NCL Dream Review 12-21-03 Long

NCL Dream Review: 12/21/2003

This was our first Christmas cruise, and we knew two things for su
lots of kids on board, and no cooking for a week!

We got to New Orleans a day early to enjoy the city. Did a lot of
walking tours and of course Bourbon street. The Saturday before
Christmas is very quiet on Bourbon, almost too behaved. We stayed at
the Wyndham-Riverfront which was a nice hotel (no pool and limited
parking if that matters), but is right across the street from the NCL
terminal (the Dream parks behind the Carnival Conquest, right in front
of the Riverfront mall). Easy walk to the ship.

We have been on the Dream and Wind many times so it was old home week.
We even got our normal BA-level balcony room back. This cruise
featured a lot of BBQs so we only ate in the dining room for two
dinners, the rest were spent on the pool deck, usually with live music
and a party atmosphere. The Entertainment was pretty good with the
acrobat/comedian being the best (his tag line: “I like you” had the
entire ship running around saying it). The JAR musicals were ok, but
the cast seemed like they were not really in synch with each other
(maybe too much egg nog). The ship did a lot of special Christmas
themed events, which were very good, partly because they were not
rehearsed on a weekly basis, and really showed the skills of the
entertainers (especially when things did not go right). We spent a lot
of evenings listening to a great couple from Missouri called the
“Two-Tones” playing in the Observatory Lounge. The CD was ok, not the
best but not the worst. He made up for it though with some great jokes
will people were waiting to dis-embark.

The First night was mostly navigating the river, lots of sharp turns and
people flopping around as they got rid of their land legs. Monday was a
sea day, fairly nice with some clouds, but we hit some rough seas late
afternoon that had some people running for the seasick pills. We
noticed long lines at the restaurants, most of it was due to lots of
large families wanting to eat together (rather difficult for a ship
since most of the tables are permanently mounted to the floor and not
easy to move around). Our reaction was a big “who cares” since the
BBQs were turning out some great food.

Cozumel was the first stop. 8 ships were in that day, everything was
packed. We had a change of plans and ended up with some shopping and
too much beer drinking at Frogs. We docked with Carnival at the dock
across from Frogs. The weather kept threatening that day but did not
rain. Roatan was next, very small town and it seems the entire village
comes out when you dock. We did the Tobayan beach snorkel, which due to
the weather was a bust (big seas, sporadic rain). Tobayan beach is a
private beach resort that seems dedicated to cruise ships. They have a
decent beach, horseback riding, kayaks, and snorkeling (do not know the
quality since all we saw was seaweed that day). They serve lunch
(burgers, chicken, fruit) and have a band playing all day. The town has
not much to offer other than souvenirs and wooden crafts.

Christmas was Belize. We decided to do the Reggie Cave Tubing Tour and
it was great. The ship tenders due to shallow waters, but NCL is the
closest ship and runs small fast tenders to shore. We used the
Concierge to get us early tender rides which go out right after the NCL
tours depart. The tender process was fast and efficient (unlike
Cancun). The port facilities are very nice, but the surrounding town is
pretty run down, with everyone around the port pretending to be Reggie.
The bus ride to the cave tubing is about 45 minutes to an hour and ½ way
across the country (it’s a small country). Reggie’s tour combines a
large cave and some river tubing (the ships tour is 2 caves no river
tubing). It was a great trip, though very noisy in the caves and it was
hard to hear Reggie describing the features. Since it was Christmas,
Reggie’s normal lunch stop was closed so we headed back to the ships.
We would highly recommend Reggie for a tour if you have a choice. For
Christmas dinner we actually ate in the Terraces, service was great,
food was pretty good. Again, long lines after 6:30pm with lots of large
families.

Cancun started ugly. Heavy rains, choppy seas and your typical Mexican
fiasco of a tender service. The tenders we large, over-crowded, and
slow. To top it off, they put vendors on board to hock wares. They
really make Belize look good! We took the Tres-Rios Kayak adventure and
we were a bit skeptical going into the thing, how wrong we were. We
arrive at a private Eco park named Tres Rios. Here you can Snorkel,
kayak, ride bikes, horseback, swim and the list keeps going. We got
there about an hour late (thanks to the Mexican tender fiasco). We
first rode bikes to the beach, then got on kayaks and paddled up a
mangrove river. Then we rode to another river for a snorkel trip
downstream. The snorkel trip was amazing, much different than sea
snorkeling including the fact that in many areas you let the current
carry you why you “fly” down the river. After snorkeling, we had a
lunch at the restaurant, great food and good beer. Since we lost an
hour, we had to leave right after lunch, it would have been great to do
more, so we will have to go back again sometime. The Tender ride back
was just as bad as the first.

The final day was at sea, very nice day with no space left anywhere on
deck. We ate in La Trattoria the final night and had a great dinner,
but again, there were so many large parties and so few large tables (the
started advertising a reservation center for dinner, but I had the
feeling that not enough people were reading the cruise news).

Embarkation was pretty easy, long lines to get into the terminal. They
were limiting the number of people, and for some reason people were
finding it very tough to get their luggage and get their butts out of
the area. We stayed in our room watching the coast guard patrol and
movies until we were called. Then we made the long walk across the
street back to the Wyndham for another night on Bourbon street (this
time large crowds were there).