Not what I was hoping for, even for a bargain cruise.

Embarkation was hectic and poorly coordinated. Not the embarkation experience we had hoped for.

BUFFET: Food was average at best in quality. Breakfast was always the same. bagged eggs, eggs benedict (which was my favorite), mixed hand cut fruits, a potato feature of some sort (like hashed browns), and either self serve sausage of some type or they had a server doling out bacon every other day. Off the buffet there was cereals in bulk and oatmeal in single serve packages. These could be found near the dessert island Drinks were always the same. and very very concentrated. apple juice, orange cocktail and tea. all had to be diluted with water after being served. most were nearly like syrup. Oh, and regular and decaf coffee. strong the way I like it. There is no bar service in the buffet area, so if you want a soda, you have to go elsewhere. food that could be found at lunch included a mix of fruits, charcuterie meats and cheeses and olives. (but oddly, no crackers) There was usually several kinds of salad available, though the bowls were usually empty (more on that in a bit). these were followed by the days meat and vegetable servings. These would be a pork or beef option, a baked fish option (which was horrid both times I tried it), a steamed vegetable like broccoli and mashed potatoes. On the dessert island there were assorted cakes and brownies along with cookies, which were usually very good and probably came from a nice plastic bag in the galley. They were never warm, and never chewy. We discovered that the evenings fare at the buffet was identical to what they were serving in the sit-down dining area. (I refuse to call it fancy. sorry. no table cloth? NOT fancy.) It would include a selection of sea foods, a steak usually, some form of pasta (which was nearly always terrible), and an assortment of vegetables. Again, the salad serving bowls were always empty. SIT DOWN DINING: We did try sit-down dining twice. once for the fancy night so we could get pictures, and on the first night of the cruise to avoid the buffet crowds. Food was nothing to write home about. When we asked the waiter for a bottle of wine (not a glass) we were told he couldn't bring a bottle until we were in international waters. I have no idea why. I've never experienced that on any other ship. He did eventually find a way to bring a bottle, about half way through the meal. I am used to the sit down area being upscale and fancy. beautiful glassware, fine china, tablecloths and properly set tables. You will find none of those things on this ship. The only time we saw a tablecloth was eating at the specialty stake restaurant. (more later) PIZZARIA Food at the Pizzeria was actually pretty good! We loved the hand tossed crust and the fresh-out-of-the-oven taste. unfortunately, when it was open it had LONG lines and was never manned by more than two people, so service was very slow and they never had enough to go around. this is included in the price of your cruise. GUYS BURGER JOINT Excellent burger, fantastic taste like right off the grill. Order it the way you like, get those thin cut French fries and then head over to the thunderdome. . . er. . . toppings bar and do battle with the rest of the ships compliment to get the toppings you want. .then hope you don't get sick from the kid that just stuck his fingers in the pickles to pluck out his choice. There was no supervision at the toppings bar and it was always a complete mess. This place is included in the price of your cruise LOBSTER SHACK Seriously overpriced for what it was. The food was mediocre and best. the snow crab legs we experiences were freezer burned. the lobster roll was acceptable, but in trying to make it taste delicate, the removed all the flavor from the lobster. the amount of lobster on the roll was disappointing as well. all told, we bought two lobster rolls and a round of fried Calamari and it cost nearly $80. this is NOT included in your cruise cost. BONSAI SUSHI By far the best meal we had was at Bonsai Sushi. on the third day of our vacation, we chose to have dinner here. the Miso soup was spot on, with just enough tofu to make it interesting. The sushi rolls were masterfully prepared and the edamame was perfectly steamed. A meal for two that was quite filling cost $60. a glass of Plum wine was an additional $15. CHEFS ART steakhouse the second best meal was at the Chefs Art Steakhouse, my wife and I started with the stuffed mushrooms, which were deep fried - which was unexpected and took away from the delicate flavored you would expect from a mushroom. I ordered a Cesar salad which arrived in a whole leaf configuration and was absolutely superb. Our steaks arrived in a timely manner and were massive. So much so that we both took some back to the room with us. PASTA BELLA Situated inside The Gathering, Pasta Bella was hard to find. we never ate there but understand that it's only average at best by friend who chose to partake. OUTSIDE BARS By far the most frustrating part of the trip was not being able to get a drink at an outside bar. These are the bars by the pools, the bar in the Serenity adult only area and the bars on deck 5 at the rear of the ship. They were generally all terribly understaffed and those members of the crew that did staff them were all very sour. Especially if you were just getting a soda. more often than not, I just gave up and went somewhere else. This made using my Unlimited Bubbles package very difficult. I certainly did NOT get my moneys worth from that package because of this. The inside bars were better, but service was generally slow. I will say that once you DID get a drink, they were usually very liquor heavy and poured with a significant tail. While all the drinks were very expensive if you didn't have the unlimited alcohol package, you would get plenty of spirits with each one. I have zero complaints on the taste of any of the drinks, from an old fashioned a the Alchemy bar to a simple Bahama Mama at the promenade bar, all were great. By far the best bar is the one in the Alchemy bar area. Their specialty drinks were superb beyond compare and the bar tenders were always a delight. we found ourselves back here several times.

