Flossbolna
Sea days are just so relaxing!
- Joined
- Sep 8, 2006
Hi there. We just got off the Dream today after a truly wonderful cruise. I am planning on doing a trip report, but wanted to leave some info here for those on the next cruises.
General observations:
While our cruise was wonderful, there were some hiccups where we felt like the Dream was not totally ready for the new itineraries. When we got on board the main dining time was shown as 5:45 pm in the app while it was 6:00 pm. It did change later. Originally the app showed Golden Mickeys for day 2, formal night and our day in Toulon with all Aboard at 4:30 pm. Then it suddenly changed and we had the Golden Mickeys on our Rome Day, Day 4, when all Aboard was at 7 pm. Seemed an odd choice as many people were on port adventures that came back late. Also, while Little Mermaid premiered while we were on the ship they didn’t show it on board. A lot of people in my Facebook group were rather disappointed.
They also had no Silver Anniversary merchandise available.
Also we had an issue with the scheduling of one Port Adventure that I will go into under its own heading.
We found the cruise to be very heavy on adults, less kids than on our previous cruises (except the Panama Canal). I am sure that was due to the time of year close to the end of the school year. Also, I think taking kids out of school is far less acceptable in Europe. There were lots of Europeans, I heard a lot of French and British English, some Spanish, Italian and even a little bit of German. My husband says he would estimate 40% Americans.
Embarkation:
The port in Barcelona was a mess when we got there. We had a port arrival time of 12:15 pm, but got there ca. 30 minutes later. There were masses of people and I tried to find out where to go. I was directed to a luggage check in line that looked massive and told to come back where the 12:15-12:30 sign was to then check in. Luggage line moved quicker than I feared, took about 15 minutes. By the time luggage was dropped off, the 12:15-12:30 line was closed. And a very unfriendly port employee told me that there was only one line and I had to get into that. This line went nearly to the other end of the building and after being frustrated about this, I searched for another port person to complain that the port arrival time seemed not to matter anymore. She actually took potty on us and put us into line. The bottle neck at that point was security and once we were through there we moved quite quickly. We were on the ship by 2 pm. We were told that staterooms wouldn’t be available until 3 pm. The app did not show that a table service restaurant was available for lunch, but I asked and we were told that Animators Palette was open and we went there. By the time we were done with lunch it was time for the staterooms to be open.
Service:
Our servers and stateroom host were all efficient. We did not have any issues with dining taking a long time. We had Main Sining at 6 pm and usually we’re done by 7:30 pm ordering four courses. On the long port days they told people to still go to main dining despite getting back just before 7 pm. The servers handled that ok it seems. However, we felt that the service was very impersonal. We had nearly no conversations, our server kept recommending shrimp dishes even though we told him multiple times that we do t eat shellfish. I also didn’t see many other servers around us chatting a lot with their guests. I wonder if the Dream staff being used to guests coming and going so quickly is really not that good at making personal relationships with guests. We chatted more with our head server than our other two servers combined.
Food:
The food quality was as always. The for the Dream newer menus didn’t seem to be an issue for the kitchen. We struggled with a couple of menus to find something enjoyable. I tried the falafel (vegetarian dish) on the Pirates Menu and it was truly horrible.
Special Dining:
We did Brunch at Remy and dinner at Palo. Both were outstanding and we had the best CM interaction of the cruise there.
Shows:
We had the Golden Mickeys, Beauty and the Beast and Believe as they are usual on the Dream. The other shows were a ventriloquist, a magician and a juggler as well as Guardians of the Galaxy.
Merchandise:
There was only one line “Dream of Europe” to cover all the European itineraries, nothing specific for the Med.
Navigators:
They did have the one sheet overview of activities. We were out on a list and they were delivered to our stateroom daily in the evening.
Port Adventures:
We had booked a Port Adventure for our first port Toulon (Southern France). Departure time was 8:45 am. When I logged into the app it showed me that our excursion the next day would start at 6:45 am. I thought there was a mistake and made my way to the Port Adventures desk during lunch. It turned out that they had indeed moved the time. I had never been told about that. Originally we were supposed to get to Toulon at 8:30 am. But a few weeks before the cruise it was changed to 6:30 am. I got the explanation that the tour provider had requested that the tour departs as soon as the ship docks, but we had no interest in such an early booking excursion and cancelled. I wonder when they would have notified us as there aren’t print outs anymore.
