May 29, 2010

After landing in Orlando around 11:30am, we took a one hour shuttle to Port Canaveral. We stood in lines and went through a security process similar to what we were familiar with at airports.

Then we boarded the Carnival Dream. The rooms weren’t available until 1:30pm, so we went up to deck 10 and enjoyed a buffet lunch. It was very hot, but the food was good.

Our room was on deck 2 and we had a nice cove balcony.

Molly was ready to enjoy a week of luxury, so she kicked it off with a massage at the ship spa. After that, we took a nap to try to recover from our lack of sleep on the night before.

We had open seating for our dining, so we could go to the Crimson Room any time between 5:45pm and 9:00pm. On this day, we were there when the doors opened. We were seated right away and our servers were excellent. The head waiter was Conrad and he was very friendly. We tried to get him every night. Though we ate in the dining room every night, we didn’t always make it there at the same time. So we only had Conrad for five of the seven nights. The other waiters were great too, they were just missing the personality that Conrad brought to the table.

After dinner, we explored the boat. There was a giant chess set on one of the decks, so we attempted a game. I found it humorously odd that on two separate occasions, we had children run up and steal a piece off of our board. It was as if as soon as they laid their eyes on it, they had to touch it. They were completely oblivious to the fact that the pieces were being used in an active game. Luckily, they both had good parents that told them to put the pieces back because we were using them.

Despite some interesting interruptions, we played the game for what seemed to be quite a while. Neither of us were very good, but Molly forfeited when she saw no hope of beating me. It was pretty fun playing with the warm winds blowing over us from the sea.

We then went up to deck 10 to read our books by the pool and wait for the evening entertainment. There was a dance team and then a laser show. The wind was really strong, so all of the smoke created by the smoke machines blew away pretty quickly. This resulted in a lackluster laser show.

Our first day was pretty great. We arrived prepared to dive into the vacation and enjoy ourselves and we were not disappointed.