2nd Carnival Cruise, this one post Covid

The way the embarkation is staggered really helps with the previous long lines. We had a total of 7 people, embarkation was a breeze. Being handicapped I usually "skip" the regular line and go to much shorter handicapped line. This time, 4 of us went thru handicapped line, the other 3 thru the "regular" line, and the other 3 were actually done before we were. Having the "Verifly" app for 2 of 4 of us did expedite the process a little bit, but we also had all of the required documents readily available for the other 2. As the hotel is pier 21 and the cruise terminal is listed as .30 miles on google, we walked from the hotel to the cruise terminal. It was doable, as long as nobody has any issues with walking. We ended up walking to terminal #2, which might have been a little further. I had reserved a scooter for the duration of the cruise, which we picked up in terminal #2. On previous cruises, the scooter was delivered to the room, it was actually more convenient to pick it up in the terminal, and have it to use during embarkation.

The main dining room was great, I would give it a 4. Standard main dining room fare, melting chocolate cake is the best dessert ever! I was disappointed in the buffet for lunch/dinner. The food didn't seem to change much, and I wasn't happy with most of what I had. For example, the fried fish in the fish/chips was mostly batter, and super greasy. The salad bar part was the best part, the entrees and sides just weren't that tasty. The breakfast buffet was the best. The Deli was not good except for the hot dogs. I had tuna sandwich and it was gross, cheap tuna, not well mixed and watery, I had meatball sub and it was gross, mostly bread and tiny little meatballs. I was disappointed in Guys Pig and Anchor, the meats were good, the sides sucked. The mac & cheese was cold, the potatoes in the potato salad were not cooked. The seafood shack was good, but pricy. We had lobster rolls, they had too much mayo and not enough lobster, they looked nothing like the photos, the clam chowder in the bread bowl was good but the bread bowl was hard as a rock and difficult to break up. Guys Burgers was my favorite place to eat, all the burgers I had there were excellent. I go on cruises to eat and nap, and the food on this trip has turned me off of Carnival. The main dining room and Guy's Burgers are the only reason this is not a 1 star. Room service was good, but had the tiniest wings I have ever seen in my life. The prices have gone up too, the wings were $7, the pizza was $6. The chocolate cake and the cheesecake didn't have very much flavor, and we didn't eat them. My favorite was the philly cheesesteak for $6.

We played bingo, which got expensive since the last time we played on a cruise. Either $27 or $48 for 3 games. We played some of the trivia games, which was fun, and free. Some of our party did the thermal suite and loved it, said it was definitely worth the cost. The adult comedy shows were attended and enjoyed. The build-a-bear was attended by 2 adult members and they loved it!

MarQ was not any more annoying than the usual cruise director, but I understand this is his job. There was a group of 3 female violinists, Cats Trio, that played in the atrium several times, they were fabulous. A show called The Show Down was highly enjoyed. Between the 7 of us everyone found enough to do!

There were no children in my group.

All of the staff is the best part of cruising. All of the waiters, especially in the Crimson Dining room tables 217 and 218, were the best! The waiter on table 217, (I think his name was Adi?) on the 3rd night of our cruise, Monday the 9th, asked me why I wasn't having any alcoholic drinks, since I had the On Us Premium drink package. When I booked this cruise, thru an email from the Carnival Casino, I had thought it included free drinks, anywhere on the ship. Later though I called to confirm this and was told it was free drinks only while in the casino. After being on the ship for 3 days I then wondered why no one else had asked this! So kudos to this waiter! My sister and I then enjoyed many more free drinks. Typically when you order from the bar they add the gratuity onto the tab, but when it is comped there is then no gratuity added, so make sure to add a tip back for the server! The server on table 218, which we had a total of 3 times, (I think his name is Maryxxxx) was fabulous. One of our party had difficulty with cutting her 9oz filet, and he cut it for her. He also made sure her food was blue rare, and on one night brought out 3 different plates of tenderloin for her. Both of these servers were the best I've ever had on a cruise. Our room steward was Putu, he was great. Our "chiller" in the room, (not a mini-fridge, it's a chiller I was told) was NOT chilling, and this was a problem as I had brought my own coffee creamer with me. He brought me extra ice for 2 days while attempting to swap out the chiller, then was able to swap it out with a chiller that worked. They only do the rooms once a day now instead of twice, which is fine with me, as they are very receptive to any other requests you make. All of the staff on the ship always said good morning or afternoon when you passed them in the halls. All of the staff that sees you frequently, like room stewards and dining room staff, even on your time dining, call you by name, which is nice.

The Dream is definitely showing her age. The crew does a great job keeping the common areas clean and maintained, but she is nowhere near a new ship. This showed more in my cabin than anywhere. The windows in the pool area were in need of cleaning, you almost couldn't get a good photo because of this.

This is an ADA room, with a power door. The door handle is loose, and difficult to tell if actually locked once inside. It usually took several attempts with the key card to get it to actually open. The door really needs to be repaired. The room itself is roomy even for an ADA room. We had the room steward put one bed on the window, and the other bed on the other wall, which left us at least 6' between the beds. There was room for manual wheelchair as well as the rented scooter, and my sister could still get around the room. This room does however have only 1 closet to hang cloths and 1 cupboard with shelfs. I think the other rooms all had at least 3 closet/cupboards. The bathroom is huge, but there are NO shelfs for anything, only the sink area. Very large walk in shower with a fold down bench. It really needs shelves to put your stuff, just a bad design I think. My sister-in-law's room next door had several shelves in the bathroom. There was a bit of rust and worn grout in the bottom of the shower. There was also some serious rust/wear on the bottom of the balcony. This is where I noticed the age of the ship the most.

This was very interesting. We had a shuttle bus at 10:05am to Hobby. Per the disembarkation lecture with MarQ, to make sure we were going to be off the ship and have our luggage by 9:30am, we had to carry our luggage off the ship. We did this, then they called for disembarkation by your muster station, so we would have been off by 8am. They wanted everyone out of their staterooms by 8:30am, and off the ship. The buffet was open until 9am, so we went to the buffet with all of our luggage at around 8:30am. There were about 200 people left on board, per the announcements, so the buffet was pretty empty. We had breakfast, and all of the buffet servers/busboy were hovering around us. This was less than enjoyable, but whatever. As we had to wait until 10am for our shuttle, we dawdled until around 9am, then made our way to deck 3 to disembark. There were 13 passengers left on board once we left. They use facial recognition for the disembarkation, and as long as you have passport this is a super simple process. Especially when most of the ship had already disembarked!