Disembarkation:
This was very good. We were surprised how many people still were coming off when all luggage tags had been called. There is no passport check and no customs as we never left the Schengen Area (which equals most of the EU countries). The taxi line was very long but well organized and it was constantly moving.
European VAT:
While no passport checks was a benefit, not leaving the EU meant that we had to pay VAT (similar to sales tax) on everything. It varied a bit, but generally was 20%. In Europe the VAT has to be included in the displayed price, so DCL just tagging it on everything made me less want to get anything.
Ports:
After canceling our one Port Adventure we did all the ports on our own. DCL was not really informative about how you would be getting away from your ship if you were on your own. Most ports had decent shuttles though.
Toulon:
We docked in the La Seyne sur la Mer Dock. There was a free shuttle boat that seemed to depart fairly frequently. We just walked around town which was nice enough. The open air market and the market hall were very nice. At the port we were handed out a little map which had marked the most interesting sites and we kind of followed that.
Livorno:
We went to Pisa by train. Booking tickets for the train on the Italian Railway website was uncomplicated. The free shuttle dropped us fairly central in town and from there we took a public bus to the train station.
Civitavecchia:
Here we were very frustrated. We had booked tickets for a specific train and got off the ship 50 minutes before the train departed. We missed the train as we did not want to pay 6€ per person one way for the shuttle to the train station as we figured we could walk from the free shuttle stop to the train station. They let the free shuttle sit for 30 minutes until it departed while keeping pointing people to the train station shuttle. We complained about the situation onboard and were promised someone from guest services about this. We had several missed calls, but no one ever left a message.
Naples:
We took the train to Pompeii. Here you dock in town and we just walked to the Metro, three stops for 1.20 € a person to the Garibaldi station. The train to Pompeii was ancient and on the way back our train broke down and we had to transfer to another. We still had plenty of time, but maybe don’t cut it too close if you are relying on that line.
Palma de Mallorca:
Here we had the best shuttle. The ship docked at Dique de l’Oest which is far out. But DCL provided a very good free shuttle to the town center for free. It stopped just underneath the Cathedral. Going back there were several people directing you to the correct bus as they were not marked. Palma is beautiful! It’s a shame that DCL doesn’t go there more often!
That’s all I can think of at the moment. If you have any questions let me know! I will try to post some pictures as well, but currently am in a train with spotty Internet.
General observations:
While our cruise was wonderful, there were some hiccups where we felt like the Dream was not totally ready for the new itineraries. When we got on board the main dining time was shown as 5:45 pm in the app while it was 6:00 pm. It did change later. Originally the app showed Golden Mickeys for day 2, formal night and our day in Toulon with all Aboard at 4:30 pm. Then it suddenly changed and we had the Golden Mickeys on our Rome Day, Day 4, when all Aboard was at 7 pm. Seemed an odd choice as many people were on port adventures that came back late. Also, while Little Mermaid premiered while we were on the ship they didn’t show it on board. A lot of people in my Facebook group were rather disappointed.
They also had no Silver Anniversary merchandise available.
Also we had an issue with the scheduling of one Port Adventure that I will go into under its own heading.
We found the cruise to be very heavy on adults, less kids than on our previous cruises (except the Panama Canal). I am sure that was due to the time of year close to the end of the school year. Also, I think taking kids out of school is far less acceptable in Europe. There were lots of Europeans, I heard a lot of French and British English, some Spanish, Italian and even a little bit of German. My husband says he would estimate 40% Americans.
Embarkation:
The port in Barcelona was a mess when we got there. We had a port arrival time of 12:15 pm, but got there ca. 30 minutes later. There were masses of people and I tried to find out where to go. I was directed to a luggage check in line that looked massive and told to come back where the 12:15-12:30 sign was to then check in. Luggage line moved quicker than I feared, took about 15 minutes. By the time luggage was dropped off, the 12:15-12:30 line was closed. And a very unfriendly port employee told me that there was only one line and I had to get into that. This line went nearly to the other end of the building and after being frustrated about this, I searched for another port person to complain that the port arrival time seemed not to matter anymore. She actually took potty on us and put us into line. The bottle neck at that point was security and once we were through there we moved quite quickly. We were on the ship by 2 pm. We were told that staterooms wouldn’t be available until 3 pm. The app did not show that a table service restaurant was available for lunch, but I asked and we were told that Animators Palette was open and we went there. By the time we were done with lunch it was time for the staterooms to be open.
