Review of Carnival’s Eastern Caribbean cruise, Nov. 8-15, 2022
From November 5-13, I took my first cruise on Carnival’s Dream on their Eastern Caribbean itinerary. The route leaves Galveston, Texas with one day at sea before arriving at Key West, Florida, followed by Freeport, Bahamas, Carnival’s private island called Half-Moon Cay, and finally Nassau, Bahamas before returning to Galveston, Texas after two more sea days.
I have cruised with Carnival before and usually during hurricane season so there were no real surprises on those fronts. Cruising from Galveston or Florida in October and November has serious advantages for me such as fewer kids on board, the weather is cooler but still warm enough to swim and snorkel in the Caribbean and the costs are usually lower. However, traveling during these times also means you’re cruising during hurricane season.
On this cruise, we were followed by Hurricane Nicole which was a late-season hurricane that ended up being the third hurricane to hit landfall in Florida and followed the same path as Hurricane Ian which was devasting and hit six weeks earlier. Thankfully for us, Nicole only made the ship rock quite a lot and caused some seriously high winds that our captain canceled our day in Half-Moon Cay and kept the ship at super slow speeds to Nassau.
Carnival Dream Class Ships
The Carnival Dream is the first in her class, the Dream Class which is also where she gets her name. The Dream Class includes Carnival Magic, Carnival Breeze, and Costa Diadema. The Dream was originally the largest Carnival ship until 2011. The Carnival Magic floated out as part of the Vista-class ships came along in 2016 and also the largest in Carnival’s fleet.
The Dream was the first Carnival shop to include a water park with multiple slides. She also has an 18-hole miniature golf course and a wide outdoor promenade deck that includes an outdoor café and a whirlpool Jacuzzi in four places along the outside edge of the deck.
I like to look up each ship before I travel or choose which trip to take and I admit at first, I was not too thrilled with the images of the Dream. Most of the ships I’ve been on have a pretty blue/green theme for their spa deck cabins which I love but the Dream’s spa cabins were red and the images don’t do the cabins any favors. Thankfully, the red color scheme was quite nice. I did not take photos though as the cabin doesn’t seem to photograph well. Or maybe the cabin doesn’t photograph well because everyone takes crappy photos… I don’t know!
Half-Moon Caye- Yoinked by Nadine
Half-Moon Caye, a private island owned by Carnival Corporation is one of the 700+ Bahamas islands. The island is a private 2,400-acres reserved exclusively for cruise passengers. If you sail the Carnival’s Eastern Caribbean route, Half Moon Caye will almost always be a stop. The island is one of the top attractions for many cruisers due to its soft, powdery white sand.
Half-Moon Caye does not have a pier, making it necessary to tender passengers to the island. (Tendering is using smaller boats such as water taxis to access a port). If there are high winds like the oncoming Hurricane Nicole, tender ports sometimes need to be canceled for the safety of the passengers and ship. This is not something the captain does lightly but safety always comes first.
Due to high winds, we were unable to go to the island. Instead, the captain took the Dream very slowly to navigate through high winds and rougher waters onward to Nassau, Bahamas.
Nassau, Bahamas
I admit Nassau was the most unimpressive port, at least from the shopping perspective. This is the port where you will want to book some type of activity. If you’re into the shopping aspect of cruising, Nassau has nothing you can’t get at any other port anywhere else. There is a large straw market but it’s the same “been there, done that” goods.
There are free, small public beaches within walking distance that are nice though if you’re looking for something cheap. The Queen’s Staircase is also close enough and interesting for another free option. I personally did not go though, I only read about it so I can’t vouch for this.
Originally, we had booked a snorkeling excursion I was super excited about. We were going to possibly swim with sharks and one of the two scheduled stops was a plane crash used in “Jaws: The Revenge.” (Betcha didn’t even know there was a FOURTH “Jaws” movie huh? Because it was really, really, really dumb). I say “possibly” swim with the sharks because Stuart’s Cove has scuba excursions with sharks and, on some occasions the snorkeling tour will swim over the top of the scuba divers. I admit scuba diving scares me but I seriously considered learning in time to try the shark swim! That was before I looked up the cost to get PADI certified.
Sadly, this excursion was canceled. We were able to jump in at the last minute with an excursion through Carnival with the same company, Stuart Cove’s to a two-snorkel stop. I love snorkeling with a passion but this was not good snorkeling. The water was far too rough, there wasn’t anything great to see and there were too many people. I got hit with a flipper about three times or bumped with an elbow.
After snorkeling with groups a few times, I’ve learned newbie snorkelers are the worst. They have no concept of personal space or how to control themselves. They’re too busy trying to look around and not paying attention to their surroundings. The biggest thing I have learned and avoid like the plaque is the ship-hosted excursions.
There are serious advantages to going through the cruise line when booking an excursion and it is not always a bad idea. However, I’ve seen too many excursions like this one and it’s always the same. The cruise line excursions pack too many people into the snorkel trips, and many of those people are newbies. There’s nothing wrong with this, I want people to try out snorkeling! But huge groups are never a fun thing when trying to snorkel so check out the company you’re booking through ahead of time if possible and maybe consider not using the ship’s excursions.
The boat captain told me he checked the water conditions earlier in the morning and it was perfect. He even showed me pictures he took of the dive sites from that morning. The water was glass smooth- ideal snorkeling water. The water was too rough for me and I bailed early on the first site. I didn’t even try the second site. Another passenger, another experienced snorkeler, said there wasn’t much to see anyway. I did have a lovely chat with a lovely woman who was celebrating her one-year “divorce-ary.” Her divorce had been finalized a year to the day. There are many, many single women cruising!!!
