Our Carnival Dream Adventure – Part 3

Disclosure: Carnival Cruise Lines sent us (my husband and I) on a 7 day cruise aboard the Carnival Dream at no cost to us. (We did pay for all of the excursions on our own.) All opinions in this post are 100% my own.

After talking about the food, the only logical thing left is to talk about all of the fun we had on our trip! What I love most about Carnival is that you don’t have to stress about your vacation planning once you’re on the cruise ship.

Every night, your room steward will leave a newsletter on your bed, which shows every single activity that’s available for you to participate in on the boat. There’s several types of activities on the ship. My favorites are the comedy shows, karaoke (watching it…no one should be subjected to my vocal “talents”), the evening shows (which were different themes every night) and mini golf. To name some of the amenities, on our ship there were also a few pools, hot tubs, an adult only deck, water slides, a full-on spa, gym, a casino, a few shops and art gallery.

In addition to ship activities, there are also excursions you can book for when you’re in port (You can do this either online or once you’re on the ship…just keep in mind that some excursions can fill up and they’re first come, first serve.). Our big excursion this year was the dolphin swim/snorkel in Roatan, Honduras. A bit of a background…I have ALWAYS wanted to do this. Always. I love dolphins. So, this year, I think I annoyed my husband with enough “pretty please”s, because he was totally game for it this cruise. Our particular excursion included a dolphin encounter, where you watch them do tricks, you get to pet them, and of course, you get the famous dolphin kiss.

(Images taken by a staff member at St. Anthony’s Key Resort…we purchased the rights to use and print these photos.)

For our excursion, we were put in small groups with a trainer, and the trainer had a dolphin with him. This dolphin’s name is Bailey, and she was the sweetest. Here’s a picture of when she would slowly swim past the group for us to pet her. 🙂

After we all took our pictures with the dolphins, the trainers treated us to a few tricks involving multiple dolphins. I’m so in awe of how beautiful these animals are when they’re jumping, skipping, etc.

After the encounter, we were allowed to go into deeper waters and snorkel with them. It was so neat to hear them communicate under water…I absolutely loved it! The trainers showed us a trick with waving sea grass…it would attract the calves to play with the grass! So adorable…their mannerisms reminded me so much of puppies.

Another excursion we did was the Behind the Fun tour. This is an excursion that is on the ship, where you learn about the inner workings of a cruise ship. It’s held on the last sea day of the cruise, and my husband read about this on the cruising forums. You can’t book this online before your cruise, but once you get on the ship, you can go to the shore excursions desk and book it then.

While I have no pictures to share of the tour (they aren’t allowed), I will say that the tour was worth it to us. It lasted a good 3 hours, and just to make you aware, it does require quite a bit of walking and stair climbing. We toured everything from the kitchen, to the storage areas for food, laundry areas and a few crew only areas, to name a few places. I was never bored, and our tour guide made it fun for us. The time really flew by, and when we got back to our room, this nice surprise was waiting for us! 🙂

I have to say, this was probably the best cruise we’ve been on. Between the excursions, the ship, the crew and of course, this being the first cruise we’ve been on with family, we had a wonderful time. I feel that this is one of the few vacations where you truly feel like you are relaxed afterwards and had a good mental vacation. I know some people aren’t really into cruises (we thought we were those people, by the way), but I’m so glad that we tried a cruise for the first time three years ago, because we are just hooked.

Thank you again, Carnival Cruise Lines for the amazing trip. We had such a wonderful, relaxing time, and we’re already starting to plan our next one!

(I’ll just leave this little sunset picture here….)