The cruise director is full of life and seemed to really enjoy interacting with the people on board. we partook in some of the trivia - even winning one round. The group we were with were convinced that they interviewed every single member of the crew and chose the two or three members with the worst possible English to read the trivia questions. Things had to be repeated over and over and every round the announcer got more and more frustrated. The Park West art auction was a lot of fun, we enjoyed seeing the beautiful paintings but, as usual, were disappointed in the pricing of the Giclee prints, most were way overpriced. We have purchased on-ship before and learned our lesson about these prints. Park West had their typical artists: Peter Max, Salvador Dali, Csaba Markus and a number of others. Several paintings passed over the block in excess of 80,000 USD, none sold. As Usual. The Dreams pools were something we never partook in, it was took cold during our cruise for us, but the kids seemed to have fun. At one point the rear pool on deck 5 had to be emptied, sanitized and refilled. this was done extremely quickly and thoroughly. we were impressed. The Jacuzzi's are all showing their age and all have a number of unsightly repairs in their shells. all of them are missing their jet pressure control dials to loss or theft and none of them seemed to ever be warm enough. As we were leaving port one night, the cold sea air enveloped the ship and we were stuck in a Luke warm jacuzzi with no way to get out without freezing. Upon asking the crew, we were told there was no way to adjust the temp. I call BS. The Dive in movies were not bad, our featured Barbie and a few others. The large screen had at least two tiles of LEDS that were broken or failing, making seeing anything on the screen a bit distracting. There are several night clubs on board that were open nightly. as we passed by them, there were a few people in dancing, but none of them were ever crowded. The casino was never short on people. there were two sections, a smoking and a non-smoking. I couldn't tell the difference. The slots were always full of people and the table games, when open in the evening never had a shortage of players. I like blackjack, but never saw a table were anyone seemed to be winning more than two hands in a row. even the $100 table. There were no announcements for tournaments, so I assume there were none. We chose not to partake in Bingo. no one won the jackpot, I can tell you that, but there were never any shortages of people playing. There were a number of other activities we chose not to partake in as well. things like "coloring at sea" - we chose to sunbathe or nap. There is also a mini golf course and water slides. we chose not to do either because of their position on the ship. both were heavily windblown and our cruise was a bit chilly.

In the Alchemy bar, you could find a regular one man band from a guitar player who loved to play American Rock and Roll and Country and sounded the part. Once he stopped playing you realized he's not American. (I will leave it to you to determine where he is from). you could tell he was wearing himself out, but was enjoying what he was doing. He had a decent voice and played the electric guitar very well. We went to several shows, including the "Premier" show "Flick" - we were disappointed in all of them. We saw three shows in total. one was a 90's music review show, every song we knew. the next was an 80's show, every song we knew. These two shows had three things in common: 1) the choreography was excellent and well executed. 2) of the 4 singers that were featured, three of them could not keep their vocals in tune - and when you know every single song, you know what to expect. 3) the singers took mad liberties with the melodies of each song, making some of them nearly unrecognizable. When you're covering well known songs, the audiences brain is already trained to know what to expect. especially those that grew up listening to those songs. when you're way off key and taking liberties with those songs, they are not enjoyable. The third show was "flick" - it's a show that basically has some cheesy magic in it (think the kind Howard wallowitz does in Big Bang Theory) intermixed with songs (usually theme songs) from popular movies of the last 20 years: Foot loose (Foot Loose), Top Gun (Take my Breath away), Dirty Dancing (I've had the time of my life) - you get the picture. however the costuming and choreography had NOTHING to do with the film. For example when they did Take My Breath Away from Berlin from Top Gun, the performers were dressed in some weird Cruella Deville meets the Borg type outfits. it had nothing to do with the move at all. and that's ALL that song is known for. Flick totally missed the mark for enjoyable entertainment. There were two comics on the boat. Both were very funny. on was a one-night only show and he was hilarious. Sadly, I don't remember either of their names, but they were by far the most entertaining of the entertainers on the boat. On the Promenade nightly were one of two acts that were polar opposite. One some nights you had a trio of three violinist playing all sorts of music from rock covers (they covered November Rain from Guns N Roses and it was amazing!) they always drew a crowd and received roaring applause. Other nights you two young artists. The guy played guitar and they both struggled to carry a tune in a bucket. It was painful to listen to. They need more work on their act before trying this again. We never did more than just pass through as it was painful to watch them try to perform.

I gave this three stars, but let me break it down for you: State Room Staff - 5 Stars. They were excellent and kept the room as clean as they could. the cruise prior to ours experienced very heavy winds and driving rain, leaving the carpet in our balcony stateroom totally soaked under the bed. Eventually it began to stink badly. We notified the staff and they promptly brought in fans and deodorizers for us, solving the smell problem, but we both experienced sinus issues any time we were in a carpeted area of the ship, indicating that the carpet wasn't clean. Bar Staff: 2 Stars Generally, the bar staff appeared to be over-worked and tired of dealing with cranky passengers, which made the passengers even more cranky, which made them more bitter. The one exception was the alchemy bar mentioned previosly. Photography staff and support staff 4 stars. We generally had little interaction with these folks. Photographers were nice and accommodated our requests for special poses. ordering photos was easy, but way overpriced. for what you get.

The Dream is again showing it's age. Its maiden voyage was in 2009, with dry dock refits in 2017 in the Bahamas for carpet, lighting, wall coverings and in Marseille in 2021 for a new outside paintjob to match the rest of the Carnival ships. The interiors are showing their age and rust and scale can be found on most of the external steel and stainless steel surfaces. Of note: we had a balcony room on deck 7. Upon looking down at the railings below, they were nasty on the top, indicating no one ever cleans the tops of things where they think people can't see.

The state room was, by all standards, roomy and well lit. The flooded carpet smell was overwhelming at first but was abated quickly. The water in the shower was nice and hot, though if you managed to get some in your mouth (who doesn't, right?) you will definitely taste salt from what I can only surmise is from the struggling desalinizing plant. Stateroom attendants were always at the ready with dry towels, clean sheets and smile.

Finally, Carnival gets something right. Disembarkation was quick and easy. Carnival crew members manned the elevators to ensure that people were quickly being moved from holding areas to the disembarkation gangways without having to stop at other floors. we were off the ship before 10:30 and had no need to rush around anywhere to make it happen.