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Thursday, May 16, 2013

Welcome to our DREAM cruise

     This time last week, John and I were enjoying a cruise celebrating our many happy years together as our 19th anniversary approaches at the end of May.

      John has a way of planning the most fantastic vacations since the beginning of our marriage. He took our honeymoon [planning himself, worked his butt off at work and even got a second job so he could surprise me with a honeymoon to Hawaii. He set the bar high early on and hasn't disappointed me since.

     This time, he planned a wonderful cruise to the Eastern Caribbean for just he and I. He took care of making sure everyone would be cared for and looked after at home, but gave me enough notice to be excited and plan for what would need for the trip. Love this guy!

Our adventure started off with an early flight out of Nashville headed to Orlando where we would be sailing out of. From the airport, we took about an hour ride to Port Canaveral.

This is what greeted our bus as we approached the Port. Not just our ship on the left, but the Disney Fantasy on the right. I was nearly as excited to see the Disney ship as ours. I just love just about all things Disney and would love to take the family on a Disney cruise some day. It's just those Disney prices that prevent that from easily happening ;)

After going through a pretty quick and painless embarkation process, we were given this little card to load the ship. Zone 23. What was awesome that as soon as we took this pic, our zone was called to start loading! A few more checkpoints, a quick photo for security purposes, and away we went to our ship!

The first, up close, picture of our ship Carnival's Dream. One of the largest, and newest among their fleet. There were, I believe, 14 decks total to explore- massive!

We embarked on the 3 level into the main atrium. There were glass elevators, lights, and a huge skylight at the 7 story open area.

We explored the ship a bit and found the adult pool at the aft of the ship.

Then we wanted to check out our cabin. John was able to run up ahead of me on the stairs and surprise me with this photo. I managed to be equally ready with a smile.

A view from our personal balcony! It was wonderful.

Bon Voyage!!! Setting sail for the Bahamas!

My personal view as I relaxed on the balcony in my chair.



Some shots of the Dream






While our ship was by no means small, we sailed the same itinerary as Royal Caribbean's Oasis of the Seas, and that ship made ours look teeny tiny. I believe that is the largest ship sailing the cruise seas these days.

From our balcony, you could see some of the deck and a few of the spas that many people enjoyed during the day.

A rare moment where John and I were on the glass elevators by ourselves. Don't worry Mom, there are also regular enclosed elevators and TONS of stairs just for you.

The view up from the 3rd floor in the atrium area.

The atrium where the these elevators stop.

View from where I was standing in the previous photo. A large spiral staircase with lots of glass and lights that changed colors. Where the sliver bars are at lower center portion of the photo is where different singers would belt out some tunes at various times of the day.

Hard to believe that all of this is can be contained in a ship that floats!

On the 4th and 5th floors there are little couch areas for people to enjoy the singers while typically waiting for the dining room to open in the evening. Or as you will see in a later blog post, search through the tons of photos the crew takes that are on display.

The piano bar.

Display screen showing where we were currently sailing. This was on our return trip home. It would also show speed, wind, and weather. I loved this type of info and it was available on our room TV which I looked at while we traveling.

The Lido deck main pool and lounge area. 

Huge TV screen in the Lido area. They showed cruise videos most of the time but on several evenings, there were movies shown for those that wanted to watch flicks while swimming and relaxing.

Encore theater where the main shows took place each evening. John and I went to 1 show and it was good, but pretty typical cruise material.

The theater was pretty large with an upper balcony for seating.

The stage which had a pit area for the band.

John convinced me to pop up on stage for a quick photo.

Enjoying some beautiful weather on the deck.

I loved soaking in the sunshine. Thanks to Sarah for allowing me to borrow her adorable hat for the week. It prevented me from looking like a total hobo with cruise hair.

John and I were rocking the sunshine colors that day.

Classic view from the aft as we sail away.

Looking forward to sharing more of our vacation and adventures with you in the coming days!















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