he came out again he said, “Is that your room? I’ll
vaccum next.” He began to move towards our room and bypass another. He only had
that room before ours. I stopped him and insisted he not change anything for
us, that we had all the time in the world. He finished the other room, and then
ours and we were free to go in.
The spa rooms have darker earth tones to seem more relaxing.
You get Elemis mini bottles of shampoo, conditioner, body wash, and lotion in
the bathroom along with the normal freebies. You get slippers and the spa
version of the robe. Of course you are
also supposed to be smoke free rooms and balconies.
Btw, I have nothing against the rights of smokers, though I
don’t like smoke. But as a warning to those who book these rooms be aware that
people can smoke below you and if you are on the end of the spa sections, they
can smoke beside you. We had an end room, but the wind would have carried cig.
Smoke from the balcony beside us downwind. However, the same is not true for
smokers below you. We had one below us and we did have a bit of blast of smell
from him. Not going off about this. It’s just an FYI people.
My friend waited until we were on the road to tell me she
had a fear of heights…………11th floor………HELLO! Lol. She did good
though, no freak outs. We decided to go
back up to the spa for a tour after dropping things off. Like I said, I’d been
there, but she hadn’t so I wanted her to get the tour. I had brought my camera
to take pictures, my nice one………but I didn’t use it b/c it just felt weird with
the other people on the tour around, plus the steam rooms would have been too
much. I have some pics from my first time so I’ll post those.
We put our names in for the spa drawing and had planned on
getting back, but you know when they schedule the Muster around 3pm, don’t
start to 3:45pm and then you have to make your way back around through the
crowds……….plus we wanted to see sailaway from our balcony. I had set my mom up
to a link to the port cam so she could see us sail away. Well, not the most
technology savy person, she couldn’t get the cam up in time. It probably didn’t
help she was watching my brother’s kids at the time though. Oh well. We sipped our first drinks of the cruise and
sailed off. While we were out on the balcony apparently someone sneaky came in
the room and left something. I had COMPLETELY forgotten I’d ordered my friend
chocolate covered strawberries and a Welcome Aboard your first cruise gift. She
had mentioned that she loved them. It was surprise to both of us at that point,
then I read the note………..tehe.
After that, we heard some thuds outside the door and I knew
the familiar noise of suitcases being dropped off. It was my friend’s
suitcases. Mine didn’t show up until later. That always makes me nervous, lol.
We decided to go try the spa out at this point. This is where the love affair
between my friend and the T-pool came to be. She was in that pool whenever she
could be. It is very relaxing and I have to say, that it cleaned my pores out
and helped with my blister already forming from not wearing flips flops for a
while.
Btw, Ladies, I have to say……..it helped with saving my legs
later. I think I got the closes best shave EVER and it lasted a lot longer. But
note, that in sensitive areas (inner thighs, get you minds out of the gutter),
it will cause a few break outs, as it is cleaning out the “impurities”
We needed to get back and get ready for dinner (8:15, beauty
takes time). Actually, we wanted to unpack a bit so we went back to do that and
my suitcase had arrived, YAY! It felt good to put stuff away. My friend,
however, decided to keep a lot of stuff in her suitcase………….newbies.
We got ourselves put together for dinner and we got there
just in time. No big crowd to sit in for 5 mins. just walked right in.
Btw, Just be a few mins. late for the seating time. Leave
your room at like 8:15 and it will be a breeze.
I was looking forward to meeting some new people…………and what
to my wondering eyes should appear, but a table for two. REALLY? Ugh, I couldn’t have gotten one if I had
wanted it. They did this to me and my mom too. I thought two girls around the
same age would have surely been sat with a bigger group. Oh well. We didn’t want to make a fuss and our waiters
were nice. I told my friend we could switch, but she just wanted to stay. No
big deal, we had plenty to talk about, just would have liked to have met some
new people. (I’m doing anytime dining
this next time, lol.)
I don’t go into details about dinner like a lot of people
and I don’t take pictures of food. I got over it, lol. With all the menus and
stuff posted on John H.’s blog I don’t see the point. I will tell you that we
did try a few of the didja items and they were good. Alligator tasted like
chicken and Shark tasted like tuna. The bacon mac n cheese was super good. I
can’t complain about any of the food I had. It was all good to me.
