My partner and I were very excited to travel on one of Carnival’s larger, “newer” ships. Our first cruise was Carnival Conquest in May 2017. This was a disappointment for both of us compared to Conquest. Dream seemed too large for its crew to cope with. Service was severely impersonal, though most crew was at least cordial. At embarkation, a person who I assume works for Carnival at the port of New Orleans was on a microphone trying to direct people, demanded to see my boarding pass over her microphone and chastised me for being behind another guest over the microphone to the entire queue of people outside. I was pretty embarrassed by her awful attitude.
Then no porters were around to take our luggage that we could find. Microphone lady rushed us inside and we had to carry our suitcases on and wait with them for about 1.5 hours on in both the crowded boarding area and deck 3 before we could get our stateroom.
Maintenance in certain areas like decks and pools was handled by one person in any area it appeared, so a lot of time elapsed between cleanings or upkeep. Only the port side Serenity deck whirlpool was “hot” for the entire cruise. The aft starboard whirlpool was temperate, and every other whirlpool was about 90° or lower. In the dining room, we were often left without certain items on the table and had to ask for the wait team to bring them to us, meals were badly cooked (very tough, over cooked prime rib one night), but we did have two really great servers on different teams.
Decent size, good air circulation. Lots of stoarage. Bring a power strip, though. We unplugged the TV to get an extra outlet.
New Orleans as a city on our own was great! But Carnival made boarding terrible. Very rude staff directing people and they didn’t have porters available when we arrived to take our luggage.
$20 per person to get a few stops and beach. Better than what Carnival charged and encountered people from the ship that booked through them.
Very nice island. Easy and safe to walk from the port to beaches, shopping, or restaurant. Clean bathrooms in port and nice beaches.