Service:
Our servers and stateroom host were all efficient. We did not have any issues with dining taking a long time. We had Main Sining at 6 pm and usually we’re done by 7:30 pm ordering four courses. On the long port days they told people to still go to main dining despite getting back just before 7 pm. The servers handled that ok it seems. However, we felt that the service was very impersonal. We had nearly no conversations, our server kept recommending shrimp dishes even though we told him multiple times that we do t eat shellfish. I also didn’t see many other servers around us chatting a lot with their guests. I wonder if the Dream staff being used to guests coming and going so quickly is really not that good at making personal relationships with guests. We chatted more with our head server than our other two servers combined.
Food:
The food quality was as always. The for the Dream newer menus didn’t seem to be an issue for the kitchen. We struggled with a couple of menus to find something enjoyable. I tried the falafel (vegetarian dish) on the Pirates Menu and it was truly horrible.
Special Dining:
We did Brunch at Remy and dinner at Palo. Both were outstanding and we had the best CM interaction of the cruise there.
Shows:
We had the Golden Mickeys, Beauty and the Beast and Believe as they are usual on the Dream. The other shows were a ventriloquist, a magician and a juggler as well as Guardians of the Galaxy.
Merchandise:
There was only one line “Dream of Europe” to cover all the European itineraries, nothing specific for the Med.
Navigators:
They did have the one sheet overview of activities. We were out on a list and they were delivered to our stateroom daily in the evening.
Port Adventures:
We had booked a Port Adventure for our first port Toulon (Southern France). Departure time was 8:45 am. When I logged into the app it showed me that our excursion the next day would start at 6:45 am. I thought there was a mistake and made my way to the Port Adventures desk during lunch. It turned out that they had indeed moved the time. I had never been told about that. Originally we were supposed to get to Toulon at 8:30 am. But a few weeks before the cruise it was changed to 6:30 am. I got the explanation that the tour provider had requested that the tour departs as soon as the ship docks, but we had no interest in such an early booking excursion and cancelled. I wonder when they would have notified us as there aren’t print outs anymore.
Disembarkation:
This was very good. We were surprised how many people still were coming off when all luggage tags had been called. There is no passport check and no customs as we never left the Schengen Area (which equals most of the EU countries). The taxi line was very long but well organized and it was constantly moving.
European VAT:
While no passport checks was a benefit, not leaving the EU meant that we had to pay VAT (similar to sales tax) on everything. It varied a bit, but generally was 20%. In Europe the VAT has to be included in the displayed price, so DCL just tagging it on everything made me less want to get anything.
Ports:
After canceling our one Port Adventure we did all the ports on our own. DCL was not really informative about how you would be getting away from your ship if you were on your own. Most ports had decent shuttles though.
Toulon:
We docked in the La Seyne sur la Mer Dock. There was a free shuttle boat that seemed to depart fairly frequently. We just walked around town which was nice enough. The open air market and the market hall were very nice. At the port we were handed out a little map which had marked the most interesting sites and we kind of followed that.
Livorno:
We went to Pisa by train. Booking tickets for the train on the Italian Railway website was uncomplicated. The free shuttle dropped us fairly central in town and from there we took a public bus to the train station.
Civitavecchia:
Here we were very frustrated. We had booked tickets for a specific train and got off the ship 50 minutes before the train departed. We missed the train as we did not want to pay 6€ per person one way for the shuttle to the train station as we figured we could walk from the free shuttle stop to the train station. They let the free shuttle sit for 30 minutes until it departed while keeping pointing people to the train station shuttle. We complained about the situation onboard and were promised someone from guest services about this. We had several missed calls, but no one ever left a message.
Naples:
We took the train to Pompeii. Here you dock in town and we just walked to the Metro, three stops for 1.20 € a person to the Garibaldi station. The train to Pompeii was ancient and on the way back our train broke down and we had to transfer to another. We still had plenty of time, but maybe don’t cut it too close if you are relying on that line.
Palma de Mallorca:
Here we had the best shuttle. The ship docked at Dique de l’Oest which is far out. But DCL provided a very good free shuttle to the town center for free. It stopped just underneath the Cathedral. Going back there were several people directing you to the correct bus as they were not marked. Palma is beautiful! It’s a shame that DCL doesn’t go there more often!
That’s all I can think of at the moment. If you have any questions let me know! I will try to post some pictures as well, but currently am in a train with spotty Internet.
Also we live in Europe, so didn’t feel like we had to see everything.