We went to the Welcome Aboard show after dinner. Of course,
my friend had never experienced one or any of the shows, so we went to them
all. I didn’t mind seeing them all again. It was a different set of dancers, so
it made a difference. This is where we first caught a glimpse of Kirk Benning,
our “CD” for the week. I will have to note that I was REALLY disappointed when
Butch was moved to the Liberty. This would have been my third cruise with him
and I really like his style. But I thought it was cool to have a different CD
too, so I was ready to see how Kirk did things…………………
Listen, I think to give the benefit of the doubt to
everyone. I want to positive. I was a theatre major; I know the meaning of
constructive criticism. I’m just gonna
get this part out of the way. I’ve been on 4 Carnival Cruises including this
last one (and one for next Nov.). I have been on 2 other cruises on other
cruiselines. Had I not found CC I wouldn’t even know what a CD was. But I do. I have two direct comparisons and
one indirect for other CDs. I had Todd Wittmar on my first Carnival Cruise and
I had Butch Begovitch on the last 2. Of course, I’ve seen videos and read on
John H.’s blog about his style, but no actual interaction. Now, strictly based
on my past experience with CDs I’m going to give you the breakdown on Kirk (Who
I might add apparently just left the Dream for “personal reasons.”).
Knowing that Kirk just got handed the Dream about a week
before we boarded I figured there might be a little bit of transitional things
going on. To be expected.
Btw, IN NO WAY, SHAPE OR FORM DID THIS “RUIN” MY CRUISE.
People ask about CDs all the time, so I’m giving my personal thoughts, which
only belong to me.
He introduced himself to us at the Welcome Aboard show where
he did a few stick jokes with people, which were funny and he was done. He
actually told us to say “Hi Kirk” when we saw him around the ship. This would
have been great…………..had we seen him.
The benefit of the Doubt (BOTD) will be that we just weren’t where he
was and that’s why we hardly show him.
Though I didn’t expect to see him at BINGO or Trivia or Karaoke………….We
didn’t see him at any of the Dance Parties on the Deck either. Todd and Butch
both “lead” these activities.
I know colors wars are controversial here, but I kinda liked
them. Just really the big party, points getting part. Ummm, well……….no show
Kirk didn’t come to the deck party and our “color wars” big competition was a
conga line. The line dances and everything didn’t count.
Btw, with Butch we had a big competition that started at
either the Karaoke club, dance club or Ocean Plaza where we would compete
various ways for points. Butch led the dance club competition himself and then
joined us up on the deck for the party and led the activities there. In fact,
at the end, he ended up jumping in the pool. Only comparing what I know.
The Madri Gra Party……………well we didn’t see Kirk though he
had just been on stage to do his 5 min. intro for the show. We went to do
Karaoke and then heard the “party” coming our way. Jamie, the AD was leading it
with about 10 people behind her. All he disappeared once she told them to stay
and enjoy the Karaoke. I did, however, see him quite a few times in the
Burgundy Lounge during comedy shows hanging out with the Fun Dude and drinking.
He did sit down at one show, with a drink, and watched it with no much
interest.
I was ready and willing to just let everything that
happened (well, didn’t happen) during
the entire cruise go b/c I knew the Legends Show was the last show and I KNEW
what would happen. Or so I thought. The moment came and……………………………………Gumbi
(Entertainment Staff, great guy though, we have the same bday) came out as
Dolly. Come on folks……….even JH dresses
up at these shows.
Here is the final deal. He wasn’t annoying, so if you like a
CD (if he ever comes back) that doesn’t do much and kinda stays out of your
way, Kirk is your guy. If you want someone with a little more flare and a CD
will make or break your cruise, I would steer clear of Mr. Benning.
BOTD, I hope that maybe he was having an off time, maybe his
transfer to the Dream and now his “personal time” is why he didn’t do so well.
I hope that things work out for him.
I think after the show we walked around a bit and I told my
friend where stuff was happening. When had a long day, so we just decided to go
back to the room and settle in for Nassau.
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