July 2011 Family Vacation – Carnival Dream
Last week we took a family trip. It wasn't just any trip. Me, my wife, our almost 3-year old triplets, my parents, aunt, uncle, three sisters, brother-in-law and two nieces (3 and7) vacationed together on the Carnival Dream. We decided on a Western Caribbean itinerary because we've all pretty much been to all of the Eastern Caribbean ports in one form or another. Our selected itinerary departed from Port Canaveral, Florida and took us to Cozumel, Mexico; Isla Roatan, Honduras; Belize City, Belize; and Costa Maya, Mexico.
We selected the Carnival Dream because it's one of the few ships that offer staterooms that sleep five people. When I tell all of my friends to stop at two kids because it makes vacation planning harder, I mean it. On other ships our cost would be significantly jacked because we'd either need to book a suite (prohibitively expensive) or adjoining rooms (meaning we would have to pay for three 1st and 2nd passenger fees instead of just two).
Since the ship's home port is Port Canaveral, the first leg of our trip was a flight from New York's LaGuardia Airport to Orlando International Airport. All 15 of us flew on Delta flight 2285 since they were offering the best fares on direct flights. My wife and I woke up at 4:30 AM to get everything ready for our 7:15 departure. We booked a van via New Ecuatoriana car service which arrived promptly at 5:30 to take us to the airport. The driver was very helpful with the bags and great with the kids. Our flight was on the basic but but reliable MD-88. Chris decided he wanted to sit next to me (he had the window seat, of course) so Anthoula sat between the girls on the other side of the aisle. As is normally the case with early morning flights, we departed exactly on time. I really dislike flying (I prefer to do all of my flying in front of a computer screen), but it was one of the smoothest flights I've ever been on. The kids were fantastic for the entire 2.5 hour flight so the trip was off to a great start.
We arrived at the airport, collected our baggage and I called our charter bus dispatcher to send our bus into the airport to pick us up. Since we had 14 checked bags, numerous carry-ons and multiple children in tow, we used a SkyCap to bring our luggage over to the ground transportation area. It was an expense well worth it. Carnival offers their own transfer service from
Our airport transfer bus.
Orlando International Airport to Port Canaveral, but it's pricey. I was able to book a charter bus with luggage trailer through TravelLynx for about half the cost of the Carnival transfer. I was also able to arrange for the bus to make a stop so we could go shopping before we went to the port. This enabled us to pick up snacks and beach toys before boarding the boat. Our driver was extremely professional and had even cruised on the Dream, so he gave us some pointers on the ride over to the port. As on the flight, all the kids were outstandingly behaved on the 45 minute bus ride to the port.
Port Canaveral
The Port Canaveral cruise terminal is very well run. Porters unloaded our bags from the bus trailer and we were on our way to check-in in a matter of minutes. After a short wait and some additional paperwork to change the credit card attached to our sign and sail cards, we had our room keys and were ready to board. Given our boarding zone number, it appeared as though we'd have a bit of a wait before we would be able to embark. However a Carnival employee spotted us with the double stroller and three kids and let us board the ship immediately. Given that I was rushing from one place to the next, I didn't realize that our entire group wasn't boarding with us. In hindsight I wish we would have waited or asked if we could all board together because I really wanted to get a group shot in our custom t-shirts. Unfortunately we were never able to get a shot of us as a group in our shirts.