Norwegian Cruise Line
NCL Dream Cruise Review
7 Day Western Caribbean

William Nicholaus Hastings

My Name is William Nicholaus Hastings I sailed out of Houston on the Dream on Saturday the 7th of January. As this was my first cruise I don’t have much to compare it to. I stayed in cabin 4211 and Ronnie the guy in charge of the cabins on my side the deck we were on was very personable and reasonably adequate at his job. I went on this cruise with 13 other adults and one child. One of the adults had special needs. This was a family reunion involving a mother Mama Tolly, 6 of her daughter, their significant others, her son Jack (the man with the special needs), and her granddaughters Casey Jones, and Debbie Sapp.

The complete list of the passengers in our party; Robin Jones (CLIA member), Casey Jones, William Hastings, Rebecca Tolly Ray (owner of Perpetual Travel agency and CLIA member), Robert Ray, Linda Slate, Cheryl Freeman (CLIA member), Myrtle Tolly, Jack Tolly, Rita a family friend in jack's cabin, Nella Hamptil, John Riffle, Marie Riffle and their daughter Debbie Sapp.

My First Impressions of the ship was much better then I expected. The cabins and halls were much roomier and easy to get around in than I had envisioned as I was looking forward to this vacation. Most of the staff was fairly friendly and courteous although there were a few occasions I felt I was being brushed of.

I have several complaints. The first: being that upon entering the ship there were no clear instructions on the proper method of sterilizing a persons hands properly. Coming from a medical family, my uncle is and my grandfather was Medical Doctors. My Mother is an RN. There was no explanation that to properly sterilize your hands you must was the fronts and backs paying special attention to the nail beds and go at least half way up the forearm. Time and time again I would watch people splash a small amount of sanitizer on their hands and rub them together. This does not do a bit of good no matter how many hand sanitation stations you have stationed around your ship. Time and time again I would hear women complain that the sanitizer was drying out their hands and they weren’t going to use the sanitizing stations on the ship anymore. I advised just to use more hand lotion, but since they didn’t really know how to sanitize their hands properly it probably didn’t matter that they stopped any way.

Second: this was a family reunion and although we made reservations on three different nights we never got a table together or even multiple tables remotely close enough to carry on conversation. To give you a little perspective on my judgments following I will tell you a little bit about myself. I left home at 15 and moved to New Orleans where I began as dishwasher and worked my way up into cooking at casual fine dining establishments by the age of 17. I had my first kitchen manager position at age 19. After moving around the country a bit and getting a bit tired of the restaurant lifestyle I moved back to Alabama where I have been building houses, decks, patios, installing above and in-ground pools, hot-tubs spas and steam rooms for over eight years now.

Third: the food for the most part was mediocre at best. Quite often during the mid-day out door barbeques the food was over or under-done. For example I actually got a pork chop that was still bleeding although appeared almost burnt on the outside. The Lobster served during the captain’s meal was freezer burnt and then over done and the tails were from lobsters really to young to be caught and served. I am not sure about the rest of the world but I know in Maine, New Hampshire or Massachusetts, a lobster has to be at least fourteen inches long and male to be kept. There was not a lobster tail that I ate that could have been even a foot long before it was cooked. There was absolutely no wheat or whole grain bread and although I am not a vegetarian I do only eat unprocessed grains. Brown rice, Whole grain breads, Etc. Overall the only thing I could compare your ships food to would be a small poorly run Morrison’s or Piccadilly cafeteria. In no way could it even compete with any of the onshore fine dining or casual fine dining establishments I have worked for in my youth. If I hadn’t been trapped on your ship I would not have eaten anywhere onboard. The only exception to this was the chocolate mouse provided by your room service, which was superb